by Phil Rickman
When Merrily came back from the phone, Gomer had left to get himself cleaned up and Lol was looking up at the clock.
‘I think I need to be getting over to the Swan.’
‘No!’ Merrily froze. Pressed him back into the chair. ‘You can’t go. Not yet.’
‘Who was on the phone? Is something wrong?’
‘A lot’s wrong, but I want to keep the lid on it until after Christmas. That was . . . that was Bliss. Wants me to ring Sophie for him. He wants a number for Helen Ayling.’
‘Why can’t he ring her?’
‘Because Sophie, like a lot of people, is suspicious of him, and he says he’s got no time to deal with that. I’ve said I’ll ring her for him and then . . . just give me twenty minutes. Can you do that? It’s important.’
He looked at her, his head tilted. He was still wearing the Gomer Parry Plant Hire sweatshirt. He’d insisted he’d be wearing it for the gig, wiping some of the mud off with a damp cloth but not all of it.
Ledwardine red mud. For luck.
She loved him beyond all reason, but sometimes he irritated the hell out of her.
‘Stay,’ she said, like to a dog.
Back in the scullery, she took her last cigarette out of the pack and sniffed it as she dialled.
Wasn’t the same. She’d been across to the shop and bought four packets of extra-strong mints, had already eaten two and a half. She was sure they were making her want to go to the toilet.
‘I tried to ring you twice,’ Sophie said. ‘As soon as I heard about the bridge. You really can’t get out of there?’
‘Not in a car.’
The past two years she’d gone into Hereford on Christmas Eve, when it was quiet in the late afternoon, and she and Sophie had drunk tea together, reviewed the year, exchanged small gifts.
‘What are you going to do?’ Sophie said.
‘What can we do? Sit it out. Almost a third of the population’s left the village, to spend Christmas with relatives or at hotels. Some people’s furniture’s in storage in case the worst happens.’
‘What about your meditation service?’
‘Still on. I’ve been over to the church, set up the usual circle of pews and chairs at the top of the nave. Maybe it’ll mean more this year. Or maybe people won’t have the heart to turn out. Or maybe I should just offer the midnight Eucharist.’
‘You sound exhausted.’
‘I’m OK. There’ve been one or two problems which I’ll tell you about when we get liberated.’
‘They’ll put a temporary bridge in?’
‘Bailey bridge, yeah. Sophie, listen, do you have a phone number for Helen Ayling that I can pass on to Frannie Bliss?’
‘You’re using it,’ Sophie said. ‘However—’
‘She’s still there?’
‘In the end, she didn’t want to leave until she was allowed to have a funeral. Much calmer now, but I’d very much take exception to her being upset on Christmas Eve by your friend Bliss.’
‘He’s got problems. Domestic problems.’
‘Not, I’m sure, on Helen’s scale. What does he want?’
‘Well,’ Merrily said, ‘I do actually know what he wants.’
Suspecting something like this, she’d told Bliss she’d be prepared to talk to Helen Ayling herself.
‘It relates to drugs. Bliss wants to know about Clement Ayling and drugs.’
Sophie said sharply, ‘What about them?’
‘Anything.’
Sophie said, ‘Are you serious?’
Merrily tried to call Bliss back at once, but his mobile was engaged. She brought the Boswell guitar in its case through from the back hallway, laid it on the scullery sofa. Then she went back to Lol.
He was standing by the window. She went over and found herself clinging tightly to him, feeling flimsy as an insect, breathing in the unfamiliar smell of the earth on him, and they were kissing for too long.
‘It’s only another gig,’ Lol whispered.
‘No, it’s not.’
When they finally separated, she pulled a rusted flake of dried mud from the shoulder of his sweatshirt. He bent and kissed her again, on the side of her mouth.
‘Look . . . if you really want me to change I’ll go home and do it. I don’t want to—’
‘No. Keep the luck. Just . . . you know . . . don’t take that sweatshirt to America with you. They won’t understand the reference.’
‘Doesn’t arise,’ Lol said. ‘I hadn’t thought it out. I wouldn’t even get a visa or whatever you need.’
