The Vows of Silence (24 page)

The truth was that she was a doctor. Just a doctor. She knew no more about how to cope with the person she loved dying of a brain tumour than anyone else, possibly less because she knew too much, looked for signs, interpreted everything. I should just get on with it. Get on with it, take it as it comes. Isn’t that what I say?
Just take one day at a time
.

She put the wine back in the fridge. On the worktop above it, a box of Chris’s medications. Later, she would take it upstairs.

She knew what rooms came to look like when people were dying in them, the clutter of medicine bottles and oxygen cylinders and syringe pumps. Would that happen here? Would Chris stay? Could she cope with that? Could the children?

The wind raced across the paddock and battered against the kitchen window and the headlights of a car
fanned out across the drive. Then Simon dived into the kitchen, brushing off the rain.

“Hey, Chris, good to see you home. How are things?”

Cat held her breath, waiting for some explosion of anger, a withering remark. She held out the bottle of wine but Simon shook his head, flopping down on the sofa next to his brother-in-law.

“So-so,” Chris said. “Better for being here. Bloody hospitals.”

“Be a lesson to you to stop sending people in there then.”

“You could say that. But since you ask, my head’s a hell of a lot better. It works, lessening the pressure. I thought it would be more painful post-op than it is. Shows they can saw your skull across with little ill effect.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“I get sick but there’s good medication for nausea. I get tired but so what, no one stops me from going to sleep. So all in all, yeah, I’m doing OK.”

Why? Cat thought as she drew the curtains across to shut out the storm. Why can’t he talk to me like that? Why didn’t he tell me? Why can he say those things to Simon, no problem, and not to me? I don’t know what’s going on here and I mind. It hurts.

“Any coffee?”

She nodded.

“How’s crime?” Chris was asking.

They talked on in the way they had always talked, easy with one another, and hearing Chris, laughing,
swearing, needling her brother, hearing but not seeing him, made it seem as if nothing was wrong after all, as if he were well and things were as they had always been. Nothing had changed.

It was only as Simon talked about police anxiety over the gunman, still somewhere out there, walking free, planning God knows what next, that she glanced at Chris and saw his face, drawn and gaunt, and with a strange, troubled expression.

“We’re stretched to breaking point, we have to cover the whole of the bloody Jug Fair full of families with kids, we have a cathedral wedding with royals coming and this damn gunman is giving us the complete runaround. I don’t often lose sleep over things but I’m waking in the small hours. We have got to stop him.” He banged his hand on the arm of the sofa. “We have got to get him.”

There was a short silence, before Chris said, “What are you talking about? What gunman?”

“Does a brain tumour affect your memory?” Simon said easily.

Cat waited, horrified, expecting Chris to turn in anger, as he had done to her several times that day, over less, far less.

But he only shrugged and said, “Apparently.”

He went to bed shortly afterwards, his face drained of colour, so exhausted that Cat had to help him wash and undress. He curled into the bed and groaned softly as he fell asleep.

“Can you stay?” she asked Simon, who was flicking through the television channels in the den when she returned.

“Not a hope, but I’ll have another coffee.”

“Judith and I are supposed to be taking the children to the fair but I wonder if it’s safe.”

“You’ll never be safer. We’ll have everything covered. Never mind the sniper, you won’t so much as stand a chance of getting your pocket picked.”

“Hope you’re right. Do put down that bloody remote.”

“Sorry. Chris looks bad but he seems in decent spirits.”

“To you.”

“What do they say?”

She shrugged. “They won’t. Can we talk about something else?”

“Depends.”

“Oh, you won’t want to, but you’re going to listen. Two Js. Judith Connolly. Jane Fitzroy.”

“Nothing doing, old girl. Do you want another glass of wine?”

“Sit down.”

But he was out of the room. She heard the sounds of kettle being filled, glass of wine being poured, cupboard doors banging. No, she thought, he’ll duck out of it, as ever. And suddenly, she didn’t care. She’d had enough. She was weary. Let Simon look after himself and let him think what he liked about their father.

He came back.

“Talk me through what kind of person shoots at random. It has to be a madman or someone with a grudge, but what grudge?”

