To Dream of the Dead (MW10)

by Phil Rickman

  ‘In case the city might be missing out on a massive tourist attraction. Fortunately for the council, the idea of the Serpent is more exciting than what you can see.’

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘So William Blore was publicly pro-Serpent while secretly advising Hereforward that it was unlikely to make the county much money. What does that tell us?’

  ‘Shows he’s capable of double-dealing. But, more to the point, think of the technical advice he’d be able to offer anyone planning to take out Ayling and direct the blame towards the Serpent supporters. The quartz glittering in the head? The body in the river?’

  ‘It’s not enough. You could get all that from the Internet.’

  ‘It rebounded nicely on Steve, though, Annie. Soon as we throw him the word Blore, he starts to roll over.’

  ‘True.’

  Howe patted her wet, ash-blonde hair, Bliss finding himself wondering for the first time if it was natural.

  ‘So there’s something else,’ he said. ‘Something we’re missing.’

  ‘Something we don’t know but perhaps he thinks we do. Connected with the second name you dropped on him?’

  ‘Lyndon Pierce. Blore’s in charge of the dig at Ledwardine, where Pierce is the local councillor. When I first talked to Steve in Gilbies he said, the local councillor wanted us to intervene. I thought he meant Pierce wanted them to stop Blore getting the Ledwardine contract, maybe because he’d attract too much publicity . . . to an excavation Pierce was hoping would be inconclusive.’

  ‘You’ve lost me.’

  ‘Pierce is backing a plan to put expensive housing on that site. He doesn’t want there to be anything exciting under there that might spell conservation. Furneaux told me he’d asked Hereforward for help, but they weren’t overfussed because it was just a housing scheme, not like a major new road. However, if what I was told is right, this housing scheme is the key to this massive redevelopment and expansion of Ledwardine.’

  ‘This is from Mrs Watkins, is it?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve got against that woman.’

  ‘Ask her what she’s got against me.’

  Bliss smiled. Women were weird. Like when the WPC, Sammy Nadel, went up to tell Yasmin it looked like Steve would be spending the night in town, Yasmin apparently just acknowledged it and went back to sleep. No big deal. Merry Christmas.

  ‘All right,’ Bliss said. ‘Officially Hereforward isn’t helping Lyndon. But you’ve gorra bunch of mates here. Coke-buddies. One of whom is the archaeologist in charge of the Ledwardine dig.’

  ‘Coke-buddies. God.’

  ‘Only buddies until the shit hits the fan. Furneaux is pretty sure in his mind that if we’re talking to Blore and Pierce, both of them are going to try and hang the whole deal on him.’

  ‘Probably quite rightly. He’s the ideas man, the guy who’s turned Hereforward into a dirty-tricks department. He’s . . . what do they call it? An enabler?’

  ‘He thinks out of the box. But this time the lid’s coming down too fast and he takes a wild leap. He’s probably regretting he told us about the second contract, because I really don’t think he knows who it is or why. And if he’s already too late, that’s gonna make it a whole lot worse for him than if he’d kept his mouth shut.’

  I swear I’ve told you all I know . . .

  Then how do you know there’s going to be another, Steve?

  Because, Steve had said, sweating now, I know how much he charges, and I know how much he got.

  The man called Glyn Buckland.

  Annie said, ‘Francis, I need a coffee. My head’s . . .’

  ‘You planning to interview Steve tonight?’

  ‘I’m inclined to let him stew. A night in a cell works wonders with someone who’s never been in one before. Especially Christmas Eve. And the good thing about tomorrow is that we get a holiday from the press. What’s the time?’

  ‘Half ten, thereabouts. A pub? Bar?’

  ‘Yeah, why not? But we need to make it quick.’

  Nobody else in the packed, shiny bar in Broad Street was drinking coffee. Nobody else seemed to be over thirty, but it hadn’t been hard to find a table; the only ones who were sitting down were the ones who looked like they were about to be sick.

  ‘He was born in London,’ Annie said. ‘Brought up in Worcester.’

  ‘Any particular reason you’ve been sitting on that for so long?’

