Singing the Sadness

by Reginald Hill

  ‘So you were planning a – what did you call it? – a preliminary survey on Copa?’ said Joe. ‘Who were you going to get to do your dirty work this time?’

  ‘No one. Electricity Sample had really made that place secure. So we were going to use the alarm system to get us in, see? Or rather, get Tom Prince in. You were almost right about him, by the way, except he’s National Squad and it was them who arranged for him to be transferred here under a cloud, not me. I don’t have that kind of clout. His job was to get himself trusted by the GM element in the area, see what he could turn up.’

  ‘And keep an eye on you,’ suggested Joe.

  ‘Oh yes. That too,’ said Ursell. ‘So you saved my skin by playing dumb back there, Joe, but you possibly saved your own too, which is why I’m telling you all this so’s you can keep on saving it.’

  ‘You’re talking like they got hitmen!’ said Joe incredulously.

  ‘In a way. They might not hit your life but they could certainly hit your living. Joe, I’ve come so far, I might as well spell it out. These NPS people have got a different agenda from me, a bigger picture is how they’d put it. The Haggards are more important to them than the High Master. He’s peripheral. Films of boys crapping or playing with each other in the showers is children’s TV to the kind of thing they’re really after. They’ll be all too willing to cut a deal with Lewis to get a lead in towards the centre, and with the Haggards too, if it comes to that. This is big business they’re investigating, this is international corporation stuff. That’s the way they see things. Well, good for them, say I. Me, what I saw was poor Simon Sillcroft who’s now dead. And what I see is Mr bloody Lewis high-mastering it on my patch. And he’s the one I’m going to have, no matter what!’

  Joe for once had got here already. He was Ursell’s unofficial weapon and his accidental encounter with Tom Prince had caused the DI problems, compounded by his outburst accusing the sergeant of being a plant. So Ursell had opted to bind him in with frankness. Perhaps more frankness than he intended. He came across as a guy much in need of someone to talk to.

  And like Detective Superintendent Willie Woodbine of Luton CID, he’d grasped that Joe was a guy who sometimes reached places official investigators couldn’t dream of.

  ‘So what do you think was in the cottage?’ he asked.

  ‘The place was full of computer equipment. We know that from the wreckage. And Haggard admits it freely. It was what may have been in the computers that we’d like to lay our hands on. I think it might have been a control centre for the Haggards’ and Lewis’s kiddy porn ring. And God knows what else. Only if there was anything incriminating there, it very handily went up in flames.’

  It still didn’t sound right to Joe. But at least the fact that the Haggards were in the frame to some extent explained their behaviour. Fran the Man, knowing that Lewis had a key to the cottage, hadn’t been totally convinced after talking to his partner that the other didn’t know more about both the woman and the fire than he was saying. As for Franny, her reason for wanting to find out about the burnt girl rang genuine. But all their mutual distrust had evaporated under the more potent threat of police investigation, which Lewis must have passed on to them by car phone as they drove back to London. Joe could imagine what he had said. Something along the lines of: The cops are doing some serious sniffing around, someone’s been poking around my hidden TV room, I don’t know exactly what’s going off but I’m getting bad feelings and I’m going to need all my energies to cover myself, so if you want to cover your arses, you’d better get yourselves back here tooty sweety.

  Only, of course, the High Master would have wrapped it up a little more elegant with the odd as ‘twere tossed in.

  ‘So, Joe, I’ve kept my side of the bargain. What have you got for me?’

  Ursell spoke lightly enough, but Joe caught the urgency in his voice. Way things stood at the moment, he hadn’t been able to lay a finger on Lewis. Fate seemed bent on tantalizingly pulling away the evidence from under the DI’s nose just as he got within sniffing distance. He must feel perilously close to ending up with egg on his face, his only achievement of note being the damage he’d done to the National Squad’s broader investigation. And if that happened, Deputy Chief Constable Penty-Hooser might find himself with some unexpected allies when it came to putting the snuffer on the DI’s career.

  So any straw was graspable, even when it consisted of a redundant lathe operator from Luton.

