by Phil Rickman
Annie Howe was looking at Merrily.
‘“Do this”. Do what, exactly, Ms Watkins?’
42
Trust
MEDDLED. IN THE living room at Lucy’s cottage, the word was rattling in the corners and flapping like a trapped bird in the window.
‘That was what she said. Kept saying. She meddled.’
Jane had kept it all pent up until they were inside, Lol messing at the laptop, looking for news flashes. He looked up.
‘In what?’
He’d had another bad night, his whole body aching when he awoke, as if he was coming down with flu. He’d felt dizzy. And now this.
‘She’s like, “I’m trusting you, Jane. I have to start trusting people or… or nothing’s going to…” Jane shut her eyes for a moment. ‘No, what I think she actually said was, “or we’re not going to stop this”.’
‘Stop what?’
‘Should’ve asked, but I didn’t think I’d get any answers. I’d been talking to Sophie who, as usual, wasn’t interested in telling me anything. Julie Duxbury, I’d never met her, didn’t even know what she looked like, and she was trusting me. She had to tell somebody.’
‘Did she seem, I don’t know… scared… worried?’
‘More kind of annoyed. Offended. And impatient. Like she didn’t want to waste any more time. She went on about congregations getting smaller, like the job was diminishing, the world making vicars feel superfluous to requirements. The reason she meddled. Because she wanted to do something. Make a difference. God, I didn’t even know the woman, why do I feel like I didn’t do something that could have saved her? Why didn’t I call her back?’
‘Here it is. Hereford Times Online. An hour ago.’
Police have not yet formally released a name, but devastated locals in Ewyas Harold say the victim is their rector, Julie Duxbury, who took over only a few months ago. ‘Everyone is shattered,’ one said. ‘Some people are just gathering at the church in silence.’
Lol read it out, then went through to the kitchen where the kettle was boiling, listening to Jane going over those couple of minutes on the phone last night. Over and over, as if she could squeeze more out of them. He came back to find her eyes widening.
‘Oh God, she said she might have a visitor. Suppose…’
‘You couldn’t very well ask who she was expecting, could you? Come on. Sit down. How could you know?’
She went down on the edge of the sofa, hands on her knees.
‘The police will want to talk to me. What am I supposed to tell them? What do I say that won’t lead them back to…?’
Lol shut the kitchen door, stood with his back to it.
‘You just answer the questions. They’re not going to be trick questions, they won’t be bringing up graves. It’ll just be a formality. If they think she disturbed burglars, maybe they’re right.’
‘Except they’re not, are they? Come on, Lol, we know, deep down, that all this can’t be unconnected. Random burglars don’t kill people.’
‘People get killed all the time disturbing petty burglaries. Get killed in the street because someone wants their phone. Or because somebody’s done too many drugs, or urgently needs money for more drugs. OK, not usually in places like this.’
‘No. It’s connected. And we’re the only ones who know that, and we can’t talk about it.’
‘If it comes to it,’ Lol said, ‘I can explain—’
‘No!’ Jane springing up. ‘What are you saying? You want Gomer arrested for desecration? An old guy? It would kill him!’ Her eyes had filled up. ‘And you assisting him? The vicar’s boyfriend digging up a corpse? Nobody gets a slap on the wrist for that. You think Mum’s job would survive? You think any of us would?’
‘Jane—’
‘We’d all be out of here before the winter’s over. All gone, all the good things – this cottage, the festival, everything. All gone.’
Sitting down at the other end of the sofa, Lol had to physically stop himself from letting his face fall into his hands, through fatigue, physical and emotional.
And because she was right.
Jane wiped her eyes with the back of a hand.
‘Do I sound like a little kid?’
‘No, you’re…’
Making distressing sense. He didn’t want to say that.
‘We shouldn’t’ve given up,’ Jane said. ‘We should’ve found out the whole truth behind what happened in the churchyard. But then you let that bastard Darvill warn you off.’
