by Phil Rickman
‘Thank you, Mrs Anderson, I don’t think I can spare the time.’
‘Busy man, huh?’
Riggs didn’t reply. She’d seen him a few times at the hospital. Big guy who seemed even taller the way he carried himself: with dignity — whatever you heard about Riggs you’d never believe it to look at him. And — face it — very few had heard anything, only the likes of Bobby and Emma Curtis and Vic Clutton.
He wasn’t smiling and yet he was. There was one big, smug smile fizzing away inside this guy, she could feel the heat of it. Mr Riggs was on a roll. Mr Riggs was focused.
‘Time to stop playing, Mrs Anderson.’
‘I don’t have time to play. I’m a working woman.’
Standing in the living room doorway in his bulky leather coat. An energy in him, all right. It made her nervous; she hated that.
‘Let me come to the point, Sister,’ Riggs said, loud enough for them to hear next door. ‘I believe you know where my officer is.’
‘Your officer?’
‘Maiden,’ Riggs said patiently. ‘Bobby Maiden.’
‘No my responsibility.’ Andy wrinkled her nose. ‘He walked off the ward. As was his right, but anything happens to the guy after that, it’s no our problem.’
‘My understanding is that you considered Bobby to be very much your problem.’ Leather creaked, Riggs flexing his shoulders. ‘My understanding is that you established quite a rapport.’
‘You have to do your best. With Bobby, his senses were a wee bit fuddled. Wouldnae surprise me if he had no memory of me at all by now.’ Looking straight up into Riggs’s tawny eyes. ‘Wherever he is.’
‘Where did he go, Mrs Anderson?’
‘Like he’d tell me?’
‘If you were with him, he wouldn’t need to tell you. According to Detective Sergeant Beattie, you were rather evasive about your own whereabouts on the night Bobby disappeared.’
‘Aw, come on …’ Andy spreading her hands, laughing. ‘You think Bobby and me ran away together or something? Jesus God, his head was no that messed up. His eyesight was fine.’
‘No.’ Riggs smiled. ‘I didn’t imagine for one minute that you and he were … romantically connected. If so, he was two-timing you. With a woman named Emma Curtis.’
She tried not to react. Telling herself she didn’t know an Emma Curtis.
‘‘But it’s over now,’ Riggs said. ‘I think I can say that.’
‘Aye?’
‘Last night, Bobby Maiden and Emma Curtis booked into the Collen Hall Hotel in South Wales.’
‘Really?’ Andy’s brain racing. What was going on?
‘Under the name Mr and Mrs Lazarus.’
‘Neat,’ Andy said. And why was Riggs on his own? Superintendents never went around without a sergeant or two in tow, maybe a couple of uniform guys. Bearing in mind what Bobby had to say about Riggs, how official was this?
‘You heard from Bobby Maiden this morning, Mrs Anderson?’
‘What the hell is this about? No, I haven’t. Why should I? What’s goin’ on?’
Riggs’s eyes were searching the room.
‘Mr Riggs, I just got off shift, I’m very tired.’
‘Does your radio work?’
‘Why, you follow The Archers or something?’
‘A little early for The Archers, as I recall. But we might catch the eight o’clock news. May I …?’
Andy shrugged. Riggs fiddled with the radio. They heard some stuff about a row at the Labour Party conference. Riggs sniffed.
‘I’ll tell you this much, Sister Anderson. If you do know where Maiden is, and you fail to tell me while you have the chance, I’ll have you in.’
‘Have me in? Listen, pal, either you bloody tell me right now what this is about, or I’ll have you out.’
‘On suspicion of being an accessory,’ Riggs said, as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘To what? Jesus God, you bust in here-’
‘Ah!’ Riggs lifted a finger. ‘Here we are. I think you’d better sit down.’
The dog wagging his tail. Going right up to Maiden and Maiden kneeling down on the grass. Greeting each other like old friends after an unfortunate misunderstanding.
Tears in Maiden’s eyes again. Both eyes exposed, the patch gone, the bad eye still purple. Maiden still in the sweatpants and the white T-shirt that said something about Fun.
‘Time is it, Marcus?’ White-faced, bloodless lips.
‘Oh … Eightish. I suppose.’
