Part 14 (1/2)

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

'Louise Nightingale wishes to see you.'

'Tell her to come in, Anne.' Fenwick put the file he was reading to one side and looked up, his smile fading at the expression on Nightingale's face. Instinctively, he stood up. There were some blows he preferred not to take sitting down.

'Morning. Cup of coffee?'

'No thank you, sir. I won't be taking up much of your time.' She took a deep breath and continued. 'I don't think I can go on working, not right now, but I accept what you said about this being a very big decision and I'd like to take up the offer of unpaid leave. Just for a month or so to give me time to think.'

'And your resignation is on hold?'

'For now. Would you tell the Superintendent?'

'Of course.'

Some of the strain went from her face leaving her looking exhausted. Fenwick felt an inexplicable urge to put his arms around her shoulders and give her a hug. She needed looking after and as far as he knew there was no one else to do it. Something of his feelings must have shown in his face because she blushed. He stuck his hand out.

'Good luck then. I hope it all works out.'

She shook his hand and looked up at him while still holding it, her eyes full of questions.

'Yes?'

She shook her head.

'Never mind. It's nothing.'

Fenwick watched her leave, straight-backed, precise, and felt that he had missed something significant but he had no idea what it was.

'Keep in touch,' he called out, but she appeared not to have heard him. He started towards the door but his phone rang and he automatically reached to pick it up. It was the Superintendent's a.s.sistant, reminding him that he was late for an appointment. He shrugged his shoulders and made his way to the meeting.

Cooper had had no luck tracing Nightingale's stalker. The computer technicians hadn't traced the source of the Emails and interviews at the flats had produced nothing. He was used to failure, what policeman wasn't, and was usually phlegmatic in defeat, but this time his lack of progress was giving him acid indigestion, a sure sign that he was really upset.

He repeated his problems to Fenwick.

'I just can't stand the idea of her being terrorised. It's not fair.'

'Maybe she'll be away for a month or so she's taken leave of absence. That will give us time to find the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

The next day Cooper was interrupted with a message. One of Nightingale's neighbours had heard sounds of a disturbance from her flat.

'Is it still going on?'

'It's quieter now but I think someone's still there.'

Telling the woman to stay inside he rang Fenwick and the two of them were soon driving through Harlden in a squad car with Fenwick urging the driver to go faster every time he braked. They tried Nightingale's phone but it was off the hook. There was no answer from her mobile.

Fenwick led Cooper and a uniformed officer at a run up the stairs while another stayed on the door. The neighbour, alerted by the siren, was on the landing with a spare set of keys.

'I haven't seen her since yesterday when she gave me her keys and said that she was off on holiday. That's why I was worried when I heard the noise.'

'Any sounds from in there recently?'

'Nothing for the last ten minutes.'

Fenwick asked her to wait in her flat and pushed open the door, noting the smashed locks. Inside was a scene of devastation. Nightingale's neat, precise hall had been sprayed from floor to ceiling with foul language graffiti. Pictures had been ripped from their frames, pieces of mirror crunched under his feet as he walked in.

He told the officer to stay on the door and beckoned Cooper inside. The kitchen was a mess; crockery and gla.s.ses had been broken and thrown around the room. In the living room the curtains and sofas had been slashed with a knife, furniture smashed and the expensive CD player wrecked. There was more graffiti. Only the bathroom had been ignored. His eyes watered from the smell of the bleach that had been poured over a heap of her clothes on her bed.

'Good grief, I want SOCO here right now. We need to find her. Put out an alert for her car and check with the airports. If she's gone abroad it might explain why her mobile isn't picking up calls.'

Cooper listened to his boss trying to talk himself calm. He had never seen him so agitated.

'She has a brother somewhere. He may know something.'

Cooper called Simon Nightingale's home using the number he found in a battered address book. A woman answered.

'What's happened?'

'Her flat has been broken in to and we are trying to reach her.'

'Well she'll be at work. Why are you calling here?'

He explained about Nightingale's extended leave.

'She didn't tell us. I'm sorry I have no idea where she might have gone.'

'What was her typical holiday choice?'

'I'm not sure there was anything typical.'

'Are there any friends or family she might have travelled with or be visiting?'

'We're all the family she has. Apart from this house there's an old farm but it's derelict so she couldn't stay there.'

Cooper was about to finish the call when an idea occurred to him.

'Mrs Nightingale, have you given Louise's address to anyone recently?'

'Of course not! I wouldn't do something like that.'

'Please, think hard.' Cooper didn't doubt the woman's integrity but she was the trusting kind. She had taken him at his word when he said he was a policeman and hadn't bothered to check him out in any way.

'Well...but that can't have been significant, it was nothing, an old friend that's all.'

'Go on.'