by Phil Rickman
Merrily looked up at the church, remembering its response to the sunset.
‘I should take a look at the corbels before I—’
‘No. Please don’t. Go up in the daytime. It’s… not terribly safe.’
‘The masonry?’
‘Nothing wrong with it. Could’ve been built yesterday. That’s remarkable, isn’t it? The castle in ruins, village gone, church as good as new.’
Julie got back into the car.
‘You really don’t like it, do you?’ Merrily said.
A cluster of ancient churches in her care, including Dore Abbey, lofty, rambling and far less well preserved.
‘I did like it. I ought to like it.’
It was just over eight miles to Hereford. Merrily drove into the lights, up past the Plascarreg estate where the drug dealers hung out, and all the time Lara Brewer’s voice kept coming back to her, what she’d said about Aidan Lloyd.
Gareth always said he belonged here.
Kilpeck. She joined the traffic crossing Greyfriars Bridge over the River Wye, the Cathedral on her right, through the traffic lights and into the concrete canyon that Jane called Death Valley. She drove slowly, her mobile phone open on the passenger seat, switched on.
Had they come that night, the Kilpeck Morris, to bring Aidan Lloyd home? In a manner of speaking.
With the heater still gasping, she drove slowly through the security-lit trading estates which not so long ago had been open fields. Thinking about Paul Crowden and his insistence that investigation wasn’t part of an exorcist’s job. Let God take care of all that and accept your role as his device. Presumably, Crowden would also urge Julie Duxbury not to interfere in the feud between the Kilpeck benefactor, Sir Lionel Darvill, and his bête noire Iestyn Lloyd, Ledwardine’s biggest farmer whose ground arrowed into the churchyard and who hadn’t put a penny into the parish. Iestyn. Last seen on the edge of Aidan’s grave, muttering, Devil took—
Something occurred to her, with a small mental explosion, just as she cleared the last of the city lights and the mobile barked on the passenger seat.
With its famous disinterest in tourism, Herefordshire Council didn’t provide much in the way of lay-bys and picnic places. She had to go off-road to take the call, the Freelander up into the verge, hazard warning lights on, the mobile on speaker.
‘Things have moved on,’ Lara Brewer said. ‘I told him you were ready to come out here. He said that wasn’t going to happen. Not in front of the kids.’
‘What had you said to him?’
‘Asked him what they’d done. Left the kids in front of the TV and took him into the kitchen and asked him what they’d done in Ledwardine. I had the strong impression that you know exactly what they did. You wouldn’t’ve come over here so quickly, otherwise.’
An old Land Rover went rattling past, dangerously close.
Merrily said, ‘I admit there are some things I couldn’t talk about. Other people were affected.’
‘These aspects – would they have made me feel better?’
Lara’s brittle laughter was like the snapping of twigs. Merrily sat back, firing up the vape stick.
‘What did your husband say when you asked him what they’d done in Ledwardine?’
‘He asked me what you’d said. I told him everything, but we were still going round in circles. Look, they’ve been changed, these men. They’ll do things for Darvill now, without questioning much. Things that might seem completely crazy to you.’
‘Try me.’
‘I’ve said too much already. I’m not from round here, which is pretty obvious to everybody, and if you’re not from a place, as they say, you keep your nose out, don’t you?’
‘While keeping your ears open.’
‘And your mouth shut. If I were to say I think Darvill’s mad, that would be too easy. Look, the reason I’m ringing, I’d had enough, I got angry. As I said, I don’t really know what I believe, but it seemed to me that you needed to talk to each other without delay. I told him that if we had another sleepless night I might just start being less discreet. But if it’s not convenient I’ll call him on his mobile.’
‘Sorry?’
‘He’s coming to you. To Ledwardine.’
‘When?’
‘He’s on his way. Left about five minutes ago. I can call him—’
‘No. Don’t do that.’ She took a hit on the vape stick. ‘He knows where it is, the vicarage?’
‘He’s going to your church. He’s been there before.’
