by Phil Rickman
Merrily held her breath.
‘Because, see, we have to ask ourselves,’ Shirley said, ‘why they were buried in the first place.’
‘Not our place,’ James said, ‘to pre-empt the results of the official excavation. Just to remind you all, the Parish Council will be discussing Coleman’s Meadow early in the New Year. We have no planning powers at this level, as you realise, but we can make our voice heard in Hereford. In theory. So that leaves you two or three weeks to make your individual views known to us. In writing, if you—’
‘But I can tell you why, Mr Davies,’ Shirley said. ‘We don’t need no excavation to tell us they were heathen stones in a Christian country. Heathen stones in the very shadow of our church.’
Our church? Merrily knew for a fact that Shirley West was also a member of some born-again, pentecostal-type group in Leominster.
James said, ‘Mrs West—’
‘Bury them again! Bury them deeper! Or, if you have to dig them up, do as Mr Pierce says, put them in a city park or a museum where none of us have to see them.’
Merrily glanced from side to side. Was nobody going to point out – Jane would go crazy – that the stones erected elsewhere would be meaningless? That they were probably part of a prehistoric landscape pattern, aligned to the summit of Cole Hill?
‘Put iron railings around them. Confine them and—’
‘Yes, Mrs West,’ James said, ‘we take your point—’
‘—and the evil they represent. There’s a deep evil in that place and evil returns to it.’
Someone chuckled. A would you believe this crazy woman? kind of chuckle. Shirley whirled round.
‘Don’t you dare laugh at me! You come yere with your fancy talk and your unbelief. You who deny the Lord.’
‘Well . . .’ Lyndon Pierce opened his hands. ‘Anyone who knows me knows I’d be the last to make a religious issue out of this. But some of you might be surprised at how many folk’ve expressed similar sentiments to Mrs West’s.’
Opportunist bastard. Right . . .
Merrily was halfway to her feet when James Bull-Davies flicked her a warning with a slight turn of his head and a discreet one-handed wiping motion. She sat down, a tightness in her chest.
‘You may also,’ James said, ‘wish to examine the situation from the tourism angle – for better or worse, a vital part of our economy. Herefordshire has comparatively few Neolithic monuments, none of them, it might be argued, as potentially spectacular as this one. We could expect a substantial number of visitors.’
‘But what kind, sir? What kind?’
The drawly voice again, from somewhere in the middle of the hall.
‘Mr Savitch,’ James said.
Ward Savitch. Entrepreneur who’d bought up the old Kibble farm on the Dilwyn road, a mile out of the village. Turning it into a pleasure park for city slickers – paintballing weekends and corporate pheasant shoots. Jane wanted him dead.
‘I think,’ Savitch said, ‘that we all know the kind of tourism such places attract, and it’s the kind more likely to steal the milk off your step.’
Merrily watched Lol shaking his bowed head, profoundly glad that Jane had seen sense and stayed away.
‘Pseudo-Druids,’ Savitch said. ‘Witches in robes, or . . . not in robes. Or not in anything. That the kind of tourism you had in mind, Colonel?’
Nervous laughter, James lifting his hands for quiet.
‘Obviously, I’m being facetious,’ Savitch said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I believe we can embrace the future and still hold on to the past. And in Ledwardine we’ve already got some of the finest period buildings in the county. That’s the kind of heritage we should be looking to conserve, not some lumps of rock.’
‘And the evil they bring yere,’ Shirley West muttered. ‘I know this.’
James Bull-Davies looked tired. ‘Anyone else?’
‘I haven’t quite finished,’ Savitch said. ‘Let’s not pretend, any of us, that we wouldn’t appreciate the improved facilities that would come with growth – supermarket, restaurants . . .’
‘Places for the nouveau riche to unwind in the evening,’ Lol whispered, ‘when they’ve finished blasting a few hundred tame birds out of the hedge.’
‘And, I believe, a fully equipped leisure-centre,’ Savitch said.
There was an explosion of hard rain on the big windows. The strip lights stuttered.
Lol said. ‘He’s got to be a plant.’
