The Vows of Silence (7 page)

“Thanks a bunch.”

“You are going, aren’t you?”

Helen had asked herself the same question several times, without coming up with a final answer. It was not the Jug Fair. That would be fine. A fair was a fair, whoever you went with, and if she couldn’t enjoy herself at one she was a lost cause. But she sensed that if she went with Phil, she would be taking a definite step over a line between a single friendly outing and …

And whatever she had signed up on the Internet for.

“Mum?”

“Well, of course I’m going,” she said, wiping butter from her mouth. “And I’m having another espresso too.’

Eleven

He was excited. He went to bed with the sick feeling of excitement he had had as a small boy on Christmas Eve. He had woken with the same thump in his gut as he remembered what day it was.

The perfect weather went on and on. The huge moons. The misty dawns. Hot days. Chill set in after six.

They were out at the grounds on the Clandine estate, fifteen miles to the west of Lafferton. Always were for the last shoot of the season. The woodland setting, the hill behind, the drop to the lake, everything was perfect. The hospitality was second to none. The sponsors were generous. But it was more than that. Everything came together at the last shoot. For him, it was more than a day out, a good lunch. He set out to win. He always set out to win. He had set out to win from the first time he shot at clays.

*

He was there early. They were still setting up. It was an English sporting layout of eight ten-bird stands and a hundred-bird team flush off the newly installed high tower. The best you could hope for. The birds would simulate high pheasant, very high pheasant, crossing pigeon, flushing partridge and various others incoming and going. There was no challenge like it.

People working for the sponsors were stretching a banner between two posts. The catering marquee was up. Land Rovers full of girls and cutlery baskets drove across the field.

He went back to the car. Stood leaning on the bonnet, looking, looking, checking the atmosphere, the sight line, the backdrop, looking, looking. Getting his eye in.

A couple of members drew up beside him. He nodded. Went back to looking, looking. In a minute, he would walk from the tower, a hundred yards, out and back. Looking. He swung his arms. Turned his head from side to side. Keep loose. Keep flexible. Keep easy.

He used a 32-inch over-under. The same he had used for the past three years. The years he had won.

He began to walk away from the car. Pace evenly towards the tower, looking, looking. Swinging his arms.

But he was careful to go into the marquee afterwards, get a breakfast bap, hot bacon and mushrooms, from the smiling blonde girls, take it to a group table, talk, laugh, socialise. He didn’t want to be labelled a loner. Loners weren’t liked. Not trusted.

Not loners with guns.

He bit into the soft fresh bread and the salt bacon taste made the juices run inside his mouth.

“Champion again this year, then?” Roger Barratt said, clapping him on the shoulder.

He swallowed. Shook his head. “Someone else’s turn. I reckon I’ve had mine.”

They all laughed. He hadn’t taken anyone in.

They were looping back the sides of the marquee already. It was going to be hot. Clear. Blue sky. Shooting to the north-east. Perfect.

He walked out, easy, relaxed, calm. Confident.

Twelve

“Raffles!”

But the dog was at the door before him, quivering. Phil Russell laughed as he unhooked the lead and put his hand on the door handle. Paused. The retriever looked at him, frozen, knowing but hardly daring to admit that, yes, he was home, yes, they were going on a walk. Yes!

Phil opened the door.

During term, Phil took the dog with him on a two-mile run every morning. A neighbour came and walked him again after lunch. But it was this occasional late-afternoon outing man and dog enjoyed most of all, into the car and off into the country beyond Lafferton. It kept them both sane.

Now, he turned onto the main road and east towards Durnwell. The river ran this way. The bank was fringed with pollarded willows.

He had come here a couple of times a week for years, with Raffles and with his previous dog. Once he had grown used to life without Sheila, Phil had enjoyed his own company. In any case, he saw enough people during the working day. Nothing was different.

Everything was different.

He stood for a while on top of a slope overlooking the river and threw the ball. He was training Raffles to the gun. The dog raced and dived, retrieved and returned, and it was only when he began to slow down on the way back with the ball in his mouth, panting with pleasure and tiredness, that Phil sat down on the grass. Raffles lay companionably beside him, the wet ball tucked beneath his chin. It had been another hot day. The midges seethed over the water.

