as if he had appeared out of thin air. In the shadowy light she could see the sharp outline of his skull beneath his face.
'I'm sorry if I alarmed you. One of your upstairs neighbours was leaving as I arrived.'
'You could at least have knocked,' Jenny said. 'What can I do for you?'
'You might answer my calls. Pay the slightest attention.'
Jenny bristled. 'I have been conducting an inquest.'
'So I understand,' Starr said. 'I hear you behaved very compassionately.'
She felt the tightness again, a spasm beneath her ribs.
'What is this, a Catholic conspiracy?' Jenny said, only half-jokingly.
'As we sow, so shall we reap. It may be coincidence, but experience tells me they don't happen often.'
'You've lost me,' Jenny said. The disturbing sensations gripping her body were hardening into panic. She hated being spoken to cryptically almost as much as being caught by surprise. 'What do you want, Father?'
'For you to have courage, Mrs Cooper.'
He held her gaze with a self-assurance that was not quite human. Without fear or self-consciousness he seemed to reach inside her.
'When you came to the prison I mentioned a mutual friend—'
'You mean Alec McAvoy.'
'Yes. I met him a number of times through my work there. He spoke of you once.'
'Is he alive?'
'Honestly, I couldn't say.'
'When did he mention me?'
'I took his confession while he was assisting in your investigation last year into the missing young men. It's not betraying a confidence to say that he thought very highly of you.'
'What did he say?'
'That you were one of the few. I took him to mean one of the few people in his orbit worthy of complete trust. I have formed a similar opinion.'
'Even though I don't answer your calls?'
Starr smiled. It was a warm, spontaneous gesture that showed him to be human after all. Jenny felt a wave of relief pass over her.
'I'll confess,' Starr said, 'I observed your reaction when I mentioned him. It was probably a little unfair of me, and it's been weighing on my conscience. He is, or was, a very charismatic man.' He glanced towards the partially open door to her office. 'It is safe to discuss such matters?'
'There's no one here but us.'
'It's only right that I tell you -' Father Starr paused and gestured with his hands, as if rehearsing what he had to say - 'he described you as a beautiful and a troubled woman whom he felt fated to meet. I don't think I would have felt prompted to mention it were it not for that word - fated. It stayed with me for some reason. Finally meeting you in person seemed to suggest an answer, or at least the route to one.'
She felt herself blush. There were butterflies in her stomach. Why torment her with this when McAvoy was already dead?
'You would tell me if you knew anything, even if only a rumour—'
'You have my word. Well, there you are. My conscience is clear -' he hesitated - 'well, almost. Forgive me, I'm a priest, and sometimes far too conscientious for my own good, but I feel I ought to ask - are you troubled, Mrs Cooper?'
'I think the lines have become blurred enough already, don't you?'
Starr looked at her, as if about to say something which he then decided against. 'I apologize. It wasn't my intention to make you feel uncomfortable. You are going to conduct this inquest, yes?'
'If I were to say no?'
Father Starr looked into her eyes, then dipped his head and slipped from the room as quietly as he had arrived.
Jenny pulled up on her ex-husband's spotless driveway and parked her scruffy Golf next to a brand-new Mercedes Coupe. It was the house she had lived in for the best part of fifteen years, but crossing the immaculate paving she felt like a ragged trespasser. David demanded the same spotlessness in his garden as he did in his operating theatre. Since Jenny had left, she had noticed this tendency becoming even more acute. No imperfection was permitted. A weed between the manicured shrubs was as unthinkable as a casual slip of the scalpel: a matter of life and death.
It was his young girlfriend, Debbie, who answered the door. Not yet thirty, she was pretty, pink-cheeked and blonde, and now happily pregnant.
'Oh hi, Jenny,' Debbie said sweetly. 'Come in.' She called up the stairs: 'Ross, it's your mum.'
Jenny followed her into the large, open-plan kitchen, which shone in a way it had never done when it had belonged to her.