As Noakes carefully manoeuvred their car into the last available space, Markham examined the small gothic church. Situated at the end of Chilcot Avenue, just a few roads away from Hope, it was an unpretentious squat building of sandstone blackened in places with damp. Markham vaguely recalled hearing that it was deemed to be a fine example of Victorian gothic, but there were no flying buttresses or soaring spires here, just a modestly gabled slate roof and bell tower atop bulging walls which seemed to huddle together for warmth as though wracked by rheumatism. This impression of stoical misery was heightened by the miserable weather, sheets of rain lashing the building which crouched mutely before the storm.
To one side of the church was a two-storeyed stone house, also in red sandstone, which Markham took to be the presbytery. On the other was a Calvary; he noticed Noakes giving it furtive glances out of the corner of his eye, as though the DS had a superstitious terror of being struck down for irreligious thoughts.
Noakes had clearly put some thought into his choice of attire. Markham presumed it was his Sunday best, though it gave him the unfortunate appearance of a retired mobster. Markham felt a needle-sharp stab of pain at the thought of how much he would have enjoyed Olivia’s gentle ribbing on the subject.
Of course, she would be there – was probably already inside with her colleagues from Hope. Would she acknowledge him? Or would she shrink away with revulsion? He could bear anything but that, he told himself, feeling wretched at the thought that he had committed the worst kind of sacrilege – that of tearing down the altar of trust which was the bedrock of their relationship.
Noakes was wriggling uncomfortably, eyeing his surroundings with unmistakable apprehension. Markham supposed it was the physical equivalent of shouting ‘No Popery’ at the top of his voice.
‘Right, Sergeant, better get in there,’ he said resignedly. ‘Just follow my lead if you’re not sure about all the bobbing and genuflecting.’
The DS, looking anything but reassured, reached for the car door handle.
When they walked into the church, the cloying scent of lilies was so strong that it almost knocked Markham backwards. They were everywhere – great banks of them – so that Markham barely noticed the marble sanctuary and reredos, side chapels and myriad plaster statues of saints whose mouths were well turned down at the corners as though they shared the general melancholy.
At the front of the sanctuary, next to trestles which awaited the coffin, was a massive stainless steel framed picture of Ashley Dean in his golden, glowing prime, posing with his surf board on some foreign beach. High above the sanctuary, hail rattled like shot against stained glass windows featuring yet more saints in ruby and turquoise robes. Ashley, thought Markham sadly, was above and beyond it all.
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, nor the furious winter’s rages.
Managing to squeeze with Noakes into a dark oak pew near the back, Markham caught sight of Olivia on the other side of the aisle, next to Matthew Sullivan and Harry Mountfield. She looked very pale and was shivering. As he watched, Harry Mountfield wrapped a burly arm gently round her, clamping the slender form to his side. At this, Markham almost seemed to hear a hiss as the green snake of jealousy detached itself from a side-window depicting the Garden of Eden and writhed towards him on undulating coils. It felt like a blasphemy against nature that he should not be the one to support his lover. Swallowing hard, he fought down the angry resentment and endeavoured to be glad that she had good friends by her side.
At that moment, Olivia caught sight of him and bowed gravely. The gesture seemed cruelly cold and unlike herself, piercing him like a steely point of agony, since its formality seemed to say that he was not yet forgiven. Matthew Sullivan saw him too and raised a hand in salute. His eyes were sympathetic. Had Olivia told Matthew about the row, he wondered. Did her oldest friend feel she had been abominably wronged? Or did he have some fellow-feeling for Markham in the stormy fluctuation of his feelings?
Get a grip, he told himself fiercely. Desperately, he grasped the keys and other objects in his trouser pockets so hard that he thought he must draw blood.
There was a minor commotion at the back of the church.
The coffin had arrived.
As the congregation rose to its feet and the pall bearers carried their precious burden down the aisle, Markham tried not to think about the mutilated remains within. Instead, he scanned the mourners.
