The Secrets of Pain mw-11

by Phil Rickman

The sun had gone in. Jane slid out of the Porsche, zipping up her jacket, beginning not to like this again. It had taken them a long time to get here, as if Cornel had been stalling. They’d walked around Leominster and he’d kept wanting to buy her things, like she was his girlfriend now, and she’d kept refusing, while feeling a bit sorry for him. And then they’d gone into a pub, where she’d had one cider and he’d swallowed two pints of bitter, which would probably put him over the limit. He didn’t appear to care.

  Now he was around the back of the Porsche, opening up the boot, pulling out a leather bag and a bulked-out rucksack, lugging them back to the van.

  ‘Get in.’

  ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Just get in, eh, Jane? This is necessary.’

  It was dark inside the van, which smelled of oil and rust. Cornel clanged the clutch pulling out into the lane. Jane fastened her seat belt. The strap was frayed and flaked with mud.

  ‘That guy seemed to know you.’

  ‘That’s because I’ve hired this heap a couple of times before.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Because a Porsche can be a bit obvious?’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  Jane supposed it would, at a cockfight.

  ‘So we’re going there now?’

  ‘Wait till dark.’

  ‘But…’ Oh God. ‘You mean we’re actually going to a…?’

  ‘That bother you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Thought you wanted evidence.’

  ‘Erm…’

  OK, nailing Savitch would be the best thing she’d ever done in her life. And there might be a few other people there she could identify, maybe even sneak some pictures of them on the mobile, shot from the hip. But what if anybody recognized her? No secret in Ledwardine where she stood on these issues.

  Jane watched Cornel wrestling with the steering. He was driving without a seat belt. She’d felt sorry for him a couple of times and, OK, she was grateful that he was actually going to help her, but that didn’t mean she could actually like him. There were two sides to him: the ruthless and the kind of weak. And he’d done things, obviously. He’d shot things without a thought, and he’d been to a cockfight and wanted to eat a cock because he’d lost money on it.

  ‘How do you get on these courses, anyway?’

  ‘Sponsored by your firm. I was the first from my bank, as it happened. Heard about it on the grapevine.’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘How some other guys were so impressed that they kept coming back for more. You could see the effects, somehow. In their attitude. Well, not only that. Some guys, it was almost awesome, the difference.’

  ‘So you got to come back?’

  The van went rattling onto the main road, its suspension creaking. When Jane looked at Cornel to see why he wasn’t answering his face seemed to have darkened.

  ‘Lot of envy in my business, Jane. People whisper lies, and get believed. People who didn’t want you going all the way.’

  ‘All the way?’

  ‘Because you just might go further than them, and that would never do because they went to Eton and you struggled through the system. And so the knife goes in.’

  ‘Dead,’ Carly said. ‘He’s, like, “She’s dead.”’

  ‘This is the man?’ Bliss leaned across the table. ‘The man with Victoria?’

  ‘And then he’s, like, “All I done was push her.” And then Victoria, she’s a bit annoyed, she goes, “Oh, she fell on a kerb.”’

  ‘Kerb?’

  ‘Kerbstone. That’s what she said. She says, “Oh, she must’ve got a head like a…”’ Carly jerked back, her raven’s wing of hair flying up. ‘I can’t do this…’

  Bliss said, ‘Head like a…?’

  ‘…eggshell.’ Carly twisted away. ‘And then she goes, “You’re f-” Can’t we do it later? Tomorrow? I might be able to remember better. I’m all-’

  ‘Carly,’ Bliss said. ‘I want you to tell me precisely what Victoria said. The words exactly as you remember them.’

  ‘She says, “You’re fucking right. She’s passed away.”’

  Something penetrated Bliss’s spine. He leaned across the table.

  ‘She used those actual words? “Passed away?”’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And what did the other one say? The other sister?’

  ‘I don’t reckon she understood what they was on about. Then there was like a bit of a… like a scuffle? And then, like, Victoria…’ Carly grabbed Mr Nye’s arm. ‘I can’t say this stuff. Tell him I can’t do this. Tell him.’

  ‘You’ll note my client’s level of distress, Inspector. This was quite evidently something so abhorrent to her that she could hardly believe it was happening.’

