Phil Rickman - The Secrets of Pain

‘Oh.’ Merrily had gone still inside. The weird excitement of the unthinkable. ‘And could you smell anything?’

‘I… no. Didn’t charge her for the room. You can’t afford that kind of talk. Perhaps she was making it up, I don’t know.’

Merrily half-turned, had a discreet sniff: only Jeyes Fluid.

‘Where’s he now, Liz?’

‘Brinsop. Near Credenhill. Do you know it?’

‘I know of it.’

Passed the signpost hundreds of times. Never actually been, though the church was apparently worth a visit – couldn’t remember why.

‘He took aerial photos. He’d been on a course in the army so he could take pictures from helicopters for surveill-Should I be talking about this?’

‘What was in the pictures?’

‘Well, there isn’t much there, at Brinsop. Just a few houses and farms and things and an old manor house on the outskirts. And a church, of course. And lines. On the more distant aerial photos he’d drawn lines and marked things with crosses.’

‘Did he explain that?’

‘Kept showing me the pictures and saying what a terrific place it was and how we should live somewhere like that. I didn’t think he was serious. Then suddenly he’d bought some ground. He had a separate bank account for his earnings from the books, and he’d bought this ground before I knew anything about it. About twenty acres, part of a farm where they’d sold the house separately. He said he could get planning permission for a bungalow or something there and convert the outbuildings for accommodation.’

‘He wanted you to move to Brinsop? Sell this house?’

Liz shook her head vaguely, still baffled.

‘My father had died and my mother had gone to live with her sister in Pembrokeshire, and Colin said there was nothing to stay here for now. He said I could still do B and B. Well… I didn’t often say no to him, but this house means a lot to me, and it was in my name!’

‘Was this before he… went off the rails?’

‘About the same time, I suppose. After we separated, he just moved over there. He was in a mobile home, apparently. Like a big caravan.’

‘Do you know why he wanted to live there? To be back near the SAS?’

‘I don’t really understand it. They don’t talk to you after you’ve gone – the ones left in. Well, they do… but they don’t tell you anything. You’re not part of the family any more. He was quite bitter about that, too. Bitter about a lot of things.’

‘What does he do? Farm? Still write?’

‘I think he’s a consultant to one of these firms that runs these survival courses, self-sufficiency and… I don’t really know.’

Merrily nodded. Picked up her bag, then put it down again.

‘Liz… erm… please say no if you think it’s silly or offensive, but would it help at all if I did a little blessing thing… in here?’

Huw Owen’s primary rules: never leave the premises without dropping a blessing, or a prayer. Never leave anyone agitated or stressed. Never leave a vacuum.

Liz looked as if she didn’t quite understand and perhaps didn’t want to.

‘Yes, all right,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

Karen Dowell was on the phone when Bliss got into Gaol Street, just after half-nine, but still managed to flick him a warning look, glancing at his office door. Which was shut. Someone sitting in there.

Bliss decided that if, by some serendipitous anomaly, it was the Chief Constable, he’d smash the bastard before he could get up. Partly because the Chief was bigger than him and partly because he felt like shit this morning – shivery and light-headed, like when some hovering virus was figuring out if you were worth taking down. And partly because it might just be the finest thing he’d ever do in his life.

He nodded to Karen, opened the office door, walked in with his aching head held high, and it was Annie Howe.

The old Annie. The dark trouser suit, the ice-maiden white shirt. The no make-up, the no jewellery. Sitting behind his desk, marking the homework.

Bliss shut the door behind him.

Might have slept last night, but he didn’t think so. He remembered the sun coming up before his wide-open eyes, before the clouds had smothered it. He’d got up, drunk a whole pot of tea, hoping that Annie might call him from Malvern before either of them left for work. Nothing.

‘If you’ve gorra screwdriver on you, Annie, I’ll take me name off the door.’

‘I’m meeting a witness at ten.’ Annie stacked the reports, looked up at him. ‘Why I’m here rather than Oldcastle. I thought you might like to sit in.’

‘Witness to what?’

‘A man in a field? Covered in blood?’

‘Oh.’

‘Agreed to meet in town, if we can protect his identity. Actually, it was the girlfriend who rang in, from a mobile. I’m meeting them at Gilbey’s. Told her I might be accompanied, but that wouldn’t change anything.’

They walked up towards High Town, well apart on the pavement. Annie was wearing a grey double-breasted jacket, a long white woollen scarf.

‘I do hope the Chief realizes this won’t be bloodless,’ Bliss said.

‘Don’t do anything stupid. There may be room for manoeuvre.’

‘Rather be out than have this shite. Chuck in me papers.’

‘You’re being ridiculous.’ Annie quickened her pace. ‘Nobody wants you out of the job. Might even simply be a case of staying in West Mercia, just leaving the division?’

‘No. No, no, no.’ Rage ripping into Bliss as he caught her up on the corner, near the zebra crossing. ‘You don’t understand, do you? I’ve only gorra close me eyes and I can see them… Kairsty and her old man… Sollers Bull and his friggin’ father-in-law from the House of friggin’ Lords. All the foreign hunters behind Countryside Defiance and the tweedy twats who like to think they still control this county, and-’

‘The Chief’s just watching his back. It’s how they survive.’

‘-and right there in the middle… your old man. Charlie Howe with one hand held out for the money and the other making some Masonic sign. Corruption’s embedded in this county, Annie, like… like the blue bits in Danish friggin’ Blue. Try and cut yourself a slice that isn’t riddled with it.’

‘You could say that of just about anywhere.’

‘Yeh, well, I don’t live just about anywhere. And one thing I’ve noticed is that when they go down, the bad guys… when they go down in Hereford, it’s always the outsiders.’

They turned along the narrow passage leading to Gilbey’s bar, where the city’s movers and shakers occasionally moved and shook. In its own secluded little space up against the back of St Peter’s Church.

‘We have to sit outside.’ Annie headed for the farthest table, under a tree and in the shadow of the steeple. ‘You go and order some coffee. I’ll wait here, in case he’s early.’

‘Do we need pink carnations?’

Inside, Bliss scanned the clientele. A few faces that he vaguely recognized. Fortunately, nobody he actually knew. He’d thought maybe Annie had asked him along because she had something encouraging to say to him about how they’d fight this thing together, but that evidently was not going to happen.

When he came out, there was a woman sitting with Annie. Mid-thirties, pale-skinned, wind-straggled blonde hair tucked into the collar of her red leather jacket.

‘This is my colleague, Francis Bliss,’ Annie said. ‘Francis, this is… Janette.’

‘Jan,’ the woman said.

Bliss sat down the other side of Jan.

‘And when will your friend be joining us?’

‘She won’t,’ Jan said.

Bliss looked at Annie, who smiled colourlessly.

‘Jan is our witness, Francis.’