Freelancing
Jane, at breakfast, said, ‘I haven’t been trying to avoid you.’
‘Did I say you had?’
‘Lol said you had. Which means the same thing.’
‘Actually,’ Merrily said, ‘I was feeling bad that I hadn’t been, as they say, here for you. Maybe you could take me to see this Coleman’s Meadow? When you get home from school.’
After some sweaty, befuddled dreams that she couldn’t remember but knew were unpleasant, Merrily just wanted to do something normal. She sat and looked at Jane across the refectory table. Wished they could stay here like this all day.
Jane said, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Difficult night.’ Merrily put an extra spoonful of sugar in her tea. ‘After the meeting, Frannie Bliss took me to look at a murder scene.’
‘Scousers really know how to show a woman a good time. Like… why , exactly?’
‘Because the dead man was found with his throat cut on something called the Sacrificial Stone at Herefordshire Beacon and Bliss wanted to eliminate the possibility of it being a ritual midsummer slaughter by pagans.’
‘Wow. For a vicar, you really-’
Merrily watched her daughter, translating every facial twitch: Jane trying not to be impressed while remembering she had guilty secrets and couldn’t afford to be too abrasive over…
‘Pagans doing ritual murder? That is so insulting.’
‘As Bliss pointed out, there are pagans and pagans. Anyway, it was bloody horrible, and I didn’t get back until nearly two a.m. So if you’ve been trying to avoid me, I’ve not been aware of it.’
‘Who was the vic?’
Kid watched too many American crime shows on Channel Five.
‘When I left, he was still unidentified. Jane… do you know anything about a dance venue called Inn Ya Face?’
‘Best thing about that place -’ Jane spread a slab of honey, obscenely, on a crumpet ‘- is its name.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve been, obviously.’
‘ When? You never mentioned that.’
‘We didn’t stop long. I mean, it’s a good place to go because there’s masses of parking space, supervised by these hard-looking guys so you don’t get your car nicked, and it’s free. We thought we might go again some time, if there was anybody particularly cool appearing, but we somehow never have.’
‘You and Eirion?’
‘Dr Samedi was supposed to be on – you remember Jeff, from Kidderminster?’
‘Oddly, I was only thinking about Dr Samedi last night. He’s still in business?’
‘Yeah, but we got the wrong night. There was this really poxy band on, thought they were the new Chemical Brothers. Really bad. Not bad as in wicked, bad as in… crap.’
‘Talking of chemicals-’
‘Whoever told you I’m doing drugs is-’
‘I meant the Royal Oak. Inn Ya Face. Could you – if you wanted to – get much there?’
‘Mum, how naive are you? You can get it anywhere. There are like ten-year-old dealers outside playgroups? I mean, all that meet-me-on-the-corner-when-the-lights-are-going-on stuff… that’s costume drama.’
‘That’s an exaggeration, right?’
‘Not much of one. Prices have never been lower in Hereford. So I’m told. Look, Mum… erm…’ Jane’s eyes flickered. ‘You heard from anyone? About… me?’
‘Like who?’
‘I don’t know… Morrell?’
‘The head?’ Merrily drank some hot tea. What was this? ‘Why Morrell, Jane? Does he know about your serial truancy?’
‘Serial-? Mum, that is absolute sh-’
‘How many times?’
Jane picked up a piece of crumpet, put it down again, stared at it and sighed.
‘Two.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I swear. Look, if I’d asked for time off the premises to work on my project I’d’ve got it. I just didn’t want to…’
‘Tell them exactly what the project involved.’
‘Because… All right, because I went round to Councillor Pierce’s place to ask him about this housing plan, and there were all these county council guys there, and one was a woman from the education authority.’
‘Why don’t I like the sound of this?’
‘I mean I wasn’t, you know, rude to them or anything. Just tried to get my point over about Coleman’s Meadow being, essentially, an important ancient monument, and they said that was all crap, and Alfred Watkins was a misguided old man. They called it “acceptable infill”. And Lyndon Pierce said he wanted to build Ledwardine up into a thriving little town with like restaurants and massage parlours?’
‘He said that?’
‘Well, he said restaurants. And a new village hall – leisure centre – that’s already going ahead, apparently.’
‘That’s rubbish. I’d have heard. Been consulted, even.’
‘No, really. They’re getting a Lottery grant.’
‘Seems very unlikely to me. I was at a christening tea in the village hall yesterday. It’s going to be redecorated next month.’
‘It sounded like a seriously done deal to me,’ Jane said.
‘I’ll check it out. What did you say to them?’
‘Nothing. Not really. When this woman started banging on about Morrell, I just got out of there.’ Jane stood up, brushing cat hairs from her skirt. ‘You do look knackered, Mum.’
