Merrily Watkins 11 - The Secrets of Pain

by Phil Rickman

  49

  Spout

  ‘NO, ALL RIGHT,’ Bliss said, ‘we won’t bring anyone in just yet. We need to gerrit all neat before we make a move.’

  Karen Dowell was with him in his office in Gaol Street. Also Darth Vaynor, newly promoted to Position of Trust. On his desk, in white sunlight, a file. Victoria Buckland, aged twenty-five, a woman of violence. Eighteen drink-related convictions, four for assault.

  The latest of these included violent assault on a teenage girl during a brawl outside a dance-music venue off Widemarsh Street. The most interesting was the attack on a man she’d been living with. One snappish, hungover Sunday morning, Victoria had stabbed him in the right eye with the broken-off spout of a teapot.

  Oh, she was a celeb, Victoria, and cultivating it. The tattoo on her left arm said I DO THE FUCKING.

  Karen said, ‘You remember Nerys Edwards, DC at Leominster?’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘Bit her on the face.’

  ‘Victoria?’ Bliss nodded. ‘I do remember her now. I remember the scar. But if that was down to Victoria, she could only’ve been… what…?’

  ‘Nine.’

  ‘Mother of God.’

  ‘Passenger in a car nicked by a couple of kids not much older. It crashed into a lamp-post and Victoria had some bruising and abrasions, so Nerys bends down and lifts her up. Bad mistake.’

  ‘Not one anybody could feasibly make now, is it?’ Bliss looked down at the picture, winced. ‘I take it we have her on the streets at the right time?’

  ‘We have her in…’ Darth Vaynor consulted a printout ‘… four or five pubs so far, including the Monk’s Head. We also have her twice in High Town in the early hours. At 1.45, she was depositing a lager bottle tidily in a litter bin.’

  ‘That’s gorra be a first.’

  ‘Hard to believe even Goldie Andrews grassed her up,’ Vaynor said.

  ‘All the way to the hossie,’ Bliss recalled, ‘the lad with the spout, who could’ve died, was still insisting he stuck it in his own eye. Goldie, however, I’m pleased to say, spotted the writing spray-painted in gold on the wall at the top of her naff Hollywood stairs.’

  ‘You have a way, boss,’ Karen said.

  ‘Victoria is just the icing, Karen. You baked the cake.’

  She’d done some exemplary work on this, must’ve been in long before dawn, on the phone then slipping over to Bobblestock, soon as he’d rung in from Goldie’s, to see Granny Wise’s family. All right, it wasn’t exactly the result he’d wanted. But maybe that was partly why she’d worked so hard on it. Bliss felt grateful and a little ashamed.

  ‘So we’re gonna do this right, and we’re gonna bring them all in at once. Background again, Karen?’

  She had this little family tree drawn on the pad, demonstrating how easily even the most respectable units could become polluted.

  ‘The late Cynthia Wise, former primary school teacher. Two daughters. One of whom, Lynne, was originally married to a Peter Singleton, a public-health officer with the council.’

  She’d got all this from the other daughter, who lived a few doors away from her late mother’s house up in Bobblestock.

  ‘Lynne and Peter get divorced. There’s one child, Josceline – custody to Lynne, of course. Lynne is then remarried to a widower, Gerald Buckland, father of three, of whom Victoria is the eldest.’

  ‘Mr Buckland got form?’

  ‘One conviction for drink-driving, boss. Seventeen years ago. People like Victoria… sometimes they just happen.’

  ‘What about Joss?’

  ‘Not known to us in any respect until she and Carly Horne volunteered as witnesses, which somehow always looked a bit iffy to me. A quiet kid, according to her aunt. Possibly too quiet. Still waters kind of thing. After her parents’ divorce, she seems to have blamed them both, withdrawn into herself. Not happy in the Buckland home. Only person she was really close to is her gran.’

  ‘Grannie Wise.’

  Karen smiled sadly.

  ‘We gorra statement from Auntie, Karen?’