Maiden stood up slowly. Looked like something that rolled off a mortuary trolley.
Poor sod.
In the dawn, he’d followed them down from the Knoll, hadn’t said a word. Nobody had. Back at the farm, Maiden had gone directly to the cottage — he’d need to sleep the bloody clock round after last night. And then what? God knew, Marcus didn’t.
‘What’s happened?’ Couldn’t have had more than two hours’ sleep and here he was wandering the fields like a lost soul. ‘What’s happened, Marcus?’
‘Don’t ask me about it,’ Marcus said. ‘Just don’t bloody ask me.’
Maiden looked slowly from side to side. As though he was seeing the place for the first time. As though he’d fallen asleep somewhere else and awoken here. Marcus was aware of his eyes. He didn’t usually register the colour of people’s eyes. But these were blue and clear and unblinking. Once had these inane, born-again Christians at the door. Or maybe it was Mormons. Fanatics, anyway. They all had eyes like this.
‘Better get some breakfast.’ Marcus turned, unnerved, and headed back towards the farm.
The radio said, Police investigating the brutal stabbing of a thirty-two-year-old woman in a hotel room in South Wales say they want to question a senior detective from the Midlands. Detective Inspector Bobby Maiden disappeared from the hospital where he was being treated for serious head injuries. Peter Tilley reports.
Andy did sit down. On the sofa by the bookcase. She felt her face muscles go slack. In a framed black and white photograph on the wall opposite, the early sun came up between the pinnacles of the tower of St Mary’s church.
On the radio, the reporter said, Mrs Emma Curtis, daughter of a Midlands businessman, was found dead early this morning by staff at the four-star Collen Hall Hotel, near Abergavenny. She had multiple stab wounds resulting from what police have described as a frenzied and vicious attack.
Police say Mrs Curtis, a divorcee, was staying at the hotel with thirty-six-year-old Detective Inspector Maiden, who was based at Elham in the West Midlands. Several days ago he disappeared from the town’s General Hospital where he was being treated for head injuries following a hit-and-run incident near his home.
Police in Gwent and West Mercia have declined to expand on a joint statement naming Inspector Maiden as the only person they want to question in connection with the killing. Anyone with information about his whereabouts is asked to contact police but advised under no circumstances to approach Mr Maiden, who may be in an unstable state of mind. He’s described as …
Riggs switched off. ‘I think we both know what he looks like.’
XXXV
Malcolm the dog had eyes on different levels in his big, white face. They could give you the idea that Malcolm was unstable, dangerous even. Plus, he was part bull-terrier, with a mouth like a gin-trap.
But Bobby Maiden knew that Malcolm was basically innocent. Whatever was happening, he just wanted to be part of it, part of the pack. Bobby Maiden petted the dog and talked to him because this was simple and warming and it didn’t make you cry.
He sat in the study, on a hard chair, with his back to the window. He didn’t need ever to move. The study was lined with bookshelves separated by bricks. There were thousands of books.
Books about Big Mysteries.
Marcus said, ‘What the hell’s the matter with him? What have you done to him?’
‘Not me.’ Cindy had been back to the pub for a change of clothing. He looked neat and clean and powdered and coiffeured, his bangles jangling. But the
eyes were bloodshot and the make-up extra thick to hide the lines of strain.
‘He’s like a bloody backward child!’ Marcus said.
‘He will be fine. Why don’t you make us all some tea, Marcus. Feel free to take your time.’
They’d fed Bobby Maiden local honey on a slice of crisp toast. The honey tasted incredible. Probably nothing had tasted this good since he was a kid.
Which was wrong. Nothing should taste good this morning. Why did the honey taste good? Why did the air taste pure? Why was he aware of breathing? When, not twelve hours ago, he was sitting in the dark by a dry fountain wishing he was properly dead because of his inability to do the business … and the real horror only just beginning?
There was a clock over the fireplace, the only wall without books. The clock did not tick. It went thock, thock, thock. The clock said 8.40.
Malcolm yawned. His eyes closed tight and opened.
Maiden thought about Emma Curtis. He remembered awakening once and seeing her eyes in the haze around the candle on the stone, as clearly as he saw Malcolm’s eyes now.
