Merrily Watkins 11 - The Secrets of Pain

by Phil Rickman

  No sign of Kirsty’s Ka. Chris Symonds drove a Discovery; maybe she’d borrowed it to cart stuff around. Worst scenario would be that Chris and Pat were in there, in which case a mere exchange of bitter words would be the least he’d get away with.

  Bliss was about four paces from the door when there was muffled click and then he was standing like a social-club compère in overlapping circles of garish lemon light.

  He backed off sharpish. Who the hell had installed security spots?

  A shadow crossed the upstairs window and he heard a muffled biffing – the heel of a hand repeatedly hitting a jammed window frame. And then, as it gave way, a voice from up there.

  ‘… bloody thing. See, told you it was nobody. Not even the paparazzi.’

  …trailed by a sound he hadn’t heard in a good long while: Kirsty’s little shocked-but-thrilled, plumped-out giggle.

  Bliss crouched in the damp grass at the edge of the track until the security lights reached the end of their cycle and went out, and he could see the figure in the window, out of shadow up there.

  The shock and the pain came sudden and vicious, like a knife-thrust in some clammy alleyway, as the setting sun showed him that the parts of Sollers Bull visible above the window frame were unclothed.

  42

  Don’t Go There

  IT TOOK A while to come out – it always did around here. The two brothers had been introduced by Bax as Percy and Walter. They lived in a small red-brick cottage, nineteenth-century, at the end of a row of modern houses and bungalows near Kenchester. They travelled in the slow lane. The silent Walter, who was probably over ninety, wore an apron and made the tea. Percy had never heard of anybody called Lol before.

  ‘Short for Laurence,’ Lol said.

  He’d crawled up from Brinsop in the truck, behind a man on a bike.

  ‘Well, well,’ Percy said.

  Walter handed Lol tea in a china cup. A low-wattage bulb, its brown flex hanging over a blackened beam, had probably been on all day. Coal was burning in an iron range. There was a TV set that had to be fifty years old and probably didn’t work any more. The room smelled of… well, it smelled of old blokes.

  ‘Lol writes songs,’ Bax told Percy.

  ‘Too many bloody songs, now. All sounds the same.’

  Percy was a few years younger than Walter. His hair was white and curly.

  ‘No, proper songs,’ Bax said. ‘Folk songs. Songs about life. And songs about things what goes on…’ he winked at Lol ‘… that people don’t talk about much no more.’

  ‘Talk? They wanted me to give a talk, look,’ Percy said. ‘Women’s Institute. Some woman comes round, asks me to give a talk.’

  ‘That was my missus, Percy.’

  ‘Wasn’t gonner talk to a load o’ women. They spreads stuff all over, women does. And they gets it wrong.’

  ‘Always a problem with women,’ Bax admitted.

  ‘En’t I don’t like to talk.’ Percy nodded at Walter. ‘He don’t like to talk much, never has, look. I likes to talk, long as folks gets it right, what I tells ’em. Half the buggers, they don’t listen proper, n’more.’

  Bax nodded.

  ‘Talks back, don’t listen,’ Percy said.

  After a while he seemed to notice Lol, sitting on a stool by the door. Lol was listening. Percy nodded approvingly.

  ‘Tell Lol what you seen in the long field that night,’ Bax said.

  In the feeble light, the already muted colours in the room had died back into a sombre sepia. Percy did some thinking.

  ‘Wouldn’t ’appen to ’ave any more o’ that scenty baccy, would you, boy?’ he said eventually.

  Halfway down Church Street, Jane began to feel cold and a little stupid in the sawn-off white hoodie that she’d worn in the Swan the night she’d met Cornel. But he’d been pissed then and she needed him to recognize her.

  Ready for this now. Knew exactly how she’d handle him. Sure he’d come out of the Ox at some point. Maybe he was here with his cockfighting mates. Eventually she went in and had a glance around.

  Mistake.

  ‘Watkins!’

  Slobby Dean Wall at one of the gaming machines.

  ‘Don’t get excited, Wall,’ Jane said calmly. ‘I’m only looking for somebody.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Wall looked at her bare bits, sucking in his breath. ‘It looks like you bloody are, too.’

