To Dream of the Dead

Merrily stood for a while, leaning against the Volvo, relishing the cold, even the rain, looking back across the hardstanding at what was, essentially, a new house, all its downstairs windows bright.

For a fraction of a second, the lights seemed to flare brighter still, as if there was a flash of lightning inside Cole Barn.

Don’t go there.

She got into the car, troubled.

42 Witch-Hunt

When Sister Cullen rang from the hospital, Bliss was parked in the entrance of Phase Two of the housing estate where Gyles Banks-Jones lived.

Just after five p.m., and well dark. Phase Two had barely been started and had no street lighting yet. Two hours ago Bliss had slid in next to the site hut, his rear wheels spinning, his lights already switched off. He was sure he could feel the car sinking into the mud, but at least the building site gave him an excellent view of Gyles’s house, directly opposite, and the house the other side of Gyles’s shared drive.

Steve Furneaux’s house. Still no car there, still no lights.

‘So would that be all right, Sister?’ Bliss said.

‘Don’t see why I can’t find that out, it being Sunday,’ Cullen said. ‘Although I shall expect some personal intervention from your good self the next time I fall foul of a speed camera.’

‘I hate them speed cameras, me.’

Both of them knowing Bliss had nil influence in Traffic.

‘Give me twenty minutes, then,’ Cullen said.

‘This is very decent of you, Sister.’

‘Merrily Watkins is a good woman.’

‘For a Prod?’

‘I don’t mess with religion, Mr Bliss.’

‘Very wise, Sister.’

Bliss settled back with his Thai Prawn sandwich and a can of shandy. He could afford to give it another couple of hours. Not like his life was going anywhere.

A Christmas tree was lit up in the Banks-Joneses’ front window, but no sign of movement behind it. Either Gyles and Mrs Banks-Jones were quietly talking it through, or — easier for Bliss to imagine — they were sunk into the sick, silent aftermath of a blazing row.

However, at some stage over the holiday period, Gyles would be sitting back in his favourite armchair, thinking how pleasant it was here, how warm, how safe. What a nice warm, safe life he’d had. Then getting jerked out of it by the memory of Bliss’s rancid Scouser’s voice going, Bang! That was your cell door, Gyles.

And in case Gyles, full of good whisky and maudlin Yuletide emotion, should then wish to make prison less of a prospect for the New Year, Bliss had given him his mobile number. Pretty sure that Gyles, at some stage, would ring with something he could use. But meanwhile — and more interesting — there was Steve.

Steve Furneaux revisited. Steve Furneaux who kept wiping his nose in Gilbies, but seemed to have no other cold symptoms. Bliss had registered it at the time, but you saw it all over the place these days. Even the red- spotted handkerchief: nosebleeds. If you were constructing the very model of a modern suburban recreational snorter of the white stuff, the computer simulation would be just so Steve Furneaux.

Because Gyles was still holding out about his source and refusing to involve his next-door neighbour on any level, Bliss had gone back to Alan Sandison, the Baptist minister.

Making Alan’s Christmas by telling him how unlikely it was, now that Gyles had coughed, that he would have to give evidence against any of his new neighbours. Alan had relaxed, much relieved — his conscience clear, all neighbourly relations intact. They’d had a cup of tea, an informal chat… quality time.

In the course of which it emerged that, yes, Alan did know Bliss’s friend Steve, from the council. Indeed, the first neighbourly gathering attended by the Sandisons, before they knew about the cocaine, had been a barbecue in Steve Furneaux’s garden.

And surely Alan knew Charlie Howe, didn’t he? Everybody knew Charlie…

Oh, the very friendly white-haired man with the stick, would that be?

Nice.

The chances of busting Steve for possession were remote. But Steve wouldn’t know that. Very likely that Steve, with his comfy council job and his blue-sky future on the line, was in a state of some anxiety. Which was also nice. No better time for an informal chat about Hereforward, Clement Ayling and — please God — Charlie Howe.

Just don’t let Steve have gone away for Christmas.

Bliss ran the engine to demist the windscreen and then, unwilling to push it too far with his old mate God, he rang his old bagman, Andy Mumford.

‘Boss,’ Mumford said. ‘’Ow’re you?’

The sheep-shit accent provoking a surprising tug of emotion, bringing back comfort-memories of the old days — last year, in fact — before Andy’s thirty had been up and he’d been shown the door. Poor sod was working with Jumbo Humphries, now — garage owner, feed dealer, private inquiry agent. It was either that or a position as some factory’s Head of Security, for which read caretaker, dogsbody, odd-job man.

‘And life’s exciting, Andy?’ Bliss said. ‘Lots of Land Rover chases?’

‘What bloody Humphries didn’t tell me,’ Mumford said, ‘was that when there’s no case on, I’m expected to work in the bloody warehouse, selling bags of bloody mixed corn to bloody chicken farmers.’

‘And how often is there no case?’

‘This is the sticks,’ Mumford said. ‘There’s a credit crunch. You work it out.’

‘I feel for you, Andy. Not as much as I feel for meself, but still…’

‘Made inquiries about getting back — cold-case squad, kind of thing,’ Mumford said mournfully.

‘And?’

‘Seems it would’ve helped if I’d been a DCI rather than a humble DS.’

‘Elitist bastards. Listen, Andy, you still got that little sister on the Plascarreg?’

‘Not my responsibility.’

‘No, don’t worry I’m not… It’s just I’ve had young George Wintle out there, looking for a new coke channel.’ Giving Mumford the back-story and the names: Banks-Jones, Furneaux. ‘He won’t get anywhere, but I was wondering what the buzz was, if any. Who’s running the Plascarreg this week?’

‘Jason Mebus grows up fast,’ Mumford said. ‘Real businessman now.’

‘I thought he’d been busted up a bit in a car crash.’

‘Broke his collarbone rolling a nicked motor, that was all. Young bones heal quick.’

‘You don’t like Jason, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Good thought, though, Andy. I’ll get George to talk to him.’

‘He won’t talk. Not to the likes of Wintle.’

‘Talk to you?’

‘Mabbe.’

‘Cold-case buggers don’t know what they’re missing.’ Bliss took a breath, went in casual. ‘You ever see anything of Charlie Howe these days, Andy?’

Heavy pause.

‘No,’ Mumford said. ‘Nothing.’

This was a little tricky. It was widely rumoured that Mumford had done some cleaning-up after Charlie over the undiscovered murder in the Frome Valley, way back when Charlie had been at Bliss’s level and Mumford just a