She was dead. He didn’t know why she died. There was no earthly reason she should have died. Been killed.
Malcolm became a blur.
‘Marcus is, I suppose you’d say, in denial.’
Cindy’s left-hand bangle displayed amethysts; each stone had a vivid interior life.
‘Like little Grayle Underhill, spent most of his life, he has, wanting to believe, and then something happens and he goes into denial. Seen it before. Happened to me, even. A long time ago. No, I’m lying, it still happens. There’s always a part of us that doesn’t want to believe, and sometimes it takes over and we get angry with ourselves for being so credulous. A phase, it is, that’s all.’
Bobby Maiden was thinking about painting. One week, soon after Liz moved out, he’d painted only in white — acrylic, layer upon layer, different densities, all white.
Cindy held up a white envelope that bulged.
‘Don’t you want to know what’s in this, Bobby?’
‘Not just now, if that’s OK with you.’
‘Don’t you want to ask if you are going through a phase?’
Maiden stroked Malcolm’s ears.
‘Yours isn’t a phase, Bobby. You’ve got trouble. You can deal with it or you can run away. This is just a respite. Thinking time. It isn’t even denial. Your denial came after you were killed, and that wasn’t even a conscious thing. Your inner self blocked it, and just as well, my love, or you’d be in a psychiatric hospital by now.’
‘Go bloody mad,’ Maiden said, in Norman Plod’s voice. ‘Cut their ears off.’
Hunched on the edge of her sofa, Andy felt her insides contract. Looked at her roughened hands.
Did these things bring back a killer?
Her eyes rose to the photo of the Golden Valley from High Knoll.
‘A shock for all of us, Mrs Anderson.’ Riggs had his arms folded. ‘You think you know someone, but you never do, quite.’
How was a state registered nurse supposed to live with this? She found it hard to look at Riggs. A long second passed.
‘Going to destroy his father,’ Riggs said. ‘I met him recently. At the hospital. Old-fashioned, letter-of-the-law copper. Very sad.’
‘How can you be sure? How can you be sure this is down to Bobby?’
‘Mrs Anderson, I’d give anything if it wasn’t, believe me.’ The guy looked bowed down with grief. ‘We’re waiting for forensics, obviously. But, ask yourself why, if he had nothing to do with it, did he leave the scene? And when does this kind of murderer ever strike in a hotel room booked for two?’
She felt Bobby’s head between her hands. The incredible holiness of the moment less than two weeks ago. Oh Jesus God.
‘Think about it,’ Riggs said. ‘Call me.’ He placed a card on the top of the TV set. ‘My mobile.’
‘I can’t help you,’ Andy said. ‘I’m sorry.’
She stood up. Riggs turned slowly and examined the picture on the wall.
‘Mysterious.’ Like this was a social call. ‘You take this, Mrs Anderson?’
‘No. A friend.’
‘I’m trying to place it. Cotswolds?’
‘Herefordshire,’ Andy said, dry-mouthed.
‘Welsh border. I see. Spend holidays there?’
‘Once or twice.’
Riggs nodded, moved to the door.
‘Look, if he was the kind to kill a woman,’ Andy said desperately, ‘then, my God, would that wee bitch Lizzie Turner be alive today?’
‘Perhaps she was lucky.’ Riggs turned at the door. ‘Look, if it helps you, he won’t wind up in Dartmoor. He’s a sick man. He’ll get the care he needs.’
‘Soil, it is,’ Cindy said. ‘Earth.’
Shaking out the last crumbs on Marcus’s desk.
‘I don’t get it,’ Bobby said.
‘This is what came out of you when you vomited on the Knoll.’
He rubbed his empurpled eye, as though he was only now waking up. Which perhaps he was. Awakening, perhaps, into a different world where there were different laws. More crimes in heaven and earth …
Cindy took a soil crystal and rubbed it to powder between finger and thumb. ‘I’m not going to spend hours trying to convince you, lovely. I saw this come from your mouth onto the stone. Marcus saw it too, but Marcus is in denial. There we are.’
‘OK,’ Bobby said slowly. ‘Say I believe it. How?’
‘It seemed to have been in your mouth, your throat. Whether it was ever in your lungs is debatable. But …’ Cindy wondered how to put this. ‘… it was certainly in your mind, Bobby, wasn’t it? Deep, deep down. Because this is grave dirt.’
