by Phil Rickman
‘In what way?’
‘He does one day on a deliverance course and thinks he knows enough to wing it on his own?’
‘Mmm. See what you—’
Merrily’s mobile was chiming in her bag. The kid had always chosen her moments.
‘Where are you?’
‘In the pub.’
‘I’m assuming not on your—’
‘With Lol. And Danny Thomas.’
‘Good. Listen, flower, I’ve got a bit of a problem.’
Telling Jane why she’d be spending the night at Huw’s rectory.
‘Jesus,’ Jane said. ‘Gormenghast?’
‘So when you get in, maybe you could ring and assure me that all the doors are locked, things like that. Or you could even stay in Lol’s spare room…’
‘And become the subject of evil gossip? I’ll be… fine.’
Hesitation?
‘You sure?’
‘Wind’s dying down. A few slates gone in the village, that’s all. You want me to take a walk round the vic—?’
‘No! If there’s nothing obvious from inside, just—’
‘You want me to hang on in the morning, till you get back?’
‘No, get the bus. I’ll call you anyway, about eight.’
‘OK.’
‘And get Lol to see you home and check—’
‘That there’s nobody around. Yes. I will. I’ll do that.’
Now that was wrong. Normally it would be, Don’t be ridiculous, this is Ledwardine.
‘Owt up, lass?’
‘Don’t know.’ Merrily dropped the phone into her bag; maybe she was overtired. ‘You think when they’re officially adult, it’s going to be easier. That they’ll be more restrained. But the only real difference is that now they can do things. Shake foundations.’
She told Huw about the Ledwardine henge issue – indications of a Bronze Age earthwork around the village, concealed for centuries by apple orchards. It was clear that elements inside Hereford Council would prefer that nothing was found on land they hoped to develop, thus turning Ledwardine into something approaching a town. Jane – obsessed with ancient sites, planning a career in archaeology – was furious. And Jane was eighteen. Jane could vote and express opinions.
‘She’s also enraged about a very rich man called Ward Savitch inviting other rich people to kill our wildlife. And she feels… I don’t know. She was a bit screwed-up when we arrived – fifteen, dad dead, mother adopting a deeply uncool career. And yet she’s been happier in Ledwardine than anywhere, and now she can see it coming apart. The village is a divided place now. Not a happy place. ’
‘And you’ve to keep walking the fence.’ Huw fell silent, gazing into the embers from the depths of his chair. Then he got to his feet. ‘I’ll go and make some more tea.’
When he returned with the teapot it was after midnight and Jane had rung back to say all was well: doors barred, cat fed, no signs of storm-damage at the vicarage.
Still detectable traces of let’s not worry Mum unnecessarily. But short of listing every conceivable mishap and pedantically putting them to her, one by one, there wasn’t a thing you could do about it.
The tea was strong, as if Huw was determined neither of them would get much sleep tonight.
‘You read the new guidelines?’
‘Mmm.’
A circular last week, underlining the need for full insurance. Be sure your clerical policy covered deliverance and all the possible repercussions.
‘It’s a farce, Merrily. Rules and procedures and targets. Like the NHS. Health and Safety. It can’t work like that. I’ve been thinking… might be time for me to pack this in. The courses.’
‘You’ve said that before.’
She moved to the chair vacated by Syd, up against the dregs of the fire. Lighting a cigarette and leaning back into a padded wing so that most of her face was out of Huw’s line of sight. You tended to think it was only the intensity of his work that had kept him going after Julia’s death.
‘What would you do?’
‘Happen retire. Write me memoirs.’
‘That would explode a few comfort zones.’
Huw leaned back with his hands behind his head.
‘I’m starting to think we could be close to fucked this time, Merrily. I go into Brecon – even Brecon, and I can feel it. Apathy, scorn… even fear. Of what we might be underneath. Used to be the worst we were was irrelevant, now we’re taking the shit for militant Islam and a handful of kiddie-fiddling Catholic priests. We’re either naive and laughable or we’re part of a sinister old conspiracy to control people’s minds and have sex with their children. And all the time there’s Dawkins standing on his citadel of science, pissing on us over the railings.’
