No Birds Sing

by Jo Bannister

  ‘So you waited four years and then raped her?’

  His face closed, like a blind falling behind a window. He said stiffly, ‘It wasn’t – convenient – before.’

  Shapiro made a mental note to pursue that later. ‘But Mrs Urquhart did report it. It was her information that led us to you. You were so careful about everything else – why on earth did you speak to her? And something that specific: you might have known that could be traced back to you.’

  Irritation flickered in Fenton’s eyes. ‘It’s easy to be wise after the event, Mr Shapiro. Of course I should have kept quiet. But this was my first time, I was hyped up – somehow I wanted to put my signature on it. Anyone could have raped her: I think I wanted to mark it as my own work even though I hoped no one would ever unravel the cypher. I didn’t think she’d remember, after four years. I didn’t think she’d tell anyone even if she did.’

  ‘You underestimated her. All of them. They were tougher than you thought, and they nailed you.’

  ‘That’s your interpretation,’ Fenton said loftily. ‘They were less modest than I expected, and that enabled you to nail me.’

  Shapiro wanted nothing of his compliments. ‘Why Helen Andrews?’

  Fenton shrugged. ‘I’d forgotten about her till she arrived to show me the office at The Barbican. After I’d finished with Urquhart I kept thinking about her. An absurd little co-incidence made it inevitable. A solicitor friend of mine was getting married and I was going to his stag night. It turned out the bride worked for the Andrews woman and she was going to be at the hen night. I knew where they’d end up and when – the happy couple agreed a two o’clock curfew to make sure we all got to the church sober. I made my excuses ten minutes early, drove to Castle Mount, changed my clothes – I had my tracksuit in the car – and waited for her. It was a clear night, she lives half a mile from the bride’s home, she wasn’t likely to drive home after a booze-up – yes, Superintendent, I did but then I knew I’d need to and rationed my drinking accordingly. I thought she’d be along within a few minutes and she was.’

  ‘What if she’d had company? If she’d taken a taxi, or they’d organized lifts home?’

  ‘Then I’d have haunted the rhododendrons till I got bored and went home. There’s always another chance.’ He gave a wry little smile. ‘Until now, that is.’

  Shapiro didn’t return the smile. ‘And Inspector Graham?’

  The muscles either side of Fenton’s mouth tightened, pursing his lips. ‘She kept doing it, too. Making a fool of me. In court, in my own place. That’s the trouble with women in the professions: you let them in and pretty soon they’re trying to run things. I’ve worked hard for what I have: I don’t expect to be pushed around by someone who’s been fast-tracked to please the Equal Opportunities Commission. She pushed me, I pushed back.’

  ‘You raped her! In her own back garden.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t going to do it at the Basin with half CID looking on!’

  Shapiro felt revulsion crawling up his skin. With difficulty he kept his voice even, measured. ‘Were there any more, that we don’t know about?’

  ‘No.’ The lawyer met the policeman’s gaze with cool defiance. ‘But there would have been.’

  Shapiro considered that expressionlessly. It was one of the advantages, he’d found, of carrying some extra weight. A broad face could mask mental and emotional activity in a way a thin one never could. It was a real handicap to Donovan, for instance, that everything he felt showed in his face. He could never have sat here hating this man, wanting to tear him apart, concealing the fact right up to the moment that he could use it to best advantage.

  Which, on mature reflection, he considered to be now. ‘And what does Mrs Fenton think of the fact that you’re going round raping clever women who look like her?’

  That got a reaction, though it wasn’t what Shapiro was expecting. Fenton said nothing and for long, long seconds did nothing either. Then he began to cry.

  ‘Well, we were nearly right,’ Shapiro told Liz afterwards. She’d waited in his office for him to complete the interview, containing her restlessness just barely. She didn’t know what she was waiting for, what she hoped or expected to hear that would make her feel better. But she needed to know what there was to know about what happened, where the madness came from. ‘We thought maybe she’d left him and so she did. She died, eight weeks ago. Cancer.’

