Authors: Phil Rickman
66
A social basis
‘N
O
, G
EORGE
,’ B
LISS
said. ‘You haven’t been charged with anything yet. But if we have to detain you against your will we’ll probably start with Assault Causing Actual Bodily Harm.’
Elsewhere in the Community Centre, someone was photographing Thorogood’s bumps and abrasions. He was still refusing to go to A and E in Hereford.
A metal Anglepoise lamp had been brought into the room they were using for interviews. Bliss had it turned away from himself but wasn’t so crass as to point it into Gore Turrell’s face.
‘Of course that’d just be a holding charge,’ he said. ‘The interesting stuff… we’ll get to that.’ He looked across at Vaynor. ‘Darth, as there’s no lock on the door, perhaps you could carry your chair over and sit with your back to it. We don’t want any bugger disturbing us. Especially any bugger with a PhD.’
‘Still at Cusop, boss,’ Vaynor said.
Also some kind of Oxford graduate but without the college motto tattooed on his forehead.
‘Yeh, well, let’s hope nobody invites him back. Tell him half of Rector’s land’s in Dyfed-Powys’s domain, that should do it. Now then.’ Bliss beamed across the desk. ‘Before we switch on the tape, anything you’d like to tell us, George?’
Turrell was compact and muscular, fit-looking, but not exactly Mr Personality. In other circumstances you might even think he was a Regiment man.
‘I was attacked in the street, ultimately by two men and I defended myself.’
‘And very ably, George, if I may say so. I’m told you’re a bit of a fitness freak. Lots of hill running.’
‘That’s a crime?’
‘Go running on your own?’
‘Usually.’
‘Ever meet other runners?’
‘Occasionally.’
Bliss leaned back, tapping an arm of his chair. ‘Women?’
‘Some.’
‘Where were you off to tonight when you were… attacked?’
‘Going to pick up my motorcycle.’
‘Yeh, that’s one explanation for the gloves. Moonlight ride?’
‘Always exhilarating.’
‘Would you have come back?’
‘Tonight? Or ever?’
‘You choose.’
Bliss left some silence. Turrell’s talk was cool, but you could tell he was out on a very narrow edge. This
should
be taken slowly, circling round the issue, wearing him down. But no knowing how much time there’d be before the community centre started to fill up, and not entirely with friends.
‘How’s Gwenda, Gore?’ Bliss said. ‘Doesn’t seem to be around.’
Long silence. Car headlights dazzling in the window. A pulsing in Bliss’s brow. Please don’t let this be Iain Brent.
‘All right, George, let’s talk about Tamsin Winterson.’
‘I was sorry to hear about that.’
Gore’s face rigid, his eyes hard.
Interesting.
‘You ever meet her out running? Tamsin?’
‘Yes.’
No hesitation.
What?
Bliss held himself relaxed. With difficulty.
‘Yes, you met her?’
‘Yes, I met her.’
Bloody hell. Long mountains up there. Deep valleys. You didn’t
have
to meet anybody.
And Turrell didn’t have to say that.
‘Broken heart, darling. End of a beautiful affair.’ Gwenda swirled the liquid in the glass. ‘Should’ve seen it coming, but we don’t, do we?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘He’s a cool one. Told me two nights ago. In bed. Well, of course, we agreed to say nothing, behave as if nothing was wrong. We’re grown-up people. One of us rather more grownup than the other. As you may have noticed. People do. He never seemed to, bless him.’
‘Where’s he now?’
‘No idea, darling. We closed, we kissed, he left.’
‘You don’t know where he’s gone?’
‘Could be going abroad, anywhere. He has enough money. Didn’t ask. Or the name of his new love. Why should I? Grownup people. Clean break. Life goes on.’
‘That’s a… difficult situation. With the business and everything, too. You been together long?’
‘Long enough.’ Gwenda turned away from the water to look at her. ‘Seen you before, haven’t I? Now
where
have I seen you before – no, don’t tell me, I know everything.’
‘Then I suppose you know about Tamsin Winterson.’
‘Who?’
‘The missing policewoman,’ Merrily said. ‘She’s been found. Dead.’
‘Oh. Yes, I heard that. Shame. Wait! I know who you are. You came in with Gwyn Jones earlier. Tucking yourselves into a corner where you wouldn’t be overheard. Pointless, darling. I hear everything.’
Gwenda sipped from her champagne flute. It wasn’t wine, smelled like whisky.
