Richard listened to the message again, deleted it, and set the phone back on the table. When Judith asked, it had been a French number and a bad line.
Forty-eight
Luxury, Simon decided, was a power shower that could be switched in a nanosecond from scalding hot to ice cold. He spent a long time, alternating between the two, letting the freezing needles dance over his skin until he couldn’t bear any more, then changing to hot. He had already had a very hot bath. Somehow, he needed to keep sluicing the stain of this house and Will off his body.
It was when he was putting on the clean shirt that had been laid out on the bed for him by the ever-efficient housekeeper that he realised his watch was missing. Snoopy. He went back to the bathroom but he knew he had not showered with it on. He had taken it off for the hot bath. So, it must be beside the bed.
It was not.
For the next five minutes, in a blind panic, he scoured the room before noticing that as well as bringing him a clean shirt, Lynn had taken a few clothes to be washed. She had also removed the two newspapers which he had read and which had been on the bedside table. The watch had probably been underneath them and been scooped up with the pages. He thought that he had never done anything so stupidly careless in his life.
‘Johnno?’ Will held up a bottle of beer, smoking with cold from the fridge that was tucked under the bookcases. ‘Gin and tonic? Vodka?’
Serrailler nodded to the beer.
The double doors were open onto the garden, and the smell of night-scented stocks was a powerful memory of those his mother Meriel had always grown, up the path to the kitchen door at Hallam House. His teenage years, his youth, his return visits home during university and then as a rookie copper in the Met, evenings with a beer lying in the hammock after a cricket match … All, all of it came rushing back down the long corridor of time, to where he sat now, next to Andrew Morson, QC. Will Fernley was a yard away, head tipped back to let the icy Beck’s slip down his throat.
‘I didn’t think you were usually home on a Thursday,’ he said after a long drink.
‘Adjournment. Nothing doing till Tuesday now.’ He rattled the ice round his glass of vodka.
Whatever picture Will had given him of the barrister had been wrong. He was rough at the edges, where Simon had assumed smooth, short where he surely would be tall, his voice held a strong trace of Estuary/cockney, where he had expected plummy vowels. He was entirely bald, his skull polished and shining, as if it had never grown hair at all. It looked likely that he had alopecia. His features were small, snub, almost porcine, but his eyes were unusually large and wide open, and exceptionally blue. A medical condition? Cat would know at once. The fingers holding his glass were short, the hands very small, the backs as hairless as the head.
But he had welcomed him easily, was a relaxed host, asked no questions.
Those, Simon thought, would come any moment now.
It felt surreal, drinking chilled beer, smelling the stocks, enjoying the comforts of this house, forcing himself to remember who he was, why he was here, and to plan, to speculate, to work out how he could make contact. He glanced at Will. To him, surely, it must be even stranger. He had been in the prison system for five years, and yet he was relaxed, apparently comfortable, looking young, looking handsome, looking as if he had no anxiety. Presumably that meant he had none. Morson would look after him. Morson.
The man was looking at him. Simon’s skin prickled.
‘Another?’
‘I’m fine thanks.’
Morson got up and refilled his own glass, handed Will a second bottle of beer without asking.
‘So you were a schoolmaster, Johnno,’ he said.
Serrailler’s brain clicked into place.
‘Hard to believe.’
Andrew smiled. ‘I bet. Small boys?’
‘God, no. Thirteen plus.’
‘Couldn’t trust yourself with prep-school boys?’
‘Nothing like that. As Will knows.’
Fernley smiled.
‘Just didn’t want to be a nanny. I like good brains – clever young men.’
‘Sciences?’
‘Nope. English. And cricket.’
Andrew gave a short laugh. ‘Cricket, what! Nice for you both.’ He nodded at Fernley.
‘Probably why they put us next to each other at Stitchford.’
‘My God, the OB network spreads its tentacles bloody wide.’
‘You have a problem with that?’
‘With public schools as schools? Not really. With the lifelong privileges it gets you – I think so, Johnno. I think so.’
Morson sat silently for a few seconds, swirling the drink round his glass, before he shook his head slightly, looking at them both.
‘So, when do you reckon it will be safe for you to leave here? No rush as far as I’m concerned, place is yours for as long as you like. But I should think you want to move on? Abroad or something?’
‘Couple of weeks,’ Will said. ‘Maybe ten days. Johnno?’
‘Thing is, we’re safe here – and thanks, Andrew, by the way … thanks for this. I don’t underestimate the risk you’re taking.’
Morson laughed. ‘Not really. Not the French Resistance.’
‘All the same …’
‘Eminent QC hides nonces in luxury mansion.’
‘The QC would go, for starters.’
‘There’ll be a surveillance on our homes, twenty-four/seven.’
‘Still … You’ve got friends.’
‘I’ve got friends.’
Simon remained relaxed, legs stretched out, tone casual. His sixth sense was alert. Morson’s eyes did not leave his face, when he said, ‘Like to watch a film?’
A split second. ‘Great.’
‘Thought you might.’
Across the hall. Through a door. Along a passage. Short flight of narrow stairs, with the ceiling so low, Simon had to bend his head and shoulders.