As all the lights came up and the first few people began to leave, collecting umbrellas from the rail by the main door, Merrily saw the man in the three-piece suit.
A young man in a three-piece suit. One of the first out. Black umbrella.
‘Nobody here with a Coleman’s Meadow Preservation Society placard,’ Lol was saying. ‘No Save the Stones sweatshirts.’
‘Perhaps that’s no bad thing,’ Merrily said. ‘Some of them might well have pentacles tattooed on their foreheads. Lol, you see that guy who just went out?’
‘Bloke helping Alice Meek?’
‘No, on his own. Suit with a waistcoat. You once saw Jonathan Long, didn’t you?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘No.’ She thought about it. ‘Maybe you didn’t. He came to the vic, just once, with Frannie Bliss.’
‘A cop?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Probably wasn’t him at all.’
Although it was.
‘Um . . .’ Lol looked at her closely. ‘You did have something to eat before you came out?’
‘I . . . Yes, I did. Swear to God.’
Merrily stood up, shook out her coat. Yes, she was trying to get regular meals. Yes, she was trying to pull herself together, not get run down again, cut down on the cigs, have reflexology every couple of weeks from, God help her, Mrs Morningwood of Garway Hill. Yes, yes, yes.
‘Ah, vicar . . .’ James Bull-Davies was stooping between her and Lol, like some long-billed wading bird. ‘Wasn’t really the time, seemed to me, for clerical intervention. West woman’s unlikely to attract much support for Pierce. Unhinged, basically.’
‘In which case, you don’t think it’s worth me putting a bit of distance between us? Pointing out that the Church of England itself doesn’t actually have a problem with megalithic remains, which, of course, it doesn’t . . . And you’re looking unconvinced.’
‘Might be as well not to appear compromised by your daughter’s demonstrable enthusiasm, if that’s the best word . . .?’
‘She’s excited. It’s like they’re her stones, and it’s given her a direction at just the right time. James . . . is there anything in your family records about standing stones in Coleman’s Meadow?’
‘Should there be?’
‘If we could find out why they were buried, just to keep Shirley quiet?’
‘If it was done in secret, wouldn’t be any record. Look, if this site’s as significant as your daughter and her friends appear to think then English Heritage will step in to conserve it and neither that woman nor Pierce will be able to do a bloody thing about it.’
‘He won’t give up. Development of Coleman’s Meadow opens the way for a whole swathe of housing and before you know it . . . Ledwardine New Town? That’s not conspiracy-theorist talk, James, any more than Lyndon’s plans for this site . . .’
‘What’ve you heard?’
Merrily said nothing. What she’d heard was that Stu Twigg, another of Pierce’s clients, owned the ground that the village hall was built on. Ground now being eyed by an unnamed supermarket company. So that if the population of Ledwardine grew to a level which made a superstore not only viable but desirable, and the hall was to be replaced by a new leisure centre on a greenfield site elsewhere, the client – and, arguably, his accountant – would be quids in.
‘Forgot you were a close friend of Gomer Parry,’ James said. ‘Man with little understanding of the word slander.’
‘No, you didn’t. Look, nobody’s averse to immigration, all populations change . . . but
surely, in a village, it should be a trickle. And it should be balanced. Right now, virtually the only people who can afford to move in here are the well-off who want to get out of London. So Pierce and his mates build hundreds of executive homes and an army of the retired rich move in, and the local kids have to move out to the cities, and Ledwardine starts to lose its identity . . . doesn’t even look like a village any more, just a chunk of suburbia with an open-air museum in the centre. I . . . Sorry.’ She fanned the air with her gloves. ‘Don’t usually go off like that.’
‘Look.’ James smiled thinly. ‘Let’s see how things progress. If English Heritage finds some value in the archaeology, then it’s all academic. If you have something to say, save it for the sermon. Or, on second thoughts, don’t. Night, vicar, Robinson. Ah—’ He looked at Lol. ‘Believe you’ve been asked to give us a bit of a concert?’
Lol didn’t say anything.
‘At the Swan?’ James said. ‘Christmas Eve?’
‘Not sure about it yet,’ Lol said.