  Joe looked up at the sky for inspiration. The bird had stopped singing. It was twilight with a couple of stars just beginning to laser their way through the deepening blue.

  His brain too felt a twinkle coming through.

  He said, ‘You talk to Long John yet?’

  ‘Dawe from the Goat? Yes, Joe, he admits to rogering Mrs Williams, claims it’s true love and he wants to marry her. But after divorce, not death, and he’s got an alibi for the bit of the morning when you weren’t watching him on the job. But it was all a waste of time anyway. When Williams came round, all he said was it was an accident, brake slipped while he was sitting up by the quarry, so no crime.’

  ‘Talk to Dai again,’ said Joe. ‘Tell him you’re about to pick the High Master up for kiddy porn. Tell him you know about the hidden cameras.’

  Ursell considered.

  ‘You think he’s in on it?’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘No, but I think he probably spotted the cameras. He’s the caretaker, isn’t he? And when he worked out what was happening, he had a quiet word. I bet Lewis has been paying him off for the past year or more. So another loose end to be sorted out when Lewis felt the heat on.’

  ‘But why didn’t he say anything?’

  ‘Because with attempted murder to add to his blackmail threat, he must have thought he could really put up the payments.’

  ‘Joe,’ said Ursell softly. ‘You may just be a genius. What else?’

  ‘Wain Lewis was seen driving up to Copa Cottage the night of the fire. And those pills I spotted in his lavatory cistern and they found traces of in Angela, they were stolen from the hospital, right? Well, Wain’s got something going with a nurse called Tilly Butler. Red-haired girl, father’s the minister at the Primitive Chapel.’

  Ursell shook his head in incredulous awe.

  ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,’ he said. ‘For thereby some have entertained angels unawares. What more, Joe? Is there more?’

  There may have been, Joe wasn’t sure. But of time there was certainly no more.

  Tom Prince came hurrying out of the college building.

  ‘Perry,’ he said. ‘I’ve just been on the blower to the hospital. Angela Sillcroft’s awake and talking.’

  ‘What? Great. Joe, why don’t you come too …’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Prince coldly. ‘Heroes and civilians have got their place, and it’s not where we’re going.’

  In that moment Joe appreciated the seriousness of Ursell’s warning. Prince was not a man to mess with. Ursell looked like he might be ready to try it but Joe felt the DI already had enough on his plate.

  ‘I got other things to do,’ he said to Ursell. ‘Catch you later.’

  ‘Surely,’ said the DI as Prince practically manhandled him towards their car.

  Joe watched their lights fade down the drive. As they passed out of sight, another single headlight came in view, moving fast.

  His ears told him what it was before his eyes could make it out clearly.

  A 250cc bike. The same engine he’d heard receding that morning as he tiptoed tremulously around the Lady House.

  He didn’t have time to work out the implications of that before it came to a gravel-spraying halt alongside him. Its rider raised the visor of his crash helmet to reveal the anxious face of Glyn Matthias.

  ‘Mr Sixsmith,’ he said. ‘I need help. Wain Lewis is back at the Lady House. I think he’s planning to burn the place down.’

  Chapter 26

  It seemed to Joe that since a
rriving in Wales he’d spent more time than a sensitive man ought to hurtling through the countryside at breakneck speeds.

  This time, though the distance was short, the terror was even more intense as he covered it perched on the pillion of a motorbike whose rider’s head seemed permanently twisted round so that he could gasp out details of his story to his passenger.

  Joe concentrated hard on Matthias’s words. The alternative was imagining how it was going to feel if they didn’t come out of one of their speedway skids and fetched up against the solid trunk of some rough-barked tree that had been standing there for a hundred years and wasn’t about to give way now.

  By the time they came to a halt alongside the Lady House steps, Joe had got a broad outline of the picture.

  Some time after fleeing from the festival ground, Wain Lewis had turned up at the Goat and Axle. He had got down to some serious drinking, and after a while Long John Dawe had refused to serve him without he handed over his car keys. A little while later one of the other drinkers had spotted a police car pulling up in front of the pub. Wain, clearly thinking they were after him, had headed out of the door leading to the back of the pub where his Mazda was parked. Of course, he couldn’t start it. The cops had wanted to question Long John about his possible involvement in the possible attack on Dai Williams. Satisfied with his alibi, they had left, and Dawe, full of concern for Ella Williams, had headed off for Caerlindys to try to see her at the hospital.