‘Huh?’
‘I have a conviction for indecent assault on an underage girl.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake . . .’ She pulled away, stared into his eyes. ‘Everybody knows that was a gross miscarriage of—’
‘No, they don’t. In the eyes of the law, I’m a sex-criminal.’
‘Lol, you can get it waived.’ Merrily was almost shouting. ‘If you apply to the American Embassy for a visa and tell them the circumstances, you’ll almost certainly get it waived.’
‘There’s no certainty at all, and anyway—’
‘Lol . . . look . . . What happened twenty years ago . . . it’s now very widely known that you were set up. Wrongly convicted. Been in various papers . . . floating round on the Net. Nobody in their right mind . . .’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does matter.’
Not going to America because it might not be such a brilliant career move at this stage, that was one thing, but not going because America might refuse him entry as a convicted felon . . .
‘And besides . . .’ God, she needed a cigarette. ‘We also know the identity of the real offender.’
‘Who’s untouchable,’ Lol said. ‘Who will never be convicted. On account of being dead.’
‘Your conviction’s discredited. I’m telling you they’ll waive it.’
‘Mud sticks.’ Lol looked down at his sweatshirt. ‘You know that. Look, I’ll have to go.’
‘Wait.’ She was backing towards the door. ‘There’s . . . I was going to give you this tomorrow, but it’s important you should have it tonight. You need to have it tonight. Just . . . stay there. Stay.’
The churchyard was bloated and squelchy, like walking on an old mattress, pools of water everywhere, headstones and crosses looking like groynes at the seaside.
Jane ploughed through it in her red wellies, looking up at the church, its steeple edged with amber from the lights on the square. Some churches were floodlit; Mum wouldn’t have that. Has its own light, she’d said. Floodlighting also wasn’t very green, these days, but Jane couldn’t help thinking that for special nights . . . and compared with total abominations like Las Vegas . . .
The lantern over the porch still gilded the cindered path, which had been the old coffin trail, and it was enough.
‘Could be some of the neolithic stones are in the church’s foundations,’ Jane said. ‘I know – don’t get carried away, Jane. But Lucy always used to say the church was built on a pagan site.’
She was back in high spirits, since Eirion’s suggestion that what Coops hadn’t wanted her to know was the way Blore had manipulated her. And totally energised by the thought of what this could mean for the future of the village. Despite the endless rain, the night seemed incandescent. She looked up into the sky, throwing back her hood, letting it all come racing down on her, washing away the uncertainty.
She was remembering standing on top of Cole Hill, bare-armed in the summer, and seeing the steeple as the gnomon of a great sundial. And she’d been right. She’d been right all along. It didn’t matter what the sneering students thought, or the professors of archaeology behind their narrow-minded, self-protective—
‘Oh Christ,’ Eirion said.
Jane looked down to find him bending over Lucy’s grave, water glinting in the moss on the headstone’s curve. The moss should never be removed, it said in Lucy’s will. Let the stone be a stone.
She ran to Eir
ion’s side, slithering on the slimy grass.
It had been done in white and not too long ago. Despite the rain you could still smell the paint.
DIRTY WITCH
Letters splashed diagonally across the stone, obliterating the lines from Traherne.
Jane looked at it for a long time.
She knelt down in the wet grass, laid her hands either side of the headstone’s wet, velvety rim, holding in her fury.
‘It’s all right,’ she said.
She stood up. Eirion had his hands in his pocket. He stamped the ground angrily with a heel.
‘Turps,’ Jane said. ‘That gets it off, doesn’t it?’
‘There might be something better,’ Eirion said. ‘I’ll go over to the shop—’
‘No, you need to help Lol. You get off to the Swan. I’ll do it.’
‘Jane—’
‘It’s all right. It’s only paint. And she’s mentally ill, anyway.’
‘You know who . . .?’
‘I’ll scrub it off.’
‘You should tell the police.’
‘What are they going to do, send a helicopter? I don’t want anyone to see this. I want it gone by daylight.’
