Authors: Elizabeth Corley
Requiem Mass (2 page)
At that moment the sun broke through the clouds in its last seconds before falling behind the distant hills. Its light fell softly on the quietly smiling face of a man sure of his destiny and at peace.
Dies irae, dies illa,
Day of anger, day of terror,
‘Thank God!’
Deborah Fearnside closed the front door and leant back on it heavily, closing her perfectly made-up lids over delicate blue eyes. It was Monday and the children had finally gone, taken early to nursery school by the ever-obliging Mavis Dean. Now all she had to do was finish getting ready and leave herself.
She opened her eyes and glanced at her watch nervously. Now that it was so close she had butterflies in her stomach. She desperately didn’t want to mess things up at the last minute. She was completely ready, had been since quarter to seven that morning. Now all she needed to do was collect her coat and keys, lock up and go. Her natural high spirits returned as she rushed through the house.
Deborah Fearnside had always liked Mondays. She knew that this set her apart from most other people but she rather liked the idea that she was different in at least one aspect of her life. She was the only person she knew who looked forward to Monday, the day when time briefly became her own again. On Mondays Derek went back to the office, reversing out of the drive in his new, silver-finished Audi at 6.55 a.m. precisely to catch the 07.12 to Victoria, and the children went off to school promptly at quarter to eight. Noreen, the cleaning lady, would arrive at 8.15 in time to clean up the breakfast things and tidy away the debris of the weekend.
And this spring morning was even more special than usual. Today, Deborah would be going up to London to sign papers
that would launch her into – what? Excitement, challenge, fame? It didn’t matter; into something new at last. She was desperate for something new.
Four weeks previously, she and a number of her friends had answered a quarter-page advertisement in the local newspaper for young mothers interested in part-time careers as mature models for a new catalogue. The advertisement had explained that the catalogue was aimed at those families who liked to buy ‘quality clothes at their convenience, to suit their busy, active life-styles’. Further, it said, research had shown that ‘the response rate among our target audience is significantly better (up to three times in some instances) if the fashions were modelled by
real life
mothers and their children.’
The requirements for the models were exacting and there was a four-stage selection process. In addition, there were strict limits on the mother’s height and weight and on the ages of the children. The rewards for successful models were, in the words of the advertisement, ‘excellent’.
At first Deborah and her friends had been sceptical. At least six of them matched the height and weight limits specified and had children in the right age group. Three of them, in Deborah’s opinion, were really quite attractive. Deborah could not help admitting to herself that perhaps she was the most attractive. She still had the naturally crinkly gold-blonde hair and light blue eyes that had driven the boys wild at school and, despite two children, her figure was firm and shapely. At thirty-three, some stretchmarks and the start of cellulite seemed inevitable but the advertisement had made it clear that all the shots were to be clothed, with professional models being used for swimwear and lingerie. But it felt risky, they might look foolish, and at first they had reluctantly decided that the opportunity was not for them.
Then two things happened that led Deborah to be setting out for the 08.12 to London and her appointment.
The first was Derek. She could accept that he was not the most demonstrative of men, he had been brought up that way, but she had expected at least
some
reaction when, on the
Saturday following the appearance of the advertisement, she had glided out of their en-suite bathroom in her latest purchase from the Naughtie Nightie party she had been to earlier in the week. The sheer, turquoise chiffon two-piece had been chosen amid much joking and envious innuendo from her friends. The flimsy garment had a daringly cut top that plunged almost to her navel, with trimmings of ivory lace softening the cut-away arms and upper-thigh-length hem. There were matching French knickers and the whole outfit made the most of her still firm breasts while minimising the slight spread around her hips that remained despite twice-weekly step classes.
As she had walked into the dimly lit bedroom, pink and warm from her shower, with traces of Derek’s favourite perfume drifting from all the right places, she had expected some reaction from her husband. Instead, he merely glanced up from
The Economist
and asked her to switch off the bathroom light behind her. She had left it on deliberately to light her progress across the room, hoping for a seductive silhouette.
Not deterred, Deborah slid on to the bed and pulled away the top of Derek’s magazine, believing that by now he must have noticed that something was different. Far from it. He had snatched the magazine from her hand, turned, plumped up his pillow and noisily flopped down under the quilt before turning off his bedside light with a frosty, ‘For heaven’s sake!’
The argument this precipitated was one of their worst. It ended with Deborah, warmly wrapped in her candlewick dressing gown, sipping tea in the kitchen at two in the morning and vowing to prove to Derek, somehow, that she was still an attractive woman. It wasn’t until later, when she came to tidy away the Friday papers, that the modelling advertisement caught her eye again. On impulse she tore it out and put it to one side.
Even then, it is unlikely Deborah would have done anything had it not been for the fact that Jean and Leslie, two of her closest friends, changed their minds over the weekend and decided to answer the advertisement after all. Leslie’s husband, Brian, concerned about his wife’s growing interest in the advertisement, had telephoned the number given. He had left a
message with a very well-spoken and reassuring secretary and was called back within the hour by the executive responsible for the new venture. The man had been professional and had been able to answer every one of Brian’s questions. Two days later a glossy brochure on the firm, together with an interim financial statement from their parent company, arrived at the Smiths’ home address. Brian, an accountant by training, checked out the main company at Companies House. It existed and, sure enough, there was a subsidiary responsible for the wholesale distribution of fashion accessories. Comforted but still determined to be absolutely sure, Brian rang a friend in the trade who confirmed that the parent company were expanding heavily into catalogue distribution.
