by Phil Rickman
‘Go ’head, darling,’ Stock said mildly, not looking at her. ‘Lezz have the coppers in. Whole wagonful of the bassards. Swell the audience. Lezz get the fuckin’ press back.’ He shouted out, ‘Any hacks in the house?
Amanda clutched the phone but didn’t put in a number.
‘Where’s the Lake boy gone? Where’re you, you liddle arse-hole? Tell me one thing: what you gonna do if the Smith boys geddout? Appeal’s gotta come up soon. Case’ll be wide open again, the Smith boys geddoff.’
If Stock was expecting a reaction from Lake, he didn’t get it. He searched out Simon again.
‘You think they did it, vicar? Maybe the police were a liddle hasty, there, whaddaya think, man? You’re a liberal sorta guy. You think the Smith boys really did it? You ever wondered who else wanted poor ole shirtlifting Stewart out the picture?’
Lol sat up. A new agenda was forming like invisible ink appearing between the lines of the old one. He heard Lake’s girlfriend saying, ‘Right. I am calling them,’ but felt nobody was really listening to her.
Adam Lake finally spoke. ‘Put it away,’ he told Amanda. ‘Let him finish himself. Plenty of witnesses here. We can talk to my solicitor tomorrow.’ He walked out into the space between Simon and Stock. ‘Spell it out, Stock. What exactly are you saying? You think someone else killed Ash, rather than the convicted men? That it?’
‘There’s a turn-up,’ Isabel murmured.
Lake said coolly, ‘Well?’ He was either hugely arrogant or he really had nothing to hide.
Stock picked up his beer glass and drained it calmly.
‘Come on!’ Lake suddenly roared. ‘Scared to say it, are you? Scared to say it in front of witnesses?’ He put both big hands flat on Stock’s table. ‘Stock, for Christ’s sake, how much do you really think I care about that place? You really think I’d… you think anyone would kill for it? For a broken-down bloody hopkiln? Have you seen my place? Have you seen where I live? You really think I’m now going to offer you some ridiculous sum for that hovel, is that it? Just to get you out of my hair? Are you mad? Are you sick?’
Stock stared at him, froth on his beard, set the glass down hard, about an inch from one of Lake’s hands. He said nothing. He’d got what he wanted: Lake was losing it.
‘Let me tell you… Gerard. Let me tell everybody…’ Lake looked around wildly, and Lol saw emotional immaturity twitching and flickering in his big angular frame like a forty-watt bulb in a street lamp. ‘You picked the wrong man.’ Lake levered in towards Stock. ‘You couldn’t have done it to my father and you won’t do it to me.’ His face inches from Stock’s, exposed to the booze and the sour breath. ‘You can stay in that dump for as long as you like, you and your imaginary ghosts, you stupid, pathetic little turd.’
Like some soiled Buddha, Stock gazed blandly into the bared teeth and the glaring eyes for maybe a couple of seconds before his own eyes seemed to slide up into his head and his body wobbled.
Lol knew what was coming and so did Lake, but too late.
Simon stood with Lol on the forecourt under a night sky like deep blue silk shot with rays of green.
His white shirt was dark and foul with brown vomit. The good shepherd. It was Simon who’d guided Gerard Stock outside. In his life of ducking and diving, bartering and bullshit, Stock had probably come close many times to getting beaten up; Lol reckoned maybe he was now so physically attuned to the proximity of a kicking that his metabolism automatically came up with the most effective defence.
After it happened, Adam Lake could have battered him, drunk or sober, into the stone flags without blinking. But it was clear that all Lake wanted – women and some men shrinking away from both of them with cries of abhorrence and disgust – was to get into the men’s toilets and wash Stock away. On his way, he’d collided blindly with Simon.
Now Simon stank of Stock’s vomit, too, but Stock was clean and dry, leaning casually against the pub wall, the calm in the eye of the storm.
‘You are a piece of work, Gerard,’ Simon said. ‘It just drips off you, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m a survivor, Simon,’ Stock said.
‘You’d better go home. Lake’s going to be out in a minute, in search of a change of clothes. He sees you out here, he – he’s a big boy, Gerard. And not a happy boy.’