‘Did you see this? Help yourselves if you’re interested.’ He had opened a door and switched on a light, showing a long room with a full-size billiard table, and a dartboard on one wall.
‘Drinks in there.’ Morson pointed to a dark wood cupboard. ‘Fridge inside. You play, Johnno?’
‘Badly.’
‘Yeah, not really a public-school game, billiards. Come on through.’
He led the way to a door in the panelling at the far end. Another room. Small. When the door was closed Simon was at once aware of the soft deadness of a room with full soundproofing. A sofa. Deep matching armchairs. Low table. Another drinks cupboard. A wall-mounted screen.
Morson switched on a lamp, and opened a cupboard below the screen. ‘Take a look. Anything you fancy?’
Rows of DVDs. Major feature films – westerns, horror, crime, adventure, drama, even musicals.
He’d been wrong then.
He bent down. ‘The Magnificent Seven … True Grit …’
‘Fred Astaire?’ There was a mocking unpleasantness in the barrister’s voice now.
A row of complete operas. Wagner. Mozart. Donizetti.
Above, films of old steam-engine journeys, vintage cars, Second World War light aircraft.
It was the collection of a man who bought by the dozen, everything he fancied, everything his guests might fancy. He could come down here, have his supper brought, watch for hour after hour, glass always topped up.
Nice.
‘Nothing?’
He noticed that Will Fernley was standing back, thumbs in the belt of his jeans, waiting.
Serrailler said nothing.
‘OK.’ Morson slid one of the racks of DVDs aside. It moved easily. Behind was a large wall safe. He bent in and positioned himself so that they could not see as he turned the combination several times.
When the door swung open, Simon saw that the safe was set back deeply into the old wall. The click of a switch. A low light. He did not try to peer in, just waited, next to Fernley.
Rows of DVDs in plain boxe
s. After a moment or two, Morson stepped back with half a dozen in his hand, swung the safe door to and re-locked it. Slid the concealing shelf back into place.
‘Do for a start,’ he said. ‘Make yourself comfortable, Johnno. What can I get you to drink?’
The vodka bottle came up from the fridge.
The remote control was on the arm of Morson’s armchair. It controlled the lights in the room as well as the screen and the sound.
Serrailler’s stomach tightened. One lamp was left on, in the corner a yard away from him. If he closed his eyes, it would be noted. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Will was sitting slightly forward on the sofa, glass in hand, eyes fixed intently on the screen.
The first forty minutes were among the worst Serrailler had ever endured. He tried to distract himself from the horrifying pictures and desperate sounds by counting, by remembering Latin conjugations and the Greek alphabet, by working out chemical formulae, by trying to put his own images – of places, of his family, of the Venice lagoon, of cricket – between his eyes and the screen. None of it worked, none of it blotted out what he was forced to watch, and several times, he was aware that Morson was glancing at him, wanting to share his own excitement, so that he could barely blink let alone close his eyes. He remembered that the CEOP teams watched this sort of thing day in, day out, and wondered again how they could bear it.
The screen went blank for a second. Morson fast-forwarded, then went to Pause.
‘Here we go then,’ he said. He turned to Simon. ‘Hope you enjoyed the warm-up.’
What he had seen was inside his head and could never be unseen, never be erased, it would haunt his waking and sleeping and bring him nightmares that caused him to break out in a sweat. But a few minutes into the next film, he stood up quickly.
‘You all right?’
‘No. I’m sorry, but I don’t do this. This is where I draw the line. Not me. Not my thing.’
Morson went to Pause again.
‘I’m surprised,’ he said. ‘I had you down for a man who would relish a snuff movie. Like Will here.’
‘Nope. You had me wrong.’
Serrailler found the door, and the dark steps, the passageway. Found himself, about to vomit, in the wide entrance hall of the house. He went out.
The garden smelled of night, after the heat of the day, smelled sweet and cool and earthy and green. He walked straight ahead, across the grass, under an archway, alongside a stone wall. There was a half-moon, enough to see by. He reached a huge old beech tree and leaned on the trunk, breathing deeply, feeling the nausea churn in his belly. The bark was cold and smooth under his fingertips and oddly comforting.
What he felt most of all, over the sickness, the disgust, the shock of what he had seen, was anger, like a hot nail driving down through him, anger, and a passionate resolve. He would have Morson, he would bring him down and, with him, however many others there were in his ring of evil and degradation. He would break them open and pick them off, as many as there were. He punched his fist hard into the tree trunk. The thought of going to his room, to bed, to try and sleep after what he had seen, was terrifying. Perhaps this was how men felt when they had been in war, witnesses to unspeakable sufferings. But they were so often helpless in the face of such things. He was not. He could not be. He had drifted through his recent days, as he had simply put his head down and got on with his time in Stitchford, slightly detached, listening and trying to find out what he could, yet with an odd sense that he was playing some sort of game. Not any more.
He thumped the tree again and again, until his knuckles bled.
Forty-nine
‘Judith, at last! I’ve been trying and trying to reach you, I’ve left messages – I was beginning to worry.’
Judith sat on the edge of the bed, looking out through the open windows at soft summer rain veiling the garden. She had woken to it, and to the refreshing smell of wet grass.
