The Vows of Silence (19 page)

They looked down at the familiar street names in the Old Town area. The Jug Fair was mainly centred on St Michael’s Square and a couple of the lanes which rayed out from it in the direction leading away from the cathedral towards the town. The wide pedestrian-only New Moon Street led to and from the fair.

“If our marksman tries to take a vehicle down there he’ll be stopped by the barriers.”

“If he has a vehicle.”

“Well, it’s probable. He needs to conceal his rifle, get away quickly … he can’t walk through the streets carrying it without being spotted. Right, the square is sealed off here and here—those two lanes are only ever pedestrians and cyclists anyway. This is the layout of the rides and the stalls … the big Ferris wheel at this end, the merry-go-round at this.”

“I used to love them Jinny horses when I was a kid. Couldn’t go on them enough times.”

“Bag of chips in your hand.”

“Or a hot dog.”

“Nah, candyfloss. You have to ride on them with your candyfloss.”

“No wonder the square’s awash with puke by midnight.”

“Shut up, Clive.”

“The kiddies’ rides are all out of the main square, up here. Teacups. Peter Rabbit ride. Ribbon Lane is all stalls—here up this way and here. Coconut shies, bobbing ducks, that stuff.

“Ghost train and the scary rides this side. Along here, more stalls … plus your food stands. We are going in down New Moon Street and parking up—here. And the second ARV is at the other side, here.”

“Bit prominent, aren’t we?”

“That’s the plan. High-profile armed response.”

“Ah, public reassurance.”

“Don’t sneer, Rowley.”

“Wasn’t sneering, sir.”

Houlish looked at him. Clive Rowley’s face was blank.

“Right, well, don’t. Like I said, high profile. These shootings have made the public very jittery, as well they might, and as you may possibly have heard we have caught a lot of flak from our friends in the media, so there’s uniform crawling all over the fair, there’s plain clothes, there’s us. Nothing is going to go wrong. We’re at the ready from the minute we’re in position. OK, let’s look on the screen again please. From the shooting of the two young women outside the
Seven Aces
club we’re sure this is a skilled and cunning marksman. He knows what he’s doing. The guy who shot Melanie Drew and Bethan Doyle confronted them at close range from their front doors with a handgun. It may not be the same guy as the
Seven Aces
killer and it’s the latter we’re worrying about here. If he’s going
to target the Jug Fair for whatever perverted reason he’s unlikely to be confronting members of the public at close quarters with a handgun. He’ll be using a rifle—he’s a sniper. Right, let’s have some guesses here. Westleton, Rowley, be the sniper, where do you fire from?”

“Top of the helter-skelter.”

“How do you get up there with a rifle without being spotted? When? How do you stay up there out of sight when there’s a queue of people climbing up and flying down? Think again.”

“He has to get into position unnoticed,” Clive Rowley said, speaking slowly and with concentration. “There’s always a load of people setting up, no way could he lurk in the fairground without being seen … so it’s got to be buildings around. Empty buildings? That’s where he was when he shot the girls outside the
Seven Aces
—either in the empty granary building or in the office block. So I reckon we’ve got to look at what’s
around
the fairground site, not at the temporary structures.”

“Right, let’s think along those lines. What have we got?” Houlish took the pointer. “Let’s take the square first. East side. High wall. Iron gate. Nothing there. North side. The courthouse building. Victorian. Six storeys. What do we think?”

“Good view—unobstructed.”

“Roof’s hidden behind that crenellation. Not sure if it’s flat or not.”

“It’s not.”

“Wouldn’t matter,” Tim said.

“Access … building’s in use during the day. Various offices. We’ll sweep the whole thing at the end of the day.”

“What’d be his exit route?”

“Rooftops,” said someone. “Or he’d hole up till morning.”

Clive Rowley was silent. He was known to work things out before speaking. “Is there a security guard?” he asked.

“No. CCTV and that’s it.”

“Better get them to check it actually works.”

“Why don’t we get in there ourselves, guv? Stake it out. Great vantage point.”

“Because this isn’t an ambush. Too many people around, too dangerous.”

“What? We’re sitting doing cat’s cradle in the vehicle all night?”

“I didn’t say that. Next door to the courthouse building we’ve the run of terraced cottages, half a dozen of them, all offices, then the war memorial, then there’s two four-storey buildings which are being renovated.”