‘Yes.’
‘This is… none of it’s normal, is it? I just want it sorted, and better it’s dealt with by someone like you than…’
The police?
‘Lara…’ She stared into the white vapour clouding the cab. ‘He’s coming alone, presumably?’
‘Of course.’
‘So nobody else knows…’
‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t like to say. I never thought about that. The KM, I suppose he could’ve rung any of them from the van.’
‘Or Darvill.’
Silence.
‘He might’ve felt obliged to tell Darvill what he was doing?’
‘In which case…’ Lara sighed. ‘While he left the house saying he was going over to Ledwardine, that doesn’t mean he’ll arrive.’
She rang Jane, told her something had come up that may or may not take over the night.
‘Good luck,’ Jane said soberly. ‘Seriously.’
A couple of miles from home, coming off the bypass, the headlights found a commercial sign for Churchwood Farm. It had a streamer urging passing motorists to buy the best of British meat.
You didn’t have to live on the Welsh border very long to know that feuds in these parts were like guerrilla warfare and could go on for generations until the reasons for them had been almost forgotten, leaving only enmity set like concrete. And periodic collateral damage. Usually, they were between neighbouring farmers, but what was twenty miles on the Welsh border?
A snatch of voice came through to her, three more words, the most she’d ever heard from the man in the overcoat, under the blood-blister sun, looking down into an open grave into which he’d thrown no earth.
Devil took him.
Small mental explosion.
This time it came out as Darvill took him.
35
Catching murderers
ANNIE HAD BEEN waiting for Bliss at his semi in Marden, curtains drawn, one small table lamp casting morose light and sullen shadows over the sparse sitting-room furnishings.
She’d arranged his mail in a pile on the coffee table, the one with the familiar crest uppermost. She nodded to it.
‘Do you want to get that out of the way first?’
‘Christmas card come early,’ Bliss said.
‘It looks like your solicitor.’
‘I know. The bastard.’
‘Your solicitor?’
‘They’re all bastards.’
He ripped it open to the familiar fold of headed notepaper. Left it folded on the table and sank into an armchair.
‘Hadn’t you better read it?’
‘Whatever it is, it won’t be the worst news I’ve had today.’
He picked it up, a poison-pen letter from Kirsty’s lawyer, filtered through his own brief. You never realized, when the end of a marriage left a hole in your life, how much shit was going to fill it. Bliss’s chest was already tightening. There’d been a few weeks’ silence from the Kirsty camp, which was ominous.
He read it. Quite a long letter, as usual, but the message was simpler than most.
‘She wants the house, Annie.’
‘Why?’
‘Because her lawyer thinks it’s worth a punt, I imagine.’
Kirsty’s old man’s farmhouse had about six bedrooms and holiday accommodation. But Kirsty was only living there officially. Her boyfriend, Sollers Bull, had his own farmhouse.
‘After she gets me out, she and the kids’ll move in for a while, for the sa
ke of appearances. Then she’ll flog it or let it and take up residence with Sollers.’
The Sollers Bull who, in Bliss’s informed opinion, had got away with murder, but he was too wound up already to start thinking about that now.
‘Surely if she eventually moves in with somebody else,’ Annie said, ‘and sells your house, then you’re entitled to something. I’m not an expert on this kind of law.’
‘Nor me.’
‘But she wants… all of it?’
‘No, she’s leaving me the shed.’ Bliss threw down the letter. ‘Of course all of it. She’s got kids to accommodate.’ He picked up the envelope, stuffed the letter back inside and shoved it at the bottom of the pile below four Christmas catalogues aimed at Kirsty and the kids. ‘Now I’ll give you the bad news.’
Maybe it was fate, all this happening at the same time. Karma. Although he couldn’t see exactly what was coming back at him. Never thought of himself as a friggin’ saint, but when seriously bad people like Sollers Bull and Charlie Howe were waving down at him…
‘All right, look,’ Annie said, ‘I’m clutching at the last straw here, but if Lech Jaglowski didn’t specifically name Charlie, is it possible he was talking about somebody else? Or that it’s not quite what it looks like.’