  This was as far as Matthias had got by the time they arrived at the Lady House.

  Silence and darkness reigned. The only sign of anything amiss was the Mazda, which had been abandoned across the centre circle of lawn after administering a coup de grâce to the ailing magnolia.

  ‘Thought you said he didn’t have the keys,’ said Joe, as they banged at the flaking front door.

  ‘He didn’t. I went looking for him and found him sitting in the car. He wasn’t unconscious but looked all played out. I thought it was just the booze but I wondered later if he’d been taking something. I told him the cops had gone and a couple of us got him back inside. We made him some coffee and he sat quietly in the corner, so quietly that after a while we forgot he was there.’

  ‘He certainly knows how to be quiet,’ agreed Joe. “Cos if he’s still in here, he’s not making any noise.’

  He crouched down with his ear to the letterbox.

  ‘He’s in there,’ insisted Matthias. ‘After Long John left, we just helped ourselves to what we wanted and put the money in the till. Then suddenly someone noticed Wain behind the bar. I said, “You want some more coffee?” but he just vaulted over the bar and shot off out of the back door. And then someone said, “He’s got his car keys!” and we went after him. It was too late. The Mazda was already on its way by the time we got outside. I jumped on the bike and set off after him. How he got here without crashing I don’t know. Don’t know how I managed it either, and I was a long way behind. I found the car like you see it and I could hear stuff being smashed up inside the house and Wain screaming, “Where are you? Where are you? Do you know what you’ve done?” I tried shouting to him but it was no use and I couldn’t get in. Then I smelt it …’

  Joe, who was now down on his knees with the letterbox pushed open, could smell it too. Petrol. He shuddered at the thought of what a spark could do. Thank God the bell worked off an old-fashioned pull system.

  ‘I thought I’d better get help quick,’ concluded Matthias. ‘I’m glad I saw you.’

  ‘You are? Why?’ asked Joe, puzzled that he should be anyone’s first choice in an emergency.

  ‘If I’d had to go into the reception, Mr Lewis would have come rushing up here and as the boy’s obviously blaming his father for something, God knows what he’d do if he actually saw him,’ said Matthias. ‘Maybe you can talk him out before he does any damage. You seem to get on well with youngsters.’

  ‘You reckon?’ said Joe. ‘Well, I’m flattered. But this stuff can just go up by accident while I’m talking. We’d better rustle up some professional help.’

  He reached into his pocket for his mobile. But when he switched it on, nothing happened. He checked his battery status and saw that sod’s law had finally taken it over.

  ‘Oh shoot,’ he said. ‘I’m flat.’

  He could hear Mirabelle saying with some satisfaction, ‘You buy your shoes from the devil, you end up with a hole in your sole.’

  Or soul. Same thing.

  ‘What do we do now?’ said Matthias, regarding Joe with the expectation of a young subaltern awaiting orders from a battle-scarred veteran.

  ‘You get back to the hall, ring for help. Fire brigade, police, ambulance, best take no chances.’

  ‘Right,’ said Matthias, heading down the steps to his bike.

  Sod’s law was working here too. It wouldn’t start.

  At least, though phones were way beyond his competence, this was something Joe could deal with.

  He ran down the steps and began checking out the ignition. It had sounded to be misfiring a bit to his finely tuned ear.

  As he worked something occurred to him.

  ‘Mr Matthias, how come you knew Simon Sillcroft was dead?’

  Matthias looked surprised. But he obviously felt his was not to reason why.

  ‘His sister told me. I wrote to his aunt after he left saying he was very talented musically and ought to keep it up. I thought it might help having someone being positive about him instead of all the poor-mixed-up-kid stuff she must be getting. It was Angela who wrote back some time later. She said I was the only person her brother talked about with any fondness.’

  ‘You ever meet her?’

  ‘No. Spoke to her on the phone. She rang me to say he was dead.’

