Requiem Mass (34 page)

Which meant that now there were just the two of them left alive who knew the full truth. Her heart skipped a beat on the image of the other as the killer – but that could not be. Why now? After all these years? The deaths could not be connected. It had to be chance, a coincidence, coming so long after the other death. Yet she knew that the ‘accident’ had been a killing. Would that other person really kill to preserve the silence?

Leslie shuddered again inside her coat. She
would
tell the police all she knew – just the facts, not her suspicions as to
why. Then there would be a confrontation of her own making and she would find out the truth, once and for all. Thoughts of September turned her mind again to the Requiem and she started humming the ‘Libera me’ as she walked. She had less than ten minutes to complete the journey and decided she had to cut across to the back entrance of the school, down Hays Road. The streets were almost deserted, traffic passing by slowly, cautiously skirting deep puddles that were fast joining up to transform roads into streams.

At the zebra crossing on Osborne Road Leslie paused carefully on the curve, turning her head deliberately, conscious of her restricted vision. Behind her, Constable Adams hovered in a shop doorway, keeping his distance. She looked carefully right, left and right again, mentally repeating the words as she had done since childhood. The road was clear. In the distance a black saloon car was cruising slowly towards the crossing, far enough away to give her plenty of time to make the other side.

Leslie stepped out on to the black and white stripes, head down, guiding her feet to avoid the puddles in the tarmac. Mercifully she did not hear the sound of the engine accelerating savagely, nor Adams’ shout as he saw the black bonnet bear down on her. Only a sense of closeness, of bulk, and a rushing of air ahead of the car, made her raise her head at the last moment. Too late to move, too late for anything other than a last, sharp intake of breath as the bumper caught her shins a fraction of a second before the radiator grille and right headlight smashed into her pelvis and thighs.

She was thrown up on to the bonnet, head smashing the windscreen, creating a star-burst of cracks from the point of impact. The momentum of the blow carried her on, up and over the roof of the car to fall off to one side. The rear tyres passed within inches of her head as she lay, face down, across the far lane.

The car screeched to a halt and its reversing lights came on as Adams ran into the road. After a second’s hesitation the car changed gear and launched forward, tyres squealing as it took the corner expertly despite the flooding road.

Adams was radioing for backup, calling an ambulance and shouting the registration number of the Scorpio into his radio as he reached Leslie’s side. He had instinctively dashed forward to try to pull her back but had too far to go. Now, he knelt by the woman, feeling for a pulse. There was the faintest movement in the carotid artery, so slight and irregular that he could not be sure. Gently, he made sure her airways were clear, and lifted her head above the puddles of water.

She had fallen almost exactly into the recovery position, thus releasing him from living through the reality of one of his recurrent nightmares – having to decide whether or not to turn a badly injured person with the risk of doing more harm than good. She looked in a very bad way. Her right leg was extended at an unnatural angle away from her body, with a bloody compound fracture above the knee. Luckily, the bone had pierced forward, missing the femoral artery. Several motorists stopped and he set two of them to warning traffic on both sides. In the distance, behind the hissing of the rain, he thought he could hear the first faint sounds of the sirens.

Blood was slowly mixing in the puddle under her chest and stomach. He dare not move her to try to stop it, fearful of inflicting more internal injuries. The water made it impossible to tell how badly she was bleeding anyway. Worst of all was her head; the right side of her face had been smashed in, blood trickled from her ear, the top of her head was a crimson mess. He took off his waterproof and laid it over her gently. He had done all he could.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Fenwick paced the short length of his office like a penned animal. The news from the hospital was grim. Leslie Smith was on life-support in intensive care, her prognosis was poor. If she did survive, and the doctors refused to extend any real hope, it was highly unlikely that she would recover fully. Her skull had been fractured in two places, with a strong probability of permanent brain damage; her pelvis had been broken and the right leg had been shattered; given her poorly condition, surgeons had not even started to consider its repair. Her only piece of good fortune was the relatively minor internal injuries she had suffered.