  ‘Only because we weren’t completely sure. It’s the new generation, Francis. I’m thirty-five and I can’t connect with it. You said it yourself. Kids who’ll do it for a few hundred pounds – couple of thousand, anyway – knowing the worse they’ll get is eight or nine years.’

  ‘And a degree in sociology. Don’t forget that. What’s this lad’s history?’

  ‘We learned about him from his older sister, as a result of the BBC Crimewatch programme. That something you’d ever consent to watch, Francis?’

  ‘Not often. I hate to see old mates behaving like complete tits. We need to get this man, Kirsty, before he strikes again.’

  The presenter being called Kirsty, that didn’t help. What a weird, weird night this was turning out to be. If you’d told him he’d be sharing an intimate pot of coffee with the Ice Maiden, surrounded by binge-drinkers on Christmas Eve . . .

  ‘Crimewatch can be useful,’ she said, ‘often in unexpected ways. We got a piece on, a year or so ago, about a fatal stabbing up in Evesham, and this woman rang in convinced it was her brother. Been fascinated with knives since he could crawl. Once stabbed their mother in the thigh when he was about ten – they’d covered that up, as parents are inclined to, telling the hospital she’d done it herself. Slicing an onion while sitting down or something.’

  ‘As you do.’

  ‘Anyway, he wasn’t our guy, as it turned out. We got someone else within a couple of days, DNA and all. But what Buckland’s sister had to say was fairly alarming. Things like he’d ask for books on anatomy for his birthday?’

  ‘Don’t tell me – the parents thought he wanted to be a hospital consultant when he grew up.’

  ‘You know more about parenting than I do.’ Howe coughed. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You kept an eye on him, then.’

  ‘Oh, sure, we had a round-the-clock obbo on his flat.’

  ‘Yeh, yeh, insufficient manpower and no brownie points for prevention. How you can be mates with that frigging dim—’

  ‘Leave it out, Francis. We’ll talk about the Home Secretary when we’ve nothing more urgent—Oh shit . . .’

  Some kid had backed into their table. Howe mopped up spilled coffee with a paper napkin.

  ‘Where’s Buckland now?’ Bliss said.

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘Yeh, that’s helpful.’

  ‘He’s entirely respectable. Twenty-seven years old, probably looks younger. No form.’

  ‘At all?’

  ‘No record except as a victim. He was badly beaten up in a pub when he was seventeen.’ Annie released a brittle laugh. ‘Main guy responsible was found stabbed to death in a car park. Killer never found.’

  ‘Presumably CID talked to him about that?’

  ‘It was four and a half years after the pub incident. And several years before we learned about Glyn’s lifelong fascination with blades. And no DNA traces, no basis for reopening the inquiry.’

  ‘Dish best served cold?’

  ‘Cold’s the word. In the current moral climate, you no longer have to be a psycho to kill without remorse. When did you last encounter a knifeboy with a conscience?’

  ‘Or even one who could spell it.’

  ‘Conscience?’

  ‘I was thinking knife.’

  Howe laughed.

  ‘Actually, Buckland’s intelligent enough. And in full-time employment. Self-employment. Moves around, which is why he’s difficult to track. Also been known to use different names – for security reasons, allegedly. He’s in the security business.’

  ‘What kind?’<
br />
  ‘Any kind. Driving factory wages to advising on burglar alarms. My guess is that’s how he meets people who are feeling threatened enough to want to take extreme measures. Just . . . another kind of security.’

  ‘How sure are you that he did the Lasky job?’

  ‘Circumstantial, but good circumstantial. He worked for Lasky fairly regularly. Lasky recommended him to his clients. Just not quite enough to bring him in for a chat. But I’d be reluctant to, anyway.’

  ‘Because he doesn’t know about the sister coming to you. He has no reason to think you’re onto him.’

  ‘That’s the situation. Leave him alone until we’re sure of him.’

  ‘All right,’ Bliss said. ‘If we’re looking at a Hereforward subcommittee, does that include Bill Blore, maybe Lyndon Pierce in a consultative capacity?’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘You’re wondering about Charlie?’

  ‘If I have to, I have to.’

  Her narrow face was flushed, her hair flung over to one side of it in white waves. There was a little coffee stain, like a birthmark, on the side of her mouth. She didn’t look like Charlie.

