by Phil Rickman
Nothing to see, of course, nothing to hear. Nobody would know yet, except for senior police and the cops in the patrol car who’d followed up an anonymous call and gone down the steps with their flashlights and come out personally sickened and professionally thrilled, to make way for the Durex suits.
Robin came down from the shop next door, saying he and Betty had cleaned the place up. Put the stones back in the chimney, brushed up the dust. It was ready.
‘I’ll come soon,’ Merrily said. ‘Very soon.’
Thinking, why? What’s the point? What am I for? A walking anachronism. Who cares?
‘Sure.’ Robin raised a hand. ‘Thanks.’
He was looking lost, like somebody had taken an axe to his idyll. Did he really think she might achieve anything other than to make Betty feel a little more calm?
‘Hold on.’ Gwyn Arthur Jones was at the door. ‘Don’t go yet, Robin. I think I asked you about the laughter?’
Robin came wearily back into the cricket shop.
‘Jesus, Gwyn, what am I supposed to say? It’s a goddamn nightmare. Yeah, we both heard it. Yeah, we thought it was like a laugh we’d heard someplace else. I guess a laugh doesn’t alter that much over time. You can change the pitch of your voice, go live in some other place and absorb a new accent, but…’
‘Laughter’s the result of an inner process too deep for control,’ Gwyn Arthur said. ‘Hard to fake. And who laughs at violent death, in such a gleeful, uninhibited way?’
‘Children,’ Merrily said. ‘Children who’ve only seen it in horror films. Who’ve never thought much about the reality of it. It was a young person’s laugh.’
Gwyn Arthur came from a different, maybe more reflective era of policing which perhaps had lasted longer in country towns. His aromatic tobacco calmed the air like the incense in St Mary’s church.
‘The father’s name,’ he said, ‘is Tim Wareham. Retired now, and no more an old hippy than any of us who were around in 1967. I really don’t think, but for his wife’s poor health, that he would have contacted me at all. I think, even then, he realized that whatever fate had befallen his daughter would be something they might be better off going to their graves without knowing about.’
‘You have to wonder,’ Merrily said, ‘why they called her Mephista. I mean, not everybody would see it as tempting fate, but…’
‘They didn’t. Her name was Melissa. Which, as a young child, she’d pronounce as Meffissa. And Tim, when she was naughty, would change it to Mephista. Which, being the free spirits they thought they were, they found funny and affectionate. And it stuck. Melissa Wareham, her name. And she was often naughty. They stopped keeping pets because of the way she would have fun with them. As she’d put it.’
‘He told you this?’
‘Makes me smile how, when some teenager is missing or dead, the parents appear on TV to tell the nation how you could not wish for a better son or daughter. A beautiful, thoughtful child. And the candles are lit and the shrines are built. Doesn’t help. It’s what they don’t tell the nation that might have helped. I said to Mr Wareham that if I was to find her I’d need to know it all – the good and the bad. But mainly the bad. And mostly it was.’
‘Sorry, Gwyn, you said they were from London?’
‘Brighton. Where the girl was joining questionable gangs before she was twelve. Had a tattoo, when it was still an aggressive sign in a female.’
Robin said, ‘Where?’
‘Left armpit, Robin. Swastika, as it happens. Common enough in those days, though still very much a bad-taste symbol – a snigger against the parents and the grandparents. A wounding form of teenage protest. But then the Warehams were remembering their own protests. They remembered a peaceful rebellion – smoking cannabis, dropping a little acid. And picking magic mushrooms, once, in an area they recalled as a heaven on earth. You see where this is going?’
‘To the Convoy,’ Merrily said. ‘To becoming holiday hippies in the hope that Mephista would absorb the old ideals?’
‘But it’s not always heaven, see. Tim Wareham remembers an early autumn of rain and fog. No proper heating in their old ambulance. Tim and his wife were excited by the discovery of Peter Rector in a farm nearby, offering enlightenment, for free. But the girl was at her worse. Frequently drunk on cheap cider. In a perpetual rage.’
‘This was when she found Jerry Brace? Or did he find her?’
