by Phil Rickman
‘Why didn’t whoever it was take the rest of the guns?’
‘Maybe somebody was making an example out of him. Gerrin a bit too ambitious. Lorra work to do here, Annie.’
‘Yes, well, I’ve asked for expert advice. Someone’s coming over from Hindlip.’
‘You think that’s really necessary?’
‘They do. When I’m specifically invited to request assistance I tend to comply. One final thing. His girlfriend, the person who found him…’
Bliss smiled. Last chance saloon: could it have been a simple domestic?
‘Don’t think we didn’t consider it. I got Karen to talk to her. She’s a local girl, Danielle James, twenty-two. Danni. Nice middle-class family. Dad’s a dentist. She met Jaglowski at a club. She thought he had… style.’
Bliss found a picture of Jaglowski, alive. Black hair, shaven at the sides, long and implausibly wavy on top. Wide moustache. Annie was unimpressed.
‘Looks like a Hollywood pirate. She lived with him?’
‘Quite a nice rented flat in that new block down the bottom of Bridge Street. Not cheap. Been with him about three months. He was evidently doing all right for somebody who’d been here less than a couple of years.’
‘She knew what he was into?’
‘We reckon she knew he was into something. Part of his appeal, Karen thinks. Danni was all over the place last night, lorra squealing. But then, when Karen talked to her again this morning at her parents’ place, it was all very different. Karen thought she was quite excited. Boyfriend getting gunned down? How often does that happen?’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘I blame computer games. They don’t know where reality begins. Anyway, she gave us her DNA, prints, good as gold. Let us search the flat. She could be cleverer than she seems, but Karen thinks not. We’re gonna bring her in this morning for a proper job. She might be the best we’ll get. In English anyway.’
‘Out there,’ Annie said, ‘there’s a handgun. Probably with somebody’s hand around it. And he – or she – has done it once.’
‘Done it more than once, you ask me.’
Annie looked quite unsteady. Not like somebody who’d be going upstairs in about twenty minutes to conduct the orchestra; this was someone who was afraid the concert season was only just beginning. He came round the desk, eyeing the closed door. Annie squirmed away.
‘For God’s sake…’
‘It’s only a career,’ Bliss said.
Or two. Maybe two. They’d slept last night at his house in Marden, in the flatlands beyond the city. Not quite so careful any more – what was the point now that Charlie knew? – and yet they’d still done the usual working-morning bit, him leaving alone by the front door, her departing more discreetly by the back door ten minutes later. Making their separate arrivals at Gaol Street.
‘I was quite enjoying the fog,’ Annie said. ‘Not being able to see things coming.’
Closing up her big black bag with the spiral-bound notebook inside.
‘It’ll all work out,’ Bliss said. ‘Lorra decent Poles in this city don’t like the way fellers like Jag are gerrin them a bad name. Somebody’ll get fingered before long. And if it links up to regional organized crime, like Vaynor says, they might start taking each other out for a while, till it settles down.’
Not exactly the best line to take. Various situations had settled down nicely when her old man had been head of CID, and they all knew why that was.
‘On the other hand,’ Bliss said, ‘Jag might just’ve been storing them for somebody who didn’t think he was reliable.’
She didn’t look at him. Some of the cold edge had gone from Annie and, for reasons he didn’t care to contemplate, he’d grown quite fond of that.
26
Nothing set in stone
MERRILY STOOD AT the top of the stairs and listened. It was crazy, but every time she came up here now, she felt like a fugitive, as if there was a warrant out for her and hands would grab her as soon as she went in.
She waited for about half a minute, letting her heartbeat slow. It had been routine for so long. Monday: traditionally a parish priest’s day off; for Merrily, the day she came into the Hereford Cathedral gatehouse office, Sophie’s Deliverance tower, always parking in the Bishop’s Palace yard.
