Remains of an Altar

appealed to him to think again and said he would call the next time he was passing. And he did call again, but in the meantime my grandad had been talking to some other councillor who told him not to worry as Mr Watkins’s ideas were nonsense.’

‘Nothing changes, does it?’ Jane said bitterly.

‘Mr Watkins said please could he just take some photographs if he promised they wouldn’t be used in his book or published in any way at all. Just as evidence of what was. But Farmer Probert, I’m afraid, refused to believe him. He couldn’t get his head round the idea of just taking a photograph and not doing anything with it. He didn’t think Mr Watkins would be so wasteful of an expensive plate, and he turned the poor man away again. Of course, my grandma was deeply embarassed by now. She was, as I say, quite a refined lady, with her books and her wind-up gramophone.’

‘Not many folks yereabouts had a wind-up gramophone back then,’ Gomer said.

‘Definitely not, Mr Parry. And, do you know, I think it was that gramophone that saved the day.’

Mrs Kingsley rose and went over to a sideboard under a framed colour photo of some children and a horse.

‘I’ve done quite a lot of research on all this since it came into my possession. As you’ll see, it’s our family’s claim to fame. Our small place in history.’

Gomer looked at her shrewdly.

‘Wouldn’t reckon Gerry Murray be all that interested in hist’ry?’

‘Nor as hard-up as he led my Aunt Margaret to believe.’ Mrs Kingsley snorted. ‘Bringing his accountant to convince her of the parlous state of his finances.’

Jane looked at Gomer.

‘Brung his accountant, did he, missus?’ Gomer said.

Mrs Kingsley didn’t reply. She unlocked the top section of the sideboard and took out a stiff parchment envelope.

‘Mr Watkins was always very polite but he was … canny, I think the word would be. The next time he came back, it was market day, when he knew my grandad would be in town and my grandma would be on her own. And this time … he had a friend with him.’

She brought the envelope back to the sofa where Jane and Gomer sat. It had a wing-clip which she undid.

‘A titled gentleman,’ she said, ‘of great renown. Great renown, and not only in Hereford. I should imagine my grandma was practically on her knees, when she saw who it was.’

Jane said, ‘The Prince of Wales?’

‘I’ll show you in a minute. But first I’ll tell you the result of it. Mr Watkins offered her a deal. If my grandfather let him take pictures of the meadow, for the record, he’d take some other pictures – of Grandma and the distinguished gentleman, together. And he would give her the pictures to keep.’

Cool, Jane thought. The man was a true Watkins.

‘Well, there was absolutely no way that Hazel Probert was going to turn Mr Watkins away. Certainly not with his distinguished companion, and the promise of the souvenir of a lifetime. And so the photos were taken that very day, while Grandad was at the market.’

‘Brilliant,’ Jane said.

‘And – do you know? – I don’t think they were ever shown to him or even mentioned from that day until the day he died. She kept them secret for the whole of her life. You can imagine her hiding them away in her bottom drawer and only bringing them out when her husband was at market. Sharing her pride with no one.’

‘Then how—?’

‘And they were only entrusted before she died – the week before she died – to Aunt Margaret, the eldest daughter. Her mother thinking she was the only one who would understand.’

Mrs Kingsley handed the opened envelope to Jane. Jane looked at her hands to make sure that they were clean.

‘Don’t worry, I checked when you came in,’ Mrs Kingsley said. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea when they’re safely away again.’

Aware that her breathing had become shallow, Jane carefully slid out the pictures. There were four of them, in cardboard frames, each one protected by tissue paper. She was going to be the first outsider to see original and almost certainly historic photos taken by Alfred Watkins himself. She could almost feel him bending over her, with his pointed beard and his glasses on the end of his nose. She shivered slightly.

‘Go on,’ Mrs Kingsley said.

The first one was a bit faded but, like all Watkins pictures, nice and sharp. Jane saw a woman she guessed to be in early middle age, but could have been younger – hard to tell, the severe way they had their hair in those days. She was dressed in a long skirt and she had a little handbag and a bashful smile. And she was standing…

… On the ley…

… The trackway even clearer then than it was now. And this…

… This was just everything Jane could have wanted: incontestable proof that the great Alfred Watkins had photographed Coleman’s Meadow.

The picture had been taken from the Cole Hill side, with the steeple of Ledwardine Church soaring above the woman’s head and the head of the man who Jane hadn’t really noticed at first. Quite an ordinary-looking elderly guy. Serious-looking, with a big white moustache, a hairy jacket and a trilby hat.

Jane thought she might’ve seen him somewhere before but … well, she hadn’t really expected to recognize him, anyway. There were two other pictures of the couple and a third taken from the other side, the old guy on his own pointing towards Cole Hill and he was kind of smiling, and he…

Hang on…

‘Gomer … ?’

Jane showed the photo to Gomer.

He scrutinized the picture very carefully, holding it up to his glasses.

Then he lowered it slowly.

‘Bugger me, Janie … that’s ole wassisname, ennit?’

46 Black Vapour Trails

Bliss said it was nothing fancy, this one. Not some ritual-looking killing in a beauty spot that Annie Howe would take away from him for the headlines.

‘This is an old-fashioned, down-home, nasty, sordid, backstreet— I woke you up, didn’t I?’

‘I’m not in bed,’ Merrily said. ‘I just … go on.’

‘Malcolm France. Forty-six years old. Independent security adviser. Know what that means, do we?’

‘Minder?’

‘Partly. Also a private inquiry agent. Which wasn’t attracting enough business for a full-time occupation, so Mal did everything from following wives, to recommending burglar alarms on commission and guarding the rich or the famous when necessary. It was a living. It’s where a lot of us go when they kick us out.’

‘I’m sorry, Frannie. I hadn’t realized he was an ex-colleague. What happened?’

‘Not a colleague, no. I knew him, but not well – all that animosity between cops and private eyes, that’s for the story books. We keep in with them now, with an eye to the future. He was found early this afternoon, back of St Owen’s Street. Broad daylight, Merrily. Not a robbery. I hate that kind of thing. Makes me angry. A crime committed with never a thought that they aren’t going to get away with it. We think they were even on view. Two men in white coveralls – familiar sight nowadays, with all the health-and-safety regulations – were seen by a number of witnesses to walk into the building carrying a paint spray. Nobody saw them come out, which suggests that the