by Phil Rickman
‘Haven’t we all.’
‘I don’t know the details about that, yet.’
Annie sat down opposite Bliss. He stared at her, tingling with emotion and caffeine-rush, impressed at the way she could separate her private and professional lives.
‘Seemed promising at first,’ Annie said. ‘Now it’s slightly silly. But still odd. A call to the Rural Crime Line. Person seen acting suspiciously, couple of miles from Oldcastle. In a truck?’
‘Worth a punt.’
‘It stood up, too. Secure compound, with warehouses. CCTV cameras smashed, hole cut in a wire fence. And, of course, the offender still on the premises.’
‘You’ve got him, then?’
‘He’s downstairs. Stagg brought him in last night. By all accounts, Stagg was practically wetting himself with excitement, thinking he was on the verge of cracking Oldcastle. It was apparently two hours before somebody persuaded him to call me.’
‘This feller in the cells, this is someone we know, right?’
Annie sighed.
‘Laurence Robinson, musician. Of sorts. Also known for his association with your friend, the vicar of-’
‘Fuck’s sake, Annie, you’ve gorra be kidding…’
Bliss sat up, hands dropping away from the chair arms.
‘I don’t do kidding, as you know. Robinson denies it. Denies breaking in, but he had injuries requiring stitches. We’re still looking for the wire-cutters in the woods, and his truck’s been brought back – being gone over as we speak.’
‘Annie, this is… I mean, I know you don’t like Mrs Watkins or her God, but this-’
‘Yes, it seems faintly ridiculous, but the faintly ridiculous often turns out to make perverse sense. And he does have psychiatric history.’
‘That was twenty years ago, and-’
‘All right, what am I supposed to do, Francis? You tell me. He was caught on the premises.’
‘What’s he saying?’
‘When Stagg finally got him into an interview room, he was saying very little. Refusing a lawyer, not helping himself at all. According to Stagg, he sounded guilty. By the time I got here he’d been formally arrested and binned for the night. It wouldn’t be the first time Stagg’s overreacted. On the other hand…’
‘Who owns the premises?’
‘Guy called Colin Jones. A co-director of Hardkit. They have a warehouse there, and a gym. Run survival-type courses, rent out equipment. Jones is ex-SAS. He’s coming in later to make a statement, but he’s confirmed that the fence was intact and the cameras functioning at least until early yesterday evening.’
‘They don’t have a nightwatchman?’
‘Apparently not. And they’ve never had any trouble before.’
‘You want me to talk to Robinson?’
‘No, I do not.’
Annie was staring at him. Her coat had fallen open. Underneath she was wearing the stripy sweater she’d had on the night last December when he’d gone to her flat, and…
Annie stood up.
‘You have what seems like a result. Run with it.’
‘And keep on running?’ Bliss said.
Annie looked away.
Tap on the door. Terry Stagg leaned in.
‘Ma’am?’
Annie went out. Bliss stared at his desk. A result, yeh, but hardly the result anybody wanted, and not his result. All he’d done was put the squeeze on a semi-literate woman of seventy-plus. Karen had pulled his chestnuts out of the fire, and he’d get the credit, do the talking-head, the radio soundbite. We’ve now arrested several people in connection with the Marinescu murders and we expect there to be charges. Nothing else I can tell you at this moment, thank you…
… unless of course you want to give me something on Sollers Bull…
Bliss smashed his fist into the desk. It hurt; he was glad.
Annie came back to the door. Her angular face was unreadable. They were so not an item any more. This time she didn’t come in.
‘Actually, Francis, there is one thing you could do while you’re waiting. Talk to Robinson’s… partner. She’s in reception. And then get rid of her, would you?’
50
Girlie Returns
Either it would happen or it wouldn’t. As the morning wore on, Jane was beginning to hope there’d be a get-out.
There were three buses to Hereford today, and she’d missed one. Watched it coming as she was waiting down the street from the Ox. It gave her an hour before the next and then, like, another four hours before the one after that.
