To Dream of the Dead

And Jane, beyond euphoric, had, in that moment, fallen just slightly in love with him. Seemed a long time ago now.

‘He’s really ready to go tomorrow?’

‘So he insists, Jane. He seems to’ve got it scheduled for early in the next series of Trench One — and that starts in the New Year.’

‘Wow, that’s tight.’

‘I don’t think the ratings were fantastic for the last series. Too many big digs that yielded a couple of pottery shards and not a lot else. He needs something spectacular, and he’s not going to let the weather or Christmas stop him getting it.’

They watched an orange-coloured digger manoeuvring through the entrance. Shame they couldn’t’ve employed Gomer, but Jane supposed they needed somebody used to archaeological procedure.

‘Tell you one thing, Coops — he’s not going to let Pierce get away with moving the stones, is he? They’ve lost the Serpent, he’s not going to let us lose this.’

‘I never count on anything,’ Coops said.

It started to rain, but not too heavily. Nothing was too heavy tonight.

‘Hey… I’m going to be on Trench One, Coops. He did say that, didn’t he? I mean, I didn’t just dream it?’

‘No.’ Coops let a smile fade through. ‘No, you didn’t dream it. And by early spring I’d guess you’ll be having your picture taken next to the raised stones.’

‘Makes you kind of shiver to think about it,’ Jane said.

* * *

Jane walked back on to the square to find it aglow. The fake gaslamps reflected in the swimming cobbles, warm amber light in the mullioned windows of the Black Swan. Plus the Christmas tree’s lights, just white ones this year — more sophisticated, apparently, which was incomer bollocks, but Jane couldn’t be annoyed about anything tonight.

Mum’s car was in the vicarage drive, and there was another one outside. Jane let herself in through the side door, near the back stairs, and slipped into the kitchen just as a man and a woman were going out the other way, through to the hall, watched by Mum, still in her wet coat.

The woman was carrying a computer, its wire wound around an arm. She smiled kind of stiffly.

‘You’ll have it back very soon, I promise. Maybe tomorrow.’

‘I hope so,’ Mum said in this dull, flat voice. ‘Because—’

The man said, ‘Is this your daughter?’

‘Because all the parish stuff is on there as well,’ Mum said.

The woman nodded. The air between Mum and these people was like cling film stretched tight.

28 Shaking the Cage

For confirmation, Merrily had the radio tuned to Hereford and Worcester, the floodline programme with news inserts. The teatime studio presenter was talking to a reporter out on location; you could hear the rain splattering a car roof.

‘… one of those places everyone knows. Almost like a seaside resort in the summer because there’s a kind of pebbly beach, and people go bathing in the river.’

The reporter was on the phone. Bella Finch again, out on location, talking about something they’d found in the Wye.

‘… level’s extremely high, and a lot of debris has been washed downstream, up against the bridge. What looks like a whole tree and lots of branches, and apparently that was where the body was found, entangled in debris. Must have been a terrible shock for somebody.’

‘Do we know who found it?’

‘No, we don’t, and the police have been quite sparing with information. It was only, as you know, after we received a call to the floodline from one of our listeners about police activity around the bridge that we learned about this.’

‘Yes, and please keep those calls coming in, because we’re all aware that the flood situation isn’t getting any better in the two counties. But what are the police saying, Bella? ’

‘Very little, I’m afraid, Kate. They won’t even confirm at this stage whether —’

Merrily switched off, watching Jane shrug.

‘They found the rest of him, then. Had to turn up somewhere, sooner or later.’

Jane was sitting at the table, a mug of tea going cold in front of her. Her face smoky and mutinous in the kitchen’s amber lamplight. It was progress. A year ago she’d have been screaming and storming out.

‘Bodies and rivers,’ Merrily said. ‘You know the Celtic stuff.’

‘Heads and rivers,’ Jane snapped. ‘Because the head was the home of the soul and water was the entrance to — Anyway, what would they know about any of it?’

‘They do know about it. They know about the theory that the Serpent connected Dinedor Hill with the Wye. They also have very strong forensic evidence linking Clem Ayling’s murder with the Serpent.’ Merrily sat down. ‘Jane, they’re in a hurry.’

‘So?’

‘It means all I could do was delay them. No way I’d be able to stop them. And any attempts to delay them would just make them more suspicious and more determined.’

‘Who cares? If I’d been here—’

‘If you’d been here and refused to give them your laptop and gone on about living in a police state, that guy Brent might well have formed the wrong opinion. He doesn’t know you, he doesn’t know me—’

‘Where’s bloody Bliss, then?’

‘I don’t know. The woman, Karen, I thought she was Bliss’s regular assistant, Andy Mumford’s replacement. But not today, apparently.’

‘You’re saying they might’ve nicked me?’

‘They’d have made life very difficult. Brent wanted those names and he wanted them tonight. He actually said, for heaven’s sake, he said, Mrs Watkins, there’s an easy way and a hard way…’

‘How did they even know we had the names?’

‘Jane, you were in the papers.’

And Frannie Bliss knew. He’d even laid out a broad hint this morning in the car, suggesting that giving him a list of Coleman’s Meadow activists might be the soft-option. Where was he now? Once or twice, she’d caught Karen Dowell’s eye, and Karen had given her a harassed look that said this is not my fault.

‘I’ve betrayed them,’ Jane said.

‘No,’ Merrily said. ‘I’ve betrayed you. But it seemed like the best solution.’

Jane looked at her, still some anger in her eyes but mainly confusion, bewilderment.

‘You’re eighteen,’ Merrily said. ‘I wasn’t in a position to give them your laptop, nor would I have.’

‘So you handed over your computer, with the database on it. Hoping to get it out of the house before I came back.’

‘Basically, yes.’

‘Do not dare say you did that to protect me.’

‘No.’ Merrily ached for a cigarette but didn’t get up. ‘I just didn’t have time to think. You don’t. It’s how they do it. Doorstep you.’