  Jane took a couple of steps inside. Stink of stale beer. Only the Ox could sell beer that smelled stale when it was fresh out of the pump. Men’s eyes were flickering her way from all corners of the cramped bar with its tobacco beams and stained flags. A barmaid was clearing glasses from a table. Six pint glasses in two hands, fingers down in the dregs, clinking. She looked up, and it was Lori Jenkin, who worked part-time in the Eight Till Late. Jane leaned over, lowered her voice.

  ‘I’m looking for Cornel.’

  ‘Your mum know about this, Jane?’

  ‘Got a message for him, that’s all. Somebody said he was in here.’

  This was going all wrong. She needed to just, like, bump into him.

  ‘I think he’s in his room,’ Lori said. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘He’s staying here?’

  The Ox had two spare bedrooms, which Jane understood were used mainly by sad downmarket commercial travellers too pissed to go back on the road. A guy with a Porsche staying here… that did not sound right.

  Lori said, ‘I’ll get somebody to give him a knock, if you like.’

  ‘No… No, it’s OK. It’s not urgent, I’ll catch him again.’

  Jane got out of the Ox under Dean Wall’s soiled, beery gaze and stood there feeling like a prostitute, shivering. They always underdressed, apparently. This wasn’t working. Give up for tonight, go home.

  Rapid footsteps across the street and, oh jeez, it was Mum walking up from the village hall. Jane hung back, keeping close to the shadowed cottages. But, after a few paces, inevitably tonight, Mum looked back and saw her.

  Jane walked up, hands jammed in her pockets to pull the hoodie down over the bare bits. How was she going to explain this?

  ‘Meeting’s over already?’

  ‘Uncle Ted couldn’t make it, so we had a fairly restricted agenda, thank God. Apparently, he, erm… tried to ring me earlier.’ Mum glancing sideways at Jane, as they walked up to the empty square, taking in the skimpy apparel and then glancing away. ‘Jane, look, I know it’s none of my—’

  ‘I needed to walk and think and stuff. Didn’t realize how cold it was.’

  They reached the square, with its tumble of black and white buildings, the weary lanterns coming on outside the Swan, soon to be owned by…

  Jane’s fists tightened.

  ‘So,’ Mum said, ‘you were thinking. And stuff.’

  ‘Last day of term. Last school holiday. The future.’

  Everybody had been demob happy at school. Those facing A levels probably less so, but nobody quite as messed-up as she was.

  Mum said, ‘I’m not so old I don’t remember what that’s like. You’ve made a decision that could determine the rest of your life and you’re thinking, God, have I done the right thing?’

  ‘Oh.’ Jane went to stand with her back to the open-sided, oak-pillared market hall. ‘Like… most of the guys at school, they just can’t wait to get the hell out of here and go to London. Or Paris or New York?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Me, I don’t even want to go to university.’

  There. It was out.

  ‘Ah,’ Mum said. ‘So that’s it.’

  ‘Three years? That’s like…’

  ‘Flower, compared with the rest of—’

  ‘The rest of my life, yeah. It is actually about more than that, though, isn’t it? And, like, for what? A degree means nothing any more. There’s guys out there with PhDs who can’t spell. Coops is Dr Cooper, and he just works for the council. And the… the forces of darkness are gathering. Hereford’s already as good as gone. All crap superstores and charit
y shops and women getting murdered in the back streets…’

  ‘Jane—’

  ‘And if I leave… if I go… I’ll come back and it’ll all be shit here, too.’ Jane felt the pressure of tears; hadn’t intended to go this far. ‘That sounds bonkers, doesn’t it? So why do I keep waking up depressed and frightened?’

  ‘Frightened, how?’

  ‘Frightened that like in ten years or something I’m going to be looking back with this awful self-hatred because I didn’t do what I should’ve done at the time.’

  ‘Flower—’

  ‘Yeah, I know, teenage angst. A phase. It’s always a phase, isn’t it? Well, how do you know for sure when it’s a phase, Mum? Is it after you like walk away, live in a city, get a mortgage, get pregnant… grow up?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mum said.