Merrily let the smile show.
‘Did I just hear a snatch of your fantasy final sermon?’
Huw’s eyes lit up for just a moment, like in the old days, and he laughed.
‘Bugger off to bed, you cheeky cow, or you’ll be fit for nowt in the morning.’
She nodded and stood up.
‘Keep an eye on him,’ Huw said.
‘Syd? He’s a grown man.’
‘Credenhill’s no more than… what? Eight miles from you?’
‘You think this could actually be something at the SAS camp? Not going to get in there, am I?’
‘I never saw you as a defeatist,’ Huw said.
The room Merrily’d been given… she figured it wasn’t supposed to be a guest room. Syd would have the guest room. This was… a woman’s room? Nothing you could quite put your finger on. No frilly pink shade on the bedside lamp, no extra mirrors, no fleecy rugs.
The lamp had a parchment shade, making a pale sepia circle around two books: a hardback New Testament and an Oxford paperback edition of Aquinas’s Selected Philosophical Writings. The bed was a double bed. Merrily guessed this was the room where Huw had slept with Julia – a room that he didn’t use any more.
Wearing a sweater over bra and pants, Merrily switched off the lamp and walked over to the sash window. The view was down the valley towards the few remaining lights of the village of Sennybridge. The landscape looked disarranged, like rumpled bedclothes after a restless night.
The way the weather got inside the landscape. The way it got inside people. Even Huw.
New deliverance guidelines. Another generation of dull buggers appointed by careful bishops. She couldn’t lose that grainy mental video of Huw in the passage at the chapel heading the old stained light bulb, and she had a disturbing sense of disintegration: Jane leaving home for some university next autumn, Lol’s career reviving after the years of oblivion. Even though he only lived across the street, Merrily wasn’t seeing as much of him this year, now that Danny Thomas’s barn, over the border, had become his rehearsal room.
Well, that was wonderful, obviously. Life was good for Lol, good for Jane… if she could let go of Ledwardine.
Merrily stood at the window, arms wrapped around herself, watching the lights in the valley going out.
Part Two
…then my sight began to fail
and the room became dark
about me, as if it were night…
Julian of Norwich
Revelations of Divine Love
11
Stable Doors
MID-MORNING, DAY THREE of the Mansel Bull investigation, and the police press officer was on the phone to Bliss. Elly Clatter, this was, ex-local journalist from the Black Country and a nice enough woman if you didn’t mind being treated like a maladjusted kid at play school.
‘Normal way of it, Francis, my duck, I’d be suggesting you maintain a dignified silence. Only it looks to me like this is starting to become a bit of an issue.’
An issue. This year, everything was a frigging issue.
‘And he’s saying what, exactly?’
Sollers Bull. The first formal interviews since his brother’s murder. Hunt hero Sollers Bull, in the Tory tabs. Twat in Bliss’s b
ook.
‘He hasn’t said anything yet. He’s doing TV and radio in about an hour. But if he says what we think he might say, we’re going to need to be ready with some answers.’
‘Not me again, Elly, I’ve done enough.’
Couple of pressers over the past two days.This was a particularly savage and pointless crime. We know the killer left the scene with a considerable amount of blood on his clothing and on his person. Somebody out there knows who this is. This is an individual nobody should be hiding.
Trite crap. Hated the telly, particularly.
‘You can relax,’ Elly said. ‘It’ll just be a quote from a police spokesperson at this stage. All we need from you, Frannie, or your colleagues, is some background, so we can formally say, no, we’re not turning a blind eye to petty crime in the countryside, and yes, we do investigate all reports of suspicious behaviour.’
‘Shit, Elly, I’ve gorra—’
Bliss broke off. Eyes were raised all over the CID room. Must’ve been shouting. Normally he’d be in his own office, but that wasn’t the best place to find out if people were dissecting your private life.
‘If you cobble something together,’ Elly said, ‘I’ll mess around with it, read it back to you, then take it upstairs for clearance. How’s that sound?’
