Midnight Fugue

by Reginald Hill

  ‘I’ve left it in the car,’ she said. ‘But I can remember the number.’

  She recited it and he copied it into his phone.

  ‘Always a good memory,’ he said admiringly. ‘Ali’s the same. Must be all that music buzzing around in your heads. A real talent, memory. Except sometimes it’s a real pain.’

  He reached over and opened her door. His arm brushed against her breast. After seven years, that’s the nearest we’ve come to intimate contact, she thought.

  ‘Goodbye, Gina,’ he said.

  ‘But what are you going to do? They won’t stop looking, will they?’

  ‘They might. You never know. Things change.’

  ‘For a man who thinks there’s a hitman after him, you don’t sound all that worried.’

  ‘You’re thinking of Alex Wolfe. He’d have been worried. I don’t think I’ve got anything to worry about if you keep your mouth shut. Goodbye.’

  He sounded slightly impatient now.

  She said, ‘Just one more thing. That general and the plucky little trooper game, did you ever tell anyone about it?’

  ‘I don’t think so. You?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never mind. One of those things, eh? A lucky guess.’

  She got out of the car then stopped to take what she imagined might be one last look at him.

  She said, ‘Goodbye, Edwin Muir. I pack your stars into my purse, and bid you, bid you so farewell.’

  He stared back at her uncomprehendingly. Why should he understand when she hardly understood herself?

  He didn’t say goodbye for a third time, just looked at her till finally she got out of the car. She closed the door behind her, firmly but trying not to slam it. She didn’t want him to think she was leaving him in anger. Not that it would have mattered. Through the window she saw he had taken out his mobile and was dialling a number. For a second she thought he must be ringing Mick. Then someone answered and she saw a smile spread across his face as he started talking. It wasn’t the guarded knowing smile he’d flashed as they spoke. This was a smile that turned him once more into the young man she remembered, the man she’d married.

  He was, she guessed, talking to his new partner. Ali, the music teacher. The mother of Lucinda.

  She felt all the pain of loss again as she hadn’t felt it for years. Not that it had ever truly gone away, she realized now. There were things that had the power to obliviate the pain for a while. Music. Sex. But like a ground bass, it ran beneath all the variations of life, good and bad. Perhaps it was a necessary part of living. Perhaps humans needed a loss that felt worse than death to make the inevitability of their own death bearable.

  But she would not wish this pain on anyone. She certainly did not want to have it dragged into the public domain once more. She recalled how intrusive the press had been in the aftermath of Alex’s disappearance.

  What Alex had told her about the threat from Goldie Gidman was hard to credit, it smacked too much of a TV thriller. But anything touching on the financier and his MP son would certainly be big news, and the thought of being besieged by journalists, midnight phone calls, cameras and mikes being thrust into her face whenever she emerged, her image appearing in newspapers and news items all over the country, was a horror worse than the threat of death.

  No, though her own pain was not something she would wish on anyone, she was sure that if she had the chance to take the kind of pain journalists specialized in and turn it on them, she would not hesitate.

  Alex was right. At least in this they were in accord. Silence was her refuge. She resolved that nothing would make her admit to the meeting and exchange that had just taken place. Nothing.

  She set off down the hill towards her car.

  18.05–18.15

  Gwyn Jones’s progress north had been slower than anticipated.

  He’d stopped at the first service station on the motorway to ring Beanie. The conversation had gone pretty well, he told himself complacently. She had sounded really sympathetic as he span his tale of his grandmother’s illness and the dutiful son heading back to the land of his fathers to take his place at the old lady’s bedside. Then he’d bought himself a coffee and a sandwich to make up for his missed lunch, tried Gareth again without any luck, and rejoined the thickening traffic only to be held up by an accident a few miles ahead.

  The next ten miles took over half an hour, but once clear he’d made reasonable time and now he was definitely up north, passing through what had formerly been known as the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire where King Arthur lined up his coal-face knights to tilt against the great tyrant Thatcher.

