To Dream of the Dead

‘All right,’ Jane said. ‘Listen to me. If you tell me—’

‘I can’t. Jane, I’ve got a wife and a baby on the way. I need this job.’

‘If you tell me, I promise it won’t go outside this house.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I might tell Mum, because like we’re not into secrets these days? But Mum’s a vicar and doesn’t go shooting her mouth off.’

‘That doesn’t arise, Jane.’

‘But if you don’t tell me…’ Jane kept her voice low, speaking slowly. ‘I’ll walk up to Blore tonight in front of everybody in the Swan and I’ll tell him—’

‘Jane, you think anyone will take any notice of what you—?’

‘I don’t care, Coops. I don’t give a toss what people think of me any more. I’ll ask him about the henge. I’ll tell him about the henge…’

‘You’ll just make a fool of yourself again. Just stay away from him, OK? Look, give me—’ Coops lowered his voice but brought it closer to the phone. ‘Listen, I’m in enough trouble with the family. I’m not exactly the life and soul. And I’d need time to explain this. I’ll call you back.’

‘But I’ll be—’

‘And when I do, you’d better make sure you’re sitting down, Jane, because this is going to ruin your Christmas.’

53 Won’t

The car was the nearest he had to a home now. At least it didn’t have an unplugged Christmas tree and a newly emptied wardrobe — he’d noticed that this morning, along with spaces on the walls, gaps on the shelves; Kirsty must’ve come back, plundered the place.

Bliss sat there chewing his nails, the rain weeping down the windows, the mobile in his lap.

The Banks-Joneses knew where he was, if they had anything else to tell him. Occasionally one or the other would come to the window, like a kid watching for Santa Claus. It would be too dark to see him now, parked in the foundations of Phase Two.

Tried three times to reach the reverend. Engaged, engaged, engaged. He rolled his forehead against the top of the steering wheel.

Christmas Eve. It was a bad joke. This time next year he could be kipping in frigging doorways. When the phone began to vibrate, he fumbled it to his ear without looking at the screen.

‘Karen…’

‘Hate to disappoint, boss.’

‘Andy. Sorry. I’m—’

‘Talked to my friend Fred Potter. Three Counties News Service?’

‘I’d forgot about that.’ Bliss straightened up, remembered his chewing gum and reached across the dash. ‘You were asking him about Hereforward, right?’

‘You likely know this already, boss, it was in the Hereford Times. Least, some of it was. Hereford councillor rushed to hospital in the Cotswolds?’

‘Can’t say I recall it.’

‘Heart attack. Councillor suffered a heart attack during a weekend away with other members of the Herefordshire advance-planning group, Hereforward.’

‘When was this?’

‘Last summer. Potter says Hereforward’s one of these names gets mentioned so often on council reports you stop seeing it after a while and folk give up asking what it does. But they have weekends away. They’ll go and look at what’s happening in some other city. Fact-finding mission. Or else just brainstorming weekends, kind of thing.’

‘I like that word brainstorming.’

‘Well, then, about six months ago — in the summer, anyway — they go for a session at a country-house hotel on the edge of the Cotswolds. Hire the conference suite, as usual, so their intensive deliberations won’t be disturbed. Late Saturday night, a member of the committee gets rushed to hospital with this heart attack. Touch and go for a while, but he pulls through.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘There were whispers, however, of a toxicology report revealing a high level of cocaine in the blood.’

‘Well, well.’

Bliss mouthed a wafer of gum.

‘Known for putting a strain on the heart, coke is,’ Mumford said. ‘They reckon if they keep fit, go jogging and confine the snorting to weekends they can handle it. Big mistake, apparently.’

‘My understanding,’ Bliss said, ‘is that a heart attack is often the result of a novice snorter overdoing it. I did a short course once, very illuminating. Nobody we know, this councillor?’

‘Nobody I know. Youngish chap. I’ve mailed you the cutting, but it won’t tell you much. Just a heart attack, mercy dash, lucky to be alive, all this stuff.’

‘How did they know about the toxicology?’

‘Hospitals leak.’

‘Oh, they do.’

‘But it went no further, anyway. No papers touched the story. Too much trouble, Potter says, too many legal hurdles.’

‘Would Ayling have been on this weekend?’

‘Potter thinks not. Doesn’t think Ayling was co-opted on to Hereforward until a couple of months later.’

‘Still.’ Bliss chewed slowly. ‘Something’s definitely coming together here, Andy. I can feel it.’

A weekend of euphoric brainstorming. He could imagine them coming back with pages and pages of brilliant ideas, looking at them on Monday morning, thinking, what on earth is all this shite?

‘I wonder what else they get up to, apart from coke.’

‘You’re thinking what’s in it for Charlie Howe?’

‘Can’t help it, Andy. Eats away at me.’

‘Quite a liberating experience, cocaine,’ Mumford said thoughtfully. ‘So I’m told.’

‘Plays hell with the inhibitions.’

‘Old days,’ Mumford said, ‘we always thought of councillors and officials as stuffy ole buggers. Fellers in tweeds, retired headmistresses. Times changed, ennit? Plus you got consultants.’

‘Consultants. I like that word. You reckon they have extra consultants on their blue-sky weekends, Andy?’

‘I’m sure they do,’ Mumford said. ‘But let it go, boss. Don’t go making a dick of yourself again. Don’t you bloody well go near him.’

‘I won’t, I won’t.’

‘You need any help, you give me a call.’

‘It’s Christmas Eve, Andy.’

‘You seen the state of Christmas TV?’

Bliss tried Ledwardine Vicarage again. Still engaged. He was reaching for another stick of chewie when his windscreen lit up red.

Tail lights.

Car pulling into Furneaux’s drive, just as the phone started trembling.

‘Yeh.’

Karen said, ‘He won’t.’

‘He won’t?’

‘He wants to speak to Howe.’