‘Or you could just tell the media that DI Bliss has told Mr Bull to go and—’
‘Now, Francis…’
‘Sorry.’ Bliss lowered his head into Billy Grace’s report: divided trachea, several blood vessels… ‘I’m not gerrin a lorra sleep, Elly. I’ll talk to the DCI, get back to you, all right?’
‘He seems to be an impulsive sort of man, this Mr Bull,’ Elly said.
‘Yeh.’
Bliss had a few of the back-stories on his laptop. THE BLOODING OF PREZZA – Daily Express on the red-paint incident. A Telegraph feature on the saintly Sollers’s battle to defend a thousand-year tradition. Pictures of Sollers in his fox-hunting kit and his ear stud. Bliss looked up and saw that Elly Clatter hadn’t gone away.
‘What?’
‘I’d be a bit a careful, Frannie. You just see him as a man with form, but in hunting circles it’s a medal. Him and that Otis Ferry?’
‘Both members of the Jumped-up Twats Club.’
A moment’s silence. From opposite corners of the CID room, Terry Stagg and Karen Dowell were staring at him.
‘You ever think you might be working in the wrong part of the country, Francis?’ Elly Clatter said.
About half an hour later, Bliss rang Annie Howe at headquarters in Worcester. From his office this time. Door shut, voice lowered. Annie was still only half-available, required to be on hand in case she was recalled to the Crown Court. She’d been quite helpful meanwhile, which was still a whole new experience for Bliss.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘We tried. Either they know nothing or they’re not playing.’
‘Or the translator’s crap,’ Bliss said.
‘She’s actually a very good translator, I’m told.’
It had been Annie’s idea – and not a bad one – to approach the two men facing rustling charges in Evesham, offer them a deal in return for information on who might be lifting stock in Herefordshire. A network couldn’t be ruled out.
‘Both came over as seasonal workers,’ Annie said, ‘but don’t seem to have been at any of the Hereford fruit farms.’
Bliss and Stagg had been over to the Magnis Berries farm first thing. Still a pre-season skeleton staff: local manager, six workers. Everybody living off-site, the whole place locked up all night.
‘Stuffed, then,’ Bliss said. ‘They could’ve come from anywhere… Birmingham… Newport… Gloucester…’
‘Widen the net, then. Talk to West Midlands, Gwent. What about general crime? No pointers there?’
‘Farm thefts are up. Stolen quad bikes, chainsaws. Diesel drained from tanks. Widespread metal-theft. Some organized poaching, but no recent rustling of farm animals, no violence. We’ll keep trying.’
The press conferences had shaken out sightings of two un familiar pickup trucks on private land – one up towards Bredwardine, one seen turning round at Lulham like he was a stranger who hadn’t known it was a dead end. This was the best so far, but still not worth much.
‘Meanwhile,’ Bliss said, ‘Mr Bull is doing interviews.’
‘Talking stable doors? Accusing us of giving rural crime low priority? Don’t react. I mean it, Francis.’
Bliss found himself wondering what Annie was wearing.
‘Where are you tonight?’
‘Jury’s still out, and we’re warned to expect an overnight.’ She was always careful on police phones. ‘Might make it over there before close of play. Failing that, I’ll be home this evening. If you need me for anything.’
‘Home.’
‘Malvern.’
‘Right,’ Bliss said.
The lunchtime TV news had pictures of grey fields, barbed wire and police tape. It said the hunt for the killer of a farmer in the Wye Valley had been stepped up.
What they always said when there was no new line. Bliss switched off. He’d brought Karen Dowell and Terry Stagg into the office, with a pot of tea and a few sandwiches.
‘We’re going to get a hard time over this, aren’t we?’ Terry said.
Sounding almost pleased. Bliss extracted an egg sarnie.
‘But it’s not totally our fault, is it, Tezza? As we’re severely undermanned, underfunded and overburdened with bureaucratic shite. I think we need to quietly point this out to the media.’
‘Quietly, how?’