‘I haven’t had any messages, darling, but I think there might have been something wrong with my phone.’
‘And I’ve left them for Dad … I know you’re in France but it isn’t usually as bad as this.’
‘Is everything all right? You sound a bit frantic.’
‘I am a bit frantic. Listen, I’ve no idea what it’s all about, almost certainly nothing, but I’ve had the police here asking for Dad, and before your blood pressure soars, it’s nothing to do with Simon – no news at all there. It’s Dad they want to talk to – is he there?’
‘No, he’s gone into Cahors to try and get his reading glasses repaired. But what’s it about?’
‘No idea, but will you get him to pick up his messages? – I’ve left the CID woman’s number for him?’
‘Of course I will. And what about all of you?’
‘Fine, and there’s something else you might tell Dad – just pick your moment, he might not be remotely interested, but I’ve been asked to give the second Caxton Philips lecture at Bevham General.’
‘Cat! And of course your father will be interested, he’ll be thrilled to bits.’
‘Hmm. Anyway, I’m pleased – the first one was given by Dame Irene Higgins. Follow that.’
When the invitation had come, she had been astonished, and then immediately decided to refuse. The American philanthropist George Caxton Philips had been the largest benefactor to Imogen House, and for a time had lived near Lafferton with his young wife, but he had returned to the States and died shortly afterwards. The lecture in his memory was well endowed and prestigious. What had she to say for an hour to a lecture hall packed with medics, the great and the good? She did not understand why she had been asked at all. But Judge Gerald Hanbury, who was on the lecture committee, had persuaded her that she ought to accept.
‘Caxton Philips virtually built the hospice. He loved Lafferton – that’s why he endowed a lecture here, and not at some big London hospital. He would have been very unhappy about what’s happened recently because of our financial problems – if he’d been alive we would have gone to him for help. He knew you, you’ve been one of the driving forces behind the hospice for a long time, and you have sound experience of palliative care, you’re informed, you have opinions … Come on, Cat. Next time we can find some prof from out there, probably the States, but I’ve no doubt that this time it should be you.’
Certainly, she had plenty of opinions she wanted to air, even more since she had been to see Elaine Dacre. She felt a spurt of excitement at being given such a platform. She wanted to throw out challenges, encourage people, speak out about what she believed had been brushed aside for too long by too many people.
After talking to Judith, she went upstairs to change. Would her father be pleased? Proud? If he was he would never in a million years tell her so.
She put it out of her mind. She was going out into the garden to pull up a large dead rose bush that had been killed by last winter’s frost, and whose bare greyness, in the middle of the otherwise lushly flowering border, had been annoying her for weeks.
As she went across the landing, her foot caught against a cricket ball, lurking against the skirting board, and she almost crashed over. She picked it up and went into Sam’s room, put it in the middle of his desk and looked for a pen – ‘I might have killed myself tripping over this. PLEASE DO NOT –’ She stopped in mid-sentence, seeing the printed-out sheets, half a dozen of them, with photographs, descriptions, and some brief notes at the sides in Sam’s handwriting. At the bottom of the last sheet were a couple of mobile phone numbers, and what might be a name – Zak M.
Digging up a well-rotted old bush was hard work and it kept her from pacing about the house waiting for Sam to come in, but it could not keep her mind from running round like a hamster on a wheel, question after question popping up and not one of them easily answered or dismissed. Leaning on the garden fork for a moment’s rest, Cat suddenly felt the chill of aloneness. Everyone was away or out of contact or dead.
‘Help me please,’ she said, half a praye
r, half a message to herself.
But although still a believer, still dependent on her faith and practice, she knew that whatever her Christianity was about, it was not about magic.
She pulled up the fork and attacked the dead roots again in a fury, but dealing with the bush did not help her own feelings.
She sat on the old bench beside the gate and got out her phone.
‘CID.’
‘I’d like to speak to whoever is standing in for DCS Serrailler please.’
‘This is DC Pitman. Can I help you?’
‘Not unless you can put me through, or give me a name.’
‘Who is it calling?’
‘Dr Cat Deerbon – I am Superintendent Serrailler’s sister.’
‘Hold on.’
She held on, was put through to two other people who were not standing in for Simon, could not get a name out of anyone, and left a message without much hope of it reaching the right place. She could think of no good reason why they needed to keep the identity of someone’s deputy a dark secret, but the frustration of it made her feel even more isolated.
The phone rang after supper.
‘Dr Deerbon? This is Kieron Bright – Chief Constable.’
She sat down. ‘Oh no …’
‘No, it’s all right, I’m not ringing with bad news – or with any news at all about Simon – but I found out that you’d called the Lafferton station. There wasn’t any reason why you shouldn’t have been put through to the acting Super – his name is DCI Austin Rolph, by the way – but in future, will you come straight to me? I may not be available there and then but I will always ring you back.’
‘Thank you – thanks so much. You’re sure you’re telling me the truth – nothing’s happened to him?’
‘Listen – there is a very limited amount I can say and you’ll have to understand that I’m not able to give reasons but I don’t want to do this over the phone. I’d prefer to talk face-to-face. Can I come out and see you?’