  A Welshman on a left-wing paper ought to have felt a frisson of fraternal nostalgia as he traversed this holy landscape, but Jones hardly spared it a thought or a glance.

  He’d fed the Loudwater Villas details into his sat-nav. For most of the journey it had had nothing to do but tell him to keep going straight on. Finally it instructed him to turn off the motorway and soon the directions were coming thick and fast as he entered an urban environment.

  The streets were pretty empty, not surprising at this time on a Sunday, but he indulged in a complacent sneer at this evidence that he was deep into the provinces.

  In a few hundred yards he was warned he would need to turn right on to a road running alongside a river. Here was the turning and there was the river. Loudwater Villas should be in view in half a minute.

  Ahead he saw flashing lights and some vehicles pulled on to the verge, among them a van bearing the logo of Mid-Yorkshire TV. Beyond them there seemed to be a barrier across the road. As he slowed, figures came alongside the car, some with cameras. A flashbulb directly into his face almost blinded him, forcing him to stop some yards short of the barrier. He wound down the window and swore at the cameraman. A woman thrust a microphone through the window and said, ‘Excuse me, sir, MYTV. Can you tell us who you are and why you’re here?’

  He said, ‘No, I bloody can’t. Get that thing out of my fucking face.’

  He pushed the mike away forcefully and a man’s face replaced the woman’s. It was a lean, weathered face with bright probing eyes that were scanning the contents of the car as if committing them to memory.

  ‘Sammy Ruddlesdin,’ said the man. ‘Mid-Yorkshire News. Sorry to bother you, sir…’

  There was a pause as the man focused more closely on Jones’s face.

  Then he said in a lower voice, ‘Don’t I know you?’

  ‘I doubt it. What the hell’s going on here?’

  ‘Just a little local murder. I’m sure I’ve seen your face somewhere. You’re press, aren’t you? Don’t be shy. National, is it? Listen, you want local colour, I’m your man.’

  He was being ambushed by reporters! The irony of the situation might have been amusing, but the man’s words had roused emotions that left no room for amusement.

  ‘What do you mean, murder? Who’s been murdered?’

  ‘That’s what we’re all trying to find out,’ said Ruddlesdin. ‘Look, if you’re not here after the story, what the hell are you here for?’

  He didn’t answer but climbed out of the car and went up to the barrier with the media pack in close attendance.

  A uniformed policeman confronted him.

  ‘Can I help, sir?’

  ‘Not in front of this lot you can’t,’ said Jones, who knew that every word he spoke was being recorded by those nearest him.

  The policeman took his point and led him behind the barrier. Even here he took care to keep his back firmly directed towards the press pack and dropped his voice so that the policeman had to lean close to catch his words.

  ‘Yes, I need to get into Loudwater Villas. I’m visiting my brother.’

  ‘Your brother, sir?’ said the man, looking at a list in his hand. ‘Can I have the name and flat number please?’

  ‘It won’t be on your list. He’s staying with a friend. Alun Watkins, number 39.’

  The man looked at him with new interest.
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  ‘And your name, sir?’

  ‘Jones. Gwyn Jones.’

  ‘Could you hold on here a tick, sir?’

  The officer turned his back on the journalists and spoke into his personal radio. After listening for a moment he turned around and said, ‘If you’d like to bring your car forward, sir, I’ll raise the barrier.’

  Ruddlesdin, who’d clearly got close enough to hear this last remark, fell into step beside him as he returned to his car.

  ‘You must have clout,’ he said admiringly. ‘Else you’re very clever. Any chance of a lift?’

  Jones ignored him. There was a tight feeling in his stomach as if he’d eaten something so bad his digestive juices didn’t even want to get to grips with it.

  He got into his car and edged forward. The reporters were still taking photos. He found he hated them so much he could gladly have run them down.

  As the barrier slowly rose, the passenger door opened and a young man slipped in beside him.

  ‘Get the fuck out of here!’ he yelled, thinking it was another journalist.

  But the man was holding a police warrant card before his face.

