looked down at her notes, feeling three sets of eyes boring into her. She pretended to read for a moment, preparing to broach the subject she had so far managed to avoid.
'Mr Donaldson, we heard evidence this morning that several weeks before she was killed, your daughter had a tattoo—'
'Yes.'
'Did you know she'd had it done?'
'No.'
'Have you any idea why?'
'None. If Mr Turley's dates are correct, we met the following day - the Saturday. She was in good spirits.'
'You don't know what the words mean?'
'No.'
Sullivan interjected, 'Ma'am, before you go any further—'
'A witness here has the same protection against self- incrimination as he would in a criminal court, Mr Sullivan. I presume that's your concern.'
'Yes, ma'am,' Sullivan barked.
'Then you have nothing to worry about, have you?'
Reluctantly giving way, he dropped back into his seat.
Jenny turned to the witness. 'I am obliged to remind you that you do not have to say anything which may incriminate you, Mr Donaldson. Nevertheless, I would like to ask you if your daughter ever suggested to you or anyone else that she believed you had at some time behaved inappropriately towards her.'
'You're asking if I interfered with my daughter. Never. Never. Never.' His denial rang around the silent courtroom. 'Eva undoubtedly slept with young men while she was still at school, possibly when she was as young as fourteen. But there was never anything untoward between us.'
'I understand, Mr Donaldson,' Jenny said gently, 'but my question was whether to your knowledge she believed there might have been.'
'No. Definitely not. She expressly told me that her decision to appear in pornographic films was nothing to do with me or how I had behaved. If I'm forced to psychoanalyse, I would say she was deeply hurt by her mother's death and sought love elsewhere, but I'm not sure I would even go that far. She made a foolish mistake and she accepted that.'
'Mr Turley said that she seemed sad when she came to his studio. He likened her to someone who was grieving.'
Kenneth Donaldson then dipped his head as if he had been suddenly assailed by unexpected emotions. 'I've had very little time to think, but I wonder if the truth is that Eva was grieving for a lost childhood, a lost innocence even.' He struggled to find words to express his confusion of feelings. 'These marks that people make on their bodies strike me as elemental. It's possible she didn't know the reason for it herself.'
Jenny felt a pang of sympathy and wrote a note to herself: At a loss to explain. Believe his reaction genuine. Unpolished. Thinking aloud.
'Where were you on the night your daughter was killed, Mr Donaldson?'
'At my home in Bath. I was entertaining former colleagues, the MD of my former firm and his wife. I gave details to the police.'
Jenny could have concluded her questioning there, but her gut told her that having opened Donaldson up, he had more to offer.
'Is there anything else you would like to tell the court?'
She saw Ed Prince trying to catch Donaldson's eye, shaking his head from side to side, urging him to remain silent. Donaldson ignored him, frowning through painful memories. 'Only this: that she was a more complicated young woman than I think any of us can or will understand. We talked once or twice about forgiveness; the church had asked her to contribute to a book on the subject. I remember she was a little melancholic about a conclusion she'd reached. She said she had come to realize that giving and receiving love wasn't the profoundest experience in this life, it was giving and receiving forgiveness. To her, sadly, it meant that our highest expression is always bound up with sin.'
'Thank you, Mr Donaldson,' Jenny said, still struggling to make sense of his evidence. She addressed the advocates' bench. 'Cross-examination?'
All three lawyers shook their heads.
Detective Constable Ray Stokes immediately struck Jenny as the safe pair of hands DI Goodison would have needed to organize the investigating team on the ground in a sensitive case. Well into his fifties, he was a solid, reassuring character who had managed to maintain a sense of humour after nearly thirty years of front-line police work.
Alison handed him the handwritten list of people spoken to at the Mission Church of God on Monday, 10 and Tuesday, 11 May.
'Yes. I wrote that,' he answered.
'Did you make any more detailed notes?'
'Individual officers might have done, but if they didn't form any part of the investigation they wouldn't have made it