Текст книги "Vows of Silence "
Автор книги: Susan Hill
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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
Simon ran through the rain to his car, followed by Andy. As they moved off, another funeral party was making its way up the drive. The undertakers had placed Karin’s flowers in the porch and the scent of the white, waxen lilies was exotic. No lilies, Cat thought. No lilies, no crematorium. It was something she and Chris had always disagreed about. He was not a believer, though he respected her faith, and he was firmly on the side of cremation, for rational, practical and what she now saw as heartless reasons. She knew what he would want.
Jane had seen the relatives into the funeral car, and was coming towards her. It was a little after three o’clock.
“I’ll drive us into town,” Cat said. “Let’s go and have tea and toast in Karin’s favourite café.”
Jane smiled. “I can take my surplice off in the car.” She glanced round the car park.
“He had to scoot,” Cat said. “As he put it.”
Forty-eight
When he had walked up the road past the Catholic church he had paced out the distance from the kerb and then from the road by eye. That night he had drawn out a plan and also downloaded the map of the area, zooming in on the narrow section of Dedmeads Road which included the church and the vet’s surgery opposite. Then he traced the route down which he would come and his exit. He reckoned he could be onto the bypass in fifty seconds, maybe less. Once there, he was away.
He cut himself a corned beef sandwich, made a mug of tea, and went back to the plan. This one was a challenge. If this one went wrong, that was it. The others had been easier, though he’d sweated a bit looking down onto the Seven Acesclub, going over and over in his mind the images of the fire escape and the lane behind. But it had worked. It had worked every time but he knew the one thing he couldn’t afford was take a chance, go into something without a careful recce and a well-thought-out plan. That was for idiots and idiots got caught and so they bloody well should.
One thing though. He scoured the local paper and watched the news, listened to Radio Bevham obsessively, but there’d been nothing about the bloke in the hangar.
He switched on the television again now and waited for the news. Nothing. It was fine.
He had forty-eight hours and everything had to fit, everything had to be perfect, the timing, the distance, the gun, everything. He’d leave it now, sleep on it, knowing that it was in his head and printing itself on his memory. He’d look at it tomorrow and go over it twice, inch by inch, on Friday night. After that, he would trust himself, like he always did. Always had.
You couldn’t trust anyone else.
Forty-nine
“Right, guys, two of you out to the airfield, pick up the stuff you left behind. Change of plan.”
“What change of plan?”
“Bloody wedding.”
“What bloody wedding?”
“The one with royalty coming. November.”
“Lord Lieutenant’s daughter.”
“That’s the one. OK, Clive and Ian, out to the airfield, load up. Make it snappy.”
“We need three.”
“Tough, there’s two of you.”
“Where’s Tim?”
“Wife went into labour this morning.”
Clive Rowley and Ian Dean went out to the van, grumbling.
“You ever worked a royal protection job?” Ian said, turning out of the yard.
“Yeah, couple of times. Nothing happens. The dogs have it sussed well ahead.”
“Be a bit tighter this time. Plenty of hiding places for our friend the sniper.”
“Nah. I said, they’ll have worked it all out, got it covered. He wouldn’t dare.”
“What royals is it anyway?”
“Charles and Camilla, was what I heard.”
“Be air exclusion zone as well then.”
“Blimey, who pays for that?”
“Who pays for any of it, Clive? We do. We pay for the lot of them.”
“Right. Only what else do you want? A president like in America?”
“Don’t care what there is, doesn’t affect me. Mind you, my old mam wouldn’t agree. Royal mad she is. Got the Queen on the teapot.”
Clive Rowley laughed.
The sun shone. The potholes on the airfield were drying out.
“Look at that c dog fox running along the back fence there.”
“Cheeky sod.”
“Had my gun, I could finish him in one.”
“Yeah, but why bother? Let him go. What’s he done to you? Shoot a few human thugs before I’d hurt a wild animal, me. Come on, let’s be having this bloody gear back then.”
They pulled back the doors. The sun was behind them, shining into the hooped space of the hangar.
“Right, doors in first?”
“What’s that?”
“What?”
Ian was walking ahead, past the stacked poles and wooden doors, towards the far side. “You got the torch?”
Clive hesitated. “No. Come on, give us a hand, we’re supposed to be back there before we’ve done.”
“In the van. Get the torch from the van.”
“What you poking about for? You watch out, there’s generally rats.”
“This isn’t rats. Get the torch, I said.”
“Yesssir.”
