by Phil Rickman
Bliss sat there chewing his nails, the rain weeping down the windows, the mobile in his lap.
The Banks-Joneses knew where he was, if they had anything else to tell him. Occasionally one or the other would come to the window, like a kid watching for Santa Claus. It would be too dark to see him now, parked in the foundations of Phase Two.
Tried three times to reach the reverend. Engaged, engaged, engaged. He rolled his forehead against the top of the steering wheel.
Christmas Eve. It was a bad joke. This time next year he could be kipping in frigging doorways. When the phone began to vibrate, he fumbled it to his ear without looking at the screen.
‘Karen…’
‘Hate to disappoint, boss.’
‘Andy. Sorry. I’m—’
‘Talked to my friend Fred Potter. Three Counties News Service?’
‘I’d forgot about that.’ Bliss straightened up, remembered his chewing gum and reached across the dash. ‘You were asking him about Hereforward, right?’
‘You likely know this already, boss, it was in the Hereford Times. Least, some of it was. Hereford councillor rushed to hospital in the Cotswolds?’
‘Can’t say I recall it.’
‘Heart attack. Councillor suffered a heart attack during a weekend away with other members of the Herefordshire advance-planning group, Hereforward.’
‘When was this?’
‘Last summer. Potter says Hereforward’s one of these names gets mentioned so often on council reports you stop seeing it after a while and folk give up asking what it does. But they have weekends away. They’ll go and look at what’s happening in some other city. Fact-finding mission. Or else just brainstorming weekends, kind of thing.’
‘I like that word brainstorming.’
‘Well, then, about six months ago — in the summer, anyway — they go for a session at a country-house hotel on the edge of the Cotswolds. Hire the conference suite, as usual, so their intensive deliberations won’t be disturbed. Late Saturday night, a member of the committee gets rushed to hospital with this heart attack. Touch and go for a while, but he pulls through.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘There were whispers, however, of a toxicology report revealing a high level of cocaine in the blood.’
‘Well, well.’
Bliss mouthed a wafer of gum.
‘Known for putting a strain on the heart, coke is,’ Mumford said. ‘They reckon if they keep fit, go jogging and confine the snorting to weekends they can handle it. Big mistake, apparently.’
‘My understanding,’ Bliss said, ‘is that a heart attack is often the result of a novice snorter overdoing it. I did a short course once, very illuminating. Nobody we know, this councillor?’
‘Nobody I know. Youngish chap. I’ve mailed you the cutting, but it won’t tell you much. Just a heart attack, mercy dash, lucky to be alive, all this stuff.’
‘How did they know about the toxicology?’
‘Hospitals leak.’
‘Oh, they do.’
‘But it went no further, anyway. No papers touched the story. Too much trouble, Potter says, too many legal hurdles.’
‘Would Ayling have been on this weekend?’
‘Potter thinks not. Doesn’t think Ayling was co-opted on to Hereforward until a couple of months later.’
‘Still.’ Bliss chewed slowly. ‘Something’s definitely coming together here, Andy. I can feel it.’
A weekend of euphoric brainstorming. He could imagine them coming back with pages and pages of brilliant ideas, looking at them on Monday morning, thinking, what on earth is all this shite?
‘I wonder what else they get up to, apart from coke.’
‘You’re thinking what’s in it for Charlie Howe?’
‘Can’t help it, Andy. Eats away at me.’
‘Quite a liberating experience, cocaine,’ Mumford said thoughtfully. ‘So I’m told.’
‘Plays hell with the inhibitions.’
‘Old days,’ Mumford said, ‘we always thought of councillors and officials as stuffy ole buggers. Fellers in tweeds, retired headmistresses. Times changed, ennit? Plus you got consultants.’
‘Consultants. I like that word. You reckon they have extra consultants on their blue-sky weekends, Andy?’
‘I’m sure they do,’ Mumford said. ‘But let it go, boss. Don’t go making a dick of yourself again. Don’t you bloody well go near him.’