‘Old Gwyn. The King of Hay’s Chief of Police. Unpaid snooper.
He
wouldn’t be missed. Pest. He say you were a priest or something?’
‘He may have.’
‘You’re too pretty to be a priest. And probably not even a lesbian.’
‘Well, you know—’
‘Don’t contradict me. Not the night for it. So tired of people stopping me all the time. Oh, Gwenda, have you heard? What a terrible thing! How will the town ever be the same again? What sanctimonious drivel. As if it affects
any
of them. Why I came down here.’
She turned away and walked down on to the beach of sharp brown stones. Lush too-black hair swept back as she walked. Merrily watched her and thought of Mephista watching Jerrold Adrian Brace carving a swastika into the exposed skull of Cherry Banks, very nearly dead, but not dead or there wouldn’t be blood. Had she taken that picture, too? Viewing it through a camera lens – did that separate you from the act, turning it into just a lurid movie?
No, it didn’t. Try and imagine Jane doing that.
It made you a monster.
‘We used to walk here often, very late at night,’ Gwenda said. ‘Sex on the bank. Good in the rain.’
She stood at the water’s edge, black boots, black leggings, tossing her head back, bleach-white teeth reflecting the lesser white of the moon.
It was like all the nerves in Bliss’s head were dying. He wanted to lay it down on the desk and sleep. Just five minutes’ sleep would do it.
Well, no, it wouldn’t.
‘Should look after yourself better, Inspector,’ Gore Turrell said mildly.
Bliss held on to his temper. Quelled his dismay. Tried to rise above the numbness.
‘How well did you get to know Tamsin?’
‘Pretty well.’
‘You went running together?’
‘Yes, we did.’
‘Where? Where did you go?’
‘Several places. Along the Cat’s Back and down to Craswall. Over the Bluff and up to Capel. Down to Llanthony once.’
‘When did this start?’
‘About a year ago.’
‘You’re not lying to me, are you, George?’
‘Why would I lie?’
‘Because little Tamsin’s dead and there’s nobody left to disprove it?’
Just as no one could disprove it if he’d said he’d never met Tamsin Winterson in his life. Which would have been the sensible line to take.
‘You ever meet off the hills?’
‘Yes.’
‘On a social basis?’
‘Yes.’ Turrell took a long breath, looking into the corner beyond Bliss, where a pair of wellingtons stood. ‘And, later, more than that.’
Mother of God.
Bliss saw Vaynor blink.
‘Did Gwenda know about this?’
No answer. Bliss rewound Gwyn Arthur in his head.
…
recreational running… not in an ostentatious way… turning out before dawn… marathons he never seems to win… Nothing to draw attention.
Tamsin: no boyfriend her family knew about. Dedicated to her job. Staying fit for the Job. Little Tamsin.
‘George, are you telling me you were Tamsin’s boyfriend?’
Gore shrugged.
‘Why didn’t you come forward this morning when we were
appealing for anyone who knew her or had seen her in recent days to contact us?’
No reply.
‘George… Gore… I want you to think very carefully before you answer this question. Have you ever been to Peter Rector’s house, Bryn-y-Castell, at Cusop?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
Mother of God, so many questions, so little time. Going well and yet going badly. What had Gwyn Jones got wrong?
‘Did Tamsin know who your father was?’
‘Hardly likely.’
‘Why?’
‘As even I don’t know who my father was. Only who I was
told
my father was.’
‘People don’t seem to know much about your personal history. Where were you before you came to Hay? Do you want to say something about that?’
‘Only that I fail to see what it has to do with a short fracas in an alleyway.’
A tapping on the door. Bliss ignored it.
‘But you know who your mother is, don’t you?’
Silence.
‘Gore, you’ve been very cooperative. But I’ve been noticing that this is a particular subject you seem reluctant to discuss. Are you refusing to answer questions relating to your mother?’
‘Yes,’ Gore said. ‘I’m afraid I am.’
‘Tamsin’s death, Gore. Let’s talk about that. Did you kill Tamsin?’
‘No.’
‘When did you find out she was dead?’
‘No comment. Isn’t that what they say?’
‘Did you make a phone call earlier tonight to tell the police where to find her body?’
‘No comment.’
‘Do you know who killed Tamsin?’
‘No comment.’
‘Are you angry that she’s dead?’
‘Yes.’
‘Gore, out of interest did Tamsin know about your political views?’
‘I don’t particularly have any political views. My… apparent grandfather had political views.’
‘What about your friend Seymour Loftus?’
