The Cold Calling cc-1

by Phil Rickman

  ‘Oh God,’ cried Mrs Capaldi. ‘Oh, Cindy, why couldn’t it be you with her today, instead of that stupid Martin?’

  ‘Alas,’ Cindy explained to the detective. ‘Always been a little queasy about open confrontation, I have. Maria was braver than me.’ He sighed. ‘Poor dab. Poor dab. Have you … you know …?’

  We’re talking to a few people,’ DCI Hatch said. ‘I don’t anticipate a long investigation. What I’m trying to find out from Mrs Capaldi is if it was well known that Maria was a hunt saboteur. If she’d ever received any personal abuse or threats as a result.’

  ‘An’ I say to ‘im, even if she ‘ad a threat to kill ‘er, the last person she ever tell about it is ‘er own mother.’

  Cindy squeezed Mrs Capaldi’s hand as the tears spurted. Yes, he’d known where Maria was going today. Even wishing her luck last night. Yeah, she’d said, with a limp good-night wave of the hand. Tally ho, Cindy. It wasn’t something she enjoyed any more; it was something she had to do, like hospital visiting or donating blood.

  He shivered. Shot. Shot dead in a clearing in the forest, the paper said. The cleaner was right; it didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘Like she was lying in a bed,’ Mrs Capaldi said faintly. ‘A sheet tucked up around her chin.’

  Cindy looked at Hatch.

  ‘Mortuary,’ Hatch mumbled. There was an uncomfortable silence. Hatch made eye contact with the policewoman. ‘More tea, I think, Alison.’

  Cindy said, ‘What … kind of person are you looking for?’

  ‘This stage, we have to examine all the options. My money’s on some sixteen-year-old yobbo who, at this moment, is a very frightened kid.’

  ‘Or a hunt supporter?’

  Hatch smiled thinly. ‘Now you’re being controversial, Mr Lewis.’

  ‘Pah!’ said Mrs Capaldi. ‘’Unters! Big family, lotsa money. You never gonna pin it on a ‘unters.’

  ‘Mrs Capaldi, I can assure you that, at this stage, nobody has been ruled out.’

  ‘Pah.’ Mrs Capaldi’s tear-glazed eyes rising to a lurid Pre-Raphaelite madonna over the fireplace. ‘She was a good girl, a lovely girl when she wanted. She got principles. More than me. Her father, ‘e ‘ad principles. Me, I like peace and quiet. She say, Mum, she say, you just a cucumber. Vegetable. Make me so mad sometime.’

  ‘Maria had integrity,’ Cindy said. ‘She believed that everything had a right to life.’

  Mrs Capaldi struggled to the edge of the sofa as the policewoman approached with a cup. ‘I don’ wan’ more tea. I told you, I wan’ see where my daughter die. It’s my right. I wan’ you take me, Cindy, in your car.’

  ‘As I said, Mrs Capaldi,’ Hatch said quickly, ‘I wouldn’t advise it. Not at the moment. There’ll be press everywhere, and TV crews …’

  ‘Wassa problem with TV an’ a papers? I don’ wan’ ‘ush this up. I wan’ everybody know what these bastard do.’

  Hatch shot an appeal at Cindy, but Cindy pretended not to notice; he said, ‘Of course I’ll take you, my love.’

  ‘Mr Lewis-’

  ‘Catharsis, inspector, catharsis. Don’t you think?’

  Hatch sighed. ‘All right. In which case, perhaps we should all go with WPC Webber in the police car, or you might have trouble getting past our people.’

  Cindy nodded, helping Mrs Capaldi to her feet.

  In the event, there were no cameramen, as Hatch must have known. This part of the forest was sealed off by a police road block on the track.

  The immediate area was taped. There were several police hanging around, although there didn’t seem to be much for them to do, except to drive away photographers and sensation-seekers, and try not to look at Mrs Capaldi.

  ‘As soon as you want to leave …’ Hatch said.

  She shook her head, waved him away.

  ‘Peaceful,’ she said. ‘Such a beautiful place. Nowhere is safe any more.’

  She’d put on a black hat and black gloves, dark glasses. Being the centre of attention had calmed her, Cindy thought. The irony of it was that, if it hadn’t been family, Mrs Capaldi, who read lurid magazines, would have derived a shivery excitement from being so close to a murder investigation. She crossed herself and walked alone into the trees. Hatch nodded to WPC Webber to follow her.

