To Dream of the Dead

‘She instructed you to sound me out?’

‘In her way.’ Bliss put out a hand to the player. ‘Let me give you the rest.’

‘… But the Serpent is not dead. Your storm troopers cannot trample the Serpent underfoot. Under tarmac. The Serpent will not sleep, but will writhe in anger under the hill and grow a new skin. Do not imagine it’s over, Ayling. When your road is open and strewn with wreckage and blood… you will remember the Serpent. You will remember what you did.’

Pause.

‘We are the Children of the Serpent.’

Click.

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s it.’ Bliss switched off the player. ‘You heard of them?’

‘The Children of the Serpent? Can’t say I have.’

‘You quite sure?’

‘Frannie, what is this?’

‘Do you recognise the voice?’

‘No.’

‘That was a frigging long time coming.’ Bliss leaned back, his hands slackening on the wheel. ‘You know it’s important we eliminate people. You do realise why? Otherwise a lot of innocent loonies are gonna get harassed.’

They were back in Church Street. Before the square, Bliss turned left into Old Barn Lane, accelerated towards the bypass. Evidently determined not to take her home. Wanting her in his car, next best thing to an interview room. She’d never known him like this.

‘Are you OK, Frannie?’

‘This tape, by the way — you haven’t heard it. I’m not supposed to take it out. Got it from Karen, who gets trusted with copying stuff onto hard disk and MP3.’ Bliss slowed. ‘And you’re not surprised, are you? You knew about it. What happened — Helen Ayling told Sophie and Sophie…?’

‘Something like that.’

‘I don’t know why I bother. You wanna hear it again?’

‘Frannie, I really don’t know the voice.’

‘Maybe Jane?’

‘Can we leave Jane out of it? She’s—’

‘An adult — correct? I’m gonna leave you the player. Let her hear it. You’ll know if she recognises the voice, won’t you?’

‘What, so you and Annie Howe can bring her in and shine a bright light in her face until she fingers somebody?’

‘Now let’s be sensible.’

‘All right then, let’s talk about Mathew Stooke.’

Bliss braked, his hands squeezing the wheel.

‘You little sod, Merrily.’

‘Calm down, I didn’t make any inquiries. It just… reached me. From another source.’

‘What… God?’

‘And nobody knows, as far as I’m aware, outside my… immediate family.’

‘You’ve seen Stooke?’

‘No, I… If Long’s involved, does that mean Cole Barn is some kind of safe house? I mean, there’ve been threats, right?’

‘My, we are au fait with the spook terminology. Safe house. I ask you. Nothing so melodramatic, Merrily. Yeh, there’ve been threats, but it’s considered low-risk.’

‘Islamic, though?’

‘Just threats. It’s even been in the papers. He made a statement through his publishers. Said, if you remember, that he stood by everything he’d written and he wasn’t gonna hide from religious maniacs.’

‘When was this?’

‘When the book came out in paperback. Two months ago? Bit of a coincidence, some people thought.’

‘What are you saying? He was claiming he’d had death threats to get publicity for the paperback?’

‘Always a first thought. Especially as publicity, in this case, had been subcontracted by the publisher to an outside PR company. Naturally, they denied it.’

‘How were the threats made?’

‘Anonymous letters. I think there were three or four of them within about a fortnight.’

‘Long told you this?’

‘Merrily, it was in the frigging papers. Don’t you read the papers?’

‘Well, it’s been a bit… So what’s he doing here?’

‘Keeping a low profile. He wants a bit of privacy to finish his next… whatever shite he’s working on now. And his wife wanted to live in the country. She likes to walk. Apparently.’

‘Actually,’ Merrily said, ‘a village is not a bad solution. You get gossip within a village, but it very rarely transfers to the outside world. So Jonathan Long…’

‘A formality. I gather Mr Winterson, as I believe he’s known, has been left with a phone number, for if he spots anything suspicious.’

‘Like a woman in a dog collar?’

‘Merrily, he eats vicars for breakfast. He’d destroy you with his withering logic.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You just want to see if he’s got little horns, don’t you?’

‘Well, that too.’

‘I gather you wouldn’t recognise him. He’s lost a lot of weight. Anyway, avoid. Don’t betray my trust.’

‘It didn’t come from you. No trust involved. Where are we going?’

‘God knows,’ Bliss said. ‘It’s been a crap day.’

‘You want to talk about it?’

‘Not really. Howe’s under pressure to wrap this up quickly. Probably political, and naturally we’re all getting the heat.’

‘Political pressure?’

‘Killing a senior councillor is tantamount to sedition.’

‘Only if it was done for political reasons. You surely can’t be letting your whole inquiry be dominated by one message on an answering machine. Does nobody remember the Yorkshire Ripper hoax tape? I’m Jack? Put the whole investigation back months, and he was still… ripping. And all the cops charging down the wrong alley.’

‘This is different.’

‘Really?’

They were on the bypass now. Not the costliest of bypasses, less than a mile of it before it joined the original Leominster road near a nineteenth-century bridge across the river at a spot known as Caple End. But maybe this was the best kind: not really a bypass at all, when you thought about it, just a more direct way in and out of Ledwardine. Bliss pulled into a long lay-by the other side of Caple End bridge. It was wider than the village bridge, a place where summer tourists would stop to picnic by the river.

‘Gorra feller coming over from Worcester in about an hour. Archaeologist in charge of the excavation of the Dinedor Serpent. I’ve been directed by the headmistress to meet him on the site.’

‘You going to play him the message?’

‘Word is some of the archaeologists aren’t too pleased at being told to wrap up their dig and bugger off so the new road can go in. So… no.’

‘You think the Children of the Serpent could be disgruntled archaeologists?’

Bliss wrinkled his nose.

Merrily said, wanting to help him, ‘Wreckage and blood? You know what that might be implying, do you?’