Merrily Watkins 11 - The Secrets of Pain (38 page)

Abruptly, Merrily switched off the computer and rang Big Liz at Allensmore.

Liz said. ‘I went into the tower room tonight. Alone. In the dark.’

‘Was that a good idea?’

‘I don’t know. In some ways, Colin feels closer now than he did before you came, but perhaps that’s because I was forced to go over old ground. I’m starting to see the bad things I’d turned
a blind eye to. Just, you know, small things, intimate things that I didn’t realize weren’t… I was a virgin, you see. I didn’t
know
… some things.’

‘Where’s your husband?’

‘Paul? I haven’t told him. He doesn’t even know you’ve been.’

‘I think you should tell him everything,’ Merrily said. ‘You’ve kept it to yourself too long. And, Liz, when you next go into the tower room – humour me – say the Lord’s Prayer, if you can remember it. And discuss it with your husband. All of it. Tell him I’m a crank. Listen, could I check something? When Syd came to see Byron, what year was that?’

‘Oh… dear. I’m not good on…’

‘Same year as the first publication of
Caradog
? That would be 2004?’

‘I expect. Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. Liz, one more thing. You remember you told me about Byron’s publisher coming on the phone once? A woman? Do you remember her name?’

‘Ah. I do know this one. Alexandra… Alexandra…
Bell
. I remember it put me in mind of Alexander Graham Bell.’

‘Same publisher still?’

‘I’m not sure. You want to speak to her? I’ll try and find the number, if you can hang on…’

‘It’ll do tomorrow. But if I could mention your name to her that would be useful.’

‘She might not even remember me.’

‘I suspect she will, Liz.’

All one-time members of Syd’s team, his gang. Working together in Bosnia and operations during the Colombian cocaine war, over twenty years ago. Then the history club.

Barry had said stubbornly,
Car crash, bar-fight, hanged in prison. There’s no connection. It don’t mean anything. Three ex-Regiment dead, not of natural causes. All their deaths are different. It means nothing. How could it?

He was right, of course. These were men for whom violence had been a way of life, who found it hard to adjust when they came out of the army, who were often emotionally damaged. It was no big deal, except that they were all mates.

Syd’s mates. Assume that his visit to Byron at Allensmore
had
coincided with Nasal’s death. Maybe he’d even read this same account in the
Sunday Times
. Gone to tell Byron that another member of the club was history.

Merrily began to make notes on the sermon pad, under the anglepoise, but she was too tired to construct a logical framework. And, anyway, there was something missing. Something which almost certainly related to Byron’s reasons for coming to Brinsop, where the church, with its celebration of
necessary violence
, was a kind of spiritual crucible.

She sprinkled some dried cat-food in Ethel’s bowl, put out the lights and crawled off to bed, pausing to look out from the landing window where she could see, across Church Street through the wintry trees, Lol’s house, still in darkness.

She awoke at two. Back to the landing window. Still dark at Lol’s, but perhaps he’d come in, gone to bed. A vehicle crossed the square, but it was a light-coloured van. She’d rung Lol’s landline twice, finally leaving a message, just asking him to ring her back, whatever time he got in. Now she wanted to ring Danny, but it was far too late; Greta at least would be in bed, and Greta had to work in the morning and…

…oh God, the Maundy service.

The next time she awoke she was in a corridor.

Sporadically lit, lumpy with pipes and the smell was of antiseptic and bleach, and there were double doors and an old leathered bench, and the need for a cigarette.

I’m afraid you can’t smoke in here
.

Breathing. The uneven respiration of the chronically sick. A dim and wobbly light. Grey-white sleepers.

We’ve always had him in a side ward
.

An iron bed. Tubes.

Brace yourself
…

Lowering herself into a clammy vinyl-covered bedside chair, summoning reserves of compassion as she peered below the hair dyed black, into the reptilian eye-slits. Green tubes curling up either side of the nose like a smile. Hands out of the sheets, rubbery snaking hands, and the smell…

Don’t wake up, don’t wake up, see it through, don’t wake up, and Jesus, don’t let him touch Jane with his
…

Curling nail on yellowed finger.
Scritch, scratch
…

The air rushed through the corridor like a hollow scream, trailing an awakening into half-light and… exhaust.

