Requiem Mass E-Book

Elizabeth Corley

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: DCI Andrew Fenwick
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 698

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Someone had wanted her to die and had brought her to a twisted, broken death. Now he would kill for her - once, twice, three times - as many times as proved necessary - to avenge her death and finally let her rest in peace. 'Twenty years earlier a young woman falls tragically to her death. The only people with her are four schoolfriends. One - or maybe all of them - is responsible. And there's someone intent on letting them have their just desserts. DCI Andrew Fenwick is soon caught up in a desperate race against time to find the murderer before he completes his bloody vendetta. As the death toll mounts, Fenwick stares failure in the face - unless he can draw the predator out of the shadows and into an unconventional and highly dangerous trap with the ultimate bait.

Leseprobe

To my parents, Robert and Yvonne Trown, with love.

This book could never have been written without the support and understanding of my husband, Mike, who variously cajoled, encouraged and fed me!

I would also like to thank Philip Wharton, for his invaluable input on police procedures, and Tony Heath, whose original invitation to a performance of Verdi’s Requiem started it all.

Contents

Title PageDedicationREQUIEMPART ONE: DIES IRAECHAPTER ONECHAPTER TWOCHAPTER THREECHAPTER FOURCHAPTER FIVECHAPTER SIXPART TWO: LIBER SCRIPTUSCHAPTER SEVENCHAPTER EIGHTCHAPTER NINECHAPTER TENPART THREE: KYRIECHAPTER ELEVENCHAPTER TWELVECHAPTER THIRTEENCHAPTER FOURTEENCHAPTER FIFTEENCHAPTER SIXTEENCHAPTER SEVENTEENCHAPTER EIGHTEENCHAPTER NINETEENCHAPTER TWENTYCHAPTER TWENTY-ONEPART FOUR: INGEMISCOCHAPTER TWENTY-TWOCHAPTER TWENTY-THREECHAPTER TWENTY-FOURCHAPTER TWENTY-FIVECHAPTER TWENTY-SIXCHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENCHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTCHAPTER TWENTY-NINECHAPTER THIRTYCHAPTER THIRTY-ONECHAPTER THIRTY-TWOCHAPTER THIRTY-THREEPART FIVE: LIBERA MECHAPTER THIRTY-FOURCHAPTER THIRTY-FIVECHAPTER THIRTY-SIXCHAPTER THIRTY-SEVENCHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHTCHAPTER THIRTY-NINECHAPTER FORTYCHAPTER FORTY-ONECHAPTER FORTY-TWOCHAPTER FORTY-THREECHAPTER FORTY-FOURCHAPTER FORTY-FIVECHAPTER FORTY-SIXCHAPTER FORTY-SEVENPART SIX: REQUIEMCHAPTER FORTY-EIGHTAbout the AuthorAvailable from Allison and BusbyCopyright

REQUIEM

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Rest and peace eternal give them, Lord Our God:

And light for evermore shine down upon them.

The old man was dying. He lay in a stark white cot in a private room far removed from the incidental noises of the busy hospital. Around his bed a hush had descended, as if he was already separated from the world by a giant, invisible bell jar.

Fierce Australian sunshine leaked around the edges of tightly closed Venetian blinds, exposing the lack of colour in the room – white walls, white floor, white blinds, white sheets, white skin, white hair, white lips, bleached white fingers. Only the shadows made any sense of the man’s features. He was weaving in and out of a dreamlike state: one moment a young man, the next already dead, looking down on the decrepit, cancerous body with a mixture of pity and contempt, failing to find the man he had been in the skeletal limbs and ballooning gut.

For days he had been hovering painfully on the point of death, refusing the numbing drowsiness of a full morphine dose. The doctors and nurses had been trying to increase the dosage daily – but he had the money and the will to resist their efforts, appearing to prefer agony to insensibility. They couldn’t understand why. He wasn’t really old, only sixty-two, but he looked ninety. An immigrant away from his homeland, on his own, no family, his wife long dead. The hospital staff had no idea what drove him. Still he clung on to his delirium, resisting the temptation to slide into one last, comfortable sleep.

In his mind the man was held fast in the past of nearly twenty years before. In a recurring nightmare he relived the same week of his life over and over again. Each time he was a silent witness to the events – paralysed and dumb – unable to intervene. Every time he had to watch as his daughter walked along an idyllic cliff path to her death.

She would turn and wave, not to him but to her friends, and walk on down the dip and out of view. Then his perspective would change: he would be hovering like a seabird above her, his squawking cries unregarded, trying to swoop across her path, to head her away from what awaited her a few yards ahead.

In his semi-drugged state, the pain of his cancer became the ache in his arm-wings as he dived again and again over her head. The relentless dryness in his throat became the hoarse cawing as he screeched his warning. Every half-sleeping hour he followed her down the same path, to the same fate; his attempts to warn her weakening each time but the cold dread that accompanied her last moments growing stronger and darker with repetition.

Down the dip, around the bend and there was the other one waiting for her, watching silently as first her golden head and then the rest of her delicate figure appeared from below the rise in the path. He couldn’t see the other’s face; the waiting assailant was visible only from a bird’s-eye view. Dark, slim, athletic – he could make out nothing else – but his daughter knew who it was. From the top of the rising path she ran down laughing, arms wide, into a wiry embrace. The look on her face as she gazed upwards was one of love and trust.

The man-gull screeched frantically, beating wings, desperate to warn her. Instead she closed her eyes and raised her face for a kiss. In one smooth motion the dark stranger lifted her off the ground swinging her around, like the father-bird had done when she was a little girl, but then let her go. She flew, sailing over the edge of the sheer chalk cliff. For frozen seconds her eyes stayed closed, her smile simply puzzled. At the final moment she opened her eyes and looked upwards and around in confusion. Her arms flailed in empty space, utter fear washed over her face. She twisted downwards, bouncing on ledges of unyielding chalk before breaking her back on a jagged outcrop to be thrown by the impact outwards, paralysed but conscious, to fall another two hundred feet on to the broken rocks below.

