Merrily Watkins 11 - The Secrets of Pain

by Phil Rickman

The knowledge that Cornel was on something… that was actually quite comforting. Like, inasmuch as there was any comfort to be had for a vegetarian woman down here. She called across to him.

  ‘So it’s happening later… or it’s already happened?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The cockfighting.’

  No doubt about that now. It stank of it. Somewhere down here there would be blood, there would be feathers. Jane pulled out her phone, checked the battery – still functioning but getting low, and the signal was down to one blob, which often meant you could manage to make calls but not receive them.

  ‘What are you doing, Jane?’

  ‘Pictures.’

  A stone plinth jutted from the end wall of concrete blocks. Below the plinth, a rudimentary sink, like a font, but with more of a sense of altar about it. Above the plinth, a kind of stone plaque or tablet, quite big, with figures on it in relief.

  ‘Wait,’ Cornel said. ‘I’ll give you some better ones in a minute.’

  He unslung his big rucksack, unzipped it, started taking things out. It was really cold in here, half in the earth.

  Jane curled her hand around the phone in her jacket pocket and moved along the gulley. It was lined with stone. Some of the marks near her feet did look like patches of dried blood.

  ‘Can you shine the torch down there for a minute?’

  Cornel didn’t move. In the ambient light, Jane tried to make out the marks on the stone benches.

  ‘They’re divided into segments, like individual seats. I suppose the… audience sits up here and, with both ends blocked so the birds can’t escape.’

  There were chisel marks, carvings in the surface, figures like you saw in pyramids, only more crudely drawn into the concrete. Probably done before it dried, but chipped now. Some were in circles, like astrological symbols. It was actually pretty interesting. Or it would have been if she’d been here with Eirion rather than…

  Jane limped up to the sink. A shallow pool in there. Dipped a finger into it, then held it up and sniffed. Looked like water, smelled of nothing much. There was a flake of something like mud on the edge of the sink; when she flicked it off it made brown liquid scribbles in the pool.

  ‘Could this actually have been a Roman cockpit?’

  Her knowledge of Roman deities was fairly basic. As an archaeologist, she was a one-trick pony: stone circles, henges, Bronze Age burial mounds.

  She brought out her phone again.

  ‘Could you just, like, shine the torch here for just a minute? I want to see if the light’s strong enough.’

  Cornel made an impatient noise and came over with his torch, directed the beam at the plinth. Jane saw that one corner had been knocked off, and it was all powdery.

  ‘It’s concrete! It’s not stone at all.’ She tried to see his face behind the beam. ‘What is this place?’

  ‘Been rebuilt.’

  ‘It’s a sham!’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Cornel bent over her shoulder as she took a shot of the corner with her phone. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What are you—’

  He’d just lifted the phone out of her hand.

  ‘I’ve told you I’ll give you some better ones. Stand back, girlie.’

  His arm went back, and then there was the sound of something hitting the wall and bouncing off and…

  ‘That wasn’t my phone, was it?’

  ‘Probably wouldn’t work down here, anyway.’

  ‘What’ve you done?’

  The echo came back at the same time as Cornel’s arm, and then it got lost in a bang and another bang and a splintering crunch, and then Cornel had hold of Jane’s arm and he was dragging her back, and she was shutting both eyes against a rising storm of grit, and the inside of her mouth was like in the yard at the Swan when she’d been choking on the cobweb full of flies.

  Cornel pulled her away, screaming, down the aisle, pointing the torch ahead of them into a dust storm.

  Jane erupted in coughs, only half aware of the stone tablet with the figures on it beginning to wobble. As she watched, it tilted slowly and began to topple towards them.

  ‘What’re you doing?’

  Cornel was on his feet. He was laughing, the torch in one hand, its beam almost solid with dust, a short-handled lump hammer in the other.

  ‘Haven’t even started yet,’ he said. ‘Girlie.’

  Engine noise.

  ‘Where are you?’

  Lol shouting, the way you couldn’t help doing when the voice at the other end was faint and kept cutting out.

  He was on the phone in Barry’s office, standing up. He heard Danny telling Gomer to slow down, and then Gomer’s voice saying they didn’t want to lose the bugger.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘—ostyn. Kenny Mostyn.’

