Authors: Elizabeth Corley
One small accident, local paper news; one small pebble tripping a landslide of deaths over the years. Cooper was not an imaginative or sentimental man but the weight of suffering pressed down on him as he stood in the decaying kitchen, crushing his spirit.
His mournful contemplation was broken by a sudden flash of light and colour. The setting sun had finally fallen below the low cloud to brighten the room, pushing the obstinate shadows back to the walls. A blackbird, cheered by the warmth, started singing as she perched on the ledge beyond the broken window, a persistent requiem for the departed.
Rowland had taken temporary lodgings in a rooming house on the wrong side of Chichester. He paid cash in advance and looked clean and respectable. The landlady accepted his rent with equanimity and then thought no more of him. She had no objection to him parking his J-registration Ford Escort in the yard at the back of the house.
Unlike many of her type, his landlady had no interest in her tenants and even less in their belongings. Even if she had poked a nose into his room she would have found it perfectly tidy but otherwise unexciting. He had a penchant for black clothes and worked for a firm of contract cleaners – or so the overall and security pass he carried implied. The bag for his cleaning materials was, perhaps, a little curious. It was long and very well made, with clips and compartments inside to hold a range of curiously shaped items. But she didn’t snoop and so all her lodger’s careful precautions to establish a low-key, unobtrusive presence were unnecessary.
When the Escort left and its owner had explained that he would be away for a few days, she was indifferent. Even that incurious woman, however, would have been somewhat startled to see her lodger drive to a lock-up garage two miles away and exchange the rusting two-door excuse for a car, for a sleek black 1200cc Triumph Trophy which he then rode off, never breaking the speed limit, towards London.
The ACC asked Fenwick for a meeting to review progress on
Monday evening. It had been an extraordinary day. Over fifty people from three forces had been allocated to the case within the past week, despite his initial misgivings. News of Rowland’s arsenal had tipped the balance.
‘We’ve found his car and his uncle’s house, confirmed his link with Carol and eliminated, finally, Anderson as a suspect.’ The ACC nodded slowly. This was becoming a high-profile, not to say expensive, case and he had become directly involved in supporting Fenwick in cross-force coordination. If it went well it would reflect positively on him; if it went badly … it was an uncomfortable thought. He still had his doubts about Fenwick and stared at the man intently as he made his report. Fenwick interpreted his look from years of practice. ‘We’re going to get him.’
‘Make sure that you do.’
Fenwick asked Cooper and Nightingale to join him for a quick drink after the meeting. They had stood by him from the beginning, always giving more than was asked. It was small enough thanks. He had shrugged off his gloom of the day, determined to support the huge team with the confidence and leadership it needed. As he met his two colleagues he smiled for the first time in many days.
‘Have you got the press briefing organised?’
‘Yes, 8.30 tomorrow morning. All of them are coming. We’ve got a new E-fit, the car details and photograph and a copy of the press release that’s going out. Nightingale’s done the summary you asked for.’
‘We need to keep the bulk of the men on a search for Rowland’s base. I’m sticking with the London focus. Bayliss was right about the car, let’s hope his instincts are good all the way. We’ve faxed as far out as Croydon – and with luck we’ll get another burst of press and TV coverage tomorrow. Then we’ll have the forensic reports on the uncle’s house and the car. It’s highly unlikely they’ll help but who knows? So that’s it.’ As he ran through the plan Fenwick sounded confident. ‘We are going to find him, you know. And it’s a relief that we don’t have
to worry about Anderson as suspect any more – life becomes far less complicated!’ He smiled, and the others hid their expressions behind their beer glasses.
Despite the intensity of the investigation, Monday night was a quiet interlude of recreation and relaxation for all but the forensics teams. Fenwick was home in time to play with Bess and Chris. His mother was touring southern Germany on a coaching holiday and an agency nanny had managed to captivate his children with her energy and imagination.
