'What for, Mrs Cooper?' Alison said. 'We know what the poor man's problem was. Shouldn't we just leave it at that?'
Jenny considered the prospect of knocking on Ceri Jacobs's door once more and felt her determination to dig out every last grain of truth quickly fade. In the weeks before his death Alan Jacobs was clearly upset and confused; the pressure cooker was starting to blow. Even if she could place every event in sequence they might not add up to a logical picture. All she would have achieved would be yet more agony for his humiliated widow.
'Maybe you're right,' Jenny said. 'What would it achieve?'
'You've done all you can,' Alison said, sounding relieved, and anxious to end the call. She had rung off before Jenny had a chance to ask what Father Starr wanted, but he could wait. There was something far more daunting about to confront her.
Steve was waiting for her at a table in the little cobbled yard at the back of the cafe, where you could smoke a cigarette with your cold beer and tapas. Despite the warm evening they were the only ones sitting outside. Jenny was glad they were alone. She felt fragile enough without having to worry about who might be listening. If she hadn't been so on edge it would have made for a pleasant date: gentle samba music playing on the stereo and Otavio the handsome waiter treating her like a princess.
'You didn't tell me you were going to dig around in my past,' Jenny said, reaching for Steve's tobacco tin and helping herself. One of these days he would decide he could afford cigarettes that came in a packet.
'It was almost an accident.'
'Yeah, right,' Jenny said.
He unbuckled his briefcase and brought out a handful of photocopied newspaper articles.
'They're from the Weston Mercury, October 1972..' He looked at her hesitantly. 'Do you want to see or not?'
'Give them to me,' Jenny insisted.
The first headline read: Girl Dies in Fall. In three short paragraphs the article stated that five-year-old Katy Chilcott had been killed in an accidental fall down the stairs of the family home at Pretoria Road. Her parents, named James and Penny Chilcott, were said to be being comforted by relatives.
Feeling numb, Jenny quickly turned to the next article. A photograph of her father in his early thirties sat beneath the words, 'Weston Man Questioned Over Girl's Death'.
Following the death last Thursday of five-year-old Katy Chilcott in what was initially thought to be a tragic accident, detectives yesterday arrested the dead girl's uncle, Brian Chilcott.
The owner of Chilcott Motors was taken from his home on Sunday afternoon and is believed to have spent the evening helping officers with their enquiries. He was later released on police bail. Detectives are said to be awaiting the results of a post-mortem examination.
Neighbours of the dead girl's family saw Chilcott arrive at the address at approximately 5 p.m. on Thursday afternoon. Shouting was afterwards heard coming from inside the premises. Chilcott was seen leaving with a young child believed to be his daughter shortly before an ambulance arrived.
A hospital spokesman said that Katy Chilcott died as a result of 'significant trauma' to the head.
'Does it bring anything back?'
'The arrest bit does. It's what I was remembering with Dr Allen.'
'What about what happened inside the house?' Jenny shook her head. It was a blank. She looked at the final article. It was dated Friday, 24 November. Under the headline, Girl's Death Ruled Accidental, was a brief report of the coroner's finding that Katy had died as a result of falling down the stairs at the family home, striking her head on the tiled floor. The coroner, Mr C. R. Benedict, was quoted as saying, 'Katy's death was a tragic and sadly unavoidable accident to which no blame can be attached.'
'What is it?' Steve asked.
Jenny shrugged, placing the articles back on the table.
'There's something. I can tell.'
'It's Dad, I suppose.' She tried to untangle the knot of emotions that had been disguised by her initial shock.
'What about him?'
'He could have quite a temper. I can remember him smacking me, the look on his face, more than angry, enraged.' She drew on her cigarette, assailed by fragments of long-forgotten memory: her father erupting at a spilled glass of milk and a sharp slap on the legs; his face, boiling red, yelling at her mother, the sound of her shriek as he hit her, her sobbing as he thundered down the stairs and crashed out