The father-bird plummeted down on folded wings, to grasp his daughter before a wave could claim her. His talons hooked into her white T-shirt, spattered crimson now; his beak gently touched her cheek, to turn her head. She stared at him sightlessly from flat blue eyes. Her head rolled back to settle at an odd angle, leaving blood and grey matter on the rocks. She lay unmoving except when a wave from the incoming tide broke over her, stirring her shattered limbs into a semblance of life. She was dead, always dead.

Ten nights after the patient had been admitted into her care, Nurse Sarah Evans was startled by a summons to his bed. He had previously defied them all; saying nothing, resisting medication to the point where it had been less distressful for him to let him be. By rights, he should have been dead by now. Instead, he was suddenly sitting upright in bed, his skin flushed not by fever but by excitement.

If his alertness surprised her, his next request astonished. He was demanding a priest – a Catholic, no less – to attend him straight away. Fifteen minutes later, the young priest was running to deliver the last rites. Only when he was in the dying man’s room, with the door securely closed, did he start to doubt the reason for the summons.

Yes, there was a soul here for the young cleric to rescue; yes, the man would confess his sins, repent and deliver himself into God’s hands, but there was a small condition. The priest was to take down a letter, a very important letter, which the man would dictate. He was to swear on the Bible to see it was delivered to his nephew in England. It seemed a small condition. The intensity in the man’s eyes as he insisted that the priest place his hand on the Holy Book and swear to dispatch the letter, swear to keep its contents as secret as the confessional, should have warned him.

‘I will take your letter, my son. But tell me why it is so important.’

The old man’s stale breath smelt of decaying things under floorboards. He gave a ghastly smile.

‘I have seen the face! I have seen the face! I know who it was and he must be told – at once. He’ll know what to do.

It sounded harmless enough to the priest – almost a spiritual revelation. With an open and simple heart, he swore his oath and started to transcribe the old man’s final words.

The house was exactly as he remembered it: a concrete path leading to a cheap painted front door, once determinedly buttercup yellow, now aged to the texture and colour of sour milk.

As he put his key in the lock he was hit by a crippling sense of grief so strong he had to wait, head rested on his raised hand, whilst the almost physical pain passed. It was followed immediately by a customary anger that spurred him on, over the threshold and into the dark, neglected hall.

The interior was familiar, even in the half-light. He walked straight through to the kitchen where occasional sunlight from the westering sun filtered through heavy clouds, grimy windows and the dust of decay, revealing an oilcloth-covered table and broken chair. Sitting down wearily, he pulled from his pocket a dog-eared black-and-white photograph and ran his fingers lightly over the image of four smiling faces. Beautiful faces, happy smiles lost in the past, and one, the most beautiful, was gone for ever. She had died still innocent and unaware of his love for her.

Whose fault was it that she had died? Not his! For years he had thought that the blame lay with him. For years he had worked, fought and killed in a vain attempt to quieten his conscience and appease her memory. Now he knew it hadn’t been his fault. Unlooked for, unwelcomed, the letter had made everything so clear, so obvious. There was nothing he could have done to save her – because someone had wanted her dead.

Who that was he could not yet be sure but suggestions had been made and they were enough to bring him back. There could be only a short list of suspects. He didn’t know which of them it was, it could even have been more than one. Thinking of their stricken faces as they had brought news of her death back to this house, realising for the first time the hypocrisy that was hidden behind the pitying, tear-filled eyes of at least one of them, brought him lurching to his feet with a roar of uncontrolled rage, turning over the table as he leapt up, blindly searching for something to hurt or destroy.

He stumbled over to the sink and rammed his fist into the window above it, straight through the glass, taking obscene pleasure in watching the blood swell slowly from the gouges along the back of his knuckles. Only when there was a danger of it falling softly on to the photograph did he lift his arm free and wrap it in an old roller towel from the back of the door. The feeling of blind fury passed slowly, leaving him, as it always did, weak, empty but momentarily at peace. He picked up the photograph, stroking it gently, and made his way back to the kitchen chair. One thought blew slowly through his mind – it wasn’t my fault. And with that thought he was filled with an icily clear sense of purpose.

Someone had wanted her to die and had brought her to a twisted, broken death. When he was certain of his facts he would do what little he now could for her and for her memory. Once he would have died for her. Now he rejoiced in the knowledge that he could at last do something real for her: he could revenge her; he could kill for her – once, twice, three times – as many times as proved necessary – to avenge her death and finally let her rest in peace.

At that moment the sun broke through the clouds in its last seconds before falling behind the distant hills. Its light fell softly on the quietly smiling face of a man sure of his destiny and at peace.

PART ONE

DIES IRAE

Dies irae, dies illa,

Day of anger, day of terror,

CHAPTER ONE

‘Thank God!’

Deborah Fearnside closed the front door and leant back on it heavily, closing her perfectly made-up lids over delicate blue eyes. It was Monday and the children had finally gone, taken early to nursery school by the ever-obliging Mavis Dean. Now all she had to do was finish getting ready and leave herself.

She opened her eyes and glanced at her watch nervously. Now that it was so close she had butterflies in her stomach. She desperately didn’t want to mess things up at the last minute. She was completely ready, had been since quarter to seven that morning. Now all she needed to do was collect her coat and keys, lock up and go. Her natural high spirits returned as she rushed through the house.