In his frustration that morning, he had visited the hospital as the operations centre co-ordinated a massive search for the car. One look at her had convinced him she was beyond helping them. Her husband, ripped apart by his own sense of helplessness, turned his anger on the police, but eventually agreed to the search of their house, bewildered as to how the accident could be anything other than a random hit-and-run. So far, the search team there had found nothing.

The team on the case had risen at once to a full-time thirty-five. Constable Adams’ eye-witness account supported their theory that the incident had been deliberate. His immediate calling in of the car details had led them to the abandoned vehicle within twenty minutes of the attack. An obviously rushed attempt to set fire to the car had been doused by the rain, leaving plenty for forensics to work on. Their minute scrutiny would take days.

The owner of the car had been traced. It had been stolen from a station car park twenty miles away, at some time on the previous evening. There were plenty of prints, and the owners and their friends were being co-operative, but Fenwick doubted any would belong to their attacker. So far, one witness had come forward who claimed to have seen someone running away from the abandoned vehicle into a nearby park. The rain had prevented a clear view and he could not even say whether it had been a man or a woman.

Deeply indented running footprints had been found across the sodden cricket pitch and the groundsman was certain they had not been there the previous afternoon. Casts were being matched to the ones left at the school where Katherine Johnstone had been killed and to those in her back garden. The length of stride indicated someone tall, running at full speed. They had no luck lifting prints from the park gates or railings. Fenwick was treating the case as attempted murder with a constant guard at the hospital. It was deeply embarrassing, inevitably harmful to their case. Fenwick had spent an hour with the Superintendent, preparing a full report for the ACC, and a further, deeply uncomfortable thirty minutes, confirming the bald facts directly on the phone. Fenwick had suspected a connection; had failed to obtain a statement; had let her go home; and had established surveillance which failed to prevent the attack. That he was left in charge of the case – now two unsolved murders and one attempted murder – said a lot for both Fenwick’s persuasive skills and the Superintendent’s support, but it was clear there were doubts as to whether Fenwick was the detective he had once been. Fenwick had undertaken to provide personal, daily reports to the Superintendent.

It was not only Brian Smith that was eaten up by guilt. Every policeman and -woman on the case felt a failure. Fenwick knew this and took on himself the overall responsibility when they met the following day, explaining that there was nothing, personally, they could have done. What they had to do now was to find the perpetrator and stop them. Cooper noticed that he had stopped using the masculine pronoun again.

He singled out Constable Adams for praise, commending his behaviour. He had undoubtedly saved Smith from death under reversing wheels. His words missed their mark. Adams, a long-serving, loyal, county-born policeman loved his job, lived for the force. He no longer had the idealism, but he was diligent, straight and knew his duty. Leslie Smith had been his responsibility and he had let her be run down when he was only yards away. It was unlikely he would ever forgive himself. Rather than send him home, Fenwick arranged to move him on to the case full time. The constable’s gratitude had been a brief bright spot in a long, grim day.

A full team meeting was called for seven that evening. Leslie Smith was still alive, still unconscious, dependent on life support. Nothing had been found at her house; no one had seen the black Scorpio between the time it was first parked by its owner and when Smith was attacked.

Priorities were agreed, responsibilities confirmed. House-to-house and local enquiries around the station from which the car had been stolen would have top priority, together with those along the route from Smith’s house to the zebra crossing, and on across to the park and the site on which the car had been abandoned.

In the meantime, Fenwick was incensed at the lack of progress in tracing Victor Rowland and elected to take on the ministry himself. He set Cooper to tracing Octavia Anderson; first to confirm her alibi (although that did not eliminate conspiracy) then to warn her to be on guard. 

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

The office of Major Anthony West was immaculate – discreetly but well furnished with burgundy and racing green tartan and old creaking leather chairs. It was empty, save for Fenwick and Nightingale, and had been so for over twenty minutes. The Chief Inspector was angry. He had rarely had to deal with the armed services in the past but had always found them to be efficient, polite but, most of all, punctual. He had never before been kept waiting. He had already resorted to asking the Assistant Chief Constable to intervene to make the appointment and he was in no mood for further insult.

