Requiem Mass (9 page)

Fenwick stared blankly at the half-screen opposite his desk.
The dark brown material was curiously empty – devoid of the usual clutter of photographs, maps and notes associated with current cases. He had no open cases, he reflected ruefully. No cases, bugger all career. That was what extended compassionate leave did for you. He looked darkly at the pile of files on his desk.

One of them might yet present a hope of rebuilding his reputation. As he waited on the line, he was tormented again by memories of the previous six months. How could he have missed the signs, first with Monique and now with Christopher? After all these weeks he still cursed his myopia over his wife’s steady decline. Perhaps if he had been more attentive, had been at home more often, he would have been alert and they would have been able to do something. He was a detective, for God’s sake; it was his job to detect, to spot clues, to create whole pictures from a jigsaw of evidence. And he had failed on his most important case – his wife’s health.

The doctor and their friends had tried to comfort him, of course, when the prognosis had been confirmed. They said there was nothing more that could have been done, so little he could have achieved; she had covered it up so well. She’d had them all fooled for a while but she couldn’t cheat nature. Now it was too late and he was faced with a growing dilemma over his son. The sense of helplessness and inevitability threatened to overwhelm him again.

He had vowed that he would never, ever again allow work to drive a wedge between him and his family, nor compromise his commitment to them. But he had only been back at work a day and was already faced with choices. As he listened to the empty static on the line he promised himself he wouldn’t let it happen again. If Christopher needed him then he had to be there.

The silence at the end of the line thickened. With the unique sensitivity of a parent, he was aware that his son was suddenly there.

‘Hello, Chris, it’s Daddy. How are you then? How’s your head?’

Silence.

‘I hear from Bess that you got a bit of a bump on it today.’

Nothing. An aggressive silence echoed in his ear.

‘Well, the good news is that Nanny and I have agreed that you don’t have to go to school tomorrow. That’ll be fun, won’t it?’

Incidental static tickled his ear, masquerading as a preparatory intake of breath.

‘Chris? Chris, look, I know you’re there. Talk to me, tell Daddy something – like what’ve you done today? Please?’

‘Clouds. Clouds and clouds and more clouds. I saw them today.’ The boy’s voice was distorted, strained, without character. Fenwick had to swallow down the hard lump in his throat.

‘I see. Were these nice clouds, Chris? Were they friendly?’

‘They’re
my
clouds, Daddy. I’ve brought them home with me.’

Fenwick fought a growing sense of panic as his son’s nonsense words continued.

‘Where do you keep these clouds, Chris? What does Nanny think of them?’

‘She can’t see them. Not sure you could either. They’re my clouds. Bess can.’

‘What colour are the clouds? Are they pretty, like at sunset?’ Fenwick just wanted to keep his son there on the line.

‘They’re my clouds. If I don’t look after them they’ll go.’

‘Look after them? What do you have to do?’

‘They’re always changing shape and splitting into bits. If I don’t know how many there are, I’ll lose them.’

The stone in Fenwick’s throat was threatening to choke him again but he talked on in a desperate attempt to move his son’s conversation on to firm ground. It was no good. He heard the receiver being replaced on the table and the sound of Chris’s retreating steps. The phone was off the hook and, unless his mother returned to the room, there was no use shouting down it. For a few moments he fought a strong impulse to ignore the papers on his desk. In the end, he compromised and decided to work on the complaints at home. He bundled the files into his briefcase and left.

 * * *

Two hours later he was sitting in the lounge, more relaxed and enjoying a blazing log fire. He had seen the children off to bed with long cuddles, eaten an excellent supper and was relaxing with a stiff whisky and warm water, ready to tackle the two complaints. The name on the first file seemed familiar – Derek Fearnside from Harlden – but the case had arisen back in April whilst he had been on leave so he couldn’t think why it should mean anything. Then he remembered. Bob Fearnside had been one of his best friends at school and he’d had a brother called Derek. In a small town, it was highly likely that it was the same family.

Fenwick flipped open the file. A pool of light from the desk lamp flowed over a 6 × 8 inch colour photograph clipped to the cover. A happy family group had been captured for ever in a microsecond’s exposure. His eye was drawn automatically to the woman, who appeared to be the focus of the picture.

Blonde, stunningly pretty, blue eyes alive and gazing through the shutter of the camera to hold the attention of the observer. Her intensity and beauty were, literally, captivating and for a moment Fenwick allowed himself the pleasure of simply looking at her.

He wondered who the photographer had been. Her look was intimate and confiding – the cameraman must have felt it, and enjoyed her attention. He found himself drawn into the photo, invited to share the intimacy of the little group. He guessed, with an uncanny insight, that she had been on intimate terms with the unknown photographer and that the poor man would never forget her. Was it her husband? If so, who was the man with her in the picture?

The woman was holding a small child in her arm, balancing its weight on a forward thrust of hip, protecting the neck and head within a sheltering elbow. The child was about twelve months old, sexless, asleep. Another, older, child clung to her leg and skirt. The woman’s left hand rested gently on his head. He could see the way her fingers were entwined in his auburn hair, caught in a moment of stroking reassurance. The young
boy’s eyes were soft and distant, unaware of the photographer. He was relishing one of those unremarked but fundamental moments of childhood when a mother’s body heat, smell and solid physical presence, provide a bubble of absolute safety and contentment.

The three of them, mother, child and baby, formed a tight trinity at the heart of the picture. So strong was their image that he almost overlooked the man to one side. He was distant from the group, a silent witness to it, like a shepherd at the cradle. He was avoiding the camera. Fenwick felt profoundly sorry for him.