‘And now a woman’s dead?’
‘Lol, I’m not saying that. I don’t know what I’m saying, except that there’s something here that’s just so— I mean, when you think of those guys dancing with a dead man… it’s like black comedy but you imagine that? How could they do it? What could bring someone to—?’
‘We can’t talk about that. Not to anyone. She only told us—’
‘I know that.’
His head was back on the square, the oak-pillared market hall hard against the wild, starry night. Merrily telling him, quite prosaically, about what had happened that night. He’d seen her like this before, both connected and detached.
Nothing to get excited about, and it was over now, she’d said.
And then it wasn’t.
* * *
The one night they’d managed to communicate, Annie Howe had said I’m an executive, an administrator. Meaning she was an office creature, didn’t often come out to talk to people who weren’t in the police. Merrily had thought she preferred it that way, being not like her father, Charlie, who was everywhere – a county councillor, a governor of Jane’s former school. Perhaps Annie just didn’t like to go to places her dad was known, where the rumours about him lingered like an infection.
The Cathedral?
She didn’t remember Charlie ever being in the gatehouse.
Do this. She’d explained about the Requiem, determined to hold on to the names. Hard to imagine what would happen if word reached Iestyn Lloyd that she’d conducted a second funeral service for his son without even asking him.
‘This was part of your… exorcism role?’
Howe throwing down the question like a dead rat. Siân Callaghan-Clarke, formerly chair of the short-lived diocesan deliverance panel, picking it up.
‘A Requiem is not an exorcism, it’s a service for the dead.’
‘But not, I take it, something that Julie Duxbury could have done for herself?’
‘She could have done it for herself,’ Merrily said, ‘but it’s something I’ve become more familiar with. And it related to someone who had lived in Ledwardine.’
This was getting perilously close to forbidden ground. All she could hope for was that Annie Howe’s atheism would erect its own barriers.
‘Let me get this right,’ Howe said. ‘As a specialist consultant to Mrs Duxbury, you were conducting a service – at night, and with just two people – relating to a deceased resident of Ledwardine. Who was this?’
Merrily flicked a mute plea at Siân, and was grateful when Siân caught it, with her barrister’s gloves on.
‘Chief Inspector, as you know, the relationship between the diocese and Hereford Police has always been founded on a degree of mutual trust. But I’d ask you to accept that there’s also an essential trust between the clergy and the people who approach us with personal problems. When these don’t involve law-breaking or any form of serious social malaise, we feel obliged to respect privacy. So, until you can show precisely how this information would assist your investigation of Julie’s murder, I would have to ask you to respect that obligation.’
Impressive, especially as Siân had no reason to suspect a connection with Julie’s killing. Which, oh God, might well exist.
Howe turned to Merrily.
‘What time did it finish?’
‘Quite late. About ten forty-five.’
‘And your… small congregation left immediately?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did yo
u have any further contact with them that night?’
‘No.’
‘And you had no further contact at all with Julie Duxbury.’
‘No.’
‘And what you were doing did not involve Mrs Duxbury in any way.’
‘She’d left it in my hands.’
Howe nodded. Julie’s phone would have given them a direct link at least to Lara Brewer and perhaps through her to Sir Lionel Darvill. Merrily kept quiet. So much she didn’t know. She fielded some questions that were more routine and tried to ask some, but this wasn’t Frannie Bliss who saw the advantages of occasional indiscretion, and she learned nothing. Annie Howe turned briefly on the way out.
‘Ms Watkins—’
‘I know – don’t leave town.’
Howe looked almost amused.
‘I was actually going to say that if anything occurred to you that might help us, don’t hesitate to come through to me directly.’
‘Oh.’
When they’d left, the sleet had stopped but the sky was no brighter.
‘Well…’ Siân Callaghan-Clarke gathered up her briefcase. ‘I’m really not sure whether I have time to hear the rest.’
