by Phil Rickman
‘What sort of case have they got for that?’
‘He’s been heard to say, “If Bliss wants to be a private eye, I’m not going to hold him back any longer.” And he’ll have stuff going way back. I never claimed to be the divisional Mr Popular.’
‘What does Kirsty say?’
‘Kirsty left last night, Merrily. Back to the farm. With the kids.’
‘Frannie, no…’
The door opened. A woman of maybe twenty-six stood there. ‘Sorry, we’re a bit behind this morning.’ She had short hair bleached white and a silver ring in her left eyebrow.
Bliss smiled bleakly at her. ‘Mr Connor-Crewe in, is he?’ Like he hadn’t phoned first, to make sure of it.
‘He’s unpacking some books upstairs, if you want to hang around for a couple of minutes… You trade?’
‘Collector,’ Bliss said. ‘Beano annuals, mainly.’
‘Yeah?’
Bliss flashed his card. ‘DI Bliss, West Mercia.’
‘Oh, right.’ She seemed unsurprised. ‘Go through, officer.’
‘Ta.’
They went in, Merrily holding the plastic carrier bag with Hereford Cathedral on it. The window had been deceptive; the building was narrow but deep, a darkening tunnel of shelves. Arrowed signs indicated two other floors. The woman stood at the bottom of some narrow wooden stairs.
‘Hey… you know Mumford?’
‘So this is where he gets his first editions.’
She grinned. ‘I’ll tell Piers. So it’s DI… ?’
‘Bliss. And, er…’
‘Merrily Watkins,’ Merrily said, thinking, Cola French?
The white-haired woman stopped on the second step, turned with a hand on the rail and inspected her. Merrily wore her best coat over the black cowl-neck sweater, the cross concealed. ‘Yeah,’ the woman said sadly. ‘Oh well.’ And carried on upstairs, leaving Bliss peering curiously at Merrily.
‘If you go straight down, you’ll find an alcove on your left, with some chairs,’ Cola French called back. ‘Criminal History’s right at the bottom. But, er… Theology’s in the cellar.’
‘Bound to have read them all, anyway,’ Merrily said.
What bothered Merrily most was that she hadn’t seen Jane, not to speak to. She’d overslept, and it had been nearly nine a.m. when she’d staggered into the kitchen to find a note on the table.
Mum, I’ve gone.
Just in case you’re vaguely interested, it’s Lol’s gig tonight at the Courtyard. So I’ve taken a change of clothes with me and I’ll carry on to Hereford on the school bus. If you don’t make it there later I’ll just have to thumb a lift back or something, so don’t let it interfere with your spiritual schedule or anything.
J.
And Jenny Box called. She’d like to talk to you. You should.
‘She wouldn’t actually thumb a lift, of course,’ Merrily had said later to Huw. ‘This is just a gentle dig.’
‘With a bayonet,’ Huw said.
‘No, for Jane, this is a gentle dig.’
Huw had refused to eat breakfast or to drink tea. He’d drunk one glass of water. Was this a fast, purification, in anticipation of… what?
Merrily had eaten half a slice of toast and felt guilty. Then she’d gone into the scullery and looked up the number for Ingrid Sollars. She had in front of her Lol’s note, which said, The PCC mentioned in the diary is Piers Connor-Crewe. If you feel you have to go and see him, please don’t go on your own. This morning, Lol had phoned, filling in some gaps, bless him.
The phone at Ingrid’s place had been picked up by Sam Hall, which didn’t surprise her a lot. Merrily had asked Sam some straight questions about his former colleague on the Underhowle Development Committee.
Before leaving the vicarage, she’d left a message on Prof’s answering machine asking if Lol, or even Prof himself, could keep an eye open for Jane tonight. Left a similar message on their own machine for the kid to pick up if she rang in. Just in case this situation proved more complex.
As now seemed likely.
Piers Connor-Crewe, plump and moon-faced and cheerful, wore his baggy cream suit over a denim shirt with a frayed collar. One of those men, Merrily thought, who might greet you in pyjamas, always confident that you’d be blinded by the aura of his personality, his intellect.