OK, this was the decider. If the bus came before there was any sign of Cornel, then fate had decreed she should be on it. That would be fate lifting it out of her hands.
She’d been down to the Ox earlier. ‘Mr Cornel?’ Whizz Williams, the lugubrious licensee, morosely scrubbing the bar down. ‘Dunno where he is, but he en’t paid his bill yet, and them’s his bags, so I reckon he’ll be back.’
Leather cases in front of the bar, airline stickers on them.
Jane had hung around for ten minutes, then walked back up to the square, wandering quietly around, being anonymous. No sexy stuff today; she was in the high-necked black Bench jacket, fully zipped up, jeans and trainers, an old red beret of Mum’s.
This was business. A handful of people had gathered to wait for the second bus. She hadn’t joined them, but stayed within range, looking into the bookshop window where two copies of Mother Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love were displayed. On impulse, she went in and bought one from Amanda Rubens.
‘You’re joining the meditation tomorrow, Jane?’
‘Maybe. Think it’ll work? Into the valley of pain and death? An Easter miracle?’
‘That’ll be?6.99,’ Amanda said.
As Jane left the shop, the book jammed into a jacket pocket, the bus was coming round the corner, the morning sun bursting in its windows. Chariot of fire. Jane felt a certain half-guilty relief and stepped out across the cobbles.
Then a dark grey shadow glided in front.
‘Girlie returns,’ Cornel said from inside the Porsche.
Jane looked up, blinked and then walked slowly over like she didn’t know who this might be but was intrigued. A few people moved around her, some giving her a glance before getting on the bus.
‘Remind me,’ Cornel murmured over his raunchy little engine growl. ‘Do I owe you an apology?’
‘Could be me.’ Going automatically into the voice she’d used on him that night in the Swan. ‘I was, like, a bit pissed?’
‘Very charitable of you,’ Cornel said. ‘But I was a lot pissed.’
He was wearing this kind of dated short chamois-leather blouson jacket over a khaki shirt with camouflage patches on it, and sunglasses. He didn’t look cool, maybe a little sad.
‘Look, do you need a lift?’
‘I was getting the bus into Hereford, actually, but if you want to get a cup of coffee somewhere, you could park on the square?’
‘With you? You’ll miss the bus.’
‘I, like, wanted to ask you something?’
‘I’m not going in the Swan, girlie. Not too popular, you know?’
The bus was up against the Boxter’s back bumper. The driver jerked his thumb.
‘Cornel, you’re, like, blocking the bus stop?’
‘So hop in. Stone me, girlie, it’s a Porsche! Mass-rapists don’t drive cars this conspicuous.’
Jane’s scenario had them on foot or in the back room at the Ox, lots of people around. But she supposed he was right.
Never been in a Porsche before. The passenger seat moulded itself around her. She hardly heard the door close.
‘There you go. That wasn’t too hard, was it? Where we going?’
‘I was going to Hereford,’ Jane said.
‘I could go that way, I suppose.’
Cornel drove off into Old Barn Lane, speeded up. Jane looked over her shoulder at the diminishing square.
‘OK, look,’ she said, ‘I was pissed and y
ou said something about shooting cats. I’ve got a cat.’
‘I didn’t shoot your cat, did I?’
‘Well, no, but…’
‘I was legless.’
Cornel came out of Old Barn Lane, hit the bypass with a satisfying tyre-bounce and shot her a glance.
‘What’s your name, again?’
‘Jane.’
‘And what did you want to ask me?’
‘I…’ She floundered, hadn’t expected things to escalate, was still talking in girlie’s voice. ‘Like… what you said about Paris?’
‘Ah… Paris, France.’
Cornel began to smile, the skin over his face stretched so tight that when he opened his wide mouth it was as if you could see his skull. The sun was behind them now, the fresh countryside opening up all the way to the Black Mountains, but that wasn’t the way they were going, and it didn’t seem to be towards Hereford either. Cornel had the top down now, flooring the Porsche’s accelerator on the bypass.
