A Death of Distinction (2 page)

She was seated at three removes, on the same side of the table as he was, so that he couldn't see her without craning forward, but he was aware of her, as a strong personality and as an attractive woman. Pity about her ... However – he comforted himself with the thought – Claudia was a matter of indifference to him, and her promotion would certainly mean relocation.

‘Ten-thirty tomorrow morning, then, Jack?'

Denis Quattrell, his bank manager, had slipped into the Mayoress's vacant chair. He was a long, thin, desiccated man, who said little but, one had to assume, thought a lot. The type, in any case, to have as friend rather than foe. Jack had been careful to cultivate Quattrell. The decision on whether or not the new wing should be built couldn't in any way be his, but as Chairman of Conyhall's Board of Visitors, his support and recommendations on the need for more administrative space would go a long way. Also, as a member of Lavenstock Town Council, he could be invaluable in stemming the tide of local opposition. An unofficial, friendly meeting between himself and Quattrell could do no harm, Jack knew, to the fulfilment of his plans.

‘Half past ten, Denis. I'll look forward to seeing you.'

Quattrell said carefully, ‘Don't count chickens, but no doubt there's room for coming to some – mutual accommodation.'

Jack felt triumphant. He knew it! It had made sense, all along, in these difficult times, to add a new admin block to the present building, old as it was, rather than spend Government money on new premises. There was a vociferous element locally, who objected to the scheme on the grounds of what they saw as the gradual encroachment of the prison buildings towards them – disregarding the fact that the proposed new wing would be well within the Conyhall boundary, and on Prison Service land.

But such protest groups were listened to more and more, and Jack knew he couldn't afford to disregard them. He was sure, however, that some solution, other than direct confrontation, would be found. He felt himself riding on a crest of optimism at the moment, when everything was undoubtedly going his way. For a moment, remembering recent troubling events, he had a flicker of doubt, but once more he put it out of his mind.

Taking a short cut through the narrow lane at the back of the Town Hall had been a mistake: Marc was wedged in between a following car and a big truck being loaded with huge pots of flowering plants. Probably from the previous evening's function, he decided, and now being transported back to the Parks Department glasshouses. He waited impatiently, but it wasn't long before the driver gave him the thumbs up and he could get past. It hadn't really delayed him much, he made good time and his mother was still there when he arrived.

The resiny smell of new wood filled her small flat as he carried in the planks, shouldering with ease the six three-foot lengths of three-quarter-inch-by-nine. Good, sturdy shelves that he left leaning just inside the door while he ran back down the narrow stairs to fetch his saw, plane, drill and sander, the Rawlplugs and screws. He'd always been good at practical things, and he was eager to prove his carpentry skills, to get on and see the results. They'd be just the job when he'd finished them, three shelves in each of the alcoves either side of the small cast-iron fireplace that was only just big enough to house a barely adequate gas fire. Even so, she wouldn't have enough books to fill them, or even any small ornaments and such to make up the spaces. He wondered what had happened to them all, and whether she missed such things.

The tiny flat, once a bedroom floor, just this one room partitioned off to make provision for somewhere to cook and wash up, plus a minute bathroom and a shoebox-sized bedroom, was sparse and comfortless.

‘I could get you a few pictures, some cushions,' he'd suggested. ‘A cat? Even a budgie. Something, at any rate, to love.'

‘No! No, thank you. I have everything I want.'

Her refusal was quiet, but uncompromising, as if through the need to convince him that she'd grown away from the necessity for luxuries. He thought of her Spartan bedroom, its walls bare except for the crucifix above the narrow bed, seeming to dominate the room. It made him uncomfortable, this reminder of the faith that, despite everything, was still the main principle of her life.

He'd left the door propped open while he went for the tools, and when she heard him return she called to him from the kitchen area.

‘Please – don't call me that,' he said, leaning against the doorframe, watching her as she moved quietly from one task to another. ‘You christened me Marc, and that's who I am.'

She was silent for a moment, her head bent as she folded the tea towel and placed it neatly over the rail, revealing neither pleasure nor displeasure as she lifted her head and looked at him. ‘If that is what you prefer.' He saw the shadows in her eyes, shadows that he'd come to accept were permanent now. The thought both saddened and enraged him, it had all been so bloody pointless and unnecessary. Then a sudden rush of tenderness swamped his anger, and with it came an ever greater determination to look after and protect her, as though their positions were reversed, and she was the child, he the parent.

