Requiem Mass (47 page)

Mid-afternoon, an irritating clicking started in his right ear to be followed by suckling and popping noises, like the sound of tiny bubbles tickling and bursting on the hull of a yacht. His left ear played dead. The afternoon was a misery. He insisted on visiting Doug’s widow and spent a long half-hour with her, feeling inadequate as he allowed the poor woman to make him tea and pity his deafness. Her sister and daughter-in-law were there but in his state of heightened sensitivity, Fenwick could
feel the emptiness in the room and see the black pool of bereavement that was isolating Doris for ever from the only human comfort she really needed.

His office was barred to him. The Assistant Chief Constable had insisted on complete rest and had been canny enough to extract a promise from Fenwick to that effect. He was left to his own devices. He prowled around at home, ineffectually attempting to catch up on dusty repairs, reassuring the children, trying to ignore the constant static in his right ear.

Cooper called in at suppertime, with two suspicious brown paper packages under his arm. From one he extracted a bottle of twelve-year-old single malt, from the other a stack of reports. He stared into the flames of the small fire in Fenwick’s sitting room, lit in an attempt at cheerfulness, not warmth, as the Chief Inspector worked steadily through the contents of the bottle and the detail of the reports.

‘What’s he going to do next?’ he finally asked Cooper. Both knew he was referring to Rowland. Cooper spoke slowly, economically, moving his mouth to shape every word.

‘He won’t give up. He will try again.’

‘I agree. He’s put too much into this. I assume Anderson’s London house is being watched?’

Cooper nodded.

‘Any activity?’

Cooper shook his head.

There was a long pause, oiled by gentle sipping. ‘He’s going to try for the cathedral again, isn’t he?’ It was more statement than question.

Cooper shrugged, then shook his head: ‘The ACC disagrees. I don’t see it. There’s only three days left and we found his arms cache – too short a time and too dangerous now to prepare all over again.’

Fenwick was staring intently at Cooper’s lips but he ignored the sergeant’s words.

‘He’s going to try again, I know this man now. Something’s driving him on; I don’t know what but it’s there. He’s not going to let go. You’ve got to work on the assumption he’ll try to kill
Anderson on Monday if he can’t find her before.’

Cooper shook his head again: ‘That’s not the ACC’s view. There’s a huge search going on to find him. He’s sure we’ll get him before the performance starts.’

‘We won’t. He’s wrong and it’s not the first time. He should stick to politics – it’s what he’s good at – and leave the real police work to those that bloody well know how to do it!’ The blast of Fenwick’s anger reached Cooper where he sat across the room. He didn’t even flinch; he knew it was directed elsewhere. Fenwick stood up and poured another two fingers of whisky into both of their glasses. They sipped again in silence; it was too good a malt to treat with disrespect. Cooper watched his boss stare into the flames as he stood before the fire, saw frustration and despair take over from the anger.

Cooper got up and laid a firm hand on Fenwick’s shoulder, placing his face firmly in front of Fenwick’s, holding his eyes. The flush that had suffused Fenwick’s cheeks had receded, leaving him tired and grey. For the first time Cooper noticed the strain in his face, eyes sunk in deep purple shadows, hard lines of weariness running from nostrils to the corners of his mouth. The cuts, scratches, and bruises from the explosion peppered his skin, paper stitches holding closed gouges on his brow and jaw. His whole face was forced into a grimace – whether of disgust, pain or failure, Cooper couldn’t tell.

‘Andrew,’ he muttered gently then recalled that no attempt at the right tone would count, plain words would have to do. ‘You need to rest.’

‘Rest? How can I rest?’ Fenwick’s voice was filled with anguish. ‘I saw Doug’s wife today – widow, I mean. I haven’t yet found the guts to go and visit Heather Coals. She lost that leg, you know; they couldn’t save it. They had to amputate this afternoon. I can’t rest. It’s my fault. I was warned, Bayliss told me – you heard him. “Don’t put your boys up against him with wooden sticks,” he said. That’s precisely what I
did
do and now Doug’s dead and there’s a young girl crippled for life …’ His voice caught.