‘He’s not exactly a friend.’
Bugger
. He wasn’t even denying he knew Loftus.
‘He’s a member of the Green Party,’ Gore said. ‘He stands up for the preservation of the British countryside. Against overcrowding, wholesale building and subsequent sharp increases in the crime rate. You mean you don’t?’
God, it was a fine line, wasn’t it?
‘And he follows old religious practices linked to the land,’ Gore added. ‘Similar to the ones adopted by Robin Thorogood and exalted by his shop. You have a problem with that, too?’
‘DI Bliss.’ Iain Brent’s voice from the other side of the door. ‘I’d like a word. Now.’
The door shook. Darth Vaynor held it shut with his chair, but he looked very uncomfortable.
‘What are you doing here?’
Brent had him in a corner. Actually had him in a corner.
‘Talking to a suspect, Iain. It’s one of me functions.’
Brent went through all that about him being the SIO, how everything had to go through him.
Everything.
Bliss asking him, amiably enough, if this extended to a simple assault where he and Vaynor had just happened to be on the spot
‘And I had no reason to think you were even here,’ Bliss said. ‘Seeing you seem to have alerted everyone to the discovery of Tamsin’s body except me.’
Taking a chance here. If someone had seen him at Cusop.
But then, if that had been the case, when he’d walked in an hour or so ago, in search of someone reliable, Vaynor would’ve casually asked him to stay in the building, instead of following him out.
‘I didn’t have you called because,’ Brent said, ‘I need fit men. And you’re a sick man, Francis. On more than one level, I suspect. Who’s this suspect supposed to have assaulted?’
‘A bookseller. Robin Thorogood.’
‘You’re adding insult to injury, Bliss.’
‘You gorra suspect yet? For Tamsin?’
‘Get this man bailed and go home. I’ll talk to you later.’
‘Might help you,’ Bliss said reluctantly, ‘if you talked to me now.’
Brent just turned away. Rich Ford had come in, was activating computers and his small staff, soon to be expanded.
‘Conference in half an hour,’ Brent told Rich.
‘You know what, Iain,’ Bliss said conversationally, so Rich could hear and Darth Vaynor and a couple of Dyfed-Powys fellers. ‘You’re a really shite detective. Did I ever tell you that?’
Brent didn’t turn round but you could see some action in his shoulders.
Shoot out. Sunday morning now. By the end of the week, one of them wouldn’t be working here any more.
‘Oh, and a twat,’ Bliss said. ‘But that goes without saying.’
67
Crystal tulip
A
VEHICLE TURNED
into the track leading to the river, and then there were shouts.
Police. Had to be. And they were coming down.
And she hadn’t even started praying yet.
Gwenda was saying, ‘What’ve you got under there, darling?’
With the moon-white, self-assured, patronizing smile that said
I know everything, I hear everything, I’ve done everything.
Then a door slammed and the voices stopped, and a vehicle accelerated away, and, at the same time, Merrily heard the whine of the vehicle reversing out of the track.
Two different vehicles and the one coming down here had obviously taken a wrong turning, and all the voices had been from the top road
No police. How deceptive sounds could be, especially in darkness, when vision was restricted.
Merrily said, ‘What do you
think
I’ve got here?’
Sweating again. Always a giveaway, and you couldn’t hold it back.
They were standing facing one another, just above the river’s beach. Merrily began edging up the grass to where Mrs Villiers sat in shadow, up on the bank of the Dulas Brook.
Gwenda pointed at Merrily’s chest.
‘Unzip.’
‘What?’
‘When I say I know everything, I mean I
like
to know everything. And I don’t know what that is.’
‘Oh…’
Warm night. Merrily pulled down the zip of the black hoodie and took it off, hanging it over her right arm. Exposing to the moonlight her white T-shirt and the cross. Compliance.
Gwenda bent and fingered the cross.
‘You really
are
a priest?’ She stood back, hands on ample hips. ‘What the
fuck
is a priest doing here following bloody Gwyn around? You do know he’s completely addled?’
‘Is he?’
‘Something this town does to people, I’m afraid.’
‘Erm… how’s it do that to people?’
‘When you get a large number of mad people in one place…’ Gwenda doing it in baby-talk ‘… it inevitably affects the rest.’
She laughed. They were right about the laugh. It really hadn’t changed very much. It was a laugh that squeezed itself out of captivity and then bounded away, taking you with it, making you want to rather like her.