Merrily sat up to find the dawn gleaming like raw meat in the bedroom window.

I
T WAS NEARLY
light but not quite, the sun still below the Tesco clock turret, when Bliss raided the Plascarreg Hilton.

DC Vaynor with him and three of Rich Ford’s uniforms, two of them women. No enforcer, they just rang the bell, and a worried-looking Asian lady let them in, and then Goldie was there, halfway up the reduced baronial stairway in a yellow kimono with pink dragons on it and matching turban.

‘Wassis, wassis? You won’t find no drugs yere, Mr Francis, and that’s a damn fact! We en’t never had no drugs, and anybody yere who says we ’ave—’

‘Norra problem, Goldie.’ Bliss opening out his arms with transparent generosity. ‘We find any dope, you can keep it for those quiet nights in.’ Turning now to his team. ‘Colleen, ground floor with Darth. Kath and I will accompany you to your boudoir, Goldie, while PC Timlin will hang around the hall in case any of the guests try to leave without settling the bill.’

Goldie stood her ground, arms folded like a very mature geisha, as Bliss mounted the stairs.

‘Come on now, Goldie, how much more considerate could Her Majesty’s filth
be
to a respected senior citizen?’

‘What
is
this? What’s it about?’

‘Clothing and fancy goods, Goldie. We’re collecting for Oxfam.’

‘Gotter warrant, have you?’

‘Has Stevie Hawking gorra GCSE in physics? Now,
back off
, you old witch.’

Within half an hour they had quite a little boutique going in the hallway: designer tops, silk scarves, perfume, odds and ends of jewellery. Much of it still in the wrapping, labels intact: River Island, M & S, Fat Face. Harriet’s, of course, and a couple of quality shoeshops. Bliss was made up, the Mersey going tidal in his vocals.

‘Just like me bairthday all over again, Goldie.’

‘All paid for, Mr Francis. I got all the receipts. Somewhere.’

‘How much did they owe you?’

‘Who?’

‘The
gairls
! How many weeks’ rent for that nasty little room?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Yeh.’ Bliss smiling kindly down at the old girl. ‘You’re well known for having no head for business.’

They were sitting in extravagant peacock wicker chairs in what Goldie called the breakfast room. Just the two of them. Nobody breakfasting yet. It was just gone half-seven. Bliss was due to meet Karen at Gaol Street at nine. He’d had four hours’ intermittent sleep. Flying on blind rage – so much cheaper than crystal meth.

‘All right,’ Goldie said, ‘a few weeks, thassall, swearder God, and I never pushed hard for it. Some weeks I let them off it, I did!’

‘Yeh, that’s why, the morning they were missing, you were all over the estate after them because it was rent day.’

‘I never—’

‘Shurrup. You know what I think? I think – and it just kind of came to me in a flash, the way these things do –
I
think that you told them ways they could
pay in kind
.’

‘If people wants to give me presents…’

Goldie had shrivelled herself into the wings of her wicker throne, hair like brass curtain-rings escaping from the pink and yellow turban. Bliss shook his head sadly.

‘An’ I never had them on no streets!’ Goldie said.

‘Only ’cause they wouldn’t bloody do it, as decent icon-carrying Russian Orthodox—Oh, the shame of it, Goldie.’ Bliss leaned towards her, sniffing at the perfume she evidently wore in bed. ‘Oh, the ignominy of one of Hereford’s leading hoteliers nicked for fencing leggings and camisoles.’

‘What you want?’

‘… and all the extra menial offences which might come to light.’

‘
What you want off me?
’

‘All right.’ Bliss lifted a calming hand. ‘Let’s stand back a little from this. Allow me to bring you up to speed on West Mercia’s investigation of the murder of the Marinescu sisters.’

Leaning back into the silly chair, Bliss talked very simply and with compassion about an old lady whose handbag had been stolen by two young women in a mail-order surplus store and who’d been so upset that she’d subsequently passed away.

‘This old lady,’ Bliss said, ‘her name was Cynthia Wise, from Bobblestock. She had five children and, I think, sixteen or seventeen grandchildren?’

