To Dream of the Dead

‘Shit. You told him—?’

‘Yeah, yeah, I said I’d been trying to get hold of her. He said when I did I should respectfully ask her to call him. Sounding a bit distant.’

‘Didn’t you point out to him—?’

‘I didn’t point out anything to him. I don’t like it when they start sounding distant. When they start calling you sergeant instead of Karen.’

‘Jesus.’

Bliss squeezing his eyes shut.

‘It didn’t exactly surprise me, boss. Would you share the name of a suspected killer with some unknown DS from Worcester?’

The tail lights swam in the windscreen, duplicated by brake lights now.

‘You think I’ve lost it, don’t you, Karen?’

‘I think you’ve had a very bad few days, boss. I think you should try and relax.’

‘Where? In front of the telly in me house, on me own? And if that sounds like self-pity, it is.’

‘Oh, Frannie, I’d say you could come round here, but—’

‘Your boyfriend wouldn’t like it, and quite right, too. All right. No worries. There’ll be a way round this. There’s always a way.’ Bliss watched the red lights go out. ‘You have a good Christmas, Karen. I owe yer.’

Who didn’t he owe?

‘You won’t do anything daft, will you, boss?’

‘You know me, Sergeant.’

‘I do. That’s the trouble.’

‘Merry Christmas, Karen,’ Bliss said. ‘I’m blowing you a kiss.’

Option One: he could go back across the road on his own. He could do that.

No warrant, no evidence, but you didn’t need any of that for a…

… A cosy chat.

Like the one he’d been ready to have with Steve last night, and what a mistake that would’ve been. Could’ve blown everything.

Could still.

All right, Option Two. Ring Gaol Street, see who was on tonight: Stagg, Wintle? Tell them he was feeling much better now, invite whoever it was to accompany him. Or pull a little team together. Go in mob-handed. Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas, Steve, don’t mind the reindeer.

But what was the betting that, in the wake of the busting of Gyles, Steve had absolutely nothing on the premises?

And anyway, how would that tell him who paid the knifeman?

And also he really hated this twat now. That never helped.

Which left Option Three.

Jesus.

The thought of Option Three just made Bliss want to curl up and die.

54 Cold Turkey

Standing under the market hall, looking down Church Street, a slow slope, you could see that the centre of Ledwardine really was on fairly high ground. What did that mean? Could you have a henge on high ground?

‘OK,’ Jane said. ‘Picture this. If it came around what’s now the market square, enclosing the church and the vicarage, the cut-off point would be…’ she pointed through the rain ‘… about there, just past Lol’s house.’

Right on the rim of the henge. Maybe there would be signs of a ditch, or at least a depression, in what was left of the orchard behind Lol’s house. That was the first place to check tomorrow.

‘I just don’t know enough, that’s the trouble. Don’t have enough basic knowledge. Like, maybe that’s how Church Street began, as some kind of processional avenue leading up from the river and into the henge.’

‘Cooper told you not to get carried away, Jane,’ Eirion said. ‘I think he told you that once before?’

‘I hear exactly what you’re saying, Irene, but I need this. I need this so much.’

‘You need it, Blore needs it… Cooper needs it.’

‘And Ledwardine needs it. And it just has to be ours. It must not be Blore’s.’

Jane had told them all about the henge. Eirion and Lol and Gomer and Mum — who was interested but seemed vague tonight, disconnected from everything. The problem was obvious and simple: too much to think about and no cigarettes to help her keep it all under control.

Cold turkey. Poor Mum. Cold turkey for Christmas, and too much pride to go round bumming cigs off other people. She wasn’t a heavy smoker, compared with some, and if every smoker in the village who had a few to spare would donate just one to Mum… well, that might be better for everybody. It certainly hadn’t seemed like a good time to tell her that Coops was hiding something he didn’t think her daughter was mature enough to handle.

However, because it was really eating at her she’d dragged Eirion out to the square and laid it on him.

They were alone under the market hall. The village Christmas tree had been switched off due to worries about the wiring and all the water swirling around its base, ambered now by the fake gaslamps. Even where there was no flooding the water lay like a skin on the ground, constantly topped up as fast as it was absorbed by the vainly gulping drains. The Eight Till Late was still open, although its food stocks were well down. Emergency service, Jim Prosser said. Eight Till very Late.

‘OK, listen,’ Eirion said. ‘If Cooper confirms that a henge is a major possibility, maybe we could get something in the press. They’re always desperate for stories just after Christmas. Nothing much happening in politics anywhere in the world. I could call somebody on Boxing Day, email the story about the possible discovery of a new henge surrounding a village… that would screw Blore.’

‘Yeah, but it might also screw Coops. But… I’ll ask him.’

‘The other thing is, if Blore actually knew about the henge before he officially started work here…’

‘How would he?’

‘Looked up your website. Which basically floats the idea of some large-scale prehistoric landscape feature at the bottom of Cole Hill. For which three or four standing stones in a field might just be the tip of the iceberg. I mean I don’t know. But maybe he came over himself, on the quiet, and poked around. And his experienced eye led him in directions which you, as — sorry Jane — an amateur, would’ve missed. Identifying the possibility of an original henge, which he’s now confirmed. It makes sense. You could even say that’s why he stitched you up.’

‘He said… that I’d come to the right conclusions for all the wrong reasons.’

Ley lines… God help us.

‘Seems ridiculous that a leading archaeologist would want to discredit a schoolgirl,’ Eirion said. ‘But maybe he also wanted to make sure you’d keep well out of his way for the duration of the dig. And that’s worked, hasn’t it?’

‘You think that’s what Coops wasn’t telling me?’

‘Maybe. He knows what you’re like. Tell you one thing, though, Jane. When this comes out, it’ll not only mean no development in Coleman’s Meadow, it could throw a protection order around the whole village.’

Jane stared at him, blue lights everywhere.

‘What?’

‘Think about it. The excavation alone, something this big could take years, and if there were even just a few more stones buried under the village it could qualify as a Grade One ancient monument. You couldn’t build anywhere near it.’