Deborah Fearnside had always liked Mondays. She knew that this set her apart from most other people but she rather liked the idea that she was different in at least one aspect of her life. She was the only person she knew who looked forward to Monday, the day when time briefly became her own again. On Mondays Derek went back to the office, reversing out of the drive in his new, silver-finished Audi at 6.55 a.m. precisely to catch the 07.12 to Victoria, and the children went off to school promptly at quarter to eight. Noreen, the cleaning lady, would arrive at 8.15 in time to clean up the breakfast things and tidy away the debris of the weekend.

And this spring morning was even more special than usual. Today, Deborah would be going up to London to sign papers that would launch her into – what? Excitement, challenge, fame? It didn’t matter; into something new at last. She was desperate for something new.

Four weeks previously, she and a number of her friends had answered a quarter-page advertisement in the local newspaper for young mothers interested in part-time careers as mature models for a new catalogue. The advertisement had explained that the catalogue was aimed at those families who liked to buy ‘quality clothes at their convenience, to suit their busy, active life-styles’. Further, it said, research had shown that ‘the response rate among our target audience is significantly better (up to three times in some instances) if the fashions were modelled by real life mothers and their children.’

The requirements for the models were exacting and there was a four-stage selection process. In addition, there were strict limits on the mother’s height and weight and on the ages of the children. The rewards for successful models were, in the words of the advertisement, ‘excellent’.

At first Deborah and her friends had been sceptical. At least six of them matched the height and weight limits specified and had children in the right age group. Three of them, in Deborah’s opinion, were really quite attractive. Deborah could not help admitting to herself that perhaps she was the most attractive. She still had the naturally crinkly gold-blonde hair and light blue eyes that had driven the boys wild at school and, despite two children, her figure was firm and shapely. At thirty-three, some stretchmarks and the start of cellulite seemed inevitable but the advertisement had made it clear that all the shots were to be clothed, with professional models being used for swimwear and lingerie. But it felt risky, they might look foolish, and at first they had reluctantly decided that the opportunity was not for them.

Then two things happened that led Deborah to be setting out for the 08.12 to London and her appointment.

The first was Derek. She could accept that he was not the most demonstrative of men, he had been brought up that way, but she had expected at least some reaction when, on the Saturday following the appearance of the advertisement, she had glided out of their en-suite bathroom in her latest purchase from the Naughtie Nightie party she had been to earlier in the week. The sheer, turquoise chiffon two-piece had been chosen amid much joking and envious innuendo from her friends. The flimsy garment had a daringly cut top that plunged almost to her navel, with trimmings of ivory lace softening the cut-away arms and upper-thigh-length hem. There were matching French knickers and the whole outfit made the most of her still firm breasts while minimising the slight spread around her hips that remained despite twice-weekly step classes.

As she had walked into the dimly lit bedroom, pink and warm from her shower, with traces of Derek’s favourite perfume drifting from all the right places, she had expected some reaction from her husband. Instead, he merely glanced up from The Economist and asked her to switch off the bathroom light behind her. She had left it on deliberately to light her progress across the room, hoping for a seductive silhouette.

Not deterred, Deborah slid on to the bed and pulled away the top of Derek’s magazine, believing that by now he must have noticed that something was different. Far from it. He had snatched the magazine from her hand, turned, plumped up his pillow and noisily flopped down under the quilt before turning off his bedside light with a frosty, ‘For heaven’s sake!’

The argument this precipitated was one of their worst. It ended with Deborah, warmly wrapped in her candlewick dressing gown, sipping tea in the kitchen at two in the morning and vowing to prove to Derek, somehow, that she was still an attractive woman. It wasn’t until later, when she came to tidy away the Friday papers, that the modelling advertisement caught her eye again. On impulse she tore it out and put it to one side.

Even then, it is unlikely Deborah would have done anything had it not been for the fact that Jean and Leslie, two of her closest friends, changed their minds over the weekend and decided to answer the advertisement after all. Leslie’s husband, Brian, concerned about his wife’s growing interest in the advertisement, had telephoned the number given. He had left a message with a very well-spoken and reassuring secretary and was called back within the hour by the executive responsible for the new venture. The man had been professional and had been able to answer every one of Brian’s questions. Two days later a glossy brochure on the firm, together with an interim financial statement from their parent company, arrived at the Smiths’ home address. Brian, an accountant by training, checked out the main company at Companies House. It existed and, sure enough, there was a subsidiary responsible for the wholesale distribution of fashion accessories. Comforted but still determined to be absolutely sure, Brian rang a friend in the trade who confirmed that the parent company were expanding heavily into catalogue distribution.

Leslie was reassured by her husband’s comfort and encouraged her friends to apply. Her husband even agreed to accompany them to their interviews if they got that far. This decided Deborah, and in the end six of the mothers on the school run agreed to apply together. The advertisement specified that they should supply name, address, telephone number, height and weight, details of the children’s ages and sex, and a selection of good-quality family and individual photographs (which would be returned if a stamp-addressed envelope was enclosed).

Of the six friends that eventually applied, four were invited for interviews in London within a week. Deborah had travelled up with Leslie and the two others in a state of apprehension and excitement. Their interviews were arranged at the Carlton Hotel (four star, as Deborah proudly informed Derek) near Trafalgar Square. In the end, Leslie’s husband had not accompanied them; four women travelling together was considered safe enough.

The interviews were conducted in an executive conference room by a woman in her early thirties, stunningly attractive and elegantly dressed. She asked probing questions and entered their nervous answers on to a laptop computer, which, she explained, already held information from their applications. Her enquiries focused on their backgrounds; any previous modelling or acting experience (Deborah remembered a charity fashion show at college when she was nineteen and some acting at school); their children, particularly their characters and whether they were likely to enjoy and cope with the experience of modelling clothes; and finally, apologetically, on whether their husbands approved of their potential involvement.