  It didn’t make it any better. It didn’t make it any more explicable. Perhaps it shaved a few grains off the knot of hatred gathered under her heart. ‘How—? Why—?’ She tried again. ‘Why didn’t we know? There must have been a funeral.’

  ‘She was buried from her mother’s house in Guildford. She died there – apparently Fenton couldn’t cope with nursing her. He couldn’t cope with her death, either. Nobody knew, not even the people he worked with – not even her friends in Castlemere.’

  ‘Then – is he crazy? Diminished responsibility? Post-traumatic stress disorder?’

  Shapiro couldn’t tell from her tone how much of this was irony. He settled for answering as honestly as he could. ‘No, I don’t think so. It’ll earn him some Brownie points with the judge but I don’t think it’ll be accepted as something beyond his control. Losing his wife was a catalyst, not a cause. He knew what he was doing. He isn’t crazy, he’s angry. She left him. She crossed him. He couldn’t punish her so he took it out on you.’

  ‘Because we crossed him too?’

  ‘You were too good at your jobs. You each got the better of him in situations where his professional credibility was an issue. And you were still around after his wife was gone. Before it merely irritated him; after his wife died he couldn’t bear to see you carrying on – wearing her face, as it were, and getting in his.’

  ‘That is crazy,’ swore Liz. She saw the prospect of a trial diminish, wasn’t sure whether that would be easier or harder to deal with.

  ‘Abnormal,’ agreed Shapiro, ‘not crazy. He could have stopped himself. He meant to stop after Mrs Urquhart. But by then he’d met Mrs Andrews again; and by the time he’d punished her you were getting up his nose. He knew about the decoy operation. We can guess how: somebody here let something slip, in all innocence, to one of the legal eagles and suddenly it’s common knowledge in the robing room.’ He squinted apologetically at her. ‘If he’d any doubts about his next move, that decided him. I’m sorry, Liz. If I’d said no—’

  She couldn’t afford to think like that. She shook her head firmly. ‘It might have taken him longer but he’d have got to me eventually. We’d locked horns too often, once he’d started down this road he’d have come to me sooner or later. And if it had taken longer he might have done more damage before we caught him.’

  There was a lengthy silence, not because they were unsure what to say to each other but because there was nothing left to say. Finally Liz reached for her bag. ‘Enough already.’ She was hopeless at accents, even music-hall ones like Donovan’s brogue and Shapiro’s North London Jewish. Shapiro didn’t in fact recognize the attempt. ‘I’ve things to do. Believe it or not, I have to see a man about a dog.’

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Liz drove. She got the van as close to the front of the clinic as she could, ignoring the No Parking signs, and Donovan manoeuvred himself out and on to his crutches. His plaster encased his leg from his toes to his knee and he hadn’t got the knack of steering it yet. Liz watched him labour up the few shallow steps to the vet’s front door.

  There was no surgery: Keith Baker was doing his VAT. Donovan wasted no time on small talk. ‘I want a certificate.’

  Baker looked him up and down. ‘You’ve got the wrong number of legs. You’ll need one from a doctor.’

  Donovan was not amused. ‘Not for me. For Brian Boru.’

  ‘Who—?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter what he is,’ said Donovan firmly. ‘What matters is that he’s not a pit-bull terrier.’

  The vet began to understand. ‘And is he?’

&n
bsp; ‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Donovan readily. ‘But I want a certificate saying he’s something else.’

  ‘You want me to lie.’

  The policeman frowned. ‘Is there not some disagreement as to what does and doesn’t constitute a pit-bull?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Baker cautiously.

  ‘And it comes down to someone’s opinion, and if that person thinks he’s a pit-bull he’s put down and if they think he’s a mongrel he isn’t?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it,’ admitted the vet.

  ‘Well, this particular dog saved my neck. Not once but twice. He stopped a man who wanted to kill me and then he saw off some dogs that did. So I’m damned if I’m returning him to the kennels to be destroyed. I can keep him, and I can keep him out of trouble, if I can get him certified as something other than a pit-bull. There’ll be no come-back. Everyone at Queen’s Street knows what happened, no body’s gunning for him. If I get my piece of paper there’ll be more blind eyes turned than at a convention of Nelson look-alikes.’