‘Brace had dropped out of university. Avoided the military career his father had in mind for him. He was given, as a last chance, a sum of money to build himself a business. Ending up in Hay – like you, boy.’ A nod at Robin. ‘With a vanload of war books, many purloined from his family’s huge library, I’d guess. Including the only one that obsessed him, that he’d never sell. Which, of course, was Rector’s book on Nazi occultism – mystical racism and the Aryan Holy Grail.’
Merrily took out her cigarettes then put them away again. They lacked the appeal of a pipe, and she didn’t want to stand in the doorway.
‘Was Rector’s father into the mysticism?’
‘Not so much, I don’t think. But the discovery of Nazi occultism was, I imagine, what finally made the rather indolent Jerrold Brace into his father’s son. Sending him in search of Peter Rector, the man they’d both come to believe was… a secret master – is that the term?’
‘Something like that.’
‘He once told his cousin, Roger – my Brace family contact – of his belief that he was receiving telepathic messages from Rector. Did I tell you that?’
‘No.’
‘Ah, there’s so much of this, Merrily. It was said Sir Charles himself once hired a medium to put him in touch with Hitler. Jerry Brace was picking up all kinds of nonsense from the skin-heads and extremists who haunted his shop, bringing their own self-published books and pamphlets for him to sell.’
‘I’m guessing,’ Merrily said, ‘that a lot of this was fantasy magic, only vaguely based on the wartime Nazi mysticism. Which, from what I’ve heard and seen on TV, was more grandiose and pompous and masonic. Dressing-up games. Were the wartime Nazis as openly satanic? I don’t think so.’
‘No. But if Jerrold Brace came here to follow Peter Rector and was disappointed, he may have turned to people like Seymour Loftus. Seymour in his more fanatical days, preaching illumination through violence in the approach to his new aeon.’
‘And Mephista?’
‘Apparently the kind of sixteen-year-old who, today, in Robin’s homeland, might be found in a primary school with an assault rifle. Intimate with a man taking too many drugs and fantasizing about being descended from a robber baron. Volatile cocktail, wasn’t it?’
* * *
Frannie Bliss was at the open door. You could feel his tension rising with the deepening growl of traffic on Oxford Road at a time when it might normally be dying back. Had he been seen at Cusop? Was Brent looking for him?
Gwyn Arthur Jones was retelling the history of his breakthrough at the funeral of Sir Charles Brace, most of the detective work already done for him by the nephew, Roger Brace, alienated from the rest of the family and attending the old man’s funeral for pretty much the same reasons as Gwyn.
Bliss shut the door and came back to hear about the pregnant girl Sir Charles had taken in and yet was careful to keep at arm’s length. Finding her and the child a home at a family-owned London hotel, where she was expected to earn her keep.
In the end, Gwyn said, she’d become a junior manager, with a talent for charming guests while ruthlessly culling superfluous staff. She might have been running the hotel by now, if she hadn’t begun an affair with the bar manager. Breaking up his marriage and then leaving with him to take over management of a Soho pub. Then marrying him.
‘Thus,’ Gwyn said, ‘becoming Mrs Turrell. The boy also taking the name, under which he was later sent to a prep school at Sir Charles’s expense.’
He waited. The name was vaguely familiar to Merrily, but Robin was the first to react. He looked shaken.
‘George.’ Gwyn Arthur opened his venerable tobacco pouch, excavating with a finger. ‘George Brace Turrell. You can imagine the Turrell part being casually discarded if he met his grandfather’s expectations.’
‘Shit,’ Robin said. ‘How bad’s this gonna get, Gwyn?’
‘Depends how much you want to stay for, boy. Shall I continue?’
His mother hadn’t seen much of him after that, for several years. He’d attended private school and spent his holidays at a farm owned by associates of his grandfather, where he underwent fitness training and learned all the right skills. Learned, essentially, how not to be his father.
The stepfather, Mr Turrell, had died in a shooting incident a year after the marriage. Collateral damage in a gang war. Gwyn had made contact with two old colleagues who’d left Wales to join the Met, now also retired and happy to talk, like old cops always did to other cops. One of them had sent Gwyn a scan of an old newspaper story, which included a photo of the young widow.
