Requiem Mass (4 page)

‘Unless you’d prefer to ride in the back, madam? I just thought you’d be more comfortable in the front; people usually are.’ For the first time he looked her full in the face and smiled. With a small flutter Deborah realised that he was extremely attractive: older than she had first thought – but very good-looking and with a younger man’s physique.

‘Thanks. I’ll ride in the front with you. I prefer the front too.’

She slipped into the warm, leather-scented interior as he made sure that her dress was well clear of the door. The car nosed into thick traffic and he switched on the air conditioning. Soon the air was down to a pleasant temperature that did not rely on the recirculation of the fume-filled atmosphere outside.

‘As we have to go through one or two rough spots, Mrs Fearnside, do you mind if I lock the doors?’

‘No, that’s all right. I always drive with my doors locked these days; there are so many horror stories, I honestly don’t feel safe any more if I’m driving on my own.’

He smiled reassuringly and all four doors locked automatically with a satisfying, synchronised clunk as the car purred its way slowly through the tightly packed cars around Buckingham Palace. Most of his concentration was on driving smoothly through the late rush-hour traffic. At all costs, he wanted to avoid any sort of accident that might draw attention to them. Some of his awareness, however, was still focused on the woman beside him. The next half-hour was the most dangerous and difficult part of his plan. If she became suspicious or upset in any way now, he had few non-violent options for dealing with her. He did not believe that she knew London well, so he thought he had at least another ten minutes
before the signposts started to hint that they were heading away from the direction she had taken previously to reach the ‘studios’.

In the meantime, he needed to build up her confidence in him. His intuition told him that gentle flirtation would be the easiest way to create a relaxed and intimate atmosphere between them.

‘Are you quite comfortable, Mrs Fearnside? Is the temperature all right for you?’ He treated her to a sidelong glance from amber eyes which, he calculated, should convey a hint of attraction and definite approval of what he saw, though in truth, he had no sexual interest in her whatsoever. In a purely academic way he was aware that she could be described as very attractive – a factor which would be a hindrance from now on as there was an increased risk she would be remembered by potential witnesses.

However, he had learnt to respond to his targets when necessary in the way they expected him to. This even extended to subtle modulations in voice, accent, and mannerisms. They’d had a behavioural psychologist in once who had explained that most people gained comfort from the subtle repetition of their normal behaviour by others in their company. Apparently he had a natural skill. Deep down, he felt nothing for her – no compassion, no pity – only a calculated interest in her likely reactions and a finely tuned sensitivity to her mood. There was no way that she would have been able to sense this, so polished was his performance.

‘I’m fine, thank you.’ Deborah thought she caught a hint of interest in the glance he gave her from deep tawny eyes – like a tiger, she felt. There was something slightly predatory in his manner, in the way that he looked at her, but his obvious interest in her transformed this into an exciting hint of danger. A warm feeling grew in the pit of her stomach. She felt no trace of alarm. ‘And it’s Deborah, please, not Mrs Fearnside.’

‘Right. Deborah it is. That’s a nice name. My sister had a friend called Deborah when she was at school; I always secretly fancied her. Do you know what the name means?’

She shook her head.

‘It comes from the Bible, somebody’s nurse, I think. Anyway, it’s the Hebrew word for bee – which can mean one of two things, diligence or sweetness. I learnt all this to impress that earlier Deborah but it didn’t do me much good!’ He laughed, the comfortable, relaxed sound of a man who could poke fun at himself without being worried. ‘For what it’s worth, I think the name suits you.’ He treated her to another of his sideways smiles.

To her consternation, Deborah found that she was blushing and hoped he had not seen. She was finding him increasingly attractive. For the first time she noticed that his voice was quite cultured, softly middle class, and she wondered why he had a job as a chauffeur.

Most of his attention was now focused on the traffic, which was typically heavy at that time in the morning. She looked at his hands on the wheel, long-fingered and strong in light-weight driving gloves. Her eyes travelled down until they reached his legs, sleek and athletic in dark navy trousers. Deborah realised with a start that she was staring and that her idle interest in him could be taken as serious unless she was careful. Naturally romantic and deeply frustrated, she recognised the danger signs in her behaviour. She waited impatiently for him to speak again.

