Requiem Mass (8 page)

‘I’m a writer. I like to get away for the peace and quiet.’

There was a distinct emphasis on the final words.

‘Yes, well, I suppose that explains it.’

‘Yes, I’m sure it does. Now, if you don’t mind, I really do have a lot to get back to.’ The dog, now showing distinct signs of life, was sniffing the air greedily and trying to move between and around his legs. Given the interesting smells that must be reaching his nose from the small back bedroom the man was keen to close the door on the prying hound as soon as possible.

‘Right, well, I’ll be off then. If you do happen to fancy popping over for tea sometime, some tenants do, y’know …’ She could read in his face that his appearance at her kitchen table would be highly unlikely. ‘No, well, I doubt you would if you’re a writer. Like to be alone, I suspect. But if anything does go wrong, or if you need something, my number’s by the phone, you can’t miss it, 2813. I’m only a couple of miles away, further down the track on the way to the village, and I can be over here within fifteen minutes in the Jeep if it’s important.’

‘I’ll be sure to remember that. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.’

He shut the door on the valediction and the dog’s probing nose.

‘I’ll bet it’s no problem for you to pop over here,’ he said out loud to himself as he walked back to the kitchen. ‘I’ll bet you do it all the time, poking your nose around, just to make sure
everything’s all right, of course. Know where the spare key is too, I expect!’

Her knock at the door had decided him. He couldn’t risk an intrusion, couldn’t rely on the occupant of the back bedroom going unnoticed for any length of time. He would have to act now. A strange, alien emotion moved through him, disturbing him deeply. He searched his mind in vain to try to identify what it was, like an amnesiac hunting the vital clue to bring recall, but recognition remained out of reach.

The feeling remained with him as he made his preparations. It was only at the last moment, as he found himself pulling on the unnecessary anonymity of his black mask, that he realised what it was. It was sadness; knowing he had to kill her had made him sad. It was unbelievable after all these years that he could experience such an emotion. Mild regret, anger, hate, relief – he had felt all these as he had prepared to kill in the past, but never sadness. The feeling stayed with him as he made his way to the small back room.

PART TWO

LIBER SCRIPTUS

Liber scriptus proferetur,

in quo totum continetur,

unde mundus judicetur.

Open lies the book before them,

Where all records have been written,

When creation comes to trial.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘It’s good to see you back, Andrew. Take a seat.’ The Assistant Chief Constable radiated a kindness and concern that his visitor would happily have done without.

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘How are the children?’

‘They’re well, thank you.’

‘Good, good.’

There was a pause in which Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Fenwick could see the ACC worrying over whether he should probe further into his family life and personal circumstances. It would be inappropriate – the two men had never got on, particularly since the ACC had quietly failed to back Fenwick’s last bid for promotion. Fenwick wasn’t supposed to know why he hadn’t been put forward, but he did. These things had a way of becoming known within the force.

‘Now that you’re back, we need to make sure that you’re busy – but not too busy, eh?’

‘There is no reason why I shouldn’t resume my full workload, sir.’

‘No, no, of course not, but I don’t want to see you overdoing it. You’ve additional responsibilities now at home, after all, and we need to be sensitive to that.’

‘I can assure you that my home life is in good hands. My mother is living with us now and has everything under control.’

The ACC looked surprised but was too skilled to show disappointment.

‘I’ve assembled a number of interesting files for you. Some of them are cases that have gone a little cold but I doubt that will be a problem for you. I want to continue your attachment to HQ. The Division’s doing fine without you and we have more than enough here to keep you busy.’

A desk job
, thought Fenwick. ‘I’d really rather be back at Division, sir. I’ve missed it.’

‘You’re needed here, Detective Chief Inspector, and they have their full complement.’

‘But I’ve been reading about this spate of car thefts around Harlden and the Weald. They’ve been going on for a long time; it’s obviously well organised. I could give it a good go.’

‘Inspector Blite already has that well in hand, Fenwick, and I need you here.’