Stock made a contemptuous noise.
‘You as good as accused him of murdering Stewart. You accused him in front of a score of witnesses.’
‘Oh no.’ Stock straightened up. Apart from the sheen on his face, caught in the blue light from the window, he looked almost sober. ‘You don’t listen, Simon. I asked a question, was all. I asked who else might have done for Stewart if it wasn’t the Smiths. No libel in a question. Didn’t even ask him, either, I asked you. He doesn’t get me that easy. Nobody gets me that easy.’
Simon walked over to the pub door and pulled it until the latch caught. ‘Where did you get that idea, anyway, Gerard?’
Stock tapped a meaningful finger on the side of his nose: not telling. ‘But what a reaction, vicar. What a beautiful, instantaneous reaction… and’ – inclining his head to Simon – ‘in front of witnesses.’
Lol wondered precisely how drunk Stock had really been in there. How pissed did you have to be to throw up on cue?
A good publicist has control, tells you what he wants you to know, when he wants you to know it. Timing.
What was happening here? Lol felt on the edge of something from which he could still, if he wanted to, turn away. ‘You OK to walk home?’ he said to Stock. ‘Or you want Simon or me to—?’
Stock looked down at the dirt and cindered surface of the forecourt. ‘Not going home, yet, Lol, thank you. Gonna take a walk, clear my head. Time is it?’
‘Nearly closing time,’ Simon said, ‘in case you were thinking of going back inside, to attempt to get served.’
‘Actually, I think this may finally call for a change of hostelry.’ Stock produced a hawking laugh. ‘What d’you think, vicar?’
‘I think you’re walking a narrow ledge,’ Simon said.
‘Reason I need a clear head,’ Stock said, ‘is I’ve got your lady exorcist coming to visit. Tomorrow, we lay Stewart, as it were.’
Lol froze, as the latch of the pub door clacked. ‘Thanks very much,’ Isabel said to someone, and wheeled herself out. Then she saw Stock. ‘Bloody hell, you still here?’
‘You’re going to ask this woman to exorcize your place, then, are you?’ Simon said quietly. ‘It isn’t that simple, you know, Gerard. It isn’t just a formality.’
Stock sniffed. ‘Goodnight, boys. Goodnight, Mrs St John.’
He began to walk away towards the lane. Above him rose the broad-leaf woods that enclosed the village, the pinnacles of occasional pines piercing the green-washed sky, stars beginning to show.
‘Gerard,’ Simon called out, ‘it’s not something you fart about with.’
Stock stopped about fifteen feet beyond him and turned round. He was quite steady. He pointed a finger at Simon.
‘Don’t you,’ he said, ‘presume to patronize me, sunshine. I came to you with an honest request and you told me to piss off. Whatever happens with this woman, it’s down to you. Remember that.’
Lol thought the pointing finger quivered; he thought he saw a smear of something cross Stock’s half-shaded face, and then Stock stiffened and turned and walked away. At some point before the shadows took him, Lol thought the walk became a swagger.
Lol walked back to the vicarage with the St Johns, Simon pushing Isabel’s chair, lights blinking up on the Malverns.
‘Bloody hell,’ Isabel said. ‘Stink rotten, you do, Simon.’
They crossed the humpback bridge over the silent Frome, hop-yards either side, the bines high on the poles. Simon looked over to the church, about fifty yards from the river bank, small and inconspicuous among trees risen higher than its stubby tower.
‘Maybe the stink around Stock is subtler.’
‘I’m not sure he’s righ
t about Lake,’ Lol said. ‘The way he claimed he just threw out a question and Lake dived on it, like this was a sign of some kind of guilt. I don’t think—’
‘Be nice, it would, to think he did have a hand in it.’ Isabel looked up at Lol. ‘But it didn’t feel right to me either. Boy was clever enough to realize smartish where Stock was going, but not intelligent enough to control his reactions – if he had something to hide. Does that make sense?’
