He pulled the knot tight and became aware of an infinitesimal creaking close to his ear. It was persistent; gathering force, it grew to a rushing climax with a thump. He whipped around. Behind him in the shadowy porch the great studded door was closed. It had not come from there. Then sounds were all around him. A slab of snow slid off the roof and exploded on the ground in chips of ice.
Ivan’s shoes tightly laced, he was ready to pay his respects, but was mesmerized by the dripping and plashing so that when he heard the splitting of an icicle high above his head, he paid no attention.
Ivan Challoner was conscious long enough to feel the infinitely sharp object drive deep into the base of his neck. The pain was over before it had begun.
Stella used the church tower to get her bearings and sprinted over the lawn to the gate she had seen when she and Jack came to his mother’s grave. The mist was clearing, the sliver of moon bright. The ground where the snow had melted was dark like craters in the strange light: one of these caught her eye.
Ivan Challoner lay face-down on the path, a stain spreading out from his head. Stella looked around. The churchyard was still, the wind had died down, and the quiet was broken only by branches shedding snow. Walls, graves, mausoleums were gradually exposed as snow melted.
Ivan’s blood was soaking into the gravel. Stella bent down: he had been stabbed in the back of the neck.
Jack had found Ivan after all.
She stepped back, her hands away from her; this was a crime scene.
She aimed the remote control at Terry’s car. Her phone was where she had left it between the seats. Stella dialled 999.
‘Which service would you like?’
‘Ambulance, two please.’ Stella took a breath and heard herself say: ‘We need the police.’ She gave the address and rang off.
She gathered herself; Jack had been unconscious when they found him. Sarah would have been able to tell if he was faking the symptoms. Someone had bolted the door from the outside. Jack had not killed Ivan. Who had?
Sarah Glyde.
Stella jumped when the church clock chimed four times. Although it was the dead of night, it was not entirely dark and she could see the silhouette of the weathervane on the top of the spire. She wished that it could be her dad who answered her call.
She took out his phone from her pocket and climbed into his car, locking the doors. She turned on the engine and, uncoiling the car charger in his glove box, plugged it in. This time when she switched it on, it stayed on. She chose Dialled Calls.
She did not scroll down far before she found ‘Stella mob’. The phone had been used to call her old number the afternoon before he died. Her dad did not have her new mobile number. She had not bothered to give it to him.
The headlights of the emergency services cut through the trees, making them seem to dance and swoop as if inhabited by Jack’s phantoms. Stella got out of Terry’s car and walked towards the lights.
Perhaps if she had given her dad her new number, he would have told her about the Rokesmith case. She would have agreed to work with him. She could have helped. Perhaps if she had answered his call, it would have changed the ending and they would be waiting by the church for the ambulance and the police together.
Perhaps.
70
Monday, 7 February 2011
Stella parked her dad’s car facing the River Thames. The wind was blowing and the water was choppy as gusts ruffled the surface. The snow had gone. Equating Challoner with the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Jack was convinced the thaw had heralded his death. Like the reign of Queen Jadis, he had declared, Ivan’s time was over: Aslan was coming. The gravel sweep outside the crematorium was crowded. Stella had not expected so many. She sat in her dad’s old Toyota, the engine idling, and contemplated leaving. No one had seen her.
There was a rap on the window.
It was Jack.
She let down the glass.
‘Are you coming?’
‘I never go to funerals.’
‘You do now.’
Stella had fetched Jack from the hospital in Eastbourne a week ago. She had not seen him since. His near-death experience appeared to have done him good: he had colour in his cheeks.
He opened the door for her. When she got out, he took her arm. Stella did not object.
‘Have you given up smoking?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thought so.’
They walked around the hedge that screened the car park from the crematorium. This was a single-storey brick building with a drive-through porch around which were clustered at least four hundred people, mostly in police uniform. Stella faltered.
‘Keep moving.’ Jack had her arm. ‘It’s going to last an hour, then we go to the reception in a place called Imber Court and then you can go home. I will drive you.’
‘What’s Jackie doing here?’ Stella did not acknowledge him but as Jack had intended the schedule had reassured her. ‘Who’s minding the office?’
‘It’s closed. A tribute to Terry.’
A man in a black suit standing apart from the crowd raised his eyebrows in slight acknowledgement. Stella nodded in response although she didn’t recognize him. She did know the woman a few feet from him.
‘There’s Sarah Glyde.’
Sarah Glyde looked more wispy than ever, trailing ribbons and layers of silks and bright wools. She stood out like a blousy bloom amid the sea of blue. She tipped a tentative hand to Stella and Stella smiled in acknowledgement. Forensics had cleared Sarah Glyde; an icicle had severed Ivan Challoner’s spinal cord. Sarah had not stabbed her brother, although Stella was certain that had they found him alive Sarah would have done. The police had broken into Ivan’s bedroom on the top floor of the Hammersmith house and found the room entirely free of dust and completely empty.
A few more steps and she saw that the man in the black suit was Dariusz Adomek from the mini mart below her office; she had only ever seen him in his shop uniform.
A man crossed the turning circle to meet them. It was D. I. Martin Cashman.
‘All right, Stella?’ He wiped his hand down his face: ‘We’ve got a bit of a problem.’
‘What kind of problem?’ Cashman looked as trussed up and ill at ease in his suit as she did in hers. Perhaps Imber Court, the venue for major police events in West London, had become unavailable? That was not a problem.
‘One of the pall-bearers is ill.’
‘Surely there’s someone one else who can do it?’ Jack was stern.
‘Not that simple.’ Martin continued to look at Stella. ‘It’s about height. Everyone’s got to be the same height or it goes wrong. Believe it or not, there is not a single person here who is six foot.’
‘I thought you had to be six foot to get into the police?’ Jack had Stella’s arm tight. His mandatory outfit of black coat and trousers and black brogues suited the occasion perfectly.
‘Not any more. So far the guys that have volunteered are either around five-ten or a couple of inches over the six. No one is bang on. Should be a uniformed officer. Janet is trying to rustle someone up so it’s not a huge deal. It means we have a small delay. Nothing to worry about.’ Cashman seemed to notice Jack for the first time. ‘How tall are you, mate?’
‘Six foot and half an inch.’
‘Would you do it? That coat will blend in.’
‘Sure, OK.’
‘Here’s my dad.’ Stella moved forward and stopped.
A hearse turned in at the gate and made its way slowly along the drive. The sleek black vehicle was magisterial against the drab greys and greens of the landscaped garden. It came to a halt just short of the car park, waiting its turn.