  ‘DC Bowler, sir,’ he said. ‘If you just drive towards the caravan there and park alongside.’

  ‘What’s all the fuss about?’ Gwyn said as he drove slowly forward. ‘I’m just visiting my brother, and he’s only staying here, he’s not a resident. Have you come across him? He’s a lot like me, people say, only eight years younger. Have you seen him?’

  It was as if by talking about Gareth he could create the cheeky young sod’s physical presence.

  ‘And his name’s Jones, is it, sir?’

  ‘That’s right. Gareth Jones. Not surprising as Jones is my name too.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Are you Gwyn Jones of the Messenger, sir?’

  He said, ‘Yes, I am,’ hoping that the young cop would say, ‘Thought I recognized you. Good try, mate,’ then tell him to drive the car back to the barrier.

  Instead he just nodded as if this confirmed something he already knew.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.

  ‘Just park here, sir. Now if you come with me, DS Wield will fill you in.’

  He climbed slowly out of the car. He felt he was getting very close to a place he didn’t wish to arrive at. He looked back towards the distant barrier and found himself longing to be on the far side of it, one of the assembled pack, chatting, joking, smoking, drinking, passing the boring hours that any decent reporter knows have to be put in if they are to get a decent story to put out.

  Then in a sudden fit of revulsion he told himself savagely that all that interested those bastards were bloody facts to grab their readers, saccharined with ‘human interest’ to make the readers feel less guilty about enjoying the gore.

  ‘This way, sir,’ urged DC Bowler, with an encouraging smile.

  He was a nice-looking boy, with a fresh, open face, not at all the kind of messenger you’d expect to bring you bitter words to hear and bitter tears to shed.

  Perhaps I’ve got it wrong, thought Jones as he walked towards the caravan. Perhaps this sense of ill-bodement clutching my heart is just some atavistic throw-back, as meaningless as those claims to foreknowledge always made by Great Aunt Blodwen twenty-four hours after any disaster.

  Then at the top of the steps leading up into the caravan a very different kind of man appeared, this one with a face as ill-omened as Scrooge’s door-knocker.

  And as if in confirmation of this sudden downward lurch of his spirits, a voice cried, ‘Gwyn, oh Gwyn boy! This is terrible, truly terrible!’

  He turned his head in the direction of what he presumed was Loudwater Villas and saw a man running towards him, his face contorted unrecognizably. But Gwyn Jones recognized him.

  So did Edgar Wield, standing on the caravan steps. Where the hell did he come from? This is getting to be a habit!

  ‘Bowler, grab him!’ he yelled.

  But it was too late for any useful grabbing.

  As Bowler intercepted and folded Alun Watkins in his arms, he was already close enough for his haggard, tear-stained face to be clearly visible. And now Gwyn Jones came at last to understand that though words could not create another’s physical presence, they could certainly take it away forever.

  ‘Gwyn, bach, he’s dead!’ cried Watkins in a voice powerful enough to carry all the way down to the straining ears at the barrier. ‘He’s dead. I’m so so sorry. Dear Gareth’s dead!’

  18.33–18.35

  In the gathering dusk it seemed further back to her car than Gina remembered and it was with some relief that she finally reached it. As she opened the door, she saw a car speeding down the hill towards her. For a second she thought perhaps Alex had decided there were still things to say. Then she saw it was a blue VW Golf, not the dirty grey Astra.

  It slowed to a halt as it reached her. A woman was driving. The man in the passenger seat spoke through the open window.

  ‘Having trouble, darling?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You sure?’ said the woman, leaning across.

  ‘No. I just fancied a bit of air so I had a little stroll,’ said Gina.

  It was kind of these people to be concerned, but she was not in the mood for kindness. She wanted to be left to herself in the private space of her car, to sit there till the darkness cloaked her completely, and to let flow all the still-unshed tears.

  She turned to her open car door.

  The man and woman exchanged glances, the woman nodded as if confirming a decision, and they both got out.