Everything was different.

He did not know if he believed in a
coup de foudre
. It had taken him months to be sure of his feelings for Sheila, though once he was sure marriage had been the next and easy step. It was only in the last year that he had entertained the idea of looking for someone again and he had usually pushed it straight out of mind.

It had been the thought of winter that had troubled him, winter alone, now that Hugh was in Africa and Tom so wrapped up in his acting. Phil had resources. There was much that he could enjoy. Winter was the time for pheasant-shooting. But “alone” had begun to read “lonely.” The thought would not leave him.

He had walked into the pub to meet Helen Creedy hoping to have a friendly drink and to find a companion for the theatre from time to time. Helen Creedy. He
had seen her and known, in a way he had never known anything since Sheila, that she would be important. Would change his life. Would …

Stop. He watched as a heron flapped up from the water and flew away, legs dangling, ungainly in the air as it was graceful at rest.

Stop.

Helen Creedy. What? He tried words in his head, watching the letters move about and come together, words like Enjoy. Friend. Pretty. Fun. Intelligent. Good. Talk.

Like Gentle. Sympathetic.

Like Company. Good listener.

Like Attracted.

Love.

Stop.

What was love? He had loved Sheila. Of course he had, though love had changed every year, as love did. Early love. Surprised love. Warm love. Protective. Married. Parent. Everyday. Companionable. Happy. Frightened. Anguished. Desolate. Bereaved love. Grief.

He loved Hugh and Tom. That was different.

What was this now? Attraction. Liking. Enjoyment. Pleasure.

Love?

The shadows were lengthening. The cloud of midges thickened and jazzed closer to the surface of the water.

Marriage.

Company. Like friendly. Relief.

Marriage. Partnership.

Love.

He stood up and offered to throw the ball again but Raffles wandered away.

Love.

He had rung Helen to ask her to the Jug Fair, an impulse, for fun. She had laughed. Agreed. For fun.

The Cocktail Party
was at the Bevham Rep next week.

“I haven’t seen a T.S. Eliot play for years.”

“They don’t do them much.”

“Like Christopher Fry, out of fashion. Pity.”

“And John Whiting.”

“I loved John Whiting! No one has ever heard of him now.”

“
The Cocktail Party
then?”

“Yes please.”

Love?

Something was different. Something. He thought about Helen as he drove home, with Raffles asleep on the back seat.

Love?

He was bewildered. Something which had begun in a half-hearted way, something he had dared himself to do, had turned him inside out and he had no experience, no knowledge, no emotional resources to draw on for help. He felt churned up, with anxiety, confusion, regret even at having started this in the first place.

He had not wanted complication, he had wanted someone to enjoy the theatre with now and again.

The theatre and all the fun of the fair.

Thirteen

“Are you telling us you don’t have any suspects at all?”

Serrailler had never felt there was anything to be gained by lying to the press though he had occasionally asked them to conceal a truth for a good reason.

“Yes.”

“The husband’s not in the frame then?”

“No.”

“Are illegal firearms a growing problem in Lafferton now?”

“Not especially. On the other hand, illegal firearms are a growing problem throughout the country.”

“And it was definitely a handgun that was used? Do you know what type?”

“Yes, but I’m saying no more yet. Right, that’s it for now. I’ll let you know the moment we have any further news and, meanwhile, your cooperation is appreciated. Please try and keep the murder of Melanie Drew
up there—someone has got to know something, or to have seen or heard something. We want to jog their memories. Thanks a lot.”

As he left the briefing room, Serrailler caught a glimpse of Graham Whiteside pushing his way through the media pack towards one of the reporters from Bevham who sometimes sold info on to the nationals.

“Will someone ask DS Whiteside to see me in my office?”

“Sir.”

As he went up to the CID room, he was planning what he would say. Whiteside would not like it. But he got no further. A DS came fast up the stairs.

“Sir, there’s been a shooting at a house in May Road. Man holding woman hostage. Call just came in.”