‘I don’t know what it looks like. On which basis, unless you have any objections, I’d like to drive over to Hewell tomorrow, with Vaynor, and talk to the feller meself. Thing is, even if he didn’t gerrit done – and I’m still not convinced about that – Lech still looks like the quickest way to Jag’s killer.’
‘And you get to ask him about Charlie.’
‘Would you rather do it?’
‘God, no. He scares me. Still. Can you believe that, my own father? Even as a teenager, when my friends were making fun of their parents, at how out-of-touch with everything they were, I never could join in. My dad was a big powerful man, in a glamorous job. He’d caught murderers. He had his picture in the papers. He was on TV for catching murderers.’
‘One of his phrases. “I’m known for catching murderers, Brother Bliss.” He liked saying that. Always murderers.’
‘Francis, I know exactly what you’re going to say next, and—’
‘What?’
‘Something to do with murder being one of the few crimes he didn’t commit during his period in charge of Hereford CID.’
‘As far as we know,’ Bliss said.
‘Stop it.’
‘What’s he doing, Annie? What’s he friggin’ doing?’
‘All right.’ Annie sat down on a hard dining chair on the other side of the coffee table. ‘Let’s start by establishing what he isn’t doing. I think it’s reasonable to assume that Charlie isn’t terribly interested in helping economic migrants who’ve arrived in this country with insufficient knowledge of the minefield that is British criminal law. What else did he have to say?’
‘He wanted to know all about Jag’s business. He told Lech that he was horrified generally at the way the Brits treated migrant workers. Exploitation.’
‘Continues to make no sense. What’s he after?’
‘A powerful job. For which even I would acknowledge he’d be more qualified than most of the twats who apply, if he wasn’t bent. But in order to get elected, he needs to get himself better known throughout the whole police area. What’s his strong points? Thief-taking. Catching murderers. Old-style policing. That’s what the people want. Old-style bobbies in smart uniforms and tall hats, one on every corner. And smart detectives to follow their hunches and catch the bad guys. By fair means or foul. He thinks people like that.’
‘They like maverick cops,’ Annie said, ‘because they don’t understand what being a maverick actually means.’
Bliss leaned back and looked at Annie, whose face was severe in the bilious light, who could never be a maverick, who’d protected herself against it, like a disease, but had never been admired for that, let alone inspired affection the way Charlie had over the years.
He looked down at the envelope. This wasn’t exactly going to turn him into a rough sleeper in search of a hostel, but it was a slippery slope. There wasn’t room for him in Annie’s dinky flat at Malvern, even if they dared be seen cohabiting – not a career-builder even without the Charlie factor. Another signal to leave Hereford, sooner rather than later. He could contest it, of course. His lawyer against Kirsty’s lawyer. His dithering bank balance against Kirsty’s dad’s millions and Sollers Bull’s millions.
And they all had links with Charlie, not least from the days when Provincial Grand Master was a firm stepping stone to Chief Superintendent.
Bliss stood up and went to stand behind Annie’s chair.
‘You know what I think? I think he wants to solve a crime.’
She looked up at him.
‘To be seen to solve a crime?’
‘Yeh, yeh. A big crime. Solved in the old-fashioned way by an old-fashioned copper.’
‘He knows who killed Jaglowski?’
‘Possibly. Now, if he’s particularly interested in Jag’s link to the farmer’s death, what’s that suggest? An incompetent, unqualified driver in one of Jag’s vans. How would the lad’s family feel about that?’
‘They wouldn’t know, would they?’
‘They would if Charlie told them.’
‘And then, with the actual driver out of the picture, one of them goes and kills Jaglowski? With a gun?’
Bliss thought about it for all of a couple of seconds.
‘You’re right. That would be beyond insanity. I’m overtired and stressed out and talking bollocks. I’ve gorra stop obsessing about this.’