‘I won’t, I won’t.’
‘You need any help, you give me a call.’
‘It’s Christmas Eve, Andy.’
‘You seen the state of Christmas TV?’
Bliss tried Ledwardine Vicarage again. Still engaged. He was reaching for another stick of chewie when his windscreen lit up red.
Tail lights.
Car pulling into Furneaux’s drive, just as the phone started trembling.
‘Yeh.’
Karen said, ‘He won’t.’
‘He won’t?’
‘He wants to speak to Howe.’
‘Shit. You told him—?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I said I’d been trying to get hold of her. He said when I did I should respectfully ask her to call him. Sounding a bit distant.’
‘Didn’t you point out to him—?’
‘I didn’t point out anything to him. I don’t like it when they start sounding distant. When they start calling you sergeant instead of Karen.’
‘Jesus.’
Bliss squeezing his eyes shut.
‘It didn’t exactly surprise me, boss. Would you share the name of a suspected killer with some unknown DS from Worcester?’
The tail lights swam in the windscreen, duplicated by brake lights now.
‘You think I’ve lost it, don’t you, Karen?’
‘I think you’ve had a very bad few days, boss. I think you should try and relax.’
‘Where? In front of the telly in me house, on me own? And if that sounds like self-pity, it is.’
‘Oh, Frannie, I’d say you could come round here, but—’
‘Your boyfriend wouldn’t like it, and quite right, too. All right. No worries. There’ll be a way round this. There’s always a way.’ Bliss watched the red lights go out. ‘You have a good Christmas, Karen. I owe yer.’
Who didn’t he owe?
‘You won’t do anything daft, will you, boss?’
‘You know me, Sergeant.’
‘I do. That’s the trouble.’
‘Merry Christmas, Karen,’ Bliss said. ‘I’m blowing you a kiss.’
Option One: he could go back across the road on his own. He could do that.
No warrant, no evidence, but you didn’t need any of that for a…
… A cosy chat.
Like the one he’d been ready to have with Steve last night, and what a mistake that would’ve been. Could’ve blown everything.
Could still.
All right, Option Two. Ring Gaol Street, see who was on tonight: Stagg, Wintle? Tell them he was feeling much better now, invite whoever it was to accompany him. Or pull a little team together. Go in mob-handed. Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas, Steve, don’t mind the reindeer.
But what was the betting that, in the wake of the busting of Gyles, Steve had absolutely nothing on the premises?
And anyway, how would that tell him who paid the knifeman?
And also he really hated this twat now. That never helped.
Which left Option Three.
Jesus.
The thought of Option Three just made Bliss want to curl up and die.
54
Cold Turkey
Standing under the market hall, looking down Church Street, a slow slope, you could see that the centre of Ledwardine really was on fairly high ground. What did that mean? Could you have a henge on high ground?
‘OK,’ Jane said. ‘Picture this. If it came around what’s now the market square, enclosing the church and the vicarage, the cut-off point would be…’ she pointed through the rain ‘… about there,
just past Lol’s house.’
Right on the rim of the henge. Maybe there would be signs of a ditch, or at least a depression, in what was left of the orchard behind Lol’s house. That was the first place to check tomorrow.
‘I just don’t know enough, that’s the trouble. Don’t have enough basic knowledge. Like, maybe that’s how Church Street began, as some kind of processional avenue leading up from the river and into the henge.’
‘Cooper told you not to get carried away, Jane,’ Eirion said. ‘I think he told you that once before?’
‘I hear exactly what you’re saying, Irene, but I need this. I need this so much.’
‘You need it, Blore needs it… Cooper needs it.’
‘And Ledwardine needs it. And it just has to be ours. It must not be Blore’s.’
Jane had told them all about the henge. Eirion and Lol and Gomer and Mum — who was interested but seemed vague tonight, disconnected from everything. The problem was obvious and simple: too much to think about and no cigarettes to help her keep it all under control.
