MW 12 - The Magus of Hay

by Phil Rickman

  ‘He en’t what he looks, see,’ Gomer said. ‘And yet he is.’

  ‘Duh…’

  ‘Educated down Oxford, they reckons, but he don’t give a toss for fancy qualifications. “Gomer,” he says – and you knowed he wasn’t bullshittin’ – “Gomer, give me fifteen fellers with doctor’s degrees for one o’ of the likes o’ you.” See? Real wisdom that is, vicar. Wait for a bloody graduate to cut your blocks, you’ll freeze to death.’

  Rarely so effusive about anything, Gomer. Merrily just sat there, nodding, letting it all come out, stowing away nuggets. Local knowledge. She must have shopped in Hay a hundred times but she wasn’t from there. She was outside the orb, connections missed, dots unjoined. And she hadn’t been around here in the years when Hay was the most exciting town on the planet, all because a chaotic bloke in trousers that might have seen better years had declared independence.

  ‘Some’ing in the air, vicar. At the time, you was thinking what a load of ole wallop… but looking back you was proud to be part of it. You din’t say, “Oh, that en’t my department kind o’ thing, I just does plant-hire.” You said, “All right then, Richard, gimme a couple o’ days I’ll figure out how to do it.” Never worked on a castle before, see, but, hell, there’s always a first time.’

  ‘What did you do at the castle?’

  ‘Ground to be cleared, ole stone to uncover. And other stuff I don’t talk about.’ Gomer tapped his nose. ‘Handful of us worked as the key-retainers, kind o’ thing. He made that town the best little bloody town in the country – both bloody countries! And the bloody ole councillors and politicians, English and Welsh gnashing their teeth on account of what they had to pay for, bigtime, the King got for nothing.’

  ‘You mean through all the publicity he attracted?’

  ‘And because folks liked what was happenin’ there. All the famous folks as flocked in. I seen that Marianne Faithfull once. Her was there a good while, on and off. Tidy bit of— Anyway, there was a sorter magic at work, you could feel it. You’d think the King was all washed up one week, facin’ the bankrupt court, all the bloody hestablishment vultures hoverin’ around, claws out… then he was bloody back.’

  ‘But now he’s lost the castle.’

  ‘I reckon he never quite got a grip on the ole castle,’ Gomer said. ‘We all done what we could, but we all knowed it was goner takes bloody millions to make it safe.’

  ‘Safe? The masonry?’

  ‘They wasn’t safe together, that castle and Booth. Falled asleep one night, left a big ole tree trunk in his big ole fireplace. Bloody place catches fire. Hell of a mess. It was like…’ Gomer rubbing his hands together, thinking. ‘En’t my place to ponticate, see, vicar, but it was like the ole castle was the only place din’t like what he was at. Didn’t like gettin’ loaded up with books. He resented it, that ole castle, he was about war, not readin’ books. Know what I’m saying?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Load o’ books got burned that night, mind, sure to. Get you another drink, vicar?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks, Gomer.’

  ‘Gonner be a bit quiet for you. Janie away, Lol away.’

  ‘Bit of bad timing,’ Merrily said.

  She’d left messages for Canon George Curtiss, but he hadn’t rung back. In the end, when the mobile chimed, it was Sophie, calling from home. She took it on Lol’s sofa, curtains open to the last light.

  ‘You’re not going to let this go, are you, Merrily?’

  ‘Would you, if you’d been accused of what, in most jobs, would be classed as unprofessional conduct?’

  ‘George isn’t sure if he’s permitted to talk to you, given that a complaint may have been made. Which seems…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘… silly, but George likes to tick boxes that don’t exist. He made an appointment to see Sylvia Merchant, turned up at the appointed time and there was nobody in. The next time, he didn’t ring, just went to the house at Tupsley, in civvies, quite early in the morning, and she had to let him in, claiming she’d been confused about the time for their first meeting. But, essentially, George got nowhere. He says she was very polite, quite pleasant. And entirely unhelpful.’

  ‘You’ve spoken to him?’

  ‘The Bishop’s spoken to him. Ms Merchant said she hadn’t yet made up her mind what action to take. She said she needed thinking time.’