Not any more. She’d dropped Jane off in town to do some shopping. Left the Freelander on the public car park down by the swimming pool and walked up to the tucked-away Cathedral under an unpromising bronze sky. An air of impermanence – builders and roadworks, charity shops, a city without focus. County-border signs carried the annoying slogan HERE YOU CAN. Can what? It just needed a cartoon of the council leader with a finger pointing at his head, going duh.
Only a keyboard softly tapping in the gatehouse office. Satisfied that it was safe, she went in.
‘You’re early,’ Sophie said.
She was wearing warm clothes, a woollen skirt and a long grey cardigan. She looked… almost lonely, Merrily thought. Like a headmistress left in a school which had shut for the long holidays.
‘A few things to do in town later, so I thought…’ Merrily stood her bag on the desk in the window. ‘Unless there’s anything come in that I don’t know about, in which case…’
‘Mr Unsworth rang, from Lang/Copper, to say the demolition of Susan Lulham’s house would be going ahead next week, so if you were available to perform, ah…’
‘A blessing for the site?’
‘I think that’s the idea.’
‘Could you tell him I’d be happy to do it before or after. Or both.’
‘I think he knows that. He just wanted to confirm the date. They’re looking at next Tuesday.’
There was a general consensus that the house should be gone before Christmas. It was overshadowing the estate and becoming the wrong kind of tourist attraction. A group of well-off neighbours had bought it between them, for demolition. The site would be landscaped, trees planted to create an amenity area.
‘According to Mr Unsworth, people keep driving up there and turning round,’ Sophie said. ‘Some of them hanging out of the windows taking photos on their phones.’
Merrily winced.
‘How do these things spread?’
‘Social media, I imagine.’
‘Mmm. In which case… could you tell Mr Unsworth I’ll call him nearer the time, but it might be best if we had the neighbours – those who want to be involved – gathered on the site just before first light. So as not to attract attention.’
Sophie nodded, sinking behind her desk to make a note. Merrily collapsed into her old chair, her back to the window overlooking Broad Street. Wondering how to approach what needed approaching.
Sophie said she’d never heard of Paul Crowden.
‘Although I’m afraid the Bishop tells me less and less. Everything on a need-to-know basis. Dictates his letters over the phone or I go over to his office in the Palace. Mostly, however, I deal with Ben Adams. As…’ Sophie frowned. ‘… does the Bishop.’
Canon Ben, the Bishop’s clerical secretary. One of a coterie of canons, usually the Dean, too, who would support Innes whatever he proposed, while the archdeacon, Siân Callaghan-Clarke, sat uneasily on the communion rail.
Not easy for Sophie, lay secretary and confidante to Hereford bishops for more than twenty years. The role of lay secretary had been effectively diminished because Innes no longer trusted her. For which Merrily felt entirely responsible.
‘I could ask Ben about Crowden,’ Sophie said.
‘No. Please don’t. Don’t chance it. Don’t give Innes anything he can use. I worry about coming in here now, in case he thinks we’re conspiring.’
Sophie rose, white hair spinning out of its loose bun.
‘Don’t you dare start limiting your visits. Essentially, nothing’s changed. The Bishop has no solid reason to believe that you know anything about his determination to downgrade deliverance. And you weren’t even here when Huw Owen… challenged him.’
<
br /> ‘But if he’s still insisting that all requests for deliverance are run past him…’
‘Requests for exorcism, major, minor or peripheral, have always passed through the Bishop’s office. Which meant me. Bishop Dunmore had no dealings with any of it unless it was brought specifically to his attention.’
‘But not any more.’
‘Nothing’s been set in stone.’ Sophie looking defiant. ‘You’re sure it was this man last night?’
‘Pretty sure. The fact that he came in after the lights had been switched off and left as soon as they went back on.’
‘You had the lights out?’
‘I was using the opening of The Cloud of Unknowing for the meditation. The sense of the soul starting its search for enlightenment in total darkness. If he wanted to make something out of that…’
Sophie sighed.
‘For what it’s worth, I do remember, some months ago, when Bernard Dunmore was still Bishop, someone writing to him to complain about the suspension of evensong in Ledwardine. Replaced by something described as too experimental for a village. More suited to an urban area with a wider range of worship.’