Lol nodded. ‘Lots of money, well educated, but nowhere near as clever as Stock. And yet…’ He turned to Simon, took a breath. ‘Look, what you said about exorcism…’
They came to the vicarage; against dark woods and hills and the lines of foliate poles in the hop-yards, its whiteness seemed symbolic. There were no lights on in the front rooms, but a soft glow seeped through to most of the windows from some inner core.
‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ Lol said.
Simon didn’t reply, went to open the gate. Isabel reached up and squeezed Lol’s arm. ‘Listen, love, he gets things he can’t put into words, sometimes. You know what I mean?’
Lol looked up over the wheelchair to a broken necklace of moving lights rising up into the Malverns, to a band of black below the stars.
17
Comfort and Joy
SOD IT. NOT a question of keeping confidences, not any more. Merrily switched on the anglepoise in the scullery, picked up the phone. At 10.45 p.m., this wasn’t going to make her very popular.
However, the situation had altered. She hadn’t been in a position to give away any names before, when all her information had come from Hazel Shelbone. But now there was another and possibly more reliable source.
Reliable? Merrily sat in the circle of light and prodded in Robert Morrell’s home number. Really?
Little Jane Watkins, now learning that there was no such thing as a free holiday, had done it again. While she hadn’t actually initiated the spirit sessions, she had been involved, albeit peripherally.
Peripherally? She’d had a finger on the damned glass!
The phone was ringing out at the other end. Morrell was going to be in bed getting a pre-holiday early night, sleeping the sleep of the self-righteous. The phone would also awaken his wife and kids – always hard to get kids off to sleep on the eve of a holiday.
Merrily wondered how easily Jane would sleep tonight. Getting it into proportion, she couldn’t really imagine herself as a kid – the black-clad, black-lipsticked Siouxie and the Banshees fan – standing up and warning her mates that their ouija game was actually a form of psychic Russian roulette, then walking primly away, to communal jeering.
Not even if she’d been a vicar’s daughter.
‘Yes?’ The woman’s voice wasn’t sleepy, but it wasn’t exactly accommodating either.
‘Mrs Morrell? Could I speak to your husband? I’m sorry it’s so late. My name’s Merrily Watkins.’
‘One moment.’ Resentful now.
Merrily waited. The fact remained that Jane hadn’t even mentioned the incident afterwards, even knowing it would be in confidence. This hurt; she’d thought they’d got beyond secrets, beyond concealment. She’d thought there wasn’t anything they couldn’t discuss any more. She’d thought they were friends, for God’s sake.
The phone was snatched up. ‘Mrs Watkins, I have to tell you that in just under seven hours, we’re leaving for the airport with three small children.’
‘Look, I’m really sorry. But this is something I need to know and if I left it until tomorrow I’d be doing it behind your back, which—’
‘If this is about what I think it’s about, I’d be immensely glad if you did look into it behind my—’ Morrell calmed down. ‘All right, I’m sorry. It’s been a difficult year. I need a holiday. Go on.’
‘I’ll be very quick. I understand the organizer of – what we were talking about – is a girl called Layla Riddock.’
He breathed heavily into the phone. ‘And you’re asking if I’m surprised?’
‘I can tell that you’re not – which is interesting.’
‘Before we take it any further,’ Morrell said, ‘anything I tell you has got to be absolutely unattributable. And I mean—’
‘Of course.’
‘Because normally I’d only discuss any of my students in this way with the police, and only then if there was some suspicion of—’
‘Sure.’
‘All right,’ Morrell said. ‘Layla Riddock… God almighty, do I really need this? Layla is… a dominant kind of girl. Stepdaughter of Allan Henry, yes?’
‘Allan Henry of Allan Henry—?’
‘Homes. With all the baggage that implies, and more. Obviously, I don’t have an overview of their domestic situation, but if I had to guess, I’d say that, like a lot of wealthy men with potentially problematical stepchildren, he’s been throwing money at her for years. Buying her compliance, until such time as she leaves home. She’s driving around, for instance, in the kind of car I couldn’t afford. Well… I probably could, but you know what I’m saying…’
‘Mmm.’
‘She’s an intelligent girl, but she’s got away with too much at home, which is why she expects to get away with the minimum of work at school. Swans around the place under this thin veneer of disdain at having to spend her days with children. You getting the picture?’