She looked too young to be anybody's mother, let alone the mother of a grown man, though he recognized his own bone structure and colouring in her narrow, dark face, and knew exultantly that his own blood and genes and chromosomes were hers, too. She was still a beautiful woman. Her hair, which she was growing again, was sleek and dark, without a hint of grey. She was slim – perhaps too slim, he thought, professionally critical – and made even her cheap, chain-store clothes look elegant. Even without hearing her faint accent, the slight pedantry of her speech that persisted despite all the years in England, anyone would guess by the way she looked that she was French, he thought – it must be that Parisian flair they spoke about.

He reminded her, very aware of the time, ‘Shouldn't you be on your way? It's nearly ten.'

‘Yes. I have left you some soup and rolls for your lunch.' She indicated a carefully prepared tray he could see sitting on the two-foot-square work surface next to the sink. ‘And there is fruit in the fridge.'

‘I'll wait and have it with you. I don't want to stop for lunch anyway.'

He meant to work painstakingly, taking his time. He was always careful and precise when he needed to be. He would do everything perfectly, no lopsided or unsafe shelves – but even if the job went quicker than he anticipated, he intended still to be here when she returned, he wanted to see her face when she saw the shelves. Maybe he could use any spare time for a kip ... you never got enough sleep, working the emergency rota.

‘Don't wait,' she said. ‘You will be hungry before I get back. I don't finish until half past two.'

He hated the idea of her job: waitressing, fetching and carrying, having to wear an overall and a cute, silly hat on her head. It was demeaning, cleaning up the sordid debris of other people's lunches – even if Catesby's restaurant was in a classy department store and though she'd recently been promoted from clearing tables in the self-service to the waitress-service area.

‘I don't mind waiting, I had a big breakfast,' he lied, as she slipped on her coat. He could always nip out for a pizza if he couldn't last out. ‘And I'm not due back on duty today. Bye, Marie-Laure.'

She didn't like him to call her Mother, or Mum. Nor did she kiss him before she left, but she touched his shoulder, which was an improvement on previous farewells.

He listened to her quick, light footsteps on the stairs and heard the front door close before turning to start on the shelves.

The small room quickly became very stuffy and within ten minutes he'd worked up a sweat. He stuck it for a while longer then, looking at his watch, pushed up the sash window which overlooked the street where the betting shop, the Halal Meat Emporium, the Pizza Hut and a small branch of the Bank of Ireland jostled each other, and countless overflowing black plastic dustbin bags lolled together along the pavement edges. He let in a rush of knife-edged air, breathed in the smell of diesel fumes and fried onions, heard the noise of traffic and the dustbin lorry grinding away further up the road, the hiss of air brakes. The Town Hall clock sounded the quarter and, simultaneously, he heard the bang in the distance – or rather, the loud crump, the thud of an explosion. Minutes later, through the open window, he heard the wail of police and ambulance sirens.

Reverberations from the explosion were heard miles away. The sound was muffled in the crematorium chapel, not easily identifiable, but several policemen stirred uneasily.

The service was nearly over, the coffin with its simple white cross of flowers, borne in by four stalwart constables, would in a few minutes disappear through the curtains. The chapel was full, with family and friends and row upon row of police: uniformed and plain clothes, top brass and other ranks, as befitted the funeral of a detective superintendent. Even the Chief Constable was there, out of sympathy for the widow and family, and to pay his last respects to a well-liked colleague.

Forty-seven. Christ, that was too young to die, thought Mayo, still numb with shock. To die of a heart attack or anything else ... especially a man like Howard Cherry, careful of himself in every way – a non-smoker, a moderate drinker, a man who'd watched his health as carefully as he'd watched every step of his career moves, each one mapped out from the day he entered the Force.

‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery …'

The last, at least, not true of Cherry, a man content with the career he'd chosen, and one who'd enjoyed a joke as much as any Yorkshireman allowed himself to. Mayo had known him all his working life. They'd started out in the same West Riding Force, become separated, and then found themselves by coincidence once again working together, here in the Midlands, in Lavenstock – Cherry as superintendent, CID, Mayo as chief inspector. There'd been none better to work for than his old friend. Not perfect, a bit of a bastard on occasions, truth to tell, over order and discipline. But fair. He'd earned the respect, if not the unreserved liking, of every man and woman on the station.