Cold turkey. Poor Mum. Cold turkey for Christmas, and too much pride to go round bumming cigs off other people. She wasn’t a heavy smoker, compared with some, and if every smoker in the village who had a few to spare would donate just one to Mum… well, that might be better for everybody. It certainly hadn’t seemed like a good time to tell her that Coops was hiding something he didn’t think her daughter was mature enough to handle.
However, because it was really eating at her she’d dragged Eirion out to the square and laid it on him.
They were alone under the market hall. The village Christmas tree had been switched off due to worries about the wiring and all the water swirling around its base, ambered now by the fake gaslamps. Even where there was no flooding the water lay like a skin on the ground, constantly topped up as fast as it was absorbed by the vainly gulping drains. The Eight Till Late was still open, although its food stocks were well down. Emergency service, Jim Prosser said. Eight Till very Late.
‘OK, listen,’ Eirion said. ‘If Cooper confirms that a henge is a major possibility, maybe we could get something in the press. They’re always desperate for stories just after Christmas. Nothing much happening in politics anywhere in the world. I could call somebody on Boxing Day, email the story about the possible discovery of a new henge surrounding a village… that would screw Blore.’
‘Yeah, but it might also screw Coops. But… I’ll ask him.’
‘The other thing is, if Blore actually knew about the henge before he officially started work here…’
‘How would he?’
‘Looked up your website. Which basically floats the idea of some large-scale prehistoric landscape feature at the bottom of Cole Hill. For which three or four standing stones in a field might just be the tip of the iceberg. I mean I don’t know. But maybe he came over himself, on the quiet, and poked around. And his experienced eye led him in directions which you, as — sorry Jane — an amateur, would’ve missed. Identifying the possibility of an original henge, which he’s now confirmed. It makes sense. You could even say that’s why he stitched you up.’
‘He said… that I’d come to the right conclusions for all the wrong reasons.’
Ley lines… God help us.
‘Seems ridiculous that a leading archaeologist would want to discredit a schoolgirl,’ Eirion said. ‘But maybe he also wanted to make sure you’d keep well out of his way for the duration of the dig. And that’s worked, hasn’t it?’
‘You think that’s what Coops wasn’t telling me?’
‘Maybe. He knows what you’re like. Tell you one thing, though, Jane. When this comes out, it’ll not only mean no development in Coleman’s Meadow, it could throw a protection order around the whole village.’
Jane stared at him, blue lights everywhere.
‘What?’
‘Think about it. The excavation alone, something this big could take years, and if there were even just a few more stones buried under the village it could qualify as a Grade One ancient monument. You couldn’t build anywhere near it.’
‘Holy sh— Irene, that means Lyndon Pierce would be…’
‘Stuffed.’ Eirion put an arm round her. ‘Totally. But just take it slowly, huh?’
‘Slowly?’ She looked up at him, pulling away. Her face felt flushed, she was trembling. ‘Are you crazy? Irene, this is mega.’
‘Only if it’s true.’ He put his hands on her arms, like he was fitting a straitjacket. ‘Only if there really is a henge. Jane, look, time’s getting on. We need to get across to the Swan, make sure the visual stuff’s all set up for Lol.’
‘Yeah. That’s part of it, you know? It’s all coming together.’
‘I’m sure it is.’
‘I’m not mad, Irene.’
‘I never thought you were.’
‘I just need to go to Lucy’s grave now. Tell her about this.’
Eirion sighed the long-suffering sigh of a much older guy.
‘Of course you do.’
When Merrily came back from the phone, Gomer had left to get himself cleaned up and Lol was looking up at the clock.
‘I think I need to be getting over to the Swan.’
‘No!’ Merrily froze. Pressed him back into the chair. ‘You can’t go. Not yet.’
‘Who was on the phone? Is something wrong?’
‘A lot’s wrong, but I want to keep the lid on it until after Christmas. That was… that was Bliss. Wants me to ring Sophie for him. He wants a number for Helen Ayling.’
‘Why can’t he ring her?’