36
Man of Leaves
EDGING ALONG THE village square towards the church, under a clear and frigid sky, Merrily sensed new frost forming beneath her boots. As she moved under the lychgate, a diesel engine sounded behind her and she turned to see a green van on the square, reversing into a space beside the oak-pillared market hall.
Only one man got out. She didn’t wait for him, hurried through the gate to the porch without even a glance towards the graveyard, pulling the ring of big keys from her bag.
Inside the church, she reached up and switched on the lower lights and waited in the shadows by the font, with the great oak door ajar, until his footsteps stopped outside.
‘Come in.’
He slid in through the gap. A thock of the wooden latch as he closed the door behind him, stood there breathing hard and slow, as if steadying himself for an ordeal, each breath borne aloft by the acoustics.
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘Mr Brewer.’
‘Gareth, it is. Garry. Whatever.’
‘Erm, as it’s not going to be all that warm in here we could go to the vicarage. It’ll be quite—’
‘No, no, I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.’
She didn’t recognize him from the funeral. In the muted light, his face was…well, gaunt. The first word that occurred to her, worn and ravaged not far behind. He would have been good-looking, maybe a week ago. He wore this patched and battered Barbour and didn’t take it off but removed his black beanie. His hair was dark and curly, some rolls of grey. Not yet forty and ageing by the minute.
‘Don’t have to tell anybody about this, do you?’
‘One woman at the diocese, that’s all. That’s as far as it need go.’
She slipped off her coat and draped it over a pew end. The background heating was on, but not so you’d notice. She didn’t mind. She felt safe here, spiritually and physically, knew its smells, the sharp musk conditioned by centuries of applewood-burning in the village.
She left the main door unlocked for now. The chances of anyone else coming in on a winter’s night were remote. Gareth Brewer stood at the foot of the nave, under the closed eyes of the night-time stained glass windows, his shadow on the wall behind the font.
From an inside pocket, he brought out a mobile phone, its face dark.
‘Would you min
d?’
‘No. Please.’
The phone blinked into life. He looked at it for a few seconds and then held it up.
‘Four missed calls. One from my wife. The other three all the same.’
‘Darvill?’
He nodded and switched off the phone.
‘He en’t gonner like this. That’s a foregone. Tried to ring him, see. Felt I owed him that much, but it was his answering machine. Left him a message, saying I couldn’t stand n’more and I’d been offered some help and I was gonner take it. Then I switched the phone off.’ He pocketed the phone. ‘I need to ask,’ he said. ‘How did you know?’
‘About Aidan’s grave?’ Better keep this vague. ‘It’s a big village, but a village is a village. We heard you’d all stayed the night at the Ox. Most of the night, anyway.’
He shook slightly. She thought his shadow shook.
‘My daughter woke me up in the early hours after the funeral to tell me something was happening in the churchyard. Which is next to our house. So we went out there.’
‘You did? You yourself?’
‘Nobody else to do it.’
‘We never seen anybody.’
‘We didn’t hang around for long. Jane had gone over on an ankle, and she was in some pain so we had to get home. I expect you were too… absorbed in what you were doing.’
Despite the cold, she saw sweat on his forehead where the beanie had been.
‘He expected more of me than I thought I could give.’
She backed into the aisle.
‘Do you want to sit down?’
He didn’t move.
‘I just… He was a good boy, look, but there comes a stage when you… I can shoe a stallion, no problem, but this was asking for a different kind of strength and I en’t got that.’
‘And you believe I can help? You’re not just here because your wife talked you into it.’
‘It was a relief, if I’m honest. Don’t augur well for the future, but what can you do? Family and all.’
‘All right. Just… hang on there a minute, would you?’
Merrily eased off her boots, slipping into the pair of sandals she kept under the prayer-book rack. Feeling around in her shoulder bag for the old Zippo lighter, she padded up the nave to the foot of the chancel steps where she pulled out two chairs, setting them up under the rood screen, angled towards the altar not quite facing one another.