  Baker considered. ‘Can I see this dog?’

  ‘He’s in the van outside.’

  The presence of Detective Inspector Graham at the wheel was not lost on Baker. Donovan was apparently telling the truth: there was a conspiracy to protect the dog from the consequences of its ancestry. He peered in at the back of the van. Brian Boru, one lip raised, stared back.

  Baker sucked his teeth. ‘I can see how people might think he was a pit-bull.’

  Donovan gave a disdainful sniff. ‘People think all sorts. I’m not interested in what people think, only in what can be proved. Can you make a definitive test that proves that dog there is a pit-bull terrier?’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Baker honestly.

  ‘Right. Good. So what else could he be? Isn’t he taller than your average pit-bull?’

  There’s no such thing as an average pit-bull, but Baker knew what was expected of him. ‘He could be, yes. I suppose he could be something like a bullmastiff.’

  ‘Could he? Could he!’ said Donovan with sharpened enthusiasm. ‘And they’re not dangerous, are they?’

  ‘No, I believe the breed standard refers to high spirits and reliability. But he isn’t pure-bred. He’s too dark, for one thing, and his head isn’t square enough.’

  ‘OK. So if his daddy’s a bullmastiff, what might his mammy be?’

  ‘Dobermann pinscher?’

  It was a shot from the hip. Donovan moved the target to make sure it struck gold. ‘Dobermann pinscher, for sure! They’re not dangerous either, are they?’

  ‘They’ve been known to bite,’ said Baker. ‘Most breeds have. No, they’re not required to be registered as a dangerous dog.’

  ‘That’s it then – he’s a bullmastiff-Dobermann cross. For pity’s sake, you only have to look at him! You’ll put it on paper, will you?’

  Baker considered, chewing his lip. ‘What I will put on paper,’ he said carefully, ‘is that the owner understands the dog to be a bullmastiff-Dobermann cross and I see no reason to doubt it. That do?’

  Donovan nodded slowly. Slowly a dark smile broke. ‘Oh, yeah.’

  Liz drove him home. So he wouldn’t have far to hobble she drove down to Cornmarket and back up the tow-path. At one point she thought there was something wrong with the van, but it was Donovan whistling.

  She parked beside Tara, accepted his invitation aboard for coffee. Then she glanced uneasily at Brian Boru. ‘Um – is he going to want my biscuit?’

  Donovan chuckled. ‘I’ll put him in the cable locker. He’s used to being banished when I have callers.’

  ‘You don’t have any problem with him on your own?’

  ‘No. He’s not the sort of dog you get fond of, you know, but we’ve reached an understanding. He doesn’t growl at me and I don’t break his head with a tyre-iron.’

  Of all those who were at the cottage, Brian Boru, armed with his certificate, was the only winner. Two of the original crew were dead, four were in custody, Gates was in a secure psychiatric unit and Donovan was in plaster. Gates’s dogs were shot after one night’s liberty by a farmer who found them couched on the carcase of a ewe. Even Chang was dead. Only Brian Born, who had been marked for death and now had a chance for life, came out of the affair better than he went into it.

  ‘What about your certificate?’ asked Liz. ‘When will you be back at work?’

  ‘Next week, I hope. I can run a desk till this thing comes off.’ He rapped the plaster.

  She nodded slowly, relieved to hear him say it. She hadn’t realized how much she relied on him until there was the chance he mightn’t be there any more. There were other detective sergeants to be had, most of them easier on the nerves, but she felt about Donovan much as he felt about the dog: that they’d reached an understanding. Mutual respect was worth more to her than the uncritical fawning of a poodle. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d want to come back.’

  He looked quickly up and down again, his narrow face embarrassed. ‘I – said some pretty stupid things. In the wood. It was a trying sort of a day.’

  Liz laughed out loud. ‘Yes, that’s fair comment.