Looking closer, he recognised the man’s face. It was the Derek Fearnside he had known. The picture opened an old memory. He had attended his wedding; Bob had been best man and Fenwick was a close enough friend to warrant an invitation. Which meant that this radiant – possibly unfaithful – mother had been the young bride on that occasion. He couldn’t remember her name, nor anything about the day except that he had managed to seduce one of the bridesmaids later on, thanks more to champagne than to any skills of his.

The coincidence of encountering some of Bob’s close family put his own domestic worries out of his mind. He deliberately set the Fearnside file to one side to return to last, as a small incentive to keep him going. The next complaint related to police handling of a domestic incident. A six-foot-three father of four, Mr Baxter, was complaining that the police had used unnecessary physical force when attending a domestic incident at his home. Apparently, a five-foot-eight,
female
constable had physically restrained the man, bruising his arm and wrist in the process. The man had been off sick for over a week and, being self-employed, he was threatening to sue for loss of earnings. The amount he was claiming made him significantly better paid than the Assistant Chief Constable!

The account from the constable’s notebook provided some clarification. Apparently the aggrieved gentleman had been in the process of delivering a ‘lesson’ to his live-in companion. During the incident the constable had had to wrest an old-fashioned
marble rolling pin from his hand. She had, in her own words, ‘employed the minimum of force and restraint necessary to prevent potential injury to the other person present, myself and the dog.’ The dog?

The incident was less than a week old and Fenwick was puzzled as to why it was being taken so seriously. Then he noticed the ACC’s note to him, clipped to the file:
AJF, Baxter is one of Councillor Ward’s regular private-hire drivers. AHB.
It might just as well have been a large, red ‘Handle with care!’ notice. Ward was one of a large minority of militant left members of the local council and had decided to justify his minority position by taking the police to task, with monotonous regularity, on any and all points of issue.

Fenwick realised that he would need to spend hours investigating and making sure the paperwork was perfect before reporting back. It would be a waste of his time, the constable’s and inevitably the ACC’s.

It was with a compensating pleasure that he saw a recent note had been added to the file from an RSPCA investigator, called in by the enterprising constable. Concerned about the condition of the dog in the kitchen, she had asked the RSPCA to make a visit. Baxter’s female partner might in the eyes of the law have sufficient self-determination to drop charges of assault and put herself at his mercy for another time. Fortunately for the dog, as a dumb animal, the law allowed others to intervene on its behalf. Baxter was to be prosecuted for neglect and ill-treatment of the animal.

Councillor Ward was unlikely, after all, to protest too strongly on his driver’s behalf. There were a lot of animal lovers in Sussex!

It was after eleven when Fenwick finally found himself looking again into the too blue eyes of Deborah Fearnside. He spent time over Derek Fearnside’s letter. It was depressingly familiar. Even in a relatively rural area such as this, missing persons cases were quite common. Usually they were troubled teenagers, depressed wives or disturbed husbands who simply could not cope any more. And usually the person turned up
within a few days, if they were to turn up at all, apologetic, tired, sometimes in need of medical care, but grateful for the affection they found waiting for them at home. Occasionally, they were never seen again, except in ageing photographs in missing persons specials in the press or on TV.

Mr Fearnside could not understand why there was no police investigation into his wife’s disappearance, now nearly four weeks old. A standard letter had been sent to him in reply to his initial enquiries, explaining that it was not normal procedure to investigate adult disappearances unless there were circumstances that were cause for particular concern. They had even quoted some helpful statistics to prove why it was impracticable and usually unnecessary to follow up, in a mixed attempt to reassure and quieten the anxious husband. It had not worked.

Mr Fearnside called every day and had written finally to state that he was considering a formal complaint. He insisted that there were peculiar circumstances, that his wife would not have simply walked out on him and their children. And now the file sat on Fenwick’s coffee table waiting for him to decide the next course of action. He was mentally composing a polite but final note of reply as he read through Fearnside’s letter.

But his half-formed reply was abandoned as he read on. He found himself agreeing with the husband, not his colleagues. The man had compiled a list of ‘peculiar circumstances’:

– She had left a note for the cleaning lady to take some chops out of the freezer to defrost for Derek’s supper that she would cook on her return.

– She had not taken any clothes with her.

– She had not taken her passport.

– No significant amounts of money had been drawn from their joint account in the weeks leading up to her disappearance and none at all at any time since.

– A friend at the bank had unofficially confirmed that no money had been taken from her private account before or after her disappearance.

– Their credit card statement had just arrived and showed
no entries since she had disappeared.

– She had not taken her car.

– She had bought a return ticket.

– The modelling agency she was visiting had not called or written once since her disappearance.

– Nor had they called Leslie Smith, who was also due to work for them.

– Leslie Smith had been unable to make contact with the agency despite constant attempts.

– He had visited the studio where the photographs had been taken during their selection, to find it deserted and available for hire.

– She had missed her mother’s birthday – that had never happened before.

– She had missed her son’s birthday – unthinkable.

– She hadn’t called once to find out if the children were all right.

Nowhere on the list did the man mention himself! It was a peculiarly inverted inventory, starting as it did with the material ‘evidence’ against the routine nature of her disappearance and ending with the emotional and real. Glancing again at the photograph, Fenwick wondered just what sort of man Fearnside was; perhaps his prosaic detachment was enough to drive a woman away but he clearly loved her. Or was it guilt?

The photo haunted him. There was no date on it. It could have been taken many years before but he doubted it, given the ages of the children on the file. The mother in the picture could never abandon her children – her husband perhaps, but not them. It convinced him more than any of Fearnside’s arguments, and inclined him to ignore the fact that she
had
taken an overnight bag with her, full apparently of the things she thought she would need for the shoot.

He reread Blite’s notes on his interview with Fearnside – a basic piece of paperwork intended to close the file. Fenwick was not a fan of Blite’s despite the man’s arrest record.