She walked away, face into the rain, back to the church. Eirion drew alongside her.
‘You can scream, you know. You don’t have anything to prove about maturity. I’d scream, if somebody did that to my friend’s grave.’
‘Lucy would laugh.’ Jane kept on walking, not looking back. ‘And I’ll do my screaming after Christmas. Through the plate-glass screen at the post office.’
‘What are you—?’
‘Let’s go and see if Jim’s got some paint-stripper.’
Her hands felt sticky; she must’ve touched it. She stopped in revulsion and bent down and swirled them around in the surface water on the cinders outside the church porch. Wouldn’t do any good against enamel or whatever this was, but it made her feel . . .
Oh.
Standing up, under the dusty glow of the wrought-iron lantern above the church porch, she saw that both porch doors had been pulled closed.
And what had been daubed across them.
‘Now you’ll have to tell the police,’ Eirion said.
This was also in white, still wet and bubbled with rainwater.
THE ANTICHRIST
IS BORN THIS NIGHT
IN LEDWARDINE
‘And we’re going to have to tell Mum,’ Jane said. ‘She doesn’t need this.’
Eirion went up the doors. They hadn’t been quite closed, and there was a crack of light.
‘The lights are on inside. Are they usually kept on?’
‘Not any more.’
Eirion grasped both ring handles, pushed the doors open and went in.
55
Option Three
IT WAS PROBABLY Victorian but looked older. Georgian or Queen Anne or something. Bliss wasn’t an expert on architecture. It was just a big white house with tall windows converted into flats. Behind it, thousands of lights revealed the spread of the Severn Valley below.
A cool place to live. Classy address, outstanding views and only a short journey to work.
There was the car, the deep green Saab, on the forecourt. He’d been worried that the flat might’ve been vacated in the fifty-five minutes since he’d rung, number withheld, hanging up when he’d had an answer.
Longer drive than expected. Floods everywhere in Worcestershire. Worse than Herefordshire, according to Traffic, advising him on the safest route to Great Malvern. This was around eight p.m., after the Banks-Joneses had been in – statement from Kate, additional statement from Gyles. He’d rung them from Phase Two so as not to alert Steve, and they’d made their own way to Gaol Street.
Not too bad up here, far above river level. He’d left his car parked by the side of the main road. Thought about phoning to say he was here, request an audience. Might be difficult if he was to walk in on a cosy Christmas Eve with the girlfriend.
Decided against, in the end.
There was a short wall around the forecourt. He climbed over it. The rain was lighter here, and he stood for quite a while outside the white-painted front door. The four bell buttons and the names alongside them, surnames only, were softly lit up.
Option Three. Was he really up for this? Was this any less stupid and short-sighted than driving over to Charlie’s place last night?
As he stood with his finger suspended over the second bell push from the top, the one with the shortest name alongside it, the door opened.
Just as smoothly as you’d expect, place like this.
CCTV. Might’ve guessed.
She was wearing light-coloured jeans and a stripy woollen top, and her hair was down and looked freshly washed. She wasn’t smiling, but then it wasn’t Christmas yet.
‘I don’t honestly know what persuaded me to come down, Francis. Must be some kind of warped forensic curiosity.’
She could soften her appearance, but obviously nothing to be done about that drab, vinyl voice.
‘I, um . . .’ Bliss coughed. ‘I don’t know where the other bloody carol singers’ve got to, Annie, but I’ve gorra tell you I sound terrible on me own. Would it be all right if I just talked?’
The lounge bar was the Black Swan at its most Jacobean. Those deep, leaded mullion windows. Half an oak wood on the walls and ceiling. Beautifully ill-lit.
Lol had never seen it so empty.
‘It’s early,’ Barry said.
He was also, as usual, in black and white. Essex boy, way back, but he’d spent all his adult years in Hereford. An old-style manager. He said people liked that, and they probably did.