  Danny did some explaining. Lol kind of got the gist. He saw Barry in the doorway, standing very still, the way only Barry did.

  ‘Danny,’ Lol said, ‘listen to me. It’s not possible you’ve got Jane with you?’

  No, it wasn’t.

  Lol could’ve wept. When he came off the phone, Barry waved him to the swivel chair.

  ‘Slowly,’ he said.

  ‘Gomer and Danny,’ Lol said, ‘are in Gomer’s Jeep. They’re following Kenny Mostyn because they think he’s going to a cockfight.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Danny thinks they’re probably heading for the Stretton Sugwas route towards Hereford, but obviously he can’t be sure. Lots of tracks and old farm buildings.’

  ‘Let me get this right,’ Barry said. ‘The rock ’n’ roll farmer and a man well into his seventies…’

  ‘Why they think there’s a cockfight on and this Mostyn’s on his way to it, I don’t know. I suggested that when he stopped, they should just drive past and then call me back. Don’t go up any tracks.’

  ‘Good advice, Laurence.’

  ‘But then, this is Gomer,’ Lol said. ‘Like there aren’t enough problems with Jane missing.’

  Cornel had his back to Jane now, fiddling with something. She heard the familiar repeat clicking of a stubborn cigarette lighter.

  ‘He wasn’t my mate after all,’ Cornel said.

  He stepped away from the altar, where two curling flames were sending shadows coiling over the walls and up to the curved ceiling.

  Two small bowl-shaped lamps – like twin miniature men’s urinals – were sitting on the edge of the altar

  Jane backed away. There was still dust in the air,

  ‘Cosy, eh?’

  ‘You took my phone.’

  ‘In this world, girlie, you have to take what you want. Kenny taught me that. Kenny, my mate. Take it when you want it, where you want it. That’s what Kenny said, my mate. Taking pictures of me holding up the dead cock in the ring. My mate. Where do you think those pictures ended up?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know.’ Cornel’s face was fingered by shadows. ‘Well, you know I’m not sure about that. You know what I think? I think I haven’t actually got any mates.’ He threw something to the concrete. A bundle of something soft. ‘Least of all you, girlie. You were never my mate. You’re a slippery, duplicitous little slag.’

  ‘Look, I don’t know what you’re—’ Jane steadied her voice. ‘I’m not your mate, but I’ve got nothing… If you just give me the torch and the phone, I can take some pictures, and then, like, if you just give me a day or so to expose the cockfight situ—’

  ‘You stupidlittlefuckingbitch!’ A bright sprinkle of spit in the thin lamplight as his body arched at her. ‘There was never any cockfighting here! Never! You got that?’

  73

  Raven

  HE’D DONE IT all. Cut the wire, smashed the CCTV camera. He’d been here before. Well, of course he had.

  There was a horrible smell from the lamps. Like rancid, molten butcher’s-shop fat. Cornel was leaning against the altar, the lump hammer still in his hand, the rucksack at his feet.

  ‘Thing is, girlie �
� and I’ve thought about this a lot – the night you humiliated me in the pub, I do believe that’s when it all started going wrong. Me standing there with my trousers soaked, as if I’d pissed myself. And all my mates laughing. You started it. You could’ve walked away anytime, and you didn’t. Well in the frame for a shag. Who put you up to it, girlie? Which of my mates?’

  ‘Nobody. Swear to God. I was just fishing for information – about what happens at The Court.’

  ‘Bull shit. Kids your age, it’s just clothes and clubbing and baby booze. And the teen-witch bit in your case, though I’d’ve thought—’

  ‘I have never been a bloody teen—’

  ‘And your boyfriend, the big-time journalist. You think I didn’t ask people if you had a boyfriend? Yeah, yeah, she knocks around with some fat Welsh student.’

  ‘He knows a lot of journalists, and he’s not—’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ Jane moved back into the lamplight. Not having this. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. You’re—’

  ‘Shuddup!’

  Jane flinched a little but didn’t move.

  ‘If it’s not cockfighting,’ she said, ‘what is it?’