Clive wandered out to the van. The old dog fox was still there, sitting in the sun on the far side warming himself. Clive watched him. He didn’t stir, not a muscle. Clive could understand why.
“Get yourself in here with that light!”
Eventually, glancing over his shoulder at the fox, he went.
“Fuck it, where’d you get to?”
“Leak.”
“Here, over here.”
“What?”
Ian stuck up his arm and Clive put the torch into his waiting hand.
“He’s dead,” Clive said.
“Jeez.”
“Been dead a couple of days by the look of it.”
Ian squatted and looked at the pile of old mac and trainers. The man was filthy. The raincoat was thick with clots of dark dried blood. Ian shone the torch closer. He wasn’t very young, it was hard to tell, probably a drunk or a druggy. He leaned forward and felt the pulse in the neck.
“What the hell happened to him? What was he doing in this hole anyway?”
But Ian had got up and was walking quickly to the entrance, on the phone as he went.
The ambulance came bumping across the field half an hour later.
Fifty
Outside the high wind tossed the trees and rattled the fence. It rained in bursts against the farmhouse windows and then was blown away.
“Are you warm enough?” Cat asked.
“Fine.”
“I can stoke it up a bit.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“Sorry.”
“No.” Chris shook his head and winced.
He had come home the previous day, looking anxious, walking carefully, as if he was afraid to fall. “It seems different,” he had said more than once. “Everything looks weird.”
Sam and Hannah had gone to Hallam House for the night. “Break you in gently,” Cat said.
“I don’t need that.”
“I can get them back if you like.”
“Leave it, leave it.”
She could not get used to this touchy, irritable person in place of easy-going, laid-back Chris. Some of it was because of the tumour, some the aftermath of the operation and the drugs. Would it change? Would she have Chris back? She had no idea. The consultant had no idea. “Every case is different.” The operation had removed enough of the tumour to relieve the intra-cranial pressure. But there was far more which they didn’t dare touch. She looked at him. He had his eyes closed. He seemed smaller, very distant. His skin was pale, his face altered beneath the shaving and the bandages. Who was this?
“I feel like a revenant,” he had said.
The radiotherapy had started. She would drive him in for nine more sessions. The maximum. After that, nothing.
“Shall I make some tea?”
“Why?”
“I thought you might like some.”
“Have a glass of wine. That’s what you do in the evening.”
“I don’t want to drink without you.”
“Better get used to it.”
Cat turned her head away.
“Is your father going to marry her?”
“Judith? No idea. You know Dad, I can’t ask questions like that.”
“I like her.”
“Oh, so do I. But he’s so bloody contrary, if I tell him that he might change his mind about her altogether.”
“And then there’s Si.”
“Oh, Simon.” She got up. “I lose patience. I think I will have a drink.”
“Quite right.”
“Do you need any painkillers?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
Chris didn’t answer. Why would he? He had said he didn’t need them but she had asked again. Why had she? Because she didn’t know how to help him, how to talk to him, how to behave towards him. I would have done better with just about any patient, she thought, no matter what was wrong with them, I would have been able to handle it better.
The truth was that she was a doctor. Just a doctor. She knew no more about how to cope with the person she loved dying of a brain tumour than anyone else, possibly less because she knew too much, looked for signs, interpreted everything. I should just get on with it. Get on with it, take it as it comes. Isn’t that what I say? Just take one day at a time.
She put the wine back in the fridge. On the worktop above it, a box of Chris’s medications. Later, she would take it upstairs.
She knew what rooms came to look like when people were dying in them, the clutter of medicine bottles and oxygen cylinders and syringe pumps. Would that happen here? Would Chris stay? Could she cope with that? Could the children?
The wind raced across the paddock and battered against the kitchen window and the headlights of a car fanned out across the drive. Then Simon dived into the kitchen, brushing off the rain.
“Hey, Chris, good to see you home. How are things?”
Cat held her breath, waiting for some explosion of anger, a withering remark. She held out the bottle of wine but Simon shook his head, flopping down on the sofa next to his brother-in-law.
“So-so,” Chris said. “Better for being here. Bloody hospitals.”
“Be a lesson to you to stop sending people in there then.”
“You could say that. But since you ask, my head’s a hell of a lot better. It works, lessening the pressure. I thought it would be more painful post-op than it is. Shows they can saw your skull across with little ill effect.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“I get sick but there’s good medication for nausea. I get tired but so what, no one stops me from going to sleep. So all in all, yeah, I’m doing OK.”
