To Dream of the Dead (38 page)

‘This is very decent of you, Sister.’

‘Merrily Watkins is a good woman.’

‘For a Prod?’

‘I don’t mess with religion, Mr Bliss.’

‘Very wise, Sister.’

Bliss settled back with his Thai Prawn sandwich and a can of shandy. He could afford to give it another couple of hours. Not like his life was going anywhere.

A Christmas tree was lit up in the Banks-Joneses’ front window, but no sign of movement behind it. Either Gyles and Mrs Banks-Jones
were quietly talking it through, or – easier for Bliss to imagine – they were sunk into the sick, silent aftermath of a blazing row.

However, at some stage over the holiday period, Gyles would be sitting back in his favourite armchair, thinking how pleasant it was here, how warm, how safe. What a nice warm, safe life he’d had. Then getting jerked out of it by the memory of Bliss’s rancid Scouser’s voice going,
Bang! That was your cell door, Gyles
.

And in case Gyles, full of good whisky and maudlin Yuletide emotion, should then wish to make prison less of a prospect for the New Year, Bliss had given him his mobile number. Pretty sure that Gyles, at some stage, would ring with something he could use. But meanwhile – and more interesting – there was Steve.

Steve Furneaux revisited. Steve Furneaux who kept wiping his nose in Gilbies, but seemed to have no other cold symptoms. Bliss had registered it at the time, but you saw it all over the place these days. Even the red-spotted handkerchief: nosebleeds. If you were constructing the very model of a modern suburban recreational snorter of the white stuff, the computer simulation would be just
so
Steve Furneaux.

Because Gyles was still holding out about his source and refusing to involve his next-door neighbour on any level, Bliss had gone back to Alan Sandison, the Baptist minister.

Making Alan’s Christmas by telling him how unlikely it was, now that Gyles had coughed, that he would have to give evidence against any of his new neighbours. Alan had relaxed, much relieved – his conscience clear, all neighbourly relations intact. They’d had a cup of tea, an informal chat . . . quality time.

In the course of which it emerged that, yes, Alan did know Bliss’s friend Steve, from the council. Indeed, the first neighbourly gathering attended by the Sandisons, before they knew about the cocaine, had been a barbecue in Steve Furneaux’s garden.

And surely Alan knew Charlie Howe, didn’t he? Everybody knew Charlie . . .

Oh, the very friendly white-haired man with the stick, would that be?

Nice.

The chances of busting Steve for possession were remote. But Steve wouldn’t know that. Very likely that Steve, with his comfy
council job and his blue-sky future on the line, was in a state of some anxiety. Which was also nice. No better time for an informal chat about Hereforward, Clement Ayling and – please God – Charlie Howe.

Just don’t let Steve have gone away for Christmas.

Bliss ran the engine to demist the windscreen and then, unwilling to push it too far with his old mate God, he rang his old bagman, Andy Mumford.

‘Boss,’ Mumford said. ‘’Ow’re you?’

The sheep-shit accent provoking a surprising tug of emotion, bringing back comfort-memories of the old days – last year, in fact – before Andy’s thirty had been up and he’d been shown the door. Poor sod was working with Jumbo Humphries, now – garage owner, feed dealer, private inquiry agent. It was either that or a position as some factory’s
Head of Security
, for which read
caretaker, dogsbody, odd-job man
.

‘And life’s exciting, Andy?’ Bliss said. ‘Lots of Land Rover chases?’

‘What bloody Humphries didn’t tell me,’ Mumford said, ‘was that when there’s no case on, I’m expected to work in the bloody warehouse, selling bags of bloody mixed corn to bloody chicken farmers.’

‘And how often is there no case?’

‘This is the sticks,’ Mumford said. ‘There’s a credit crunch.
You
work it out.’

‘I feel for you, Andy. Not as much as I feel for meself, but still . . .’

‘Made inquiries about getting back – cold-case squad, kind of thing,’ Mumford said mournfully.

‘And?’

‘Seems it would’ve helped if I’d been a DCI rather than a humble DS.’

‘Elitist bastards. Listen, Andy, you still got that little sister on the Plascarreg?’

‘Not
my
responsibility.’

‘No, don’t worry I’m not . . . It’s just I’ve had young George Wintle out there, looking for a new coke channel.’ Giving Mumford the back-story and the names: Banks-Jones, Furneaux. ‘He won’t get anywhere, but I was wondering what the buzz was, if any. Who’s running the Plascarreg this week?’

