Grave Doubts (47 page)

He brought his head down and tried to bite her back but she twisted away and punched him in the gut so that he fell into a crouch. He stared at her grinning crazily through his bloody mask. In the woods behind them they could hear sounds of pursuit and she cried out.

‘Over here! This way.’

The noises grew louder and, coincidentally, the helicopter turned back from the far headland towards them.

‘All right, game over. So I’m going to have to die.’ He said it in a voice that was too flat and calm. ‘Not quite what I planned but anything’s better than prison.’ He shuddered. Even saying the word had made him shake.

She stood back and watched him walk the few metres to the edge. He stared down and she willed him to leap, relieved that it would end this way, but without warning he jumped back and caught her around the waist.

‘But sod it, you little bitch, you’re coming with me. We die together, trapped forever in eternity. I’m almost looking forward to it.’

He held her tight. It was almost as if they were dancing. Nightingale pushed against him, struggling to be free, as he pulled her back towards the cliff top. She put her hands under his injured chin, trying to force his head up, putting so much pressure in his neck that it had to break but he carried on in a crazy lopsided waltz his one good arm locked so tight around her that she couldn’t breathe properly.

She could see the edge of the cliff behind him no more than a couple of paces away. With her left foot she kicked his shin then his knee, causing him to stumble. They landed on the grass together but his grip didn’t slacken.

‘Perfect,’ he said, as Nightingale’s hands kept his teeth away from her neck. ‘We can go down together.’ As he threw the taunt at her he arched his back and rolled them towards the cliff.

It was a stupid mistake. Their combined weight crushed his injured arm and he cried out in pain. His hold on her weakened and she pulled away on hands and knees, almost breaking free before he grabbed her ankle with his good hand. She kicked back, catching his injured shoulder but he held on, powered by a super-human desire to kill her.

‘Now, what shall we do in our eternity?’ He panted, barely able to speak, driven by the desire to punish her even as he dragged them towards their destruction.

Nightingale stayed silent, uninterested in his attempts to distract her.

He pulled at her as he spoke and they started a tug of war, with her leg as the rope, less than six feet from the cliff edge. She clutched at the springy grass, tearing handfuls out as he dragged them towards the drop and inevitable death. Nightingale was screaming now, at the end of her resourcefulness and strength. The knives lay beyond her reach. The cliff top was smooth, without even a root or stone to cling to. It was only a matter of time before they fell.

The shouts from the wood were getting closer. Hearing them gave Nightingale one last surge of strength and she held him to a standstill.

‘You should be grateful. I could have killed your sister-in-law; you know I met her…’

Her distraction at his words cost a precious twelve inches of ground and she willed herself to remain silent. He turned all his energy into dragging them backwards; she in resistance. They were held in a motionless tableau in the moonlight like statues in a bizarre piece of modern art left for nature and time to erode. Nightingale’s muscles started to tremble with effort. The pain in her leg and down her injured side was unbearable. She could feel herself weakening and this time she knew that she had nothing left.

‘You were beautiful before I marked you.’ He said, in a clinical way and she could feel his eyes on her damaged skin, naked below the T-shirt. ‘Finishing you will be the perfect end to my career.’

She had no energy left to speak and had long ago dismissed the embarrassment of her nakedness. It was as nothing weighed against her will to live. She kept her gaze on the helicopter spotlight as it grew larger and concentrated on holding her ground. He jerked at her leg and her knee slipped. She lost a precious six inches but locked her muscles and squeezed her eyes tight against the pain.

The searchlight swung round in a lazy loop over the cliff top then back, as if staring in disbelief. Nightingale heard its roar as it moved in trying to land and was buffeted by the wind of rotors. Then there was a pounding of feet on the ground and somebody grabbed her arms at the wrist to pull her free.

Smith’s hand dropped her ankle. She spun round to look as he stood up and took a half leap to the edge of the cliff. Whoever was holding her let her go and ran to catch him before he jumped, wrestling him to the ground. Within seconds two uniformed police officers had pinioned and cuffed him. Smith let out a terrible scream as he felt his freedom snatched away and pulled desperately against them but it was hopeless. They led him away sobbing and she collapsed to the ground.