‘Not going to be quite what I expected, mate, but nothing I can do about that. Act of God. We’ve been getting calls all day from people who were going to come over for it – one as far away as Chester, ready to book a double room. Asking if there was any way into the village. I said it’d be a two-mile walk across flooded fields, but possible with the right kit.’ Barry shrugged. ‘Couldn’t figure why they lost interest.’
‘Probably because, unlike you, they’d never been in the SAS,’ Lol said.
Barry nodded, sage-like. Lol saw James Bull-Davies walking through from the public bar with Alison Kinnersley. Alison smiled and waved. It seemed half a lifetime since he’d lived with Alison and written a bitter-sweet song for her including most of the place names in the Golden Valley. He wouldn’t play it tonight.
‘You’ll still get the same fee, of course,’ Barry said.
‘Barry, forget the fee. Why don’t we just call it off?’
‘Good God, bunch of local people been really looking forward to it. It’s Christmas Eve, mate. The water’s rising. There’s nothing else to look forward to.’ Barry wiped his brow with a paper napkin. ‘I’m not putting this very well, am I? What I mean is, I think we’ll get a few locals who would normally give it a miss. A percentage would’ve been going into Hereford tonight, or to parties outside. I think the situation makes people want to get together. Kind of security in numbers. Take their mind off it.’
‘Social service.’
‘Exactly.’ Barry patted Lol on the shoulder. ‘We’ll make bugger-all money out of it, but we’ll feel better about ourselves in the morning.’
Lol sat down next to his Guild acoustic amplifier and opened the Boswell’s case. It shone up at him, like there was a halo around it. Although it had a sophisticated adjustable bridge and an internal pick-up based on the Takamine, something about it seemed older than the Black Swan.
He didn’t know what to do. He knew how much Merrily earned, and there was no way she could afford this. He hadn’t been able to say half of what he’d wanted to say because she’d almost pushed him out of the door, saying she had an urgent phone call to make.
When he’d gone running home to change into clean jeans and dry socks, he’d found a message on his machine
This is about love, Laurence, Al Boswell said. The guitar . . . well, at leas
t you deserve the guitar.
Light laughter.
Click.
‘Actually,’ Annie Howe said, ‘I do know why I came to the door. I doubt I’d get to sleep tonight if I didn’t find out why Karen Dowell had rung Mark Connelly to ask for the name of the man we think did the knifing for Lasky’s merry band of kiddy-fiddlers.’
‘Ah.’
‘And then, when I saw you drowning on the step, something just kind of clicked.’
‘Right.’
‘My God, Bliss, you really do have to be in some kind of shit to turn up here.’
‘Yeh,’ Bliss said. ‘I think that would more or less encompass the situation. However, Karen . . . it’s not her fault. She was obeying an instruction I should never’ve given her. It was an abuse of power. Mea culpa.’
He sipped his coffee and looked around. What had surprised him most about Annie Howe’s apartment was not its spartan aspects – went without saying – but all the books. Could be a couple of thousand, and not just to fill tastefully fitted shelves, because the shelves weren’t tasteful or fitted, some of them no more than planks of new pine separated by bricks – clean bricks, but still . . . Bliss could see a lot of law up there – she had a law-degree, he knew that much – and criminology, but also history and geology and a few dozen paperback crime novels. Normal stuff. Human-being stuff.
Maybe she was storing them for a friend.
‘I thought you’d be out,’ he said. ‘It’s Christmas. I think.’
‘Where?’ Howe said. ‘On the town? Clubbing? Binge-drinking with my mates?’
She was sitting under a blue-shaded brass standard lamp in a rocking chair that was clearly second-hand, a threadbare powder-blue rug underneath it. Bliss was high up on an overstuffed settee, feeling stupid on account of his feet barely touched the stained floorboards.
Also a trifle gobsmacked at discovering a woman who didn’t care about decor. Kirsty’s lip would be curled double in disgust.
‘After the past week,’ Howe said, ‘I’m more than happy to lock the door, take off my shoes and open a bottle of wine. Perhaps a scented bath with one of my lesbian lovers.’
Bliss tried for the right kind of smile, suspecting there wasn’t one.
