To Dream of the Dead

‘Is Charlie Howe—?’

‘Yeh, Charlie’s on that committee. In fact, I’ve just fixed up to meet one of the Hereforward officials tomorrow, find out what they were discussing. Ayling might’ve made himself unpopular over some issue — you never know, do you?’

‘So Ayling could’ve actually been attacked on the Cathedral Green itself?’

‘Possible,’ Bliss said. ‘But unlikely. Too many people about. But he must’ve been taken somewhere, that’s the point. Somewhere… his head is removed, the body disposed of.’

‘But why was the head then taken to Blackfriars?’

‘You tell me. I gather you know a bit about religion.’

‘Bit before my time, pre-Reformation monasteries.’

‘It’s a public place,’ Bliss said. ‘But not so public that installing a favourite councillor’s head would attract a cheering crowd. Even in the daytime, people don’t go in that garden. It doesn’t lead anywhere — there’s a great tall fence round it. It’s not like the Cathedral Green, a short cut to all kinds of places. Blackfriars, after dark, you could position your trophy without being disturbed.’

‘Trophy?’

‘I think so.’

‘The way medieval heads were displayed? Traitors and turncoats?’

‘Making a point,’ Bliss said.

‘And that point is…?’

Bliss shrugged.

‘It’s an age of extremes. Lorra anger in this county at the moment, Merrily. Anger at a Government that doesn’t give a shit for rural areas. Anger at the council because it gets squeezed by the Government and pushes council tax through the roof, goes for easy cash cuts.’

‘Wholesale school closures?’

‘All carried out, of course, on the advice of senior officials. Career rats, with no attachment to the area, and most councillors don’t have the brains to argue. But they’re the ones who take the shite. Frustration boiling over into rage across the city and the fields and orchards of this once-glorious county. Or hasn’t it penetrated to leafy Ledwardine?’

‘Are you kidding?’

Bliss was right. If rage was smoke, this inherently laid-back county would have suffocated. But it was a big step from cursing the local authority in the pub to hunting down and killing a senior member, decapitating him, putting his head up like a trophy.

‘Or maybe some individual has had a particularly bad time because of some aspect of council policy. Social- services issue, maybe. A feller can go crazy if his family’s lost their home or they’ve had a kiddie taken away by social workers.’

‘Ayling was on the social-services committee?’

‘At one time or another, Ayling was on everything, Merrily. He had more fingers than they had pies. And he was vocal. Big noisy feller. Never kept his opinions to himself. Not the way it’s done these days. You filter it through the Press Office first.’ Bliss ripped off a corner of his doughnut. ‘I actually came up with something fairly interesting by the simple expedient of Googling Clement Ayling.’

‘Not relating to his council work?’

‘Well, yeh, but not in quite the same way.’ Bliss looked at the segment of doughnut, then put it back on his plate as dark jam seeped down his fingers. ‘In my desperation to remain at the forefront of the investigation, I’ve floated it to Howe. We’re waiting for a forensic report that might confirm it. In fact I may get back to you, Merrily, if it comes up positive.’

‘Me? Why?’

‘Talk about it then, if we need to. Don’t want to complicate your life unnecessarily. You’re not going away anywhere for the festive season, I take it?’

‘I work, Frannie. Night shift on Christmas Eve. We’re having a meditation into Christmas morning.’

‘What happened to Midnight Mass?’

‘That will follow. Quietly. But maybe no raucous carols until the morning.’

‘You little radical, Merrily. That’s not gonna please the drunks. Part of Christmas, staggering into church at five to twelve, belting out, “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” to the tune of “Silent Night”.’

‘Before throwing up their curry and chips over somebody’s headstone. We don’t have that kind of person in the New Cotswolds, Francis.’

‘Oh, yeh…’ Bliss fingered up some jam ‘… I was gonna tell you… Our friend Mr Jonathan Long of the Overpaid Public School Twats Division. Why he might’ve been in Ledwardine?’

‘Blimey, I’d almost forgotten. What a difference a day makes.’

‘Yeh, well, forget about it again. I was gonna tell you, but now I can’t. I’d suggested it might help if you were aware of a particular situation, but… apparently it wouldn’t. So that’s that.’

‘You’ve brought me here to tell me you can’t tell me?’

‘All I can say is, it’s a temporary thing and it’s something you’ll probably be glad you didn’t know about at the time.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Odd, though.’ Bliss licked raspberry jam from his fingers. ‘All the picturesque backwaters in all the world… and they have to pick on yours.’

He laughed.

When Merrily got in, there was a heap of Christmas cards on the mat, the post getting later and later and bigger and bigger. She sorted out the brown envelopes from the white. Only two, thank God, but one looked like the big one, the one you opened now with trembling fingers. The heating-oil bill. Couldn’t face it tonight; she put it on the hall table.

The other brown envelope, local postmark, contained a white card on which two severe-looking angels formed an archway to a tunnel. At the end of it was a glowing circle, in mauve.

THE CHURCH OF THE LORD OF THE LIGHT

We are praying that at this holy time you will

turn away from the old darkness and open

your heart to the TRUE LIGHT.

The underlining of TRUE LIGHT had been done in ink. Underneath, someone had scrawled:

Before it is too late for you

A poison-pen Christmas card. Unsigned, but the name of the church was familiar.

Merrily put the card back in the envelope and the envelope on the table, underneath the oil bill.

‘Thank you, Shirley.’

15 The Badge

‘Jane…’ Merrily hesitated ‘… don’t think I’m being old-fashioned, prudish, illiberal and all that stuff, but —’

‘Yeah, I do know what you’re going to say.’

Jane finished wiping down the refectory table, tossing the cloth from hand to hand. This kid who was a kid no longer. Who was, in fact, less than two years from the age Merrily had been when the pregnancy test came up