connected with the Mission Church?' Jenny had asked.
'As far as I recall,' Goodison answered, and made his excuses. He was far too busy to waste his time on a nitpicking coroner.
She had tried DI Wallace, but he was no more forthcoming. There was no evidence of any connection between Jacobs and the Mission Church, he said dismissively, and even if there was, it would do nothing to shake his belief that Jacobs had killed himself.
The two policemen probably occupied next-door offices, but might as well have inhabited separate continents. Each had their own teams and caseloads and seemed to run their fiefdoms with no interest in their colleagues except in beating them to their clear-up targets. In the race for results, the truth was an inevitable casualty.
The prospect of meeting Mrs Jacobs again filled Jenny with a dread she could only suppress with another Xanax. The one mercy was that the widow had insisted on coming to see her at her office rather than have her daughter's routine disrupted by the appearance of another sombre stranger. She arrived a little after five, but when Alison brought her in, it was with a companion. Jenny recognized him as the priest who had sat at the back of the inquest.
'Good afternoon, Mrs Cooper,' Ceri Jacobs said stiffly. 'This is Father Dermody from St Xavier's. I asked if he'd come with me. I trust you don't have a problem with that.'
'I've no objection,' Jenny said.
'I'm very grateful to you, Mrs Cooper,' Father Dermody said, and gave a kindly smile as he shook her hand.
The widow and her priest settled into their chairs as much at ease with each other as man and wife. Jenny observed their exchange of glances and decided that Ceri Jacobs trusted him more than she trusted herself.
'I'm sorry to trouble you again, Mrs Jacobs,' Jenny said, 'but it's not so much your husband's death I need to ask you about, as what he may, or may not, have known about someone else's. I presume you've heard of Eva Donaldson.'
Ceri glanced nervously at Father Dermody, who answered for her. 'Of course we have. What about her?'
Jenny opened a file and extracted the list. She passed it across the desk, placing it between them.
'After she was killed the police informally questioned a number of people at the Mission Church of God who had been in contact with her. You'll see your husband's name appears on it, towards the bottom of the page.'
Ceri Jacobs shook her head. 'I don't know anything about this.'
Jenny said, 'I'll try to find out which detective it was who spoke to him, but I was wondering if he said anything about this to you.'
'No.'
Father Dermody frowned. 'Where would this questioning have taken place?'
'If wasn't at your home, Mrs Jacobs, then I assume it was at your husband's workplace, or perhaps at the Mission Church itself.'
'Why would he have been there?' Mrs Jacobs said with a note of panic.
Jenny said, 'I'm conducting an inquiry into Miss Donaldson's death. Since the inquest into your husband's death there have been several separate indications that he was connected with the Mission Church in some way—'
'He bought one book, that's all,' Mrs Jacobs protested. 'He didn't go to that church, he went to St Xavier's.' She appealed to her priest. 'Father, tell her.'
'He was with us every Wednesday evening, Mrs Cooper, at our enquirers' class.'
'I made some calls this afternoon,' Jenny said. 'During the last two months he was also attending a study group at the Mission Church. He'd signed up to the mailing list using his work address, and also to their email newsletter.'
'He can't have done. He wouldn't have gone behind my back. We told each other everything.'
'Calm yourself, Ceri,' Father Dermody said gently. 'It's hardly a grave sin.'
'What day of the week was he meant to have been going there?' Mrs Jacobs demanded.
'Fridays, it seems,' Jenny said.
'He told me he was working late, the staff shortages. Why would he lie? He never lied to me.'
Father Dermody laid a hand on her arm. 'The poor man was suffering, Ceri. He didn't want to burden you. We prayed for him, we did what we could.'
Fighting angry tears, Ceri Jacobs said, 'Please tell me you're not going to open this up again. I couldn't face that.'
'I don't think that would help anyone. But so that I can rule him out, I would like to know where he was on the night Eva Donaldson died. It was Sunday, 9 May.'