‘I am knackered – let’s not get sidetracked.’
Merrily inspected Jane in her school uniform, hoping it wasn’t only familiarity that made her daughter look innocent rather than sultry and faintly menacing like some of the other girls you saw waiting for the school bus. Jane going, on her own, to see Pierce… that was kind of admirable, but whether Pierce would regard it as mature and socially aware was a different matter.
‘You haven’t done anything else I should know about, have you?’
Call it intuition.
‘He used to shoot blue tits off nut dispensers,’ Jane said.
‘What?’
‘Lyndon Pierce. When he was a kid. Lucy Devenish tried to stop him and he pointed his airgun at her, and then Gomer-’
‘Gomer told you this?’
‘Gomer took the gun off him and flattened it under his JCB. I bet the bastard didn’t put that in his election leaflets.’
‘Jane-’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and blackmail him or anything.’ Jane shouldered her airline bag. ‘I’m probably not even going to say anything about his old man, Percy Pierce, doing a dirty deal with the disgusting Rod Powell to get this, like, agricultural restriction lifted.’
‘What?’
‘So he could build Lyndon’s revolting Las Vegas-style villa. I’m not going to hang that on him… yet.’
‘Good,’ Merrily said. ‘I’m delighted you’re probably not going to attempt to blackmail the local councillor, because it is, as you know, a serious crime.’
‘Building on Coleman’s Meadow is also a crime,’ Jane said. ‘Well… better get off, I suppose.’
The phone started ringing. Merrily rose.
‘There is something I don’t know, isn’t there?’
‘Well, obviously, there must be lots of things, Mum,’ Jane said. ‘But I can’t imagine anything that would cause you a particular problem.’
‘When did you ever?’
As soon as Merrily heard Spicer’s voice on the phone, flat and neutral as underlay, it came to her how much she didn’t want to go back there.
‘You had a good night, then,’ he said.
‘I had a bloody awful night. But how would you know?’
The time for civility was long gone. It was clear that Wychehill – whatever Wychehill was – needed help, the element of nervous dysfunction quiveringly obvious. And, as Lol had said when she’d rung to tell him about last night, it was surely time that Spicer did something about it, rather than some outsider. Of course, that could just have been Lol not wanting her to go back either.
‘I’m glad you went,’ Spicer said.
‘You were told to call me off, weren’t you?’
‘Yeah, but I couldn’t reach you, could I?’
‘Of course you could.’
‘Sure.’
‘Who told you to call me off?’
‘Preston.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s just a funny bloke. Proprietorial. His family goes back. I mean, really goes back – Norman times. I’m not saying he doesn’t like outsiders, exactly – the guy’s running upmarket holiday accommodation on his farm – but he likes to be in control. And people in Wychehill like him to be in control. They’re all outsiders and they like to buy into the history. Even Holliday.’
‘So Holliday was firing Devereaux’s bullets?’
‘Holliday would’ve run with Elgar’s ghost, all the way to the News of the World, even if he doesn’t believe a word of it. Maybe because he doesn’t believe a word. I can understand Devereaux not wanting that – I wouldn’t want it.’
‘But you weren’t there last night.’
‘No point. It was a stitch-up. But like I say, I’m glad you went. It worked out. A requiem will be spot-on. Everybody happy.’
‘Why do I feel I ’ve been stitched up?’
‘Trust me, it’s the best thing. Devereaux respects you now. That counts.’
‘What about Stella Cobham?’
‘Oh, he isn’t gonna forget that, is he? She came close to making a fool of him.’
‘And what’s your feeling now about… what we’re dealing with?’
‘Don’t matter what my feelings are. What are yours?’
‘It’s impressive. But if there’s going to be a requiem, maybe you should do it.’
‘ No.’
Startled by the force of Spicer’s response, Merrily said nothing.
‘It’s not my thing. All right? I can get you the names and addresses of the dead kids’ parents. Been in touch with the priest handling the joint funeral in Cookman’s parish. I can make the arrangements – all you have to do is show up.’
‘This coming Sunday? Evening?’
‘Why not? Thank you, Merrily.’ A long expulsion of breath; he was smoking. ‘I hear you were up on the hill last night.’
She was getting used to how long it took him to get around to crucial issues.
‘All it was… a CID man I know was in charge up there. He thought I might be able to help. He was wrong.’
‘Why’d he think that, Merrily?’
‘Because it looked as if there was a ritual element to it.’
‘Nah,’ Spicer said. ‘It’s urban business, innit?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘He was a bouncer. At the Oak.’
‘I didn’t know that. Syd…’
‘Yeah?’
‘Are there still serious drugs coming out of there, in quantity?’
‘That what your pal thinks?’