At the end of two hours all four women had been interviewed and each was told that she would be contacted within a week to be notified of their success or otherwise. They were given a leaflet containing details about the agency and catalogue. As the friends left the lift and crossed the marbled lobby, they were disconcerted to see two very attractive women ask for the agency’s conference room at reception. Deborah secretly felt with competition like that they would be lucky to reach the next stage.

Within three days Leslie and Deborah were telephoned and told that they had been successful. They were asked to a test photo session the following week. Times had been arranged to allow them to travel together. They were also asked to have photographs taken of their children at a local studio, at the agency’s expense, where arrangements had been put in hand. This, it was explained by the very pleasant lady on the telephone, would avoid the children having to travel until the selection was finally confirmed. Both Deborah and Leslie felt this was particularly professional and sensible.

The test session in London went well, and both women were told later that they were being invited up to London to sign contracts. They had been successful; they had been chosen, along with two others, from over a hundred applicants. This time, instead of making their own way to the studio, they would be picked up from the station by a chauffeured car.

Thus it was that with a decidedly light heart, Deborah Fearnside closed and carefully locked her front door for the last time on a bright April morning. She carried with her no troublesome conscience and only a light overnight bag in which she had placed a few necessities for the trip, a rather strange good luck charm and her chequebook in case she had time after the session to visit the West End.

* * *

Deborah had agreed to give Leslie a lift to the station and turned up promptly to collect her friend. She was not prepared for the sight that greeted her arrival.

‘Deborah. Oh God, I’m sorry.’ A distraught Leslie, her hair still in heated rollers, answered the door. ‘I’m not going to make it. I’ve had a disastrous morning. First of all we’ve lost the cat – heaven knows where the daft thing is! She’s never gone off before and I’ve had crying children wandering around looking for her since seven o’clock. Then Julie, who was going to take them to school today, has just rung to say she can’t get her car to start. And finally, to cap it all, Jamie’s headmaster has literally just called insisting he sees me when I drop the children off over a “serious matter” he couldn’t go into over the phone.’

Leslie looked close to tears. From behind her Deborah could make out the sounds of tearful children and a dog barking frantically.

‘Leslie, I’m so sorry. What do you want to do?’ Deborah was full of sympathy but she still had to get to the station, park the car and buy a ticket. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ she volunteered, seeing her friend at a loss, ‘I’ll let them know you’ve been delayed. As soon as I reach the studio I’ll call and see if you’re back from the school and what your plans are for the day, OK?’

‘Oh thanks, Debs, that’s great. I should still be able to make it, provided things go all right with the headmaster.’

‘I’m sure they will, don’t worry. And the agency won’t mind you being a little late after all the trouble they’ve gone to finding us. I’ll see you later.’

Deborah turned to go without waiting for her friend’s reply. With luck, she might just make the train if the traffic was light.

Fifteen minutes later she sank thankfully into a seat as the 08.12 pulled away from the platform five minutes late. If the traffic had not been so kind, if the train had been on time, if she had waited for Leslie, maybe, just maybe, she would have made it home again safely that evening.

CHAPTER TWO

He waited calmly and quietly behind the wheel of the hired 5-series BMW. All the planning and preparation had led to this moment. As on previous occasions he was completely at ease and totally absorbed with the details of the performance he was about to give. He had raised his craft, his killing craft, to an art form over the years. He planned, casted and rehearsed until he was performance perfect; he was creator and artist combined.

In this case, he had been faced with an apparently insoluble problem: how to remove a woman from her daily routine without causing alarm and give himself time for a leisurely interrogation without an obsessive police operation dogging his steps.

The easy part had been finding her and the others. Their names had been traced from a school yearbook and an old girls’ magazine had provided the rest. Then it had been a question of deciding on the order in which to approach them. He needed more specific information and he could only hope to extract the full truth from the first one of them.

He had chosen this one because she would be easy to crack. He doubted her resistance would be high in any event, and vanity and concern for her pretty face would increase her sensitivity to his threats. He disliked interrogations – they were invariably messy and time-consuming. He took no pleasure from them, unlike others he had met from time to time who appeared to derive sexual satisfaction from inflicting pain and wielding the power of the blade over a helpless victim.

The difficult challenge had been creating a plan which would provide sufficient opportunity for abduction without immediately raising a hue and cry. Taking her directly from the village would be a non-starter; he knew this type of community too well. Even though they were populated largely by commuters and their families, everyone knew everyone else’s business as it related to mothers and their children. Worse, their daily routines and rituals were so intertwined that a variation would be spotted within a few hours – in some instances, less.

There had been a chance that she did not fit the normal mould but during his surveillance of her it had become clear that she was pathetically of a type: part of the school run; exercise classes twice a week; helping out at the old people’s home once a week; shopping and visiting friends too frequently for her husband’s comfort. There would not be one day in her self-styled empty life when she would not be missed too quickly for his purposes.

Even more problematic, there were very few occasions when she could be picked up from home without the risk of someone seeing him, as her house was overlooked by not one but two neighbours of the curtain-twitching variety.

The first glimmer of a solution came to him during one of his surveillance trips, when he had followed her with a group of friends into a restaurant where they had coffee. They had been complaining of their hollow lives, how unfulfilled they were, how much untapped potential they had which was rapidly going to waste. He had automatically filed this away for future reference.

Later on they had been poring over a mail-order catalogue. Mixed with various derogatory comments about the clothes had been remarks about the artificiality of the models themselves; one of the women had remarked that they simply did not look like ‘real people’.

He had been sifting through the facts he had gleaned when the two separate conversations fused into an idea in his mind. Like all good ideas it was surprisingly simple: do not abduct her in her home environment, take her in one of your own making. She would have to become one of the dozens of people who went missing every week. She would simply have to disappear in London where it was commonplace, not in leafy Sussex where it might still be remarked upon. Even better, if she is bored, give her an excuse to do something different, legitimise it and reinforce it with an idea or prejudice she already has. Real-life models for a mail-order catalogue pulled all the threads together.

