Requiem Mass (50 page)
Authors: Elizabeth Corley
‘… yes, very lucky. It’s amazing that she said yes, amazing. Worth all the last-minute hassle and worry. It’s such a challenging soprano part, very challenging; so few performers can manage it, particularly the “Libera Me”, with any credibility …’
‘Excuse me?’ If it concerned Octavia, he wanted to know.
‘Here, I’ll show you. Page … 192; there, see that octave jump to a top B flat – and
pianissimo
too. Amazing,
pianissimo
. It’s worth listening out for.’
Fenwick scanned the page, following the man’s stubby finger. There was a line marked ‘SOP’ which he guessed was Octavia’s, the soprano soloist. It looked very simple. Elsewhere the musical notes dashed across the pages like swarms of ants, scurrying up and down an orderly grid that strained to impose structure on apparent chaos.
‘A Requiem Mass, what is it?’
‘A mass for the dead really.’
Could Rowland have known the relevance of this piece or was it simply a macabre coincidence? The chairman’s chilling
words provided yet further confirmation of his own belief that the killer would use the performance to strike.
‘And what exactly is a mass for the dead?’
‘Well. They vary but they tend to beg for God’s mercy and the forgiveness of our sins. Some tend to be more optimistic than others.’
‘And this one?’
‘Not very hopeful at all, I’m afraid. Tremendously powerful, of course – very powerful – and the music is so glorious one tends to forget the words at times. But it starts with a prayer for eternal rest and ends with, what I think is, a desperate plea for mercy. It’s moving, very moving.’
Fenwick turned to the last few pages, tracing the chorus’s final lines. At the last, only the soprano was left, singing a pitiable solo as the music died. The chairman smiled at him.
‘Yes, it’s that soprano part again. She voices all our hopes and fears throughout. It ends on her final prayer.’
The conductor tapped his baton on his music stand and, without hesitation, launched choirs, orchestra and soloists into their first full rehearsal of the whole piece. Staring down half the length of the nave, Fenwick winced at Anderson’s vulnerability; her bright red jumper marking the bull’s-eye in the middle of a massed human target. Nightingale had moved to sit just below the dais, facing out over the rows of empty seats. She looked heavier than usual, a puffer jacket emphasising the bulk of the bullet-proof vest he guessed she was wearing.
He tried to assess, yet again, the points of maximum risk for Octavia. He thought it unlikely she would be attacked while sitting down. Even though the soloists were positioned at the front of the raised platform, from most angles, other than directly to her right, she was partially screened by the others whilst sitting.
There was the remaining possibility of a bomb or a grenade, of course, but he doubted it. Too many others would die, the structural impact would be impossible to estimate – meaning such an attack would be potentially hazardous for the bomber – and most of all, it was just too clumsy. It lacked style. The most likely weapons were a knife or gun.
A knife was consistent with the early deaths. Anderson could be stabbed as she walked to or from the platform, or as she arrived outside. But Rowland would have to sneak up close to her, to work his way through the massive security cordon. He couldn’t be sure that he would reach her, and capture would be inevitable. Fenwick dismissed the idea of a knife attack.
A gun then. He had assumed all along that this was most likely. Rowland was a marksman, familiar and expert with most types of personal hand gun and rifle. There were dozens of places he could site himself to have a clear shot whilst she was standing. The triforium was favourite but that had been checked and triple-checked. And Rowland’s cache of guns had been discovered, which meant that he’d need to bring his weapon with him. There were armed policemen on both sides, three trumpeters and the sound man. Their instruments and equipment had all been searched and nothing looked suspicious.
Fenwick remembered that he still hadn’t heard whether they had confirmed the credentials of the remaining musicians and technicians, and signalled Cooper over to chase it up. The ACC had moved off to discuss tactics again with Blite and Campbell, and to agree the last round of checks.
The rehearsal was in full swing; the peaceful opening of Verdi’s
Requiem
had finished. Fenwick sensed a tension in the choir sufficient to make him concerned. He was starting to move forward towards the dais when a wall of sound from the ‘Dies Irae’ hit him. Unified sound from over a hundred voices and a weight of sheer musical power rolled across the cathedral. The hair on his arms, legs and neck rose in the unearthly charge. He found that he was holding his breath.
