Requiem Mass (31 page)

‘Like an identity tag, perhaps?’

‘Could’ve been. I only caught a brief look. And he had a small scar on his face, on his cheek – like you see in them German films.’

‘I see. Thank you, every little helps. See you in the morning.’ Nightingale turned to Cooper thoughtfully.

‘Sarge, our short list of people leaving the army – have you come across a Rowland?’

‘Let’s look.’ Cooper and Nightingale checked all the lists. ‘We’ve got two. One is a Linda – she’s in the clear, and a A. R. V. Rowland. Haven’t traced him yet. Why?’

‘I think I’ve worked out why Carol was in this country, and where she was staying. Supposing her parents had to emigrate when they did for job reasons – no choice. She’d have been studying for her exams and they wouldn’t have wanted to interrupt those. So she stays behind with Auntie and Uncle.’

‘Seems reasonable. And you’re saying she had a cousin – that he might be connected in some way.’

‘Could be. It’s another name to look for in the lists.’

Cooper grunted.

‘Oh, and by the way, our man in the florist could’ve been wearing a dog tag.’

Cooper groaned aloud.

‘Just thought I’d cheer you up!’

The beep of the fax machine interrupted their conversation. Constable Taylor went over and picked the flimsy sausage of paper from the floor.

‘It’s from the boss. He’s flying to Scotland tomorrow. Couldn’t get through on our phones! It says …’ Taylor read it silently: ‘Here, Sarge, you’d better read it yourself. Perhaps France wasn’t a complete jaunt after all.’

The fax was brief and to the point. 

Cooper,

Inconclusive trip in France but check out:

• ‘Victor’: have we come across someone of this name? I think he was a friend or relative of Carol Truman’s.
  
• Truman’s death: find out
  precisely
  who was where at the time, particularly the girls. Who was with her? I want to be able to re-enact it by the time I’m back – Friday.
  
• Roses: who’s been buying roses back home? Lots of them, dozens, and where are they being sent?
  

A. F.

P.S. And get some more phone lines!

‘Right, Victor’s mine. These records and reports are yours, Nightingale – you seem to get on so well with old files. You,’ he singled out Taylor, who had made the mistake of looking up, ‘the remainder of these files are yours. All of you, we’re looking for Victors now. And you, check out all the other florists locally, will you, see if they’ve had rose orders too.’

He hid his smile at the growing dismay in the room at the extra work. For the first time in two weeks he felt they had something real to focus on. He had been down many blind alleys working with Fenwick in the past, but he was just starting
to remember that they had always found the road in the end. He felt they could be just about to start off in the right direction again. He might even forgive Fenwick France.

He would not have done so if he had seen Fenwick at that moment, in a hired white evening jacket and black tie, settling into the front row of the dress circle.

It had been years since he had been to the opera. It had never been a favourite of Monique’s. He wondered if he could remember how to enjoy it. But as soon as Octavia Anderson came on, he was hooked again.

Sipping a cool glass of local Viognier during the interval Fenwick started a private game of spot the tourist. It was depressingly easy and by the time the warning bell for the Second Act sounded, he felt thoroughly belittled. All resentment evaporated though in the white heat of the performance.

The curtain fell at the end of the Second Act to a standing ovation. Fenwick was carried out into the foyer on a wave of euphoria. He ordered his third glass of wine with a return to his natural authority, flicked his jacket casually over his shoulder and was delighted to be mistaken for a family friend by a charming French lady of a certain age.

When he returned to his seat he found a square white envelope neatly perched on the upturned edge, his name written in a distinctive calligraphy:
If you have nothing to do this evening, meet me at Chez Gerard, at 11.30. They’ll have a table for supper, booked in my name. O.

Fenwick arrived at the restaurant early and was greeted with an indifference that changed to respect as soon as he gave his name.

‘Ah, yes. The
ami
de Mademoiselle Anderson.
Bien sûr
. This way, monsieur.’ It was obviously the best table. A complimentary glass of champagne arrived as he studied the menu; an almost affable wine waiter explained the finer points of the wine list in heavily accented but fortunately slow French.

