The Vows of Silence (16 page)

“Thanks, Clive. I’m sorry, didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“What’s up?”

“It’ll pass.”

“No, go on. Better out.”

“Not here.”

The corridor was a busy thoroughfare.

“Come in here then.”

They stood in a lobby beside the stairwell.

“What’s up?”

“Bloody DS Whiteside.”

“Been chatting you up or what?”

“Oh, I can cope with that.”

“I bet. Quite scary, you.”

“Seriously. He’s a bully.”

“So am I. We’re coppers. It’s what we do.”

“Not like this.”

Clive watched her closely as she told him. Pretty. Fair hair. Small features. Small hands and feet. Neat little thing. He looked at her hands. No rings.

Was she his type? Might be. Ask her out? Might do.

She stopped talking and drank the coffee.

“You see my point?” she said, looking round for somewhere to throw the empty cup. “He was bang out of order.”

“What about this Drew guy? He done it?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“All the same. He’s in the frame, isn’t he?”

“No.”

“The DS did right to bring him in.”

“Straws. Clutching. At.”

“Fair point. Where is he now?”

“Interview room, I imagine. Look, what should I do?”

“Nothing.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes. Nothing. Don’t stir it up. Don’t make a complaint, it’ll backfire. Only if he starts on you, tell me. I can deal with the Whitesides of this world.”

She laughed. “It’s not me I’m worried about. But thanks.”

“Stay schtum. OK?”

He winked at her and walked off towards the Armed Response Unit room.

Louise watched him go. Cocky, she thought. He doesn’t walk, he swaggers. Maybe AR are always like that. Maybe it goes with the territory. She didn’t take Clive Rowley seriously. Not like Whiteside.

She went upstairs to the CID room.

“What’s been going on?” another DC asked as she went past.

“What have you heard?”

“Craig Drew’s been brought in.”

“Then that’s what’s been going on.”

“No way.”

Louise sat down at her desk and clicked to restore her screen.
FRIENDS REUNITED. SIR ERIC ANDERSON COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL. LAFFERTON. 1995.

She went on scrolling down the list. Maybe somewhere in here was a friend of Melanie Drew, née Calthorpe, someone who had something against her, and against the three other girls, something bad enough to have rankled all these years until it blew up in his head and he shot them all dead. Maybe. She leaned back. But this was how you found it, patient detail, plodding through, looking for a connection.
This was how she was going to be the one who found it. She would take the tiny scrap of a lead to the DCS and he would agree, she would be given a team, they would track him down, Craig Drew would be freed, Whiteside would be reprimanded …

“Briefing in ten,” someone shouted.

Louise came to, embarrassed. But no one knew.

Maybe.

It had been raining and the conference room smelled of steaming clothes.

Serrailler held up a sheet of paper. “This,” he said, “came in, posted in Lafferton yesterday, addressed to me. It’s up on the screen—here.” The letter was blown up so that they could read it, a single sheet of ruled A5, lettered in crude capitals.

WATCH YOUR BACK I’LL BE WATCHING YOURS HAVE FUN AT
THE FAYR YOU WONT SEE ME IM 2 CLEVER 4 THAT SYMON.

“Someone’s been reading too many Agatha Christies.”

“This is a wind-up, sir.”

There was a murmur round the room.

“Probably,” Serrailler said. “I get enough of those. But it serves to focus our minds on next weekend. This will go to forensics of course, who won’t find anything on it.”

“Of course.”

“But we can’t afford to take a threat like this—and it is a threat—too lightly. Not with four women already
dead. The Jug Fair. There’ll be a heavy uniform presence, ARV on standby, all of that, but I want everyone in here at the fair as well, eyes and ears open. Suspect everyone, watch everything, be everywhere. You’re looking out for a clever, ruthless gunman, you’re not there to have fun, no wives and kiddies in tow.”

“What, no candyfloss?”

“Good cover, a gob full of that pink Brillo pad.”