Strange how the trappings of woe had somehow diluted their individuality, so that even Helen Kavanagh seemed no more than a collection of black draperies topped by mottled purplefaced solemnity. Indeed, although he was a Roman Catholic, the whole ritual seemed somehow dream-like, the sensation that he was a spectator at something alien and ill-understood mysteriously mirroring his deep sense of loneliness.
A bird-like woman nearest the coffin whose tiny frame shook with grief was presumably the deceased’s mother. A phalanx of heavy-featured relatives filled the front few rows. The remaining mourners appeared to be colleagues from Hope, with a sprinkling of startlingly good-looking young men also in attendance, their funeral weeds of a cut and dash which suggested designer labels.
The rows immediately in front of Markham’s were filled with heavily made-up young girls clutching wilting bouquets, pictures of the deceased and, bizarrely, mobile phones. God, he thought wildly, surely they’re not planning to start texting or taking selfies!
As the Requiem Mass proceeded, his worst fears went unrealized, the young women contenting themselves with a lachrymose chorus of sobs and snuffles by way of antiphonal contrast to the mumbling adjurations of the red-nosed elderly celebrant. There was a dangerous moment during the Eulogy, when a subdued ululating seemed to break out amongst them, but this gradually subsided like breakers retreating from the shingle.
The hazy feeling of unreality grew stronger. Perhaps he was coming down with something. Or maybe it was just a sense of moving in a dim and clogging medium. The air thick with incense and the scent of the lilies …
Just as he felt he must pass out for want of air, there was a general stir and a wheezy organ struck up the recessional hymn.
Thank God.
And then Markham felt it. A prickling between his shoulder blades.
Suddenly, he was quite certain the killer was there in the church. Indistinguishable from his fellow mourners as to the external decencies, bowing his head respectfully to the coffin. Inwardly, his soul capering gleefully at the sight of Ashley Dean’s pitiful remains moving inexorably towards their last home underground.
Markham’s gaze swept the congregation as it shuffled out of the church. Beside him, he knew Noakes was doing the same. Looking for anything that jarred, that didn’t fit.
But they wouldn’t find it.
He was too clever for that.
High above, on a corbel in the transept, a gargoyle with a wicked little face looked down on the emptying church as if it possessed a secret that it would not share with them if it could.
The wake was held at an undistinguished little pub called The Halfway House which formed part of a terrace of shops just around the corner from the church.
Still the rain came down drearily, interminably.
As they followed the throng of mourners out of the church car park, Noakes waved his Order of Service at Markham.
‘This says the burial’s for close family only, Guv.’ Jerking a thumb at the gaggle of young girls making frantic repairs to their mascara-streaked faces, he enquired, ‘D’you think that lot are planning to gate-crash it or do owt daft?’
The DI scrutinized Ashley Dean’s erstwhile groupies.
‘I don’t think we need fear a mass outbreak of suttee, Sergeant,’ he remarked sardonically. Then, observing Noakes’s bafflement, he added more compassionately, ‘They’re over the worst, poor things. With so many teachers around, they’ll probably just slope off somewhere and do their own thing.’
This prediction appeared to be accurate. As they watched, the youthful female cont
ingent of the mourning party peeled off towards the town centre, self-consciously clutching each other as they teetered along in their too-tight skirts and skyscraper stilettos, hair dripping in rats’ tails over their shoulders.
The Halfway House was a typical chain hostelry, somewhat dark and dismal as though the place was crying out for refurbishment. Vases of cheap plastic flowers were dotted around the private lounge area at strategic intervals – no doubt all part of the ‘compassionate catering experience’ discreetly advertised in the brochures that Markham had noticed stacked at reception. Bowls of peanut M&Ms stood on tables next to pictures of the deceased.
‘His favourite treat,’ whispered a glassy-eyed Tracey Roach gliding past Markham and making him jump.
At the back of the room, a buffet was set out with the standard finger food – sandwiches, vol au vents, slices of quiche, bowls of salad and other dainties, along with trays bearing glasses of red and white wine. A smaller table held tea, coffee and soft drinks. Markham’s thoughts travelled back to the ravaged little woman who had stood weeping next to the coffin. It struck him as unbearably poignant that in the midst of her heartbreak she should have had to think about mundanities like menus and costs per head.
