Friends of the Dusk (34 page)

‘That was a long time ago. Another era. The thing is, where does she wear them? Does she hang out with other teen goths?
Are
there any nowadays?’

‘Apart from Jude Wall and his mates, who do it once a year for entirely commercial reasons.’

‘Is it cool any more?’

Jane looked over the lichens again, thinking about it.

‘If she
does
have like-minded friends, it’s not immediately obvious on her Facebook page. Like, she has friends, but none of them seem to have followed her into the places she goes. The people on the Foxy site, there’s not much familiarity, not much taking the piss. I think she’s… a bit of a loner.’

‘Are you OK? The bruises?’

‘Not a problem.’

But there
was
a problem, still. If you couldn’t spot a problem after nineteen years…

‘I’m going to see Selwyn Kindley-Pryce this afternoon.’

‘Wow,’ Jane said. ‘What’s your excuse?’

‘I’ll think of something. Huw thinks I need to sort this, quickly.’

‘In case the Bishop finds out. Because it’s not official. But if you’ve told Huw…’

‘Huw’s my friend, not my boss.’

‘And like, what kind of state’s the old guy going to be in by now?’

‘Mr Pryce? I suppose I’m hanging on to what I was told about him kind of vanishing into his own fantasy world. Maybe he’ll let me in.’

‘But that was years ago.’

‘Yes. I know. But the fact is, he’s the last living link to whatever might be happening at Cwmarrow. I don’t know. I’m covering all bases, as they say.’

‘Bit of a self-imposed ordeal, if you ask me.’

‘Not really.’ Merrily carried the dishes to the sink. ‘I’ve visited quite a few people with dementia. Prayed with them. It can be quite… Anyway, I have to be there for three.’’

‘Leave the washing up for me. And then you want me to go back into Aisha’s social media? Or I could message her, ask a few—’

‘No! Don’t go near her. Actually, if you have time…’

‘All the time in the world.’

‘Maybe you could see what you can find out about djinns.’

‘Like genies? Arabic elementals?’

‘See, you’re halfway there. I’ll go and get back quickly. Gales forecast for tonight.’

‘Just don’t catch his disease,’ Jane said.

46

Bloodline

B
LISS HAD A
picture of Gordon Barclay-Hughes that was probably wrong – wispy beard and a pot belly, for some reason – but the voice fitted: speed-talk in one of those outer-London accents that seemed to have infected half the south-east.

‘Yeah, yeah, Friends of the Dusk, that was a good name, that still resonates. But they always sound deeper than they turn out to be. This was dawn of the Internet, mate. Cranking away on dial-up, like the old cat’s whisker and crystal set days.
Wireless
again now – everything comes round. Crazy.’

‘Who started this, Gordon?’

‘The Dusk? It was just there. A few famous people, clever people, and they was all your mates. Virtual equality, man. Jim Turner – he was our mate.’

‘Where’s he these days?’

‘Gawd, I dunno. In the sack wiv some starlet? They prob’ly don’t say that any more, showing my age, Gary.’

‘Francis,’ Bliss said.

‘Bloody shame about Trissie. Had an email off of him the other day.’

‘Yeh, that’s why I’m calling.’

‘Course you are. Bit hyper today. Open up the shop, copper at the counter, you think, hello, here we are, more round the back. But, there you go, it was just the one, bearing sad news.’

‘To get back to Friends of the Dusk…’

‘Tell you how come I was a member, yeah? We had a book store, me and a lady – gone now, the way of all my ladies. Before
I come to GD, this was – Glorious Devon. Luton, two year lease. We did fantasy books and comics, mainly, and we found there was a lot of interest in vampire stuff – niche market, but a big niche. Which was fine ’cos I always liked that stuff, partic’ly the classics.’

‘Contact, was there, between goth shops in the UK?’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘I mean, did you know one another? Like, did you ever come across Jerry Soffley?’

‘Jerry…’ Barclay-Hughes was silent for a moment. ‘He do the clobber as well? And the music? Still going?’

‘Yesterday I’d’ve been able to say he was. However—’

‘He was a character, Soffley.’

‘He was murdered last night,’ Bliss said.

Sounds of a match being struck close to the phone.

‘You’re not winding me up or nothin’?’

‘I’m sorry, Gordon.’

‘Soffley
and
young Trissie?’

‘Any thoughts on that, Gordon?’

‘You thinking they might come after me? That’s what this is about?’

‘Why would you think that, Gordon?’

‘I dunno. Dunno why I said that. Shock, I s’pose.’

‘That the kind of thing the Friends of the Dusk might do?’