  They were alone on the square. Only a faint wisp of the woodsmoke which used to scent the whole village. Jane felt like they were both enclosed in a cold vapour. Mum looked young and waiflike tonight, in her dark jeans and woolly, no dog collar, not even a pectoral cross. Like somebody who hadn’t grown up after all. Who still knew nothing. It made Jane want to cry with despair.

  ‘What about you? What about you and Lol? If Bernie Dunmore retires, and you get a bunch of extra parishes dumped on you… and Lol has to go back on the road because nobody’s making money out of CDs any more… how long are you going to last as an item then?’

  Actually crying now, couldn’t help it.

  ‘Let’s go to the pub,’ Mum said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s go to the Swan and get a drink.’

  Men who had been reappearing? Oh aye, Percy knowed about them. He sat in the ochre glow of the firelight and the haze of scenty baccy, and he talked and giggled as the small windows grew dim.

  Walter had gone off somewhere. He’d doubtless heard it all before, these tales of the people who came up the fields in the river mist, no faces, no feet. Maybe Bax had, too, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was an incomer, and the fact that someone like Percy would talk to him at all about such matters, even after thirty years, was clearly a source of pride to him.

  Lol was thinking this was Percy’s routine – his act, his gig, his repertoire, the tales told, rebored, remoulded over many years. What was interesting was the way the anomalies were mingled, some otherworldly and some just odd in an ordinary way. To Percy, there seemed to be no difference. The people who came up from the river, all he could say was that they were greyish and one had a bird’s head, and sometimes you could see through them to the winter trees behind. Oh aye, he’d seen them on three occasions in his life, only for a few seconds, mind, each time. It was when you didn’t see them that they were dangerous. When they got inside your tractor and fiddled about. That was how Harold Wilding had lost a leg, and he was lying there, a new furrow filling up with his blood and he reckoned he could hear them laughing.

  Then Percy talked of lightless vans and trucks on the lanes after midnight. Men driven like sheep along the paths, over stiles. They had no faces either. And there were other things Percy had seen but couldn’t talk about.

  ‘Give him time,’ Bax had murmured.

  But there hadn’t been time tonight. Bax had looked at the clock, coming up to half past ten, and said he needed to be off before his wife came back from her rehearsal. He left Percy a couple of baggies, on the sideboard, behind the clock, and they said goodnight.

  ‘Course, he’ll deny to the end of his days that he’s the least bit superstitious,’ Bax said. ‘He was born here, like his old man, worked hard all his life on this ground, and these things were what happened now and then. Like gales and flooding. Nobody wrote to the papers about it.’

  They were leaning on a fence behind Bax’s cottage, looking out towards the darkening fields where villas had stood, with mosaic floors and perhaps bathhouses. And the rows of wooden barracks where the Roman squaddies slept – probably a bit like some of the huts occupied today by migrant workers on the fruit farms, Bax said, only with better facilities.

  ‘The vehicles with no lights,’ Lol said, ‘and some of the men with no faces…’

  ‘That’s the Sass, innit? Anyfink odd happens round here, folks exchange glances, nod to one another… and say noffing. They don’t question it. They’re patriots. Whatever fings those boys get up to, it’s done for Queen and country, for the security of us all, so that’s all right, innit?’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Not entirely unknown for them to help themselves to a farmer’s stock, is it, on an exercise? Dropped in the wilderness with no food, and you got to exist for whole days on what you can find in the hedgerows or trap and kill? Been known for them to lift the odd sheep, or a chicken from a farm. Some of the farmers, if they know where they are they give ’em a big fry-up in the barn. Makes sense.’

  ‘But not round here, surely? This isn’t the wilderness.’

  Bax said nothing. Lol gazed over the fields. It felt like they were standing at a sea wall overlooking dark waters, the distant Black Mountains like the far arm of a wide bay.

  ‘Jones’s place,’ he heard himself say. ‘Can you see it from the road?’

  ‘Not any more.’

  ‘No signs to it? I didn’t see any.’

  ‘Secrecy’s part of the image. The punters like that. So I’m told.’

  Lol had the map from the truck.

  ‘Could you show me where it is? On here?’

  Bax sighed, fishing out a spectacle case and holding up the map to the last of the light.