Why? Cat thought as she drew the curtains across to shut out the storm. Why can’t he talk to me like that? Why didn’t he tell me? Why can he say those things to Simon, no problem, and not to me? I don’t know what’s going on here and I mind. It hurts.
“Any coffee?”
She nodded.
“How’s crime?” Chris was asking.
They talked on in the way they had always talked, easy with one another, and hearing Chris, laughing, swearing, needling her brother, hearing but not seeing him, made it seem as if nothing was wrong after all, as if he were well and things were as they had always been. Nothing had changed.
It was only as Simon talked about police anxiety over the gunman, still somewhere out there, walking free, planning God knows what next, that she glanced at Chris and saw his face, drawn and gaunt, and with a strange, troubled expression.
“We’re stretched to breaking point, we have to cover the whole of the bloody Jug Fair full of families with kids, we have a cathedral wedding with royals coming and this damn gunman is giving us the complete runaround. I don’t often lose sleep over things but I’m waking in the small hours. We have got to stop him.” He banged his hand on the arm of the sofa. “We have got to get him.”
There was a short silence, before Chris said, “What are you talking about? What gunman?”
“Does a brain tumour affect your memory?” Simon said easily.
Cat waited, horrified, expecting Chris to turn in anger, as he had done to her several times that day, over less, far less.
But he only shrugged and said, “Apparently.”
He went to bed shortly afterwards, his face drained of colour, so exhausted that Cat had to help him wash and undress. He curled into the bed and groaned softly as he fell asleep.
“Can you stay?” she asked Simon, who was flicking through the television channels in the den when she returned.
“Not a hope, but I’ll have another coffee.”
“Judith and I are supposed to be taking the children to the fair but I wonder if it’s safe.”
“You’ll never be safer. We’ll have everything covered. Never mind the sniper, you won’t so much as stand a chance of getting your pocket picked.”
“Hope you’re right. Do put down that bloody remote.”
“Sorry. Chris looks bad but he seems in decent spirits.”
“To you.”
“What do they say?”
She shrugged. “They won’t. Can we talk about something else?”
“Depends.”
“Oh, you won’t want to, but you’re going to listen. Two Js. Judith Connolly. Jane Fitzroy.”
“Nothing doing, old girl. Do you want another glass of wine?”
“Sit down.”
But he was out of the room. She heard the sounds of kettle being filled, glass of wine being poured, cupboard doors banging. No, she thought, he’ll duck out of it, as ever. And suddenly, she didn’t care. She’d had enough. She was weary. Let Simon look after himself and let him think what he liked about their father.
He came back.
“Talk me through what kind of person shoots at random. It has to be a madman or someone with a grudge, but what grudge?”
Simon gave her a calculating glance. Drank. Said nothing. No, Cat thought. Nothing doing, as you said.
“We don’t know for sure it’s only one.”
“What, two gunmen?”
“Could be. The police are keeping an open mind, as they say. I think it’s one man. He can use a rifle, he can use a handgun. He can shoot at close range and at a distance. The Chief wants us to bring in a profiler. I’m against it, I think they’re useless. I can profile this bloke as well as anyone. Man. Loner. Gun-savvy. Grudge against women—it’s young women he’s shot. Clever. Cunning. Athletic. Good sight. Doesn’t stand out in a crowd. Local—knows the area well. Psychopath. Clear-headed—not on drugs, probably doesn’t drink, or not much. Good at covering his tracks. Easy when you know how. Now find him.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Wait till he slips up. Try and keep one step ahead—think like him. Difficult that.” He shook his head.
“You love it.”
“Yes. You didn’t hear me say it, but yes c this is the sort I like. Am I warped and twisted?”
“No. Fascinated by human nature and up for a challenge.”
“Right. I’d better go. God, I can’t take this in. This family doesn’t deserve another—” He stopped.
“Death. You can say it.”
“Yes c” He put his arms round her. “Might he be OK?”
“No,” Cat said, holding onto him tightly for a second. “No chance.” She moved away from him, walked to the television and switched it off. Looked round. Say it, she thought. Say.
“Don’t leave it, Si. Don’t duck your feelings. It doesn’t come round again.”
But he turned away without replying, as she had known he would.
Fifty-one
There was a single note on the organ, the sign for everyone to turn and look round and of course, she was beautiful, Chelsea Fisher, the most beautiful bride in the history of the world, as every bride was. Her mother had wanted to make the dress, said it was a waste of money to buy off the peg, but this wasn’t off the peg, was it, this was Designer, she and her sister-in-law had been to London to the showroom. It had taken four fittings. Never mind what it cost, no one had to know, least of all her mother, and if it was the same price as half a new kitchen, who cared? No one, at this moment. Not her mother. Not Andrew, gone scarlet and then chalk white in the face as he watched her. No one.