‘A bully, would you say?’
‘Not in the physical sense, far as I know. To be honest, I don’t think she’d lower herself. I think she can be intimidating enough, without resorting to physical violence. I mean, she’s quite…’
The line went quiet. Jane’s word had been ‘sinister.’
‘Something you’re thinking about, particularly?’ Merrily pulled her sermon-pad into the lamplight, reached for a fibretip. ‘Something which might save us both some time?’
She heard him breathe down his nose. ‘I’m thinking, inevitably, about the Christmas Fair we held at the school last year. Did you come?’
‘No, I was… a bit busy before Christmas. And Jane was off school, she wasn’t very—No, we didn’t come.’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I can tell you we were all quite surprised, to say the least, when Ms Riddock volunteered to take part in the fund-raising – a Christmas Fair being something she might normally consider well beneath her. What she did, she approached the teacher in charge of the event and volunteered to set up a fortune-telling stall.’
‘Oh, did she?’
‘Yeah,’ he said ruefully. ‘I thought that might get you. Made a few of the staff sit up when she appeared on the day in full gypsy costume. Very exotic – and very expensive, too, according to my wife. Long, low-cut black dress, big gold earrings – gold, not brass. Black hat with a dark veil. All very mature, very mysterious, just a bit sinister, I suppose – but that may be hindsight.’
She always looks… tainted, somehow, Jane had said. Merrily lit a cigarette.
‘Some of the staff had reservations from the start,’ Morrell said. ‘But as it was the first time in anyone’s memory that Layla Riddock’d shown any enthusiasm for anything apart from burning rubber outside the gates, they weren’t inclined to push it. So they set her up in the hall, back of the stage, behind a curtain. Somebody painted a sign – Gypsy Layla – and, as all the other stalls were fairly routine, people were queuing up to cross her palm with silver. Men, too, once they’d seen her.’
‘She’s very attractive?’
‘I suppose you would say she exudes a certain hormonal something. Something you don’t often find at school Christmas fairs, anyway.’
‘And was she good at telling fortunes?’
‘She was bloody good at frightening people,’ Robert Morrell said bitterly. ‘Wouldn’t have frightened me, as you probably realize by now. But I accept that a lot of people are taken in by that kind of rubbish, against all their better instincts. Anyway, I don’t know much about this sort of thing, but I gather that the usual routine is to tell the customers they’re going t
o cross the water, or come into some money, live long and happy lives, have lots of children.’
‘What was she using? Crystal ball?’
‘I wouldn’t know. She was certainly reading palms at some stage. Anyway, the staff started to notice that very few people were coming out actually smiling. And the ones who did, their smiles tended to be rather strained. Then some granny emerges very white-faced and almost fainting. One of the female staff sits her down, brings her a cup of tea, learns that Layla’s looked at her palm and advised her to start getting her affairs in order because she ain’t… got… long.’
‘Oh.’
‘Quite. There were several others, we found out later. One pregnant woman, for instance, had been told to prepare for the worst. Or, as Layla apparently put it, “I see a withering in your womb.” ’
‘You found this out on the night?’
‘Not all of it. Some of the stories came out over a period of days. But, I suppose, the atmosphere on the night itself… well, as Christmas Fairs go, it’s fair to say there was gradually less of an ambience of comfort and joy than one might have wished for.’
‘She wasn’t stopped?’
‘Oh, she was stopped. Eventually. One of the parents had been kicking up about it long before it became widely known that she was taking people’s money for predicting death and sickness. The guy was objecting on religious grounds. Eventually, to my shame, we had to use that as a way of bringing it to a close.’
‘Anyone talk to Layla afterwards – ask her why she was doing this to people?’
‘I had Sandra – the deputy head – haul her in on the Monday morning. Waste of time. The girl pretended she couldn’t understand what the fuss was about – she was simply passing on the information she was picking up. Psychically. She claimed there was a long line of gypsies on her father’s side – her real father. I wanted to make her an appointment with the schools psychiatrist…’
Merrily wrote down: Gypsies – ask J.