To Dream of the Dead

the prison—’

He stopped, Annie giving him the cold stare.

‘Kids,’ she said. ‘We’ll need to return to the subject of kids. Remind me.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Meanwhile…’ adjusting her cuffs now ‘… you’ll be interested to know that we were right about the connection with the archaeology at Rotherwas and Dinedor. Proven.’

‘Wooh!’ This was too good. ‘Samples matched up?’

Unbelievable, though, this woman. We were right. Not you were right. No Well done, Francis, nicely put together.

‘So we now have confirmatory reports from forensics and from the archaeologist in charge of the project.’

‘Good,’ Bliss said. ‘Excellent.’

‘On which basis, you’ll need to follow it through. I’m having copies of both reports run off for you now, and Iain Brent’s arranged for the archaeologist to be on site at eleven-thirty. Iain will give you the details when he comes in.’

‘You want me to talk to this boffin?’

‘What we need from the guy is a list of people who’d be au fait with the latest findings at Dinedor. We also need to know who’s had permission to visit the site and who’s expressed a more than superficial interest. We need — Is this a problem?’

‘It’s just…’ That it was a job for a frigging DC. ‘If you remember, I’d arranged to see the feller from this Hereforward committee — Ayling’s last meeting?’

‘You can leave that for now.’

‘Leave it?’

Leave the meeting relating to the quango of which Clement Ayling had been a member and Charlie Howe still was.

‘It’s not of immediate importance, is it?’ Howe said. ‘I want this thing wrapped, Francis. Obviously, I’m refocusing. I’m looking, as you yourself suggested, for environmental extremists. I’m looking for pagan-oriented fanatics—’

‘What, like the residents who were banged up for aggravated trespass for refusing to leave council premises?’

‘We…’ Howe shrugged. ‘We may talk to them, but mostly they’re a little too old for the profile, wouldn’t you say?’

Bliss eyed her.

‘You’ve got something else, haven’t you?’

Howe’s expression, if you could call it that, didn’t change. She’d finally lost the Gestapo-issue rimless glasses — contact lenses now — but she still hadn’t learned how to smile without using her fingers to prise up the corners of her mouth.

‘Ayling… had received a number of threatening phone calls. In relation to his support for the relief road and his derisive remarks about the Serpent.’

‘How threatening?’

‘Sufficiently. We have a tape, from his answering machine, so that gives us a voice. Male.’

‘You got this from Helen Ayling?’

‘Something jogged her memory.’

Bliss struggled for control. So this had turned up last night? And Howe hadn’t even told him. Seeing Dinedor had been his idea, any other SIO he’d worked with on a case this big would have called personally to fill him in, no matter how late. When your wild card came up, it was acknowledged.

It was called a working relationship.

A knock on the door and Howe said, ‘Come.’

Come. She probably said that, in the same detached tone, in bed, if you could imagine that. Word was that one of the desk boys in Worcester had run a book on which team Annie played for and had to give back all the money because nobody had ever managed to find out. Figured. Even Bliss wasn’t sure, but he was horribly afraid she might actually, in theory, be straight.

Kevin Snape came in with some papers. Howe nodded towards Bliss, and Kevin put them down in front of him, winked and buggered off. Copies of the forensic and archaeological reports. Bliss didn’t touch them.

‘And of course you might like to consider,’ Howe said, ‘if you know anyone else with a knowledge of religious fanatics in this area and the borderline insane.’

Uh oh.

‘Yeh, I’ll have a think,’ Bliss said, cautious.

‘I’d make an approach myself but the person I’m thinking of is clearly not comfortable with educated women.’

Bliss didn’t laugh.

‘There’s also the daughter. The daughter, as you know, is… maladjusted and seems to have contact with many of the crank elements in this area. I’m interested in who she might know.’

‘You want me to—’

‘Get what you can, but be careful how much you disclose. Nothing, obviously, from those particular reports. Not that I need to—’

‘No, you don’t.’

Bliss stood up, needing to get out before he said anything he’d regret.

‘Sit down, Francis,’ Howe said. ‘I haven’t finished with you.’

Haven’t finished with you?

Mother of God, you could only take so much of this shite. Bliss put his hands on Howe’s desk, took a breath.

‘Look…’ close enough now to notice she wasn’t wearing perfume ‘… whatever’s on your mind, why don’t you just frigging come out with it, Annie? Because I’m getting a bit pissed off with—’

‘Sit down, Bliss.’

Howe hadn’t moved. Bliss sat down. The next ten minutes brought him closer to throwing in his warrant card than at any other time in his nineteen years as a cop.

19 Hole

Picking up some cigs in Big Jim Prosser’s Eight Till Late, Merrily saw that Hereford had exploded, debris all over the morning papers.

The Birmingham Post had Clem Ayling pictured last summer at the opening of a new woodland craft centre. Wearing a yellow hard hat, symbolically holding an axe, lavishly smiling. A grinning death mask now, glaringly surreal.

‘I met him just the once.’ Jim stacked up more papers near his checkout, stooping over them. Last of the old-fashioned shopkeepers, four pens in his top pocket. ‘Odd, really. You couldn’t dislike the feller, whatever you think of his council. An ole rogue, but you expect that.’

‘Don’t expect this, though, Jim. Not here.’

‘Aye. Lyndon Pierce was in earlier. Never seen him look as shattered. Like it might be him next. No such bloody luck.’ Jim smiled. ‘Sorry, Merrily.’

‘You can’t be totally against the village doubling in size.’

‘Can’t I?’

‘They’d all want papers.’

‘Aye…’ Jim dropped the papers; a nerve had been exposed. ‘From some bloody supermarket where the village hall is, when Pierce swings his lottery grant for a new leisure centre. It stinks, Merrily. It’s not the place we