“Let’s go.”

She drove. Serrailler used his phone. By the time they were out of the station car park, an armed response vehicle was en route.

“What do we know?”

“A passer-by heard shouting from the house—then a scream. One shot. Man came to the window waving what looked like a gun. He had his arm round a woman’s neck. Then he dragged her back. That was it.”

“Any names?”

“No, sir.”

“Who lives in the house?”

“Rented property, owned by Mr Theo Monaides.”

“He owns a lot of property round there. Tenants?”

“A Joanne Watson. Been there for a couple of months.”

“Alone?”

“They’re still checking. Monaides’ office says yes, alone, but a neighbour says a man has been seen coming and going.”

The car went round a corner on what felt like two wheels. Serrailler made a face. But the DS was a highly trained police driver. She spun expertly out into the main road and overtook two buses. The DCS closed his eyes.

There was the usual circus when they reached May Road, half a dozen streets away from the house in which Melanie Drew had been killed. Outside a semi, in the middle of the street, the press were already hovering, kept back behind the tape.

“Neighbours haven’t been backwards in picking up the phone,” Serrailler said as he got out of the car.

Three uniform were holding the fort and the sergeant looked relieved to see Serrailler.

“You SIO, sir? We’ve had no further sighting, no more gunshots—if it was a gunshot.”

“Who reported it?”

“A woman, walking her dog. Lives over there, at number 17. Seems reliable. She flagged down a motorist, he saw the man at the window with the gun and then, a few seconds later, with the woman. Used his mobile to phone us.”

“Has he opened a window, shouted anything out?”

“No, guv.”

“DCS Serrailler?” The sergeant in charge of the ARV was at his side, the vehicle pulled up a few yards back.

Simon filled him in.

“What do you want to do?”

“Wait. Just to see if there’s any communication.”

“OK. Give us the word.”

Simon stepped back and looked up at the house. Then he walked off in the opposite direction, to think.

Inside the Armed Response Vehicle, six men waited.

“Always the bloody same,” Steve Mason said. “Go like a bat out of hell then sit cooling your heels.”

“Probably a water pistol,” said Duncan Houlish.

“Somebody’s shadow.”

“His own arm.”

“Kids. Often kids.”

But they were tensed as they waited, on the ready, pepped up and wanting to go. They were trained for it, trained to do, yet 90 per cent of their time was spent not-doing.

Clive Rowley looked at his feet. “Get on with it,” he said under his breath.

“Could be linked with the other one,” Steve said.

“What? Melanie Drew?” Clive looked at him.

“Once you’ve got a lunatic with a gun out there …”

“What’s to say he’s a lunatic?”

Clive picked at the skin on the side of his finger. They yammered on. He preferred to stay quiet. Ready. Not that the others wouldn’t be ready, but they talked too much.

It was hot inside the vehicle.

Steve’s chewing gum went to and fro, round and round, with a wet clicking sound.

“Liverpool to win three–nil,” someone said.

“Be a draw. They haven’t got the strikers.”

The talk shifted. Shifted back.

“Need air conditioning in here.”

“Your wife due her baby this week, Tim?”

“Next. She’s had enough. Heat gets to her.”

“What’s that, three?”

“Three up.”

Clive Rowley’s right foot itched inside his boot. It was the kind of thing that could drive you mad, itching where you couldn’t get at it. But the minute he unlaced the boot the balloon would go up.

Five minutes later, as Serrailler was walking briskly back, plan made, the door of the house opened and a man came out, hands up, shaking his head. A young woman followed him, clinging to his hand, crying that it was all nothing, he hadn’t done anything, it had been a row about nothing.

The weapon was a popgun belonging to the woman’s five-year-old son.

Inside the ARV the mood was deflated and irritable. They were trained for it. Up for it. Tensed for it. Swore liberally at another false alarm, another shift spent hanging about.

Outside the house, two PCs wound up the tape. The street emptied. The circus moved on.

“They should fine people like that, for wasting our time. A grand would do it,” the DS said, on the way back to the station.