His marriage – to Anne, now facing a bleak future – had been happy enough, among the tide of police marital disasters, to cause comment and even envy. He'd left a youngish family: sixteen-year-old Melanie, now in tears enough to start the next Flood, poor lass. The twins, Adrian and Michael, hefty seventeen-year-olds, already tall like their father, pale with the effort of trying not to break down. Mayo, a big man with crisp dark hair, a square chin and a tough reputation, looked down at his feet, finding himself more than a little choked, too. A private funeral, with a memorial service later, wouldn't that have been less harrowing? Although there was something to be said for having it over and done with.

For some inexplicable but possibly private reason, ‘Angel Voices Ever Singing' had been chosen to be sung as the coffin slid through the curtains and Howard Cherry went to his last rest, and when the final cheerful notes died away, Mayo followed the procession of mourners out of the chapel into the bright, scimitar-sharp morning.

Waiting for a word with Anne, he tried not to make it too obvious that his eyes were all for Alex, Sergeant Jones, standing some yards from him across the sea of wasted blossoms, the funeral tributes, spread out on the forecourt. She wore her uniform well, managing to make its mannish outlines look elegant, an emphasis to the creamy skin, dark blue eyes and sleek, short dark hair, precision cut under the uniform hat. She hadn't, through protocol, been sitting with him in the crematorium chapel and had evidently decided it would be circumspect to keep up the formality in the circumstances. Though there couldn't be many now who didn't know of their relationship. Their eyes met, and she smiled, and his heart, as usual, turned over.

Anne came across immediately she saw him. He kissed her, pressing her hand and murmuring words of sympathy. The usual platitudes were not enough, never could be, of course, but they were sincerely meant, and what else was there to say?

‘Thank you,' she answered, dry-eyed and outwardly calm, as if they'd really helped. And they did. He knew that from his own experience when, years ago, his wife, Lynne, had died. They spoke a little more, then, as he was turning away, she added quietly, ‘Take it, Gil, the promotion. It's what he would have wanted.'

Someone had been indiscreet. Cherry himself? Few others could have known how long he'd been dithering, uncharacteristically, over whether to go for it or not. It didn't matter now.

He'd made his decision some time since, gone through the rituals and the necessary procedures, even anticipated relocation and all the problems
that
would bring. But Cherry's death meant that a detective superintendent was now immediately necessary to keep the CID department functioning and here he was, in the right place at the right time. His meeting late yesterday with the DCC had set the seal on his new role as Superintendent, CID, Lavenstock Division. He'd never have chosen to achieve higher status this way, it felt too much like stepping into a dead friend's shoes. But he'd found out long ago that you couldn't pick and choose, rewards were dished out with one hand and taken away with the other.

A flurry of activity had broken out by the parked cars. One of his sergeants, Martin Kite, came running up to him and spoke hurriedly. Other men were already rushing to their cars, the Chief Constable was turning to see what was wrong. Radios squawked as vehicles sped through the spruce, well-barbered crematorium grounds. Mayo turned apologetically to Anne Cherry.

‘I'm sorry, there's been an incident ... I'm sorry, Anne.'

She watched them go. It seemed, somehow, an appropriate postscript to the funeral.

Conyhall Young Offenders' Institution had started out as a gentleman's residence – a stately Gothic pile built a hundred years ago to replace an earlier, Elizabethan manor house, considered by its Victorian owners to be unfashionable. The family had been of some standing, consequently the house was large, almost a mansion. It had previously stood in many gracious acres, on Lavenstock's outskirts, but as the town grew in size, so Conyhall's grounds became reduced, sold off piecemeal for the semi-rural housing estates which now almost surrounded it. Twenty-five years ago, the house and most of its contents had followed, put on the market to pay off death duties and to allow the incumbent heir to continue to live the jet-set life he felt was his due. The sale completed, he had departed smartly to make a large hole in the proceeds, leaving behind only a few marble nymphs and some urns in various niches and interstices of the building, plus several time-obscured and unremarkable oil paintings in the hall to add gravitas to what was then to be a local detention centre. What had now come to be the Conyhall Young Offenders' Institution.