  ‘Part of which was spent coming here.’

  ‘When? What did she say?’

  ‘Night before last. She didn’t say anything – not to me, anyway. I was across the road, just leaving Lol’s cottage, when she got out of a car and walked over to the vicarage, knocked on the front door. I didn’t approach her, just watched. She then went to the church, presumably to see if I was there. The point being that she obviously knew I wasn’t on holiday. In fact… that was what she said on a postcard that I found behind the door tonight.’

  ‘She wrote to you?’

  ‘It says she’ll be back. It says we’ll be back. And I don’t think she was referring to her solicitor.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘She seemed to be talking to somebody. But she was quite alone. I think you know what I’m saying.’

  ‘Oh, God.’

  ‘She mention Alys Nott to George?’

  ‘She wouldn’t talk to George about her bereavement. He told the Bishop she didn’t appear to be unduly distressed. Very pleasant and almost cheerful. Brave face. Didn’t want to talk about you, either, as I say. However… did you happen to notice her bookshelves while you were there?’

  ‘I didn’t even get into her living room.’

  ‘George says they were all reference books – film guides, a book on opera, regional guides. Books for consulting rather than reading for pleasure. And a whole row on psychic subjects. George said his eye was drawn to a familiar black and orange spine.’

  ‘I see.’

  The Deliverance Study Group’s handbook on exorcism. Not exactly easy to find.

  ‘George suspects she obtained the book to see for herself the procedures you ought to have followed.’

  ‘Did follow!’

  ‘Of course,’ Sophie said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  But the damage was done.

  28

  Report it

  BLISS HAD BEEN here before. Hated it.

  Not Dorstone. Other places, three of them, all in the years before he came down to Hereford. Bigger places, with more people to disappear.

  All of them in summer, as it happened. One had been the home of the kid who drowned. Missing for a night before they found him, and Bliss remembered the overcrowded living room, all the helpful neighbours swelling the anxiety until the critical moment when it all went down around the mother’s arid wail.

  That had been on a former council estate on Merseyside, this was a farmhouse at the end of a pitted track with wooded Dorstone Hill behind it. Still at the arse-end of the day, but all the lights were blazing, as if someone thought Tamsin might be out there and had forgotten where she lived.

  Annie parked the BMW on the edge of the field, close to the entrance to the yard.

  ‘Better not come in with you.’

  ‘I know.’ He was struggling into his jacket to cover up the baseball sweater with the big, cheerful numbers on the chest. Just grateful she’d driven him out, knowing what he was like at the wheel when it got late. ‘You’re not here.’

  It was a sagging, rubblestone house, quite low, not very big. The man standing in front of the porch was wearing an unfarmery light suit. Robert Winterson, dressed for a night out with his wife that never happened. He held out his hand to Bliss and they shook under a domed security lamp projecting from the side of the house, showing Winterson to be about forty, thickset, close-cropped hair.

  ‘Like I said…’ Bliss turned his back on the light. ‘I don’t want you to start gerrin too worried. Not yet.’

  ‘It’s my mother, it is. She’s the baby of the family, you know? My mother neve
r wanted her to be in the police, see. Not the way it is now, women doing the full job.’

  Bliss saw a woman’s face at the nearest window, all the lights on in there, walls, ceiling, table.

  ‘She’s a clever girl, and she’s a good copper. There’ll be a reason for this.’

  ‘Of course,’ Robert Winterson said. ‘Course there will. I feel bad about bothering you.’

  ‘Hell, no, you did the right thing.’

  ‘Anyway, we got Kelly yere,’ Robert Winterson said. ‘She insisted on coming over.’

  ‘Kelly?’

  ‘Kelly James – Tamsin’s mate? From Cusop?’

  ‘Sorry, yeh…’ Sometimes he wanted to kick his own head in. ‘Good.’

  When he’d called back, Robert Winterson had said this Kelly had rung the farm, expecting a call from Tamsin that hadn’t come.

  ‘Mr Winterson, about Kelly, could you do us a favour? There’s things I need to know, questions I need to ask, but I don’t want to distress your mother by asking them in front of her.’