Inspector
Blite. That explained it all. The weasel’s promotion had come through at last, just when Fenwick had been hoping there was some justice in the world after all. He should have known better.

Back in his cramped temporary office, Fenwick started to sort the files he had been given. Some were even dusty. In the middle there were two red-foldered complaints. Both had been logged but neither was deemed serious enough to involve a Police Complaints Authority follow-up. That was one relief at least, but inspecting the force’s dirty linen was nobody’s favourite job.

The Chief Constable still hadn’t set up a central complaints department but expected the ACC to ensure there was no hint of any complaint not being followed through effectively. The force had received forty-eight complaints the previous year, all logged and notified to the PCA. Nearly half had been dropped in the end; complaints and accusations often went away when tempers cooled. Many of the others had been resolved informally, members of the public reluctant to go through a time-consuming formal process. The remainder, though, received the full works.

It was hell for the force officer put in charge of the investigation either way. If you screwed it up, and that was found out, your career was finished. If you found there were
genuine grounds for complaint you had the difficult choice of blowing the whistle and finding it hard to live with your colleagues or keeping quiet and it becoming impossible to live with yourself.

Fenwick was known to be scrupulously fair, so black and white they had nicknamed him the Zebra at HQ. He was diligent enough to be relied upon to do a thorough job, tough enough to take the crap and sufficiently intelligent to see through the deceptions that would be put his way. In other words, the perfect fall guy.

At least there were only two complaints. Fenwick scanned the rest of the files quickly. Half of them could be ignored straight away. They were cases so old, and more importantly so trivial, that they had obviously been added to make up the weight of the pile. The rest was paperwork, statistics for reports to be completed by the end of the month. Cursing the ACC he settled behind the scarred desk in the cramped cubicle and thought almost affectionately of his old office at Division, in Harlden.

Fenwick opened the first complaint file later in the long, dull day and consoled himself with the thought that at least he would be home before the children were in bed. Half an hour later he was still reading, oblivious of the time. He then tried to telephone around the area to talk to the various officers involved and spent over an hour tracking them down and taking notes. His luck was in as he discovered that the duty sergeant he needed to talk to was about to come off shift and he drank two cups of tea in the canteen whilst he confirmed the main details and filled in the blanks.

It was nearly six o’clock when a casual ‘good night’ from someone in the corridor reminded him that he had been planning to leave early. One of the many disadvantages of working at HQ was that it added another forty-five minutes to his journey home. He reached for the telephone to make his guilty apology.

The receiver was picked up within three rings.

‘Hello, 526592, whospeaking please?’ A breathy falsetto
told him that his call had been answered by the brightest star in his personal constellation.

‘Hi, Bess, it’s Daddy. Why aren’t you in bed yet?’

‘Daddy! I’m waiting up for you. Nanny says I can ’cos I didn’t see you much yesterday.’ She paused. ‘You
are
coming home soon, aren’t you?’

‘Not for a while yet, sweetheart. I’m afraid I’m going to be at work a little longer.’

‘Oh.’ The disappointed whisper spoke volumes. He strained to hear whether there were tears there too.

‘What have you done today then? Was being back at school fun?’ Normal conversation helped Fenwick even if he doubted it would work on his five-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

‘No, school was horrid, really, really horrid. Mrs Goss was cross with us all day and we weren’t allowed to play outside ’cos of the rain, and smelly Jimmy Barnes hit Christopher over the head with a spade when they were playing with the sand, and made it bleed, and I got told off and it wasn’t even
fair
’cos
I
didn’t do anything. Just ’cos I gave Chris my hankie for the blood. It was horrid!’

Fenwick was immediately concerned for his younger child. ‘Is Christopher all right, Bess? How bad was his head?’

‘Well, he’s gone all quiet – like he does when you don’t like it, Daddy. He’ll talk to me but he won’t eat his tea and he’s not talking to Nanny.’

‘Oh dear. I’d better speak to her then and try to talk to Chris. But are you all right, little one?’