‘Let me know when you’re ready,’ Merrily said.
Siân nodded vaguely.
They didn’t talk about the death of Julie Duxbury when Lol and Jane went to the Black Swan for a lunch of soup and sandwiches that he didn’t really want, although he felt a little better now. Barry came over and they discussed Lol’s signing of Moira Cairns for the festival and his hopes of getting Simon St John over from Knight’s Frome, on bass and cello, and – more tenuous – the veteran guitarist Tom Storey. He’d forgotten all about this, and it was hard to concentrate.
‘We need to get out a programme early in the new year, printed and online,’ Barry said. ‘We need more big names.’
‘Big names cost big money,’ Lol said.
‘Unless they’re mates. We need to find more big-name mates. Mates of mates, you know how this works. Don’t you go lukewarm on this, Laurence.’
‘He works for me now,’ Jane said. ‘I don’t do lukewarm.’
Late morning, a detective called Kate, who’d been brought over from Worcester, had called Jane on her mobile and then come to take a statement about the phone call from Julie Duxbury. All very formal. Jane had kept it brief. Lol thought she was trying to come across as not very intelligent. Kate had told her not to worry.
When they left the pub, Lol hoped she’d go home. There was a call he wanted to make that he certainly couldn’t make in front of her, but she followed him back to Lucy’s Cottage.
‘If we don’t get back onto it now,’ Jane said, as the bitter wind prodded them back across the square, ‘it’ll only get harder. One day it’ll come back on us, big time. We know what they did, we still don’t really know why. And that all comes back to Sir Lionel Darvill.’
‘He doesn’t have to talk to us.’
‘He rang you to threaten you. To warn you off. What’s that say? He has things to hide. He could be the key to everything, and if you get a solid hint that he’s behind all this, that he might even’ve—’
‘He’s in a wheelchair.’
‘That doesn’t mean—’
‘Not out here, huh?’
When they were back in the cottage, the woodstove awakened, he saw that the little green light on the phone was blinking. Message. He hoped it would be Merrily, but the female caller had an American accent.
‘Mr Robinson, my name is Nora Mills. I’ve withheld my number, so you can’t call me back, but I’ll call again at two-thirty precisely. Thank you.’
‘You know anybody under the age of ninety called Nora?’ Jane picked up her parka. ‘If you want to take it in private, I’ll leave.’
‘It’s probably just some management person. Somebody famous who once passed through Ledwardine and—’
The phone rang. Lol picked up on the third ring.
‘Lucy’s Cottage.’
‘Mr Robinson? This is Nora.’
‘Hello.’
‘I called earlier. I work at Maryfields.’
Lol tried to relax.
You know where that is? Who lives there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mr Robinson, I was gonna maybe drive over there, but I have a client at five. Not sure I’d make it back in time. Not and talk. I mean fully. Which we need to.’
‘We do?’
‘I think so. Don’t you?’
‘What do you do at Maryfields?’
Lol saw Jane look up sharply.
‘I’m a therapist,’ Nora Mills said. ‘Physio and stuff? I provide treatment for the man here. And other people.’
Jane was crouching close to the phone, head on one side.
‘And, um, what exactly do we need to talk about?’
Jane frowned. Lol lifted a hand to cool her off. Mustn’t sound too eager to comply.
‘Things have happened,’ Nora said. ‘If you were able to drive over here, I guess we would have more time.’
‘Now?’
‘Would that work for you?’
Jane started drumming fists on the desk, like do it, do it, do it.
‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ Lol said.
43
Favours past
ANNIE ARRIVED IN Ewyas Harold just ahead of the mobile incident room. The TV cameramen shot her and Vaynor getting out of her car, although most of them were national news outlets and wouldn’t know who she was anyway.
‘Amazing.’ Bliss guiding her between the cars and vans by the side of the Memorial Hall to an unoccupied corner of the yard. ‘No bugger goes to church any more till they’re wheeled in on a trolley, half the country thinks Jesus plays in goal for Brazil, but a vicar gets topped and all hell— what?’
