Текст книги "Vows of Silence "

Автор книги: Susan Hill

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

All nuns were allowed to speak freely to visitors at any time. Hospitality and making guests feel at ease came first. It was a civilised rule. A lot of what was here at the abbey Jane had found far more civilised than she had expected. It was one of the things she missed, this and the habitual, mutual courtesy and consideration. Here, people automatically put others first. It was a way of life. The contrast with the outside world was brutal. Most of the nuns, who had not been beyond the abbey walls since their first admittance, would not survive outside. The abbess went out. She knew exactly what the world was like and was remark ably unfazed by it. But then, the abbess was an exceptional woman.

They went towards the back door where Sister Thomas shed her boots, and then on into the house. “You won’t mind coming this way, Jane, I know, otherwise we have to go all the way round, and look, we’ve mended that window there at last and this corridor has been painted freshly, you can probably still smell it.”

They went from the domestic regions down the newly painted corridor and then they were in the more formal part of the abbey. The smell of the paint was submerged in the smell that struck Jane again as her most vivid memory of the place—that and the abbey sounds, of bells and of footsteps pattering along corridors in sequence as the nuns went swiftly and silently to chapel.

The smell was the smell of boarding school as well as convent—floor polish with undernotes of cooking.

The door of the sewing room was open and an electric machine whirred. From an office came the soft tap of fingers on a keyboard. Jane’s rubber-soled driving shoes squeaked on the tiles as they rounded the corner, past the chapel, past the double doors to the refectory, round a second corner beside a tall clear window flooding sunlight through onto a silver vase of lemon-coloured chrysanthemums before a wooden cross.

When Jane had begun to doubt if the religious life was for her, Sister Catherine had listened, made an occasional remark, but never pressured her to decide either way or to rush her decision.

“You are welcome to stay here as long as you need to,” she had said. “Give it time. No one is going to ask you to leave until you are ready to go. Or to stay.”

Jane had felt better at once. The abbey was a different place from the one she had expected and thought that she wanted. Life was routine and, in many senses, dull routine. She had loved the silence and the stillness, the measured, calm way in which the women went about their daily business. But she had missed the stimulation and challenges of the outside world. Not the buzz, not the rush, but the novelty of every day. Here, novelty was almost entirely absent. That was part of the point and she was surprised how much she missed it.

The prayer life was not a problem to her, even though she found it easier to say her own office than to take part in the communal services, easier to spend time praying alone in the chapel of her room. Her room. She had laughed at herself. Her room had been one of the major problems—and how ridiculous that sounded. But it was true.

Her room was more like the uninteresting and functional one in a B & B than a monastic cell. It was sparsely furnished but not uncomfortable. It looked over the side garden. It was dull and it had never felt hers and never had any atmosphere whatsoever. A single bed with a pale blue cover, a light wood wardrobe, 1930s style, a small desk with a dark wood chair—and somehow the clash irritated her; a plain dark wood dressing table without a mirror. An armchair upholstered in beige moquette of the sort common in old people’s homes. An anglepoise lamp which kept falling apart. A crucifix on the desk. A reproduction of a Renaissance painting of The Banishment from Edenon the wall. A miasma of depression had fallen on her when she had first entered the room and had never left but fallen again and again every time she returned to it. A hermit’s cell carved out of a rock or one with whitewashed stone walls in a medieval monastery, with its own strip of garden, a high wall round it, a straw mattress on the floor. Had these been what she had craved? She had faced her own false and laughable expectations almost with embarrassment.

On the day before her departure, she had shared a simple supper on a table by the window, organised by the abbess, who believed firmly in one-to-one encounters and conversations over food and drink as the way to sort out many problems and difficulties within her community. It had been pleasant and the talk had roved over a wide variety of topics—world affairs and politics, the plight of the Third World, the place of the monastic life in modern society, education, the role of women in the Church. The abbess was not a priest. None of the nuns was ordained, and Jane had been touched by the respect for her status shown by the older and more senior woman.