Over a year after beating his fear of audiences, he still hadn’t played Ledwardine. No big deal . . . and yet it was.
‘Shame if you couldn’t,’ James said.
They watched him leave, plucking his umbrella from the rack. The chances of James ever having heard one of Lol’s songs were slight.
‘That mean he’s on our side?’ Lol said.
‘Best not to rely on it.’ Merrily struggled with the zip of her coat, then let it go. ‘Lol, I don’t look ill or anything, do I? I mean, the way you . . .’
‘No.’ Lol smiled at her. ‘In fact, much as I hate to paraphrase Clapton, you look—’
‘Oh, please. Come on, let’s go and put the kettle on.’
‘Would that be a euphemism?’
‘No! I actually need a cup of tea. And an earlyish night – Tom Parson’s funeral tomorrow at Hereford Crem.’
Lol nodded.
‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘if it wasn’t time for us to . . .’
She looked up from the bottom of the zip.
‘To what?’
He didn’t reply and Merrily saw, for a moment, the former Lol – detached, uncertain, wearing his past like a stained old overcoat. She thought of the way he’d faced up to the man responsible for smashing his beloved Boswell guitar. Making him pay for it in full but then, instead of replacing the Boswell, giving the money away, splitting it anonymously between three local charities. Tainted, Lol had said.
Last week he’d been to London to record his first-ever TV appearance, but he was still scared to play Ledwardine. Scared of what it might be telling him if he bombed.
They were almost alone now, under the cold strip lights. She worried about him. And worried about him worrying about her. God.
‘Time for us to what?’ Merrily said.
Rain blasted into one of the windows and the glass rattled in its metal frame. Lol drew Merrily towards him and did up the zip for her.
‘Doesn’t matter.’
Thing with the Eyes
A BIG KILLING carried its own light. The wild electricity of it had brought the place alive, and Bliss could almost see it connecting across the shining rooftops of this low-slung brick and timbered city, magnesium-white sparks hissing in the brimming gutters.
And there was nobody in the Job in Hereford tonight who wouldn’t get a charge out of it.
No detective, anyway. Never let them tell you any different: this was why you were here, why you hacked through all the paperwork, wiped off the abuse like spittle, merely rolled your eyes at the latest edict from a Home Secretary who looked like she might be good at running playgroups. Young cops liked mixing it on the street, tossing yobs into the back of a van, traffic cops liked burning rubber and screaming through red lights. And detectives – no getting round it – liked murder. A headline-grabbing, incident-room, unlimited-overtime murder.
The thing was, Acting Superintendent Annie Howe, fast-tracking at Headquarters, already had one. On her own doorstep, in Worcester, a witness in a high-profile paedophile case found dead in his garage.
Was that not enough for anybody?
Why did the bitch have to nick his?
Bliss put down the phone. Gerry Rowbotham, the greybeard duty sergeant at Gaol Street, looking up and sniffing theatrically.
‘I smell Worcester on the wind?’
‘Well, it wasn’t me, Gerry.’
She’d given him an earful for not alerting her sooner. Calling from HQ, where she’d just dropped in to pick up some people before coming over.
Coming over.
Shit.
Pick up some people.
Fuck.
‘She’s only appointed herself SIO,’ Bliss said. ‘She’s only bringing her own bastard crew.’
‘Well, you know why,’ Gerry said.
‘No, we don’t know why. We’re not sure yet.’
Gerry nodded at Bliss’s laptop.
‘Would it help if I had a glance?’
‘That’s the idea, Gerry,’ Bliss said. ‘If you don’t mind.’
Slim Fiddler, the senior techie, had been the first to venture an ID. He’d done a few courtesy pictures once during an official visit to Gaol Street by the police authority. Pretty sure he’d had this head in his lens when it was still turning on a neck. The pathologist, Billy Grace, also thought he knew the face, but he’d shaken off civic functions years ago so couldn’t be sure. Only one thing Billy had been fairly sure about.
‘Power saw, Francis. So I’d say wherever it was done . . .’
‘Looks like a spam factory?’
‘Definitely take a while to hoover up all the bits. I’d say chainsaw.’