‘Merrily Watkins, how nice. And back in your role as consultant to the Herefordshire Constabulary.’
Bliss stood up. ‘DI Francis Bliss. We haven’t met.’
‘No, indeed – I’m afraid I was working late the night you encountered the Committee.’
Connor-Crewe went to sit behind the desk, which filled half of this dimly lit airspace between bookshelves. He motioned Bliss and Merrily to a couple of battered smokers’ chairs. The alcove seemed to serve as his office. There was a phone on the desk, a vintage, crane-necked electric lamp and a large book on Roman pottery.
‘Well now,’ he said, ‘if this is about what I think it’s about, let me first apologize that the police were not informed about last night’s demonstration. However’ – he opened his hands – ‘neither was the Committee. Seems to have been entirely impromptu – grass-roots protest – therefore, any damage is—’
‘Not why we’re here,’ said Bliss. ‘We’ve come to ask your advice about a book. Whether you think it’s authentic, that kind of thing.’
Piers Connor-Crewe inclined his big head to one side and raised an eyebrow. Bliss turned to Merrily, who placed her Hereford Cathedral carrier bag on the desk and extracted the white book: The Magickal Diary of Lynsey D.
Piers leaned over and looked at it but didn’t touch it. ‘And where did you acquire this, Inspector Bliss?’
‘Pick it up if you like, sir.’
‘Oh, dear me, no. One never knows about journals like this.’
Bliss turned to Merrily. ‘What’s he mean by that, Mrs Watkins?’
‘I think he means there might be some sort of protective curse around it.’
‘Like King Tut’s tomb.’
‘That sort of thing.’
‘No problem, then, for a man like me with bugger-all left to lose.’ Bliss opened the book, turned it round to face Connor- Crewe, pulled the lamp over, switched it on and directed its cuplike shade at the page. The light illuminated one of the pages of complex-looking tables and correspondences, all meticulously drawn in different-coloured inks.
‘What’s this about, sir? What are all these funny little squiggly things?’
Connor-Crewe coughed. ‘Those would be sigils, inspector. What one might call condensed spells. Configurations of particular desires, alphabetically and numerically reduced to their basics for, ah, intensity of focus.’
‘Spells.’
‘This is what might be described as someone’s magical wishlist.’
‘Would you be able to decode it yourself, sir?’
‘Possibly, to an extent. Given time.’
‘You’re an expert on the occult, then?’
‘In a largely academic way. There’s a very significant international trade in old books on ceremonial magic and ritual. Something no antiquarian dealer can afford to ignore.’
‘You handle a lot of them?’
‘It probably accounts for up to twenty per cent of my trade. Perhaps even more.’
But you didn’t want to handle this one.’
Connor-Crew smiled. ‘When I said that, I was being a little ironic. The so-called magical diary—’
‘Because you knew where this one had been?’
‘The magical diary is a very personal and private document, often considered to be a magical tool in itself.’
‘I see.’
‘I’m not sure you do, inspector, but I don’t suppose it matters, in a strictly forensic sense.’
‘So you’ve never seen this before?’
‘Occasionally one appears on the market but in the case of this one I can safely say… no.’
‘But you did know its owner.’
&nb
sp; ‘Oh? Did I?’
‘My information is that she was a regular customer who even helped out here sometimes. In one way or another.’
Connor-Crewe flipped the book shut and glanced at the cover. ‘Ah. Of course.’
Bliss smiled like a wintry sun. ‘You remember.’
‘Poor woman,’ said Connor-Crewe.
‘What exactly was your relationship with the late Lynsey Davies?’
‘Bookseller and customer.’
‘Sleep with many of your customers, sir?’
Connor-Crewe sighed. ‘Some.’
Merrily blinked.
‘Inspector, a bookseller is not like other retailers. A good book-seller will very quickly develop an intimacy with his regular clients, based on his feeding of their intellectual desires. And if it should progress beyond that level, well… if there’s an element of misconduct that might apply in the case of, say, a doctor and patient, then I’m afraid I’m not aware of anything similar concerning the book trade.’