When coffee had been brought by the sister in attendance, they had moved to the pair of armchairs set by the open window overlooking the park and Jane had said, “I don’t belong here. I didn’t belong at home. I didn’t belong in Lafferton. I’m afraid I will never belong anywhere, Sister.”

“‘Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee.’ That means something to you, Jane, unless I have got you very wrong. You’ve not found what you are looking for here but the reasons have nothing to do with lack of faith or loss of it indeed.”

“No. Being here has confirmed my faith. I’m sure of that if I’m sure of nothing else.”

“I’m glad. But inner tranquillity and assurance are so valuable that if you have faith, as you do, finding your real place in life isn’t going to be difficult.”

“No?”

“No. It may be time-consuming. You may go in several different directions—but those will all add to your experience. If I know anything, I know nothing is wasted. Not ultimately.”

“Yes. But what direction now?”

“When you came here, one of the things you mentioned was the desire to go back to some sort of academic work. I know you spent a lot of time in the library here. Has that been helpful?”

“Oh, yes. I loved it.”

As well as reading and studying and thinking on her own there, she had been put to work in the library, and her time spent there was among the best she had known during her stay. Her other work had been in the laundry, which she had also rather enjoyed, and the sewing room which she had hated with all the passion of her teenage years in needlework lessons.

Now, the smiling abbess got up from the desk and came towards her, both hands outstretched to take Jane’s.

“Jane, what a pleasure! How very good to see you.”

“It’s good to be back.”

She meant it. It was good to know that this place was always here. She knew that she would always be able to come back if she needed a place of prayer and quietness, even though she also knew, as she had walked in through the door again, that she would never want to stay.

“Do you feel like a walk, Jane? I could do with stretching my legs and a change of scene.”

They made their way towards one of the iron benches. The deer were further off now, grazing in their herd towards the sloping banks of the river, a section of which wound through the park. The gnats jazzed in the air.

“Unseasonable,” Sister Catherine said, “but welcome. It’s a long winter.”

Jane glanced at her. She was a handsome woman, probably in her fifties, and she had spoken with the faintest touch of—melancholy? Wistfulness? How difficult would it be if you doubted your vocation or even your faith, or were simply weary of convent life, and yet were head of your community? The temptation to do nothing, stay quiet, not admit any of it even to yourself, to live out your life in a not-unhappy routine, would be considerable.

Doubt was not a subject Jane could raise with the abbess.

“So Jane—you look very well and you have a more settled air. From our point of view I’m sorry to say it because we so wanted you to come to us—but I’m very glad you obviously made the right decision. In fact, I never doubted it, you know.”

“You mean you didn’t think I’d be a success here?”

“Oh, what is “success”? No, I simply mean I always knew it wasn’t right for you.”

They sat in silence for some time, a companionable silence. The sun slanted through the autumn trees and the deer wandered towards them. Jane was in no hurry. She was driving straight from here to Cambridge, a journey of a little over an hour and she had no appointments for the rest of the day, just her own work. She had a job as an assistant chaplain at a hospital in Cambridge, another as a locum chaplain at St Stephen Martyr’s College, filling in for someone who had gone to do missionary work. She was also working on a PhD in medieval monasticism. The abbess had roared with laughter when she had been told. “That’ll suit you far better, Jane,” she had said. “You’ll enjoy the privations of twelfth-century northern England, when monasteries were really monasteries!” Ruefully, Jane had agreed.

The abbess got up. “I must get on,” she said, “but do go and see the others, everyone will be so pleased, and Sister Thomas will have the coffee pot on.”

But on the way into the house, they met Sister Monica, bustling out of her office, spectacles swinging from the cord round her neck.

“My dear Jane, what an extraordinary thing. Ten minutes ago I took a call asking for your whereabouts and I was just wondering if we had a current address when I looked up and there you were. I couldn’t believe my eyes!”

“Who on earth would telephone me here?”

“A Dr Deerbon from Lafferton. Do ring from the office, my dear.”