‘Oh, and I didn’t go out killing sheep and chickens either, OK? Mr Savitch needs the support of all the farmers and landowners he can schmooze.’
Jane looked across at him. Hint of cynicism there, in relation to Savitch?
‘Besides,’ he said, ‘chickens are too easy. Even for me.’
It was like a gift. OK, go for it.
Jane took a breath.
‘They, like, kill one another, anyway, don’t they? Maybe that’s more fun?’ Concentrating on not looking at Cornel, even when she felt the flicker of his glance. ‘Well, cocks, anyway. This time of year.’
Feeling the pull as his foot came off the accelerator. Cornel slowing down very gradually, saying nothing, coming off the bypass at the smallest exit lane, which was just there for the sake of a couple of farms. The road surface was full of potholes from the winter. There was no other traffic. When they hit a straight stretch, Cornel just stopped in the middle of the road.
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Me?’
‘Nicked a sack from a litter bin?’
His lips were stretched, his big chin thrust out. The Porsche’s engine was muttering. She could, of course, get out now if she wanted to. Just climb out and walk off. He could hardly leave his Porsche in the middle of the road. Jane watched him warily.
‘What did you see, Jane?’
‘I… saw you put a sack in a bin. That’s… that’s it. I just… wanted to see what was in it.’
‘And then you took it.’
‘I just wanted to show it to somebody? My grandad?’
‘What for?’
‘He breeds them.’ She had this bit all worked out. ‘And he’s always-’
‘Breeds what?’
‘You know…’
‘I don’t!’
‘Gamecocks!’ Jane backed hard against the car’s door. ‘And like he’s always going on about how great it was in the old days? With all the betting and how they used to feed the cocks special diets and like it wasn’t really cruel because they had a good life, and he… he still breeds them.’
‘What’s he do with them?’
Cornel released the handbrake, let the Porsche creep along the lane like a hunting cat.
‘Well, that’s it,’ Jane said. ‘Nothing. He just breeds them and he’s like, Oh, I wish it was still going on. Like, Oh I’d give anything to put one of my birds in the ring again.’
‘So you told him, did you, where it came from?’
‘No. Like, I told him where I found it but not how it got there. And he had a good look at it, and he’s, like, yeah that’s been fighting.’
‘So what did you see before you took the sack?’
‘What was there to see?’ Could blow it all if he thought she’d listened to him getting humiliated by the Brummy-sounding guy. ‘I’m just coming up Church Street and I seen you toss the sack in the bin and walk off. I was, like, curious?’
‘Curious.’
‘When I seen it, I thought it was, like, one of his? My grandad?’
Inspired. She was cruising. Just don’t sound too glib.
‘So, like, that’s why I took it to him. Thinking maybe somebody shot one of his birds? But it wasn’t one of his. But when he seen it he got all excited. And, like, it’s his birthday next week, he’s, like, seventy-eight? And I was thinking if I could like arrange for him to go to a cockfight one last time?’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘It was probably stupid.’
‘That’s why you came to the Ox last night, is it? Because your grandad wants to go to one last cockfight before he dies? What did you do with the bird?’
‘Got rid of it. In the river.’
Cornel nodded. He let the Porsche pick up speed. The next time he spoke, it was kind of sadly.
‘Lies.’
‘Huh?’
‘They just come pouring out of you, don’t they, girlie?’
51
Criminal Damage
Merrily was ready to scream at Bliss until she saw the state he was in. Coming through the door from the stairs, his jacket trailed over a shoulder, out of breath, a harsh pallor on his face. He looked older and he looked barely in control, like a man feeling his life running away from him.
‘Frannie-’
‘No!’ Wiping his hands in the air, his voice sharp and shiny. ‘Where’s your car?’
He followed her out and they sat in the Volvo on the Bath Street car park. He had his iPhone in one hand. She hadn’t seen him since Christmas. His face was damp and his eyes looked far back. He shut them for a moment.
‘I was gonna come round and see yer.’