‘It’s rector,’ Annie said mildly. ‘I don’t know the difference either, though apparently it doesn’t matter.’
They were putting the incident room here, the only big tarmac space in the village, Annie would be doing the press conference outside the church, picturesque stone job with a timber-frame porch and a conical hat.
‘Rich Ford’s setting himself up as office manager,’ Bliss said. Nobody better, knows the area well – wants to retire to those hills.’
‘The Black Mountains?’
‘Madness.’
‘We don’t appear to have anyone with significant form in the area,’ Annie said. ‘Few weekend pub-fighters, one ABH, all drink-related.’
‘It’s farming country, Annie. The real psychos have other outlets.’
‘I’m not even going to ask what that’s supposed to mean.’
‘But if you want a real weirdo, check out the squire.’
‘Darvill?’
A bunch of uniforms were keeping local people away from their community centre. Annie was on tiptoe, looking over all the heads.
‘Dropped in on him before lunch,’ Bliss said. ‘Thought it should be me, lower-class Scouser. Strangely, he wasn’t pompous and he didn’t talk down to me.’
‘How terribly disappointing for you. What was weird about him?’
‘He just is. A throwback. His number was on Julie’s phone. He said they’d been talking about some pre-Christmas service they were planning at Kilpeck Church. I had the vague feeling there were things he wasn’t saying, but… he didn’t do it. And not only because he’s in a wheelchair. We all saw Little Britain.’
‘What?’
‘Except for you. He was also making flip remarks. “All the time you spend training your parish priest and then this bloody happens.” But you could tell he was gutted. And angry.’
‘Angry?’
‘Because he’s a cripple and he’s unlikely to be in a position to kill the bastards. He liked her a lot, and I don’t think he’s the kind of feller who normally gets on with the clergy. What are you doing, Annie?’
‘Probably mistaken…’ She came down off tiptoe. ‘… but, for a moment, I thought I saw that woman f
rom Midlands Today with… my bloody father. Starting to see the bastard everywhere. Probably wasn’t. Men start to look similar when they reach a certain age. Gone now, anyway.’
‘Talking of Charlie…’
‘You still want to go to Hewell?’
‘Not really, and all this has made that harder to justify. Mr Jag isn’t in the same league as the nice lady who pats your kids and visits your granny in the hossie.’
‘But you think you need to.’
‘Yeh.’
‘All right, go on. Bugger off. But make it quick.’
‘You’re all right with this? ’Cos if you’re not—’
‘You can have Vaynor, just don’t take Dowell, I need to talk to her about phones. The rector’s daughter here yet?’
‘Expected in the next hour with her husband. They had to arrange kiddie-care. You get to talk to them, I’m afraid.’
‘Thank you. You know how much I love that part of the job.’
‘If you want me to hang on…’
‘Just don’t take all night. And make it worthwhile. If we can crack Jaglowski, it won’t look quite so bad. Least it clears the decks.’
He noticed she didn’t mention the other reason for visiting Hewell. Or how good it would be if they also could crack Charlie Howe.
A white sun threw a fan of cold light over Ewyas Harold, Bliss jogging through it. It was a big village, capital of the Golden Valley, a lot going on there, more shops than all the rest of the valley communities put together, but the countryside to the west was rougher, more forested, less golden.
Somebody said the Harold in the name was the last Saxon king, the one who got hammered at Hastings by the invading Normans. The one who got an arrow in his eye, like poor bloody Julie Duxbury got the spike from a sundial that was called something like gnome.
As he reached his car, Amanda Patel from BBC Midlands Today pulled up behind and brought her window down.
‘Big story, Mandy,’ Bliss said. ‘This mean you get to cover it for the ten o’clock news?’
Patel made this hissy sound that meant no chance.
