by Phil Rickman
Bliss had a little smile forming.
‘Think about it. Let’s go from the premise that they know Stooke’s going to be done tonight. I’m thinking aloud here, Merrily, I’m thinking Stooke’s gone out there, into the flooded village . . . and our man’s out there already. Primed and paid. Glyn, his name is. We know who he is, we know his history. Glyn is out there.’
‘Now?’
‘Oh yeh. Somewhere. So here they are in Laurence’s gig, and Mrs Stooke’s suddenly realising Mr Stooke may not be coming back. Gorra be a sobering moment. This is it. Mr Stooke may soon be no more. Whatever kind of cold bitch she is, Blore sees that Mrs Stooke is rapidly turning into someone who people might soon be staring at. What’s the lighting like in there?’
‘Well, it’s not an auditorium, Frannie, it’s a pub. Yes, you could see everybody quite well.’
‘He needs to get her out of there, calm her down, make her laugh, take her mind off it. Do something a little outrageous, a little . . . dare I say off the wall?’
Jane laughed, but it was a shocked laugh, a frightened laugh. The pipes expelled the lowering, slightly sinister opening chords of ‘While Shepherds Watched’.
Bliss said, ‘Jane, who’s Gregory?’
‘He’s the security guy.’
‘Where?’
‘The security man on the site. He’s done other jobs with Blore. They’re kind of mates.’
‘The security man. How old?’
‘I don’t know. Early twenties?’
‘Gregory,’ Bliss said diffidently. ‘And his last name is . . .?’
Jane thought for a couple of seconds then shook her head.
‘Don’t know. Why don’t you . . .?’
‘Ask him? How could I do that, Jane?’
‘I saw him earlier. I was at . . . in the churchyard. He came over. He was pretty well . . . Oh God . . .’
‘What?’
‘Wet,’ Jane said. ‘Like really wet? Head to toe?’
Merrily moved closer to Jane. She was aware of Lol standing with Eirion in the entrance to the porch, under the lantern. The congregation sang, ‘Fear not, said he, for mighty dread . . .’
‘Where did he go, Jane?’ Bliss said.
‘I don’t know. He was pretty hacked off. Not like the last couple of times I saw him – cocky, Jack-the-lad, you know? He was really angry. Going on about how he hated it here, and the countryside generally. He was asking where Blore was – he said Blore had the keys to his caravan. I assumed he wanted to get some dry clothes?’
‘Angry at Blore?’
‘Yeah. That’s the impression I got.’
‘Coleman’s Meadow, this caravan? Thanks, Jane,’ Bliss said. ‘I’ve said a few uncomplimentary things about you. Just occasionally. I take them back. You’re not a bad kid.’
‘I’m not a kid.’
‘Sorry, eighteen, I forgot. Welcome to the shit end of life.’
Bliss went out into the graveyard, full of moving shadows.
‘Terry, I need foot soldiers!’
Then he came back, pressed something into Merrily’s hands.
‘Wow,’ she said, ‘you remembered.’
From a pocket of his camouflage jacket, Bliss also brought out a book of matches.
‘Do us a favour, Merrily. Explain to your congregation why we’re not letting anyone over the footbridge just yet. Tell them it’s for their own safety, yeh?’
She nodded, and he moved away into the shadows of graves and men, and Merrily walked out into the damp night, tearing off the cellophane with her teeth, shaking out a Silk Cut, igniting a match and cupping a hand around the flame. Jane was sticking close to her, Lol on the other side, Eirion following.
‘Gregory?’ Jane said. ‘I don’t understand? What’s Gregory done?’
‘Apart from cover up for Blore,’ Eirion said. ‘He was telling us about all the women students Blore took into his caravan.’
‘Perhaps just one woman and not a stud—’ Merrily took in too much smoke, gave in to the coughing, hugged a stone cross until it was over. ‘It was very convenient, wasn’t it. Just popping out for a walk, darling. Get a few pictures.’
‘She was taking Blore’s picture on Saturday,’ Jane said. ‘And I was just thinking . . . that first morning I met her . . . when she said she’d been out with her camera? It would explain her . . . the way she was. Like she’d just . . . I don’t know.’