“There’s scaffolding and the frontage is covered in plastic. He could hole out there without much trouble.”

“He’s probably got a rifle with telescopics—he doesn’t need to be that close.”

“What if he isn’t using his rifle? He could be walking about with a handgun. Very difficult to suss that out in the sort of crowds we get at the fair, especially after dark,” Clive Rowley said.

Bronze Command shook his head. “He’d have no chance of getting away. This guy’s not a nutter who
shoots to give himself up. He’s cunning. His close-range killings have been in places where he’s made pretty sure there’d be no witnesses and he could make an easy getaway. That just wouldn’t be possible here even without all of us. OK, let’s go back to the plan. There will be our two ARVs and Bevham are lending us one for backup. Here …”

Clive sat back and watched the pointer go over this entrance and that exit, this danger point and that. Steve Mason had slipped down into his seat and looked as if he was asleep with his eyes open.

“That’s it. We’ll have another briefing in here nine a.m. on Friday. Until then, don’t shove it out of the way, get that plan in your head. Brood on it. Come up with a bright idea, shout. You’re the sniper. Think like him. He’s clever. We’ve got to be cleverer.”

Ten minutes later they were filing out for refs. In an hour they would be on the way to the airfield for a training session. It was drizzling outside.

“What do you reckon?” Steve said, standing in the queue.

“Nothing’ll happen. Too obvious.”

“I’m not so sure. He could cause mayhem in five seconds … he’d love that, shooting at random,” Clive said.

“No, he’s got a reason for these killings. I reckon they’re personal.”

“Large tea, bacon and tomato bap, thanks. He must be a bloke with a hell of a lot of grudges then. Don’t think forensics have established any links, have they?”

“Come on,” Ian Dean said, piling four warm sausage rolls onto his plate, “no way are these random. There has to be links.”

“I don’t see it. I don’t see any of it, to be honest. I can’t get a handle on this guy.” Clive set his tray down and moved the sauce bottles out of the way. “I just think—putting half the county force onto the Jug Fair is a waste of resources. He’s not going to show.”

“A fiver says he will.”

“You’re on,” Clive said, taking a swig of tea. “That fiver’s got my name on it.”

Forty-one

Lois was there as ever on night-duty reception. Lois, pleased to see her and ready with a warm hug of welcome.

But then Jane caught her expression. “I’m too late,” she said.

“Yes. Karin died about an hour ago.”

Jane sat down. She felt tired, cold and frustrated. The storms had caused such appalling delays and rerouting that she was here at ten when she should have made it by five.

“Come into the kitchen, I’ll make you a hot drink. Have you eaten?”

“No, but I’m not hungry. I should go and see her.”

“Have this first. No hurry now.”

No. No hurry. Karin had waited for her as long as she could but Jane had let her down. It was not her fault, of course it was not, but she felt guilty nevertheless.

The fluorescent lights hummed as Lois switched them on and poured water into the kettle.

“Poor Jane. Nothing more upsetting.”

“I wanted to be with her. She wanted me to be with her.”

“I know.” She did not give out false comfort. Lois was a realist.

She set down a mug of tea and a plate of biscuits. “Dunk one,” she said, “I know you said you weren’t hungry but somehow a dunked biscuit always goes down.”

It was true. Jane followed her out to the reception foyer. From the far end of the corridor she heard murmured voices, saw a light. A door closed.

“Do you know about Dr Deerbon?” Lois asked, back behind her computer.

“Yes, Cat told me. I was hoping to see her but I can’t very well go up to the farmhouse at this time of night.”

“I should think you of all people probably could. Why don’t you ring now?”

Jane hesitated.

“She might be glad of it, you know.”

“Has she heard about Karin?”

“Not my place to ring her.”

Jane wondered what she could say to Cat, out of the blue, at ten thirty at night. Looked at Lois. Lois nodded.

“Look, go into the relatives’ room, I’ll switch the phone through.”

It was picked up on the second ring.

“It’s Jane,” she said. “I’m at Imogen House.”

*

Ten minutes later she was sitting beside Karin McCafferty. The nurses had not yet moved her body, though the syringe pump and drip stand had been taken away. The lamp was on. They had closed the door.

