Requiem Mass (49 page)

All the choirs and orchestras had been rehearsing separately, helped along by the lead conductor and the director who had the unenviable task of co-ordinating the voices. The first rehearsals as one group had been on Sunday; it had not quite been a total disaster. Monday was to be a challenging day.

The cathedral had been closed to tourists and worshippers since Evensong and overnight the electronic sensors at the entrances had been wired up, forcing musicians and technicians to walk through metal doorways on their way to the dais. Some members of the choir and orchestra were intimidated by the extensive security, with members of the brass section defending their instruments from dismantling police hands; searching became less intrusive after a trombonist nearly came to blows with a plain-clothes policeman.

The smallness of the nave restricted the combined orchestra size, but nevertheless the area before the choir was bristling with music stands and chairs. In the triforium above the nave the trumpeters settled on to small stools, crammed into the narrow space. A decision had been taken to intersperse the youth orchestra with select members of the local professional chamber orchestra.

The first full run-through on Monday morning was ragged. The conductor had a real problem with the brass section and an over-enthusiastic timpanist. Police searches and sniffer dogs in the aisles didn’t help but by mid-morning there was a renewed sense of cohesion and purpose. The lunch break, spent indoors avoiding the drizzle outside, was almost cheerful. There was
only one rehearsal left before the soloists arrived and the conductor decided he was ready to do a complete run-through. The effect was electrifying for choir and orchestra alike. For the first time since the rehearsals began, many of the seasoned performers felt their hairs prickle and rise in the thrill that only great music can provide. The conductor felt ready to face the soloists.

Police checks were becoming more urgent. All members of the orchestra and choir had given their names, addresses and telephone numbers to a team of six uniformed police, who were using every available phone to confirm their identities. Cooper was feeling quietly confident that they would finish their work before the main performance when Fenwick upset everyone by suggesting that all the organisers, friends of the cathedral and technicians would need to be checked out too. Blite had no option but to agree. As people were constantly moving around the cathedral, Cooper resorted to marking the backs of their hands with pink felt-tip pen, as they took their details, to keep tabs on them all.

Finally: ‘All done, sir. We’ve got all their names down now.’

‘Who’s that up there?’ Cooper followed Fenwick’s outstretched hand up to the triforium above the nave.

‘The trumpeters, sir; they’re done.’

‘No, next to them – with the microphone.’

‘That’s a sound technician, Chief Inspector.’ The chairman of the organising committee came up to him smiling.

‘I’ve heard nothing about a sound recording.’

‘I thought you’d been told. Look, I have a letter here confirming the final details.’

‘It’s dated only last month.’

‘I know. Poor Katherine Johnstone had been organising it and, to tell you the truth, we’d all forgotten about it. But they confirmed arrangements out of the blue; wrote to me direct when they couldn’t reach Kate. And it’s an excellent deal. The charity receives a down payment for the recording rights and a percentage on the royalties.’

Fenwick studied the letter. It was written on the letterhead
of a well-known recording company and looked authentic. Attached to the back was a photocopy of Katherine Johnstone’s original letter, badly smudged at the top. It was chatty, not as businesslike as he would have expected. He started to hand it back; he was being too cautious now, doubting everyone.

‘Do you want that checked as well then, sir?’

‘You might as well, Cooper. See if you can confirm who signed the letter and that the technician up there works for the company.’

Cooper approached the sound recordist as he went to make a final check on the microphones by the choir. They could hardly make themselves heard over the din of the brass from above. One trumpet was still badly off key.

The sound man looked tall, even bending down, but seemed far too old to be Rowland. What little hair there was left on his head was grey, as was an incongruous goatee that straggled from his jaw. He had a letter of authorisation on him, an ID card from the same firm and a driving licence. He was tolerant but bemused by Cooper’s questions and as time passed, became impatient to move on.

‘Are you here by yourself?’

‘Now, yes. There were others here during the week and Alec should be here any time, he helps. But mainly it’s me. I’m testing levels right now and I need to finish these adjustments before the soloists arrive.’

‘Do you have your boss’s home phone number?’