Thirty-one

“What the hell c?” Serrailler looked out of his office window to see a crowd of television vans in the station car park. The area was taken over by trailing cables, people with cameras and other people talking into them, vehicles with open doors revealing engineers and equipment.

“Get the press officer up here.”

“Sir.”

As the door closed the phone rang.

“Simon, what’s going on? I’ve got press coming out of my ears, I’ve had the chairman of the Police Committee in my office, I turn on the radio and I hear someone talking about an uncontrolled shooting spree in Lafferton. Talk to me.”

“Well, ma’am, the car park here is stuffed with television vans.”

“Sort it. We have four dead women, three separate shooting incidents, and not the faintest idea who’s responsible. Am I right?”

“Pretty much.”

Elaine Dimitriou was new, charming and, Simon thought, under powered when her job as press officer became, as now, more than local routine.

“I’m really sorry, they just arrived and started setting up. It’s the baby, sir. They all want to run stories about the baby. I’ve issued a press release but they’re being quite aggressive.”

“Have you got what you gave them?”

Simon scanned it. “This tells them what they know and it more or less says we haven’t a clue. Come on, Elaine, this isn’t going to satisfy them. Call a conference for four o’clock. I’ll talk to them and I’ll take questions. Public confidence is draining away and I’m not having that. Get on with it.”

Elaine fled.

“Sir? I’ve got something.”

DS Graham Whiteside looked smug. He’d had that smug look ever since he’d rescued Jamie Doyle from his cot.

“Yes?”

“Someone reported a man on a bicycle. Yester day.”

“Go on.”

“He was cycling past Bethan Doyle’s door and wobbling because he was going slowly and peering at the house. The duty PC noticed him as well. Apparently he almost fell off into the road he was that busy looking.”

“Plenty of people doing that. Cars slow down. People walk their dogs past the crime scenes. People hang about. Voyeurs. Gives them a kick.”

“Got a description.”

“Go on.”

“Fits Craig Drew. Medium build, brown hair, thirties, pale. They remarked on the paleness.”

“Fits Craig Drew, fits half the male population of Lafferton.”

“Not on bikes in Millingham Road. Craig Drew’s got a bike.”

“A lot of people have got bikes.”

“I think I’ll go and talk to him again.”

Simon pushed his hair back from his forehead a couple of times, thinking.

Craig Drew. There was a perfectly likely reason for him to be cycling past another house in which a young woman had been shot dead. He had probably cycled past the Seven Acesclub and his own house too, a dozen times. It was what people did when they were in shock and a state of disbelief.

“We haven’t got anything else, sir.”

“Not a good enough reason for pulling in Craig Drew. Might as well bring in anybody.”

“I think you’re wrong. Sir. I think we should look at Drew. Hard.”

“You made that plain the first time we went to see him.”

“I didn’t believe anything he said.”

“What? Nothing?”

Simon pushed his hair back again. Fact: he disliked Graham Whiteside, and had been angry at his tactics in the first Drew interview. Fact: if there was the faintest chance that Drew had shot Bethan Doyle, in front of her eighteen-month-old son, the angry press pack would sniff it out. Fact: the public was alarmed and baying for blood.

“All right, but don’t go wading in.”

The DS half nodded.

Simon went into the CID room.

“Vicky here?”

DC Hollywell was staring at her computer screen with a far-off expression and jumped when the boss walked over to her desk.

“Found any relatives for Bethan Doyle?”

“Not yet, sir. I was just looking again, actually. The ex-partner is the only name we’ve got and he’s working in a bar in Ibiza—police there have tracked him down, they’re talking to him.”

“The little boy c”

“Jamie. He’s in care.”

“I can’t believe he has absolutely no living relatives apart from an absentee father.”

“We’re trying, sir.”

“I know. Bethan seemed a solitary girl without family and without friends, did her job, came home, picked him up from nursery and stayed home alone with him. Was that it?”

“It appears so.”