  Bliss said, ‘I think Charlie was fixed up with totty to keep him sweet, and maybe that’s where it ends. I think we’re looking at Ledwardine here, but I’m buggered if I know why.’

  ‘It’s not a big place.’

  ‘Not yet, no. But unless Traffic knows otherwise, it’s not a place you can get a car into tonight. It’s got a moat round it.’

  ‘Blore’s there?’

  ‘I’m sure Pierce is. How do we play it?’

  Howe tapped the table slowly with a sugar spoon.

  ‘This feller . . .’ Bliss said. ‘You’ve gorra have a fairly low moral threshold to whack a bloke to get a bunch of paedos off the hook.’

  ‘He’s a child of the new void,’ Annie Howe said.

  Still tapping.

  61

  See You Shine

  MERRILY WATCHED STOOKE throw open the front door of the Swan and walk out into the rain. She stood for a moment, undecided, looking behind her. Nobody had followed her out of the lounge bar.

  Lol was beginning a song she hadn’t heard before, Lucy rearing over him like a guardian bird of prey.

  Guardian?

  Oh God, it was late. It had been a long, long day. The church had been desecrated. She was full of the jitters of nicotine-deprivation. She stood looking down at her hands. It was pixels. Pixels right?

  Behind her, behind two oak doors, Lol sang softly,

  ‘. . . and then you feel your heart can’t let it go

  Miss Devenish would ever wish it so . . .’

  Sod it.

  She straightened up and walked out into the night.

  Jane sat hunched for a long time, elbows on her knees, head in her hands. Was this it? Was this the final severance? Could she even bear to go on living here? Perhaps she’d form a mild attachment to whichever college town she ended up in. Maybe Cardiff, to be near Eirion, if he still wanted a manic-depressive. Somewhere too big and chaotic to feel a responsibility for.

  Mum would be left on her own, of course. No good. She should marry Lol and move away. A perfect time now Lol was on a roll. Only she’d feel she had to stay out of some misplaced, masochistic sense of mission. Nothing left here, though, nobody worth saving . . . well, except Gomer, Jim at the shop, a few other people.

  And Lucy. Lucy would always be here, a forlorn, broken ghost around her besmirched grave.

  God, God, God. Jane stood up, furious. No justice, anywhere. Scum rises, bastards rule. She unlocked the cubicle door and walked out to the wash basins. Didn’t look in the mirror; perhaps people would think she’d been moved to tears by Lol’s songs. Only hoped that Blore had gone back to his caravan to bed one of his students, because if she saw him again tonight, doing his booming laugh, she’d smash his beer glass into his . . .

  At the door of the Ladies, she stopped, the water gargling in the pipes, and someone . . .

  . . . someone sobbing in one of the cubicles?

  Merrily found Mathew Elliot Stooke alone between the two oak pillars at the end of the market hall, looking down Church Street to the end of the world.

  ‘You’re not wearing a coat,’ he said.

  The rain was slower now, but the water was deep enough on the cobbles to reflect the inner globes of the fake gaslamps. You were walking on light.

  ‘I’m guessing this isn’t the first time,’ Merrily said. ‘Merrily . . .’ Stooke didn’t look at her ‘. . . while you’re not quite the last person I’d want to talk to at the moment . . .’

  ‘It’s actually not that uncommon – I mean denial. Even religious people often go that way because they don’t think it’s—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No what?’

  ‘No basis for discussion here.’

  ‘You were keen enough to question me the other day.’

  ‘Because I’m a journalist, and you’re . . . someone with an axe to grind.’

  Merrily peered down Church Street. Couldn’t see the water at the bottom, not from here at night, but you could sense it somehow, and you knew it would be higher again tonight. She tried again.

  ‘Not Lenni, you said. You didn’t think Lenni had seen it, just you.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go back and listen to your boyfriend.’

  ‘You do, though, Elliot. You do know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Look.’ He turned at last to face her, the Devil’s spin doctor haloed in amber. ‘I made it up. My wife wanted you to get that woman off our backs. Didn’t bother me, personally. And you . . . you have to keep on fooling yourself to justify the absurdity of your job.’