  ‘What’s these marks all over it?’

  ‘It’s a ley map we made. Four or five going through Brinsop Church. Don’t know how you feel about leys?’

  ‘Maybe somefing to it. Lol, look—’

  ‘Do any of these lines go through Byron’s land?’

  ‘Lol, mate…’ Bax bent and rubbed his knees then straightened up. ‘I don’t know what to say at this point. You listen to a geezer’s music over the years and you fink you know him. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve very much enjoyed our evening, and I got a great respect for what you do. But we don’t talk about our neighbours.’

  ‘To strangers.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘One day I’ll explain.’

  Bax pulled a pen from his jacket.

  ‘Can I deface this map a bit more?’

  ‘Feel free.’ Lol held the torch, while Bax worked out some distances then drew a small cross. ‘That’s the farm, is it?’

  ‘Wiv your line going right frew the top corner, near his boundary, where he had his… excavation. That what this is about? They have a digger, him and his partner from Hardkit. Geezer who owns the land overlooking it reckoned there was archaeologists involved. Dunno what was found. Nothing was ever made public. Then Jones had conifers planted inside his boundary fence.’

  ‘Hardkit?’ Lol said. ‘You did say Hardkit?’

  ‘Kenny Mostyn. He owns the Hardkit shops.’

  ‘He’s Jones’s partner?’

  ‘You din’t know?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t.’

  Kenny Mostyn of Hardkit. Byron Jones’s partner, Ward Savitch’s partner, kind of.

  ‘Do you know of any ancient monument on Jones’s land? Anything they might want to excavate?’

  ‘No. And he’s… trust me, he’s not the kind of bloke you ask.’

  Lol nodded, looking up at the sky, figuring there was a good half-hour of daylight left.

  ‘Well, I’d better go,’ he said. ‘You’ve been very helpful, Bax. I’ll send you a copy of the album when it’s out.’

  43

  Brazilian Decaff

  SEEING THE FEMALE silhouette through the frosted door-panel in the dusk, Bliss thought, Annie.

  Almost wept. It had come to this. Memories of winter nights when she’d parked around the corner, walked briskly, all muffled up, down the icy drive to the back entrance. The sweet, old-fashioned romance of it.

  What
a twat he’d become. Bliss unlocked the door, thinking he hadn’t even made the bed.

  ‘I thought I’d better come round,’ Karen Dowell said. ‘Two reasons. One, I really didn’t like the sound of your voice on the machine.’

  Bliss started to laugh and went into a coughing fit.

  ‘And obviously didn’t get that wrong,’ Karen said.

  He’d called her on his mobile from the car, having tried Annie twice – switched off, and he hadn’t left a message. But he’d left one for Karen.

  How long have you known?

  Because this had so explained Karen’s attitude. Advising him to back off, pass the information about Sollers and the fruit-farm girls to Annie Howe.

  You want to be a bit careful, boss, that’s all. Under the circumstances.

  Bliss backed up the narrow hallway, switching on lights.

  ‘Sorry, I was…’

  ‘Not drinking, I hope.’ Karen stepped into the living room, pulling off her baseball cap, looking around. ‘God. You into minimalism now, Frannie, or is this all she left you?’

  ‘You want some coffee?’

  ‘Show me where the stuff is, I’ll make it. I had your coffee once before.’

  ‘Look.’ He felt stupid now. ‘I didn’t expect you to come over.’

  ‘I told Craig it was work.’

  ‘I feel like a twat.’

  ‘You are a twat. God, Frannie, I thought you knew. I just didn’t see how you could not know.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t. That’s the kind of shite detective I am.’

  Karen stood there, shaking her head. Bulky, uncrushable. Farming stock.

  ‘And then I thought about it, and I was thinking, well, if by any chance he doesn’t know all the history…’

  ‘What are you saying, Karen?’

  ‘Oh my God, you don’t know any of the history, do you?’ Karen tossed her cap on the sofa, from which all the cushions had been stolen. ‘He hasn’t always been a rural pin-up, Frannie. There was a time when being seen around with Kirsty Symonds was serious kudos for a guy like Sollers.’