  A soft, early-evening sun cast a pastel glaze on the forest; yes, it was a lovely spot. And yet, left alone, Cindy felt suddenly tense. If this outing was going to be cathartic for Mrs Capaldi, it was having quite the opposite effect on him. There was a sense of imbalance. Of the world itself horribly askew.

  A young, bearded detective with a mobile phone came over. ‘Bloody hell, sir, did you know there were no less than four crossbow clubs in the general vicinity? What’s the world coming-Oh, sorry.’

  Hatch hustled the detective away from Cindy.

  Who was startled. A crossbow? In the paper, it had said simply that Maria had been shot. The police were obviously sitting on the crossbow angle for the moment. What else had they not yet disclosed?

  Cindy stood motionless in the clearing. It was still an old woodland. Part of the prehistoric and medieval landscape he liked to walk on Sundays. Fordingbridge to the northwest … a castle mound beyond there … several tumuli … And, of course, as soon as they’d arrived, he’d spotted the motte and bailey nearby. Probably built on a prehistoric site. It would certainly have been here when William Rufus …

  He closed his eyes, emptied his mind and at once felt a frigid trembling in his solar plexus and a powerful sense of residual evil around this soft-lit glade.

  A crossbow.

  An horrific flash-image of Maria with a steel bolt nailing her to the floor of the forest.

  He turned away, his hands cold and tingling. He moved to the edge of the tape and walked away along the track for a few yards.

  ‘Has something occurred to you, Mr Lewis?’ He turned sharply to find DCI Hatch right behind him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I suppose something has.’

  ‘Do you want to tell me?’

  ‘It’s probably already occurred to you. Being a local man. Do you know the story of the death of William II? William Rufus, son of the Conqueror?’

  ‘Shot in the forest, wasn’t he? By a man with a … oh, right.’

  ‘A crossbow,’ Cindy said. ‘In this very forest.’

  ‘About eight hundred years ago, as I recall,’ Hatch said. ‘Unlikely we’re looking for the same man, then.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And no, it hadn’t occurred to me,’ Hatch said flatly, ‘I’m afraid.’

  ‘Perhaps not so much a man, Chief Inspector, as a tradition. We know who killed William. It was his own huntsman, Walter Tirel. During a hunting expedition, the king shot a stag, wounding it, following its flight and holding up his hand, ostensibly to protect his eyes from the brightness of the setting sun. At which signal, Tirel, purporting to aim at another stag, shot the king.’

  Hatch said, ‘Signal?’ Showing he had, at least, been paying attention.

  ‘Do you know the Margaret Murray theory? That William was a ritual sacrifice?’

  ‘The only Margaret Murray I know,’ Hatch said heavily, ‘is a Labour councillor on the police committee.’

  ‘This one was an academic. An historian. Dr Murray published her anthropological history of witchcraft and paganism in 1931. Her theory was that although William Rufus might have appeared to support the Church, it seems likely he was a lifelong pagan. As the king, he would have been regarded as a god incarnate, and he was growing old. Well, a god could never grow old or weak or feeble. He must die for his people, to strengthen their attachment to this new land. And, of course, as the king, he was permitted to select the time and circumstances of his own ritual death.’

  ‘Dubious privilege,’ Hatch said. No doubt thinking, Old Welsh queen’s lost his marbles.

  Cindy walked into the centre of the clearing.

  ‘The king had prepared himself for death, had eaten and drunk well and taken possession
of six fresh bolts for his crossbow. Two of which he handed to Walter Tirel before they left. When he was shot, William then broke off the wooden shaft of the bolt and fell upon the stump.’

  ‘Very interesting, sir,’ Hatch said. ‘But I’d be glad if you wouldn’t mention crossbows to anyone at this stage. Probably be common knowledge by tomorrow, but by then we can’ve pinned down every crossbow-owning nutter between here and-’

  Cindy said, ‘Do you see the beauty of it? William let the Earth finish him.’

  ‘To be honest, Mr Lewis, I don’t see much of a link here. Two crossbow killings eight hundred years apart?’

  ‘Just thought you should be aware of it, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you very much, sir. Do you think we could persuade Mrs Capaldi to go home now?’