‘Who said that?’
‘I can’t tell you. I only learned about it because Bernard dictated a reply in which he said – more or less – that he found it rather patronizing to suggest that a Ledwardine congregation was unsophisticated. A second, less rational letter expressed the fear that the use of eastern practices—’
‘What?’
‘—might open up the congregation to undesirable influences. I didn’t tell you about these, Merrily, because all bishops receive this kind of mail. Anyway, meditation is being used increasingly in churches. Probably also using non-Biblical texts as a basis.’
‘These complaints – Innes would have access to that kind of history?’
‘It’s possible.’
Merrily smiled.
‘Just after Crowden came in – although I didn’t know it was him at the time – I invited everyone to inhale the darkness. What’s that sound like as supporting evidence against someone suspected of intimacy with the allegedly satanic Bishop Hunter?’
‘Far too clumsy.’
‘Actually, I’m not sure it is.’
Paul’s not the subtlest of implements, is he? Abbie Folley had said. But then Huw Owen hadn’t been subtle either in the way he’d got Innes, temporarily at least, off her back. Only four of them knew what had happened on an autumn morning in the gatehouse office. Huw and Sophie were watertight and Innes surely would not talk about it, for reasons of face-saving, although it struck her now that he might think she and Huw would not be discreet, that what had happened might be a running joke.
‘Can’t go on like this, Sophie.’
‘No. I suppose you can’t.’
‘Should I ask for a meeting with Innes? Have it out with him?’
‘Not the way you’re feeling now. I’ll see what I can discover.’
‘Thank you, but don’t, you know, break cover. Don’t let him think there’s collusion.’
‘Merrily, he knows there’s collusion.’ Sophie slipped back into her chair. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’
‘Bit of background, perhaps. Kilpeck. Part of the Ewyas Harold group?’
‘Along with Dore Abbey and a few neighbouring parishes.’
‘And the minister there is Julie…?’
‘Duxbury. Arrived just over six months ago from South Gloucestershire, where she and her husband were both priests. Sadly, he died suddenly and she wanted a new start. Not quite new, as it turns out. They had a holiday cottage near Ewyas Harold and when the parishes became vacant some sort of deal was struck with the diocese to have it as the rectory.’
Sophie turned away to fill the kettle. She wouldn’t directly ask why Merrily wanted to know about the priest in charge of Kilpeck, though she would expect to be told, eventually. This really wasn’t the time for the full story.
‘A man I buried last week – Aidan Lloyd – was born in Kilpeck.’
‘The accident victim?’
‘A friend of his came to church yesterday. Bereavement apparition. I’ve not been asked to do anything about it, so it doesn’t need to go on the database. I just want to keep an eye on it. Maybe find out a bit about Aidan Lloyd’s life before Ledwardine.’
‘Mrs Duxbury’s only been there since the spring. Although, if what I’m told is accurate, I’m sure she’d be eager to help. She’s… enthusiastic. A people person. Worked in social services in the London area. Then, briefly, a Labour councillor.’
‘Perhaps I’ll call her before I leave. If she’s in.’
Sophie peered over her chained glasses.
‘The person you talked to – is she from Kilpeck?’
‘No, no, she’s here in Hereford. She’s an educated professional woman, and she’s very cool, very balanced. But I think… however you want to look at this, I think she’s dealing with what you might call a powerful presence in her life.’
‘Might this involve psychiatric input?’
‘If it did, she’d know exactly how to get it.’ Merrily picked up the phone. ‘Have you got Julie Duxbury’s number there?’
27
Being friendly
KAREN DOWELL HAD brought coffee and chocolate bickies into the interview room. Not quite Starbucks. Bit of cosy and a bit of edge, putting out conflicting messages.
Nice Karen, to start off with. Big sister Karen.
‘Danni, we’ve talked to you about the last time you saw Wictor’ – Danni James shuddered – ‘alive,’ Karen said. ‘Now I’d like to go back a bit.’