“There’ll be a ground plan—I’ll brief a couple of hours before the fair opens. I don’t know about this,” he waved the letter, “but it’s a heads-up. I don’t want carnage at the Jug Fair.”

“Think of the headlines,” Beevor said.

“Think of four people already dead, DC Beevor.”

“Sir.”

“Sir, is it true Craig Drew has been arrested?”

“It is not. Graham brought him in for further questioning, that’s all, and he is not under arrest. The press is still out there in force and I don’t want them getting hold of the wrong story. Mr Drew is not, repeat
not
, under arrest.”

“He’s still under suspicion though?”

“Until we get something new,” Serrailler said, “almost everyone is under suspicion. Including you, DC Beevor.”

The room exploded into jeers and laughter.

Thirty-four

From the
Lafferton Gazette
:

TANYA AND DAN HITCH A LIFT

When six-year-old Tanya Halliwell was a maid in attendance to the Lafferton Jug Fair Queen in September 1988, she cannot have guessed how she would ride on the float again not once but twice in the future.

In 1998, Tanya was the Jug Fair Queen herself and last week she took to the float yet again—this time as a bride.

She and her husband, Dan Lomax (a page in 1987), left their wedding at Lafferton Methodist Church on the float which was specially lent for the occasion and decorated by Claudia’s Florists, where Tanya works. Her two bridesmaids and two pageboys rode with the newly-weds to their reception at Selby House Golf and Country Club. Later, Mr and Mrs Lomax left for the first stage of their honeymoon on the float, this time lit by lanterns and guided by flares. The float is owned by the Wicks family of Selby Farms and was kindly loaned by Michael Wicks, a cousin of the bride.

The couple plan to return from their honeymoon cruise in time to enjoy this year’s Lafferton Jug Fair on the last weekend in October.

Thirty-five

The rain began to fall quite gently as she drove away from the abbey but by the time she had been on the road for half an hour the sky was blue-black, the clouds heavy-bellied and the rain was sheeting down. Jane switched on her lights and the radio. Flood warnings. Severe weather warnings. Storm warnings.

The country road crossed and recrossed the river several times before running along the valley. The last thing she needed was to be stuck somewhere or to have to turn back, losing precious time. Cat had made it clear that time would count. “Karin hasn’t long to live,” she had said in a steady voice. “She has secondaries in her spine. She mentioned your name twice.”

The traffic coming towards Jane was slowing down and a couple of cars flashed their lights. Lightning was jagged across the sky immediately ahead and then she
hit the water which was flowing fast across the middle of the road. It shot up on either side of the car and she slowed, got through it, then pulled in behind several others. It was half past one and almost pitch black, the clouds boiling over.

She wondered if it was safe to use her phone—assuming there was a signal. Could mobiles be struck by lightning? She thought not and the car had four rubber tyres which would presumably negate the effect in any case. But there was no signal.

The road had turned into a river and was gushing beneath the cars.

Half an hour later, the worst of the storm seemed to have moved away and she was going again, heading for the slip road of the motorway. The surface was treacherous, warning lights slowed the traffic down to 30 mph which became a 5 mph crawl. The rain lashed down. The radio issued solemn warnings not to travel unless absolutely necessary.

It was quarter to three and 120 miles to Lafferton, assuming it was possible to take the direct route.

Karin McCafferty came into Jane’s mind, as she had last seen her, glowing with well-being and determination, confident and strong.

And then Chris Deerbon. Cat had told her before she hung up. He had a brain tumour. They would operate. After that they would know more.

Jane had told the abbess the bare details of the conversation. Karin and Chris would be in the abbey prayers night and day from now on.

“That’s our job,” Sister Catherine had said. “Yours is to go and be with them.”

Jane had expected to be in Lafferton by late afternoon but the storms caused such traffic chaos that she was still on the road well after eight, inching forward in a queue several miles long. It gave her time and solitude in which to pray but, inevitably, she also had time to think. Lafferton meant many things to her, some of them extremely painful. But she had made some warm friendships during her time there and she hoped they would be enduring ones.