‘When was that?’
‘A few times.’
‘But you were busy.’ Merrily was trying to hold on to that sense of twisted relief she’d felt when Danny had told her that Lol had been arrested for damaging a wire fence. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s in a cell, of course.’
‘Frannie, this is Lol…’
‘It’s not my case, Merrily, but if you can throw any light on the situation I’ll pass it on.’
Bliss turned to her, head on one side. She sank back into the patched seat. She’d called Sophie at home, asking if she could find an emergency stand-in for the Maundy Service. It had happened before, never exactly endearing her to Uncle Ted. Maybe it was her life that was spinning away.
‘I don’t know what it’s about. Lol tried to ring me but I was on the phone. Probably a situation where he was only allowed one call, so he rang Danny Thomas instead, you know the guy-?’
‘Merrily, I’ve got till this phone goes off, which could be four or five minutes. We’ve suspects being brought in for questioning about the Marinescu murders.’
‘You’re getting somewhere on that?’
‘Yes. Tell me about Lol.’
‘There were things he probably couldn’t say to Danny in the time he had, so I really don’t know what he was doing at Brinsop.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Bliss said, ‘I know me memory isn’t what it was, but did I mention Brinsop?’
‘Frannie, for God’s sake, you know him-’
‘All I know is there are two smashed CCTV cameras and a hole cut in a wire fence. Nothing stolen, so it could just be criminal damage or-’
‘That’s insane!’
‘No, hang on… my guess is, unless they’ve found a big pair of wire-cutters in his truck, with Lol’s prints all over them, he’ll get police bail and he’ll be out within an hour. And if the owner of the property doesn’t wanna take it any further it’ll disappear.’
‘Who’s in charge?’
‘Be Annie Howe.’
‘Oh.’
‘And I think the owner’s coming in himself later. We’ll have to see if he wants to press charges.’
‘Colin Jones?’
Bliss looked up. Merrily watched curiosity pushing through the weariness like a baby bird’s head in an old nest. Then the phone in his hand began to bleep, and he shouldered the car door open.
When Bliss was back in the station, Merrily stood on her own at the edge of the police forecourt, across the road from the red-brick magistrates’ court. How many other women had waited here for their boyfriends to be bailed? How many vicars?
She started to laugh. It sounded discordant, a bit manic. She left a message on Danny’s phone, saying the situation now seemed less fraught. Lol would probably be bailed. Dear God. When the mobile chimed and she brought it to her ear, she found that her cheek was wet.
‘Danny?’
‘Neil Cooper, Mrs Watkins. County Archaeologist’s Department? Jane said you might want to talk to me about Magnis. Do I have that right?’
‘Magnis, yeah. Sorry, Neil, you’ve caught me on the-’
Merrily sat down on the car-park wall.
‘Military base, on the Welsh border road from Caerleon,’ Neil said. ‘Built in the late first century, in the time of Claudius, when the occupying army was having trouble with rebellious Celts. Anything specific you’re looking for?’
‘Well… religion, I suppose. A warrior’s religion? Nothing meek and mild. Something that might put the Celts, if they’d adopted it, in a state of mind to beat the Roman army on its own terms.’
‘You’re talking about Caradog here?’
‘Probably.’
A door under the police awning had opened and Lol was coming out quite slowly, the way a discharged patient walked out of hospital.
‘You see, if you’re talking about this area,’ Neil said, ‘most of the soldiers defending Roman Britain were probably not Romans at all, just a ragbag of recruits from all over Europe. They’d been absorbed into this great disciplined military structure and taught the basics. So Caradog’s success isn’t that extraordinary. He wouldn’t exactly have been taking on the cream of Rome. Where did this religion idea come from?’
‘A novel, actually. So it didn’t exist.’
Merrily stood up, and Lol saw her, the sun finding the first strands of silver in his hair. He stood facing her, as if slightly bewildered by the fresh air and the traffic. It felt as though the whole city was watching them, as she walked across, the phone at her ear.