  Part One

  Stone with magnetic or radioactive properties seems to have been incorporated into some monuments. Certain parts of the brain are sensitive to magnetic fields — particularly the temporal lobe region which houses the organs that process memory, dreams and feeling. There is an archaic tradition of sleeping on stones of power to achieve visions.

  Paul Devereux, Earth Memory.

  I

  Three years later, the autumn night he died, Bobby Maiden was drinking single malt, full of this smoky peat essence. Put you in mind of somewhere damp and lonely. Moorland meeting the sea, no visible horizon.

  The whiskies were on the house, all five of them. Could be the same went for the woman. Who was starting to look more than OK, the arrangement of her too-black hair coming apart in a tumble, sexy as a bathrobe falling open. Face white, lipstick a luminous mauve, all very Gothic. When you hadn’t been in this situation for quite a while, you tended to forget what an over-scented lady in a pasted-on black frock could do when she was concentrating.

  ‘So, Bobby …’ Shaking out a fresh cigarette. ‘Your old man was one too, then.’

  Five whiskies. About right for explaining how the old bastard shafted him.

  ‘A real one,’ Maiden said. ‘Not many left. As he’d keep telling you. A Plod. Village copper, deepest Cheshire. I mean, there’s nowhere very deep in Cheshire any more, but there was then. Police Sergeant Norman Maiden. Never Norman. Certainly never Norm. Not with the uniform on. Question of respect, madam.’

  Well after midnight now. Just Maiden and this woman called … Susan? … in Tony Parker’s nasty new club in the grim, concrete west end of Elham. How this had happened, he’d arranged to meet Percy Gilbert, Snout of the Year, 1979. Be worth your time, Mr Maiden, no question. No-one else in Elham CID had any time, never mind money, for Percy these days. But it was Bobby Maiden’s weekend off, so nothing lost. Nothing at all. Sadly.

  But the bugger hadn’t shown. Maiden had ordered a Scotch, and the barman wouldn’t take any money — special introductory offer for new members, the drink’ll be brought to your table, sir. On these soiled streets, a police warrant card bought more drinks than American Express, but he didn’t think the barman knew him. Next thing, the woman’s arriving with a tray, claiming to be Parker’s niece, from London.

  By this time, the gears are whirring, cogs clicking into place. A nicely oiled mechanism starting up. The sound of Tony Parker making his move.

  Mr Un-nickable. Mr Immunity.

  Maiden deciding to roll with it, see where it led.

  ‘… course, all the kids were terrified of this flesh-eating dinosaur in the tall hat. He had the human race divided into three: the police, the evil toerags and the Public who were grateful for your protection and showed a bit of respect. So there was only one role for a real man and, particularly, for Son of Plod. Thing was, Su …’

  Suzanne. That was the name. But, remembering it, he’d forgotten what he was going to say.

  Suzanne put down her vodka and orange, kind of thoughtful. What had she asked him, to start him off about Norman Plod? What’s a sensitive guy like you doing in the police? Maybe. Couldn’t remember.

  One thing about Suzanne: she was professionally unknown to Maiden. That is, not one of Tony Parker’s regular slags. Plus, she had a certain bizarre style.

  ‘There was some poet, Bobby … wrote this really deep-down truthful line. Tennyson, Keats, one of those. I don’t go much on poetry, but … “Your mum and dad, they always fuck you up …” Something like that. Wordsworth, would it be?’

  Maiden ogled the ceiling. ‘That would be before or after he wrote about the fucking daffs?’

  ‘Nah, what I’m saying, a man like him …’ Suzanne leaned her head back, blew out smoke. ‘I can see, a man like your dad, why he wouldn’t want you to be a painter or nothing like that.’

  And then you get out of your nancified art college, what happens then, eh? Norman Plod, gardening in police boots and ragged old police shirts. What you gonna do for readies then, with no government grant to prop yer up? Eh? Eh?

  Maiden realized he was doing his Norman Plod out loud.

  Artists? Parasites, lad. Nobody wants ‘em till they’ve snuffed it. Live off the State and sponging off their mates. Go bloody mad, cut their ears off.

  ‘Cut their ears off.’ Maiden shook his head. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’

  ‘Right. Yeah.’ Suzanne’s white face bobbing like a Japanese doll’s. ‘I think I heard of a guy that happened to.’