  ‘Point taken, Mr Nye. For the moment. Carly, what did Victoria say next?’

  ‘I won’t have to see her again, will I?’

  ‘I’m guessing not for many years, if at all,’ Bliss said softly. ‘If you tell us the truth.’

  ‘I can’t go to prison.’ Carly’s cheeks all zebra-striped with damp mascara. ‘You gotter promise me I won’t go to no prison.’

  ‘Out of my hands, Carly. I mean, you know, sometimes I get listened to. But you’d have to get me on your side first, and you’ve gorra long way to go before-’

  ‘Where’s my mum? Did you call my mum?’

  ‘Carly, you refused to have your mum in with you.’

  ‘Well, now I want her.’

  Bliss thought about his own kids, how they might turn out after exposure to the influence of a rich, cocky farmer with hunting skills. Carly must’ve seen the darkening of his face. She seemed to throb.

  ‘Gonner be sick.’

  Bliss didn’t move.

  ‘What did Victoria say, after she noticed the lady had passed away ? Come on, Carly.’

  Carly sniffed hard, eyes filling up.

  ‘What did Victoria say, Carly?’

  Carly leaned back in her chair, face shining with teary snot.

  ‘“That’s…” She said, “that’s a bugger.” Then she said, “We’re… gonner have to do the other one now.”’

  Bliss watched Karen Dowell’s lips forming a distinct o.

  ‘I think this might be a good time to take a break, Inspector,’ Mr Nye said.

  62

  Blood Sugar

  Should have seen this coming, from the first tap of James Bull-Davies’s umbrella on the vicarage door. In this job, looking stupid was part of the package.

  It was a rectangular room with pale yellow walls and a row of windows overlooking the east city. William Lockley accepted the padded chair at the top of the conference table. He wore a crumpled grey suit and a grey woollen tie, and his moustache screened his lips. An air of wariness. If Lockley looked less than comfortable, maybe that was something to do with women. Things you could discuss with them, things you couldn’t.

  And then there was Annie Howe, putting down her briefcase, taking the chair opposite Merrily, who was trying not to stare.

  No rimless glasses, longer hair, hoop earrings. A soft, stripy woollen sweater. Soft? Stripy? You’d almost think there was a man in the background.

  ‘We’re here because Ms Watkins seems to have convinced Mr Lockley that I should be considering a possible connection between the death, due to heart failure, of Samuel Dennis Spicer, chaplain to the Special Air Service… and the murder of Mansel Bull. Is that correct?’

  As if she was addressing a fourth person at the table. At least the voice hadn’t changed. Still crunching ice cubes.

  ‘And the link,’ Howe said, ‘would appear to be a third man, Colin Jones. A man in whom Mr Lockley’s people seem to have been interested for a while.’

  ‘Been felt…’ Lockley cleared his throat ‘… that an eye should be kept on him, yes.’

  ‘Although nothing was conveyed to us. Until now, when it might just be getting embarrassing.’

  ‘Nothing to say until now, Annie.’

>   Howe leaned back, arms folded, a posture reflecting decades of resentment between the police and soft-shoed spooks who wrote their own rules.

  ‘Who exactly did you have keeping an eye on Jones, Mr Lockley?’

  ‘People we trust, mostly ex-army. And it’s been very low-key. For example, we once booked a chap into a tourism course that Jones’s ex-wife was attending. Which was quite productive.’

  Merrily sat up. Those old contracting walls. Garrison Ledwardine.

  Annie Howe bent to her briefcase and slid out a laptop, which she opened up on the table.

  ‘And there’s another man, in whom we ’ve had a mild interest over the years – Kenneth Mostyn, Jones’s business partner. Since establishing Hardkit he’s been suspected of selling imported surveillance equipment – illegal at the time, though nowadays there’s not much you can’t obtain through the Internet.’

  ‘Mostyn’s very much a type,’ Lockley said. ‘More common in the US, where you find whole communities of them in cabins in the wilds, living out their fantasies of the collapse of civilization. Every man for himself, usually armed to the teeth.’