Simon shook his head. “I don’t buy it. Get on to neighbours, go to her work, go to the boy’s nursery c everyone. There has to be someone.”

“There was.”

“What?”

“Well, there was someone who killed her. Or was it random like the others?”

“Were they random?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Nor do I, Vicky, and it’s driving me nuts.” He turned round. “Listen up please. I’m doing a press conference this afternoon. I’ve got to give the buggers out there something. I want to defuse this. We need them onside and at the moment they’re not. Meanwhile, as you go in and out don’t say anything. Be polite and carry on. I want everyone in the conference room at four. Show of solidarity.”

His mobile rang. Cat’s number. He went into his room and closed the door.

“Where are you?”

“Office. What’s happened?”

“Chris has gone into BG. They’re operating this afternoon. They think it’s a grade-three glioma.”

“That’s good, isn’t it? I mean them operating.”

“It’s to relieve the pressure. He went blind in one eye and the headaches are awful. They’ll try and take some of it out, but it’s in a difficult place.”

“Oh, love.”

“He’ll have radiotherapy. One course, it’s just palliative.”

Cat sounded cold and mechanical, removing herself from her emotions, setting aside the fact that she was talking about Chris.

“I’ll try and come over tonight. It should be OK after the press conference.”

“It’s all right, Dad and Judith are coming over so I can go and see Chris.”

“Oh? You don’t need me then.”

“Christ. Of course I need you. I need everyone. Simon, don’t have tantrums, I can’t cope.”

Someone knocked.

“Have you talked to the children?”

“Tried. I never realised how hard it was just to explain, just to get them to understand even a little. Sam can. In a way. But he doesn’t want to. He put his fingers in his ears.”

His door opened. Elaine.

“I have to go. Hold on in there. I’ll come later.”

He looked up.

“Sorry, sir, but the Chief’s here. She went into the CID room but I thought you’d want a heads-up.”

“Thanks.”

Another head round the door. Vicky.

“The Spanish police came through. Foster Munday, Bethan Doyle’s partner c left his bar job five weeks ago. Left his apartment as well.”

“And?”

“Took a flight to Birmingham.”

“When?”

“Two days before Melanie Drew was shot.”

“Right, we want photographs, full description, get on to the airport, taxis, railway, car hire. I want him in here yesterday.”

Vicky turned and crashed into the Chief Constable. Simon caught a glimpse of their faces, Vicky scarlet and horrified, Paula Devenish thunderous.

“Ma’am. I’ll get someone to go for tea.”

“I don’t need tea. I need some small scrap of evidence that you have moved forward in this investigation.”

Thirty-two

DS Whiteside pounded the front door of the cottage with hammer blows. Inside, dogs barked.

When Craig Drew’s father opened up he looked terrified but said at once, “You’ve got some news? What’s happened?”

“Can we come in?” Whiteside barged through the front door as he was asking. The DC with him, Louise Kelly, hesitated, apologetic.

“What’s happened?” Alan Drew asked her.

She shook her head.

“OK, where is he?”

“Craig? Upstairs, I think. What’s happened?”

“Call him down, will you?”

The DS prowled round the living room, looking at a picture, picking up a photograph, turning the corner of the mat over with his toe. Louise stood in the doorway. He was a sergeant, she was in her first six months as a DC but she knew that the way he was behaving was out of order. She wanted to say something but if she did he would take it out on her later. She knew a bully when she met one, knew what you should do with bullies but felt powerless. Whiteside brushed her aside and went to the bottom of the stairs. “Drew! DS Whiteside here. I want a word.”

“What’s going on? What’s happened?”

“What’s he doing up there?”

A lavatory flushed. Craig Drew came running down the stairs, still doing up his belt. “Have you got him?”

“I was hoping you were going to tell me that.”

“Sorry?”

Craig stared.

Poor bloke, Louise thought, poor bloody bloke, he doesn’t know what time of day it is. His wife of two weeks was shot dead, he’s a mess of emotion and dread and questions he can’t answer and we’re here to ask more.

