her little study at the front of the cottage and tried to lose herself in the most urgent files she had brought home. Top of the pile was Eva Donaldson's. There'd been an email late in the afternoon from Eva's next of kin, her father, asking when her body might be released for burial and her death formally registered. It was Jenny's custom not to allow homicide victims to be released until the conclusion of a trial; there was now no good reason not to hand her remains back to her family, especially as Craven's claim to innocence, such as it was, was based purely on the soundness of his confession.
She reached out for a Form 21, Coroner's Order for Burial, and began to complete it, but as she did so she heard the steady voice of Father Starr: 'Believe me when I say I can divine whether he's lying about such a profound matter as whether he committed murder.' It was illogical, precisely the sort of superstition she had strained so hard in recent months to avoid, yet completing the form suddenly felt like a betrayal. What was it McAvoy had said that morning in the car when he'd been scratchy and hung-over? 'Try going to confession once a fortnight and spilling your sins out to a celibate priest. There's something to put you in your place.' She remembered the smell of his cigarette smoke, the odour of cramped courtrooms, dirty cells and seedy nightclubs that clung to his damp woollen coat, a world she came to understand he was both called to and despised.
She flipped open the lid of her laptop and ran a search on Father Lucas Starr. He was listed as Roman Catholic chaplain of Telhurst Prison. A short biography recorded that he was thirty-nine years old, the son of American and Mexican missionaries, and had spent his early life in Bolivia and New Mexico. While still a teenager, he had entered the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, New York, and was now in the sixteenth year of his formation as a Jesuit. He had spent time with missions in Nigeria, Angola, the Philippines, Bangladesh and Colombia, where he served in the chaplaincy of La Modelo prison, Bogota. She began a fresh enquiry with 'La Modelo' and learned that it was considered the toughest, filthiest, most violent and dangerous jail in South America.
What would McAvoy have said? His answer sounded clearly: give the man a chance; you don't devote body and soul to God for twenty years without becoming wiser than most. They'll scare the hell out of you, these Catholic priests, with their iron wills and cold certainty of what's to come, but they'll go to places you wouldn't dare and draw on strength you'll never possess.
Jenny typed 'Eva Donaldson' and was met with a barrage of the sacred and profane, a galaxy of hardcore pornographic websites vying with reports on the Decency campaign. She clicked 'images' and wished she hadn't. A single dignified portrait of Eva's post-accident face sat amongst a carousel of lurid shots of her in every form of sexual congress. In one scene she was a delicate virgin, in others a whore, an unwilling victim, a cheating wife. Of all the roles it was innocence she performed best. She was such a successful commodity, Jenny realized, because despite the squalor of her poses she retained an aspect of purity. She encouraged in her voyeurs the fantasy that through knowing her they would somehow lift themselves out of their own wretchedness.
Jenny quickly navigated away and scrubbed her images from the machine's memory. Be rational, she told herself, get a grip, behave like Her Majesty's Coroner and follow the protocol, but she knew the battle was already lost. Attempting to reason away her emotional decision, she tried to convince herself that it was merely a question of showing respect for Father Starr. Surely it would be a proper and humane gesture to visit Craven in prison before letting Eva's body be returned to the earth. Her thoughts were interrupted by the creak of the front gate and the sound of a man's footsteps on the flagstone path. She craned forward to see Steve approaching. He was carrying flowers.
She brought the lupins out to the garden table in a tall clear vase that had belonged to her mother and saw him crouching at the edge of the stream. He pressed his fingers to his lips as she went over to join him.