‘You’re a slippery bastard, aren’t you, sir?’ Bliss said.
Connor-Crewe frowned.
Bliss said, ‘Lynsey sometimes lived with you at The Old Rectory, is that correct?’
‘Occasionally stayed with me would be more correct. Overnight.’
‘Quite a formidable woman?’
‘That’s fair comment.’
‘Been around.’
‘I wouldn’t doubt it.’
Bliss tapped the book. ‘Who taught who about this stuff?’
Connor-Crewe thought about it. ‘When she first came to me for magical literature, I would say her knowledge was, at best, rudimentary. But she had the persistence and, it would seem, the time to devote to the subject. After a year or two, I would say that her knowledge – certainly her practical ability – far out-weighed mine.’
‘Practical ability,’ Merrily said. ‘Mmm.’
Connor-Crewe smiled at her, with indulgence. ‘We may be getting into areas, Merrily, that you, as a Christian, would find repugnant. Let me remind you, however, that magic is an entirely legal discipline that functions these days all over the free world, largely unhampered by the secrecy that stifled it for centuries. Yes, I have practised magic. It’s a wonderful mental exercise. It expands the being.’
Bliss turned to Merrily. ‘That’s put you in your place, vicar.’ ‘It’s no big secret, inspector. There are even a number of further-education seminars on ritual magic at various colleges.’
‘But what you’re saying,’ Merrily said, ‘is that, while you have an extensive theoretical knowledge of esoteric practices, Lynsey Davies was what you might call a natural.’
Connor-Crewe looked pained. ‘She was a strong-willed woman who was able to summon, to an enviable degree, the kind of concentration required for the visualization exercises that are crucial to the successful practice of magic.’
‘By successful,’ Bliss said, ‘you mean actually making things happen.’
‘I would say, rather, helping to move events towards the most satisfactory conclusion.’
Frannie Bliss nodded doubtfully. ‘But to go back to my earlier question – where did she get it from? Did she suddenly show up at your shop and say, “Here, Piers, I fancy a go at that – you gorra couple of basic primers on the shelf?” ’
‘Now look…’ Connor-Crewe leaned back, arms folded across his chest. His normally generous mouth had shrunk into an expression of petulance. ‘I’ve been patient with you, Inspector Bliss, but I think that, before I answer any more of these questions, I have a right to ask you what this is all about.’
‘Mr Crewe, I thought this was understood. I’m investigating a murder.’
‘Whose?’
‘You tell me,’ Bliss said. ‘Maybe there are some I don’t know about.’
Lol had been aware of Prof Levin watching him for some minutes.
‘You’re beginning to worry me,’ Prof said.
Lol put the electric tuner back in its case. The Washburn was now in tune with the Boswell. He’d keep tuning them through the day.
‘It’s the fear,’ Prof said.
Lol had run through three songs in the studio – ‘The River Frome Song’, ‘Kivernoll’ and the acidic rocker ‘Heavy Medication Day’. He figured that was going to be enough. This, after all, was a Moira Cairns concert. He thought the songs, which nobody would ever have heard before, had sounded acceptable – just.
‘Where’s the fear?’ Prof demanded. ‘What have you done with the fucking fear?’
Lol looked up. He was alone on the studio floor. Prof was up behind the mixing board. Moira had gone into Ledbury to buy some things and bring back some lunch for them. Lol had been running through the songs and, at the same time, wondering what correlation there might be between magic and the side effects of electricity experienced by people like Mephisto Jones and Roddy Lodge.
‘This will do you no good, Laurence.’
‘What won’t?’
‘Popping pills so far in advance. I was hoping you might make it without them. But eight, nine hours before you go on… believe me, this is not professional.’
Lol contemplated the ceiling.
‘Then what’s the matter with you?’ Prof came down to the studio floor. He was wearing his King of the Hill T-shirt with a cardigan over the top. ‘It’s twenty years, give or take, since you last did this. You were a boy then, now you’re a man approaching middle age. My advice – and I’ve seen this before, with other people, although not in such an extreme situation as yours – is to do the screaming now – but not so hard you damage your voice. Because, if you bottle it up until just before you go on, you’re gonna balls this big time… throw it all away… pouf! Hey, you listening to me?’
