To Dream of the Dead

Grace?’

‘Might not actually be Dr Grace,’ Karen said. ‘Somebody’s on the way.’

‘This cross — it’s got a name?’

‘I’m not sure, boss. There’s some kind of information board at the back.’

Karen led Bliss towards the wire fence, the school building on the other side. She held up a torch; Bliss scanned the sign.

Built in the 14th century and considerably restored in the 19th century, this is the only surviving example in the county of a preaching cross…

… built in conjunction with the Blackfriar Monastery…

… given the order by Sir John Daniel…

… beheaded for interference in baronial wars in the reign of Edward III

‘And when they’d topped him, did they by any chance display this Sir John’s head on his own cross?’

‘I wouldn’t know, boss.’

‘I mean, it’s not some old Hereford tradition?’

‘Not in my time,’ Karen said.

‘Somebody’s looking for maximum impact here, Karen. Kind of Look what I’ve done.’

‘Maybe more impact than you actually… Here.’ Karen handing him the rubber-covered torch. ‘Might not’ve shown up with the flash. Try that. From where you are.’

Bliss switched on the flashlight, tracked the beam up from the base of the cross. The light finding what remained of the neck, black blood, gristle.

‘Boss…’

‘What?’

‘Back off. Move the light up a bit.’

Karen came alongside him and lifted his arm slightly, steadying it when the beam found the…

‘Bugger me,’ Bliss said.

‘Yeah, if you back right off it’s all you can see at first.’

Bliss switched off the torch, took a few steps back, snapped it on again.

‘What’ve they done? It’s like it’s…’

‘Still alive,’ Karen said. ‘Sorry about the smell of sick.’

‘You’re excused,’ Bliss said.

The black hole behind the spinning lights.

How black did you want?

4 Or Die

It was a question of which century you wanted to live in, sleek, thirtyish Lyndon Pierce was telling them. Which millennium, even.

‘Comes down to that, people. All comes down to that.’

Punching the table. People? Pierce had been watching American politicians on TV?

There was silence.

Pierce stopped talking and Merrily noticed the way he patted his gelled black hair, his eyes swivelling around the 1960s pink-brick community hall, as if suddenly unsure of his ground. She leaned over, whispering in Lol’s ear.

‘Misjudged his audience, do you think?’

‘Maybe not quite the audience he was expecting,’ Lol said. ‘Fixing it to coincide with shopping night in Hereford… bad move? Your night shoppers are the local working people. He’s just realising what he’s got here are mainly white settlers.’

‘Mmm.’

Merrily guessing that the house lights would come up at the end of the meeting on too many faces she wasn’t going to recognise. At one time, as parish priest, you’d try to connect with all the newcomers. But turning up on doorsteps in a dog collar these days would cause a few to feel pressurised, patronised or — worst of all — evangelised. The incomers from Off, this was. The ones who were not Lyndon Pierce’s people. The ones who really wanted to be living at least a century ago, as long they didn’t have to go to church.

Almost a majority now in Ledwardine, the weekenders and the white settlers. Many of them coming here to retire, but that didn’t mean what it used to — business people were quitting at forty-five, flogging the London terraced for a million-plus and downsizing to a farmhouse with four acres and outbuildings you could turn into holiday cottages. County Councillor Pierce pressed his palms into the table, leaning forward.

‘Even when I was a boy, look, this was a very different place. Rundown, bad roads, no facilities. Not exactly sawdust on the floor of the Black Swan, but you get the idea.’ He straightened up, shaking his gleaming head. ‘Drunkenness? Violence? Goodness me, people, they talk about binge drinking nowadays, but my grandfather could tell you stories would make your hair curl. Stories of hard times, brutal times. Low pay, poverty, disease…’

Pierce was still shaking his head sadly, Lol shaking his in incredulity, leaning into Merrily.

‘He’s talking bollocks, right? Just tell me he’s talking bollocks.’

‘He’s talking bollocks,’ Merrily said. ‘But it’s clever bollocks.’

Well, sure, times had changed for the better, in many ways. But also for the worse. Herefordshire, never a wealthy county — low wages, far more poverty than showed — was becoming increasingly unbalanced. This village wasn’t the best place to live any more if you weren’t loaded. No mains gas out here, only crippling oil bills. Local kids needed a forklift truck to reach the foot of the housing ladder.

‘Councillor Pierce.’ James Bull-Davies, chairing the meeting, had been fairly quiet so far; now he leaned forward in his high-backed chair, the caged lights purpling his bald patch. ‘For what it’s worth, my family’s been here since the fifteenth century at least. We all realise how deprived the place was in former times, but frankly… don’t see the relevance.’

Probably knowing he was on shaky ground, all the same. Too many of James’s ancestors had grown fat on the backs of deprived peasantry. Pierce didn’t look at him.

‘Give me a moment, Colonel. Even fifteen years ago, this community was dying. Some of you’ll remember how, after a long and bitter fight, we lost our primary school — didn’t have the population to support it.’

James Bull-Davies glared at Pierce. Colonel never went down well. Forced to leave the Army when his father died, to take over the failing family estate, James had shouldered his fate, stiffened his spine and shut the door on that room of his life. Colonel this, Colonel that… meaningless affectation.

Merrily saw the way Pierce was ignoring him. He had people out there to reach. His main advantage being that most of them wouldn’t have been here long enough to know about his agenda.

‘They say that when a village loses its school, it loses its life-force. But Ledwardine survived. Why? Because we learned our lesson. We learned that survival requires growth. Not standing still. Not preserving what we’ve got, like a museum, but carefully planned, considered expansion. Either you makes progress or you falls behind. You grows or you dies. Am I right?’

His eyes panning the dim room for support, passing over Merrily, who’d gone new-native tonight in the black velvet skirt, her cashmere sweater, the lovely terracotta silk scarf Lol had brought back from London.

Pierce had paused. It was clear that he was building up to something. ‘Any second now,’ Lol said, ‘he’s going to call us My Fellow Ledwardinians.’

Merrily smothered a smile behind her woollen glove. The smell of fresh wax wafted from the glistening coat folded on her knees. Lol had bought her that, too, her first actual non-fake Barbour, reproofed in the bathroom this