‘Jag,’ Danni said. ‘He liked to be called Jag.’
Bliss and Vaynor were watching on the telly up in CID. Maybe Danni had guessed they were there; everybody must’ve seen a reality TV cop show. If only they knew how often the system broke down.
Danni, dark hair, small but pulpy lips, was wearing a short purple leather jacket to match the gemstone in her nose. She seemed well up for the experience, taking in what few features the interview room possessed, eyeing the recording equipment.
‘Don’t worry, I’m not recording this,’ Karen said. ‘Just trying to establish some background.’
‘I wasn’t worried.’
Danni had a querulous little-girl voice. She’d probably still have it when she was an old woman, Bliss thought, as Karen asked her how she’d got involved with Jaglowski.
Deliberate use of the word involved, provoking the first small sign of alarm.
‘My dad said if I needed a lawyer—’
‘I’d tell you if you needed a lawyer, Danni. I have to.’
Karen in a dark grey woollen top with a pink silk scarf, poshed-up for the murder room. She got Danni talking about her few months with Jag. The weekend in Paris they’d had, staying at his mate’s apartment. He seemed to have mates all over Europe. Karen tried for an address for the Paris flat, but Danni was hazy on street names.
‘I was just, like, shopping in the daytime, and then we went to some clubs at night? He talked to people in French. I think it was better than his English.’
Cosmopolitan playboy? Bliss thought of the concrete garage on the Rotherwas, the array of bangers on the forecourt.
‘—wasn’t working for him or anything,’ Danni was saying. ‘He had an accountant and a woman in the office for all that. As well as the two mechanics.’
Danni was like between jobs. She’d been a receptionist at the Green Dragon; not clear why she’d left.
‘Danni,’ Karen said very softly, ‘I should tell you that we’ve found evidence which, if Jag was still alive, could have put him in prison for several years. Do you know what I’m talking about?’
There was to be no mention of the Makarovs in the inspection pit unless Danni revealed some knowledge of them.
She was shaking her head, rapidly.
‘No. No, really, I don’t know anything about whatever it is. He never talked about his business.
’
‘What did you think his business was, then?’
‘Cars? He was getting me a top-of-the-range Cooper.’
‘Nothing exactly top-of-the-range on his forecourt,’ Bliss said to Vaynor.
‘What about his friends?’ Karen said. ‘Did you meet his friends?’
‘Some of them. They were OK. Nice. Fun. Some of them.’
‘Men? Women?’
‘Both. Mainly men.’
‘You recall any names?’
‘Yeah. I think. One of them runs a bar in town. Thomas? That’s spelt in Polish. Probably with Zs everywhere.’
‘Were they all Polish, his friends?’
‘Dunno, they always spoke English in front of me. I don’t really know a Polish accent from whatever, but they were always really, you know, polite. Like, you could tell it was hard for some of them, speaking English, but they did their best when I was there.’
‘Just like I’m sure they all will when we talk to them,’ Bliss said.
He watched Karen bringing out a fresh pad and a pen, sliding them to the middle of the table.
‘Danni, I’m going to ask you to write down for me as many names as you can remember.’
‘They’re all Polish!’
‘Write it down phonetically. How they sounded. We’ll work it out. But we’ll leave that for now. What about his brother? Lech.’
‘Well he’s away.’
‘He’s in prison, Danni.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you know why he’s in prison?’
‘Cigarette smuggling, that’s all. It was like a really stiff sentence? Especially when all he was doing was trying to help some friends.’
‘Mother of God,’ Bliss murmured. ‘There were friggin’ vanloads.’
‘Close, were they, Lech and Jag?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Danni, did Wictor… Jag ever give the impression he might have enemies?’
‘Not really. I only ever met his mates. He had good locks on the front door. Well, you’ve seen— But he had a lot of valuable kit in there – home cinema? But like he wasn’t always looking over his shoulder and stuff. He kept saying what a great place to live Hereford was, and how he was going to buy a house in the country? He loved it here. He was having a good time. We went out a lot.’
