Requiem Mass (44 page)

He risked circling to the front and wiping the door; he would have to hope that the inside was clear. Glancing through the window he saw the landlord replace the receiver and head for the passage. Rowland sprinted to the Escort and drove off. The car would have to go. He would wreck and burn it somewhere far away and rent another one. His funds were dropping alarmingly but he had more than enough to see him through the next few days and no plans after that for which he needed money. His immediate concern was to collect the last of his equipment and supplies from London and go to ground.

*  *  *

In Richmond, at Wiggenshall’s, Minerva struggled through the morning but by lunchtime was hopelessly unwell and on her own in the agency. She could hardly speak and had a fever that turned her complexion plum red. There were visitors in the agency all morning and appointments arranged for the afternoon; she couldn’t simply shut up and go home.

In desperation, she rang Jane’s number. Although she wasn’t due back at work until Friday there was a chance that she might be spending the last day at home. To her relief Jane was there. She took a little persuading but the state of Minerva’s voice alone convinced her to come in. Minerva blessed her and started counting the minutes to her arrival.

CHAPTER FORTY

Fenwick had just welcomed Octavia Anderson at HQ when he was interrupted by news of the landlord’s call from Chichester. The local force had already dispatched a team and he gave the inspector in charge a brief description of Rowland and impressed on him how dangerous the man was. He was confused that Rowland might be so far south and inevitably dreaded the political fallout for the wasted man-hours searching in London. If the person in the pub was Rowland he would have to reconfigure the search and brief the local force urgently. He would not be popular.

He returned to Octavia. She looked awful – tense, tired and desperately frightened. He tried a smile but she ignored it.

‘Andrew, I had to see you. I couldn’t speak on the phone; it might be tapped.’

Fenwick raised his eyebrows in reply but decided not to tell her that he’d had his office, home and car swept for bugs regularly for over a month.

‘I mean it. You don’t know him. He’s very good at what he does.’

‘I didn’t think you knew him either – not recently.’

‘I don’t but I’ve bumped into him over the years – twice – by pure accident. I recognise competence and power when I see them.’

‘What do you need to tell me?’

She stared at him, lips frozen apart, unable to speak. Now that the moment had arrived, she couldn’t say the words that would make it all real.

‘He’s going to try and kill me. I know … I …’

‘We’ve discussed this before. Only two days ago you were determined to be independent! Why are you here now?’

‘Well, I’m not here for debate, Andrew! This is serious. He’s going to kill me and I know when and where.’ She paused, hand raised in a mixed gesture of appeal and emphasis. She had her audience.

‘He’s going to try and kill me on Monday, in the cathedral at Chichester.’

Fenwick looked down at the message on his desk from Chichester police. They were on their way routinely to the pub. He doubted they were armed.

‘Excuse me a moment.’ He left the interview room, called Cooper and urged him to drive to Chichester quickly and when there, move with extreme caution. Bayliss’ words came back to him: Don’t put your boys up against him with wooden sticks.’

It took him twenty minutes to find and persuade the ACC to intervene to arrange for the authorisation of firearms in Chichester. Then he returned to the interview room.

‘How
dare
you!’ Anderson exploded as soon as he walked in. ‘I tell you my life’s in danger and you just walk out and leave me sitting here like a bloody fool.’ She had worked herself into a spectacular rage but Fenwick had finally had enough of her melodrama and compulsion to be centre stage.

‘Be quiet, Octavia. Your life isn’t in danger at this moment whereas others’ might be. They are my immediate priority, not you.’

She was stunned into silence by his tone.

‘Within the last hour we’ve received news of Rowland in Chichester. We had been treating it just as we have all the other reports which have turned out to be false alarms. Your information turned it from possibility to probability and I had to warn them. Now we can come back to you. Why are you so sure it’s Monday – and the cathedral of all places?’

With cold assurance, Octavia went through her thinking of the night before. It sounded improbable and far-fetched to Fenwick, just the sort of idea that would appeal to her sense of
life as a constant performance. Would Rowland deliberately put himself in such danger just to attack Anderson in public? Then he recalled Bayliss describing Rowland as a man who wouldn’t finish his killings on a hit-and-run. She might just have stumbled on the truth!