Karin looked like a moth under the bedclothes, her skin fine, and almost transparent over the bones, her hair brushed and tied back, lying on the slightly raised pillows. Jane took her cool hand and put it to her own cheek.

“I know you won’t blame me, but I should have been here. I wish I had been. I’m sorry.” Karin’s eyelids were faintly blue, like those of a newborn baby. She was beautiful in death, as she had been in life, but remote. Sometimes, Jane had been with the dying and the newly dead and had had a powerful sense of their presence. But not now. Karin was as far away as it was possible to be and had left no trace of herself behind.

Half an hour later, she was sitting with Cat beside a low fire in the farmhouse sitting room, a whisky in her hand, the rain lashing against the windows.

Cat was leaning back, eyes closed, her face drained of everything but exhaustion.

“A patient who was nursing her mother at home said to me, “I’m way beyond tired.” And this will get worse. It’s like lying down while someone rains blows on you but somehow each blow hurts in a different way.”

“How are the children?”

Cat shook her head. “The saving grace there is Judith Connolly. My father has been seeing her and she
is amazing—calm, strong, easy-going, got the measure of him perfectly and fantastic with all three of the children. She’s fast becoming my rock, in the absence of Simon.”

Jane took a swig of her whisky. “Absence? But I saw him on the television news.”

“Yes, you did. That’s one reason for his absence and obviously the chief one—it’s tough for him. But what makes me mad is his stupid attitude to Judith. Si was always Mum’s blue-eyed boy but Mum is dead and he can’t take someone else being at Hallam House.”

“Doesn’t he see that it’s helping your father?”

Cat snorted. “He doesn’t choose to see. It’s a good job he’s so tied up with work and I’ve got Chris to worry about or I’d really lay into him.”

Jane said nothing. She had not been sure what she would feel, coming back here, hearing about him. Everything ought to be overshadowed by Karin’s death and Chris’s illness. She was acutely aware of Simon, nevertheless. He was associated so closely for her with this house and with his sister. Jane’s memories were more vivid than she ever expected.

“I never knew what happened exactly with you two,” Cat said now. “And feel free not to tell me.”

Jane set down her whisky glass. “I ran away,” she said. “That’s what happened.”

“You sure? Only it’s usually the other way round. Simon is the one who runs.”

Jane shook her head. “I ran. I didn’t know what I felt. I was in a very confused and fragile emotional state and I couldn’t cope with another factor being
added to the mix. It ought to have helped but it made things worse.”

“A lot had happened to you. Awful things.”

“I needed to sort myself out.”

“And have you?”

“Not altogether. But I think I am slowly working my way towards it—whatever
it
may be. I thought it was going to be the abbey. I really did want to make that work, but I knew straight away that it wouldn’t. I knew when I lay in bed in my room there on the first night. I struggled on for six months and I’m glad I did.”

“One down, so to speak.”

“Yes. I feel much more confident about the next move. I want to do more academic work.”

“You mustn’t bury yourself in a library, Jane, you’re too good with people. A library is as bad as a convent.”

“But a library combined with students and a hospital is about right, don’t you think? I don’t deserve my luck.”

“As to that, which of us deserves what we get?” Cat shook her head, her eyes filling with tears. She got up and pushed the last of the logs together so that they burned up bright again. “Australia is as far away as a sunlit daydream.”

“Did you like it?”

“Not really. But we were happy together, and it was different, which always shakes you up. Looking back, it seems idyllic, frankly.”

“How is Chris coping? I don’t mean physically.”

“I don’t know. How strange that sounds. But I really don’t. At the moment, he’s just pretty doped and getting through the days, sleeping a lot, waiting for the
radiotherapy to start. Everything else is just beyond him. And you know Chris … he doesn’t philosophise, he just gets on with it. The worst thing is, I can talk to patients about dying. I do talk to them. I think it’s important. I get them to tell me what they feel, I get their relatives to do the same. But I can’t do it with Chris. We talk about what’s going to happen medically, but otherwise … I can’t and he doesn’t. We have never ever had anything we couldn’t talk about, even if we argued. We often argued. But now there is this. It’s frozen us, somehow. I feel as if I’m acting a part. This isn’t me, this isn’t Chris, this isn’t us.”