Cooper shouted his reply, desperate to be heard. ‘And you
nearly got yourself killed too! Yes, you did go in … yes, they went in with you, doing
their
jobs … but
no
it was not your fault. You had firearms there. Harrington cleared you to go in. How could anyone have anticipated a bomb?’

Fenwick turned his head away in disgust. Cooper couldn’t tell whether anything he’d said had been understood or accepted. He turned Fenwick back to face him.

‘The most important thing is what you decide to do now, sir. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Fenwick nodded.

‘You believe you know this man’s thinking, perhaps you do. But,’ he moved his lips very carefully, even more slowly, ‘if you think he’ll attack Monday, we need you back. Fit, and well, not tired and so eaten up with guilt you can’t think straight. Go to bed, sleep – and drop the self-pity.’

The ACC planned to call the whole home team together on Saturday morning. Fenwick spent half an hour with him privately beforehand, trying to convince him of the real threat to Octavia on Monday. Straining to hear past the bubbling in his right ear, he hoped that some of what he said had an impact. Octavia’s growing fame and public profile probably did more to worry his politically sensitive boss than all his arguments, and he had to accept that logic was not on his side. It would be madness for Rowland to attack in the cathedral when they were clearly on to him, and far more likely that he would try and strike outside. But then Fenwick was quite convinced that their target
was
mad.

But the ACC again dismissed the idea of an attack at the cathedral. He had been disconcerted by the gun and ammunition found in the old chest which suggested that his earlier assumption – that Octavia wouldn’t have been in any danger – was wrong. But he was even more convinced now that Rowland would stay away. He would see that the police were on to him and had to expect that the arms would have been removed, despite the news blackout. And anyway, Anderson was still insisting that the performance should go ahead. For the police
to press for its cancellation would be a political nightmare.

By the time the meeting was due to start, Fenwick was in dread of entering the room – the looks of blame he anticipated, no one meeting his eye. The ACC was still in charge and it grated on him that he would have to sit dumb as well as deaf while the man directed the case.

It was normal for the sounds of a large gathering in the incident room to bubble over into the surrounding offices but the ACC noticed there was silence as he and Fenwick made their way there. As they opened the door the soft, grumbling murmur within died at once. Fenwick forced himself to look individuals in the eye as he took in the scene. To his surprise, he looked out on sympathy, pity, understanding. No one turned away from his scrutiny and the undoubted anger he felt in the room was not being directed at him. A DS from his own force extended a hand and slapped him gently on the shoulder; Fenwick couldn’t hear his words but the gesture spoke to him loudly. He started to relax.

Nightingale was at the meeting, which worried Fenwick. Who was looking after Anderson? She intercepted his frown and smiled reassuringly.

The ACC went straight to business. For five minutes Fenwick watched his lips avidly, trying to follow his arguments, to see what plans were being set for Monday. It was impossible and disconcerting to watch a wave of frowns cross the room, or a sudden brief outbreak of smiles, without knowing why. The questions and answers baffled him completely. His head turned from speaker to speaker in a delayed random pattern. In the end he abandoned his attempt to follow the meeting and gazed around the room.

He had never noticed before how grey the white paint was, how it peeled around the windows and radiators. The door had been scraped back to bare wood in parts by countless boots, and thick dusty cobwebs hung from the cornice. It was a dismal symbol for the case, for modern-day policing. The cleaning resources never reached the corners, their work undone before they had a chance to start again. His performance appraisals
used to be full of praise for his ‘results orientation’; more recently they had bemoaned his lack of pragmatism, though there were still those on high, unbeknownst to him, who felt that Fenwick was ‘just the breath of fresh air we need in the management team’.

Movement around him brought him back to the present and immediate concern that adequate plans for Monday had been put in place. He looked at Cooper; the sergeant shrugged enigmatically.

‘Well?’ The room was emptying behind them except for a hovering Nightingale.

‘A compromise. There will be a team at the cathedral from Sunday. You’ll be pleased to know that there was an embarrassment of volunteers for it. Meanwhile, the search continues.’

‘That’s some consolation.’ He turned to face Nightingale, who was looking remarkably fit and well. ‘How are things with you?’

She smiled and gave him the thumbs-up, then mouthed: ‘Bored but OK.’