  ‘Ask you a lot of questions about the Lewises?’

  ‘Yes, she did. Why are you so interested?’

  ‘No reason,’ said Joe, pressing the starter. The engine burst into life. ‘Go, go.’

  He watched the bike out of sight then turned back to the house. Twilight was deepening rapidly to darkness and the unlit building no longer just looked ugly, it looked sinister. Maybe it was empty, he thought. Maybe when Wain realized his father wasn’t there, he’d set out on foot for the hall taking the direct route through the trees, and they’d missed him. In which case he’d be there about the same time Matthias got back, and it would be someone else’s problem.

  That would be nice. Except that the dark house didn’t feel empty.

  He had to get in or get Wain out. How could he tempt him? Or at least get his attention?

  Easy.

  He went to the red Mazda, reached inside, and leaned on the horn.

  It had a rather distinctive note, G in the bass clef, he thought.

  Something on the passenger seat caught his eye. A long ribbon of cellophane.

  He stopped pressing the horn and picked it up.

  ‘Oh shoot,’ he said.

  It was a bubble strip of Decorax tablets, except all the tablets had been pressed out.

  Now he pressed repeatedly on the horn, sending an urgent challenge which bounced back mockingly from the brick facade of the still house, to be absorbed by the surrounding trees which seemed to be moving closer in the darkening air.

  Then finally the summons was answered.

  He was looking up at the first-floor window where he’d spotted Wain watching him the night of the dinner. And suddenly there it was again, that pale narrow face in its frame of black hair, peering down at him.

  He stepped forward to wave and beckon the boy down. But at the same moment something very odd happened.

  The front door opened and Wain Lewis stepped outside.

  It was strange how mind-blanking incredulity and panoramic revelation could come so close you could hardly say the one followed the other.

  Slowed down, the sequence ran: no one can be in two places at once; it had to be Morna Lewis standing by the window and he’d mistaken her for her son because of (a) the family res
emblance, and (b) he expected to see Wain there.

  That was straightforward enough, but now came the visionary leap to full-frontal knowledge without benefit of clever reasoning.

  Harry Herbert had made the same mistake the night he thought he saw Wain in the Mazda speeding up to Copa Cottage. And Joe should have spotted this much earlier, knowing as he did that Wain had been over at the college that night, enjoying the company of Bronwen Williams.

  The boy was swaying at the top of the steps and Joe ran forward to catch him.

  He looked in a bad way, but when Joe lowered him on to the topmost step, his eyes registered recognition.

  ‘Make your money easy,’ he muttered accusingly.

  ‘Not as easy as dealing drugs,’ said Joe. ‘Help’s on its way. You just lie there quiet while I talk to your mum.’

  But that was easier said than done. Either Wain had pulled the door shut behind him or it had swung to.

  Joe hauled at the bell pull with one hand and hammered at the woodwork with the other.

  ‘Mrs Lewis, you OK?’ he yelled. ‘Open up, will you, please?’

  No reply. He tried the letterbox again. The smell of petrol was still strong.

  ‘Wain,’ he said. ‘Were you planning to torch the house?’

  ‘Like the cottage,’ mumbled the youth. ‘ Yeah … only fair … see what it’s like …’

  ‘But you just poured some petrol around?’ said Joe, eager for reassurance. ‘You didn’t try to light it? Or set a fuse?’

  ‘… poured it around … fuse …’

  The boy was nearly out. Was that agreement or denial?

  ‘Wain, don’t go to sleep,’ urged Joe.

  He stooped and raised the boy by his shoulders.

  ‘Wain, was that all you did?’

  ‘… kitchen … cooker …’

  Joe recalled the oven fuelled from cylinders of gas … the spare cylinders lying around the kitchen …

  ‘Wain, you didn’t do anything with the gas, did you? Wain!’

  He shook the boy violently.

  The result was devastating.

  From the other side of the door came a sound like the exhalation of a mighty breath and the downstairs windows on the kitchen side of the house came bursting out like they’d been hit by a shell blast. Within seconds the blank, staring, still unbroken windows on the first floor were alive with a ghastly moving light.