No such thoughts troubled Noakes whose eyes brightened as he surveyed the spread.
While others hung back, doubtless not wishing to appear precipitate in falling upon the eatables, the DS had no such compunction.
‘We missed elevenses, Guv,’ he murmured plaintively to Markham, clearly concerned lest the DI should be slow out of the starting blocks.
‘Honestly man, do you ever think about anything except your stomach?’
Noakes was unruffled. ‘Important to have fuel in the tank,’ he riposted.
‘Hmm, it’s just that you seem to refuel several times a day.’
The DS’s eyebrows made their pathetic angle.
‘Oh, go on then, but for God’s sake show some decorum. It’s not an all-you-can-eat contest, remember.’
Needing no second urging, Noakes surged forward, shortly followed by others who felt that they could feast with propriety now that someone else had gone first.
‘Not hungry, Gil?’
Matthew Sullivan’s wry tones jolted Markham out of his reverie.
‘Not really, Matt. As you see, Noakes is eating for two.’
‘Him and the other Christian carnivora!’
Markham laughed then stiffened as he saw Olivia waylay Noakes who, blushing like a schoolboy, was obviously the butt of her gentle raillery. The DS looked guiltily over his shoulder, gesturing towards Markham with a cocktail sausage.
Olivia’s eyes met those of her lover in a long level stare. As in the church, she gave a cool self-possessed nod and then turned aside, patting Noakes lightly on the arm as she melted away.
It was in keeping with Sullivan’s innate sensitivity that he affected not to notice this little bit of byplay. Markham burned to know if Olivia had confided in her friend but was too proud to ask. Cut to the quick by her studied negation, he strove desperately to check any manifestation of pain. Noakes’s arrival, balancing a pyramid of food, saved him. Expressively rolling his eyes to heaven, Sullivan left the two policemen to it.
‘Sure you’ve got enough there, Sergeant?’
The sarcasm was water off a duck’s back.
‘I know what I like, an’ I like what I know,’ Noakes said happily, wolfing down vol au vents, crisps, coleslaw, and quiche indiscriminately.
Eventually, however, he paused for breath.
‘Everything all right with, er, your … Olivia?’ he blurted out awkwardly, keeping a wary eye on the guv’nor lest he be shot down in flames.
Markham was touched but fell back on his unconquerable reserve.
‘We’re working, Noakes, she understands that,’ he said shortly.
‘Right enough.’ The DS devoured his wounded feeling along with the remainder of the quiche.
Suddenly, Markham wanted nothing so much as to escape the heaving throng.
‘I’ll be out there,’ he said, moving towards the hallway.
Away from the lounge, it was mercifully cool and quiet. Looking through the window of the lighted lobby, the objects he turned his back on were still before him instead of the grass and trees.
Suddenly, in the reflected image he saw a motionless figure standing at the door of the lounge watching him. He couldn’t see the face.
In that instant, he knew the watcher in the shadows was Ashley Dean’s killer.
Markham whirled round, but there was no-one there.
In three strides, he was standing at the doorway of the lounge, raking it with his gaze.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ A fresh-faced girl with startling violet hair was looking up at him in concern.
The DI gathered his scattered wits. ‘Fine, just looking for a friend,’ he answered dismissively, relieved to see that Noakes was coming towards him.
‘Nothing doing in there,’ the DS grunted.
‘Let’s just pay our respects to Ashley’s mother and go.’
‘She won’t be along any time soon, Guv. Collapsed at the cemetery, apparently. Her sister’s taken her home.’
‘That poor woman.’ Markham’s voice throbbed with pity.
Another suffering figure to swell the host who thronged his dreams, begging him to bring them closure and lay the evil to rest.
‘Where to, Guv?’ asked Noakes, suppressing a belch as he sat with Markham in the car park at Our Lady of the Angels.
‘Back to the station, Sergeant. Let’s take some time to regroup. Burton and Doyle can hold the fort for a while longer at Hope.’