Octavia arrived at nearly a quarter to twelve, as pale as ever but lit by an inner radiance and energy that charged the air
around her. The restaurant was filled with affluent opera-goers, replete with the rich performance. As she made her quiet but unavoidably obvious entrance they turned to her, tapping their neighbours’ arms to draw their attention. She smiled, pleased but modest, paused to shake proffered hands, received the maître d’s arm in escort and made her way resolutely to Fenwick’s side. As he reached his table, the room filled with muttered, then shouted cries of ‘
Brava!
’ By the time she reached his side nearly all the diners were on their feet, applauding her.

She deliberately kissed him on both cheeks, warm lips touching flesh not air. Even before she was fully seated, a bottle of complimentary champagne appeared and
petites bouchées
were placed on the table.

‘
Brava
.’ Fenwick raised his glass, meeting her eyes over the rim.

‘Thank you, Andrew. I’m glad you came, and I’m so glad you’re here.’ She reached over and touched his arm.

Over the champagne, the chilled soup, the fresh trout and the dessert she forbade him to talk about the performance. She wanted, she said, to talk about anything but that.

He told her about his career and his children By the time they were nibbling on champagne sorbet from a spun-sugar basket he had even told her about Monique.

‘Hence your French.’

‘My French? No. It’s not very good, I did very little at school.’

‘I disagree. The accent is good, the vocabulary too – and as for the grammar, I’m sure it is better than you think. That is one of the problems of being a perfectionist.’

She had deftly lightened the subject, saved him from a mournful introspection he would later have regretted, but once his mood had revived she returned to the subject of Monique as he ordered two
digestifs
.

‘How long has Monique been in hospital?’

‘Several months.’

‘And before that she’d been very ill for a year? More?’

He nodded.

‘It’s a long time for you to have been on your own, Andrew.’

‘Oh, my mother’s been very good.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

He saw her back to her hotel in the dark hours of the morning. The spent air of the previous day was still hanging exhausted in the streets. They walked over tarmac, cobbles, dry grass in a slow, lazy return to her icy, air-conditioned palace. The white of her skin reflected the moonlight. Despite the smothering, hot air, he shivered.

The champagne, the wines, the armagnac affected them both. As she stumbled, delicately, he steadied her. In the end it was easier to put an arm around her shoulders. They walked more slowly, paused more often, talked less, laughed less until they reached her hotel. The question went unasked. In the end it was easier not to answer. 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Fenwick arranged a case conference in Dorset for the Friday followed by a reconstruction of the accident in which Carol Truman had died. Nightingale had faxed her information to him, catching him during his brief visit to Scotland. They gathered at the local police station before setting off in an ill-assorted convoy to Durdle Door. Fenwick had with him a trim, agile woman who looked to be in her seventies, whom he introduced as Miss Dicks. She wore heather tweed and carried a substantial leather shoulder bag.

On the cliff top he assigned roles for the re-enactment and handed out a précis of Nightingale’s information to all the participants. He took Octavia’s part. Miss Dicks was to play herself.

‘I was one of the two teachers in charge of the group,’ she explained to the assembled police. ‘Mr Jackson is dead now. I was here in the car park waiting with Ken – Mr Jackson – and the rest of the girls. It was about three in the afternoon, after lunch. The Famous Foursome were always the last back. We had no concerns as we waited.’

‘But, Miss Dicks, there were five girls.’ Nightingale was unsure whether to interrupt but it was an important point.

‘Yes, little Leslie. I remember them all very clearly, even now. She always tagged along but she was never part of the group.’

Following Nightingale’s summary of the original notes and reports, all the police made their way west from the car park
along a footpath leaving Miss Dicks behind. The precise route had changed a little over almost twenty years; meandering to limit the erosion from thousands of tourists’ feet, but the broad direction was the same. The girls had walked about a mile and a half along the track, which dropped and rose with the swell of the cliffs.