All this background had been waiting for him when he’d arrived at Gaol Street, well before dawn. A little fizz in the air at a normally cheerless hour.

‘I never knowed her, Mr Francis. I never goes near Bobblestock.’

‘Yeh, but what a tragic story, eh, Goldie? Could be you, couldn’t it? In a year or two. Y’know, if that was
my
gran, God rest her little old soul, I’d feel more than a bit aggrieved at these people coming from the fringes of the Euro-heap, as good as murdering innocent pensioners for a cheap handbag and a couple of twenties. Cause the death of a decent, much-loved old lady and what happens to them if they get nicked? First offence.
Bugger all!
What kind of justice is that, Goldie?’

‘I still don’t know…’ Goldie’s cold eyes jittering just enough for him to know he was in ‘… what you wants.’

‘Well, I haven’t actually made up me mind, yet, but I’m… you know, I’m
wairkin
’ on it.’

‘Always helped you out, Mr Francis, you knows that.’ Goldie folding her arms, hands vanishing into the opposite sleeves. ‘I do’s everythin’ in my powers to help the police.’

Bliss sniffed.

‘Not done much at all, the more I think about it. Nor’enough to melt me stony heart on this one.’

‘Well, I don’t know about no handbags.’ Goldie so far back in the chair now that you could hear its fibres twisting. ‘You won’t find no handbags yere, thass a damn fact.’

‘Well, no, the only place I’d expect to find a stolen handbag is at the bottom of the Wye with a brick inside.’
Oh yes… closing in
. ‘I suppose you
could
try talking to me. Maybe a few anecdotes you’ve heard from your clientele and the gentlefolk around the Plas. Bearing in mind that I don’t care where it comes from if it’s sufficiently entertaining and contains an element of verifiable truth, and… You’ve gone quiet, Goldie.’

‘I needs time.’

‘No, you don’t, not really. But go on, I’ll give yer five minutes. During which you can tell me why the girls left Magnis Berries. Was one of them raped? Threatened with rape or a beating if they didn’t do what they were told? Or was it simply just an unhappy love affair with a man who wasn’t what he seemed? What did they disclose to you over the cocoa and the tarot?’

‘Now listen, Mr Francis, I don’t know about none of that. You gotter believe me.’

‘No cocoa?’

‘No tarot, neither. I brings out the cards one night, they was near to crossing theirselves. Them ole villages in Romania, it’s like nothin’ changed in centuries. I says, right you are, loveys, I understands. ’

‘What we talking about?’

‘The dead.’ Goldie looked up, defiant. ‘That’s why they was told to leave.’

Bliss was silent. Oh fuck, was this contagious?

‘Dead people all around in the mornin’ mist. The cold comin’ off of ’em. Dead men. Got so nobody would work with them, so they was told to leave.’

‘And that’s it, is it?’

‘I knowed you wouldn’t understand.’

Bliss felt his mood darken.

‘Goldie, that earns you no points at all. And you’re out of time, so let’s go back to the old lady. Here’s the bottom line. If the killing of Maria and Ileana Marinescu
is
linked to what happened to Granny Wise, and the killers were to find out exactly why—’

‘You’re bloody mad, you are!’

‘
… why
those girls were forced to target old ladies in a hitherto safe city…
if
, by some unfortunate leakage of investigative data, they were to find who was running the Marinescus… they – or their mates – might think there was unfinished business, Goldie. You know what I mean?’

Goldie’s wicker chair creaked in a fragile way.

‘You’re an damned evil bastard, you are, Mr Francis.’

‘Yeh,’ Bliss said. ‘And the
wairst
of it is, from your point of view… I might soon be departing this division, so I have absolutely no reason to look after you any more.’

T
HE LIGHT IN
the church was dusty brown, a muffled sunglow in the chancel. This early, it always felt like some ornate derelict cinema.

Merrily had washed and dressed, very basically. A couple of hours before she’d need to get ready for the Maundy service. No sign of Jane yet, so she’d fed Ethel and run across the road to Lol’s house. The early light had hung a grey pall on the empty living room where the wood stove was dead. She’d tried the knocker, pointlessly, and then she was walking back across the empty pink-lit square, panting, dazed and wide-eyed with panic.