  ‘No, and we’re not likely to get one. Families, boss. Especially extended families containing Victoria Buckland. But at least I’m confident she won’t be tipping Victoria off.’

  ‘How close is Joss to Victoria?’

  ‘The aunt thinks not very, but… Joss is not the most communicative kid, as we know.’

  Bliss nodded.

  ‘Never mind. We’ll get there. DCI know about this yet?’

  ‘DCI has one or two things to deal with this morning,’ Karen said. ‘You probably haven’t heard, have you?’

  Full morning assembly, the whole gang. A strong buzz. Five numbers on the Lotto, everybody waiting for the bonus.

  Bliss said, ‘This should be fairly straightforward. DS Dowell will bring in Josceline Singleton and Carly Horne. Arresting both, if necessary. DC Vaynor and a few other biggish lads will pull Victoria Buckland. She’s probably still in bed, so we’ll need a couple of women. Volunteers? Anybody?’

  He was coming down now, feeling a bit queasy. Probably just needed more coffee. Rich Ford stood up.

  ‘I’ll put Family Liaison on standby. Just the three of them, you reckon, Francis?’

  ‘I’d be inclined to say not, wouldn’t you? We’re looking at Victoria’s known associates. CCTV tells us she was with different groups at different times. Whichever permutation of them killed the sisters would split up afterwards.’

  ‘Women on women, Francis?’

  ‘I’m not ruling out this being an all-female attack, no. But…’

  ‘What about the signs of sexual assault?’

  ‘Well, yeh, but, Rich, they weren’t big signs were they? It was comparatively superficial, like an afterthought. I’m thinking of damage inflicted by a woman or women to maybe suggest it was sexual?’

  ‘Revenge, you reckon, rather than racial?’

  ‘That’s how it looks. In the wake of a fairly despicable robbery and the tragic consequences, a little girl – emotionally insecure – loses her beloved granny. The only relative she’s close to.’

  ‘Except her big, notorious stepsister?’

  ‘Yeh, well…’

  Bliss had been remembering Joss Singleton, the quiet one with the citrus hair, her mate Carly Horne doing all the talking, casual, nonchalant. Got us an afternoon off college, anyway.

  Although you couldn’t help being knocked back by how unshockable kids were these days, he was inclined to think these two hadn’t been around for the final act. They couldn’t have been so cool if they’d watched two women die like that… could they?

  ‘Still some basic questions to be answered, like how did they know it was the Marinescus who’d robbed Joss’s gran? Now, I’m thinking that was most likely down to Victoria herself, who has wide contacts. This is still a small city, and there aren’t that many double acts on the street at any one time.’

  The fact that Goldie knew this was down to Victoria… well, no surprise at all there. You could fill Yellow Pages with all Goldie’s contacts. How long had she known it was Victoria, though? At some point he’d have to go back, on his own, for a bit of a heart-to-heart, but not till Victoria was safely banged up.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s all do this quietly. Let me know as soon as you have them.’

  As the room emptied, he looked up – and there was Annie Howe. In all the excitement he hadn’t even noticed her come in. Annie was wearing her coat, no make-up, and she had her rimless glasses on. Must’ve left very early.

  ‘You sound sure about this, Francis.’

  ‘I think we can send the interpreters home,’ Bliss said. ‘Scary, isn’t it? Little girls. What’ve we come to?’

  ‘These girls actually came in here?’

  ‘Fingering some blokes they claimed were eyeing up the Marinescus. Very cool.’

  ‘You think that was Buckland’s idea?’

  Bliss shrugged. Annie nodded across the room.

  ‘Your office?’
/>   Annie said, ‘I’ve never known you not want to be in on a round-up.’

  Bliss shrugged.

  ‘Not gonna be a siege, is it? Not even Victoria. She’ll scream and threaten, look around for a bottle. Accuse the cops of feeling her up, especially the women. I don’t need to see that again.’ He sat down, hands behind his head. ‘Anyway, it’s Karen’s collar. She’s been up half the night.’

  ‘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 mo
ulded 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 you 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.