Bobby’s hand at his throat.
‘Well, yes, all right,’ Cindy said. ‘Dirt is dirt. But for you …’ He leaned back in his chair, hands crossed on his lap. ‘… the grave. Powerful night, see. Powerful place, powerful energies. Some of which were your own. We channelled them. It was a great purging. You feel better?’
‘I feel kind of … white.’
‘There speaks the artist. You’re a blank canvas again. Stunning, isn’t it? Knocks you back?’
‘I don’t want to move. Just absorb. Small things. Textures.’
‘Good. It’s like when a blind man regains his sight, the colours are brighter. You’re seeing through to the levels you could always see, before your perceptions were severely filtered, courtesy of your subconscious. But perhaps those perceptions didn’t fully register before it happened, because you were so used to them. You could become a real artist now, boy. It may never happen again. Relish it.’
‘I can’t.’ Emotions fought each other briefly for control of Bobby’s face. He started to cry again. For as long as it lasted, there would be no inhibitions, no embarrassment, no social pressures.
‘Poor dab,’ Cindy said. ‘How long had you known each other?’
‘Not long. She was in … the car that knocked me down. Old man’s the vice king of Elham. Drugs, prostitution, that kind of thing.’
‘And she knocked you down, this girl. She caused your death?’
‘Indirectly.’
‘Then you are bound together on the wheel of fate,’ Cindy said.
Bobby smiled bitterly through his tears. ‘Mystic Meg, huh?’
‘Yes, an old Mystic Meg, I am. Mark my words. Now. Tell me what happened in the hotel. Why were you not there when she died?’
‘I had a problem.’
‘Kind of problem?’ Cindy said, more brutally than he’d intended.
‘Couldn’t get it up. We talked about it. She was very kind.’
‘Why couldn’t you?’
‘Nerves, maybe. I mean the nervous system. Nerves were damaged.’ He rubbed his eyes again. A moment of self-discovery. ‘I’m lying,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to say it. Not even to myself. Whenever I got close, she … There was a smell of corruption. Decay. Death. Dead people.’
He fell back on the sofa,
expelled a great, long breath.
‘Thank you,’ Cindy said. ‘Thank you for that.’
‘It wasn’t from her, was it?’
‘No.’ Cindy bent to the desk and brushed the soil with his fingers back into the white envelope. ‘I don’t imagine it was.’
‘Andy … told me I was carrying my own corpse around.’
‘Yes.’ Cindy put down the envelope. ‘And the rest, Bobby.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Been listening to your dreams again, I have. On the tapes.’
‘Do I get to hear that stuff?’
‘Well, sadly, after you gave up your ghosts, as it were, to Marcus’s old cassette machine, it now seems to have given up its own. Packed in, Bobby. Not a squeak.’
‘I see. But you were there when it was recording.’
‘So were you.’
‘It’s a blank, Cindy.’
‘Ah.’
‘So, you going to tell me?’
‘Well, all a little confused, it is, Bobby. Awakened in the middle of a dream, few people give a fluid and coherent report.’
‘The substance of it?’
‘Well, it … it supports my feeling that you are close to him. You’re the man, Bobby.’
‘You still think-’
Cindy held up both hands. ‘There was a moment … a moment when I thought you were, yes. When I thought you might be him.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I still think you’re the man who can take me to his door. All the people who might have received that night … and it has to be you.’
‘Received?’
‘Oh, Bobby, if only you could see the world as I see it. Look … If the night is criss-crossed by radio waves, satellite transmissions, is it so hard to imagine other levels of communication, unseen media through which thoughts and feelings, passions, longing, curses … essences … are constantly travelling? Just because nobody invented it, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there already.’
‘And?’
‘Part of him came into you. A policeman.’
‘What a lucky break,’ Maiden said distantly.
‘Wheel of Fate, Bobby. Wheel of Fate.’
XXXVI
‘I’m sorry, love.’ Amy Jenkins wasn’t looking too surprised at Grayle carrying her suitcase into the bar. ‘I never did hold out much hope. If your sister was still here, we’d have known. That’s a fact. A small place, this is. You can’t hide people.’