Cooper and Nightingale, in their own ways, enjoyed leisurely evenings. Cooper with his wife and television; Nightingale in the quiet of her tidy flat, puzzling over why she was so unconcerned that her fiancé had decided to go on their long-arranged holiday rather than cancel it when she had refused even to consider asking for leave.
But the calm did little to settle Cooper’s nerves. Woken by an owl in the early hours of Tuesday morning, he lay thinking about Octavia Anderson; he could not put her from his mind. She was involved somehow and the boss was blind to it. She was in the clear on Smith’s attack; clear too at the time of Katherine Johnstone’s murder. But she had lied about her relationships with them and with Carol. If she wasn’t involved, why lie for so long?
He fidgeted on damp sheets until a grunt from his wife warned him he was about to wake her up, with all the consequences that would bring. He eventually fell asleep as dawn was breaking, cuddled against his wife’s ample behind.
Octavia Anderson did not sleep. Her eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling. She had recovered quickly from her faint, excusing herself as her concerned maid arranged the huge bouquet in two large crystal vases in the drawing room. Octavia avoided the room all day.
There had been no card with the flowers but she knew who was sending them, remembering the wilted, decaying extravagance on Carol’s grave on the day of Kate’s memorial service.
She was afraid now that if she closed her eyes, even for a moment, his face would appear before her. Her fear was a real thing, a cold, clawing animal with scrabbling appetite.
Carol’s face was before her eyes, open or closed all day. In the past she had become accustomed to it; she would even talk to her dead friend in moments of stress. Now she was dumb. She couldn’t talk to Carol about him – she could talk to no one about him, not even the police.
Octavia had no doubt that she was next; she was the last of the four survivors and the flowers confirmed it. He was playing with her, delighting in the knowledge of her fear and she knew why. As she lay sleepless, Octavia planned her escape. She had only one appearance in the UK, that sentimental school recital, after which she would be abroad for four months. Then, she intended to go to ground. She had her first major recording contract but she needn’t return to complete that. It was an international label and they’d be happy to co-operate. She would not return to England until he had been caught. Just seven days to go and then she could leave and be safe.
Tuesday dawned another hot and muggy day. Commuters struggling back into London after the August Bank Holiday cursed the rail operators’ propensity to leave rolling stock, tight closed, in the long weekend sun.
Minerva Tate suffered in her short journey from her unfashionable address to work at Wiggenshall’s Property Services. Miss Tate never referred to herself as working in an estate agents; Wiggenshall’s was far too select for that. Established after the Second World War, it had achieved in Fulham sufficient status that would-be movers aspired to a Wiggenshall board outside their house, proof that they had arrived even if they were, shortly, to move on. If anyone asked, she was a property investment consultant.
The Wiggenshall office
never
opened at weekends, and certainly not on a Bank Holiday Monday. There was, therefore, a substantial amount of mail and a stack of faxes awaiting the sound of Minerva’s Yale key. Having set up the coffee filter to send strong wafts of Colombian’s finest around the office, Minerva sorted the post briskly. The fax from a provincial police force provided a stimulating moment. She read it avidly, curious to learn of the crime behind the request for help and was about to throw it away when the photograph caught her attention.
The man was familiar. He had the sort of minor celebrity good looks that might mean she was confusing him with one of their other clients but the more she stared, the more she thought she might have seen him before. He was not a client of hers, of
that she was certain, but Mr Oliver, the Manager’s – or Jane Simmonds, the other Property Consultant’s? When he arrived, Mr Oliver thought the face was vaguely familiar too and they both agreed they should hold on to the fax until Jane returned from holiday on Friday.
For the police, Tuesday was an anticlimax. The team working hotels had no luck and retired home footsore and sweaty, reluctant to start another thankless trek the following day. Faxing, phoning and visiting letting agencies continued at a relentless pace, driven by Fenwick’s certainty that they would and could find Rowland’s base, but Tuesday produced no results.
Ominously, the ACC was active on the case for most of the day, co-ordinating efforts across the forces involved. At five o’clock he called Fenwick and asked casually (it was always casual the first time) whether he felt they had the right balance of effort across the various lines of inquiry. When he left half an hour later to ‘liaise’ in private with the MOD he had made no significant changes. But they were coming. Fenwick could sense them.