After a few minutes of silence she ventured a comment of her own.

‘You mentioned a sister, do you keep in touch with her?’

‘Not as much as I’d like. She works abroad, in Brussels, so I see her only rarely. How about you – do you have brothers or sisters?’

‘I’m an only child. My father died a few years ago. My mother lives close by so I see her quite regularly – duty visits really as we don’t get on particularly well. My family life really revolves around my own family. I have two children, a girl and a boy.’

Deborah could hear herself wittering on and stopped abruptly. She was not sure why she had revealed so much of herself to a perfect stranger and she felt exposed. He was the sort of person, though, who seemed to invite confidences,
someone who appeared genuinely interested in her, despite the need to steer them through a mêlée of aggressive black cabs and suicidal courier bikes. Inevitably, she thought of Derek, who rarely displayed any interest in her conversation at the best of times and certainly not when he was driving.

He was aware of her growing interest in him and delighted in the additional power it gave him. She was perceptibly more relaxed and had inclined her legs towards him in an unconscious gesture of acceptance. More importantly, she was paying scant attention to the streets through which they were passing.

‘I have to stop for a moment and pick up some clothing samples to take to the office. I hope you don’t mind but I didn’t want to risk collecting them earlier and making myself late for you. It’s on our way and’ll only take a moment.’

‘That’s fine. You seem to be making good time despite the traffic and we don’t need to be there until ten o’clock, do we?’ Deborah returned his grateful smile and settled back more comfortably in the leather seat.

He pulled slowly into a side road off Kensington High Street and then turned carefully into a small mews that ran down from it at right angles. He had picked the spot a few weeks earlier and visited it a couple of times since to confirm the choice. Most of the residents would, by this time, have left for work and it was too early for the few that remained to be setting out for the shops. He drew up in front of a double garage on the shady side of the street where two ornamental bay trees in tubs provided screening on the passenger side of the car.

He opened the driver’s door, which automatically released the other locks and the boot. Leaving his own door open, he walked around to the boot and unzipped the small black holdall he had left there, taking from it a prepared hypodermic. In the shadow of the boot lid, screened from both the street and the occupant of the car, he carefully checked the measured dose in the syringe, then concealed it along the length of his open left hand.

Speaking just loudly enough for his voice to reach her inside the car, he called out: ‘Mrs Fearnside, I’m sorry to trouble you
further but could you just give me a hand with this, please?’

Deborah roused herself from an idle daydream and undid her seat belt. She moved to open her door but realised with a smile that he was there already, the perfect chauffeur, ready with a hand to assist her from the car. He was standing with his back to the rear passenger door, his right hand outstretched ready to help her from the car. Still in her seat, she lifted her own left hand to him, experiencing a small thrill as their flesh touched. He gently turned her hand, as if to kiss it. She looked up expectantly into his eyes and was startled by the intensity of his gaze.

Deborah felt a sudden shudder of fear as she realised she knew nothing about this strange, compelling man bending over her with such sense of purpose. She tried to remove her hand from his. In that instant, his grip tightened. His left hand came over and he smoothly inserted the needle into the soft vein on the back of her hand. She had time to murmur a soft ‘No’, before the fast-acting tranquilliser hit her nervous system and plunged her into semi-consciousness.

He had given her the maximum dose he could based on her height and weight, so obligingly provided in her application. The whole episode had lasted less than a minute. He gently redistributed her unconscious body, reclined the seat and refastened her seat belt. From the back seat, he took a small cushion and placed it behind her neck, supporting her head and preventing it from lolling to the side. His peaked cap and chauffeur’s jacket went into the holdall in the boot of the car.