“You’ve got a bike, Craig?”

“Cycle. Bicycle. Yes.” He looked bewildered. His father stood beside him. Protective, Louise thought. Even at his age. Fat chance my dad would protect me like that.

“Been out and about on it, have you?”

“He cycles most days,” Alan Drew said. “He needs to get out of here.”

“Where do you go, Craig?”

“I don’t know c all over. Anywhere.”

“You don’t know. All over. Anywhere.”

“I just go out.”

“Lafferton?”

“Yes. Or—just around. Villages. Nowhere in particular.”

“Dulles Avenue?”

“I went there.”

“What for?”

“We—I live there. I went to my flat.”

“On your bike?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t carry much on a bike, can you?”

“I didn’t have anything to carry.”

“Didn’t go to pick anything up, stuff you needed, clothes and so on?”

“I’d have taken the car.”

“I’d have gone with him as well. What’s this about, Sergeant, what’s with all these bike questions?”

“Know the Seven Acesclub, Craig?”

“No. I mean, I heard about it, those other girls. It’s the same thing, isn’t it? Someone just shooting for no reason.”

“How do you know it’s the same?”

“Well, I thought c it’s got to be the same, hasn’t it?”

“Has it? We haven’t said so.”

Craig Drew looked both confused and as if he were about to cry. He glanced desperately at Louise.

“Do you know the Seven Aces, Craig?” she asked gently.

Whiteside shot her a look.

“No.”

“Have you ever been?”

“No. We—I c clubs are not where I go. We don’t. Mel didn’t like that sort of place. It’s new, isn’t it?”

“You’re telling me you’ve never so much as been past it?”

“I don’t think I have but I can’t swear to it. Of course I can’t, can I?”

“Why not? I’d have thought it was perfectly simple. Have you been past the Seven Acesor haven’t you?”

Craig sat down and dropped his head.

Whiteside went on. “Did you read about Bethan Doyle, Craig?”

“Who’s Bethan c Oh, God, her, the one with the baby. Christ.”

“You know about it, then?”

“You’d have to live on the moon not to know about it, wouldn’t you?” Alan Drew. He had crossed the room to stand beside his son, put a hand on his shoulder for a second.

“Craig?”

“Yes.”

“Know where she lived, do you? Where it happened?”

“Yes.”

“Not far from your place.”

Silence.

“You went down there, didn’t you, Craig?”

“No.”

“Really? I heard you did. Biked along the street. Had a good look at the house where it happened. Didn’t you?”

Craig looked up, his eyes seemed to have sunk back into his head, still bewildered.

“I might have. Yes. I did. I was on the bike round there. I was trying to take it in. I can’t take it in, you see. I keep expecting her to walk in the door here and she doesn’t.”

“Melanie?”

“Yes.”

“Why would that make you cycle past Bethan Doyle’s place?”

“It didn’t. I mean, I don’t know why. I wanted to see. I suppose. Maybe it would help me take it in. I just don’t know.”

“So you did cycle past the house where Bethan Doyle was shot in front of her eighteen-month-old baby?”

Craig shrank back into himself as if warding off a blow.

“Craig?”

For one second they were all of them frozen in the small room but to Louise the second went on for hours, became timeless, as if the shutter on a camera had stuck, keeping them all there.

Then Whiteside said, “Get your coat. I’m asking you the rest down at the station.”

Craig Drew looked up. The bewilderment in his eyes had become fear.

“What?”

“You heard. Coat.”

Alan Drew moved. Froze again. Looked from one to the other for an answer. Found none.

“I’m sorry,” Louise said, so quietly they probably didn’t even hear her.

“I don’t have one.”

The DS turned from the doorway.

“A coat. My wax jacket’s at Dulles Avenue. I don’t have a coat. I don’t need a coat.”

Whiteside jerked his head towards the door.

Don’t go, Louise thought, don’t be bullied, you’ve got rights.