Nightingale lay prone on the cliff top, her T-shirt up around her breasts, leaving her long body naked in the moonlight but she didn’t care. She lowered her head and sucked in the sweetness of the grass, marvelling at its salty coolness. Someone put a jacket over her and helped her to rise. When she couldn’t they knelt down and put an arm around her shoulders, careful to avoid the cuts on her side. A gentle hand stroked the hair away from her face and rested lightly on the back of her neck, warm and comforting.

‘It’s all right now. You’re safe. Come on, Nightingale, let’s get you away from here.’

The sound of Fenwick’s voice drew a bone-shaking cry from her heart as she leant her head against his chest and allowed him to carry her away.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

‘Positive. Don’t fuss.’

Nightingale walked up through the wood, marvelling at the heavy rowan berries glowing scarlet in the setting sun. There would be a full moon tonight but she carried one of her aunt’s outdoor lamps as well as an old travel rug.

‘I still don’t think it’s is a good idea.’

‘This is what I want to do. If you don’t want to come…’

‘You can’t go on your own.’

They walked on in silence. For weeks she had been cosseted and counselled as the enquiry into the handling of the Smith investigation circled around her, interrupted only by the solemn funeral of Constable Knots. From what she could gather, Fenwick emerged from the internal investigation extremely well. MacIntyre escaped with his reputation intact, just, and only because Fenwick had refused to say anything negative against him. DCI Cave had been less well treated. His criticism of other officers had not protected him from the fallout from Ginny’s murder.

She had read the whole file on Smith. Her counsellor had supported her request, recognising in Nightingale the need to confront fear in order to overcome it. But there had been nothing in there to explain or excuse his compulsive attacks on women.

‘Do you think he killed his parents?’

She had been asking him questions about Smith constantly since he had picked her up from Cooper’s where she had been staying after leaving hospital.

‘We’ll never know. When the lake was dragged to find Knotty’s body the divers discovered the Smiths’ car and two human skeletons. There’s no way of knowing whether they were alive or dead when they entered the water as there’s no soft tissue left.’

‘How can someone with decent loving parents turn out like Smith?’

‘It just happens. You’ve said it to me before, some people are evil.’

She turned to him and laughed.

‘I can’t believe that you’re so incurious, Andrew.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t torment myself with puzzles I will never be able to answer. I leave that to the likes of Doctor Batchelor.’

‘Is he psychoanalysing Smith for the trial?’

‘No Smith’s being held at another prison, in solitary. But some shrink will. The only defence will be insanity.’

‘Will he succeed in the plea?’

‘I hope not. When he went inside there was no doubt that he was sane but I hear that imprisonment is utter torment to him. It may well drive him mad in the end. I keep praying that his sanity will last until the trial.’

‘I would have liked him to die.’ It was a simple statement of fact. She would tell no one, not even Fenwick, how close she had come to killing him.

‘I know.’

They walked to the top of the cliffs with only the sound of the birds and the sea for company. The sun had set by the time they emerged from the wood and Nightingale put a mauve cardigan around her shoulders. As the sky darkened it took on the colour of the wool and the sea turned to liquid pewter. It was he who broke the silence.

‘Do you really need to wait until dark?’

She nodded.

‘Why?’

‘It’s the best time to lay ghosts to rest.’

‘Does he still haunt you?’

‘I dream of him sometimes.’

He stepped closer, not touching but she could feel the warmth of his body at her back. His hand dropped to her shoulder. They stood, inches apart, the closest they had been physically since he had rescued her five weeks before.

Claire’s words had stayed in his mind yet he had done nothing about them. He had told himself that it was because Nightingale was recovering and too fragile for him to risk the consequences of a clumsy overture. But when she had asked him to go with her to visit Mill Farm he had said yes immediately and hadn’t bothered to question his motives. He didn’t know what he felt for her but it wasn’t indifference. Almost every night he dreamt of her, and he could recall every line of the purity of her nakedness in the moonlight when he had run from the woods to drag her from Smith’s grasp.