  ‘You want me to get Kelly out yere?’

  ‘Exactly. Thank you.’

  Kelly James was in a baggy white YFC hoodie, looking even younger than Tamsin, golden curls like a baby.

  Conspicuously pregnant, eyes aglow with tears.

  ‘I just did what she told me. I was only trying to help. It’s all my fault…’

  ‘We could all say that, Kelly. Just… take your time. When exactly did you call Tamsin?’

  ‘Must’ve been about half-six?’

  ‘And what did you tell her?’

  ‘Told her I’d seen this woman. Near Mr Hambling’s house? She’d asked me if I seen the woman again, could I let her know.’

  ‘When was this? When you saw the woman.’

  ‘After I came home from work. Four? I go home early now, what with…’

  She’d lowered her voice, covering the bump with both hands, like she didn’t want the baby to hear and develop a prenatal anxiety problem.

  ‘Where do you work?’

  ‘In Hay. I work for my Uncle Geoff, he’s an accountant? When I get home, I’ve been going for a walk, with the dog. Get some… fresh air and exercise.’

  ‘And you went up by Mr Hambling’s house.’

  ‘Not that far. I don’t go that far. I went by the church, as far as the ole castle. The mound, earthwork jobbie? And that’s where I seen her. Standing on the mound. Really still. Like some monument.’

  ‘And this was definitely the woman you’d seen before, going to Mr Hambling’s place.’

  ‘With a cardboard box. Groceries type of thing. Bottles sticking out.’

  ‘What’s she look like?’

  ‘Tallish. Posh-looking. Fairish hair, up in a scrunch at the back. You could tell she was posh, the way she walked. Head in the air kind of thing. She had classy boots on.’

  ‘She see you?’

  ‘Dunno. Mabbe. I was a bit excited, see, so I just like turned round and walked back with the dog, and I could see this car on the church car park?’

  ‘What sort?’

  ‘Audi. Dunno what model, but it was red. Well, I hadn’t got the mobile with me, I was only out for a short walk, so I just kept saying the number over and over again so I wouldn’t forget it, and then I went home and called Tamsin. It was her day off, so she’s at home, and she said she’d come right away.’

  ‘So she took down the number.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Tell me exactly what she said.’

  ‘She said, “I’ll report it,” and then she said “I’ll come out.” And I’m like, “What do you want me to do?” And she said, “Nothing. You stay there.” She said, “I’ll ring you later.”’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just… did what she said. Nothing.’

  ‘You didn’t see the red car again? Or the woman?’

  Kelly shook her head.

  ‘You can’t see the road from our house. I’m like, Oh please don’t come down before Tamsin gets yere. In my head, kind of thing. And then when I didn’t hear anything after about an hour I thought I’d better go up there again, and there was no sign of anybody. And I waited another… don’t know how long, and I rang her mum.’ Kelly started to cry. ‘Left it too long, didn’t I?’

  ‘You’d no reason to think there was anything wrong,’ Bliss said. ‘Did you?’

  He looked back at the house. Two faces at the bright window now. He hated this. Motioned Kelly further away from the house, under a Dutch barn with a tractor and trailer in it.

  ‘Who did Tamsin say she was going to report it to?’

  ‘Just said she was gonner report it.’

  ‘Right,’ Bliss said. ‘This car number. I don’t suppose you remember it do you?’

  ‘I put it down. Soon as I got in. Put it in my phone.’

  ‘Good girl—’

  Kelly was fumbling out her smart phone.

  ‘She’s gonner be all right? Is she? It was just one… posh woman. If it’d been a bloke… but it wasn’t.’

  ‘She’s probably doing a bit of investigating, Kelly. Things she wasn’t sure she could tell you about.’

  ‘Did she not phone you?’

  Kelly’s shoulders shaking.

  ‘I’m sure she intends to,’ Bliss said. ‘She probably just… hasn’t had a chance.’

  When the duty sergeant at Gaol Street, Gerry Rowbotham, came back, they were parked in a roadside picnic place past Hardwicke Church, just before the junction. Like a courting couple, Bliss thought bitterly.