‘Course not! Why should I? We hardly know each other socially.’ He had an indistinct Midland’s accent that grew stronger as he became irritated.

‘All right, but don’t run away. I might need to talk to you again.’

Cooper reported back; the man seemed genuine but they were trying to find someone senior in the company anyway. Virtually all the trumpeters had been cleared as well and Fenwick was running out of suspects. He couldn’t believe Rowland would simply turn up in the audience. He suggested another sweep for explosives and went to confer with Cooper.

* * *

Jason MacDonald was on the case. More correctly, he couldn’t leave the cathedral story alone. Despite the suppression of his earlier piece, he was drawn by the sense of a major story about to break and agonisingly aware that he was the only journalist close enough to know it was happening.

It had been easy to use the confusion of the choir’s arrival to enter the cathedral, and as the police fretted their time away to lunch, he had lain hidden in a patch of deep shadow in a narrow gap behind a restored tomb, occasionally dozing, only to jerk awake to check the time.

Harper-Brown, the ACC, arrived unannounced shortly before the full afternoon rehearsal. His anxiety at being in the front line of a dangerous and complex operation was thinly concealed beneath a veneer of ill-timed bonhomie. It irritated Fenwick to note that the stance appeared to work with police and organisers alike when it was so transparent to him. The ACC was caught in a trap of his own making, unable to acknowledge the full danger because of his earlier rejection of Fenwick’s theory, but equally unable to deny that the probable next target of a serial killer, of whom he had lost all trace since the bombing, was appearing in public in less than six hours, in front of three hundred people. On top of which, Fenwick made him uncomfortable with his knowing, clever expression that he was still too stupid to conceal. Harper-Brown spent some time talking to two men, Blite and someone Fenwick didn’t recognise, and when he moved towards the Chief Inspector, he was visibly more relaxed.

‘How do you think it’s going, Andrew?’

The use of his Christian name put Fenwick on immediate alert.

‘I think you’ve done all you can do in the circumstances, sir. It hasn’t helped having almost a couple of hundred musicians swarming all over the place, leaving bags and coats everywhere, but the local team seem to have them in order now. I haven’t spoken much to the other man working with Blite – he keeps
himself to himself – but I guess he’s given you the briefing you need.’

The ACC looked uncomfortable. ‘Yes, yes, he’s quietly confident.’

Fenwick looked at the impressive figure of the ACC in his uniform and added, with regret, ‘It was a little tense at times with the musicians. It would help if you could go and thank the conductor, director and chairman of the organising committee for their co-operation, sir.’

‘Of course, happy to do what I can.’ There was a pause in which Fenwick could not bring himself to meet the ACC’s eye. ‘Oh, by the way, as we haven’t found Rowland, I’ve pulled in some more men; they’re being deployed now. Any thoughts on where they’d best be put? Campbell, the, er, local man, and Blite have it all under control but your advice is always welcome.’

Campbell and Blite had made the exact opposite clear to Fenwick when he had arrived and it was only the loyalty of Cooper and his West Sussex CID friends that had enabled him to exert any influence over the arrangements in the cathedral at all. One hundred smart remarks fought for the privilege of being spoken but they remained on the tip of his tongue. The ACC had to be treated as an ally if they were to save Octavia’s life.

‘It would be difficult to assimilate a lot more at this stage, sir. But perhaps Campbell could deploy another six or eight inside and use the rest to throw a wide cordon around the cathedral, close enough in to give us full back-up in case anything happens.’

The ACC regarded Fenwick with renewed respect; there hadn’t even been a hint of ‘I told you so’ in his reply and no obvious rancour at not being in charge.

‘The AFOs, and vests for every attending officer, are arriving at any moment. I’ve authorised release of weapons to all qualified fire arms officers, by the way. I expect you’ll be wanting one?’

‘No, not me, sir.’