‘Penny for them?’

He blushed and turned away leaving her to follow. Unlike Claire, she did not probe but changed the subject.

‘Are you hungry? I have some pâté, fresh bread, oh and some wine.’

‘I’ll take some wine, thanks.’

She spread out the blanket on the short grass and sat down with the elegance of a ballet dancer, her long legs folded beneath her. He sat opposite her.

‘What aren’t you telling me, Andrew?’

He hid his true secret behind another revelation.

‘Smith tried to kill Griffiths, with a poison cake, would you believe it. The man’s superiority complex knew no bounds. As if the prison would let a prisoner receive food like that. It shook Wayne though. He’s going to be a valuable witness.’

She sat up straighter and took a drink of wine.

‘I wish we still had the death penalty.’ The hatred in her voice shook him and he distracted himself with a tub of olives.

‘Want one?’

She shrugged and took one, biting into it, her teeth white in the deepening twilight. The moon rose over the woods. Nightingale stood up and walked to the cliff top.

‘It was just here.’ She sounded amazed. ‘How could anything so terrible happen here?’

‘No, you’re in the wrong place. It happened further along to your left, at least a hundred metres. I remember it exactly.’

‘I wasn’t talking about Smith. This is where my aunt fell. She died down there.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I. In the village they say she threw herself off. I don’t think that’s what happened.’ She inched towards the edge until her toes were level with it, then peered over. ‘I think she just didn’t save herself.’

For a moment she wavered as if she had lost her balance.

‘Nightingale!’

Fenwick leapt up and pulled her back from the cliff. She spun slightly and fell against him. Her body felt loose in his arms, weightless. Instinctively he gathered her in tight against his chest, holding her so close that he could feel the tremor that ran through her, like a wire under impossible tension.

‘For God’s sake,’ he whispered, his mouth close to her ear, ‘don’t even think it.’

He found that he was stroking her hair gently, smoothing it against the warmth of her scalp. She looked up, almost tall enough to meet him eye to eye.

‘Would you care?’

He felt the heat of her, the firm long length of her thighs against his own, the subtle rise and fall of her breasts, and pulled away. Her face was pale in the moonlight, her eyes wide and her expression impossible to read.

‘Yes I’d care very much, but it’s not as simple as that.’ He touched the tips of his fingers against her lips as she spoke against them.

‘I know, not for either of us. I’m not sure that I could learn to trust any man and you…’

‘What about me?’ He pulled back.

‘It’s time you accepted that you don’t trust women either.’

He was stunned by the simple truth of her words. Eventually her silence compelled him to speak despite his reluctance to reveal his feelings, even to her.

‘I’m sorry… It’s not your fault. Part of me wants you so much…’

‘But?’ Her voice was husky and she wouldn’t look him in the eye.

‘No buts about you, you’re perfect. It’s me.’

It was her turn to pull away. She went back to the blanket and drank some wine, staring out at the darkening sea.

‘I’m sorry, Nightingale…’

‘My name’s Louise, unless you’re about to give me an order of course…sir.’ The words were sharp.

‘Stop it! Nightingale suits you; it’s a beautiful name. It wasn’t meant as an insult… And we’re not on duty.’

She looked up at him, not caring if he saw the tears on her face.

‘What are you afraid of? What’s so frightening about me? You managed an affair with Claire Keating. Why do I repel you?’

‘You don’t, quite the opposite.’

‘So what’s stopping you?’

‘My feelings for you, that’s what.’

He watched her struggle to remain composed and was impressed when she said simply.

‘Go on.’

He took a deep breath and looked up at the sky.

‘Monique, my late wife, was the only woman I’ve truly loved. Before her, I’d known plenty of women, never at work, that’s a line I wouldn’t cross, but ever since university I’d been able to enjoy relationships with women without becoming too involved. I liked them all, some I was very fond of, but I’d never loved anyone before.’

She was looking at him now with a lopsided smile on her face.

‘Does that sound arrogant?’

‘Very.’