‘I was thinking you, actually. When you go back out there, I thought you could find out which pub they’re occupying, join them for a butty, exchange a few confidences. You’ve got the look of a boozer, Tez, it’s the veins in your nose. They like that. Maybe you could find out what Sollers is telling them on the side, and what they think of him.’
‘You don’t like Sollers Bull, do you, boss?’ Karen said.
A wholesome country girl, but smart.
‘Karen, what were his relations with Mansel, do you think?’
‘Big old family.’
‘It’s not the frigging Royal family, Karen.’
‘It’s near enough, in this county. You should know, you married into the fringes of… all that.’
Bliss scowled.
‘Sorry,’ Karen said.
‘I was sensing a distance, between Sollers and his brother,’ Bliss said. ‘The way he kept telling me what a well-respected man he was. No conspicuous affection.’
‘With respect, boss, he wouldn’t show that in front of you.’
‘But they weren’t mates. Big age gap. Not exactly grief-stricken, is what I’m saying. And he’s very likely going to inherit a big slab of prime riverside acreage, plus a small mansion. Mansel had no wife left, no kids.’
‘I heard that’s why they’re history,’ Terry said, ‘the wives.’
‘That’s what Billy Grace thought. Mansel wanted an heir to Oldcastle but refused to believe it might be his fault he didn’t get one. Bottom line, looks like Sollers could be in line for most of it. They were partners.’
‘You want to be a bit careful, boss, that’s all,’ Karen said. ‘Under the circumstances.’
‘I’m doing me job.’ Bliss threw up his hands. ‘He’s got form.’ ‘He was nicked for exercising his countryman’s right to protest about what he considered to be an unjust law.’
‘You think he’s a hero, do you, Karen?’
‘I think he’s clever. University, then business college? Big on diversification – farm shop, restaurant…’
‘We frequent his restaurant, do we?’
‘No, but my mum works there.’ Karen split a Kit Kat. ‘What’s the DCI’s line? Something this big, I keep expecting her to come stalking in, rapping knuckles. But she stays in Worcester. Odd, that.’
‘She’s been in court.’
‘Not over the weekend. I mean, she was here, but not for long
.’
Terry Stagg said, ‘Maybe keeping out of the line of fire. Let the DI cop the flack.’
‘Not the only odd thing, when you think about it,’ Karen said, thoughtful. ‘She does that spell as acting-super here and then gets offered Thames Valley, which – unless I’ve got this wrong – would’ve been about six months under a superintendent coming up to retirement. On a promise. Why didn’t she go for that? Not the Howe we know, is it?’
Terry Stagg smiled greasily through his unsightly stubble.
‘Maybe she has other things she wouldn’t want to leave behind.’ Grinned at Bliss. ‘Father’s daughter?’
‘OK,’ Bliss said, ‘let’s just…’
‘That’s crap.’ Karen shaking her head. ‘Even I don’t think she’s bent.’
‘That case…’ Terry brushing crumbs off his tie ‘… maybe she’s finally getting herself seen to.’
Shit. Bliss was looking down at his desk, turning over the forensics, feigning lack of interest, when he heard Karen go, ‘It’s not you, is it?’
His gut went tight as a drum.
His head came up very slowly – a struggle to frame some flip reply, until he saw she was looking at Terry Stagg.
A joke. How many of these frigging jokes could his heart take? He watched Stagg shudder.
‘Why is Karen trying to give me nightmares, boss?’
‘She’s actually not bad-looking,’ Karen said. ‘In her austere way.’
‘Karen…’ Terry Stagg blinked. ‘That woman’s a metal coat hanger with tits. It’d be like, you know, with a plastic doll or something? Staring over your shoulder with glazed eyes. Anyway, nobody’s yet proved to me she’s not a lezzer.’
‘How many times we been through that?’ Karen said.
‘Does a brilliant impression of a woman who hates men.’
‘Gay women cops, Staggie – man-friendly. Always. Am I right, boss?’
‘Sorry, Karen?’ Bliss tried not to look too concerned either way. ‘I was just wondering how Terry knows so much about having sex with a plastic doll. That was a very telling detail about the way their eyes stare over your shoulder.’
Karen giggled.