Gwyn found it on his laptop. She was leaving the inquest, wearing dark glasses, a slight figure in a black coat, black beret aslant on her long blond hair, white in the monochrome picture.
‘Doesn’t look like her,’ Robin said. ‘But then…’
Bliss bent to the screen.
‘Let’s just deal with this. How come nobody recognized her when she came back?’
‘Who’d recognize her anyway?’ Gwyn said. ‘After thirty years? Nobody in the town really knew Mephista. Even the man who was in the Convoy and settled here had no particular memories of her, except for the name. And a skinny blonde, now decades older, dark-haired, heavier?’
‘And why did she come back?’
‘I can speculate, but it’s no more than that. I’m not a policeman any more. Can’t take statements.’
‘Because in my experience,’ Bliss said, ‘all that about people returning to the scene of the crime is an exaggeration. Just as often, they put as much distance as they can. Especially if they’re only an accessory. You’re sure this is her?’
‘Oh, I’m sure of that, if little else. Even contriving, on a warm day, to see the remains of the tattoo. No longer a convincing swastika but not entirely removed.’
Nobody had noticed Jeeter Kapoor coming back with the VHS machine.
‘Didn’t like to say anyfing, but when you close your eyes… that laugh… it is, innit?’
Merrily was keeping out of it. She didn’t know these people, hadn’t seen them until today. Neither, she assumed, had Bliss.
Had she heard the laugh? Maybe.
You tell them, girlie.
A likeable woman. Sexy and fun. The laugh had come easily. It would be one of the regular sounds that fizzed over the barchat, just as it had over the tape-hiss.
‘Listen,’ Robin said. ‘Can we like spell this out? Two questions. One – is Gwenda really Gore Turrell’s mother? And two—’
‘Yes,’ Gwyn Arthur said. ‘Thank you, boy. I think we all know what the second question is.’
No business of his. Not a policeman any more. And even if he were, it was hardly uncommon in the hills. Well, Merrily knew that. Brothers and sisters, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters – consider the famous Eric Gill at Capel-y-ffin. No one harmed, and if there was no under-age business involved, blind eyes might be turned.
‘Gwenda and Gore,’ Gwyn said, ‘they were accepted by the people frequenting the bar. Or at least she was – he was perhaps a bit aloof, but always obliging. A glamorous older woman and a fairly unassuming young man – not a partnership likely to incite much comment. And I had no reason, see, until now, to believe that incest might be far from the worst of their crimes.’
‘Somebody must’ve pointed you at them, Gwyn,’ Bliss said. ‘Not as if they look much alike, is it?’
‘Ah, you settle somewhere in retirement, it’s hard to turn off the old instincts. You get to know more people and their backgrounds. Especially the incomers. The white settlers, as we used to call them. Usually happy to talk, lay out their credentials for being here. Gwenda and Gore, now – very friendly, but revealing little. Gore’s a mystery. Spends a lot of time on recreational running – but not in an ostentatious way. Often turning out before dawn, arriving back from the hills before the bar opens. Competes in marathons he never seems to win, though always well placed. Nothing to draw attention to himself.’
Merrily glanced at Bliss. Had that been sufficient reason for Gwyn Arthur Jones to investigate these people, delve into their history? Had to be more to this.
‘They have an extensive apartment,’ Gwyn said, ‘behind and above the bar to which few people have ever been invited. But the visiting builders and plumbers of my acquaintance report a quantity of sophisticated fitness equipment. And no books at all. No books. An economy founded on books, and their biggest customers are booksellers, but no books… what’s that saying?’
‘Suggests they aren’t particularly… in sympathy with the Hay ethos,’ Merrily said. ‘What else did you find out?’
‘There was a second marriage. And a profitable divorce. A Mr Carter, owner of a restaurant in Cardiff. And then Mr Protheroe, who I know nothing about, yet. Except that he’s no longer in the picture.’
On the hottest night of the year so far, Merrily felt physically cold. She saw Bliss’s discomfort, saw Robin’s pain translated into the paleness of his skin. Jeeter Kapoor just sitting there, blinking, chewing his lower lip, clearly wondering if he should say something.