‘Jason Mebus grows up fast,’ Mumford said. ‘Real businessman now.’

‘I thought he’d been busted up a bit in a car crash.’

‘Broke his collarbone rolling a nicked motor, that was all. Young bones heal quick.’

‘You don’t like Jason, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Good thought, though, Andy. I’ll get George to talk to him.’

‘
He
won’t talk. Not to the likes of Wintle.’

‘Talk to you?’

‘Mabbe.’

‘Cold-case buggers don’t know what they’re missing.’ Bliss took a breath, went in casual. ‘You ever see anything of Charlie Howe these days, Andy?’

Heavy pause.

‘No,’ Mumford said. ‘Nothing.’

This was a little tricky. It was widely rumoured that Mumford had done some cleaning-up after Charlie over the undiscovered murder in the Frome Valley, way back when Charlie had been at Bliss’s level and Mumford just a sprog – so that was excusable, just. All the same, a touchy subject. Safer to keep this contemporary.

‘You know of any link between Charlie and the late Clem Ayling?’

Mumford found a short laugh.

‘Wondered how long it’d be before you got round to Ayling. I did hear your role in that had got a bit shrunk, mind.’

‘And you heard that
from
. . .?’

‘Pint with Terry Stagg. Funny arrangement all round, Terry says. Why would Ma’am set up an incident room within walking distance of Gaol Street?’

‘Only if she wanted a soundproof box,’ Bliss said.

‘Ah.’

‘He’s never liked me, you know that, Andy.’

‘Charlie? No, I don’t reckon he has.’

‘Not since I got too interested in the Frome Valley.’

No reaction from Mumford.

‘Where I won’t be going again, you understand. It’s history. I accept that.’

Best to underline it: no question of Mumford’s youthful indiscretion ever being exhumed.

‘All right,’ Mumford said.

‘But if Charlie’s name crops up on the edge of an inquiry I still get interested. And Charlie knows that, and Annie knows it.’

‘This connection with Ayling – that
just
the council?’

‘Goes a bit further. Charlie and Ayling’d both got themselves co-opted on to this quango think-tank thingy known as Hereforward. Which was Ayling’s last meeting. Walks out of it, never seen again attached to his head.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘You ever heard of Charlie doing . . . Charlie?’

‘Coke?’

‘Or anything.’

‘Charlie don’t like to lose control.’

‘Oh.’

‘Women’s Charlie’s thing. Young women. Always a charmer.’

‘Still?’

‘Older he gets, younger he likes them. Jumbo was telling me about a divorce case he was working, led to this isolated farmhouse in the Black Mountains where there was what you might call communal activities. Jumbo seen Charlie through his binoculars, once.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘I will tell you one thing, though, boss,’ Mumford said. ‘Charlie en’t a killer.’

‘That’s a firm statement, Andy.’

‘He’s a cover-upper, is what Charlie is.’

Bliss flicked the wipers again. Still no sign of life in Steve’s house. He switched off the engine.

‘And a bully,’ Mumford said. ‘Whatever he done, always he done it for the best of reasons and anyone who suggests otherwise he’s right in their face and they better watch their step, else they might not have a job for very long. If you see where I’m coming from.’

‘‘I hate that,’ Bliss said.

‘Power thing, see.’

‘Hate it, Andy.’

‘What I’m saying, unless you got something real solid, not an easy man to lean on.’

‘I realise that.’

‘On the other hand,’ Mumford said, ‘young Mebus, he thinks he’s smart but he en’t. So if you want somebody to talk to Mebus, on the quiet, like, civilian rules, I’m up for that. Don’t take this the wrong way, boss, but you was always good to me. Especially in the last days. And the business over Robbie. I appreciate that.’

‘That’s very civil of you, Andy.’

‘I expect you’d return the favour, any openings come up where you could put in a word.’

‘If there’s anybody left who listens to me.’

‘Bear it in mind, anyway, boss,’ Mumford said.

Bliss smiled into the darkness. Mumford’s subtext:
anything . . . just get me away from the mixed corn
.

‘I’ve gorra few problems, Andy.’

‘Aye,’ Mumford said. ‘I know.’

Bliss was finishing off the last Thai Prawn sarnie when his mobile went.

‘Not convenient to explain further,’ Eileen Cullen said. ‘But it’s as you said. All right? Have to go now.’

