Mean Spirit

the same if I find out from other sources. Know what I mean?’

Seffi Callard stood at the bottom of the stairs. She wore a black sweater, looked like cashmere, the gold cross hanging outside it. Her hair was bunched on one shoulder; over the other hung the strap of her black leather bag.

She surprised him by kissing him slowly on the lips, holding his face. Her hands were very warm. But when she stepped away, he saw her smile was cool.

‘Worked it all out, have we? Grayle — what about her?’

‘Grayle?’

‘She could’ve told me, couldn’t she? Just as she told me all about your peculiar death experience. Or Marcus. Marcus knows all about you and Emma, surely? Perhaps it was Marcus.’

‘Marcus doesn’t know about the sweet trolley,’ Maiden said quietly. ‘Nor Grayle. Nobody else knows about the sweet trolley.’

‘What sweet trolley?’ Insouciance. ‘I don’t remember saying anything about a sweet trolley. Perhaps you said it. Perhaps you heard it in your head. Perhaps you imagined it.’

He stared at her. ‘What on earth are you doing, Seffi?’

‘Giving you a get-out.’

‘I don’t want a get-out.’

‘There always is one, you know.’ The smile was warmer, the eyes were sorrowful. ‘There’s always a get-out. Who were you talking to?’

‘Foxworth.’

She wrinkled her nose.

‘Seffi …’ He glanced at the wall, where the set of hedging tools looked complete again. ‘How many times did Grayle hit that guy with the hacker?’

The suddenness of the question made her wince. She turned away from the wall.

‘You did see it, didn’t you? You saw the blade go in?’

She nodded. Swallowed.

‘How many times, Seffi?’

‘Once.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Once … seemed to be quite enough.’

He breathed out. ‘She didn’t kill him.’

‘Grayle?’

‘He had another head wound. Somebody else killed him.’

‘When?’ Seffi let her shoulder bag fall to the carpet.

‘I don’t know. Didn’t like to ask about the time of death, or seem too interested in any of it. But somebody hit this lad very hard on the head, probably from behind.’

‘He was driven away. By the other man.’

‘Which kind of narrows it down.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Pretend you’re the other man for a moment. What would you do if you were with someone who’d just been badly injured and was bleeding all over your car?’

‘Take him to hospital. Or call for an ambulance.’

‘Of course you would. That’s how you were brought up. Only, suppose this bloke had got the injuries as a result of something seriously criminal you and he were into, what would you tell them at the hospital? Midnight gardening accident? Give them his name and your name? Wait around while they call the police?’

He stopped talking, letting her work it out.

Oh no, Bobby.’

He shrugged.

‘You’re suggesting the other man killed him. To save … explanations … embarrassment.’

‘And a prison sentence. It also suggests they weren’t close, of course.’

‘Why couldn’t he simply have taken him to a hospital, left him outside or something?’

‘And risk being seen? And risk being fingered by the damaged bloke when the police got at him? The guy’s already incapacitated, he’s in a lot of pain, he doesn’t really know what’s happening. And you know you’ve got a hammer or something in the boot …’

‘That’s utterly barbaric.’

‘Well it … it might have been a panic thing. I mean, I hope it was panic. Otherwise, yeah, the kind of person we’re looking at …’

‘This is a nightmare, Bobby. This is a continuing bloody nightmare.’

‘Mmm.’

‘You’ll have to tell him, I suppose. Foxworth.’

‘Or you and Grayle will.’

‘I don’t want to do that.’

‘It might be for the best.’

He was thinking: Crewe and his partner came here because they wanted Seffi Callard, and when it all went pear-shaped Crewe was chopped without a second thought. And then Justin was killed. Perhaps to get information, but perhaps also because Justin would know enough to finger someone when Jeffrey Crewe’s body was found.

So what was he going to do next, whoever he was? Was he going to walk away at this stage?

Maiden realized how unwise he and Seffi Callard had been, spending last night in this place. He realized he hadn’t been taking any of this quite seriously enough.

‘We’d better go,’ he said. ‘We need to talk to Grayle. Give her the good news.’

And the bad news.

XXX

‘What’s happening?’ she was screaming. ‘What’s going on? Cindy, why are they doing this to us?’

Near hysteria. The poor child.

Within a mile of Castle Farm, he was, when the phone, against all rural odds, had managed this tiny gasping bleep, a faint whimper. Cindy pulling over into the hedge — if it had turned out to be his friends from the Mirror, he would have had to hang up without a word.

‘Doing it to us, Jo?’

‘I’ve just had a call from the BBC Press Office. You wouldn’t believe the questions they’ve had fired at them.’

‘I rather think I would,’ Cindy said sadly.

‘The Press Office’ve drawn up a statement saying it’s complete nonsense. But they want to clear it with you before it goes out. Yes?’

‘And to what does this statement react?’

‘The Mail, the Express, the Mirror, the Telegraph, the-’

‘Yes, yes, but what are they saying?’

‘In the statement? Well, obviously, the BBC is rejecting any suggestion of you being involved with witchcraft.’

‘Well, good. That’s … er … that is quite true. In essence, but what I meant-’

‘Or the occult in any respect.’

‘And, indeed,’ Cindy said carefully, ‘depending upon the interpretation of the word “occult”, this also could be considered broadly accurate.’