To Dream of the Dead

over the wheel and then falling back into the seat.

‘We did well,’ Annie Howe said.

She was staring through the windscreen like somebody interested in rain.

‘He can still get away with this, mind,’ Bliss said. ‘He hasn’t killed anybody personally. He’s merely given his professional advice, and a committee decision’s been made. We’re contemplating the dark underbelly of democracy, Annie.’

It was the way things were going. People realising how little time they had left to get rich before the planet melted.

‘Let’s go over it,’ Howe said, ‘and then make a decision. Two men to talk to. We either bring them in or we go to them.’

‘If they’re where I think they are neither of those options is gonna be exactly a walkover… Or in fact a frigging walkover might be exactly what we’re looking at.’

What had finally smashed Steve’s defences was dropping those names. Experimental, taking a chance, but he’d been fairly confident.

‘Where did you get those names?’ Annie said.

‘Got Blore from Steve himself at that first meeting in Gilbies. He was their consultant on the Serpent. I remember him saying Blore didn’t help an awful lot… considering we were paying him.’

‘Hereforward were paying him?’

‘And then, while still acting as consultant to Hereforward, he publicly slags off the council for its attitude towards the Dinedor Serpent. Lunacy… they’re never going to employ him again, are they? All right, he’s making a bomb from telly, but it still didn’t feel right to me. Didn’t seem too significant at the time, mind.’

Annie Howe looked at him. She was snuggled into a corner under the seat-belt hook, her face in shadow.

‘Why did Hereforward need a consultant on the Dinedor Serpent?’

‘In case the city might be missing out on a massive tourist attraction. Fortunately for the council, the idea of the Serpent is more exciting than what you can see.’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘So William Blore was publicly pro-Serpent while secretly advising Hereforward that it was unlikely to make the county much money. What does that tell us?’

‘Shows he’s capable of double-dealing. But, more to the point, think of the technical advice he’d be able to offer anyone planning to take out Ayling and direct the blame towards the Serpent supporters. The quartz glittering in the head? The body in the river?’

‘It’s not enough. You could get all that from the Internet.’

‘It rebounded nicely on Steve, though, Annie. Soon as we throw him the word Blore, he starts to roll over.’

‘True.’

Howe patted her wet, ash-blonde hair, Bliss finding himself wondering for the first time if it was natural.

‘So there’s something else,’ he said. ‘Something we’re missing.’

‘Something we don’t know but perhaps he thinks we do. Connected with the second name you dropped on him?’

‘Lyndon Pierce. Blore’s in charge of the dig at Ledwardine, where Pierce is the local councillor. When I first talked to Steve in Gilbies he said, the local councillor wanted us to intervene. I thought he meant Pierce wanted them to stop Blore getting the Ledwardine contract, maybe because he’d attract too much publicity… to an excavation Pierce was hoping would be inconclusive.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘Pierce is backing a plan to put expensive housing on that site. He doesn’t want there to be anything exciting under there that might spell conservation. Furneaux told me he’d asked Hereforward for help, but they weren’t overfussed because it was just a housing scheme, not like a major new road. However, if what I was told is right, this housing scheme is the key to this massive redevelopment and expansion of Ledwardine.’

‘This is from Mrs Watkins, is it?’

‘I don’t know what you’ve got against that woman.’

‘Ask her what she’s got against me.’

Bliss smiled. Women were weird. Like when the WPC, Sammy Nadel, went up to tell Yasmin it looked like Steve would be spending the night in town, Yasmin apparently just acknowledged it and went back to sleep. No big deal. Merry Christmas.

‘All right,’ Bliss said. ‘Officially Hereforward isn’t helping Lyndon. But you’ve gorra bunch of mates here. Coke-buddies. One of whom is the archaeologist in charge of the Ledwardine dig.’

‘Coke-buddies. God.’

‘Only buddies until the shit hits the fan. Furneaux is pretty sure in his mind that if we’re talking to Blore and Pierce, both of them are going to try and hang the whole deal on him.’

‘Probably quite rightly. He’s the ideas man, the guy who’s turned Hereforward into a dirty-tricks department. He’s… what do they call it? An enabler?’

‘He thinks out of the box. But this time the lid’s coming down too fast and he takes a wild leap. He’s probably regretting he told us about the second contract, because I really don’t think he knows who it is or why. And if he’s already too late, that’s gonna make it a whole lot worse for him than if he’d kept his mouth shut.’

I swear I’ve told you all I know…

Then how do you know there’s going to be another, Steve?

Because, Steve had said, sweating now, I know how much he charges, and I know how much he got.

The man called Glyn Buckland.

Annie said, ‘Francis, I need a coffee. My head’s…’

‘You planning to interview Steve tonight?’

‘I’m inclined to let him stew. A night in a cell works wonders with someone who’s never been in one before. Especially Christmas Eve. And the good thing about tomorrow is that we get a holiday from the press. What’s the time?’

‘Half ten, thereabouts. A pub? Bar?’

‘Yeah, why not? But we need to make it quick.’

Nobody else in the packed, shiny bar in Broad Street was drinking coffee. Nobody else seemed to be over thirty, but it hadn’t been hard to find a table; the only ones who were sitting down were the ones who looked like they were about to be sick.

‘He was born in London,’ Annie said. ‘Brought up in Worcester.’

‘Any particular reason you’ve been sitting on that for so long?’

‘Only because we weren’t completely sure. It’s the new generation, Francis. I’m thirty-five and I can’t connect with it. You said it yourself. Kids who’ll do it for a few hundred pounds — couple of thousand, anyway — knowing the worse they’ll get is eight or nine years.’

‘And a degree in sociology. Don’t forget that. What’s this lad’s history?’

‘We learned about him from his older sister, as a result of the BBC Crimewatch programme. That something you’d ever consent to watch, Francis?’

‘Not often. I hate to see old mates behaving like complete tits. We need to get this man, Kirsty, before he strikes again.’

The presenter being called Kirsty, that didn’t help. What a weird, weird night this was turning out to be. If you’d told him he’d be sharing an intimate pot of coffee with the Ice Maiden, surrounded by binge-drinkers on Christmas Eve…

‘Crimewatch can be useful,’ she said, ‘often in unexpected ways. We got a piece on, a year or so ago, about a fatal stabbing up in Evesham, and this woman rang in convinced it was her brother. Been fascinated with knives since he could crawl. Once stabbed their mother in the thigh when he was about ten —