‘Thanks, Sister. I owe you one.’

‘You certainly do.’

So . . . the old bastard.

And it would go on, the eternal triangle of Annie Howe, Charlie Howe and Frannie Bliss, until one of the corners dropped off.

He thought about Mumford, a good detective lumbering through most of his career as a DC, kicked out with the digital camera and the inscribed tankard, facing the rest of his mobile years as a part-time PI, part-time corn salesman.

He thought of himself, young Frannie making a fresh start still in his twenties: nice country town, not many streets where you couldn’t see a hill. Nice, laid-back country people, not as sharp as Scousers, most of them, but not as bitter either. Thinking he’d have a fair chance of promotion and getting it, too, in the early years.

And then it stopped, and he was looking at a bunch of unexceptional DCIs five years younger than him, then
seven
years younger. Looking particularly at Annie Howe, acting superintendent. A crap
detective. A frigging
shite
detective, with a dad who’d been a
bent
detective.

And a bully
. All bullies were cowards. His dad was always telling him that when he was a kid. You didn’t give in to a bully.

The rain was heavier now, and he switched on the engine and the demister. In the old days, someone on the occupied part of the estate would’ve noticed a car parked without lights and come over to check it out. Not any more. Not with new knife-crime stats on the box every other night. They wouldn’t ring the police either, because they knew the police wouldn’t come, or maybe they’d drop by next day, if they were passing.

After about two minutes, Karen Dowell called and, for a while, Bliss brightened up.

‘It’s ridiculous, boss.’

‘Where are you, Karen?’

‘I’m at home. You see it on the box?’

‘I haven’t gorra box in the car.’

‘Man helping with inquiries?’

Bliss lurched in his seat.

‘They’ve
pulled
?’

‘Nah, it’s Wilford Hawkes.’

‘Karen.’ Bliss slumped back. ‘You’re kidding me.’

‘Couldn’t believe it either. I actually rang the school to confirm, talked to Terry. What happened, they turned over Hawkes’s place and found he’d just put a brand new chain on his twenty-year-old chainsaw. Cleaned it all up himself, like new. So now they’ve stripped his workshop, sent a vanload to forensic, and they’re asking him the same questions, over and over again, in the hope he’ll slip up, give some different answers. Which he does, of course, everybody does in the end. Poor little bugger doesn’t know what day it is.’

‘This is Howe?’

‘She’s had Brent at him now. Both of them, in fact.’

‘Ms Nasty and Dr Nasty. I suppose it’s occurred to them that Hawkes is half Ayling’s size and nearly as old?’

‘It was a single stab wound,’ Karen said. ‘Not much of a wound, not much blood. In fact, they were still a bit iffy about it till the PM showed what it did to the aorta. Ayling would probably’ve been dead within minutes.’

‘And Willy would’ve known exactly where to stick it, would he?’

‘Could’ve been luck. On the other hand, he
was
in the Army, way back. Paras. Commando training?’

‘But look at him
now
, Karen!’

‘Yeah, well, they think he may’ve had a partner. They’re going through Jane Watkins’s database, name by name. Paying visits.’

‘Witch-hunt?’

‘Yeah, funny you should say that. One situation – listen to this – Terry was telling me these witches up towards Ross, friends of Willy’s, they thought it was carol singers from the church and wouldn’t open the door? And Brent . . . he had it smashed in?
Smashed in
. All right, maybe there was a bit more to it, and they found some cannabis, but it’s still bloody madness, Frannie.’

Bliss thought about his own dawn raid on Gyles.

‘Just be glad you’re not part of it,’ Karen said.

‘Yeh.’

Not part of anything. Not even part of a family any more.

‘Mind you,’ Karen said, ‘don’t forget it
was
you who first pointed them at Dinedor.’

‘Yeh, but that—’

‘Goodnight, boss.’

Bliss sat there, shaking his head.

Well, sure, Dinedor needed checking out. But
only
in tandem with the possibility that somebody wanted them to
think
it was all about Dinedor. An investigation this size was more like snooker than frigging rugby – a lot of balls on the table and you didn’t just pick one up and run with it.

Unless, of course, you thought your old man might get potted along the way.

Bliss laughed, starting to despise himself. He could stay here all night waiting for Furneaux, and wake up at first light, wheels firmly embedded in the shite, and have to ask Gyles to give him a push, and look like a dick.

When what he was really avoiding . . .