They had found a spot to sunbathe and, typically according to their statements, had forgotten the time. Just before three, Kate Johnstone had noticed her watch, leapt up and told the others to hurry. As they shuffled to comply she started to jog back. All the statements agreed on this point. The detective constable playing the part of Kate obediently jogged away at a pace he judged consistent with that of an athletic teenage girl, timing himself as he went.

According to Deborah Fearnside’s statement at the time she followed shortly afterwards, first stopping to put on her shoes. A WPC left in her place. Cooper was taking the part of Leslie Smith. She claimed to have set off with Deborah and to have kept pace with her the whole way. Cooper paced off, leaving Fenwick as Octavia and Nightingale as Carol.

Octavia’s statement had been brief. She and Carol had been together. They had not run for the first part of the way but had been engrossed in conversation as they walked. The footpath had followed a sharp decline down into a dip, levelling out at the bottom for ten or twelve yards before rising steeply on the other side. Seeing the sharp dip and climb the other side, Octavia had decided to run down the slope and gather momentum to carry her up the other side.

Fenwick set off, noticing that clumps of gorse and broom bordered the path, thickening at the base of the cliff. At the bottom of the dip the chalk had broken into a loose scree that slithered as he slipped the last few yards.

Without pausing, he focused the momentum of his run on the climb the other side and was more than halfway up before he had to break his stride. He noticed that Cooper and the other two constables were out of sight, beyond the crest of the next hill. Looking back he could see no sign of Nightingale, the
gorse obscuring his view of the dip. Octavia claimed that she had paused before the top to catch her breath. Fenwick did the same. Then he climbed to the top of the slope. He could now see the three others making a slow descent to the distant car park. After a quick glance behind, still no Nightingale, he set off at a trot to join them.

After he arrived they waited a good five minutes before becoming concerned. Miss Dicks had indicated that she had a number of important observations to make about the reconstruction but preferred to wait until all five of them were together.

‘How long was it before you became concerned about Carol?’ Cooper asked, killing time.

‘Not long – I cannot remember exactly, no more than five or ten minutes I think, certainly.’

‘In your signed statement you said “less than five minutes after Octavia’s return”’.

‘As I said, Sergeant. Not long.’ Miss Dicks had dealt with far too many opinionated school children to be put off by Cooper’s normal style of interrogation.

‘If it was about five minutes, we should be heading back.’ Fenwick looked worried. ‘Nightingale should have been here by now. We agreed to meet back here. Even walking we’d have seen her coming down the slope by now.’

‘Still in role I see, Chief Inspector. That’s almost exactly what Octavia said.’

‘You have the most remarkable recall of events, Miss Dicks.’

‘I shall never forget a moment of that dreadful day, Chief Inspector, although I pray nightly that I might.’ She roused herself and picked up the stout bag, refusing all offers for it to be carried.

‘Come along, you may take my arm.’

The five of them followed the narrow path in a slow climb from the car park to the first ridge, then down into the gully with its flat oval bottom surrounded by gorse bushes on all sides, except that facing out to sea. There was no sign of Nightingale.

Now seriously concerned Fenwick sent one constable on to the sunbathing spot, another to the top of the ridge. Both returned shaking their heads, stones spinning out from their heels to ricochet off the bristled turf that ran from the chalk circle to the cliff edge. Miss Dicks stood by calmly as they searched in the thick bushes through which the path cut from east to west.

Despite his own preoccupation, Fenwick was forced to help Miss Dicks down the sharply inclined path. As soon as she was on level ground he left her and went off to search the south side of the clearing. There was a clear view out to sea. The chalk extended to the point at which the slope of the cliffs began. At first it was gentle, covered by sea grass and the rustling heads of thrift. After about five foot, the angle steepened sharply and the slope ran at forty-five degrees before being sliced off by a precipitous drop down bare-sided cliffs to the rocks and sea below.

He peered out gingerly and found his view of the rocks obscured by a green carpeted overhang less than ten feet below. There was no sign of Nightingale. As he turned back he caught sight of tufts of dark hair poking up over the edge of the cliff. He let out a shout.