‘How is she?’ It was a bluff, blunt question but neither Cooper nor Nightingale was taken in.

‘Fine; very well considering the pressure. She’s a true professional. I admire her.’

‘I have to speak to her about Monday. I’ll come round sometime this weekend.’ He turned back to Cooper: ‘You’ll never find him before Monday, you know.’

‘What makes you think I’ll be looking? I’m with you, sir.’

The ACC must be furious, thought Fenwick. How many others had displayed the same lack of confidence in his plan and borne the considerable brunt of his displeasure? Looking into Cooper’s face, he realised that the man didn’t care. From now on, he was going to be in the cathedral, where he wanted to be.

Cooper never told Fenwick, although he did admit to Nightingale in an unusual moment of candour, the precise details of his conversation with the ACC. He was not an eloquent man but he was resourceful under pressure and his argument had been compelling.

‘Look, sir,’ he had said deferentially, ‘just between us, I think it’s essential I shadow DCI Fenwick. It’ll only be for two and a half days – until after the performance – and there’s no knowing yet how well he is. We don’t want him inadvertently spoiling the main investigation.’

The ACC gave Cooper what his mother would once have called an old-fashioned look.

‘Very well, Sergeant, stay with him. But make no mistake, I remain in charge of the whole investigation – and that includes the team at the cathedral, which, by the way, I intend to staff with supplementary resources. The main search teams will be kept intact.’

As Cooper left, he had thought nothing of the fact that he overheard the ACC ask his secretary to call the MOD, nor did he mention the fact to Nightingale or Fenwick.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Fenwick woke with a start and switched off his alarm clock. The digital face told him it was five o’clock. Something was wrong. He lay in bed, his mind still fogged with sleep, and slowly tried to identify what was troubling him. There was a constant background noise, a gentle susuration of sound that came as a welcome change to the constant popping and squeaking of the day before. Otherwise all was quiet.

Suddenly he sat up in bed and slammed his hand against the headboard. He heard the hard slap of his palm against the wood. He could hear again; the clock had woken him, the bedclothes rustled as he moved, the gentle hissing was nothing more than the noise of rain outside. At some point in the night, the hearing in his right ear had returned.

It was early Sunday morning; there were less than forty hours to go before Octavia’s recital.

The small house was overshadowed by old sticky lime trees, dripping disconsolately in the unseasonably cold September rain. No attempt had been made to prune back their growth and now they sucked all light and goodness from the handkerchief garden, devoid of vegetation except for a perky daisy growing in a jagged crack across the asphalt path.

The house was still curtained as Fenwick stooped to open the rudimentary wooden gate set in a crumbling low brick wall. He squeezed past grasping branches to reach the door and depress the yellow nipple of a bell. He leant heavily on his left
leg, trying to ignore the insistent pain in his right knee.

After a long minute’s wait a curtain was drawn back from the small glass pane in the door and he heard a succession of locks and bolts shift. Nightingale stood before him in a towelling robe; no make-up, hair spiked in all directions. She looked sixteen.

‘What’s the matter, sir?’

‘I’ve come to talk with Anderson.’

‘At 6.30 in the morning?’

‘Why not?’

Anderson appeared ten minutes later wrapped in a soft pink silk robe. The skin across her collar bones glowed like fine alabaster even in the unforgiving harshness of the 100 watt bulb that lit the room. Her hair was down, thick blue-black waves, rolling over her shoulders and down on to gently swinging breasts. She shivered slightly beneath the silk and Fenwick couldn’t help but see her nipples pucker. He switched on the electric fire in the hearth.

‘You’ve lost weight.’

‘A little, but Louise is doing her best to fatten me up again before Monday. I haven’t been fed so well in a long time.’ Her voice was light, relaxed, gently amused.

‘This isn’t the best of houses.’

‘It’ll do. Louise arranged a piano and is good company; there’s a decent bathroom; and new mattresses on the beds.’

Fenwick suddenly realised that Louise was Nightingale; he had never used her first name.

‘Are you well?’

‘I’m fine. I’m keeping really well. What have you done to your face and hands?’ Fenwick touched the stitches self-consciously. She obviously didn’t know about the bomb and he was not about to tell her.