Requiem Mass (12 page)

Deirdre Holt’s open invitation had re-awakened in him needs he had assumed had atrophied along with so much else in his personal life. He was compelled to look away from her for a moment to hide the desire he knew would show in his face. An overdose of hormone surged round his body, reminding him of teenage discomforts long left behind. He made a show of looking back over his notes, appalled at his reaction.

Deirdre Holt, practised and sensitive in her way, was not fooled. She sat down next to him on the settee, placing her hips close enough so that their thighs touched. He noticed she had long, slender legs and that she was wearing perfume – a soft musky scent more suited to warm nights than a cold spring day.

‘Chief Inspector, forgive me but I’m a very sensitive person. I can often tell what someone wants without them saying a word. You don’t have to speak or do anything. Just sit there and stay still a moment.’

Her fingers stroked the back of his neck gently, enjoying the sharp bristles below his cropped hair. Her nails traced a light, intimate pattern across his skin, brushing his ear lobes, stroking his jaw and chin and now, delicately, beautifully, tracing the outline of his mouth.

Fenwick fought to maintain his concentration and resist the blatant sexuality of the woman. His heart rate increased, blood pounded in his temples, making it difficult for him to think. He became aware of every nerve-ending on his skin and acutely conscious of her touch wherever their bodies met, her fingers, the underside of her arm where it rested on his shoulder, the
softness of her breast as she leant against him and the long, hot pressure of her thigh.

He could feel the heat and heaviness in his groin grow. For a few precious seconds he gave in and relished the tight, breathless pleasure as it saturated his body, gloriously reminding him that he was alive and healthy. Then with a fixed determination that had characterised his whole life he rose to his feet and crossed to the picture window on the far side of the room, keeping his back to the woman still seated on the couch. There was a silence.

‘I have two final questions, Mrs Holt.’ He addressed the small ornamental fish pond and budding lilac beyond. ‘When did you last meet Derek Fearnside?’

Behind him he heard a smothered sniff and a soft rustle as she rose, and when he turned it was to find himself alone. With a soft expletive he stalked into the main hall where he heard a faint, muffled sobbing from the back of the house.

Mrs Holt was sitting at the kitchen table, a crumpled tissue clenched against her mouth. Fenwick walked to the sink and poured her a glass of water.

‘Thank you.’

‘Deirdre, you must answer my questions. What happened in there – forget it.’

‘It was pathetic! My God, what must you think of me?’

‘I think no less of you, really. Now come on,’ he gave her a lopsided smile, ‘I’m relying on you.’

‘OK.’ She cleared her throat and took a sip of water. ‘The last time I saw Derek was the week before Debbie went off, on the Tuesday lunchtime. I went up to the flat.’

‘Was there anything unusual about that occasion?’

‘Not really. It was all rather rushed. Derek had an unexpected meeting in the afternoon and couldn’t stay. We didn’t discuss Debbie. We never did much.’ She wouldn’t meet his eye.

‘But something was said – then or at an earlier meeting.’

‘Derek thought Deborah was acting strangely, volatile. One minute all over him, acting the coy temptress, the next storming off. He thought – well, he thought she might be having an affair.’

‘Do you think she was?’

‘Yes. She’d had one once before – the worst-kept secret at the time, although I don’t think Debbie realised that. She wasn’t, isn’t, the sort of person you would want to upset or confront, you see.’

‘Who was the affair with?’

‘Another Derek – Derek Neigby – but he can’t be involved in all this. He went off to Saudi and is still there.’

‘You said you met before “Debbie went off” – not went missing or disappeared, but “went off”. Why did you say that?’

‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Surely she must have run off with this new man of hers – just escaped.’ Sudden concern flooded her face. ‘But you don’t believe that, do you?’

‘I, we, don’t deal in belief, Mrs Holt, we work with facts.’ Why did he always become pompous when he tried to lie? Even as he said it, he knew she was right. He did believe something had happened to Deborah Fearnside, something dark and grim with no trace of love in it.