‘How quickly can you cancel your performance? There are only four days to go, that won’t give the organisers much time to find a replacement.’

‘I’m not going to cancel – I’m going ahead. I’ve thought it all through, Andrew. Cancelling my performance doesn’t make me safe. He’ll still be out there, waiting, and he wants me. If it’s not this performance, he’ll try to kill me at the next, or the one after that. My professional life is built on public appearances. Do you want me to spend my life cooped up in recording studios – and how do you think I’ll promote my work? I’ve just signed my first big recording contract – the longer I’ve left it the more valuable I’ve become. My plan is to have a high-profile autumn season and record in the New Year. After the public acclaim I’ll receive I will be
the
hot property. My agent and I have it all planned: massive, high-quality public performances for the next three months and absolutely
no
recordings – it’s a condition of all my contracts.’

She was completely mercenary. The immediate fear had evaporated to be replaced with ice-hard calculation. On one level, the real threat to her life was merely an inconvenience to be managed. And to do that she needed Fenwick. For an instant, Fenwick witnessed in full the raw manipulation, cunning and ruthlessness that had characterised her success.

They debated for a long time the risks and merits of her continuing with her performance. Fenwick was adamant she should not but had to concede there was no way he could prevent her, and if he denied her police protection and she went ahead and was killed – it did not bear thinking about.

He went to check with the ACC to see what appetite the man had to have the performance cancelled.

‘Preposterous, Fenwick! He’ll never stage an attack in such a public place. All his other crimes have been planned with
stealth and secrecy. He’s struck without trace and with no chance of capture. Why place himself in jeopardy by going public? It’s nonsense – the woman’s got an overactive imagination; they’re like that, these arty types. I grant you that she could be the next target and it’s
your
job,’ he jabbed his finger at Fenwick, ‘to keep her alive. But if she wants to go ahead with the performance let her. It’s the last place he’ll choose. She’s going to be safer whilst she’s there than anywhere else, you mark my words. And the embarrassment of the police calling off the performance when even she’s happy to go ahead … No. This is pure fancy.’

Fenwick argued long and hard. He could sympathise with the ACC’s rationale – logic said Anderson was wrong – but his instinct, and the growing insight he had into Rowland’s behaviour, led him to agree with her.

The discussion became more and more heated until the ACC finally shouted at him: ‘No! Not unless she insists it’s cancelled, d’you hear me? You can bloody well put your reservations on file and get back to tracing Rowland. It’s time you started thinking like a policeman again and not a theatrical agent.’

It was only as Fenwick made his way down the bare stairs to rejoin Anderson that he recalled the ACC’s wife was on the organising committee for both the concert and the charity that was to benefit so handsomely from the performance proceeds. He pushed the idea that this would in any way influence the ACC to the back of his mind as unworthy.

Back in the interview room Anderson pressed the advantages of going ahead: it would be a carefully planned trap; she would be the bait. They were ahead of Rowland now. They could outwit and capture him.

‘I can’t live with him out there, Andrew. Every time I walked on to the stage or stood up to sing, I would be wondering, waiting. I want this over.’

Fenwick was silent. Eventually, he moved to Octavia’s chair and took both her hands in his. Her touch still had the power to make him shiver and he experienced a thrill of remembered
pleasure as her long white fingers brushed the inside of his wrist.

‘Are you sure? I can offer you no guarantees. We could have a hundred men and he’d still be dangerous.’

‘I’m sure.’ There was a light of anticipation in her eyes.

In all his years of policing Fenwick had never had to arrange safe accommodation but the ACC, after a sharp reminder to Fenwick about the relative costs of police cover versus the rental Anderson would pay anyway, organised it all smoothly. Anderson was sent on her way in a police car. She had had the presence of mind to bring a suitcase with her. Nightingale was ordered to the secure house to stay with her. The ACC was torn between enjoying the increasing complexity of the case, as it would show off his undeniable organisation skills to the full, and worries about the huge build-up of costs. After a brief exchange, he agreed to allow the searches in South London to continue for twenty-four hours but Fenwick knew it was his last chance, and where the blame for the hundreds of wasted man hours would fall.