‘Because Sophie, like a lot of people, is suspicious of him, and he says he’s got no time to deal with that. I’ve said I’ll ring her for him and then… just give me twenty minutes. Can you do that? It’s important.’
He looked at her, his head tilted. He was still wearing the Gomer Parry Plant Hire sweatshirt. He’d insisted he’d be wearing it for the gig, wiping some of the mud off with a damp cloth but not all of it.
Ledwardine red mud. For luck.
She loved him beyond all reason, but sometimes he irritated the hell out of her.
‘Stay,’ she said, like to a dog.
Back in the scullery, she took her last cigarette out of the pack and sniffed it as she dialled.
Wasn’t the same. She’d been across to the shop and bought four packets of extra-strong mints, had already eaten two and a half. She was sure they were making her want to go to the toilet.
‘I tried to ring you twice,’ Sophie said. ‘As soon as I heard about the bridge. You really can’t get out of there?’
‘Not in a car.’
The past two years she’d gone into Hereford on Christmas Eve, when it was quiet in the late afternoon, and she and Sophie had drunk tea together, reviewed the year, exchanged small gifts.
‘What are you going to do?’ Sophie said.
‘What can we do? Sit it out. Almost a third of the population’s left the village, to spend Christmas with relatives or at hotels. Some people’s furniture’s in storage in case the worst happens.’
‘What about your meditation service?’
‘Still on. I’ve been over to the church, set up the usual circle of pews and chairs at the top of the nave. Maybe it’ll mean more this year. Or maybe people won’t have the heart to turn out. Or maybe I should just offer the midnight Eucharist.’
‘You sound exhausted.’
‘I’m OK. There’ve been one or two problems which I’ll tell you about when we get liberated.’
‘They’ll put a temporary bridge in?’
‘Bailey bridge, yeah. Sophie, listen, do you have a phone number for Helen Ayling that I can pass on to Frannie Bliss?’
‘You’re using it,’ Sophie said. ‘However—’
‘She’s still there?’
‘In the end, she didn’t want to leave until she was allowed to have a funeral. Much calmer now, but I’d very much take exception to her being upset on Christmas Eve by
your friend Bliss.’
‘He’s got problems. Domestic problems.’
‘Not, I’m sure, on Helen’s scale. What does he want?’
‘Well,’ Merrily said, ‘I do actually know what he wants.’
Suspecting something like this, she’d told Bliss she’d be prepared to talk to Helen Ayling herself.
‘It relates to drugs. Bliss wants to know about Clement Ayling and drugs.’
Sophie said sharply, ‘What about them?’
‘Anything.’
Sophie said, ‘Are you serious?’
Merrily tried to call Bliss back at once, but his mobile was engaged. She brought the Boswell guitar in its case through from the back hallway, laid it on the scullery sofa. Then she went back to Lol.
He was standing by the window. She went over and found herself clinging tightly to him, feeling flimsy as an insect, breathing in the unfamiliar smell of the earth on him, and they were kissing for too long.
‘It’s only another gig,’ Lol whispered.
‘No, it’s not.’
When they finally separated, she pulled a rusted flake of dried mud from the shoulder of his sweatshirt. He bent and kissed her again, on the side of her mouth.
‘Look… if you really want me to change I’ll go home and do it. I don’t want to—’
‘No. Keep the luck. Just… you know… don’t take that sweatshirt to America with you. They won’t understand the reference.’
‘Doesn’t arise,’ Lol said. ‘I hadn’t thought it out. I wouldn’t even get a visa or whatever you need.’
‘Huh?’
‘I have a conviction for indecent assault on an underage girl.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake…’ She pulled away, stared into his eyes. ‘Everybody knows that was a gross miscarriage of—’
‘No, they don’t. In the eyes of the law, I’m a sex-criminal.’
‘Lol, you can get it waived.’ Merrily was almost shouting. ‘If you apply to the American Embassy for a visa and tell them the circumstances, you’ll almost certainly get it waived.’
‘There’s no certainty at all, and anyway—’