The forensic reports on the uncle’s UK house were due in the afternoon. They were late – the messenger had a bad sense of direction – and it was after five when they arrived. Cooper was studying them as Fenwick joined him in the incident room.
‘Ah!’ It was all Cooper said, but Fenwick’s pulse quickened. ‘Report on the house.’ He threw it across. ‘There was a broken window in the kitchen, quite recent. They found traces of blood on the glass and back of the sink. It could be the same as that found on the bedroom carpet in Katherine Johnstone’s house.’
‘Definitely?’
‘Come on! The original sample size was tiny, conditions in the house less than ideal et cetera, et cetera. You know, it’s never “definite” but it’s as positive as forensics ever get. They’re sending it on for DNA testing. Anyway, read on.’
‘Yes!’ This time it was quiet satisfaction from Fenwick. ‘The partial fingerprint from Johnstone’s diary – it could match those
found at the house; over twelve points of similarity, even in the partial print.’
‘He’s our man then, sir. On at least one murder he’s our man.’
‘Of course he is, but we haven’t enough evidence yet to prove it. The fingerprint is too small to provide enough points of similarity and the blood may yet be inconclusive in court. So would be the two IDs from the photograph, which link him conclusively to Deborah Fearnside’s abduction. Forensic evidence suggests that he was in Johnstone’s house – but nothing to tie him to her murder at the school. And no links to the attempted murder of Leslie Smith. We know it’s him, but it’s too circumstantial. We need more, and we need to find him.’
In a quiet mews house in a select area of South West London, the lights stayed on until the early hours of Wednesday morning. A shadow could be seen moving behind drawn curtains, apparently carrying packages from all over the house to one room, blind to view. A casual observer, although there were none, might have concluded that the resident was preparing to move out.
The weather started to break on Wednesday. Nothing dramatic, just a little cloud, a few drops of rain, an increasing breeze. Gardeners looked forward to a respite from watering gardens under hose-pipe-ban conditions. The police team on what was becoming known now as the Rowland, not the Johnstone, enquiry welcomed the cooler air.
Foot-slogging across South London, North London and Central London had produced no further results. At Wiggenshall’s, no one had thought to call the police and the fax waited amongst a small pile of mail, on Jane Simmonds’ desk. She was expected back on Friday but Minerva wasn’t sure she could hold out that long. A nagging sore throat had developed into a streaming nose, hacking cough and sore, red eyes. She was feeling decidedly under the weather and already in danger of exceeding the stated maximum Lemsip dose.
The inside of Chichester Cathedral resembled a disturbed termite mound. Scaffolding for renovation work was being dismantled and replaced with slender stick constructions for lights and sound. The nave and triforium above swarmed with cleaners and technicians, each cursing the other for incompetence, clumsiness and undoing the work that had just carefully been completed. A blunder in the cleaners’ contract had led to both firms starting on the same day and the chaos was proving spectacular.
By the end of the day, the organisers had agreed that the
lighting technicians should restart work on Thursday evening and that the cleaners would be paid overtime rates to be finished by then. They had briefly considered abandoning the idea of using the triforium that ran the whole length of the nave, it was in a terrible state, but decided not to. Chichester’s was a small cathedral and they needed every square metre of space.
The change in plans didn’t suit one particular cleaner, who had been planning on unchallenged access to the cathedral, at least until the Saturday. After a short break at lunchtime, however, he was able to stow his specialist equipment in a chest in the triforium, above the bustle below. He finished his ‘work’ by four o’clock. In the confusion, no one had questioned yet another new face.
The florist on the ring road was still open as he drove back to his digs. He hesitated a moment before parking and going into the tiny overpriced shop. The gesture was almost irrelevant now, but it was calming, still satisfying. The assistant had had more various and unlikely orders than that made by the tall, scruffy individual with several days’ growth of beard but she still smiled to herself at the discovery of romance in the most unlikely of men.