To Dream of the Dead

Well. Bliss mouthed a shaft of chewie. Not a brilliant time of year for a dawn raid. Would cost a fair bit in overtime. But when the Ice Maiden requested action, whatever her private reasons might be for diverting your attention, you acted.

Tomorrow morning, Sunday? Have to be, wouldn’t it? Monday was Christmas Eve. Besides… get the frigging thing out the way. Gathering the papers together and picking up the phone to call Mr Sandison, Bliss noticed a cardboard carton containing an unlabelled DVD.

Karen must’ve slipped it under the file. Karen, the computer whizz. Bliss put down the phone, scraped together a smile and slid the DVD down his inside pocket.

She was a good girl.

Like Sophie, Amanda Rubens wore her glasses on a chain. Unlike Sophie she had a lot of other chains and long beads, like some 1920s flapper, over her black polo-neck woollen frock.

‘Yes, all right, I’m sorry, it was out before I realised what I was saying. Could’ve bitten my tongue off, but that bloody woman… “You besmirch our village with this vileness?” Can you believe someone would say that… in a bookshop?’

The interior of Ledwardine Livres was full of Christmas lights, twinkling between displays of mainly children’s books. No book-shop in Hereford or Leominster would rely on atmosphere lighting; either Amanda Rubens was seriously naive or shoplifting in Ledwardine was still confined to the Eight Till Late.

‘It was my last copy. Seemed to be going rather well, so I immediately ordered another half-dozen and they were here in the afternoon. Put three at the front of the window, which I suppose was what caught the attention of the postmistress. I suppose it hadn’t occurred to me that some people might find it tasteless at Christmas. And that was why I said what I said when she came in and began to remonstrate with me. It… it simply came out. I simply… I said, For heaven’s sake, the vicar’s just bought a copy!’

Merrily sighed. Amanda played anxiously with one of her chains. ‘Anyway, surely nobody in this day and age expects the clergy to limit their reading to the New Testament. Look, I’m sorry. I’m not a gossip. I never, as a rule, broadcast what my customers buy for themselves. I suppose this was… self-defence, as much as anything. She’d never been in here before, and she was quite… quite fierce. She rather… filled the shop. I was intimidated.’

Possibly understandable. Amanda was built like a cocktail stick; Shirley could have snapped her.

‘I can only say, Mrs Watkins, that if you can bear to shop with us again, I will never—’

‘What else did she say, Mrs Rubens? You said something about vileness?’

‘You besmirch our village with this vileness. That one’s rather stuck.’

‘Did she go further? It’s just… there are things I need to be aware of.’

‘Oh, well, I suppose this is right up your street… She said the book was part of the Devil’s attempt to take control. In the Final Days. She went on about the Final Days.’

‘Something of a buzz phrase,’ Merrily said, ‘in born-again circles.’

‘A dark doorway to eternal damnation — that’s what she called the book.’

‘Did she say anything about the author?’

‘Spin doctor.’

‘Sorry?’

‘She called him the spin doctor to the Antichrist. She said if I wanted to know the truth about this man I had only to look on the Internet.’

‘And did you?’

‘I’ve been rather busy.’

‘Thank you,’ Merrily said. ‘I suppose I’d better check it out. See if I can save my immortal soul before it’s too late.’

Amanda Rubens smiled nervously, her veneers gleaming evenly in the soft Christmas light.

‘Whole world’s gone mad, Mrs Watkins. You think you can opt out of it, don’t you, by moving to a place like this?’

‘A common misconception, Mrs Rubens.’

‘I never encountered a woman quite like Mrs West in London.’

You found this. For city people, used to mixing in confined circles, the country was often a shock to the system.

‘And now, when they’re saying that Hereford councillor was murdered by some sect…’

‘Sect?’

‘You haven’t seen the papers?’

Amanda opened out the Guardian, under the coloured lights, pointing to a story in the middle of the front page.

Usual picture of Clem Ayling. Pastoral colour picture of Dinedor Hill.

Oh God.

Wilford Hawkes was completely bald, white beard down to his chest, an earring with a red stone in it. Bit of a cliche, really.

‘You don’t understand, do you, my love?’ Off the phone, his accent was more distinct. ‘We don’t need to kill people. We don’t need to do nothing. They’re doing it theirselves. All those JCBs, they’re digging theirselves a great big grave.’

‘Mr Hawkes.’ Annie Howe’s voice. ‘I am not your love.’

Bliss smiled. He had his car shoved under dripping trees in this secluded little car park across the main road from Gaol Street. Karen’s interview-room DVD in the laptop on the passenger seat.

‘All I’m saying,’ Hawkes said, ‘is when you knowingly damage a sacred site, you expect repercussions. I can give you stories of farmers digging up old stones, ploughing burial mounds. Next thing, sudden electric storms, directly overhead, and then their crops fail and their stock dies.’

‘Mr Hawkes—’

‘All I was doing was giving him a friendly warning.’

‘That’s your idea of friendly, is it?’

‘All right, it was a bit beyond, out of order. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘You were drunk?’

‘I don’t drink alcohol, my dear. I was, shall we say, in a state of herbally heightened relaxation.’

Mr Hawkes settled back with his hands behind his head, eyes half closed, a faint smile on his lips. The cockiness of a killer? More likely the daft old twat was actually enjoying it. Memories of his lost youth, getting busted by the pigs.

‘Wreckage and blood, Mr Hawkes,’ Howe said. ‘You warned him of wreckage and blood.’

‘I never mentioned his personal blood, did I? We knew we had to lay this on the line, look, in a way the bastards would understand how strongly we feel. They’re pushing the ole city out in all the directions it don’t wanner go, and they’re cutting it off from Dinedor Hill. And then, right on cue, the Serpent shows up after thousands of years just in time to warn us all, and what do they do? They smother it. What they gonner do next, build a supermarket on top? After all, we only got seven already!’

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like a solicitor, Mr Hawkes?’

‘Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ Mr Hawkes sitting up. ‘They talk your language, those predators. Always been my policy to have nothing to do with the blood-sucking bastards. Possible to go through your whole life without ever meeting a lawyer.’

‘But probably not your life, Mr Hawkes, the way it’s shaping up. The Children of the Serpent — how many of you are there?’

‘How many?’

‘How many children,’ Howe said icily, ‘does the Serpent possess?’

‘None. I made it up.’

‘You made what up, exactly?’