Of course, the execution of the idea was rather more complex – ‘overworked’ his old CO would have said. It was his one failing, a tendency to make the execution of his plans too intricate. It grew out of his love for, obsession with, detail and the desire to prove himself more clever than his opponents. But no part of his plot was irrelevant. Planning the advertisement was easy: a letter and cheque to the local newspaper enclosing copy but allowing them to set the advertisement for a fee meant that he had no need of a design studio. The chequing account had been opened by post from his ‘business’ address – a serviced one-room office in a run-down part of North London, paid for with cash and no questions asked by the seedy landlord.

He had researched the clothing and catalogue industries quickly: the relevant trade magazines and a few personal investment weeklies had provided him with a list of clothing manufacturers and retailers based in the UK. He chose the most appropriate one, bought a few shares and was rewarded with copies of their report and accounts and interim statement. It had proved just as well that he had them as they served to reassure Leslie Smith’s husband at the right time.

Thus prepared he had placed the advertisement to run fortnightly for eight weeks and had used printed stationery from a local print shop with the same business address to add weight and legitimacy to the ad. He had been concerned that perhaps the newspaper would try to check the firm placing the advertisement, but he need not have worried; his cheque was taken as a matter of routine.

The advertisement had been drafted to appeal to her personally. He knew that she received that local paper and he had seen her pause over the classified ads. She had some social pretensions and the copy was written to pander to these. She obviously thought she was attractive and probably felt she could have been a model when younger, and he suspected she had reached that time of life when opportunities to prove her attractiveness would be particularly seductive. Of course, he had also heard her join in the criticism of professional models.

Finally, the advertisement would allow a team response – suggesting that this was something the girls could all do together. There was always the risk that she would not reply, in fact he viewed this first attempt as something of an experiment to test her reactions to some obvious bait. When he’d developed the plan, he had deliberately not placed great hope on it; if it failed he would lose a little money, but he had plenty of that, and he would waste some time. So what? Time was on his side; he had waited nearly twenty years already.

He had been slightly surprised when the woman had replied to the first advertisement, but relieved that the group of them had written in together. What had followed had been a simple process of elimination, done convincingly with style and reassurance at each stage, just as the marked sheep is extracted from the flock and isolated with minimal alarm.

Thinking back over the detail of the elimination process he allowed himself some pride in the simple ways he had built in double-checks to encourage her to continue to the next stage. The hotel was typical of the type in London that did as much business by day as by night; large enough for his single booking to be unremarkable and smart enough to appeal to his target.

Finding an attractive interviewer had been easy. He had called a staff agency with explicit requirements as to the physical impact, keyboard skills and style of the person he wished to hire for three weeks. He had then arranged to interview the candidates at the agency’s offices, selecting the one who was looking for money from one last assignment before she set off on a round-the-world trip. He briefed her, gave her the laptop, details of applicants and a small supply of brochures, printed by a different high street firm from the one that had produced his stationery. He paid in advance, and had given his accommodation address to which to send a daily print-out of interview notes and any commentary on the candidates. The temp had been delighted with an interesting job in a smart hotel for generous pay. He promised her a success bonus if they found good-quality candidates quickly. She had asked no questions and seemed incurious about this latest job in a long and varied stream of engagements.

He handled all the correspondence himself, picking up replies from the North London address and typing the appointment letters. He had worried that the temp he used might notify the police of her involvement if she recognised the name when it eventually appeared in the press. With this candidate, though, the risk was minimal. She should be long gone before the police ever became involved.

He sent her more than a dozen interviewees and then telephoned shortly after contact with the target and her friends to say that the search was over and her success fee was on its way. He asked her to return all the materials and the laptop to the agency where it was collected by one of the less reputable mini-cab firms. A week later, he left the PC, erased of all data, in a builder’s skip at a site near Aldgate.

The laptop hadn’t been strictly necessary but he had found in the past that putting information in a computer conveyed authority and respectability. It was unlikely the police would ever be able to trace the purchase of the laptop – supposing that they ever made the connection with it in the first place. He had bought it from a PC warehouse on a busy Saturday, for cash; it was one of their most popular models.

Thinking of detail his lips compressed into a rare smile as he considered the two beautiful, high-class escorts he had arranged to turn up at the hotel to coincide with his target’s interview. He had insisted over the telephone when finalising the arrangements that they make a great show of asking for the suite – emphasising that there would be a number of people he wanted to impress in the lobby. The escorts, professional women, had agreed – used to humouring their customers’ whims – and had arrived promptly. Unfortunately, the interviews had run over time despite his precise instructions, and from his observation post in the lounge by the reception desk, he had watched with frustration as the two escort girls went through their extended enquiries, only to finish as the other women left the lifts. He couldn’t be sure that they had caught the show, in fact he was almost sure that they must have missed it, which caused him some annoyance. He had been relying on beautiful competition to make the women feel envious and nervous about their ability to be selected. He knew that one of the most effective ways to overcome any lingering reservations would be to make them really want the job, to make it an aspiration they would be reluctant to abandon.

Despite this small setback, he felt that step two had gone well. Step three, the photographic session, which he had anticipated would be the most difficult part of his plan, had been the easiest to arrange. He had found an addled junkie with the remnants of a good speaking voice to make the appointment phone calls. The addict had been so surprised at the money that she had asked no questions and performed her part with a pathetic desire to please. Then the studio. He had not realised just how many studios there were in London. He had hired one not too far from the centre of town with a good address, through the simple expedient of looking up telephone numbers in Yellow Pages and confirming with the lucky photographer that it would be a legitimate deal. He had sent the money and brief round by courier, explaining at the last minute that he found himself abroad and would be unable to supervise the shoot himself. The studio performed perfectly, he knew, having listened to the whole thing with the assistance of routine surveillance equipment – a transmitter concealed in a double socket.

