The Fabric of Sin

‘Lol, I’m going to ring them now, OK?’

Fumbling out the phone and putting the number in the frame.

They stood under the lych-gate, opposite the square, orange and green lights making lanterns of the leaded windows of the Black Swan.

Lol said, ‘Why don’t you call them in the morning?’

‘They might leave early.’ The ringing stopped. ‘Hold on, he’s—’

The voice in the phone said hello.

‘Felix,’ Merrily said. ‘I’ve been trying to get you all day. Listen, I really need to talk to you. Both of you. Tomorrow morning if possible. Even tonight, if you’re up for that. Take me about twenty minutes to get there.’

There was no reply, something quizzical about the silence.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s Merrily Watkins.’

‘Yeh. I thought it was.’

Oh shit.

‘Frannie, I’m sorry, I must’ve put the wrong number in. More haste, less—’

‘Who did you think you were calling, Merrily?’

‘Just … just a guy I’ve been trying to …’

‘Felix, you said,’ Bliss said. ‘That would be Felix Barlow.’

‘How did you …’ Something jerked inside her chest. ‘Frannie …?’

‘Twenty minutes, then,’ Bliss said. ‘I’ll be waiting.’

20 Supposed to be Sheep

There was the usual small, sordid fairground under a frantic night sky, fallen leaves panic-dancing in the intersecting headlight beams from three cars and a dark blue van, all pointing at the caravan, engines growling. Flapping and crackling from the plastic screen they’d erected inside the tapes, to keep out the rising wind. A rich smell of churned mud.

The West Mercia Police travelling show.

‘Fuchsia.’ Merrily felt insubstantial, blown around like the leaves. ‘Where is she? Please, can someone—?’

Nearly a dozen men and women, cops and crime-scene technos like worker ants in the grass, none of them answering her, all of them hyper: never let anybody tell you these guys didn’t get a wild buzz from violent death.

‘This is the feller?’ Bliss was in a white coverall, what he liked to call a Durex suit. Flicking occasional questions at her like pellets. ‘You’re sure about that?’

All the motion only emphasizing the stillness of the big man in a heap, dumped like manure below the caravan’s open door. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

‘Yes.’

Was she sure? Under the hardened mud and the congealed fluids, his head was a different shape. Mouth half-open, dried blood caked around his nose, both eyes soot-black. Merrily forcing herself to keep looking at him, aware of Bliss watching her closely.

‘This is the builder you were telling me about, right? Doing up the farmhouse for Charlie’s outfit?’

‘Yes.’

One of Felix’s feet was twisted into the gap between two of the metal steps. A hand clawed the mud, poor guy trying to seize the earth one last time.

‘A decent man, Frannie. Kind. Trying to do the best thing.’

‘Really,’ Bliss said.

‘Do you know where Fuchsia is?’

Bliss said, ‘Tell me again — why were you ringing him tonight, Merrily?’

‘I was trying to arrange a meeting.’

‘Sounded like an emergency to me,’ Bliss said. ‘Sunday night, very heavy day for the clergy, and there you were, prepared to drop everything and come rushing out here in the dark?’

‘Yes.’

‘What conclusions am I to draw from this?’

‘I was …’ Merrily sighed. ‘How long have you got?’

‘Till Billy Grace gets here.’

‘The pathologist.’

‘Which I hope is gonna be before flamin’ daylight.’

Two crime-scene women were moving around Felix’s body with evidence bags. Emotions uncoupled, not seeing a person, not looking for history much beyond the final act.

‘Who found him, Frannie?’

‘Dog-walker. Where would the police be without dog-walkers, eh?’

‘What do you think happened?’

‘That’s for Billy Grace to find out.’

‘Well, he didn’t …’ Merrily spun at him, furious ‘… just fall off the sodding step, did he?’

Segments of smoky cloud on fast-forward across the three-quarter moon. Bliss’s eyebrows going up.

‘My, we are fractious tonight, Merrily.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s interesting that you’re so emotionally involved.’

‘Interesting?’

‘Significant, even.’

Bliss had his head on one side, red hair shaved close to the skull these days, to disguise erosion. Merrily looked away, over towards the edge of the field where Lol was parked, forbidden by some jobsworth copper even to get out of the truck.

‘You need …’ steadying her voice ‘… to find Fuchsia. The house I told you about …’ How trivial and foolish this was going to sound. ‘It was Fuchsia, who had the problem.’

‘This is Fuchsia Mary Linden. The assistant.’

‘And girlfriend. I keep asking if anyone’s looking for her, and nobody— At first, I thought she was being, you know, disingenuous. I’m now more inclined to believe there’s something to what she’s saying, and I wanted to tell them that. Talk it all over again.’

Bliss scratched his nose, obscuring a reluctant half-smile.

‘I’m loath, as ever, to go into the details of your frankly unenviable job, Merrily, but … you’re saying you were feeling a bit guilty?’

‘I … yeah.’

‘When did you last talk to Mr Barlow?’

‘Last night. On the phone.’

‘And the girl?’

‘Not since last week. When I met them here.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘She’s … unusual.’

‘Unusual. Yeh, that explains everything. I’ll be sure to put that in my report.’

‘Whimsical? Imaginative? In a childlike way. And beautiful, of course. And about twenty years younger than Felix. That what you were looking for?’

‘This word whimsical,’ Bliss said. ‘Would that translate, for the rest of us, as three sheets to the wind?’