Phil Rickman - The Secrets of Pain

The overhead light made a twinkling star in an ear stud as Sollers Bull turned to examine Merrily. She saw a man of a little over medium height. A keenly pointed face, with deep bevelled cheeks. He was wearing tight black jeans and a red T-shirt with a message on it in black: Not a fox-hugger. The small car pulled away, headlights on full beam. Maybe the woman was a journalist.

‘This is Merrily Watkins,’ Annie Howe said.

Didn’t explain further. She had her mobile out; it had evidently been on vibrate.

‘Excuse me.’ She took a step back on to the path, speaking into the phone. ‘DCI Howe.’ And then, after a silence, her voice low and deliberate, ‘When was this, Karen?’ before moving further away.

‘Erm…’ Merrily looked up at Sollers Bull. She was cold. ‘Would you mind if I had a coffee?’

‘I’ll put some on.’

She followed him into a very classy designer kitchen.

‘This an old house, Mr Bull?’

‘Not particularly. Nineteenth-century and fortunately not listed so I’ve been able to do what I like with it.’

‘The farmhouse must be listed, though.’

‘Grade Two. Starred.’

‘ Was it a castle?’

‘No. Older than that. The site was known as Oldcastle because of what was there before. Don’t know what it was, but the stones are probably in the foundations. ’

‘I see.’

Through a window, Merrily saw Annie Howe, in the light grey trench coat, up against a ranch-style fence, listening to the phone. When she came back, her face was paler than the coat, but no less grey.

‘Meant to ask you, how’s Charlie these days?’ Sollers said.

Sitting with his back to the red Aga, stretched out almost diagonally, feet under the hardwood table, hands behind his head. Charlie? This would explain him addressing Howe as Annie. It very much figured that the Oldcastle Bulls would be familiar with her dad.

‘I’ll come straight to the point, Mr Bull. Colin Jones – how well do you know him?’

Sollers looked blank. Genuinely so, Merrily thought, studying him: younger than he looked in the papers and not so distinguished: too flash for that.

‘ Byron Jones?’ Merrily said.

‘Oh, well, I know him,’ Sollers said. ‘Though not particularly well.’

‘Have you ever done business with him?’ Howe asked.

‘Kind of business?’

‘Cattle, for example. Ever sold any cattle to Mr Jones?’

‘I wasn’t aware that Mr Jones was even in the livestock business. Or the meat trade, come to that.’

‘That’s not quite answering the question, is it, sir?’

Annie Howe began unbuckling the belt of her coat, unhurried, like she was prepared to stay until she got what she’d come for. Only Merrily, sitting next to her, opposite Sollers, saw that her fingers were unsteady, fumbling it.

Sollers straightened up in his chair. His sleek, pointy face looked… foxy.

‘No, I’ve never sold any beasts to Mr Jones.’

‘Or maybe given him one?’

‘Do you know what Hereford cattle are worth?’ Sollers glanced from Howe to Merrily and back to Howe. ‘What exactly is this about?’

‘Just so that we have this clear, Mr Bull,’ Howe said, ‘you’re saying that, as far as you’re aware, no animal bred at Oldcastle has ever been sent to Colin Jones’s establishment. Sent either to Jones or his business partner, Kenny Mostyn.’

‘How would I know?’

‘As far as you’re aware.’

‘I think you’d better explain.’

‘I don’t have to explain anything,’ Howe said.

Her skin looked cold as bone.

She hadn’t said what the phone call had been about. But then, police business, why would she?

‘Thank Christ,’ Danny said.

Kenny Mostyn, and he was on his own and no longer wearing a dinner jacket.

Dressed for action, in fact: dark jeans, black fleece. Likely his suit was in the overnight bag over one shoulder; Danny had been worried that Mostyn might be staying the night at The Court and they’d still be sitting here when the sun come up, stiff as corpses. But mabbe Mostyn wasn’t overnight-guest material.

‘Looks like you was right then, Gomer.’

They had the old Jeep parked under a willow tree, edge of the parking area. Only a couple of dozen vehicles left. This was a select dinner party. Gomer had ID’d Councillor Lyndon Pierce, fellers on that level, usual suspects.

‘Mostyn just showin’ his face,’ Gomer said, ‘but he got business elsewhere to see to.’

‘Don’t switch on yet, let him get clear of the gate.’

‘En’t daft, boy. Keep our distance all the way.’

‘Only thing worries me,’ Danny said, ‘is what if the Scotch bloke’s told him about a feller lookin’ for him with a cock to put in the ring. Best I could think of at the time, see.’

‘Too late to get fussed about that.’

There was a furry growl under Gomer’s voice now. Likely due to seeing Mostyn dressed much the same as he had been that night in the snow. Everything coming back, and the worst of it was that – for just a short while, surrounded by these lithe, prowling young guys – he’d felt just a bit scared. And even worse than that…

… mabbe like an old man.

Gomer was gonner hold that against Kenny Mostyn for ever.

It was like Cornel was gobbling up the night, wildly excited as he guided Jane, limping, through the gap in the high wire fence. Holding her hand inside his, which was big and dry. The moon lit an open space, with army-type huts, metal gates leading to fields and woodland.

‘What is it?’

‘Big boys’ playground.’

Jane gave up. The way his mood had altered, she could only think he’d taken something. Maybe when he went off, apparently for a pee in the woods and she hadn’t heard anything. Snorting coke from a folded tenner.

‘Training centre,’ Cornel said. ‘Assault course, big pond they cross on ropes, professional shooting range… and all the things they daren’t do at The Court because it’s too close to the village.’

‘And cockfights?’

‘Cockfights, yeah, yeah, sure.’

‘So this is connected with The Court?’

‘Court’s just paintballing, clay-shooting, a few pheasant shoots and all that regular shit. And then you’re asked discreetly if you’d like to do some real shooting. Not for the wimps and the veggies. And that’s when you meet Kenny for rough shoots in the woods, back of The Court and then maybe this other guy, ex-SAS, leads a weekend in the Black Mountains or the Beacons, which is a lot tougher, and the hunting’s on a whole different level – you don’t kill, you don’t eat. And that’s where you start paying for yourself.’

‘You did that?’

‘Sure, sure, sure, but all the time – this is what pissed me off – you’re aware of other guys getting handpicked for really heavy shit. I wanted that – more than any of them.’

Cornel had his wire-cutters around a strand of barbed wire where a hole had been cut in the fence. Kept leaning on the handles, snipping bits off the wire. ‘When I was at the LSE, used to read all these SAS books. I identified with that. Different jungle, that’s all. And these other guys are going off at midnight in a Land Rover, and I go to Kenny – what about me? And he’s going, We don’t think you’re quite ready, Cornel, and I’m like, What exactly do you want me to prove? Name it.’

Jane was trying to ease her hand away, without making it seem like a snub, but Cornel kept squeezing it, words spurting out of him.

‘’Cause I thought he was like my mate. He’d start taking me on one side, whispering the kind of thing you appreciate knowing when you’re on a shooting trip and the others are all upper-class bastards who’ve been handling shotguns since they could walk. Thought it was him and me. One time I saw what I thought was this fox in the woods, about to pop it when I realized it was a dog. And that night, in the pub, when I was alone with Kenny, he said, why didn’t you just shoot it?’