  Even when the man grasped her arm Gina couldn’t believe that this was anything more than a really irritating excess of good Samaritanism. But when the woman opened the back door of the Golf and the man began to push her towards it, her mind did a somersault that brought all of Alex’s warnings about the expendability of staked goats to the surface.

  She tried to wrench herself free. All that happened was she felt her arm forced up between her shoulder blades and her head cracked against the frame of the door as she was forced into the VW. She screamed. The man slid in beside her, the door slammed shut, the car set off. She screamed again.

  The man slapped her face.

  She stopped screaming.

  The man said, ‘That’s better, darling. Any more noise from you and I’ll break your jaw.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Vince,’ said the woman. ‘How’s she going to talk then? Let’s find somewhere quiet, then she can scream all she likes.’

  18.35–18.50

  When Maggie Pinchbeck turned off the narrow country road to come to a halt before the high gates of Windrush House, the grey Jaguar that had been following her for the last half-mile turned too.

  Maggie wound down her window so that the camera could get a better view of her face in the gathering dusk.

  A voice she recognized as Milton Slingsby’s said, ‘Hi, Miss Pinchbeck.’

  Then the camera adjusted, presumably to look at the car behind hers. Its driver decided to make life easier and got out and advanced till he was peering right up into the lens.

  He was a tall imposing figure, in his forties, with a heavy jaw that looked as if it hadn’t seen a razor for a couple of days and a shock of vigorous brown hair, beginning to be tipped with silver.

  He glared aggressively at the camera, but didn’t need to give his name as Slingsby said, ‘Mick, hi! It’s Sling. Long time no see!’

  A short pause, then the gates swung open.

  Maggie drove carefully up the gravelled drive, recalling Dave’s warning about his father’s pride in his lawns. She got the impression that if the man behind hadn’t been constrained by her pace, he wouldn’t have given a damn.

  Outside the house she parked alongside Dave’s Audi with the Jag on the other side.

  I’m in the wrong business, she thought as she got out of her dusty Corsa.

  The Jag driver nodded at her but made no attempt at introduction or conv
ersation as they went up the steps together. Milton Slingsby opened the door. He gave Maggie a bright smile. But the other arrival he greeted with a cry of, ‘Hi, Mick, how’re you doing?’ and a high-five.

  ‘Sling,’ said the man without any respondent enthusiasm.

  Dave the Third came down the stairs as they entered the reception hall. He looked preoccupied.

  ‘Hi, Maggie,’ he said. Then he turned his attention to the Jag driver and said unenthusiastically, ‘Who’s this?’

  Sling said, ‘It’s OK, Dave. This is Mick Purdy, come to see your pappy.’

  Dave the Third frowned for a moment then managed a small official smile.

  ‘Of course! It’s Commander Purdy, isn’t it?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ grunted Purdy ungraciously.

  ‘You gave evidence to a Select Committee I was on. Sorry I didn’t recognize you straight off. You were in uniform then, I think.’

  ‘Well, we know you lot like a bit of pantomime,’ said Purdy.

  Mick Purdy, thought Maggie. Commander Mick Purdy. Who had interviewed a woman called Delay about an assault allegation against Goldie Gidman. Who had been a friend and colleague of the missing DI Wolfe. Who was now in a relationship with Gina Wolfe. Who was here to see Goldie Gidman. And who didn’t feel the need or wasn’t in the mood to be polite to Dave the Third MP.

  She waited for her employer to express some curiosity about the purpose of Purdy’s visit, but he just said, ‘My father’s busy with my mother just now, but he’ll be free in a moment. Sling, show the commander into the lounge.’

  The policeman nodded brusquely and followed Slingsby into a room off the hall.

  Now Dave the Third turned to her and said, ‘Maggie, I’ve got you here on a wild-goose chase, I’m afraid. My mother got a phone call about twenty minutes ago. Her sister, Belle, the one in Broadstairs, has had a stroke. It sounds serious and Mammy wants to get there straight away. She’s just packing a few things, then I’m going to drive her down.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Maggie. ‘Keep me posted, and I’ll take care of things if you feel you ought to stay down there.’