Simon gave her a calculating glance. Drank. Said nothing. No, Cat thought. Nothing doing, as you said.

“We don’t know for sure it’s only one.”

“What, two gunmen?”

“Could be. The police are keeping an open mind, as they say. I think it’s one man. He can use a rifle, he can use a handgun. He can shoot at close range and at a distance. The Chief wants us to bring in a profiler. I’m against it, I think they’re useless. I can profile this bloke as well as anyone. Man. Loner. Gun-savvy. Grudge against women—it’s young women he’s shot. Clever. Cunning. Athletic. Good sight. Doesn’t stand out in a crowd. Local—knows the area well. Psychopath. Clear-headed—not on drugs, probably doesn’t drink, or not much. Good at covering his tracks. Easy when you know how. Now find him.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Wait till he slips up. Try and keep one step ahead—think like him. Difficult that.” He shook his head.

“You love it.”

“Yes. You didn’t hear me say it, but yes … this is the sort I like. Am I warped and twisted?”

“No. Fascinated by human nature and up for a challenge.”

“Right. I’d better go. God, I can’t take this in. This family doesn’t deserve another—” He stopped.

“Death. You can say it.”

“Yes …” He put his arms round her. “Might he be OK?”

“No,” Cat said, holding onto him tightly for a second. “No chance.” She moved away from him, walked
to the television and switched it off. Looked round. Say it, she thought. Say.

“Don’t leave it, Si. Don’t duck your feelings. It doesn’t come round again.”

But he turned away without replying, as she had known he would.

Fifty-one

There was a single note on the organ, the sign for everyone to turn and look round and of course, she was beautiful, Chelsea Fisher, the most beautiful bride in the history of the world, as every bride was. Her mother had wanted to make the dress, said it was a waste of money to buy off the peg, but this wasn’t off the peg, was it, this was Designer, she and her sister-in-law had been to London to the showroom. It had taken four fittings. Never mind what it cost, no one had to know, least of all her mother, and if it was the same price as half a new kitchen, who cared? No one, at this moment. Not her mother. Not Andrew, gone scarlet and then chalk white in the face as he watched her. No one.

It was tight, skimmed her so she could hardly walk, and it had a fishtail and a long train like a mermaid and she shimmered like one too, the fabric was some sort of gleaming, glistening, clinging magical substance
that blended with her, merged with her skin almost. The top was like silver snakeskin wrapped round her, but her long pale arms were bare, her shoulders covered with a wispy shrug of what felt like goose down. She had looked at herself in the mirror, looked at the tiny glittering tiara and the soft foaming veil, and floated away, then floated on Uncle Ray’s arm, floated in front of Lindsay and Flick and little Amy up the aisle towards Andrew and Father Brenner, grins a mile wide. Floated past them all, the hats and feathers and fascinators and pink georgette and lavender crêpe and black and white and purple cravats. Floated. Andrew’s mother had tears pouring down her face. Reached out her hand to touch the floating silk and gossamer and goose down as it drifted past.

Floated.

Andrew’s cravat looked odd. The pin was askew. She wanted to reach out and straighten it and her hand was shaking, the baby’s breath trembling at the edges of her bouquet. Andrew smiled.

Father Brenner beamed. There was a bumping and banging as everyone sat down behind her but she floated. Still floated. Behind her, little Amy whispered, asking what she had to do now. Lindsay whispered back. Andrew touched his hand to his cravat.

She went on floating.

The priest made them feel like the only people in the world and certainly the only ones he had ever married. He looked into their eyes and he smiled and when he said his few words, he made everyone laugh. Warm, Chelsea thought, it was a warm service, as if you were
being embraced by happiness and laughter and then, when he pronounced them man and wife, they turned round, embraced by the applause that pattered round the small, light church.

The thing that took her by surprise, holding tightly to Andrew’s hand as they started to walk down the aisle, was how quickly it was over. The months and weeks of preparation, the planning that had gone into the service, the printed sheets with the silver swans on the front, practising it a couple of times—and it was over, flash, gone and they were married. The doors at the back were opened and beyond them she could see bright sunlight shining on the white wedding car. They walked towards the brightness and it was as if they were walking towards their bright future. Everything was right.