They were sitting cross-legged facing each other. Nightingale took a sip of wine and he followed her example, draining his glass while he watched her in silence. Eventually she said.

‘Go on, you were a stud who had women falling for you at the raising of an eyebrow and then you met Monique. How was she different?’

‘I don’t know.’ He hated this probing into his feelings but he was trapped and knew that he couldn’t escape without giving some sort of explanation. ‘When we met I just, well that was it. Love at first sight – Bang! I’d have done anything for her. We were married within six weeks, parents nine months later. We had four years together that’s all, before her coma. That lasted another five. While she was alive I always hoped that she might get better but of course that was stupid. She simply faded then…died.’ His voice faltered.

‘I heard what happened and I’m truly sorry.’ She waited for him to continue but he sat there, head bowed. ‘So you weren’t interested in other women in all those years – that’s a long, long time.’

‘But it’s true, honestly. I had the children and my work. I sort of shut down on everything else.’

‘Including me.’ It was an unusually self-centred thing for her to say but he forgave her.

‘Particularly you. In some ways you’re so similar to Monique, not in looks, but your intensity and intelligence.’ He answered the question he knew she was too proud to ask. ‘I didn’t love Claire, you know. She reminded me of what being with a woman could be like; fun, satisfying, uncomplicated.’

‘But she loved you. It was obvious when you were together.’

There was silence and she could sense his guilt. She sipped her wine carefully but poured him his fourth glass. He was drinking more than he realised.

‘Where does that leave us?’ She resisted reaching over to touch him as she asked the question that had really brought her to the cliff top.

‘I don’t know. We work together and there’d be no such thing as a casual affair with you. I wouldn’t want to hurt you…’

‘Or be hurt by me.’

He nodded, unable to meet her eyes. She remembered Amelia’s words, about the choice between brief love and none at all, and her arguments back. She could hardly criticise him for a concern she had so recently shared. But she had overcome her fears; they had vanished in that sweet moment when she had smelled the grass and known what it meant to be alive.

Selfishly she had hoped that bringing him here would remind him of how close she had come to death and make him realise his feelings for her. She had succeeded in part, but it hadn’t been enough. A chill wind rose up over the cliff and across them. A cloud passed over the moon, followed by others crowding in from the west.

‘You mustn’t leave the Force.’

‘You’re changing the subject, Andrew.’

Where had he heard that before?

‘You think you have all the answers?’ His tone was accusing.

‘No I don’t. I have no idea where a relationship with you might lead. The idea of it frightens me. You’re not the only one who’s used to being in control, you know.’ She poured the last of the wine into their glasses and took another sip of her own.

‘All I know is that what I feel for you is the most honest and natural feeling I have ever had in my life. I’m prepared to take the risks. The question is, are you?’

She took his hand loosely but remained silent. He needed to make his own decision. If she tricked or badgered him into submission whatever grew between them would be based on a false foundation.

‘Perhaps I don’t have your courage after all.’

He said nothing else for a long time, staring out to sea where the milky phosphorescence of the waves was darkening as the moonlight faded. A spot of rain fell on their joined hands then another.

‘We’ll get soaked if we stay here.’ He rose to his feet and started to pack the uneaten picnic away. For a long moment she sat still on the blanket but when he lifted his side she stood and helped him to fold it. When their hands touched he gripped hers tightly.

‘Do you know what you’d be getting into, the rumour, the potential impact on our careers, let alone putting up with me and the children? I’m a widower, it might not work.’

So he could still feel Monique’s shadow.

‘I’m prepared to take the risk.’

The shower turned into a full West Country downpour as they stared at each other. He was swaying slightly.

‘I think I’ve had a bit too much wine. How much did you drink?’

‘About a glass.’

‘And the bottle’s empty.’ He looked her full in the face. ‘I’m not going to be able to drive.’

‘I know,’ she smiled at him, ‘but fortunately there’s a very nice place nearby that will be able to put you up for the night…’ He frowned in protest. ‘And it has several serviceable bedrooms.’

At least he had the grace to laugh. They turned and walked together away from the precipice and back through the woods to Mill Farm.