Phil Rickman - The Cold Calling

It meant this picture, this image, of stones and death, had been in his tumbling, dislocated dreams when Andy’s hands were around his head and the defibrillator was smashing at his ribcage.

Part of him came into you , Cindy said. Cindy, the has-been, end-of-the-pier shamanic joke.

Cindy had it right.

More crimes in heaven and earth…

Cindy, Godalmighty, was right . The intensity of it all made it impossible to stand still. He walked around the hall, arms and legs tingling with electricity, unable to pull his eyes away from the Turner: stones and energy and violent death.

‘It’s his favourite.’ Magda Ring glanced at him once, a flicker of uncertainty, as she shed her dusty Barbour on the hall floor. ‘Turner’s Stonehenge , 1828. You never seen it before?’

‘Not on a wall,’ Maiden said. ‘I’m sorry. I like paintings. You ready to talk now?’

Letting her think it had been a deliberate ploy, him appearing hypnotized by the print. A digression. Subtle, like a TV detective.

‘Prettier ones in here.’

Magda led him into a large, airy drawing room with a beamed ceiling and oak pillars, plush armchairs set out like a hotel lounge. And more Stonehenge prints: Girtin, Inchbold and Constable’s impressionistic sketch of the rain-washed megaliths with the double rainbow.

‘The sister called you in, I suppose.’

For a moment, he could only think of Sister Andy.

‘Grayle,’ Magda said. ‘Listen, Inspector, I didn’t know. I really didn’t know she was there. I didn’t know she was dead.’

‘I’m supposed to believe that?’ Detective-mode. ‘Why did you dig the hole? How did you know where to dig?’

‘Because …’ Her eyes flashed. ‘… to satisfy myself it was nonsense. I didn’t believe it for one minute, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. And this was the first chance I had to check it out. Adrian gone to his wedding, Roger up to town for the weekend. When he goes off in his helicopter, at least you can tell when he’s coming back.’

‘You must’ve grabbed the pick before he was over the horizon.’

‘Perfect time, I’m trying to tell you. Course starts next Wednesday. Staff — cleaners and people — start arriving this afternoon, get the place ready. No time to waste. Look, I had the pick ready round the back of the helicopter shed. I was going to allay my own fears once and for all. Oh God . I can’t believe it. It’s all destroyed, everything we worked for’s ruined . ‘

‘Magda, a woman’s dead.’ Before they left the scene, he’d placed concrete slabs back in the hole, covering the body. ‘You do know who it is, don’t you?’

‘The hair.’ Magda’s face puckered. She tightened her jaw, looked down for a moment. ‘Can I get a drink?’

‘Course.’

She brought whisky and tumblers from a stripped-pine corner cupboard. ‘You?’

He accepted a small one. Turned out to be the one which tasted of peat, damp and lonely, moorland meeting the sea, no visible horizon. It would be, today.

Sadness seeped through him. He saw Em, as Suzanne, sitting opposite, black hair, black eyes, mauve lipstick. The image crucified him.

Too much time passed and Magda was standing in front of him: tight black sweater, jeans with a spiked leather belt. Pale, but together.

‘Sorry?’

‘I said, What are you?’ Magda said. ‘You’re not an ordinary policeman, are you?’

‘No such thing as an ordinary policeman.’

‘I mean, not local.’

‘Serious Crimes Bureau,’ Maiden lied. ‘We …’ He hesitated. ‘We’re investigating a series of murders linked to prehistoric sites.’

‘Whaaaat?’ Magda Ring was aghast. Sank down, involuntarily, into one of the armchairs. He observed her: she was loosened with shock, rather than relief at finally being found out; there was an obvious difference.

‘Look …’ Stared at him, green eyes wide, the colour scared out of her face again. ‘For God’s sake … this is nothing like … This isn’t murder . ‘

‘How long have you known she was there?’

‘I didn’t know , I keep telling you. I half thought it was fantasy. Everybody who comes here inhabits a fantasy world. It takes you over. The unseen Britain. The spirit-country. The whole earth-mysteries game. It’s to do with romantic theories to make us feel … connected.’

‘So whose body is it?’

‘Ersula Underhill. I thought you knew. The sister-’

‘Grayle. Sure. I’ve spoken to Grayle.’

‘Inspector, I believed … I swear to God I believed Ersula had gone back to the States. Because of Roger. And then the sister shows up, incognito, and obviously Ersula didn’t go back, and the sister suspects … something. Look, shouldn’t you be making phone calls? Summoning your forensic people. Whoever. Shouldn’t this place be buzzing?’

‘She’ll come to no harm down there.’

‘I want her out of here.’ Magda shuddered. ‘I want her safely stashed away in some path lab. I never liked her when she was alive. One of those … lofty, know-it-all Americans. Roger thought she was wonderful because she was so damn serious all the time, tons of extra gravitas to bluff the punters. Brings out the worst in me, though, that kind of attitude.’

‘That a fact?’

‘Look.’ Magda frowned. ‘If I’m going to have to watch every bloody thing I say, I want my solicitor here.’

Maiden sighed. ‘I’ve got no witness, you’re not in an interview room, you’re not being taped, and it seems unlikely to me that you killed her. All right?’

‘Delirious.’ Magda sniffed. ‘I’ve got to start looking for a job. It was good here, for a while. Until it got stupid.’

‘Why did it get stupid?’

She offered him more whisky; he shook his head.

‘Greed.’ Falling back in the chair, crossing her legs, the bottle on her lap. ‘Always bloody greed, isn’t it? He was the country’s most respected Neolithic archaeologist. Honorary fellow of Christ Church, etcetera, etcetera. And then he started doing TV. Wouldn’t think it could turn the head of a guy that educated, would you? Let me tell you, they’re the worst. Especially someone with a libido off the Richter scale who’s had to worry about the career risks involved in shafting too many students. Now, suddenly he’s getting fan letters on funny-smelling paper. Dear Professor, that shot of you stripped to the waist in the Roman villa just haunts me, so if you’ve got a spare place on any of your digs, I’d be happy to accommodate your trowel.’

‘The University of the Earth began as a supply-line for non-stop totty?’

‘Partly. Well, the big angle’s money, obviously. Roger wasn’t slow to pick up on the fact that a large proportion of the people writing in to the programme were New Agers and earth-mysteries fanatics trying to convert him. That’s where the real money is. People don’t want digs, where after six months you’ve uncovered some boring foundations and a few bits of pottery. They want the Ark of the bloody Covenant. So … he starts to compromise. The reason I know all this, by the way, is I was his producer at the BBC. Before he realized he could quadruple his income overnight by making his own programmes for Channel Four, and I went with him, naturally, because who wouldn’t?’

Magda looked defiant, drank some whisky.

‘And, no, he wasn’t fucking me. Needed me too much. Doesn’t sleep with anybody he might need in two months’ time.’

‘As the abrupt termination of a loving relationship often offends,’ Maiden said wryly.

‘Quite. Which is also why he didn’t sleep with … her … Ersula. Woman after his own heart, you see. Talked crap in a very learned, intense way. Everything she said sounded like a balanced argument resulting from years of study. He loved that. He wanted to employ her. He wanted her mind. I mean, on the payroll. Whereas — this was the problem — she wanted him . Body and mind.’