‘Naw! They was just… enthusiasts. Anoraks. No way…’ Pause, Bliss heard smoke being expelled. ‘I just looked it up on the Net about Trissie. Beaten to death? Bleedin’ ’ell. Whassis about? Soffley, I never met him, but he was well known in the trade. Not many total goth shops around. We used to haunt house-clearances. If we found anything dark, apart from books, we’d buy it, maybe flog it to Soffley, if it wasn’t too big for a carrier.’

Bliss listened to a few more minutes of this stuff before asking about Jim Turner, namechecking the feature-length documentary film Karen had pointed out on Wikipedia,
The Bloodline of Dracula.

‘Yeah, yeah, fact and fiction. It’s how I met him. You know that bit near the beginning, where all these—?’

‘I’ve not seen it, Gordon.’

‘Well, he shot that in our shop. The opening sequence, yeah? All the vampire books and the fans talking about it. We got these mates in top hats and capes and that. He was looking for people obsessed with the undead – what the film was gonna be about originally, and then some people he met, they put him onto the fact that it wasn’t just stories. And it wasn’t just Transylvania.’

Wikipedia:
Turner spent months tracking down so-called deviant burials, linked to vampire mythology, in the UK and Ireland.

‘And did he know Tristram Greenaway?’

‘He’d’ve met him, yeah. Maybe same day I met him. We was at a party at Selwyn’s place. He was wiv this gorgeous lady who wrote the books wiv him. I say it was a party, it was a conference, but it was fun. I think that was when it started.’

‘What?’

‘Friends of the Dusk.’

‘Gordon…’

‘Yeah?’

‘Could you tell me, in like baby-words, exactly what Friends of the Dusk
is
… or was?’

‘Well, it was… the dusk. The edge of night. They was out on the edge.’ Pause. ‘What do you know about vampires in Britain?’

‘Norra lot, but, strangely, more than I did.’

‘You ask people which part of England has to do wiv vampires they’ll tell you Whitby in Yorkshire, right, ’cos that was where Count Dracula landed? Except he didn’t, did he? On account of Dracula didn’t bleedin’ exist. He was made up, right?’

‘Yeh, I knew that.’

‘But what if we’re missing the point. What if we got better vampire stories on our own doorstep? Which is what Selwyn was saying.’

‘Who’s Selwyn?’

‘I thought you knew. Selwyn Kindley-Pryce was one of the biggest experts in the field. I don’t mean like me, I mean proper experts, university guys. Selwyn would tell you it ain’t all about fangs and stakes through the heart, garlic, all that shit, and it ain’t about Transylvania. The first known vampires were probably British.’

‘Are we supposed to be proud of that, Gordon?’

‘Part of our heritage, mate. As celebrated by the Friends of the Dusk.’

‘How?’

‘All sorts of activities. There’d be like weekend festivals at Selwyn’s place – amazing place, way out down by Wales, I’d never find it now. Caravans there and yurts and all that, or you could bring your own tent, and there’d be music and lectures and… all a bit hazy. Should I be telling you about this?’

‘I’m not drug squad, Gordon. And me own memory’s a bit selective, this being a murder inquiry.’

‘Yeah. Right. Thanks. So that’s why it’s all a bit…’

‘Inexact?’

‘’Sackly…’

‘Plenty of gear circulating at this festival.’

‘Look. I dunno. Might just’ve been me. I didn’t make any purchases there. Usually brought my own. It was all a bit posh, otherwise. One or two titled people – I’m sure I didn’t imagine that. Faces I thought I recognized. My lady, who was wiv me, said one bloke used to be in the government.’

‘You still in touch with your lady?’

‘That was a couple of ladies ago. Don’t even know if she’s still alive, mate. She was doing smack, last I heard.’

‘But Tristram Greenaway was definitely there.’

‘Trissie? Yeah, yeah, he was always there. He was just a kid when it started, a baby goth, like a lot of them.’

‘So this was before he was an archaeologist.’

‘Oh yeah, yeah. I think.’

‘And what was your specific reason for being there, Gordon?’

‘Well, I had this Internet magazine – one of the first. A magazine of the Undead. Early days of the Net. We was quite exclusive, subscribers all over the planet. We could spread the word.’

‘About what?’

‘And collect information. About vampire lore. Selwyn was compiling material for a book. Would’ve been a terrific book if his mind had held out.’

‘He was doing drugs, too?’

‘Nah, he just drank a lot of red wine, but… no, his mind was moving out, last I heard. Jim Turner, he was gonna make a documentary, a sequel to
The Bloodline of Dracula
only better… bigger. That never happened either.’