  But they weren’t stupid things you said. Nobody could blame you if you decided not to get involved in anything like that again.’

  He looked at her over his mug. ‘Lots of people thought you’d have had enough after…’ He left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘After I was raped, Donovan,’ she said shortly. ‘You’re a big boy now, you’re allowed to use words like that. And yes, I dare say they did. Since it’s what lots of people have been praying for since I got here, I expect they did hope this would be enough to see me off. Well, tough. It’s a sod, but it’s not enough of a sod to change my mind about what I want to do with the rest of my life. If I can deal with it, and Brian can – my Brian, not yours – then everyone else can too.’

  Donovan was chewing his lip. There was something he wanted to say and he wasn’t sure if he should. Liz rolled her eyes. ‘Spit it out.’

  After a moment, awkwardly, he did. ‘I didn’t know how to deal with it either. I didn’t know – I still don’t – how you’re meant to face your boss when you know she’s been raped. How you talk to her, what you say – if you say anything. It’s too much. It goes beyond what we have the words for.

  ‘If you’d been hit by a bus, now,’ he hurried on, stammering in his discomfort, ‘or shot even, however bad the damage, I’d have been there. I’d have wanted to be there, to see you, see how you were doing. Even if the news was all bad, I’d have wanted to be there. But you weren’t shot, you were raped. I told the chief you wouldn’t want to see me. What I meant was, I didn’t want to see you. I couldn’t face you. Jesus,’ he swore disgustedly, ‘this is pathetic!’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she said frankly. ‘But also pretty human. It’s the same as avoiding someone who’s been bereaved: you don’t know what to say so you don’t say anything. But anyone who’s been there will tell you that anything you say, however clumsy, is better than nothing.’

  He nodded slowly, the black hair lank in his face. He looked up from the coffee to meet her eyes; she saw him actually flinch. But he pressed on manfully. ‘Then, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what happened to you. I’m sorry if I made it worse. I wish I could’ve given you the sort of help you gave me. I owe you.’

  There was something touching about such painful honesty from such a man. Liz smiled and shook her head. ‘Donovan, you don’t owe me a thing. You’re good at your job. You only think you should be better because you’re good enough to recognize what’s possible and brave enough to measure yourself against it. But perfection isn’t an option. Don’t flay yourself because you make mistakes sometimes. Superman would make a terrible copper: humanity is an essential part of the job.’

  He thought about that. ‘If humanity means cocking up at regular intervals I could still make Chief Constable.’

  ‘I’m talking about coppers,’ Liz said reproachfully. ‘Superman’d make a wonderful Chief Con
stable.’

  That earned a black chuckle. But the eyes that met hers were finally clear, all the ghosts gone. ‘What you said, about victims and survivors: I liked that. That’s worth remembering.’

  She elevated an eyebrow at him, disquietingly. Then abruptly she laughed. ‘Tell me something. That stunt you pulled on the train, with the wedding-ring. You didn’t learn that in Glencurran?’

  ‘I did so,’ he said, straight-faced. ‘From my grandmother.’

  ‘Your grandmother?’ Liz’s voice soared in wonder.

  ‘My grandmother,’ Donovan said solemnly, ‘said I’d go straight to hell if I ever made love to a woman wearing a wedding-ring. And the little buggers can be the devil to shift.’

  Soon after that Liz became aware that he was listening to something. He put his mug down and let his head tilt to one side.

  ‘What is it?’

  He shook his head, listened some more. Then he hauled himself to his feet, hopped to the window and pushed it wide. ‘Come here. Do you hear it?’

  She did. A slow smile spread across her face. She looked at him and nodded.

  All along the canal, between the water and the tumbleweed wasteland of Cornmarket, the birds were singing.

  Copyright

  First published in 1996 by Macmillan

  This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com/imprints/bello

  ISBN 978-1-4472-3621-4 EPUB

  ISBN 978-1-4472-3620-7 POD

  Copyright © Jo Bannister 1996

  The right of Jo Bannister to be identified as the