It was tight, skimmed her so she could hardly walk, and it had a fishtail and a long train like a mermaid and she shimmered like one too, the fabric was some sort of gleaming, glistening, clinging magical substance that blended with her, merged with her skin almost. The top was like silver snakeskin wrapped round her, but her long pale arms were bare, her shoulders covered with a wispy shrug of what felt like goose down. She had looked at herself in the mirror, looked at the tiny glittering tiara and the soft foaming veil, and floated away, then floated on Uncle Ray’s arm, floated in front of Lindsay and Flick and little Amy up the aisle towards Andrew and Father Brenner, grins a mile wide. Floated past them all, the hats and feathers and fascinators and pink georgette and lavender crêpe and black and white and purple cravats. Floated. Andrew’s mother had tears pouring down her face. Reached out her hand to touch the floating silk and gossamer and goose down as it drifted past.
Floated.
Andrew’s cravat looked odd. The pin was askew. She wanted to reach out and straighten it and her hand was shaking, the baby’s breath trembling at the edges of her bouquet. Andrew smiled.
Father Brenner beamed. There was a bumping and banging as everyone sat down behind her but she floated. Still floated. Behind her, little Amy whispered, asking what she had to do now. Lindsay whispered back. Andrew touched his hand to his cravat.
She went on floating.
The priest made them feel like the only people in the world and certainly the only ones he had ever married. He looked into their eyes and he smiled and when he said his few words, he made everyone laugh. Warm, Chelsea thought, it was a warm service, as if you were being embraced by happiness and laughter and then, when he pronounced them man and wife, they turned round, embraced by the applause that pattered round the small, light church.
The thing that took her by surprise, holding tightly to Andrew’s hand as they started to walk down the aisle, was how quickly it was over. The months and weeks of preparation, the planning that had gone into the service, the printed sheets with the silver swans on the front, practising it a couple of times—and it was over, flash, gone and they were married. The doors at the back were opened and beyond them she could see bright sunlight shining on the white wedding car. They walked towards the brightness and it was as if they were walking towards their bright future. Everything was right.
Behind her, Amy’s new shoes slithered on the polished floor and she almost fell but, somehow, someone pulled her up and righted her and spoke to her to stop her making a fuss. Little Amy, who carried a rag doll dressed in the same outfit as her own.
There were a few people looking over the wall. You were not allowed to throw confetti but Andrew’s sisters surprised them with bubbles, pink bubbles blown out of the little wire wands, and the pink bubbles floated up into the air and burst softly, silently onto Chelsea’s hair and her dress and fell onto the gravel and rested there, iridescent, caught by the sun. Then everyone was coming out and crowding round, laughing and kissing and snapping small cameras and feathers bobbed on heads and a few of the men went a yard or two off and lit cigarettes. From behind her, Chelsea heard the last bars of the organ music and then the church went quiet.
What happened next happened so fast it was like a film speeded up so that afterwards no one remembered it properly and everyone remembered something different.
Chelsea was beside Andrew but he had stepped forward and little Amy was pushing her way out to be in the front, to be seen and admired and photographed, and someone had given her a bubble pot and wand and she was trying hard to blow, but the bubbles wouldn’t form, the liquid simply spattered down her dress and onto the gravel. There was shouting—“Andy, turn round, get closer to Chelsea c Andy, look this way c Chelsea, over here”—and then a roar, a motorbike racing by. The rider c who saw the rider? Yes. Black leathers, helmet c he skidded up and seemed about to stop but as he stopped he was accelerating again, and in between, the split second of the flash, sunlight on metal, the loud bang and the flare and blaze and Andrew was spinning round and grabbing hold of his shoulder with the other hand. And Amy was falling slowly slowly slowly to the ground and her face and dress were pouring blood and the blood splashed out onto the gravel and splashed up, onto Chelsea’s wedding dress.
And people were screaming, screaming and in the midst of the screaming, the motorbike roaring away, wheels spinning and kicking up dust.
Someone was running. A couple of the men who had been standing by the wall smoking. They were running together, jackets flying, down the road fast the way the motorbike had gone.
Running.
Chelsea’s dress was covered in so much of Amy’s blood that everyone thought it was her. Someone screamed, “The bride’s been shot c the bride’s been shot c”
But it was not Chelsea who was lying face down on the gravel, one hand stretched out and holding a rag doll. Beside Amy, the tub of bubble liquid spilled out slowly onto the gravel, mingling with spilling blood.