The final stage required delicate manoeuvring. Like a collie circling and separating the marked sheep he finally needed her alone. He wanted her away from the other woman whose only purpose had been to make the whole enterprise feel safe. He had to make her confident enough to come along finally on her own, without giving her the opportunity to get cold feet. By allowing her to believe right up to the last minute that this experience was still going to be a shared one, he felt he could lull her into a sense of security.

He was aware that the whole plot could fall apart at this stage – the phoney call from the headmaster might have been ineffectual; she might have decided to wait for her friend. He would know soon enough. He waited calmly, immune to any concerns about future disappointments, schooled to keep his eagerness to the minimum. Now totally controlled in his emotions and betraying no anxiety, he gently moved the hired car to a halt alongside the kerb by a side entrance to Victoria Station.

CHAPTER THREE

The train drew into Victoria Station virtually on time. Deborah roused herself from a happy daydream in which she had taken Derek on a romantic holiday for two, thanks to the proceeds of her modelling assignment. She handed the outward part of her ticket to the collector at the gate, giving him a radiant smile that made his day and could later have given him the role of vital police witness if only there had been a police investigation. Walking purposefully, she left by a side exit as instructed, to make her way to the promised chauffeured car. By now, Deborah could feel the butterflies in her stomach again and she had to take several deep breaths to calm herself.

As she stepped out into the heat of the unseasonably warm April day, the dust and noise of the busy London street did little to aid her composure. She squinted against the bright sunlight, fighting a growing sense of disorientation, and looked around almost desperately for the driver they had said would be there to meet her. It had sounded so simple on the phone, but here, in the press of people and traffic, she realised that she could conceivably miss the car altogether.

Increasingly panicked she started violently as a dark, garlic-breathing man came up to her and touched her elbow lightly.

‘Are you lost, madam? You look a little dazed.’ He spoke with a heavy accent.

‘No, no, I’m all right, thank you. Just a little bit dazzled by all this sunshine. Thank you, really I’m OK.’

‘But, forgive me for saying so, delightful madam, you do not seem OK – and I should never forgive myself if I left you looking lost like this.’

His attentions were vaguely threatening and Deborah was desperate to shake him off.

‘No, really I am all right. I’m meeting someone here. They’ll be along in a minute,’ Deborah answered abruptly, belatedly softening her tone with a half-smile that did not reach her eyes.

‘But it is wrong to leave you here unescorted, lady. And I have a nice restaurant just over the road there, where you could sit comfortably and watch for the person you await.’

The man was now insistent and his touch on her elbow changed to a firm grip. He started to move her to the kerb as if to cross the road.

‘It’s all right, the lady’s with me,’ said a voice from above and behind the man.

Deborah and her unwelcome guardian turned together. They could make out little of the man’s features for his back was towards the sun, casting his face into half-shadow. He was tall, well muscled without being brawny. Something about his bearing immediately made Deborah think of the police, but she dismissed this almost at once and put the impression down to the effect created by his peaked chauffeur’s cap.

‘Mrs Fearnside? I’m your chauffeur from Happy Families, the catalogue people.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s me.’ Deborah responded quickly, keen now to have the pestering restaurateur removed, and then in a manner she felt more becoming, ‘How kind of you to escort me.’

‘Not at all, madam, it’s my job. But we must go at once. I’m on a yellow line and I don’t want us clamped.’

The restaurateur had not relinquished ownership of her elbow and seemed reluctant to let her go but then something in the driver’s eyes and his manner made him back down quickly. He sketched a faint bow to Deborah before leaving to cross the road.

‘Au revoir, madame. I hope our paths may cross again.’

Deborah ignored his retreating back. ‘Thanks again. He was becoming a nuisance.’

The driver said nothing but smiled at her, and in one fluid movement, took her small overnight bag in which she had brought her make-up things. He gently placed his palm under her elbow and almost lifted her across the road to the waiting car, avoiding the busy traffic. Unlocking the doors he placed her bag and jacket on the rear seat and opened the front passenger door for her. Deborah hesitated slightly.

‘Unless you’d prefer to ride in the back, madam? I just thought you’d be more comfortable in the front; people usually are.’ For the first time he looked her full in the face and smiled. With a small flutter Deborah realised that he was extremely attractive: older than she had first thought – but very good-looking and with a younger man’s physique.

‘Thanks. I’ll ride in the front with you. I prefer the front too.’

She slipped into the warm, leather-scented interior as he made sure that her dress was well clear of the door. The car nosed into thick traffic and he switched on the air conditioning. Soon the air was down to a pleasant temperature that did not rely on the recirculation of the fume-filled atmosphere outside.

‘As we have to go through one or two rough spots, Mrs Fearnside, do you mind if I lock the doors?’

‘No, that’s all right. I always drive with my doors locked these days; there are so many horror stories, I honestly don’t feel safe any more if I’m driving on my own.’

He smiled reassuringly and all four doors locked automatically with a satisfying, synchronised clunk as the car purred its way slowly through the tightly packed cars around Buckingham Palace. Most of his concentration was on driving smoothly through the late rush-hour traffic. At all costs, he wanted to avoid any sort of accident that might draw attention to them. Some of his awareness, however, was still focused on the woman beside him. The next half-hour was the most dangerous and difficult part of his plan. If she became suspicious or upset in any way now, he had few non-violent options for dealing with her. He did not believe that she knew London well, so he thought he had at least another ten minutes before the signposts started to hint that they were heading away from the direction she had taken previously to reach the ‘studios’.