  ‘The other night, you described a warrior-figure with a short cloak that you’d seen in the field, near the orchard. As if it was somebody from Shirley’s church, but I don’t think anybody from Shirley’s church has been here, ever. I think she’s keeping you for herself. Whether she’s been in contact with Ellis in America and he’s manipulating her, the way he always could with women . . .’

  She thought about it. It was the way Ellis would work, grooming Shirley by email, making her feel important, chosen. Getting inside her mind, the way he used to use a crucifix . . . and she must keep it to herself.

  ‘Lucy Devenish,’ Merrily said. ‘When the picture of Lucy faded up on the screen . . . Lucy, in her poncho, always reminded me of an old Red Indian warrior.’

  ‘You’re mad, Merrily. You’re as mad as any of them. I find that very disappointing.’

  ‘Lucy’s face, whether or not it moved, as some people seemed to think . . . Well, the important thing for me was your face. That look of shocked recognition followed by this . . . not quite hunted, more something . . . catching up with you. Again.’

  He hissed in contempt and half turned away, a stocky, irritated man in a black fleece. Merrily closed her eyes for a moment.

  ‘I don’t think that was the first time. Dreams, premonitions, figures in the bedroom when you were a kid? Unpleasant? Scary? And always the fear of madness. Then, when you’re grown up and it’s still happening, you think, sod this, I’m going to turn and fight it, I’m going to kill it. Stamp it into the ground.’

  He said nothing, didn’t move.

  ‘And then, just when you think you’ve kicked it to death, there it is again, right in front of you and you’re out of there. Out . . . here.’

  ‘I walked out,’ Stooke said, ‘because I’d had a row with my wife, who’d dragged me here knowing I’m not a particular lover of this kind of music. I walked out because I couldn’t bear to spend any more time in the middle of all those wispy New Age clowns with their oh-so-serious drivel about the female principle in nature. I told my wife I’d walk home and she could come back when she liked. Now go back into the pub, you’ll catch cold.’

  ‘If you’d come out with the intention of walking over half a mile home, you’d have brought a coat, an umbrella
. . .’

  ‘I was going back to get them.’

  ‘Your wife . . . as good as told me you were a hack, in it for the money. I think it’s much more complex than that. Sure, you were in a business full of cynics, which must’ve helped, not as if you were sailing against a tide . . .’

  ‘How can I get rid of you, Merrily?’

  ‘You can tell me the truth.’

  From somewhere came ribbons of laughter. There were lights in most of the houses, a splash of fluorescent white from the glass door of the Eight Till Late.

  ‘These things,’ Stooke said. ‘Anomalous phenomena. All down to brain-chemicals.’

  ‘Sure. To an extent.’

  ‘Let’s say a glimpse of an old woman did cause some aberration. False memory, déjà vu. Where part of your brain thinks you’ve seen something before but in fact you haven’t.’

  Merrily laughed.

  ‘But above all . . .’ Stooke spun at her, throwing out a sudden white smile. ‘Above all, it in no way suggests a god. Above all, it does not imply that’.

  Merrily caught a squeal from the bottom of the street.

  ‘You know that,’ Stooke said. ‘You spend time – waste your life, some of us might say – ministering to people who . . . their bulbs blow, ornaments fall off their shelves. It doesn’t mean anything. What does that say about divine purpose? It’s random. It’s anomalies . . . blips. Pointless. It means nothing, Merrily.’

  ‘You’re right.’ She watched the amber lights bobbing in the waterlogged cobbles below the steps of the market hall. ‘In the end, we all still face the chasm. No matter what we’ve seen or think we’ve seen, that leap of faith is still required. The admission of helplessness which, in the end, makes us all equal . . . you and me and Einstein and Dawkins. Charles Darwin, Lucy Devenish . . .’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Stooke was shaking his head as another cry came echoing up Church Street. A cry conveying outrage, disgust. More lights were coming on in houses on both sides of the street, upstairs and downstairs, outshining the sprinkling of coloured Christmas lights, like they were sending signals to each other. Signals of distress.

  ‘I think someone’s in trouble, Elliot.’