  ‘Took my money, and they hung me out to dry.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘One of the other guys was washing in the Gents’ and he had his sleeves rolled up. I thought it was a tattoo. He’d been branded. Branded like a bull, and it was still fresh and livid. The pain of that, and he didn’t… he didn’t care. Pain works. It’s a man thing.’

  His teeth were gritted again. Jane recalled how, at the back of the Swan, the man with the ashy voice had told Cornel, It’s about manhood.

  ‘This is some kind of temple, right?’

  ‘I thought you knew all about it. But you don’t know shit, do you?’

  ‘Don’t know much about Roman stuff.’

  ‘Holy of holies. Just smashed the holy of holies, and it’s not over yet.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Made it to raven, and then it stopped.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Took me out to the top of a hill. Had to spend the night on the top, naked. All night. Alone, but I knew they were watching, so I couldn’t creep off. No food all day. They gave me something to drink so I stopped feeling the cold, and then I’m seeing things, fucking terrifying, but when the sun comes up… God… Next night, we go out lamping hares. It was spectacular. I’m wearing like…’ Cornel cupped his hands around his face, like a funnel. ‘The raven? Then ate raw meat, fresh-killed.’

  His body was vibrating again. He was grinding his teeth. Then his jaw fell to his chest.

  ‘And that was it. Covered truck still comes maybe twice a week, close to midnight. There might be fifteen guys on the course, but only two or three will go. And I’m, like, when’s it my turn? Why not me? Was that it? There’s higher degrees, another six. But it stops. It fucking stops.’

  Oh God, it was about frustration.

  It all came out. They wouldn’t let him move up to the next grade. They took his money, but they wouldn’t let him move on. He’d kept on at Kenny Mostyn who he’d thought was his mate – what did he have to do, what did they want? He’d gone around the countryside, demonstrating how hard he was, shooting at people’s pets, following Kenny one night, to a cockfight. Thinking back, Kenny must’ve been really pissed off when he turned up, but he congratulated him on his initiative, bought him drinks, helped him place his bets. Of course he lost, making a fool of himself, got into the car legless but made it back, trying to persuade Barry to cook the poor bird. He’d become half-mad with frustration, he really didn’t understand and, oh for God’s sake, Jane didn’t either.

  ‘Twenty-six.’ Cornel’s big jaw thrusting out, his face all sheeny. ‘Twenty fucking six, with a mortgage half the size of the national debt, a car that cost fifty K, not half paid for. I’m fucked!’

  He laid the hammer on the altar. Bent down to the rucksack and pulled something out. Like a folded jacket or something, Jane couldn’t see.

  ‘Got the push, girlie, did I tell you? Necessary rationalization. Had a message to ring my boss. He wasn’t even apologetic. Difficult times, old boy, difficult times. Then off to his villa in Tuscany, the bloated fucking toad.’

  Jane watched a fist rebunching out of the same hand that had held hers, knuckles shining with grease.

  ‘They shafted me. Mostyn. And Savitch and all the public-school cunts who were egging me on to give you one.’ Cornel reached down and tugged on something. ‘I followed the truck. Hired the van, so nobody would know it was me. Easy to follow people on these roads. And then I came back. Hey, but you know what was weird? Got in last night. Being really, really careful. And the police came. The actual police. I’m crouching there behind the altar, they flash their torches around very quickly and then bugger off. I creep up to the door, and they’ve nicked some other bloke. Couldn’t believe it. I felt—’ Cornel punched his left palm with his right fist. ‘Magic!’

  When he started to laugh, it was like a yelping. He snapped on the torch and shone the beam at the ground, where he’d thrown down the bundle.

  ‘Strikes me you’re the first woman ever to come in here.’ His livery lips wet. ‘Or you will be.’

  Kicking the bundle on the ground, and Jane watched the sleeping bag slowly unroll.

  ‘Sacrilege.’ Cornel’s shadow was a momentary black bloom on the curved roof. ‘Think of it like that. We’re gonna have ourselves some sacrilege, girlie.’

  Jane’s recoil knocked one of the lamps off the altar, hot fat splashing up as it went out, and she bit her top lip so hard she felt the blood come.