‘I’m going back now, guys.’ Merrily squeezed out her cigarette, half-smoked, slipped it into a pocket of her jeans; it was enough. ‘Stay together.’
She patted her hair, took a deep breath of cold night air and walked back through the porch into the nave.
The carols were over, the congregation had fragmented and conversations had broken out like small bush fires, people leaning over to talk to friends in the pews behind. Nobody in a hurry to leave.
Edna Huws was waiting by the lectern with Uncle Ted, senior churchwarden.
‘Is it settled?’ Miss Huws said, stiff-backed.
‘It’s . . . no, it isn’t really.’
Ted said, ‘Have you any idea what time it is?’ Gesturing into the nave. ‘What are you going to do about all this?’
‘Finish the service.’ She smiled weakly. ‘Happy Christmas, Uncle Ted.’
Ted scowled. The nave was untidy with noise, like an airport lounge. No alternative but to become a real priest. She walked down to where the still-unlit Christmas tree stood forlorn, in front of the chancel, a couple of paces from the pulpit.
Bent and plugged it in. It came instantly alive, all the lights working. A small, determined glow at the centre of the orb.
The chat faded as she started to walk back to her old spot on the chancel steps, then she changed her mind and crossed to the pulpit, the big old play fort, and went up the wooden steps and placed her hands either side, too low down as usual.
‘I’m really sorry,’ she said. ‘This has been . . .’
Feeling around with her feet for something to stand on, encountering something that shouldn’t be there and looking down to find Shirley West smiling up at her from the dark oaken well of the pulpit, eyes wide open to the Endtime.
66
Endtime
THE SMALLER CARAVAN was all black, but in the windows of the big one there was a steamy grey-white glow, weaker than the muffled moon.
Terry Stagg held up the open padlock, the metal gate already hanging loose. Bliss nodded, went through the opening into Coleman’s Meadow. The night was still and cold and unfriendly as an unlit cellar.
Three uniforms behind them. They’d all come in Gomer Parry’s jeep, the old bugger still at the wheel, having refused to hand over the keys on the grounds none of them was insured. All too often this job was close to dark comedy.
‘We’ll knock, I think,’ Bliss whispered.
It wasn’t necessary. The metal door was hanging open, a big man standing at the top of the two steps, with the mean light behind him. He was wearing a rugby shirt and he had a beer bottle in his right hand. He took in Bliss from boots to beanie.
‘The fuck are you? Know what time this is?’
‘It’s almost one a.m., Mr Blore.’ Bliss could no more call him Professor than he could call Iain Brent Doctor. He flashed his ID. ‘And I’m here to wish you a very merry Christmas on behalf of West Mercia CID. Just something we like to do periodically.’
Felt his blood racing. Hadn’t expected this. Not Blore himself, forsaking his nice comfy room back at the Swan for a wet Christmas dawn in Coleman’s Meadow. Only one possible reason for this. He was either not alone or not expecting to be alone for long.
‘If you’re here about the flooding,’ Blore said, ‘we’ve been spared. Which is just as well ’cause I’m back on the job on Boxing Day.’
Bliss beamed.
‘My information is you were on the job this very evening, sir.’
‘Well, your information is wrong.’
Blore didn’t get it. Perhaps just as well. Bliss jerked a thumb at
his companion with the ancient anorak and the greying moustache.
‘My colleague DC Stagg. Have you seen your security officer tonight, sir?’
‘No. But then I wouldn’t expect to. He’s gone home for Christmas.’
‘You don’t need security over Christmas?’
‘Why I’m here . . . Inspector, was it?’
‘That not a bit of a risk, personal-safety wise, Mr Blore?’
‘Self-employed,’ Blore said. ‘Means I can give the nanny state the finger.’
‘Sure about that, are we, Mr Blore?’ Bliss hated cops who called people we; hoped Blore did, too. ‘Sure we haven’t seen Glyn?’
‘Who’s Glyn?’
‘Did I say Glyn? I meant Gregory.’
‘No.’
‘It’s not a nice night, Mr Blore. Would you mind if we came in?’
‘Yes, I would, actually. You arrive at my excavation in the early hours of Christmas morning, you ask me inane questions without giving me a good reason and now you want to invade my limited fucking space.’