But Craig Drew, head down, got up and walked meekly out of the room, Whiteside behind him.

Thirty-three

“Hey, petal, how you doin’?”

“Don’t call me petal.” DC Louise Kelly waited for the machine to pour its coffee sludge into the plastic cup.

“Didn’t think you were one of those feminist birds.”

“I’m not.”

“Right, well, petal is only what my teacher would have called a figure of speech.” Clive Rowley watched while she struggled with the cup which had stuck in the grip of the metal holder. “I’m afraid to offer help, now.”

Louise sighed and stepped back. “Please,” she said.

He snapped open the holder and wriggled the cup of hot liquid out sideways. “There’s a knack, you see.”

“Thanks, Clive. I’m sorry, didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“What’s up?”

“It’ll pass.”

“No, go on. Better out.”

“Not here.”

The corridor was a busy thoroughfare.

“Come in here then.”

They stood in a lobby beside the stairwell.

“What’s up?”

“Bloody DS Whiteside.”

“Been chatting you up or what?”

“Oh, I can cope with that.”

“I bet. Quite scary, you.”

“Seriously. He’s a bully.”

“So am I. We’re coppers. It’s what we do.”

“Not like this.”

Clive watched her closely as she told him. Pretty. Fair hair. Small features. Small hands and feet. Neat little thing. He looked at her hands. No rings.

Was she his type? Might be. Ask her out? Might do.

She stopped talking and drank the coffee.

“You see my point?” she said, looking round for somewhere to throw the empty cup. “He was bang out of order.”

“What about this Drew guy? He done it?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“All the same. He’s in the frame, isn’t he?”

“No.”

“The DS did right to bring him in.”

“Straws. Clutching. At.”

“Fair point. Where is he now?”

“Interview room, I imagine. Look, what should I do?”

“Nothing.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes. Nothing. Don’t stir it up. Don’t make a complaint, it’ll backfire. Only if he starts on you, tell me. I can deal with the Whitesides of this world.”

She laughed. “It’s not me I’m worried about. But thanks.”

“Stay schtum. OK?”

He winked at her and walked off towards the Armed Response Unit room.

Louise watched him go. Cocky, she thought. He doesn’t walk, he swaggers. Maybe AR are always like that. Maybe it goes with the territory. She didn’t take Clive Rowley seriously. Not like Whiteside.

She went upstairs to the CID room.

“What’s been going on?” another DC asked as she went past.

“What have you heard?”

“Craig Drew’s been brought in.”

“Then that’s what’s been going on.”

“No way.”

Louise sat down at her desk and clicked to restore her screen. FRIENDS REUNITED. SIR ERIC ANDERSON COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL. LAFFERTON. 1995.

She went on scrolling down the list. Maybe somewhere in here was a friend of Melanie Drew, née Calthorpe, someone who had something against her, and against the three other girls, something bad enough to have rankled all these years until it blew up in his head and he shot them all dead. Maybe. She leaned back. But this was how you found it, patient detail, plodding through, looking for a connection. This was how she was going to be the one who found it. She would take the tiny scrap of a lead to the DCS and he would agree, she would be given a team, they would track him down, Craig Drew would be freed, Whiteside would be reprimanded c

“Briefing in ten,” someone shouted.

Louise came to, embarrassed. But no one knew.

Maybe.

It had been raining and the conference room smelled of steaming clothes.

Serrailler held up a sheet of paper. “This,” he said, “came in, posted in Lafferton yesterday, addressed to me. It’s up on the screen—here.” The letter was blown up so that they could read it, a single sheet of ruled A5, lettered in crude capitals.

WATCH YOUR BACK I’LL BE WATCHING YOURS HAVE FUN AT

THE FAYR YOU WONT SEE ME IM 2 CLEVER 4 THAT SYMON.

“Someone’s been reading too many Agatha Christies.”

“This is a wind-up, sir.”

There was a murmur round the room.

“Probably,” Serrailler said. “I get enough of those. But it serves to focus our minds on next weekend. This will go to forensics of course, who won’t find anything on it.”