  Cornel’s face, in the mean light, was creamy with sweat. Cornel was a mess, Cornel was a tosser. Keep telling yourself that. Jesus, tell him.

  ‘Cornel,’ Jane said – even though she knew it was the wrong, wrong thing to say, she said it. ‘You’re an educated guy. You ever think this could be making you just a little bit insane?’

  Don’t waste time looking for his reaction, look for a way out of here: those stepped concrete blocks, the seating, the back row seemed to be some distance from the wall. Would have to be, because this was a Nissen hut and more than half the wall was curved, part of the roof, so there had to be a space.

  ‘You’ll get another job.’ Stepping back, her raised voice gathering echoes. ‘Look at the totally bent, disgraced politicians who keep bouncing back. And they’re, like, old?’

  So there was likely to be a concealed channel – walkway, crawlway – around the perimeter. Follow that and you’d get back to the doors.

  Cornel said, ‘Don’t try to engage me in conversation, Jane – we’re way past that.’

  A two-one from the LSE: he wasn’t a complete idiot, was he? Jane saw him place something on the end of the concrete bench and pick up the hammer. Each time he smashed it down, with a dull, metallic splintering, she winced and jerked and backed a bit further away. It had to be her mobile.

  ‘Please, Cornel…’ Suddenly near to tears, and they were seeping into her voice. ‘You can’t rape me.’

  The word was out, pathetically, but carrying a long echo. …ape me.

  Jane zipped her jacket all the way up as his voice came back at her, petulant, along with a spurt of torchbeam.

  ‘Doesn’t have to be that.’

  ‘Just because you feel sorry for somebody,’ Jane said steadily, ‘doesn’t mean you… doesn’t mean you can fancy them.’

  Well, she didn’t feel sorry for Cornel at all. He was a victim of his own greed, his own obsession. She hated him. She sank slowly down and fitted both hands under one of the shards of concrete which had flown off under the lump hammer. It was too heavy to throw at him, but she had nothing else; she held it against her stomach, letting her body take some of the weight as she backed away from the lamp.

  ‘And this place is horrible. It stinks and it’s not even a proper ancient site. It’s just cobbled together out of old… building sup
plies, and you know what? I… I think you’ve got this all wrong, Cornel. I think you’ve been conned. This is just a scam to make money out of guys like you.’

  Jane flattened herself against the rough bottom wall and began to drag herself along it, thinking maybe Cornel wanted this place to bring out a side of him he still wasn’t sure was there. As if just being here, doing violent man things…

  ‘It’s just a scam, Cornel, to make money out of rich, gullible—’

  ‘Do you see what’s in my hand, girlie?’

  Jane screamed.

  ‘I’m not looking!’ Aware that he was pointing the torch at himself – oh please – down there. ‘You come near me, Cornel, I swear I’ll have your eyes out.’

  74

  Sleeper

  AS THEY DROVE up towards the Brecon road, the clouds had fled. The still-wintry moonlight was spread like sour cream on the fields where the man who slaughtered the Bull might have gone running, his head floating inside the feral fury of his haoma high.

  Try explaining that to the Crown Prosecution Service, Annie Howe had said.

  ‘Even if Sollers had no hand in the killing, if he was there he did nothing to stop it. Then into his car and off to his restaurant to fix himself an alibi.’

  ‘What was he like when he arrived at the restaurant?’

  ‘Stagg talked to the staff. They were agreed that Sollers was in one of his reorganizing moods. Calling the team together – we should do this, we need to do that. Busy, busy.’

  ‘Hyper. That figures.’

  ‘Then, after a suitable period of time, he comes back and, according to his statement, hears the cattle making a noise in the sheds, walks up with his shotgun and discovers the carnage.’

  ‘Shotgun?’

  ‘Common enough reaction for a farmer at night. Especially in an area portrayed by Countryside Defiance as the badlands. Expect the worst. Be ready. Don’t expect any help from the police.’

  ‘How did it all go sour?’

  Merrily sank back against the headrest, thinking of Arthur Baxter and his smallholding. The good life, eh? Where did all that go? The Baxes, in their shapeless home-made sweaters replaced by the Mostyns in killer camouflage.