In the car, on the way to meet Jamie Smith’s headmaster, Fenwick was filled with an unfamiliar regret for the lost opportunity with Deirdre Holt. He regretted it happening, he regretted his response, but worse, he regretted that they had not seen it through. Despite her obviousness and desperation she had woken in him an urgent sexual appetite, all but forgotten in months of stress and tension. In his forties, a father, single to all intents, he had no idea what to do about it.

CHAPTER NINE

Fenwick was late meeting Cooper and after sorting out the paperwork they adjourned to a pub half a mile from Fearnside’s house. They compared notes on the day, starting with the Dell, as Fenwick was to visit the ACC later to give him their final report.

Cooper settled one leather-covered elbow on the chair arm and took a good swallow of best bitter. Fenwick didn’t rush him, despite his impatience.

‘The people on the Dell site aren’t talking, and I couldn’t get to see the old lady’s daughter, she’s too upset. But I had more luck at the council site. I spoke to three of Mrs Evans’s friends. They started reticent, each one, but when I told them the old lady was dead they couldn’t contain themselves. They were furious and not at the police either, but with the son-in-law; said they had advised her not to move, pleaded with the daughter to let her mum stay put. One of them even said she knew the move would kill her, given how poorly she was.

‘One of the friends was so mad she gave me a formal statement – and she’d been there when first Degs, and then the daughter, were trying to persuade the old lady to move. And the old lady’s doctor has confirmed she had a serious heart condition and that he had advised her not to move. Best yet, he’d visited her the previous afternoon because she was feeling so bad and had advised her to go back home at once. Her son-in-law refused to allow that.’

‘Well, that’s promising. What about the allegations of
overdue force against Peters and Taylor?’

‘It looks like the idiots went into the camp a bit hard. But, we’ve good evidence to show entry to the site was reasonable, it’s just entry into the van that’s tricky.’

‘We need more, Cooper. You need a statement from Degs’s wife. Ask him to the station for an interview and get a woman round there to try and get her to talk. She might be emotional enough still to tell us the truth.’

‘I’ll use WDC Nightingale, sir. You won’t know her, she was only transferred about two months ago, but I hear good things. What about the ACC? He’ll need a further briefing, won’t he?’

Fenwick passed him a scribbled note he had been sketching during Cooper’s account.

‘Here’s an update for him. Get it typed up, would you? My advice to him will be to make no comment to the press yet. We don’t want them hassling the relatives or we’ll have no chance with them. We’ll drop this in for typing on our way to Fearnside’s and I’ll pick it up later. Now we need to be off. I’ll brief you on what I’ve found out today on the way.’

Fenwick collected his jacket and turned to the door in one fluid movement. Cooper was left sitting in the cool draught as it swung shut behind him.

That morning, he had been concerned that the driving, tough-minded boss of earlier days might have disappeared for good. As he contemplated the evening, he realised that he was already having to perform the balancing act between conflicting priorities that Fenwick expected from anyone working with him. Something had fired the Chief Inspector and Cooper wondered whether there wouldn’t be a point at which he would regret Fenwick’s complete return to his obsessive, workaholic state.

On the way to Fearnside’s, via Division to deliver the Dell update for typing, Fenwick brought Cooper up to date on his interviews with Holt, the headmaster, O’Brien, and Leslie Smith.

O’Brien had been helpful and friendly, calling his secretary
in to confirm his recollection of events and checking back through both their diaries. He was absolutely sure that neither he, nor anybody in his office, had called Leslie Smith to ask her to come in on the day of Deborah Fearnside’s disappearance. The previous day had been a Sunday and calls to parents were hardly ever made over the weekend.

He could confirm though, that Mrs Smith had turned up at the school first thing Monday morning and had taken a lot of convincing that she hadn’t been summoned. Her little boy, if not a model pupil, was a long way from the worst they had to deal with; there had simply been no reason for them to invite her in. She’d left within minutes.

Fenwick was satisfied that the headmaster and secretary were efficient, sensible people who were telling the truth. If somebody had phoned Leslie Smith the call hadn’t come from the school.

The interview with Mrs Smith was far less satisfactory. When he’d arrived at just after three, a neighbour told him she was probably on her way from the shops to pick her children up from school. He’d decided to wait, even though it would make him late for his meeting with Cooper.