‘Tristram Greenaway, was he involved?’

‘Trissie… he was studying wiv Selwyn and helping out in return. He knew his way around. And I think he was also working for Jim Turner.’

‘As what?’

‘I dunno, gopher? Little errands. He’d just walk around like he belonged. I don’t mean cocky, it was just fascinating for him, obviously, hanging out where it all started.’

‘Friends of the Dusk.’

‘What?’

Bliss shut his eyes, trying to compose a question that might extract a simple answer.

‘I don’t think you’re getting this, are you?’ Barclay-Hughes said. ‘Selwyn figured he was living in the actual place where this vampire hung out.’

‘Which vampire?’

‘The
first
vampire. Centuries before Dracula – who didn’t, of course, exist. Selwyn could’ve cleaned up. Made some serious money out of tourism and that. But he wasn’t interested. He was a scholar. He just wanted to
know
.’

‘Spell his name for me, would you, Gordon? If you can manage that.’

He didn’t trust people who reckoned drugs had done for their memories. A good and unbreakable excuse.

When Bliss brought Karen and Vaynor into his office the sun had been overlaid by a sky like slate, but he didn’t put any lights on. They could still do his head in, lights.

Maybe he was a latent vampire.

Vaynor asked him why he was smiling; Bliss said never mind.

‘All right, listen up, kiddies. From what I’ve pieced together from Gordon, Friends of the Dusk is, or was, a group of nutters interested in exploring the roots of vampirism in this country.’

‘They’re not nutters,’ Vaynor said. ‘I’ve been doing some more research on deviant burials found quite recently – early medieval, Anglo-Saxon. One, in Nottinghamshire, where the body was held down by metal spikes, one through the heart. In Ireland, where several have been discovered, one skull had a stone wedged in its mouth, so big it almost dislocated the jaw. All thought to be the graves of people considered to be malevolent or dangerous to the community. The word vampire used several times – in the sense of declining to stay dead rather than imbibing the blood of the living. But, sure, vampire’s a good word – even archaeologists recognize that.’

Bliss thought about this.

‘So we’re back to where we started, and it’s making more sense. Greenaway is called out by Cooper to assist with a newly exposed old corpse on Castle Green. He spots the obvious. He’s already pissed off, thinks he’s been dumped on again, misled by Cooper, so he acts on impulse, lifts the skull. Because he knows – or
used
to know – people who’d love to meet Steve.’

‘Friends of the Dusk,’ Karen said. ‘Greenaway was a member?’

‘Greenaway was linked with them from when he was a young lad. A baby goth, as Gordon calls him. Good-looking, personable kid. Gets in with this group – coterie – formed around a bloke Gordon says was a scholar, Selwyn Kindley-Pryce, who
lives somewhere…
out towards Wales.
Let’s find out who he is. Or was. He held small cultural festivals Gordon says were a bit posh. Surely, some of us
ought
to know about this. Especially those of us who like to describe themselves as local.’

He glanced at Karen, who shook her head.

‘Posh festivals sounds like white settlers.’

‘Dinner parties,’ Vaynor said. ‘Cocktails on the veranda. Don’t invite the natives, unless you have nobody to serve the drinks.’

‘Mother of God,’ Bliss said. ‘Is
every
bugger here an inverted snob?’

‘Still doesn’t sound quite right to me, boss,’ Vaynor said. ‘We still don’t know what Friends of the Dusk was
really
about, do we? Sounds a bit airy-fairy. And how organized was it? Was it a proper members’ club or just an affectation? Something that sounded mysterious, but didn’t amount to much. Or did it really involve celebs and aristocracy with an unhealthy interest in sucking each other’s blood?’

‘They do exist,’ Karen said. ‘And I can’t imagine it’s in any way illegal.’

‘For what it’s worth, by the way…’ Vaynor smiled. ‘… the Royal Family’s apparently distantly descended from Vlad the Impaler.’

‘The Russian president?’

Vaynor sighed.

‘The medieval east European serial-slaughterer thought to be the model for Dracula. It was in the documentary I told you about. Which was, I’m afraid, insufficiently arty to have been made by Jim Turner.’

Vaynor had spoken to a TV producer called Leo Defford who’d worked with Turner way back. Defford said Turner had made a lot of money very quickly, though it didn’t compare with what he was hauling in these days, in the States, where Vaynor had been trying to track Turner down. Unsuccessfully so far; the States could be unhelpful if you were looking for a rich bastard. America loved rich bastards.