The music echoed up to the vaulted roof, rolling back down the walls, swirling around pillars. And Fenwick stood in the midst of it surrounded, all senses drowning in the unearthly sound. He had never had an experience like it. He felt vulnerable yet elated and somehow wildly excited. Through the music around him he felt connected to life, part of something massive of which he could only perceive a tiny fraction.
The sound moved on and the sensation passed. Repeats of
the chorus were small aftershocks and merely lapped his senses as he opened the libretto he had rolled tightly in one hand. Stunned, he fumbled through the pages to find the words that had inspired such creative genius.
From the sheer density and excitement of notes on the page he guessed where they might be. Eventually he found the chorus line and the words in the original Latin with a faint translation underneath: ‘
dies irae
… day of wrath’. He was chilled by the coincidence. Had Rowland known his music, he could not have chosen a more appropriate piece in which to attempt his murder.
As the music moved on, he found more and more relevance in the words: ‘
What a trembling shall possess them, when the Judge shall come to judgement, searching all the souls before Him!
’ First the bass, then the mezzo-soprano stood up to sing of death, terror and anger, before the repeat of the ‘Dies Irae’, just as loud and terrifying filled the hollows and tombs of that holy place again.
The frail mezzo-soprano stood again, on her own as the chorus seated themselves. Her beautiful, mellow voice reached even the distant walls. Used now to the way music and words were written down, Fenwick followed her solo with little difficulty. ‘
What shall I plead in my anguish? Who will help me
…’ Beside her to her right, now standing, Octavia’s face went from ivory to bone white as she joined in: ‘
Who will help me?
’ she sang, her voice rich, velvety, pure. Even the chattering police officers turned to listen. She stared out, over the empty seating, never glancing at the music in her hands. The terror in her was obvious as she stood in her blazing red and black. Below her, Nightingale’s tension was palpable as her hands locked together and her knuckles showed white as she tried to stop them shaking.
Then the chorus stood and the tension was broken again as Octavia and listeners lost themselves in the music. Around him Fenwick felt everyone return to the tasks they had left moments before. The rehearsal went on and on; the chorus stood then sat; the soloists as a quartet or singly rose and settled as the waves of music carried them forward. At no other point did Octavia
again appear so isolated and vulnerable and they all, bar Fenwick and Nightingale, started to relax.
Fenwick took a walk outside in the damp afternoon, too taut still to eat or focus, frustrated that Blite and Campbell clearly found him superfluous. He had become so accustomed to the background noise of the rehearsal from the cathedral that the silence outside disconcerted him. He walked back inside, assuming that the rehearsal was over.
He had been mistaken. Within the cathedral the chorus was standing, singing softly with the orchestra whispering accompaniment. A single soloist stood before them, her brightness a glowing contrast to their blacks and blues.
The chairman beckoned him over and, in a barely audible voice, told him: ‘This is the part I told you about, the “Libera Me”. Here, look, they’re on page 178.’
Octavia was barely breathing the words: ‘
Trembling, frightened, full of despair am I, full of terror and great fear, I am trembling with terror.
’ She was staring straight at Fenwick as she sang, her eyes dark and wet even at this great distance. Then, one final time, the chorus slammed into the silence with the ‘Dies Irae’, beating out the terrible warning as Octavia simply stood there transfixed and waiting. Fenwick started forward, to be closer to her, to show her he was there closeby, but the chairman grabbed his arm, his podgy hand surprisingly strong:
‘Wait. She has more yet. And that top B flat I told you about. It’ll come any minute.’
Sure enough the music died and Octavia’s solo filled the ancient cathedral again. Poignant, heartfelt, a prayer for peace repeated again. Hers was the single voice, pleading forgiveness for the frailty and failures of man, begging God for another chance and understanding. To the audience, Fenwick knew, she would be giving the performance of their lives; to the unseen slaughterer, her would-be assassin, she was pleading for her life.
The rehearsal ended in complete silence. Then the the choir and orchestra started laughing and clapping the soloists, praising
themselves, idolising Octavia. She had been magnificent, not only her voice but also the emotional quality of her singing had stirred them all. She stepped down from the dais and looked solemnly at Nightingale, who still sat, immobile in her chair, transfixed by the performance.