Leslie was reassured by her husband’s comfort and encouraged her friends to apply. Her husband even agreed to accompany them to their interviews if they got that far. This decided Deborah, and in the end six of the mothers on the school run agreed to apply together. The advertisement specified that they should supply name, address, telephone number, height and weight, details of the children’s ages and sex, and a selection of good-quality family and individual photographs (which would be returned if a stamp-addressed envelope was enclosed).
Of the six friends that eventually applied, four were invited for interviews in London within a week. Deborah had travelled up with Leslie and the two others in a state of apprehension and excitement. Their interviews were arranged at the Carlton Hotel (four star, as Deborah proudly informed Derek) near Trafalgar Square. In the end, Leslie’s husband had not accompanied them; four women travelling together was considered safe enough.
The interviews were conducted in an executive conference room by a woman in her early thirties, stunningly attractive and elegantly dressed. She asked probing questions and entered their nervous answers on to a laptop computer, which, she explained, already held information from their applications. Her enquiries focused on their backgrounds; any previous modelling or acting experience (Deborah remembered a charity
fashion show at college when she was nineteen and some acting at school); their children, particularly their characters and whether they were likely to enjoy and cope with the experience of modelling clothes; and finally, apologetically, on whether their husbands approved of their potential involvement.
At the end of two hours all four women had been interviewed and each was told that she would be contacted within a week to be notified of their success or otherwise. They were given a leaflet containing details about the agency and catalogue. As the friends left the lift and crossed the marbled lobby, they were disconcerted to see two very attractive women ask for the agency’s conference room at reception. Deborah secretly felt with competition like that they would be lucky to reach the next stage.
Within three days Leslie and Deborah were telephoned and told that they had been successful. They were asked to a test photo session the following week. Times had been arranged to allow them to travel together. They were also asked to have photographs taken of their children at a local studio, at the agency’s expense, where arrangements had been put in hand. This, it was explained by the very pleasant lady on the telephone, would avoid the children having to travel until the selection was finally confirmed. Both Deborah and Leslie felt this was particularly professional and sensible.
The test session in London went well, and both women were told later that they were being invited up to London to sign contracts. They had been successful; they had been chosen, along with two others, from over a hundred applicants. This time, instead of making their own way to the studio, they would be picked up from the station by a chauffeured car.
Thus it was that with a decidedly light heart, Deborah Fearnside closed and carefully locked her front door for the last time on a bright April morning. She carried with her no troublesome conscience and only a light overnight bag in which she had placed a few necessities for the trip, a rather strange good luck charm and her chequebook in case she had time after the session to visit the West End.
* * *
Deborah had agreed to give Leslie a lift to the station and turned up promptly to collect her friend. She was not prepared for the sight that greeted her arrival.
‘Deborah. Oh God, I’m sorry.’ A distraught Leslie, her hair still in heated rollers, answered the door. ‘I’m not going to make it. I’ve had a disastrous morning. First of all we’ve lost the cat – heaven knows where the daft thing is! She’s never gone off before and I’ve had crying children wandering around looking for her since seven o’clock. Then Julie, who was going to take them to school today, has just rung to say she can’t get her car to start. And finally, to cap it all, Jamie’s headmaster has literally just called insisting he sees me when I drop the children off over a “serious matter” he couldn’t go into over the phone.’
Leslie looked close to tears. From behind her Deborah could make out the sounds of tearful children and a dog barking frantically.
‘Leslie, I’m so sorry. What do you want to do?’ Deborah was full of sympathy but she still had to get to the station, park the car and buy a ticket. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ she volunteered, seeing her friend at a loss, ‘I’ll let them know you’ve been delayed. As soon as I reach the studio I’ll call and see if you’re back from the school and what your plans are for the day, OK?’
‘Oh thanks, Debs, that’s great. I should still be able to make it, provided things go all right with the headmaster.’
‘I’m sure they will, don’t worry. And the agency won’t mind you being a little late after all the trouble they’ve gone to finding us. I’ll see you later.’
Deborah turned to go without waiting for her friend’s reply. With luck, she might just make the train if the traffic was light.
Fifteen minutes later she sank thankfully into a seat as the 08.12 pulled away from the platform five minutes late. If the traffic had not been so kind, if the train had been on time, if she had waited for Leslie, maybe, just maybe, she would have made it home again safely that evening.
He waited calmly and quietly behind the wheel of the hired 5-series BMW. All the planning and preparation had led to this moment. As on previous occasions he was completely at ease and totally absorbed with the details of the performance he was about to give. He had raised his craft, his killing craft, to an art form over the years. He planned, casted and rehearsed until he was performance perfect; he was creator and artist combined.
In this case, he had been faced with an apparently insoluble problem: how to remove a woman from her daily routine without causing alarm
and
give himself time for a leisurely interrogation without an obsessive police operation dogging his steps.
The easy part had been finding her and the others. Their names had been traced from a school yearbook and an old girls’ magazine had provided the rest. Then it had been a question of deciding on the order in which to approach them. He needed more specific information and he could only hope to extract the full truth from the first one of them.
He had chosen this one because she would be easy to crack. He doubted her resistance would be high in any event, and vanity and concern for her pretty face would increase her sensitivity to his threats. He disliked interrogations – they were invariably messy and time-consuming. He took no pleasure from them, unlike others he had met from time to time who appeared to derive sexual satisfaction from inflicting pain and wielding the power of the blade over a helpless victim.
The difficult challenge had been creating a plan which would
provide sufficient opportunity for abduction without immediately raising a hue and cry. Taking her directly from the village would be a non-starter; he knew this type of community too well. Even though they were populated largely by commuters and their families, everyone knew everyone else’s business as it related to mothers and their children. Worse, their daily routines and rituals were so intertwined that a variation would be spotted within a few hours – in some instances, less.