He was tucking into an avocado and bacon sandwich in the incident room when he noticed excitement around one of the desks. Before he could call out, a young officer dashed up to him waving a flimsy sheet of paper.

‘From Richmond. They think they’ve found Rowland’s digs. They’ve interviewed the girl from the letting agency – Wiggenshall’s – and she’s certain she let a property to a man of Rowland’s description four months ago.’

‘The girl’ – Jane – had ignored the telephone number on the fax and had rung an old friend in the Met. After protracted transfers, she had ended up speaking to a detective who realised at once the significance of her story. Fenwick agreed with the Metropolitan CID how they would proceed. A Detective Inspector Harrington was put in charge in Richmond and Fenwick managed to speak to him before the ACC, advised of the breakthrough, and took over cross-divisional co-ordination.

‘Harrington? It’s DCI Fenwick here. What’s the situation?’

‘We’ve just finished interviewing her but we’ve asked her to stay – assuming you’ll want someone to speak to her directly. She is absolutely positive the tenant is Rowland, no doubts at all. I was about to send two cars to the address – don’t worry, surveillance, that’s all.’

‘Tell them to proceed with extreme caution. If this is his London base you’ll need an armed stakeout. This man is highly dangerous – he’d think nothing of taking out any or all of them. And we don’t want him alerted.’

‘Our Assistant Commissioner is talking to your ACC now. I get the impression that they’re agreeing a major operation – to be run from here. Hang on …’

Fenwick could hear muffled conversation in the background.

‘Yes. I’m instructed just to do the basics, set up surveillance, clear the area, no uniforms, all to be done very quietly.’

‘I’m on my way now. With luck I’ll be there in one, one and a half hours. Try not to start without me!’

The surveillance team was in position just after 1.30 p.m. Two officers stayed in an unmarked car opposite the smart mews house identified by the letting agents. The other two split up; one commandeered a street-facing function room above a corner pub which provided a view of the road leading to the house and front door. The other took a pint of beer and sat at one of the trestle tables on the pavement. The pub was busy, groups of afternoon drinkers lounging against the walls and blocking the pavement. Quietly, as the watching officer sipped at his pint, his plain-clothed colleagues encouraged the customers to leave as they cleared the street.

Shortly after two a man approached on foot and entered the house by the front door. The unit radioed in and was told to stay put until armed backup arrived. A complete force of specialist-trained firearm officers were on their way from the Met and should arrive within twenty minutes. Fenwick’s driver, already averaging a reckless forty m.p.h. on the outskirts of London, put his foot down. In the back, PC Douglas Adams, attached to the case since he witnessed the attack on Leslie Smith, closed his eyes and gripped the passenger bar as the car rocked round
yet another corner against a red light.

The firearms unit was late. Tension was mounting in the surveillance team, the urge to take action battling the fear they all felt sitting unarmed a few yards away from a suspected serial killer and his arsenal. The instructions from the operations centre were blunt and explicit: stay where you are; no heroics on any account. Minutes ticked past. A call came that the armed unit was nearly there, directed by the operations centre to the delivery yard at the back of the pub. There were no signs of movement from the house as the four watchers grew sticky in the late summer heat.

Rowland moved methodically through the house, dividing his belongings into two groups – take or destroy. He was disgusted with himself for his carelessness. His focus on preparing for each murder had been so absolute he had forgotten the danger that police investigations might pose. To his surprise he had underestimated them, assuming that his careful planning and subterfuge would allow him to remain anonymous until it was all over. He hadn’t even bothered with disguise but that would all have to change now. At least he’d had the foresight to bring supplies. Somehow, the police had identified him and, to his astonishment when he finally bought and read a newspaper, had linked his three attacks. That changed everything. He had cleared out of his Chichester digs, trashed the car and forced himself to calm down and rent a new one, a Cavalier, that had moved unnoticed through the thankfully light midday traffic.