The door opened and a man entered. He was tall, well over six foot, one of the few people whom Fenwick could look directly in the eye. The word that most adequately described him was grey: silver-grey hair, ice-grey eyes, dark grey suit, pallid grey complexion. Fenwick immediately assumed this stylish room could not be his office.

There was no smile of greeting and no trace of apology for his late arrival. Fenwick allowed a silence to develop. Beside him, Nightingale fought a desperate need to fidget.

‘Mr Fenwick.’ West was clearly irritated by Fenwick’s poise.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Fenwick, Major West. And this is Woman Detective Constable Nightingale.’ Fenwick’s tone made it clear that he considered himself to be the senior officer present.

‘I see. Well, look here, Fenwick, you’ve caused a most unnecessary stink by dragging your Assistant Chief Constable
in on this. There are protocols, you know, and it simply doesn’t do to upset relationships with these local difficulties.’

Fenwick’s expression did not change. Nightingale would have stated on oath that not a muscle moved, no twitch showed and yet the intensity about him grew. He radiated anger.

West clearly felt something too. He broke eye contact and motioned them to sit down. Nightingale obeyed reflexively and instantly regretted it. Fenwick remained standing.

‘Here’s the file on A. R. V. Rowland.’ West flipped a slim brown folder over the table and Nightingale stretched to pick it up. She read the three short pages in a minute, then turned to Fenwick.

‘It’s not the Rowland we want, sir.’

Fenwick glanced at the papers. ‘What’s the game, Major West? We gave the full name, place and date of birth of the Rowland we are looking for. None of it matches this file.’

‘I can assure you, A. R. V. Rowland was the
only
Rowland on the list we sent you.’

‘That’s as maybe, but he’s not the only Rowland that left the service this year, irrespective of whether he was on your list or not.’

‘Well, if it is a different man you’ll have to reapply for information and I’ll see what we can do. Follow the protocols, Chief Inspector. It’s always easier in the end.’

‘Several weeks ago my sergeant made routine enquiries, following the correct procedures and observing the proper formalities. At daily intervals since then we have repeated our requests for more information. We have received precisely three computer printouts, incomplete, unsupported, almost useless, on which we have proceeded to expend hundreds of hours of police time. I suggest you make up your mind to answer my questions now.’ Fenwick’s voice was quiet, but it seemed to pin West to his chair.

Nightingale felt the hairs on her arm rise.

‘Now look here, Fenwick, you can’t simply come in here and demand confidential information. Personal details of officers are protected and can only be divulged under special
circumstances.’ West was blustering. It was a ludicrous argument, completely inaccurate. The protocols he referred to allowed for a full exchange of information. Still, Fenwick’s expression remained fixed, except perhaps for the fractional tightening of muscles around his jaw.

‘West, you’re talking rubbish and you know it. I’m dealing with two murders, one attempted murder and an accident so suspicious it was probably murder too. Three families have been ruined. And you sit there and think you can trade banal excuses with me.’ Fenwick paused, clearly now struggling to remain in control and to keep the upper hand. Words flowed unchecked in a menacing monotone: ‘Rowland is the prime suspect in our enquiries. Bluntly, just so that you understand exactly what I mean, he is suspected of multiple murders and attempted murder, as well as more trivial charges of abduction, possibly rape, robbery and car theft. You are standing between me and my prime suspect, West, and if you can’t help me, I suggest you butt out now and find me someone who can.’

He was, by now, at West’s desk, leaning forward on his hands, his face inches away from the grey major. West stood up and with a whispered ‘excuse me’ left the room.

The two waited silently in West’s office. There was nothing to say and, in any event, Fenwick’s mind was far away. In his imagination, he was crouching again at the top of the stairs, trying to breathe new life into Monique, looking up into the astonished, frightened eyes of his young son. Disease had nearly destroyed his family when it took her from them. He had not been able to fight it and the professionals to whom he had turned had, in truth, been powerless. Now there was a killer out there, ripping the hearts out of families like his own, and this time
he
was the professional to whom the distraught husbands and fathers were turning. So far, he was failing them too.