Lol said, ‘Prof… Mephisto Jones… You think he’d mind if I phoned him?’
Frannie Bliss said, ‘I don’t know much about sex magic, but I do know that Lynsey had quite a reputation locally as a bit of a goer. Which might explain what attracted her to this particular discipline, as distinct from, say, Transcendental Meditation or the Jehovah’s Witnesses.’
‘Stupid and simplistic assumption,’ Connor-Crewe said.
Bliss nodded. ‘Do you know much about Lynsey’s early life? Did you know, for instance, that she went to college in Gloucester and then dropped out after less than six months and became a prostitute in the city?’
‘I do a certain amount of business in Gloucester,’ Connor- Crewe said. ‘Not that kind.’
‘Not a career prostitute, as such,’ Bliss said. ‘But she needed money and somewhere dry to sleep and eventually, like many other hard-up young folk in Gloucester in the 1970s and 1980s, she found this dead convenient place not far from the centre. Cheapest in the city, it was said.’
Merrily was aware of movement behind the shelves: either there were mice, or Cola French was listening.
‘Specializing in accommodation for… shall we say, liberal- minded young things,’ Bliss said. ‘The Gloucester fun palace. Perfect refuge for a big girl who liked trampling on taboos.’
‘Inspector, what are you—?’
‘We don’t know how long she was living there, but she seems to have fitted into the domestic arrangements all too well. Really took to it, you know? The atmosphere of tolerance.’
Merrily said, ‘You could form meaningful friendships there, with one another and also with the proprietors. If you didn’t like the idea of that, you probably left quite soon, or—’
‘Or you stayed until someone dug you out,’ Bliss said. ‘Sorry, uncalled for. But if you don’t know what we’re talking about now, you must’ve been so stuck into the old books that you never read a single newspaper in the mid-1990s.’
Connor-Crewe’s football face darkened. ‘If you’re telling me that Lynsey Davies spent some time at 25 Cromwell Street—’
‘No,’ Bliss said, ‘I’m asking if you knew she’d been at 25 Cromwell Street.’
‘The answer to that is no.’
‘Of course,�
�� Bliss said, ‘the vast majority of people could’ve had absolutely no idea how far it went with Fred and Rose. But we do know that one or two of the residents, over the years, had a strong interest in various occult practices of a kind probably not demonstrated at most colleges of further education. So it seems not unlikely that it was there that Lynsey was first introduced to the concept of sexual magic.’
‘If she was there.’
‘Take it from me,’ Bliss said. ‘Or take it from this.’ He stabbed the diary with a thumb.
‘Inspector Bliss…’ Connor-Crewe’s smile was like elastic, overstretched. ‘I wouldn’t take anything from that account. My experience of magical diaries is that they contain a considerable amount of fantasy. Often less a record of what actually happened than a rather faulty memoir of what the diarist would like to have happened. And I have to say—’
‘You’d have to be a strange kind of person, sir, to fantasize that you’d been to Cromwell Street and had a sexual relationship with the mass murderer Frederick West.’
‘I have to say that I do not see what possible bearing any of this could have on the presumed murder of Melanie Pullman.’
‘Did I mention Miss Pullman, sir?’
‘No, but—’
‘So stop trying to change the subject. You see, my information is that, for Lynsey Davies, the period at Cromwell Street was the most exciting time of her life. A lot of youngsters said something similar. Must’ve been a terrible comedown when she had to leave.’
‘Then why did she?’
‘Well, I’m only guessing here,’ Bliss said, ‘but I’d imagine that, at some stage, Lynsey saw the writing on the wall. Not Fred’s writing – Rose’s. Rose had lesbian tendencies and girls were often shared. Rose was a bully, and this was Rose’s house. In Lynsey, you’ve gorra big girl with a forceful personality – not the kind to be used as a plaything. Fred and Rose… I think it’s fair to say that, under different circumstances, it could just as easily have been Fred and Lynsey. Maybe there just wasn’t room for two big, insatiable women.’