  ‘Fancy.’ Was this woman real?

  Look, Norman said, back from the Conservative Club, flattening a tube of flake white with his size nines. Do yourself a favour. Get rid of this nancy shit. Else they’ll think you’re a poof. Think you’re a poof, lad!

  ‘What a bastard. Did you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get rid of it.’

  ‘No. Just went undercover.’

  And still was. There were nights now when he was painting through till dawn: pale, minimal, imaginary landscapes, not much more than air and light. Paintings of the white noise in his head. Not, in fact, a long way from the cutting-off-the-ear stage, when you thought about it.

  ‘What do you paint?’

  ‘Places. Feelings. Usual crap. Never sold one. Never tried. Copper’s little hobby, who needs it?’ Me, I need it, he thought. There’s nothing else. Isn’t that terminally pathetic?

  Suzanne smoked in silence for a few seconds, then she said, ‘So you wanted to paint and he was determined you were going to trail in his big footsteps. Where was your mother all this time?’

  Bobby Maiden stared into his glass.

  ‘In heaven.’

  You know what happens to them, coppers like Maiden, the sensitive ones … Two possible career projections. Either they go to the top faster than they deserve…

  This was Martin Riggs, Divisional Super now, talking to veteran DI Barry Hutchins at the CID Christmas binge. Barry just loved to tell this story, especially loved telling Maiden, who — unforgivably — avoided the Christmas binge. Barry had taken a retirement deal, worked for Group Four Security now, so he could say what he liked.

  … or else they crack up, Riggs tells Barry. Top themselves. Look at the situation. He’s thirty-five, still a DI. Goes off to the Met, can’t stand the heat, and he’s back after a year. In this job, Barry, if you want to get on, you don’t come back.

  This was very true. You certainly don’t come back when the new boss is someone you happened to run into in London, in circumstances that convinced you he was bent.

  ‘You still got them, Bobby?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Your paintings.’ Her eyes were opaque.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Only I wouldn’t mind seeing them,’ Suzanne said.

  He choked off a laugh into the whisky.

  ‘Let me get this right. You’re saying you would like to come up and see my etchings?’

  ‘Whatever.’ Suzanne ground her cigarette into the ashtray and reached across the table for her bag.

  ‘You mean now?’

  Got to think, got to think.

  ‘All right then,’ he said. ‘I’ll just pop to th
e bog.’

  Alone in the gents’, Maiden slapped cold water on his face.

  OK. Think.

  Owen Anthony Parker, entrepreneur. Fairly new in town. Cheery, beaming Londoner making a fresh start in the provincial leisure industry. Looks dodgy as hell, but no record. In no time at all, Parker has two clubs, one lowlife, one upmarketish, and five pubs. Public figure, hosts charity evenings. Thanks to Mr Parker, Elham General Hospital has its long-battled-for new body-scanner.

  Also, thanks indirectly to Mr Parker, the recently opened drug-dependency unit has a whole bunch of extra clients.

  Tony Parker. Mr Immunity.

  Why?

  Well, several people have a good idea. And somebody in CID has to be fully in the picture.

  Maiden dried his face on a paper towel. Too many whiskies for this, really.

  Still. See what happens, then. Suzanne.

  By the time the minicab dumped them outside the blackened Victorian block at the bottom of Old Church Street, where it meets the bypass, her perfume was everywhere. At first it was sexy, then it became nauseating. Maiden always got sick in the back of cars.

  Thigh to thigh, they hadn’t talked much. He hadn’t made a move on her — he still had some style. Plus, there was the problem that the quiet, grizzled cabbie just might have been the father of a kid nicked for dealing crack three months back. A kid who’d sworn the bastards had planted the stuff. Clutton. Dean Clutton.

  ‘This is nice, Bobby.’

  ‘It’s just a nice front door.’ Sorting drunkenly through his keys. ‘Not nice at all inside.’

  Might not have been Clutton’s dad; too dark to tell, really. He unlocked the communal door with the lacquered brass knocker and five illuminated bell pushes.

  Dean Clutton had hanged himself in his cell while on remand, this was the thing. Before Maiden got a chance to talk to him.

  ‘Sad, isn’t it?’ Suzanne said wistfully, long fingers playing with the collar of her black silk jacket.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You start your married life all fresh and clean, get yourself a nice, tidy little home together …’