‘Not my place. But I did hear something about Preston Devereaux’s boy. Not Hugo, the other one.’
‘Louis. He’s about twenty-three now. What did you hear?’
‘That he’d gone off the rails after the hunt ban.’
‘Yeah, that’s true. Youngest-ever master of the East Malvern hunt. Lived for it, totally. Ban came in, he had a breakdown, of sorts. Like his life had been cut off at the roots.’
‘But his father… moved on?’
‘As he likes to say. Yeah, he sold the horses. All the other hunts, with the tacit approval of the gutless wankers in the Cabinet, are doing pretend drag hunts where foxes just accidentally get killed. Preston’s too proud.’
‘So when he says, you move on…’
‘He means, you move on, disguising your rage and loathing. Don’t give them the satisfaction.’
‘And does that also explain his attitude to the Royal Oak?’
‘You’re doing very well, Merrily,’ Spicer said. ‘It usually takes outsiders years to acquire that level of local understanding.’
‘I live in a village.’
‘He’s right,’ Bliss said. ‘Roman Wicklow. A hard-boy.’
He wouldn’t talk on the phone, so it was back to that same table in the Cathedral cloisters. Outside, it was an all-too-typical midsummer morning: small, white sun crowded by sour clouds, not very warm.
‘His form includes ABH, malicious wounding and possession of Class A. Bromsgrove’s his old playground, so they’ll be looking there.’
‘They? Not you?’
‘Mr One-night-stand, me.’ No doughnut this time, Bliss was drinking black coffee. ‘Left to meself, I’d be roasting Raji on a slow spit. But when you’re off the case, you’re off the case.’
‘Annie Howe’s taken over?’
‘Since first light. Legitimately. It’s a Worcester thing now, from all angles.’
‘But you’re still interested?’
‘In an academic way.’
‘I bet.’
‘I managed to…’ Bliss sipped his coffee, winced, added sugar. ‘Before they broke the news, we had another word with two of the little scallies who found the remains. Thirteen-year-olds sharing a six-pack of Fosters, so a little mild pressure was permissible. Finally admitted this wasn’t the first time they’d seen Roman up the Beacon.’
‘Birdwatching?’
‘Mr Khan was terribly shocked. Assuring me he’d have fired Roman at once if he’d so much as suspected. And, you know, strange thing, I think he was shocked. Mr Wicklow dealing on the Beacon? Handful of rocks and a few piffling grams?’
‘You think he really didn’t know?’
‘That kind of trade would be far too trivial for Raji, not to mention dangerously close to home. Yeh, I believe him when he says he’d have had Wicklow’s balls if he’d found out. Wicklow was freelancing. Probably made the arrangements in the pubs in Great Malvern, then met the clients in the fresh air, with those wonderful, far-reaching views of anybody approaching and a nice cave to shelter in.’
‘Therefore Khan’s not involved?’
‘Oh, I never said that.’ Bliss looked down into his coffee, lowered his voice. ‘If he’d found out that one of his people was operating on the side and figured it was time an example was made of someone foolish enough to abuse his position… well, that just might explain why the goody bag was left at the scene.’
‘ He had Wicklow killed?’
Bliss smiled. ‘Try and prove it.’
Merrily leaned back. A stray blade of wan sunlight tinted an edge of the Bishop’s lawn. Another world.
‘So ritual murder’s definitely ruled out?’
‘It was never really ruled in. Also, Doc McEwen’s knocked down his own theory that it would’ve taken several people. Wound on the back of the head now suggests that Wicklow was clobbered first and then dragged to the stone before his throat was cut. Assuming an element of surprise, one person could have done that.’
‘And it wouldn’t have taken long, I suppose?’
‘By comparison, no time at all.’ Bliss looked at her, his eyes slitted. ‘Still funny it should happen when you’re around, though.’
‘You’re considering the possibility that I did it?’
‘Can you think of a better way of little Francis becoming Annie Howe’s favourite detective in the whole world? Instead of off the flaming case.’
Merrily hadn’t yet been to the office, slightly worried about facing Sophie, whose reasoning, on the issue of Wychehill and Syd Spicer, had been, as it had turned out, flawless.
Sophie wasn’t in, however – probably over at the Palace, dealing with the Bishop’s mail. The computer was switched off, but four messages were on the answering machine, one of them non-routine and left less than four minutes ago.
‘Mrs Watkins, this is Winchester Sparke.’
Winchester?
Sophie came in with a cardboard file under her arm, sat down opposite Merrily and began to unpack it, assembling a small pile of letters on the desk.
‘I need to speak with you.’ Winnie Sparke’s voice was harsh and frayed. Please call me back. I- The cops have taken Tim. Came pounding on his door… took him away.’