Mean Spirit

‘He’s interesting,’ Maiden said. ‘He’s extremely interesting.’

‘Well, I’m glad you think so, Bobby. I found him merely repellant. What the hell were you talking about? Who’s Gary?’

‘Don’t know. But he frightens Mr Hole.’

‘Detective games,’ Seffi Callard said.

‘And how many times did he tell you how wrong you were about him and his son’s girlfriend?’

‘No. He didn’t, did he?’ She took a right, signposted for Cheltenham. ‘Go on. Get it over.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You need to ask if I was pre-informed, by anyone called Gary or anyone else about Hole and this girl.’

‘Were you?’

‘No. Do you believe me?’

‘As a copper or as me?’

On the way here, she’d asked him if his death experience had made it harder to be a policeman. A very perceptive question.

‘But that’s irrelevant right now,’ he said. ‘Hole evidently thinks this Gary might have given you the information, but he’s saying if it was Gary, then that’s OK. He just wants to know. So Hole’s relationship with Gary is a bit risky. Uncertain. He doesn’t know where he is with Gary, but if it’s Gary playing a little joke, then Mr Hole’s going to laugh along with him.’

‘A psychologist, too.’

‘And consider Mr Hole. Is he a wimp? Is he a big softy?’

‘No.’

‘What’s that say about Gary, then?’

‘What sort of people are these, Bobby?’

‘Iffy.’

‘You mean criminal?’

‘Well… Most people, if they want you off the premises, they start threatening to call the police. He didn’t.’

‘Now just a minute …’ She suddenly swung the Jeep into the side of the road, half on the grass verge, stopped with a judder. He saw she was sweating lightly. ‘I don’t mix with people like that.’

‘Oh dear,’ Maiden said.

She closed her eyes tight, moistening her lips. ‘And I didn’t mean that how it sounded. This … this is a complete nightmare.’

Maiden thought about Justin with his chest pushed in like a toothpaste tube. He thought about someone having Grayle’s name, trying to find her. He nodded.

Seffi turned in her seat to face him, breathed hard, all that world-weary, languorous cool in rags. ‘I … swear … I swear to God, Bobby, if there’s something bad going on, involving me, I swear to you I don’t-’

She put out a hand to him and then drew it back; her skin was glistening like dark honey.

‘I know Grayle thinks I’m holding out. I am not. What I do … OK, it’s a profession full of frauds and liars and self-deluded people and mad people. But I haven’t lied to Grayle or Marcus and I’m not lying to you now. I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know where to turn. I don’t have any … mystical insights about it. I’m scared. I’m scared in this world and I have no refuge …’

‘… anywhere else,’ Maiden said softly. ‘I wouldn’t claim to understand about that. Or maybe I would, I don’t know.’ He reached on to the back seat for his jacket, pulled out a scuffed notebook, a mobile phone. ‘Let’s find out what we can.’

‘Who are you calling?’

‘DCI in Gloucester, Ron Foxworth.’

‘Is that altogether safe?’

‘It’s taking a small chance.’ Maiden prodded out the number. ‘But we shared secrets once. Back in the Met.’

Meaning Martin Riggs; knowing about Riggs still constituted a kind of bond. He asked Gloucester Police for Foxworth’s extension, gave his name.

‘Might be a waste of time, of course. It’s just a feeling.’

‘You’re going to tell him about Justin Sharpe?’

‘God, no. Let them find Justin in their own time. Or if it looks like dragging out too long, maybe we’ll give them an anonymous nudge. I’ll have to tell him this is informal. I’m on leave, helping a friend. Though whether he’ll be in this time on a Sat … Ron?’

‘Bobby Maiden? You pick your bloody times, son. Is this anything urgent?’

‘It’s just a quick question. Off the record.’

‘What bloody record’s that? Nah, see, I’ve got a murder on, Bobby. I hate murders at weekends, don’t you? Where are you?’

Justin?

‘No problem, Ron. I’ll call you again. I was only going to ask if you knew a bloke called Hole.’

Brief silence.

‘Where?’

‘Cheltenham area. Well-off bloke. Nice bungalow with a long drive. I’ve just left there, as it happens.’

‘Les Hole? You’ve bloody-’

‘Could be.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you what, Bobby,’ Ron said, collecting himself together. ‘I’ve got a press conference at half- seven. Want to do that myself, make sure we get the right points over. I’ll be free about… eight, eight-thirty? Where’d you wanna meet up? Somewhere quiet, yeah?’

‘Wherever. I don’t know this area too well.’

‘We’re setting up the incident room at Stroud, so … Look, gimme your mobile number, I’ll call you back. I really do have to do this presser.’

‘You won’t get much in the Sundays, Ron. Not at that time.’

‘Bobby, I’m desperate for an ID, and there’s gonna be no nice, peaceful pictures of this poor bugger to show around.’

‘Oh.’

‘Axe job, it looks like. Geezer found in a ditch, face split like a bloody walnut.’

‘Right,’ Maiden said. ‘Mmm.’

XXIV

‘Well, we’ll be having a holiday first,’ one of last week’s Lottery winners says — this is a syndicate of five school-dinner ladies from Basingstoke. ‘Taking the kids to Disney World. And, of course, we’ve already bought ourselves a BMW.’

‘Yaaaaaaaak,’ Kelvyn Kite shrieks, stabbing a scornful talon at the monitor.

The audience whoops. The apparent need of so many Lottery winners to rush out and buy a BMW has become a running joke of Kelvyn’s ever since the appalling Sherwin family, from Banbury, immediately bought five of them — his, hers, teenage kids’, granny’s … and granny didn’t even drive.

‘Stop it, now.’ Cindy frowns at the bird, pointedly ignoring the autocue. ‘It’s none of your business. People are allowed to buy whatever cars they like when they win two million pounds.’

‘Watch it, Cindy,’ Jo says in the earpiece. ‘I think you’ve taken this one far enough, don’t you?’

‘This has gone far enough,’ Cindy tells the bird.

‘Awk,’ says the cynical Kelvyn Kite.

‘Anyway, I like the Lada,’ Cindy says.

Laughter. Kelvyn sulks, beak in the air. Cindy ignores him, turning to the autocue.