The ACC looked around the massive building. Sniffer dogs were on the last lap of a final sweep; police officers stood at every door, even those locked and bolted; some AFOs were already in position at key points along the nave, in the choir and in the triforium above, as were the specialists supplied by the Ministry of Defence about whom only the ACC, Campbell and Blite were aware. He had been delighted when they had been offered by an old school friend now well placed in the Ministry. Co-operation these days always went down well, and it was a useful complication if things did go wrong. Besides, they were not on his budget. He knew that Fenwick wouldn’t approve and hadn’t told him. Fortunately they were so well disguised that they blended in perfectly. Even now, he couldn’t distinguish them from the musicians and their helpers. Blite had been very co-operative about the specialists, recognising the advantages at once. There were eight of them at strategic points. They could cover all the potential sniper positions from where they stood, as well as a large portion of the audience and orchestra. They were in touch with each other and Campbell through discreet radios and concealed receivers.

A flurry of activity at the main door announced the arrival of the soloists. Octavia Anderson came in shaking rain from a large golf umbrella. She was laughing; Nightingale was with her. She was dressed warmly in fine black, woollen trousers and a fluffy cashmere sweater the colour of fire, from which her compelling ivory face rose surrounded by a mist of black hair. Raindrops sparkled in delicate curls as she moved forward under the bright spotlights that lit the nave and dais. Her height and strange beauty made her an imposing figure despite her deceptive slenderness. But what held and captivated every person in the building, as she walked the long length of the aisle, was her presence. The artist in her made even this small progression a performance that reached out to capture her impromptu audience. Octavia went straight to the conductor and greeted him like an old friend. He, honoured and flattered, fussed around her, kissing her hand, holding her delicate long fingers in his own podgy fists as he introduced her to the leader
and the choir director, his standing immediately enhanced in their eyes. There was a flutter of welcoming applause from the choir and then, as the other soloists filed in and took their places, an expectant hush.

‘I didn’t know she was so beautiful.’ The ACC addressed no one in particular. Fenwick, choking on memories of moonlight and fire, could not bring himself to answer.

The full rehearsal got underway with relatively little fuss, each soloist conveying a professional confidence that helped calm amateur nerves. Next to Octavia the mezzo-soprano looked impossibly tiny – five foot two, with a cherubic face and wicked grin. Her light brown curls looked flat and dull beside the soprano’s. It was difficult to believe that she could produce a cathedral-size voice but her opening lines in the ‘Kyrie’ were magnificent.

The tenor was clean-shaven, Germanic, expressionless until he started to sing and then his pale blue eyes were incandescent. Beside him the bass redressed the balance of the quartet, a fitting counterpoint to Octavia, standing shoulders above the others on the conductor’s right as he faced the choir. Well over six foot, African-American, the bass’s powerful face and barrel chest hinted at a voice to command armies. Like Octavia, he barely referred to the music he held incidentally before him. Instead he gazed out over the empty chairs, obviously impatient for the full performance to begin.

Fenwick noticed that the ACC had unconsciously sat down in front of a tight group of police officers and was listening intently to the music. The chairman of the organising committee bustled up to him with two libretti, one of which he thrust at Fenwick, the other at his superior.

‘Here, have a libretto. It’ll help you to appreciate the music,’ he whispered. The expression on Fenwick’s face must have told its own story for he added: ‘Don’t worry if you can’t read music, the words will give you enough clues – and you need to understand what they’re saying to appreciate it fully.’ A crescendo from orchestra and choir drowned out Fenwick’s answer; the ACC was surreptitiously flailing through the
pages, hoping to guess at his place.

‘It seems almost operatic in style.’ The ACC was now ignoring the libretto and had discarded it beneath his chair.

‘Oh, it is, yes,’ replied the chairman. ‘Not really a sacred piece at all. It’s true Verdi bel canto, a real challenge for the soloists.’

Fenwick could see the ACC struggling for a reply and enjoyed the moment.

‘Bel canto?’

‘Yes, you know. How can I put it? It means that somehow the voices are above and beyond the orchestra; they are more than just a vocal instrument, they become the heart of the piece.’

Another loud interlude from the choir drowned out the chairman’s hushed tones but he chatted on. Fenwick tuned out, leaving the ACC to nod occasionally as an indication of shared understanding. He tuned in again at the mention of Octavia’s name. The chairman’s repetitive style of conversation made it easy to follow what he had been saying.