As they slid into the rush-hour traffic, Markham’s mind replayed the afternoon’s proceedings. He had an uneasy feeling that he had missed something. It hovered on the periphery of his vision, but try as he might he could not grasp it.
Noakes seemed to read his mind.
‘It’s all that black, Guv,’ he pronounced elliptically.
‘How so, Sergeant?’
‘Everyone looks the same, don’t they? I mean, like them nuns from that convent place round the back of Bromgrove Uni.’
Markham was quite intrigued to see where this was leading.
‘The Sisters of Saint Cecilia, Noakes? What about them?’
‘Well, they all look like crows. My Muriel says she can’t tell one from another cos the black getup makes them seem identical.’
Even allowing for Noakes’s rooted anti-Papist prejudice, Markham had to admit that he had a point.
‘Yes,’ he mused, ‘no-one stood out today… All the faces were blurred … as if someone had gone over them with a smudge-stick.’
Noakes was gratified with the DI’s reception of his hypothesis. That’s one in the eye for smarty-pants Kate Burton, he thought.
Back at the station, they had barely hung their steaming jackets to dry on CID’s temperamental radiator when the desk sergeant put his head round the door.
‘DCI Sidney’s wanting you, sir.’ He grinned. ‘Put out an All Ports Alert.’
Markham groaned.
‘Oh God, that’s all I need.’ Hopefully he asked, ‘Any chance of stalling him?’
‘More than my life’s worth, Inspector, if you know what I mean.’
Markham did know, all too well.
‘OK, Noakes, better get up there.’
Slimy Sid’s PA was usually an accurate barometer of the great man’s mood. Today, the auguries were not good, Miss Peabody’s hands alternately fingering her pearls and fluttering about her marcel-waved hair as though to propitiate an angry deity.
She did not meet Markham’s eyes.
Another bad sign.
‘Please go straight in, Inspector,’ she said faintly.
Markham was aware of Noakes straightening his tie and sucking in his paunch.
Don’t rise to Slimy Sid, he told himself. Whatever the bastard says, don’t rise to it.
As it happened, DCI Sidney was not a
lone.
A stocky, bushy-haired man with the florid face of a drinker and curranty eyes was overflowing one of the four chairs at the conference table.
The DCI looked distinctly plethoric himself, reflected Markham, as he and Noakes seated themselves. Though in his case, it was likely to be the result of temper rather than anything of a bacchanalian nature. Even Sidney’s bald dome seemed to shake out sparks of irritation, while a testy tugging at the salt and pepper beard boded ill for his subordinates.
‘This is Mr Jed Harris, Parent Governor at Hope Academy, Inspector.’ Sidney’s tone was minatory. ‘He wants to know what you are doing to find this … this maniac. And so do I.’
‘With respect, sir, it’s been less than a week since Ashley Dean’s murder—’
‘And in that time another member of staff has been killed on your watch.’ Sidney’s voice dripped venom.
‘Audrey Burke’s death is being investigated with all possible expedition, sir.’ Markham’s reply was inflectionless.
Jed Harris’s face was a picture of honest bewilderment.
‘I’ll not beat about the bush, Mr Markham. I want to know what the ’eck’s going on at the school. Nobody’ll give us the time of day ’cept the journos outside.’
Markham cursed Hope’s senior leadership team. They were supposed to be liaising with the police press office but had clearly decided to pull up the drawbridge and ring down the portcullis. What a self-serving shower. Too busy with their damage-limitation exercise to reassure worried parents.
‘I’m sorry parents haven’t been properly briefed, Mr Harris. I don’t believe there’s any risk to students, particularly as it’s half term next week.’
The big man heaved himself up and proffered a meaty paw.
‘Appreciate it, Inspector. Just wanted to set the missus’ mind at rest. What with staff going down like ninepins. You start imagining all sorts.’
As if in response to an invisible summons, Miss Peabody appeared.
The DCI was all unctuous solicitude. ‘Be assured, Mr Harris, I am taking personal command of this investigation.’
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 32