In the meantime, he needed to build up her confidence in him. His intuition told him that gentle flirtation would be the easiest way to create a relaxed and intimate atmosphere between them.

‘Are you quite comfortable, Mrs Fearnside? Is the temperature all right for you?’ He treated her to a sidelong glance from amber eyes which, he calculated, should convey a hint of attraction and definite approval of what he saw, though in truth, he had no sexual interest in her whatsoever. In a purely academic way he was aware that she could be described as very attractive – a factor which would be a hindrance from now on as there was an increased risk she would be remembered by potential witnesses.

However, he had learnt to respond to his targets when necessary in the way they expected him to. This even extended to subtle modulations in voice, accent, and mannerisms. They’d had a behavioural psychologist in once who had explained that most people gained comfort from the subtle repetition of their normal behaviour by others in their company. Apparently he had a natural skill. Deep down, he felt nothing for her – no compassion, no pity – only a calculated interest in her likely reactions and a finely tuned sensitivity to her mood. There was no way that she would have been able to sense this, so polished was his performance.

‘I’m fine, thank you.’ Deborah thought she caught a hint of interest in the glance he gave her from deep tawny eyes – like a tiger, she felt. There was something slightly predatory in his manner, in the way that he looked at her, but his obvious interest in her transformed this into an exciting hint of danger. A warm feeling grew in the pit of her stomach. She felt no trace of alarm. ‘And it’s Deborah, please, not Mrs Fearnside.’

‘Right. Deborah it is. That’s a nice name. My sister had a friend called Deborah when she was at school; I always secretly fancied her. Do you know what the name means?’

She shook her head.

‘It comes from the Bible, somebody’s nurse, I think. Anyway, it’s the Hebrew word for bee – which can mean one of two things, diligence or sweetness. I learnt all this to impress that earlier Deborah but it didn’t do me much good!’ He laughed, the comfortable, relaxed sound of a man who could poke fun at himself without being worried. ‘For what it’s worth, I think the name suits you.’ He treated her to another of his sideways smiles.

To her consternation, Deborah found that she was blushing and hoped he had not seen. She was finding him increasingly attractive. For the first time she noticed that his voice was quite cultured, softly middle class, and she wondered why he had a job as a chauffeur.

Most of his attention was now focused on the traffic, which was typically heavy at that time in the morning. She looked at his hands on the wheel, long-fingered and strong in light-weight driving gloves. Her eyes travelled down until they reached his legs, sleek and athletic in dark navy trousers. Deborah realised with a start that she was staring and that her idle interest in him could be taken as serious unless she was careful. Naturally romantic and deeply frustrated, she recognised the danger signs in her behaviour. She waited impatiently for him to speak again.

After a few minutes of silence she ventured a comment of her own.

‘You mentioned a sister, do you keep in touch with her?’

‘Not as much as I’d like. She works abroad, in Brussels, so I see her only rarely. How about you – do you have brothers or sisters?’

‘I’m an only child. My father died a few years ago. My mother lives close by so I see her quite regularly – duty visits really as we don’t get on particularly well. My family life really revolves around my own family. I have two children, a girl and a boy.’

Deborah could hear herself wittering on and stopped abruptly. She was not sure why she had revealed so much of herself to a perfect stranger and she felt exposed. He was the sort of person, though, who seemed to invite confidences, someone who appeared genuinely interested in her, despite the need to steer them through a mêlée of aggressive black cabs and suicidal courier bikes. Inevitably, she thought of Derek, who rarely displayed any interest in her conversation at the best of times and certainly not when he was driving.

He was aware of her growing interest in him and delighted in the additional power it gave him. She was perceptibly more relaxed and had inclined her legs towards him in an unconscious gesture of acceptance. More importantly, she was paying scant attention to the streets through which they were passing.

‘I have to stop for a moment and pick up some clothing samples to take to the office. I hope you don’t mind but I didn’t want to risk collecting them earlier and making myself late for you. It’s on our way and’ll only take a moment.’

‘That’s fine. You seem to be making good time despite the traffic and we don’t need to be there until ten o’clock, do we?’ Deborah returned his grateful smile and settled back more comfortably in the leather seat.

He pulled slowly into a side road off Kensington High Street and then turned carefully into a small mews that ran down from it at right angles. He had picked the spot a few weeks earlier and visited it a couple of times since to confirm the choice. Most of the residents would, by this time, have left for work and it was too early for the few that remained to be setting out for the shops. He drew up in front of a double garage on the shady side of the street where two ornamental bay trees in tubs provided screening on the passenger side of the car.

He opened the driver’s door, which automatically released the other locks and the boot. Leaving his own door open, he walked around to the boot and unzipped the small black holdall he had left there, taking from it a prepared hypodermic. In the shadow of the boot lid, screened from both the street and the occupant of the car, he carefully checked the measured dose in the syringe, then concealed it along the length of his open left hand.

Speaking just loudly enough for his voice to reach her inside the car, he called out: ‘Mrs Fearnside, I’m sorry to trouble you further but could you just give me a hand with this, please?’

Deborah roused herself from an idle daydream and undid her seat belt. She moved to open her door but realised with a smile that he was there already, the perfect chauffeur, ready with a hand to assist her from the car. He was standing with his back to the rear passenger door, his right hand outstretched ready to help her from the car. Still in her seat, she lifted her own left hand to him, experiencing a small thrill as their flesh touched. He gently turned her hand, as if to kiss it. She looked up expectantly into his eyes and was startled by the intensity of his gaze.

Deborah felt a sudden shudder of fear as she realised she knew nothing about this strange, compelling man bending over her with such sense of purpose. She tried to remove her hand from his. In that instant, his grip tightened. His left hand came over and he smoothly inserted the needle into the soft vein on the back of her hand. She had time to murmur a soft ‘No’, before the fast-acting tranquilliser hit her nervous system and plunged her into semi-consciousness.