The interview had lasted less than half an hour, despite Fenwick’s best efforts. She had allowed her children to interrupt constantly, then the dog needed to be let out but its barking meant that five minutes later she was trying to coax it back in. When it eventually bounded in, it upset one of the children’s glass of orange juice and a large part of the questioning was spent with Leslie on her hands and knees scrubbing at the sticky orange stain before it ruined the carpet.

Fenwick found her evasive and vague, constantly distracted from his questions and unhelpful in her answers. The noise in her household gave him a headache and in the end he was glad to leave, despite being no further forward from this interview with a key witness.

She saw no connection between Deborah’s disappearance and the modelling agency; had been unable to recollect anything about the person who had called purporting to be the
headmaster; and could give no explanation as to why her friend had suddenly vanished.

The Fearnside house was illuminated by a modern coach lantern to the side of an oak-panelled door with half-moon window. Early dusk on a greying late spring day had triggered the light sensor prematurely. The yellow bulb glared sickly in the twilight. An echoing yellow flush from the back suggested occupation, otherwise the house stood silent and unwelcoming.

To one side of the path which led in a meagre curve to the entrance, a formal lawn had been allowed to grow too long in the wet chill approach to summer but there were no signs of moss, no dandelion nor daisy had yet had the temerity to take advantage of recent neglect. To the left side of the path, bordering the drive, a long, thin flowerbed was full of a profusion of spring bulbs, their backs broken by wind and rain – late-flowering narcissi, pugnacious muscari fighting for light, tulips, some still in tight bud in the reluctant spring, interspersed with the swelling green seed heads of snowdrops and the spears of blind iris – choked in patches by tufts of rampant wild grass. The garden was silent, the birds having given up on the day and retired to an early rest.

As Fenwick walked to the oak door he saw further signs of recent neglect – a child’s toy, still bright, lost under a faded rhododendron, a milk minder encrusted with grit and splashes of stubborn Wealden clay. Ornamental tubs flanking the door had been cleared of their spring glory but lay empty with no promise of a summer show.

A curtain twitched in the front downstairs window, releasing a beam of light, smothered quickly. The door was opened before Cooper had a chance to press the bell and, obviously pre-announced by the message Fenwick had left on the answerphone, they were motioned into an elegant pale cream hall. From above came the muted sound of children’s voices. Fenwick instinctively looked upstairs.

‘The children – I thought it best they be out of the way when you arrived.’

‘How are they?’ Fenwick regretted the question at once.

‘How do you think?’ Fearnside’s tone was contemptuous.

‘I’m sorry.’ The policeman stifled the desire to tell the man that he understood, to stand for a few minutes in the true comfort of shared pain.

The sitting room was a comfortable size, wider than it was long. The walls were covered in co-ordinating papers of cream sprigged with tiny sage-green abstract flowers. Cooper recognised the design at once, remembered the long hours spent matching joins in paper that stretched, and removing bubbles that appeared magically as soon as one strip was finished. The joins and finish here were perfect and he wondered whether Fearnside had done it himself; if so, he was a perfectionist. It was obviously a family room, slightly worn but clean and gently relaxing, the only jarring note the black television and video stacked prominently in one corner. It had been designed by someone who refused to let wear and tear and practicality start a slide through compromise away from standards of co-ordination and care. It worked.

Fenwick and Cooper seated themselves opposite Derek Fearnside, who continued to stand by the fireplace. Fenwick cleared his throat in the uneasy silence that had developed since their initial greeting. Cooper glanced at his boss, surprised by this unexpected show of nerves.

‘Mr Fearnside, thank you for making time to see us.’

‘Well, it’s about time you lot turned up and took some proper interest in my wife’s disappearance.’

Fenwick embarked on the painful process of coaxing Fearnside over old ground, being more tolerant of the criticisms and abuse than he would normally have been. Cooper took copious notes, as always.

‘I know that this might be painful, Mr Fearnside, but I want to go back over events in the weeks leading up to your wife’s disappearance. You might like to sit down and make yourself comfortable.’