As he drove back out of the mews, they looked a perfect couple; she tired and solicitously cushioned for the journey, he smart in a white shirt and dark tie, perfectly in control of the steady, stately BMW. He had originally contemplated carrying her in the boot but had dismissed the idea. With the random road blocks in London and police stop and search powers, there was always the risk, however remote, that he could be pulled up by a routine patrol. A sleeping wife whilst he responded to questioning would not be unusual; an unconscious woman in the boot of the car would be hard to explain.

He calculated that he had six to eight hours before she started to come round, ample time to reach their destination. Driving quickly and confidently on the speed limit, he continued along Kensington High Street, out past Olympia and on to Hammersmith. He took the M4 west and within two hours was well past Reading. Deborah was still unconscious when he left the motorway and Severn Bridge behind and was making his way down a rutted track in the Black Hills beyond Monmouth. After a few more miles, a small holiday cottage came into view.

During the ride west, the sky had clouded over and darkened to a storm grey in front of them. The first heavy drops of what promised to be a sustained downpour fell on his bare head as he unlocked the cottage front door.

Returning to the car he replaced his leather driving gloves with thin, skin-tight latex ones and then put a similar pair on to Deborah’s hands. He lifted his passenger out gently and carried her into a small downstairs bedroom at the back of the cottage, laid her on the bed, and returned to collect the remainder of his supplies before concealing the BMW in a nearby barn.

Within an hour, he had completed all the necessary arrangements with an economy of effort natural after years of training. The bed had been stripped and large, thick plastic sheets spread on top and underneath it. Deborah’s inert body had been stripped naked except for a shower cap on her head and the rubber gloves on her hands. Her wrists and ankles were secured to the heavy iron bedframe with nylon ropes. The curtains were drawn and what little light there was came from a 40-watt bulb inside an incongruous frilly pink shade hanging from the centre of the low ceiling.

On a solid, crudely crafted chest of drawers, he had laid out commercial paper towels, a fresh pair of gloves, an apron, a gag in case it was needed and a large jug of cold water. There was no heat in the room and the rising storm wind whistled through cracks in the wooden window frame. On the bedside table, where her waking eyes would see them, he finally placed his instruments – scalpels, a filleting knife, a thin piece of cheese wire with wooden handles, pliers.

When all was ready he settled down to a strong mug of fresh coffee in the pretty country kitchen and prepared a light meal from his stock of provisions. About now, she should start to come round. She was completely secured, the door was locked and she could scream her head off without there being any danger of her being overheard. The cottage was isolated. True, he had seen on the Ordnance Survey map that even this remote tract of land had its footpath which might tempt a particularly ambitious walker, but on this increasingly stormy and grey evening, he doubted he would be troubled. He would be left alone to his work.

CHAPTER FOUR

Shortly after five o’clock, when the storm outside was gusting around the cottage shutters and howling down the chimney, he heard a different low-pitched moan, emanating from within the house. He waited patiently, knowing that shortly it would rise to a shriek to rival the most fearsome wailing of the storm. Part of him, deep inside, was aware that he would find the next few hours unpleasant. He suppressed the thought as soon as it started and schooled himself to his normal state of calm. She was only a woman but they could be more cunning and deadly opponents than men.

With care, he put on his disguise. He hadn’t bothered with one before but after some deliberation, he had decided that she would be more co-operative if she felt that there was a chance of life. And she was clever enough to realise that any kidnapper who revealed himself to his victim would never let her go alive. The idea of a disguise also comforted him. He would find it hard enough to do what he needed to do, but to reveal who he really was, and to see her recognise, despise and hate him was more than he could stand. It was important that she did not see the chauffeur in him now.

The minimal disguise was prepared quickly; light body padding under a loose black shirt and two pairs of jogging trousers made him look at least fourteen pounds heavier. Coloured contact lenses – a dark brown was needed given his deep amber eyes – and a hint of shading in the sockets changed his expression completely, making him expressionless yet
sinister. A heavy gold chain around his neck and a tight-fitting Balaclava completed the transformation. He still wore his gloves; they had not left his hands since he had entered the house. When he glanced at himself in the mirror over the kitchen range he was satisfied with the bullying figure that stared back at him.