“Of course.”

“But we can’t afford to take a threat like this—and it is a threat—too lightly. Not with four women already dead. The Jug Fair. There’ll be a heavy uniform presence, ARV on standby, all of that, but I want everyone in here at the fair as well, eyes and ears open. Suspect everyone, watch everything, be everywhere. You’re looking out for a clever, ruthless gunman, you’re not there to have fun, no wives and kiddies in tow.”

“What, no candyfloss?”

“Good cover, a gob full of that pink Brillo pad.”

“There’ll be a ground plan—I’ll brief a couple of hours before the fair opens. I don’t know about this,” he waved the letter, “but it’s a heads-up. I don’t want carnage at the Jug Fair.”

“Think of the headlines,” Beevor said.

“Think of four people already dead, DC Beevor.”

“Sir.”

“Sir, is it true Craig Drew has been arrested?”

“It is not. Graham brought him in for further questioning, that’s all, and he is not under arrest. The press is still out there in force and I don’t want them getting hold of the wrong story. Mr Drew is not, repeat not, under arrest.”

“He’s still under suspicion though?”

“Until we get something new,” Serrailler said, “almost everyone is under suspicion. Including you, DC Beevor.”

The room exploded into jeers and laughter.

Thirty-four

From the Lafferton Gazette:

TANYA AND DAN HITCH A LIFT

When six-year-old Tanya Halliwell was a maid in attendance to the Lafferton Jug Fair Queen in September 1988, she cannot have guessed how she would ride on the float again not once but twice in the future.

In 1998, Tanya was the Jug Fair Queen herself and last week she took to the float yet again—this time as a bride.

She and her husband, Dan Lomax (a page in 1987), left their wedding at Lafferton Methodist Church on the float which was specially lent for the occasion and decorated by Claudia’s Florists, where Tanya works. Her two bridesmaids and two pageboys rode with the newly-weds to their reception at Selby House Golf and Country Club. Later, Mr and Mrs Lomax left for the first stage of their honeymoon on the float, this time lit by lanterns and guided by flares. The float is owned by the Wicks family of Selby Farms and was kindly loaned by Michael Wicks, a cousin of the bride.

The couple plan to return from their honeymoon cruise in time to enjoy this year’s Lafferton Jug Fair on the last weekend in October.

Thirty-five

The rain began to fall quite gently as she drove away from the abbey but by the time she had been on the road for half an hour the sky was blue-black, the clouds heavy-bellied and the rain was sheeting down. Jane switched on her lights and the radio. Flood warnings. Severe weather warnings. Storm warnings.

The country road crossed and recrossed the river several times before running along the valley. The last thing she needed was to be stuck somewhere or to have to turn back, losing precious time. Cat had made it clear that time would count. “Karin hasn’t long to live,” she had said in a steady voice. “She has secondaries in her spine. She mentioned your name twice.”

The traffic coming towards Jane was slowing down and a couple of cars flashed their lights. Lightning was jagged across the sky immediately ahead and then she hit the water which was flowing fast across the middle of the road. It shot up on either side of the car and she slowed, got through it, then pulled in behind several others. It was half past one and almost pitch black, the clouds boiling over.

She wondered if it was safe to use her phone—assuming there was a signal. Could mobiles be struck by lightning? She thought not and the car had four rubber tyres which would presumably negate the effect in any case. But there was no signal.

The road had turned into a river and was gushing beneath the cars.

Half an hour later, the worst of the storm seemed to have moved away and she was going again, heading for the slip road of the motorway. The surface was treacherous, warning lights slowed the traffic down to 30 mph which became a 5 mph crawl. The rain lashed down. The radio issued solemn warnings not to travel unless absolutely necessary.

It was quarter to three and 120 miles to Lafferton, assuming it was possible to take the direct route.

Karin McCafferty came into Jane’s mind, as she had last seen her, glowing with well-being and determination, confident and strong.

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