  ‘He certainly sells a range of shotguns. How he became involved with Jones… can you throw some light there?’

  ‘Simply convenient for them both. Mostyn had a side enterprise running adventure holidays – canoeing, rock climbing – but it didn’t have the glamour that an SAS connection confers. The joint enterprise operates under a rather enticing cloak of secrecy – students brought in at night, sometimes blindfolded, or driven around to disorient them. Quite soon, through word of mouth, it became, you know, the thing to do. If you could afford it.’

  ‘And perhaps we should also mention Ward Savitch.’

  ‘Chap running champagne shooting weekends for corporate clients. High-level contacts in the City – venerable financial institutions putting their executives into an intensive course designed to make them leaner and fitter. Especially useful – and this is the ingenious part – after the recession and the huge backlash against the financial sector, particularly banks and bankers. The old killer instinct shrivelling under the public spotlight.’

  ‘So the idea,’ Howe said, ‘is to get them believing in themselves again.’

  ‘And not only in themselves.’ Lockley looked at Merrily. ‘Apparently.’

  Merrily felt small and unprepared, like when you arrived in an exam room and your mind had been wiped.

  Sometimes, when she looked up, the room would blur. Forgotten how tired she was. God knew what she must look like. She fingered the bulge of the cigarette packet through the fabric of her bag.

  ‘Some of this is going to sound a bit… loony.’

  ‘I’d expect nothing less from you, Ms Watkins,’ Annie Howe said. Then lifted a placating palm. ‘I apologize. Go on.’

  ‘Building a case against people… not what I do, obviously. All I can give you is possibly enough background to shape some questions. Essentially, Mr Jones follows a pagan religion adopted by the Roman invaders of Britain two thousand years ago. A soldiers’ religion, which-’

  There was a tapping and a very tall young guy put his head around the door to say that, down in the canteen, Mr Jones was getting a little restive, making noises about having to attend a dinner.

  ‘What do you want me to do, ma’am?’

  Annie Howe lifted a finger.

  ‘Perhaps I should have reminded you both that Colin Jones came in this afternoon in connection with last night’s break-in at his premises. He’s downstairs and apparently happy to answer any questions we might have for him.’

  ‘Rather interesting in itself, that,’ Lockley said. ‘I’m guessing you wouldn’t normally expect a man who’s had a minor break-in to visit the police station just to say he doesn’t want to press charges.’

  ‘Well… says he was coming into town anyway, but my guess would be that he was disconcerted to find quite a large police presence in his backyard last night.’ Annie Howe turned to Lockley. ‘Get him up?’

  ‘He knows what you want to talk to him about.’

  ‘He knows it’s about Spicer.’ Howe looked at Merrily. ‘Looks like you get to ask the questions yourself, Ms Watkins.’

  Were those contact lenses magnifying an old malice, or what?

  The mouthy ones like Carly, he could enjoy the scrap, so Bliss had left Joss to Karen and Darth. Never been as good with the deep and the silent. Karen had more patience, and she was local and so was Darth. They’d get there. Good as cracked, really.

  Bliss sat on his own in a corner of the CID room. All falling into place, who’d done what: one sister killed accidentally, the second purely to keep the lid on it. In cold blood, pitiless. Head repeatedly banged on the bricks until she died. In Hereford. Made you shiver. Who’d suddenly cranked up the violence level in this county?

  The sexual assault? Probably an afterthought, to make it look like a rapist attack, but who could say? Who was the bloke, how much of it was down to him? It would doubtless come out, when they brought Victoria Buckland in. Which, in theory, should not be difficult. But then, in theory, they should’ve had her already.

  Bliss stood up and went to the window. The end of the rush hour, brake lights like snail trails under the purple sky. Maundy Thursday was always purple, Good Friday black. No matter how lapsed a Catholic you were, Good Friday would always be black.

  A black Easter, too, this year, in both his professional and private lives. He might leave the city, find a copper’s job on the other side of the country, but there would still be loose ends here, one of them forever sticking out like a fuse awaiting a lighted match.

  His kids. The worst of all scenarios was his kids being brought up by hunt hero Sollers Bull.

