Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

‘By comparison, no time at all.’ Bliss looked at her, his eyes slitted. ‘Still funny it should happen when you’re around, though.’

‘You’re considering the possibility that I did it?’

‘Can you think of a better way of little Francis becoming Annie Howe’s favourite detective in the whole world? Instead of off the flaming case.’

Merrily hadn’t yet been to the office, slightly worried about facing Sophie, whose reasoning, on the issue of Wychehill and Syd Spicer, had been, as it had turned out, flawless.

Sophie wasn’t in, however – probably over at the Palace, dealing with the Bishop’s mail. The computer was switched off, but four messages were on the answering machine, one of them non-routine and left less than four minutes ago.

‘Mrs Watkins, this is Winchester Sparke.’

Winchester?

Sophie came in with a cardboard file under her arm, sat down opposite Merrily and began to unpack it, assembling a small pile of letters on the desk.

‘I need to speak with you.’ Winnie Sparke’s voice was harsh and frayed. Please call me back. I— The cops have taken Tim. Came pounding on his door … took him away.’

Merrily rang Bliss on his mobile.

‘Hold on a mo.’ She heard the sound of feet on stairs and then an outside acoustic, city traffic. ‘Yeh, I’ve just heard. It was a surprise to me, too. You know anything about this feller?’

‘He’s a composer. A music teacher. What’s the basis for it?’

‘I don’t know, Merrily, it’s not my case.’

‘Can’t you find out?’

‘If I make a nuisance of meself. Hate to use a hackneyed old phrase, but what’s in it for me? And I don’t want a mention in your prayers; you’re a Protestant.’ He sniffed. ‘All right, here’s my inspired guess: an outrage crime.’

‘Is an outrage crime what I’m thinking it is?’

‘Way I ’m looking at it is, we’ve got two local dealers taken out within a fortnight, both in rural areas. I told you about the guy in Pershore?’

‘But didn’t you say he was shot in his car? Modus operandi doesn’t exactly tally, does it?’

‘ Modus schmodus , Pershore’s still only half an hour’s drive from Wychehill. But is Annie Howe looking at it from that perspective? Oh no, too small-time and messy. Annie wants an outrage crime . By which I mean where some normally law-abiding person or persons is pushed well beyond the limits of socially acceptable behaviour by the perceived collapse of everything he or she holds dear.’

‘That’s vigilantism, Frannie. That’s Death Wish 2 . I’ve never met Tim Loste and I don’t know that much about him. But a musician and choirmaster, however troubled, doesn’t really strike me as the most obvious serial killer of drug dealers.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Annie wants Loste because he’s white and middle-class. I’ll see what I can find out and get back to you.’

Merrily held the phone to her ear long after the click, watching Sophie sorting the Bishop’s correspondence, recalling her reaction to the Royal Oak becoming Inn Ya Face.

One day, I think, we may be pushed too far .

‘You were off sick on Monday,’ Robert Morrell said.

Sick was a dirty word to Morrell. He worked out three nights a week in the school gym, did the London Marathon, and his skin was lightly tanned all year round. You had to be suspicious of a head teacher with a sunlamp.

Jane nodded. ‘It was a migraine. I get them sometimes in summer.’

‘And it persisted through yesterday.’

‘Well, I was going to come in yesterday, and I went out to wait for the bus and it … it just came on again.’

‘You been to the doctor, Jane?’

‘Well, no … I know what it is. It’s a migraine. I’ve had it before. It’s like … it’s horrible. First of all, you see these big black spots in front of your eyes, and then it…’

‘Comes and goes, I imagine.’

‘Yes, it does. That’s what it does. Comes and … goes.’

‘And this … conveniently capricious migraine was presumably in remission on Monday night when you paid a surprise visit to Councillor Pierce at his home.’

Oh God. Any vague hope that Jane had had that this was not why Morrell had sent for her hit the deck like a bag of flour. It was going to take a lot of sweeping up.

‘I … erm, the migraine seemed to be easing off by the evening, so I went for a walk in the cool air to clear my head … and I just happened to be passing that way and … you know … got chatting to these people. Not knowing who they were, at first. Only, the thing is, I’m using aspects of local history for my art project, and I was thinking that now I was feeling better I could at least do some work on the, erm, project, and so … I’m sorry, Rob, this probably sounds…’

‘Yes, it does, Jane.’

‘I didn’t … I mean…’

Jane’s resolve collapsed. She really didn’t like this new policy of Morrell’s where, when you reached the sixth form, you were permitted to call him Rob. Like you were all mates. So that when you did something wrong, it was like you’d let down your mate. Which was totally ridiculous because there was no way Jane would ever get close to having a mate like Morrell, with his tracksuits, his sunlamp, his neatly shaven head, his minimalist office, his Tony Blair smile…

He did it now, that ghastly smile, and then he leaned back in his executive chair and spoke with the kind of horrible lazy fluency that must have persuaded the thick bastards on the education authority that he was smooth enough to do this job.

‘Jane, tell me … which particular part of your project involves haranguing elected members and officers of the Herefordshire Council for performing their democratic duty in opening the way for the kind of much-needed rural housing that may enable you and your fellow students to remain in this area when you leave the education system, rather than becoming economic migrants?’

By the time Jane had worked this out, it was too late for any kind of smart response. Morrell’s smile vanished, like that of the tiger deciding it was time to stop playing with his prey and get down to the meal.

‘Perhaps I need to make it clear to you, Ms Watkins, that, as a sixth-former, you are an ambassador for this school in the greater community. Do you understand what I mean?’

Jane just nodded; couldn’t even manage a respectable display of dumb insolence.

‘All right. On this occasion, to save further embarrassment, and to protect our exemplary record on truancy, I informed Councillor Mrs Bird – the vice-chairman of Education and one of our governors, as I’d have thought you would remember – that on this occasion you’d been given time off to work on your project.’

‘Thank you,’ Jane said feebly.

‘And I’ll thank you –’ Morrell’s palm slammed down on his desktop ‘ – not to drag the name of this school into disrepute in future, with your lies and your childish fantasies. Do you understand what I’m saying? Far from covering up for you, next time …’

Jane nodded.

‘Good,’ Morrell said lightly. ‘Off you go.’

Bending his shaven head over some report, he highlighted a line of type with a yellow marker pen. In the doorway, ashamed of her craven attitude, Jane turned round.

‘It’s not low-cost housing, you know. It’s luxury, executive—’

‘Geddout, Jane,’ Morrell murmured. ‘You’re beginning to bore me.’

Jane just like fell out into the corridor, knowing her face would be red and scrunched up. Feeling the heat of tears and weight of the Establishment. It was like … Stalinist: the Council, intent on crushing all opposition, putting the word out to the chief of police to warn her off.