happened and I give you my word we'll look into it.'
'At gunpoint?' Randall suggested.
'No one was pointing a gun at him when he lied to his wife and left home to drive into town.' Then, as if to mitigate the harshness of his statement, he added, 'I'm prepared to make this offer. If the family wish it, I will send officers into the gay community to try to find the person with whom he spent his final hours.'
He was met with silence.
Jenny said, 'Would you like that to happen, Mrs Jacobs?'
The widow crossed her arms tightly across her chest with a look of revulsion. Her mother answered with a firm, 'No thank you.'
Jenny declined the standing invitation to lunch in the judicial dining room, and made do with a tired sandwich from the public canteen. There were more pressing issues than lunch. Both lawyers had agreed before the break that Dr Andy Kerr's post-mortem report could be admitted in evidence without the need for him to appear in person, leaving Jenny with no more witnesses to call and a verdict to reach. The law required her to be satisfied 'beyond reasonable doubt' of her decision. She had no real doubt that Alan Jacobs had deliberately taken his own life, but such was the stigma of suicide that case law required all other possible explanations to be totally ruled out. Filling out the form of inquisition and sealing it with the official stamp should have been a formality, but a nagging voice told her that there was still more left to be discovered, and that any verdict would be open to question until Alan Jacobs's lover (if that was what he had been) was found. Despite his widow's refusal, it was within Jenny's power to order the police to go out and search for the man. With the proliferation of traffic cameras and CCTV, she had no doubt he could be found, but at what cost to Mrs Jacobs? Never having known him, not having a face forever etched in her memory, would allow her to invent her own fiction. Her daughter could grow up without being haunted by a spectre forever associated with her father's grisly death. Jenny vacillated. An open verdict wouldn't carry the stain of suicide and the bitter sense of cowardly desertion that went with it, but nor would it bring closure.
It had to be suicide. She picked up her pen to record the finding when there was a knock on the door. Alison entered.
'It seems we may have another witness, Mrs Cooper - a woman who went to the same church group as Alan Jacobs.'
'She's here?'
'Yes.'
'What does she want to say?'
'I've no idea. I just saw her in the corridor being collared by the priest who was sitting at the back.' With a faint air of disapproval, Alison added, 'I think they're discussing ethics.'
'Get her name,' Jenny said. 'I'll call her anyway.'
The elderly priest wore an expression of disappointment as Mary Richards entered the witness box and whispered the oath. She was a fragile, bookish young woman who stated her occupation as mature student. She was studying for a doctorate in tropical medicine. Jenny could picture her working for a charity in a disease-stricken part of Africa, driven by a sense of controlled compassion.
Ceri Jacobs reached for her mother's hand and squeezed it hard, disturbed and frightened by the appearance of this unexpected interloper.
Jenny said, 'How did you know Alan Jacobs, Miss Richards?'
'He and I attended the same enquirers' course at St Xavier's. We had been going most Wednesday evenings for just over four months.' She glanced at the priest. 'Father Dermody ran it.'
'Would you mind explaining what that is?'
'It's for people who want to learn about Catholicism - its teachings, doctrine, tradition.'
'And you got to know each other?'
'A little, though not so that we'd socialize - it wasn't that sort of group. But we did participate in various exercises together. Praying for one another in pairs, for example.'
'And you prayed with Alan Jacobs?'
Mary Richards hesitated. The priest wore a look of grim warning.
'Miss Richards, you have sworn an oath to tell the whole truth,' Jenny prompted.
'I know—'
'And anyone who attempts to stop you doing that is acting quite improperly, not to say illegally.'
Father Dermody's face turned to granite. The witness gave an anxious nod, then closed her eyes, as if offering a prayer for forgiveness.
'Of course, our prayers were offered in strict confidence, but given what's happened I feel justified in repeating what little he