‘All right,’ Bliss said, ‘the worst of their crimes. What are the worst of their crimes?’
His face was mottled with light and dark, slanting shadows around his eyes, like a panda’s. He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be working. She didn’t know enough about his condition: was he in danger of collapse, a stroke? Was there any of the burden she could take?
‘How did they come together, Gwyn?’ she said. ‘After all these years. Had they been continually in touch?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘And are they as toxic together,’ Bliss said, ‘as Brace and Mephista? What, after all, have we got? Encouraged by Mephista, Brace kills Cherry Banks and disposes of her God knows where. Do we have any evidence of Jerry’s son doing it again? And why?’
‘Hey, just say that—’ Robin was on his feet. ‘You said Cherry? Cherry was the dead woman?’
‘We think,’ Bliss said.
‘Holy shit, listen, I don’t know if this helps, but when I was here last night, letting myself into the bookstore, there’s this old lady – the weird whistling old lady, Mrs Villiers, and she’s babbling at me, the way she does, and amongst it all she says – lemme get this right – Cherry don’t… Cherry don’t do it no more.’
‘Where was this?’
‘Outside the door.’
‘That’s all she said?’
‘No, there was other stuff. She said – this makes some kinda sense now – she said… it was like she’d warned this Cherry not to come.’
‘To the bookshop?’
‘I guess. And she said she’d put her up at her place. One night. Something like that.’
Gwyn Arthur said, ‘You’re absolutely sure about this? You were drunk, were you not?’
‘Not so drunk I’d get that wrong.’
‘This indicates Mrs Villiers knew there was something wrong. Back when she was compos mentis. If Cherry was a prostitute… woman of the night…?’
‘If she knew something,’ Bliss said, ‘how come she didn’t come forward at the time?’
‘If you’d known Mrs Villiers then and now,’ Gwyn said, ‘you would probably not ask that question. But we do need to talk to her. Try and talk to her.’
‘Dead right, Gwyn. Meanwhile, anything any of you hasn’t told me, you need to bring it out. Gore – why Gore? How did George become Gore?’
‘Sigil,’ Robin said.
Merrily looked at him.
‘Turning words and phrase
s into magical symbols?’
Bliss closed his eyes wearily.
‘No, see,’ Robin said, ‘if you’re making a sigil, you start by like condensing a word to its essence. If a letter’s repeated, you take one out. George has two Gs and two Es. You remove the extras, you’re left with Gore. Might be just a coincidence.’
‘Interesting.’ Merrily looked at Bliss. ‘Claudia would explain it a lot better than me, but it gives… George… a certain focus.’
‘A sigil’s a symbol of intent,’ Robin said. ‘You write down something you wanna happen and then reduce the letters, then make what’s left into a symbol you can focus on.’
‘Suggesting that Gore was a symbol of someone’s intent,’ Merrily said. ‘Blood and gore.’
‘Then you put it at the centre of a ritual… and you make something happen.’
‘Like a killing?’ Bliss said. Then he shook his head. ‘It’s not good enough, is it?’
63
The case for atheism
GETTING ON FOR midnight when Robin moved stiffly into Gwenda’s Bar. How welcoming it looked, like a softly lit hollow tree. More like a real home than either of his half-homes, all mellow light, a little smoke and comfortable, companionable people.
He ordered a pint of shandy. He was sweating.
‘Parched,’ he said.
Gwenda placed a cool hand on his moist cheek.
‘You can do better than a shandy, Robin, surely.’
‘Uh?’ Robin put his hands up, shaking his head in mock horror. ‘After last night?’
Gwenda laughed. He looked into her eyes and saw how pale they were for a woman with such dark hair. Not eyes you could easily connect with. All the small things you noticed when your cherished world view had fragmented like a smashed mirror.
Gareth Nunne regarded Robin with faint distaste, sucking the froth from his half of Guinness.
‘You been running, boy?’
‘Shovelling, Gary. Shovelling and scraping till we’re knee-deep in rubble.’