‘Mr Blore . . .’ Bliss sighed. ‘I won’t pretend I’ve gorra warrant, but if you don’t invite me in, my lads will just camp outside until I get one brought to Caple End, by which time I’ll’ve become horribly suspicious and just a mite less friendly than I’ve been so far.’
Blore sniffed and stood to one side.
‘Be my guest, then.’
When the church was empty, Merrily unplugged the Christmas tree, switched out the lights and stood alone, watching deep Gothic windows coming silently to a grey and ghostly half life.
At the door, she said a prayer for Shirley’s soul, followed by the Lord’s Prayer and a precautionary St Patrick’s Breastplate. Then she grabbed her coat from the peg over the prayer book rack, went out and locked up, and in the porch her breath came out very like a long-suppressed sob.
She’d made herself stand there in the pulpit, her foot inside a wellington touching one of dead Shirley’s hands. Standing there, slowly becoming aware of the smell, very calmly apologising to the bemused, restive, overtired and disappointed congregation, explaining that the village was now at the centre of a murder investigation and that nobody was being allowed to leave for the present. Suggesting that those who couldn’t go home should go across to the Swan for the time being.
And that those villagers who could go home should not go alone.
She hadn’t told Uncle Ted what was inside the pulpit, certainly not Edna Huws. Outside, she found Lol and Jane and Eirion waiting under the lych-gate, like some kind of dysfunctional family.
‘Home?’ Jane said.
‘Swan, I’m afraid, flower.’
At the Black Swan, Barry took them in his office, explained that Superintendent Howe and the other policewoman had borrowed his car to take Mrs Winterson to Caple End.
Sounded like Leonora had been arrested, was going to be handed over at the bridge to cops from Hereford.
‘Howe’ll be back?’
‘That’s what she said.’ Barry spread his hands, someone outside shouting for him. ‘You’ll have to excuse me—’
‘Sure . . . OK.’ Merrily handed the bunch of church keys on a rusting ring, like gaoler’s keys, to Eirion. ‘Could you give those to Annie Howe when she gets back? Needs to be Eirion,’ she said to Jane. ‘You and Howe have too much history.’
‘Mum . . .?’
‘OK . . .’
Merrily told them and watched Jane go instantly pale. Throwing an arm around the kid in a way she hadn’t done for years. Not since Jane had become that little taller than her mother.
Both of them aware, at this moment, of how close . . .
‘Don’t give the keys to anyone else. Don’t, of course, go in. Under any circumstances.’
‘He killed her. Gregory?’
‘It’s . . . likely.’
A puncture in the coat, a little blood like a cluster of holly berries. Maybe Shirley disturbed him smashing the stained-glass window or the rood screen, scattering the chairs. Him smashing things? That way round?
Jane said distantly, ‘He said the trick was to let other people do the dying.’ She looked up at Merrily. ‘Why are you leaving the keys with—? Where are you going?’
‘We have to go and find Bliss. We have to tell him about this.’
‘We?’
‘Me and Lol, I think.’
‘But, like . . . why don’t you just ring him on his mobile?’
‘Because I’ve tried, and Coleman’s Meadow seems to be one of those blank spots. If he’s talking to Blore, he needs this.’
‘We’ll all go,’ Jane said.
‘No, we won’t.’
The caravan had three rooms and Gregory wasn’t in any of them.
On a table in the very plush living room, heated by Calor gas, there were two beer bottles, but that didn’t mean anything.
What had probably happened, Bliss figured, was that they’d heard the jeep approaching and Blore had simply opened the door and let him out and stayed in the doorway drinking his beer. Arrogant twat.
‘Well, thank you, Mr Blore. Everything seems in order.’
‘You going to tell me what this is all about, Inspector?’
‘Of course. We’re investigating the death of Mathew Elliot Stooke. You did know about that?’
‘You mean Winterson? Thought the poor guy was drowned. Why’s that need further investigation, including a search of my fucking caravan?’
‘Because we think he was murdered.’
‘Homicide by drowning?’ Blore shrugged, let out a small burp, pushed stubby fingers through his dense hair. ‘Suppose these things happen, don’t they? Western world’s reverting to some kind of neoneolithic barbarity, Inspector. Suicide bombers, kids shooting other kids on the streets, torturing old ladies . . .’