‘And you’re too inquisitive,’ she said. ‘What
are
you doing here?’
Always difficult to put on an act when you were facing a direct confrontation. Even from someone you knew was covering up something abhorrent, something hideous.
So don’t put on an act.
‘OK,’ Merrily said. ‘There’s a shop. In Back Fold. The Thorogoods’ shop?’
‘Where they found that swastika, yes.’
‘Betty Thorogood, I’ve known her for some time.’
‘You’re wearing a cross. She’s a pagan.’
‘I don’t have too much of a problem with that.’
Gwenda did a sneery little hiss.
‘The touchy-feely Christian Church. Only Islam has any balls these days. What’s bothering Betty?’
‘Bad atmosphere.’
‘A
bad atmosphere
. Oh. We believe in all that, do we? Bad vibes? Evil spirits? Call out demons, do we?’ Gwenda took a
sip from the champagne flute and walked up the bank. Sat down just below the concrete car park, patted the grass beside her. ‘
Tell
me.’
‘Never actually exorcized a demon.’ Merrily sat down, leaving a space between them not quite wide enough to suggest fear. ‘Not much call for it. Well… plenty of call, but you usually find it’s not justified.’
‘So what did you do for the lovely Betty?’
‘Nothing yet. We thought it was all about Jerry Brace, but it evidently wasn’t.’
‘This is the neo-Nazi Connie shagged? Once. She claims.’
‘You don’t think she did?’
‘Not if he was as good-looking as she insisted he was. Anyway, it’s all balls, isn’t it?’
‘You don’t believe in these things?’
‘Belief ’s pointless. Faith’s babyish. I grew up among believers. Parents were cranks. Mustn’t do this, mustn’t do that, this is right, love is all you need, this is wrong, bad karma. Thought they were free, but they were just in a different prison. Couldn’t stand them once I learned to think for myself. Once you realize that nothing’s wrong and nothing’s right unless it
works
, your life’s transformed.
That’s
when you become free.’
‘You learned that… from an early age, then?’
‘I’ll try anything once and if I like it I’ll try it twice.’
The smile said,
I’ve gone through life breaking taboos like dead twigs.
Merrily holding herself steady, hands on the grass either side, ready to move. Seeing Cherry Banks, mutilated in the smudgy photocopy, and the degradation of the charmingly artless Tamsin Winterson to a limp-haired, blood-caked heap.
And hearing an echo of the car in the track and the car on the top road and the voices that could have come from either.
Gwenda looked at her, a finger alongside her nose, as if puzzled.
‘Why haven’t you exorcized Jerry Brace?’
‘Well… you don’t exorcize dead people. Unless you have reason to think there’s more to it. I mean, his beliefs were very dark, but Jerry himself… he wasn’t up to much, was he? Not by himself. Seems to have idolized Peter Rector, but Rector had changed. Maybe he couldn’t adjust to that.’
‘Fancy,’ Gwenda said. ‘One would almost think you’d known the man.’
Merrily followed the moonlight into the pale eyes, trying to find Mephista there. She saw Mephista sitting in an old ambulance on cold, rainy Hay Bluff, watching her dad making notes for his stillborn book on New Age travellers. Making her own plans for the grooming of Jerry Brace, putting him into a situation which, if he went through with it, would put his whole future into her hands. And he
had
gone through with it, he’d killed and mutilated and dissected, Mephista standing behind the camera, urging him on.
say it, say it, say it…
I sacrifice you in the name of my father.
Replaying this alongside the sounds of the car on the top road, the car in the track and the voices. And the voices on the tape. You thought you knew where the voices on the tape came from.
say it, say it…
Came from behind the camera.
I sacrifice you
Came from the figure in black plastic.
Didn’t it?
‘Did you see the video, Mrs Protheroe?’
‘Which video?’
‘The one Robin brought into the bar.’
‘We didn’t have time.’
‘So you don’t know what’s on it.’
‘Do you?’
‘Well, yes. A few of us saw it earlier tonight.’
‘I thought Robin hadn’t got a player.’
‘They wanted everyone to see it,’ Merrily said. ‘To see if anyone could throw any light on what was happening on there. We all knew what it looked like. It looked like a murder. A kind of ritual murder. Of a young woman. In that shop.’
‘You’re serious? Has it been shown to the police?’
‘Probably. By now.’
Gwenda looked up and all round. It was very quiet now. Merrily kept her eyes on her.