  Bliss wanted to smash a metal chair into the toughened glass, shatter the skyline.

  And there was Annie. Images of Annie, his mind filling with one every few minutes. Tousled hair and a stripy sweater. A shadowy areola under a white nightdress.

  The longer he left it, the harder it would be to tell her that he – a copper – hadn’t known about Kirsty and Sollers Bull. Too late now. Maybe he’d write her a letter one day, from a bedsit in Gloucester or Swindon or wherever he wound up.

  Bliss stood at the window, watching homebound traffic. Couldn’t see himself going home tonight, not with Buckland out there.

  He was no longer tired, anyway; his body was burning with blood sugar.

  Here came the footsteps on the stairs. Light and unhurried.

  Here was a man who kept quiet as a comrade plunged to his death in the Brecon Beacons. Here was a man who calmly dismantled his marriage. Here was a man who raped his friend’s wife in the grounds of a hotel in Buckinghamshire and then said goodnight.

  ‘Mr Jones, ma’am,’ the tall detective said.

  William Lockley did the introductions. Knowing him from the old days, brothers in arms, all that.

  ‘Byron, this is Detective Chief Inspector Howe. Senior Investigating Officer in the Mansel Bull murder case.’

  Byron Jones nodded. He wore a dark suit and a mid-blue silk tie to match his eyes. He was guided to the foot of the table, facing the door. The optimum no-threat comfort seat, Merrily thought, as Lockley moved to sit opposite her, next to Byron.

  ‘And this is Mrs Merrily Watkins,’ Lockley said, ‘whom I think we could describe as an investigator with the Hereford Diocese.’

  ‘Really.’ Byron turned his bright blue eyes briefly on Merrily. ‘What does the Diocese investigate?’

  ‘Overdue books from the Chained Library,’ Merrily said. ‘That kind of thing.’

  Byron didn’t smile, by then looking away. He was not what she’d expected. But then, what had she expected? Cropped hair, multiple scars?

  ‘Byron,’ Lockley said, ‘I think I should say at this point that this is just a discussion… a chat. Without prejudice. It will not be recorded, it will not be used in evidence. This began as a routine police inquiry, which seems to have crossed over into our ter
ritory, and, frankly, we’re all a bit confused and hoping you can help us.’

  Merrily wondered if this sounded as phoney and patronizing to Byron as it did to her. Byron said nothing.

  ‘As you know,’ Lockley said, ‘the Regiment lost its new chaplain this week. You’ll also know the circumstances. And that it was a bit of a shock for all of us who knew Syd.’

  ‘Myself included,’ Byron said.

  ‘Though none of us, I’d guess, knew him quite as well as you did, Byron.’

  ‘He was a mate.’

  ‘But not recently.’

  ‘No. Not recently.’

  Another knock on the door. Two uniformed male cops came in, ostensibly with coffee, but possibly, Merrily was thinking, to familiarize themselves with the layout and seating positions of the people in the room. It had been William Lockley’s idea that they should place Byron Jones near the door, where you’d never seat a suspect.

  Annie Howe took the chair next to Merrily, opposite the two men. The first lights were coming on in the city below them. You could see the greying steeple of St Peter’s, where the late Frank Collins had been a curate.

  Byron shook his head at Annie Howe’s offer of sugar for his coffee, turned to William Lockley.

  ‘Is there any suggestion that Syd’s death was suspicious?’

  Before Lockley could reply, Howe said quickly that nothing had been ruled out, and Byron appraised her, thoughtful.

  ‘You think somebody might have killed him, Chief Inspector?’

  ‘We’re still examining the evidence.’

  ‘Or did he kill himself?’

  Merrily said, ‘If he had killed himself, would that be a surprise to you, Mr Jones?’

  Byron looked at her properly for the first time, and she felt able to study him. Older than she’d imagined. Older than Syd, although Syd had been the first to retire so he actually might be a little younger. He looked like… maybe like a cathedral canon, ascetically lean, with thick white hair. He looked… above all, he looked calm and distinguished.

  ‘Suicide’s hardly unprecedented among men who served in my former regiment,’ Byron said. ‘Post-traumatic stress disorder is far from fully understood.’