Behind her, Amy’s new shoes slithered on the polished floor and she almost fell but, somehow, someone pulled her up and righted her and spoke to her to stop her making a fuss. Little Amy, who carried a rag doll dressed in the same outfit as her own.

There were a few people looking over the wall. You were not allowed to throw confetti but Andrew’s sisters surprised them with bubbles, pink bubbles blown out of the little wire wands, and the pink bubbles floated up into the air and burst softly, silently onto Chelsea’s hair and her dress and fell onto the gravel and rested there, iridescent, caught by the sun. Then everyone was coming out and crowding round, laughing and kissing and snapping small cameras and feathers bobbed on heads and a few of the men went a yard or two off and lit cigarettes. From behind her, Chelsea
heard the last bars of the organ music and then the church went quiet.

What happened next happened so fast it was like a film speeded up so that afterwards no one remembered it properly and everyone remembered something different.

Chelsea was beside Andrew but he had stepped forward and little Amy was pushing her way out to be in the front, to be seen and admired and photographed, and someone had given her a bubble pot and wand and she was trying hard to blow, but the bubbles wouldn’t form, the liquid simply spattered down her dress and onto the gravel. There was shouting—“Andy, turn round, get closer to Chelsea … Andy, look this way … Chelsea, over here”—and then a roar, a motorbike racing by. The rider … who saw the rider? Yes. Black leathers, helmet … he skidded up and seemed about to stop but as he stopped he was accelerating again, and in between, the split second of the flash, sunlight on metal, the loud bang and the flare and blaze and Andrew was spinning round and grabbing hold of his shoulder with the other hand. And Amy was falling slowly slowly slowly to the ground and her face and dress were pouring blood and the blood splashed out onto the gravel and splashed up, onto Chelsea’s wedding dress.

And people were screaming, screaming and in the midst of the screaming, the motorbike roaring away, wheels spinning and kicking up dust.

Someone was running. A couple of the men who had been standing by the wall smoking. They were
running together, jackets flying, down the road fast the way the motorbike had gone.

Running.

Chelsea’s dress was covered in so much of Amy’s blood that everyone thought it was her. Someone screamed, “The bride’s been shot … the bride’s been shot …”

But it was not Chelsea who was lying face down on the gravel, one hand stretched out and holding a rag doll. Beside Amy, the tub of bubble liquid spilled out slowly onto the gravel, mingling with spilling blood.

Fifty-two

“Breakthrough!” DC Louise Kelly threw her pencil in the air.

A small cheer went round the packed room but Serrailler shook his head.

“I know how you feel and I don’t want to rain on the parade but it’s a chink of light, not a breakthrough.”

“More than anything so far, guv.”

“It is—small mercies and all that.”

“So what exactly did these guys get?”

“Right. Three men, two of them wedding guests, one a passer-by. One of them ran all the way up Dedmeads Road after the motorbike. Got as far as the junction with the bypass where he lost it. But two of them who are into bikes give it as a Yamaha, probably an FJR 1300. Black. Looked fairly new. Plate concealed. One of the men noticed a small yellow strip on one side, possibly fluorescent. Biker wore black leathers
and helmet, no distinguishing marks, but he was seen leaning down to his right as he neared the top of the road, possibly stowing the gun into the pannier.”

“Anyone see him actually drive up to the church?”

“It’s confused. One person heard the noise. Motorbike engine very close—startled her and she turned but then there was a shout for the bride to turn towards a camera so she looked there. It happened very fast. The bridesmaid who died was pushing in front of the bride exactly as the shot was fired.”

“So he wasn’t aiming for the little girl?”

“Hard to say but probably not. We have to wait for ballistics to report on the likely line of fire but they think he was aiming to hit the groom. Andrew Hutt. There are some skid marks on the path and an oil mark. Forensics will report. Meanwhile, Dedmeads Road is cordoned off and I want an inch-by-inch search-hands-and-knees job. Traffic are on full alert throughout the county and surrounding. Now although I wouldn’t dare use the word breakthrough, DC Kelly is right, this is the first time he’s been sighted and once he gets bolder he’ll start to make mistakes. He thinks he’s several miles ahead of us and he’s cocky.”