The man who ran at Octavia from behind a knight’s tomb was a blur in her peripheral vision. Nightingale was on her feet, leaping across the few short yards to intercept him before anyone else had even turned around. She caught him in a flying rugby tackle, pinning his legs and throwing him to the ground with the force of her momentum. The long black object he had been holding outstretched toward Octavia slithered across the marble floor to rest against the platform.
There were shouts from all around her as she felt the thud of feet vibrating through the floor and into her prone body where she lay across him. She grabbed the man’s arms, pinning them behind his shoulders, and rested her weight on her knee wedged into his back. No matter how hard she tried, she could not stop it shaking violently in the long seconds before the others reached her.
Three officers appeared, guns drawn and primed, all pointing at the skull of the spread-eagled man. He was trying to shout but his face was pressed hard into the unyielding floor, muffling and twisting his words.
One of the policemen fumbled in the man’s jacket and withdrew his wallet. ‘It says he’s Jason MacDonald, Press. What have you got to say for yourself?’
Two pairs of hands dragged him ungently to his feet. There was a trace of blood at the corner of his mouth which he wiped away gingerly with the back of his hand.
‘For God’s sake! What the bloody hell are you doing? I only wanted a photograph!’
‘Then why were you hiding away like that?’
‘I wanted a bloody exclusive!’
‘You wanted to frighten her!’ Nightingale was enraged. ‘You wanted to scare her into saying something that would give you a headline.’ MacDonald’s eyes shifted sideways.
‘Jason MacDonald? You’re the one who tried to release the story about our search here last week.’ A musty tweed jacket heralded the arrival of Cooper on the scene. He advanced to within inches of MacDonald’s shoulder, closely followed by Blite and Campbell.
‘Yes, hello. We meet again.’
‘Either this is a very elaborate cover, sir. Or he is who he says he is. I met MacDonald here last week.’
After a brief consultation with the editor of the
Chichester Times
, Blite was reasonably certain that the man was insignificant but he needed the distraction cleared out of the way. He also wanted to find out how the searchers had missed him.
‘Constable, call the local station. Warn them we’re bringing a suspect in for questioning. Ask them to hold him until we get there this evening.’
‘What!? You can’t do that. I’m a member of the Press. I have my rights.’
‘Indeed you do, Mr MacDonald. And I have mine. You are being arrested for breach of the peace and will be held pending release by the magistrate tomorrow morning. Thank you, Constable. Please take him away.’
A further, vigorous sweep of the cathedral and precinct found nothing. But for Fenwick it failed to remove the memory of Octavia’s petrified face turning helplessly from her ‘assailant’, to Nightingale, and back to him. She was resting now before dressing for the evening. It was five o’clock. Nightingale was with her.
It had been a struggle to eat even a spoonful of the smoked salmon, lightly creamed tagliatelle and spinach purée that her maid had prepared for her but Octavia literally forced the food down. Experience had taught her that a sustaining meal was essential before a performance. Others starved themselves, claiming that food depressed their voice but she knew that a little of the right food, a few hours before she sang, added power and gave her stamina.
Now she was resting, pink and tingling from an excellent shower, wrapped in Nightingale’s warm dressing gown, her own being too light for the miserable evening. There was a constant drizzle outside bringing an early dusk. She had to be in the cathedral in a tiny room they had put aside for her, by six o’clock. The performance was due to start at seven and the police wanted her safely installed before the crowds arrived. The journey from the hotel she was staying in would take less than ten minutes.
She couldn’t make herself think about the afternoon. She had had a superstitious faith in Fenwick, believing he could protect her from Rowland, whatever the odds. Their animal couplings had all been part of her sacrifice to that belief; if they did this together he could not possibly let her die. Now she knew differently. He was no longer in charge. Despite all his personal efforts and the dozens of police, someone had got through. And where one had been another could follow. Still she had been insistent that the performance should go on, and
the ACC had agreed. Life had to go on and he still seemed to judge the threat as small. He just couldn’t believe that Rowland could or would strike in such a public and well-guarded place.