He had given her the maximum dose he could based on her height and weight, so obligingly provided in her application. The whole episode had lasted less than a minute. He gently redistributed her unconscious body, reclined the seat and refastened her seat belt. From the back seat, he took a small cushion and placed it behind her neck, supporting her head and preventing it from lolling to the side. His peaked cap and chauffeur’s jacket went into the holdall in the boot of the car.

As he drove back out of the mews, they looked a perfect couple; she tired and solicitously cushioned for the journey, he smart in a white shirt and dark tie, perfectly in control of the steady, stately BMW. He had originally contemplated carrying her in the boot but had dismissed the idea. With the random road blocks in London and police stop and search powers, there was always the risk, however remote, that he could be pulled up by a routine patrol. A sleeping wife whilst he responded to questioning would not be unusual; an unconscious woman in the boot of the car would be hard to explain.

He calculated that he had six to eight hours before she started to come round, ample time to reach their destination. Driving quickly and confidently on the speed limit, he continued along Kensington High Street, out past Olympia and on to Hammersmith. He took the M4 west and within two hours was well past Reading. Deborah was still unconscious when he left the motorway and Severn Bridge behind and was making his way down a rutted track in the Black Hills beyond Monmouth. After a few more miles, a small holiday cottage came into view.

During the ride west, the sky had clouded over and darkened to a storm grey in front of them. The first heavy drops of what promised to be a sustained downpour fell on his bare head as he unlocked the cottage front door.

Returning to the car he replaced his leather driving gloves with thin, skin-tight latex ones and then put a similar pair on to Deborah’s hands. He lifted his passenger out gently and carried her into a small downstairs bedroom at the back of the cottage, laid her on the bed, and returned to collect the remainder of his supplies before concealing the BMW in a nearby barn.

Within an hour, he had completed all the necessary arrangements with an economy of effort natural after years of training. The bed had been stripped and large, thick plastic sheets spread on top and underneath it. Deborah’s inert body had been stripped naked except for a shower cap on her head and the rubber gloves on her hands. Her wrists and ankles were secured to the heavy iron bedframe with nylon ropes. The curtains were drawn and what little light there was came from a 40-watt bulb inside an incongruous frilly pink shade hanging from the centre of the low ceiling.

On a solid, crudely crafted chest of drawers, he had laid out commercial paper towels, a fresh pair of gloves, an apron, a gag in case it was needed and a large jug of cold water. There was no heat in the room and the rising storm wind whistled through cracks in the wooden window frame. On the bedside table, where her waking eyes would see them, he finally placed his instruments – scalpels, a filleting knife, a thin piece of cheese wire with wooden handles, pliers.

When all was ready he settled down to a strong mug of fresh coffee in the pretty country kitchen and prepared a light meal from his stock of provisions. About now, she should start to come round. She was completely secured, the door was locked and she could scream her head off without there being any danger of her being overheard. The cottage was isolated. True, he had seen on the Ordnance Survey map that even this remote tract of land had its footpath which might tempt a particularly ambitious walker, but on this increasingly stormy and grey evening, he doubted he would be troubled. He would be left alone to his work.

CHAPTER FOUR

Shortly after five o’clock, when the storm outside was gusting around the cottage shutters and howling down the chimney, he heard a different low-pitched moan, emanating from within the house. He waited patiently, knowing that shortly it would rise to a shriek to rival the most fearsome wailing of the storm. Part of him, deep inside, was aware that he would find the next few hours unpleasant. He suppressed the thought as soon as it started and schooled himself to his normal state of calm. She was only a woman but they could be more cunning and deadly opponents than men.

With care, he put on his disguise. He hadn’t bothered with one before but after some deliberation, he had decided that she would be more co-operative if she felt that there was a chance of life. And she was clever enough to realise that any kidnapper who revealed himself to his victim would never let her go alive. The idea of a disguise also comforted him. He would find it hard enough to do what he needed to do, but to reveal who he really was, and to see her recognise, despise and hate him was more than he could stand. It was important that she did not see the chauffeur in him now.

The minimal disguise was prepared quickly; light body padding under a loose black shirt and two pairs of jogging trousers made him look at least fourteen pounds heavier. Coloured contact lenses – a dark brown was needed given his deep amber eyes – and a hint of shading in the sockets changed his expression completely, making him expressionless yet sinister. A heavy gold chain around his neck and a tight-fitting Balaclava completed the transformation. He still wore his gloves; they had not left his hands since he had entered the house. When he glanced at himself in the mirror over the kitchen range he was satisfied with the bullying figure that stared back at him.

He heard her first real shriek of terror as he pulled the Balaclava under his chin. It was quickly followed by short, panting cries which made him shudder. Without warning the sounds reminded him of a vixen he had once found caught in a trap on a friend’s farm; the animal’s agony and fear had produced pathetic, urgent yelps that had sent him running, so fast, to find help. He had thought in his childish innocence that his friend’s father would know what to do to save the maimed animal. He could still remember running back with the man, pleased with himself for playing the rescuer and eager to see how he would save the fox. And he could still remember standing with a frozen ‘No!’ in his throat as he had watched him raise his gun and shoot her where she lay, helpless in the gin. He had seen many worse deaths since but none with the same power to shake him with its recollection.

It was an unlucky twist that the woman’s screams should vividly recall those of the injured fox when he had been impervious to previous human cries. Hardening himself to her unexpected appeal he abruptly unlocked the door to the little room.

‘Shaddap!’ He deliberately coarsened his voice, eliminating the middle-class vowels she had found so comforting earlier. Deborah screamed even more at the sight of the menacing, dark stranger on the threshold.

‘Shut the fuck up now, or I’ll come over and sew your fucking lips together.’