‘McCullough or Stihl?’
‘Ha.’
Back at Gaol Street, Karen Dowell, divisional computer whizz, had fed some piccies into Bliss’s laptop and Bliss had spent some of his precious time hawking them around. But with what had been done to the face nobody could be quite sure. Bliss had Karen ring the wife, ask for the guy. The wife said he was out. Didn’t know when he’d be back.
‘All right, then.’
Bliss planted the lappie in front of Gerry Rowbotham, who’d been in Hereford since coppers were allowed to slap kids round the ear for pinching apples off the backs of carts in High Town. Through the glass, he saw Karen Dowell coming in through the main door, taking off her baseball cap, shaking a cupful of rain off it.
Gerry put on his reading specs as Bliss opened the laptop’s lid and clicked on the photo icon.
‘There you go.’
The head trembling into focus, coming up sharper and brighter than it had looked in the flesh. And yet artificial, somehow, like it had been sent over from props. Bliss zoomed it up to full screen, looked at Gerry.
Gerry winced.
Bliss said, ‘This is Ayling. You’re sure?’
‘He bought me two pints once. You don’t forget that level of generosity.’
The old feller quite pale in the bilious light. Stepping back, taking a couple of breaths and risking his ticker with another good long look. ‘This was summer, Francis, we’d be turning off all the fans. Gonner throw up more shit than my brother’s muck-spreader.’
A light cough. Bliss waved Karen in.
‘Anything?’
‘Nothing dramatic so far, boss. Problem is, most of the neighbours are elderly people. Almshouses, you know? Doors locked, curtains drawn, tellies on, mugs of Horlicks.’
‘CCTV?’
‘Couple of possibles. One or two iffy hoodies. Trouble is, in this weather everybody’s a hoodie. A live witness would be nice.’
‘Keep at it. Somewhere there’s an old dear who sees all. I want her.’
Preferably before Howe arrived with the entourage.
‘Er . . .’ Karen trying not show excitement. ‘Actually right, is it, what they’re saying?’
‘Well, yeh.’ Bliss accepted a Polo mint from Gerry Rowbotham. ‘Does indeed begin to look like it. So much for gangland, eh?’
>
‘God,’ Karen said. ‘What happens now?’
‘It gets corporate. Doesn’t it, Gerry?’
‘Francis,’ Gerry Rowbotham said, ‘You haven’t actually said . . .’
‘What?’
‘What’s happened to . . . you know, what they’ve done to his eyes?’
‘Ah, yeh,’ Bliss said. ‘The eyes.’
You didn’t need to be much of a detective to know that the thing with the eyes was going to be central.
THURSDAY
But we should not criticise councillors because of their ineptitude. We wouldn’t berate an idiot for not comprehending quantum theory.
Reader’s letter to the Hereford Times,
February 2008
Viler Shades
THE HEATING, SUCH as it was, was due to kick in at seven, for a strict one and a half hours. A cost-of-oil thing. You could get twenty-five per cent of your fuel costs from the parish, for business use of the vicarage, but Merrily had never bothered. Stupid, probably, but too late to start now, at these prices. So she and Jane had cut back. Lost the old Aga, for a start.
Merrily moved rapidly around the kitchen, putting the kettle on, activating the toaster, feeding Ethel, and then running back into the hall, calling up from the bottom of the stairs.
‘Flower?’
Her lips could hardly frame the word, all the nerves in her face deadened by the cold. On the wall by the door, Jesus Christ looked down from Holman Hunt’s Light of the World with a certain empathy, obviously not drawing much heat from his lantern.
‘Jane!’
The kid was definitely up. She’d been wandering around at least half an hour ago. Probably trying for stealth, but when there were only the two of you in a big old vicarage you developed an ear for creaks.
No reply from up there, no sound of radio or running water. Merrily went back to the kitchen and cracked three eggs into a bowl. Tom Parson’s funeral was at eleven at Hereford Crem. Old Tom, local historian, one-time editor of the parish magazine, now the third village death in a fortnight. Another funeral, another empty cottage up for grabs at a crazy price, removal vans more common in this village now than buses.