Fifty-two
“Breakthrough!” DC Louise Kelly threw her pencil in the air.
A small cheer went round the packed room but Serrailler shook his head.
“I know how you feel and I don’t want to rain on the parade but it’s a chink of light, not a breakthrough.”
“More than anything so far, guv.”
“It is—small mercies and all that.”
“So what exactly did these guys get?”
“Right. Three men, two of them wedding guests, one a passer-by. One of them ran all the way up Dedmeads Road after the motorbike. Got as far as the junction with the bypass where he lost it. But two of them who are into bikes give it as a Yamaha, probably an FJR 1300. Black. Looked fairly new. Plate concealed. One of the men noticed a small yellow strip on one side, possibly fluorescent. Biker wore black leathers and helmet, no distinguishing marks, but he was seen leaning down to his right as he neared the top of the road, possibly stowing the gun into the pannier.”
“Anyone see him actually drive up to the church?”
“It’s confused. One person heard the noise. Motorbike engine very close—startled her and she turned but then there was a shout for the bride to turn towards a camera so she looked there. It happened very fast. The bridesmaid who died was pushing in front of the bride exactly as the shot was fired.”
“So he wasn’t aiming for the little girl?”
“Hard to say but probably not. We have to wait for ballistics to report on the likely line of fire but they think he was aiming to hit the groom. Andrew Hutt. There are some skid marks on the path and an oil mark. Forensics will report. Meanwhile, Dedmeads Road is cordoned off and I want an inch-by-inch search-hands-and-knees job. Traffic are on full alert throughout the county and surrounding. Now although I wouldn’t dare use the word breakthrough, DC Kelly is right, this is the first time he’s been sighted and once he gets bolder he’ll start to make mistakes. He thinks he’s several miles ahead of us and he’s cocky.”
“He’s going to have another pop, isn’t he?”
“We have to make sure he’s caught before that happens. Second-guessing a gunman like this isn’t easy but I feel confident that a pattern is starting to emerge. So eyes everywhere, think, think, think, wherever you are—might he be here? Could this be the scene of his next attempt? Don’t rule anywhere out. Check out every bike, house to house down Dedmeads Road and surrounding. Shops, vet’s surgery opposite the Catholic church, garage at the end c Posters go up this afternoon. Leaflets are being printed. There will be four officers in the church area tomorrow handing them out and we’ve got a mobile point in the church car park where people can report anything they might have seen.”
There was a rumble as chairs were moved; one or two people got up.
“Sit down, I haven’t finished.”
He stood waiting for silence. He believed in being open and relaxed, leading but not dominating. Now, though, his expression had changed and they recognised it. The room went still.
“This man has now killed five people.” He spoke quietly. The eyes of everyone were on his face. “One of them was five years old. He’s on a mission and he will kill again. I want him stopped. Every single one of you—heads-up. Every single one of you may be the officer to see this guy when he makes his next attempt. Get out there. Don’t let me down.”
There was silence before the room broke up as everyone started to leave. The usual jests and sotto voce remarks were absent. The mood had changed.
Ten minutes later, the canteen was full, the atmosphere charged. The usual bursts of ribald laughter replaced with heated conversations.
“We’ve got a real chance Friday/Saturday. He’ll think he’s God now, he’ll be planning to shoot into the crowd.”
“Jesus, I hope not.” Clive Rowley washed a mouthful of bacon roll down with his tea. “Forecast’s good for the weekend, the fair’ll be heaving.”
“Difficult in the dark though.”
“True. But think of the chaos, think how easy to get away in that lot.”
“I reckon they should call it off.”
“Oh no,” Louise Kelly looked dismayed, “it’s a great thing, the Jug Fair, they can’t. I think he won’t dare. He’s clever, like the Super said, he’ll know there’ll be more police there than at a Hendon passing-out parade. No way will he take a chance then.”
“I agree.” Vicky Hollywell stirred her coffee round and round, round and round. “There’ll be a lull now. He’ll go quiet. Wait till we’ve come down from red alert a few rungs. Then he’ll take another pop somewhere we can’t possibly have anticipated.”
“Mind you,” Clive said, getting up, “keeps us awake. Bet we’re on higher alert than the anti-terrorist squads right now.”
“And that’s what you like, is it, Clive?”
“Better than washing the bloody ARV every morning and there’s only so much target practice you can do. Let’s get out of here.”