‘Why did you follow me, darling?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘You just happened to arrive here? And on your own. How odd. But then you’re a priest. You’ve got your god with you.’
Gwenda laughed.
Laughed the laugh.
Merrily sprang up, but Gwenda was already on her feet. A well-built mature woman with long legs, muscular legs. She might not go hill running with Gore, but there was all that fitness equipment that Gwyn had been told about, in the apartment. The apartment with no books.
Gwenda gripped the champagne flute. Did something so efficiently she’d obviously done it before. Raised the hand and brought the flute down on the edge of the concrete, very swiftly, at an angle.
‘Tell me,’ Gwenda said.
‘Tell you what?’
‘What you think I did.’
The gleaming at the end of Gwenda’s right hand was not a knife. The champagne flute was half smashed, Gwenda’s fist tight around the stem up against a jagged open tulip of good crystal.
Merrily stumbled over a lump in the grass, nearly went down. Gwenda came another step closer. Lifted the arm with its crystal prongs.
‘All right.’ Merrily scrambling up, backing off. ‘
That…
that’s what I think you did.’
‘Say it!’
‘Yeah, right, exactly… Say it…
yes
. That’s what you said.
Say it
, you were hissing,
say it…
And because he was bloody terrified of you by then, he said it. He said,
I sacrifice you in the name of my father.
And that was… that was all you needed. All you needed was his voice, saying the words.
His
voice,
your
blade, and that was all he had to do. That and hold the camera while you stood there. Killing Cherry Banks. The detritus. That’s what I think, Gwenda. That’s how I think it went.’
Limping away, gasping. Her left foot had found a hollow in the grass and, stepping out of it, she’d twisted an ankle.
Oh God, don’t let her see you limp. Divert her… anything…
‘Was Cherry your first? Easy… easy to get her down from the Bluff?’
‘Told her there was a wealthy guy in Hay who was into trashy girls. Dirty girls. You didn’t have to tell her twice.’
‘Jerry say she could use his place?’
Gwenda seemed to relax.
‘We took her to Jerry’s place, and the wealthy chap obviously didn’t turn up, so Jerry fucked her himself, then we had a threesome, and gave her some sleepy pills. Just another homeless scrubber tagging along with the Convoy. She told us this would’ve been her last time anyway as she’d seen the
Holy Mother…
in the air at Capel-y-ffin. Well, that fucking did it, far as I was concerned.’
‘She said she’d seen the Lady of Llanthony? When did she tell you that? Before she was drugged? Before she was part of a threesome?’
‘Don’t remember, darling. Except that it was like a sign. Prostitute discovers faith. How lovely.’
‘And what did it feel like afterwards? After you’d done it. An explosion of consciousness? Halfway to the astral plane, was it, Gwenda?’
Gwenda took a step up the bank, the crystal flute swinging at her side.
‘Or was it just about initiation? Your initiation… Jerry’s initiation… whose was it? Never going to be able to prove it wasn’t
him, so that… gave you a hold on him. The ultimate hold. You and Jerry going all the way together. How… how
touching
.’
‘Thank you,’ Gwenda said, ‘that makes it a lot easier.’
Swinging her arm like a pendulum, a keening whisper in the air and Merrily’s left arm was ripped from wrist to elbow.
Oh.
The temperature dropped.
‘How can you—?’
She was trembling now, in severe shock.
‘How can you
do
this? How can you go on doing it?’ How can—’
Pop.
Was it extreme fear that did this? The inner camera pulling back, the blur of images, the vivid sense of yourself under a milky moon, not quite full, an arm banded with bright blood.
Your fresh blood. Cherry’s black blood. Tamsin’s dried, waxwork blood.
‘Tamsin? Was that you, too?
Was
it?’
… and the blood matted on Tamsin’s chest and the blood that flowed back into Cherry’s throat in the rewinding video. Outside of all this, you saw the actual hatred burning inside you like a blue light, like a gas jet turned up full.
You saw Mephista lunging with the glass at your face and losing her footing in a patch of mud and starting to slide down the bank, unbalanced.
And you might not be able to walk, but you could throw yourself down the bank, giddy with rage, breath pumping, until you had a hand under her jaw and the other groping for the eyes.
Seeing it happening, as if from somewhere else, higher up.
As if through the round eyes of Mrs Villiers, sitting directly above where you were pushing Mephista’s head under the water, where the Dulas Brook emptied itself into the Wye.
The old woman’s eyes reduced to smudges of shadows, her jaw fallen.
Her whistling in your head.