She had also met Simon Serrailler.

She had run away from Lafferton and she could admit now that Simon had been one of the main reasons for her flight. Simon had assumed an importance, had somehow got under her wire, in a way she had not yet fully acknowledged.

The traffic did not move. She switched off the engine and took her Bible out of the glove compartment. At odd times such as this, she liked to rediscover the Books she did not know well and which were not a familiar part of the church services.

“
The word of the Lord came to me saying, Jeremiah, what do you see? And I said, I see a branch of an almond tree.
”

She loved the Bible when it was at its most direct and matter-of-fact, when it spoke of everyday. “
I see a branch of an almond tree.
” It scarcely mattered what you believed or did not.

She was still reading, occasionally looking up, over an hour later and by then she had found a notebook and jotted down comments on the text.

When the lights of the car in front showed red and it began to move, she was relieved not only to have studied all of Jeremiah, but to have put Simon Serrailler firmly out of her mind.

He came back to it as she drove on, free of the traffic eventually and taking side roads and short cuts, to try and make up time. She tried to picture him. Tall. White-blond hair. Long nose. But his whole face would not click into place, he hovered some where, shadowy and vague. Why was she trying to remember exactly what he looked like?

She switched on the car radio and tuned in to a discussion about Chinese babies abandoned in the countryside. The story might have been biblical.

She drove on down the dark roads.

Thirty-six

At first they had all been cut out and stuck into a scrapbook and the scrapbook was still there, to be consulted, in a box file on the shelf, but lately he had bought a scanner and scanned the pieces straight onto his computer. Easier to organise.

He had a routine. When he got in he went straight to the shower, then changed into clean clothes, usually combat trousers and a T. Tonight the T was an old olive-green one with a faded picture of Che Guevara. Retro. He hadn’t much idea who Che Guevara was.

Food. Lamb chop, carrots, peas, fried up mashed potato from the day before. Banana. Apple. Four squares of chocolate. Two mugs of tea. He liked his food. He ate well. Always cooked. You were what you put into yourself. Too much putting in of junk—that’s what did for them. Did for their brains and
their behaviour and their attitude and their bellies.

He watched the news. Watched half an hour of random sport on Sky. Pulled the ring off a can of lager. Opened up the com puter. Switched on the scanner.

FORTHCOMING MARRIAGES

The wedding between Andrew Hutt and Chelsea Fisher,
both of Lafferton, will take place on Saturday 22 October at
Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, Dedmeads Road,
Lafferton, at 2.30 p.m.
All friends welcome at the church.

He filed it under “Additional.”

NOTICE

The Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of
St Michael, Lafferton, give notice that the Cathedral Close
and the area of Cathedral Lane, Old Lane and St Michael’s
Walk will be closed to the public and to through traffic
between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday 10 November.
Diversions will be clearly marked. The Cathedral Close will
remain accessible to residents.

Which was filed under “Primary.”

He pressed Save, closed the files. Changed the password, as usual every evening.

Tonight’s was “woodcock.”

Time scale, detailed plan, schedules, routes—were in a second box file, marked “Tax Receipts’, kept in the wooden chest on which the television stood.

The chest was locked. The key was in the freezer buried in a full tub of margarine. If it took five minutes to get at it that didn’t worry him. Precautions. Plans. Schedules. A routine.

That way there was less chance of anything going wrong.

Thirty-seven

Simon left his office and ran.

He was stopping for nothing and for no one. He had been on duty for fourteen hours. Bethan Doyle’s former partner had been questioned and was in the clear. Whiteside had taken it upon himself to drive him to see his baby son. Craig Drew had been driven back to his parents’ house by Louise Kelly. Simon had never been up against so many blanks. He felt as if he was wading through clouds. The one thing he could get his teeth into was the job of giving the Jug Fair the highest police profile it had ever received. The Chief was certain the fair would draw the gunman. “Nothing,” Paula Devenish had said, “and I mean nothing, can be allowed to happen.”