  Except for the mobile phone clamped to his left ear, the gathering anxiety.

  ‘Claudia Cornwell,’ he repeated and spelled it out, Annie writing it down. ‘And it’s Plas Gwyndwr, with a W. Near Talgarth. Thanks, Gerry. Just say the postcode again.’

  His mouth was dry and he was going numb all down his left side, to the waist. He’d been through his phone for texts, emails, anything. He’d avoided meeting Tamsin’s parents. Nothing to tell them, nothing that wouldn’t make it worse, couldn’t face the cups of cooling tea, the untouched biscuits. Plus, their situation wouldn’t be eased by watching a senior copper struggling to stay upright, blinking in the lights, slurring his words.

  ‘All right, Gerry, listen, can you ring whoever’s been at Peter-church today, find out when they last heard from Tamsin. I know it’s her day off, but somebody might know. And if she’s got any close mates in the job. But, most important, find out if she’s also done a PNC check on that reg. and when. And come back to me.’

  ‘Francis,’ Annie murmured. ‘Just report it.’

  ‘How far’s Talgarth from Hay, Gerry, ten minutes? Fifteen?’

  ‘I’m really not trying to pull rank,’ Annie said, very low and urgent, ‘but I’m saying it again. You have to report this.’

  Bliss nodded, put up his hand, then got both hands round the phone, his forehead banging inside.

  ‘Gerry, listen… this could be nothing. This could be a complete false alarm, but Tamsin Winterson’s brother rang me and they can’t find her and they can’t raise her on her mobile. She was last heard from trying to trace that car. No known offence involved, no suspicion of any offence. As I’m only about fifteen minutes away, I’m nipping over there, have a word meself.’

  ‘It’s Dyfed-Powys area, isn’t it?’ Gerry said. ‘It’s in Wales.’

  ‘No need for them to be involved. Yet. Let’s keep this low-key, might be nothing. Just call me back ASAP.’

  When he came off the phone, Annie was hissing like a punctured tyre. This really was not like the December night when they’d been working together, off the meter.

  ‘Annie, what am I supposed to friggin’ do? Nobody else knows enough to talk to this woman.’

  ‘The central issue…’ Annie slumped back hard in the driver’s seat, both hands tight on the wheel ‘… is you have a missing person. Yes, I can see a small advantage in your talking to the woman, rather than anyone else, but I can a
lso see you dropping yourself very deeply in the shit if this escalates.’

  ‘A missing woman. A missing adult. We don’t overreact any more, do we, if it’s norra kid?’

  ‘It’s a policewoman, for Christ’s sake. A very young police-woman.’

  ‘Off duty. And no reason for them to think she’s in any danger. And she’s gonna be embarrassed as hell if there’s a simple explanation, like… like she thought she was babysitting tomorrow night. Could be that simple. And she wasn’t exactly gonna report back to Kelly, was she, on police business?’

  ‘Do we even know she went to Cusop?’

  ‘Annie, we don’t even know she left the farm. Her mother was in Hereford, shopping, most of the afternoon, and her dad and her brother were out picking up a second-hand trailer. Last time they saw her was lunch.’

  Annie stared through the windscreen towards a placard in front of the hedge across the main road. It was advertising some philosophy event in Hay. It said, How The Light Gets In.

  ‘Please?’ Bliss said.

  ‘Francis, you may never be able to pay me back for this.’

  Annie started the engine, put on the headlights.

  29

  Nail bar

  ‘SLAUGHTERHOUSE AREA, SEE.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That’s what it was. Back Fold. The town abattoir. Back Fold ran with blood. Echoed to the sounds of bellowing.’

  ‘When was this?’

  Robin laid his glass down, dismayed.

  ‘I dunno,’ Gareth Nunne, the human barrel, said. ‘Within living memory, more or less. Some people’s memory. Likely my dad’s. He’s eighty-nine.’

  ‘I’m vegetarian,’ Robin said.

  There was a short, hollowed-out period of quiet and then enough laughter to blast all the glasses off the bartop. Robin found he was also laughing. Had to have been an abattoir someplace in a farmers’ town. No bookstores back then, maybe a newsagents that sold books on the side.