‘Godless,’ Bliss said.
Part of him wanting to hang that toilet scene on the bastard, but without a signed statement yet from Jane it was unsafe. At the door, as Terry Stagg was stepping down into the mud, Bliss turned quickly.
‘Oh—We were only talking about you earlier on. With Steve Furneaux?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Blore squinted at him. ‘Oh . . . yeah, I know who you mean. Guy from the Council. Smooth sort of bastard.’
‘That’s right. He was smooth. He’s spending the night with us.’
‘Drink-driving?’
Bliss smiled.
‘God, Mr Blore . . . You’re a clever twat, aren’t you?’
‘I like to think so,’ Blore said.
Merrily drove out on to the square. With Old Barn Lane blocked, the only way now was up past the church. Past the entrance to Blackberry Lane, a circuitous route bordering the orchard and eventually coming out, through the new housing, to the bypass.
There was a single-track road from here, leading directly to Coleman’s Meadow.
‘Jane’s right,’ Lol said. ‘You don’t get out. If we don’t see Bliss we blow the horn.’
‘Right.’
‘We don’t tempt fate,’ Lol said.
‘No.’
They emerged on to the bypass near the place where Lucy Devenish had died next to her moped. Merrily could tell Lol was thinking about it too. You just did, whenever you passed this way.
‘So he wrecked the church,’ Lol said. ‘This guy.’
‘The Endtime.’ Merrily brought the Volvo down to second gear in the mud-track to Coleman’s Meadow. ‘The flood, the Antichrist. The whole madness of it. The insane idea that Elliot Stooke and I were working together towards the birth of the Antichrist on Christmas Eve. Leonora could’ve put all that together from the Lord of the Light website. All the crap you find on the Net. They had this Gregory on the payroll. Told him exactly what to do.’
The damage reinforcing the idea of a dangerously unbalanced fundamentalist with a fear and hatred of Stooke. If Stooke’s drowning was, in the end, not considered accidental, the police would have had Shirley in the frame, and Shirley’s attitude would hav
e convinced them they were on the money.
‘She’d probably have been judged unfit to plead,’ Lol said. ‘Case closed.’
Merrily reached out for his hand, knowing he was thinking of his own case, the tunnel-vision of policemen chasing a result.
‘Only, the poor woman was mad enough to be in the church,’ she said. ‘Maybe hiding – we’ll never know, will we, how she and this psycho came face to face.’
‘She’d been stabbed?’
‘Yes.’ The car bucked and shuddered over a deep rut in the track. ‘Lol, I . . . I bloody demonised her. As soon as I heard Nick Ellis might have some connection with the Church of the Lord of the Light, that was enough. We don’t know if Ellis poisoned Shirley’s mind from wherever he is, and it doesn’t matter really. I should’ve tried to get through to her. I should’ve tried. I demonised her just as much as she demonised me.’
The hedges rose up in the headlights, yellow and dripping on either side.
‘You did your best,’ Lol said. ‘You always do your best.’
She tried to smile. It would mend, the church. It would cost, but it would mend. It always had, always would, even if it ended up as a local museum in a secular state where Christianity was just a vaguely tolerated eccentricity.
When they reached the parking area short of the meadow, the clouds had cleared from round the moon. A soiled potato of a moon. You could see Cole Hill, like something dumped on the horizon.
And Gomer’s jeep.
Gomer leaning on it, still in his overalls, smoking a ciggy, blinking through his bottle glasses at their headlights. Then he raised a hand and ambled over, grinning his old familiar grin, and Merrily quickly opened one of the back doors for him, and he got in.
‘Merry Christmas, vicar. Lol, boy.’
‘Gomer . . .’ Merrily switched off the engine. ‘You shouldn’t be doing this sort of—’ She gave up. Pointless. ‘Where’s Bliss?’
‘Went through the gate, him and the other coppers. He’ll be all right. This boy en’t gonner pick a fight with the whole bunch of ’em, is he?’
Gomer stretched his legs out behind Merrily’s seat, ciggy in his mouth, hands across his stomach.
‘Been a funny ole couple days, ennit, vicar?’