‘I’m fine … I miss you, though, Daddy,
lots
! Nanny’s very nice and she gave me a lovely tea but, well … she’s not you.’ Again the final words emerged as a whisper, almost lost in the static of the line.

‘I know, but look, don’t worry. Only one more day to the weekend and, remember, I don’t have to work this Saturday.’ He crossed his fingers and hoped.

‘I know but, well, things happen, don’t they, and you can’t help it – something always comes up in your job – doesn’t it?’

He couldn’t help smiling at a five-year-old copying his own
lame excuses exactly; she not only knew them backwards, she believed them too!

‘Put Nanny on now, dear. Night-night and God bless.’ He blew a kiss down the line quietly, hoping no one was still around to hear, and was promptly rewarded with her return blessing. Thank heavens for Bess. Without her over the past few months he didn’t know to what depths he might have descended.

‘Hello, Andrew. Late already?’ His mother’s tone delivered as sharp a slap as her hand used to.

‘Yes, Mum. Sorry. Things are impossible here. Look, how’s Christopher? What’s all this about him being hit at school?’

‘Yes, he was hit, but to be honest it was nothing out of the ordinary for boys of his age. Mind you, I think Bess delivered more damage. Apparently she really laid in to the lad that hit Christopher and he was either well-mannered or frightened enough not to hit back! You know what a tiger she can be over her brother. They had to pull her off the other boy and she was made to sit in the corner for the rest of the afternoon.’

‘So that’s why she was told off. The little madam! I’m glad I didn’t know earlier – I’d have had too much sympathy to tell her off myself. And what about Chris?’

There was a pause in which he could hear his mother closing the door. ‘Well, it’s not good. Oh, the bump on his head is nothing – he’s had worse. But I’m really worried about him, Andrew. I can’t get a word out of him and he’s started that rocking again. He hasn’t done that since he lost his mother.’

‘Should we take him back to the doctor’s, do you think?’

‘We’ll have to. There’s no way he can go back to school tomorrow. They can’t keep an eye on him all the time.’ She paused to draw breath. ‘In fact, Andrew, I don’t think he should go to that school any more. We really need to consider finding a proper school for him.’

‘Hang on a minute! We’ve been over this before. It’s a big decision. Give Christopher more time to settle down – he’s only been back a day. He was happy enough there before.’

Fenwick squared his jaw firmly, ageing and hardening his face. Christopher had never been an emotionally robust child
and his father had attached great hopes to the steadying effects of his attending a ‘normal’ school now that he was just old enough. He was convinced that the boy needed to be in the real world of the village and that the rough and tumble of the other children would do him good. Privately, he thought that too much mollycoddling had contributed to the boy’s sensitivity in the first place.

‘Andrew, we’ve been over this before, time and again. I know he’s your son but it’s time to face facts.’ She lowered her voice further. ‘You must accept that Christopher is not a well little boy. He’s deeply disturbed and he’s nowhere near recovering from the loss of his mother; he still misses her deeply.’

‘But he’s near Bess now, Mum, every day, don’t forget that.’ Fenwick could hear an acknowledgement of defeat nibbling at the edges of his words. He knew what his mother would say next before the sentence was out of her mouth.

‘Bess’s not yet six years old, Andrew. It’s totally unfair to rely on her. We need expert advice and help. You’re being unfair to all of us with your pig-headedness, me included and Christopher most of all.’

‘Look, we can’t discuss this now. Take him to the doctor’s tomorrow and get his opinion by all means, then we’ll talk again.’

He cleared his throat to recover his normal tone of authority. ‘I’ll have a word with Chris now, if I may.’

‘I’ll see if he’ll come to the phone. What time are you coming home, by the way?’

‘I’m not sure. Looking at this lot it could be an hour or so yet.’

‘Give me a call before you set off then and I’ll put your supper on to warm.’ The muffled clunk of the handset on the table announced her departure before he had a chance to say thank you. It was amazing the way she could always maintain the moral advantage. She really was an exasperating woman but he would not have been able to keep his children at home without her.