Fifty-three
Jane Fitzroy walked onto Saunders Ward late in the afternoon. She had spent the previous hour with the family of a teenager recovering from meningitis, against all the odds. Now she had been asked to see Nancy Lee after her seven-hour brain operation. Early in the morning she had been called to baptise a newborn premature baby who was not expected to live more than a few hours. Nothing had really prepared her, she thought, for being on the edge as a hospital chaplain, time after time.
The ward clerk looked at her strangely. “Can I help?”
“Nancy Lee—is she back from theatre?”
“I’ll check. You’re new, aren’t you?” She did not seem especially pleased to see a chaplain—perhaps she thought they got in the way.
Jane smiled at her. It did not do the trick.
Intensive care was humming and bleeping with the usual machines and lowered voices.
“Bay three.”
“Thanks. Is Sister Wicks on duty?”
“Yes, but she’s very busy.”
“OK, I’ll catch up with her later. Thank you.”
No response.
Bay 3 was off to one side and Sister Wicks was there. Fourteen-year-old Nancy Lee lay attached to the monitors, tubes and drips, eyes closed, head swathed in bandages. Her mother sat beside her, holding one of her hands in both her own. But when Jane went quietly in and she looked up, she smiled, an open and beautiful smile, full of joy and relief.
Sister Wicks said, “Good news,” nodding to Nancy.
“Yes?”
“The tumour wasn’t malignant and they removed all of it. Outlook very good.”
Jane’s eyes filled with tears. That morning, when she had come in to say a prayer before Nancy had gone down to theatre, the prognosis had been grim, the tumour thought to be malignant and difficult to remove.
Nancy’s mother said, “It’s a miracle. It’s just the most wonder ful miracle.”
“It’s certainly good news,” Jane said. She felt uneasy when people claimed miracles, especially too quickly after major surgery or early on in a serious illness. What was a miracle anyway? She thought of Chris Deerbon, for whom there was no good outlook, no surprise, no miracle. She glanced at Nancy’s young face. She looked infinitely distant, infinitely frail.
“Will you say a prayer of thanks? God has been so good, he keeps his promises.” Nancy’s mother was an evangelical Christian, entirely sure of her Bible-based faith, shining with righteousness as she held her daughter’s hand.
It is more difficult than this, Jane wanted to say, it is never so simple, we can never claim an easy answer. But she could say no such thing. She put her hand lightly on Nancy’s head and gave her a blessing.
“I’ll come in tomorrow morning,” she said. “See how she’s doing then. It is early days you know.”
“She’s going to make a full recovery. We can trust in that.”
Jane smiled and slipped away.
On the way back to the college she worried that she had sounded too negative or had seemed to deny the mother’s sure faith. What was she doing being a priest in the Church of England if she did not accept that miracles happened and prayers were answered? She believed in the power of prayer. Miracles, though—what were they? Rareties, that was sure. A medical diagnosis which turned out to have been too pessimistic, with the result being better than everyone had dared to hope or expect—that was explicable and something to be glad and grateful for but not a miracle. The hospital saw good and bad outcomes all the time—she had seen both herself in the course of that day. Yet she had seemed to reject one woman’s faith and she blamed herself for it.
She parked the car and walked thoughtfully across the college quad. It was quiet. The air smelled autumnal though it was quite warm and there were little clouds of midges and gnats dancing here and there. She knew how lucky she was, to have the privilege of a set of rooms in college, a part-time chaplaincy both here and at the hospital, and a doctorate to study for. She had made too many mistakes, taken wrong turns, didn’t believe herself to be cut out for her previous jobs. Now, she had time and space. She hoped she would prove good enough—enough to justify the trust people had placed in her, “yet again” she thought. She wondered why the confidence, which had been so strong when she first determined to be a priest, had weakened so much.
There was a note pinned to the door of her rooms. “ Dear Jane, would you have tea at four thirty with me tomorrow? I hope all is well and you are settling in comfortably. Good wishes, Peter.” The courteous wording, from the senior chaplain, and the “tea at four thirty” made her smile. Some things did not change.
A few people were in to dinner and she stayed talking in the combination room until just before ten. She barely knew anyone but introductions were easy in a college and she felt more cheer ful as she went back to her rooms, planning to work for an hour and also to ring Cat Deerbon. But before that, she switched on the television to catch the news. As the picture came up, Simon Serrailler’s face filled the screen. Jane stood staring at him, startled by the odd mixture of his closeness, here, talking to her, and his complete remoteness.
