Reginald Hill - Midnight Fugue

‘Your brother, sir?’ said the man, looking at a list in his hand. ‘Can I have the name and flat number please?’

‘It won’t be on your list. He’s staying with a friend. Alun Watkins, number 39.’

The man looked at him with new interest.

‘And your name, sir?’

‘Jones. Gwyn Jones.’

‘Could you hold on here a tick, sir?’

The officer turned his back on the journalists and spoke into his personal radio. After listening for a moment he turned around and said, ‘If you’d like to bring your car forward, sir, I’ll raise the barrier.’

Ruddlesdin, who’d clearly got close enough to hear this last remark, fell into step beside him as he returned to his car.

‘You must have clout,’ he said admiringly. ‘Else you’re very clever. Any chance of a lift?’

Jones ignored him. There was a tight feeling in his stomach as if he’d eaten something so bad his digestive juices didn’t even want to get to grips with it.

He got into his car and edged forward. The reporters were still taking photos. He found he hated them so much he could gladly have run them down.

As the barrier slowly rose, the passenger door opened and a young man slipped in beside him.

‘Get the fuck out of here!’ he yelled, thinking it was another journalist.

But the man was holding a police warrant card before his face.

‘DC Bowler, sir,’ he said. ‘If you just drive towards the caravan there and park alongside.’

‘What’s all the fuss about?’ Gwyn said as he drove slowly forward. ‘I’m just visiting my brother, and he’s only staying here, he’s not a resident. Have you come across him? He’s a lot like me, people say, only eight years younger. Have you seen him?’

It was as if by talking about Gareth he could create the cheeky young sod’s physical presence.

‘And his name’s Jones, is it, sir?’

‘That’s right. Gareth Jones. Not surprising as Jones is my name too.’

‘Yes, sir. Are you Gwyn Jones of the Messenger, sir?’

He said, ‘Yes, I am,’ hoping that the young cop would say, ‘Thought I recognized you. Good try, mate,’ then tell him to drive the car back to the barrier.

Instead he just nodded as if this confirmed something he already knew.

‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.

‘Just park here, sir. Now if you come with me, DS Wield will fill you in.’

He climbed slowly out of the car. He felt he was getting very close to a place he didn’t wish to arrive at. He looked back towards the distant barrier and found himself longing to be on the far side of it, one of the assembled pack, chatting, joking, smoking, drinking, passing the boring hours that any decent reporter knows have to be put in if they are to get a decent story to put out.

Then in a sudden fit of revulsion he told himself savagely that all that interested those bastards were bloody facts to grab their readers, saccharined with ‘human interest’ to make the readers feel less guilty about enjoying the gore.

‘This way, sir,’ urged DC Bowler, with an encouraging smile.

He was a nice-looking boy, with a fresh, open face, not at all the kind of messenger you’d expect to bring you bitter words to hear and bitter tears to shed.

Perhaps I’ve got it wrong, thought Jones as he walked towards the caravan. Perhaps this sense of ill-bodement clutching my heart is just some atavistic throw-back, as meaningless as those claims to foreknowledge always made by Great Aunt Blodwen twenty-four hours after any disaster.

Then at the top of the steps leading up into the caravan a very different kind of man appeared, this one with a face as ill-omened as Scrooge’s door-knocker.

And as if in confirmation of this sudden downward lurch of his spirits, a voice cried, ‘Gwyn, oh Gwyn boy! This is terrible, truly terrible!’

He turned his head in the direction of what he presumed was Loudwater Villas and saw a man running towards him, his face contorted unrecognizably. But Gwyn Jones recognized him.

So did Edgar Wield, standing on the caravan steps. Where the hell did he come from? This is getting to be a habit!

‘Bowler, grab him!’ he yelled.

But it was too late for any useful grabbing.

As Bowler intercepted and folded Alun Watkins in his arms, he was already close enough for his haggard, tear-stained face to be clearly visible. And now Gwyn Jones came at last to understand that though words could not create another’s physical presence, they could certainly take it away forever.

‘Gwyn, bach, he’s dead!’ cried Watkins in a voice powerful enough to carry all the way down to the straining ears at the barrier. ‘He’s dead. I’m so so sorry. Dear Gareth’s dead!’

In the gathering dusk it seemed further back to her car than Gina remembered and it was with some relief that she finally reached it. As she opened the door, she saw a car speeding down the hill towards her. For a second she thought perhaps Alex had decided there were still things to say. Then she saw it was a blue VW Golf, not the dirty grey Astra.

It slowed to a halt as it reached her. A woman was driving. The man in the passenger seat spoke through the open window.

‘Having trouble, darling?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m fine.’

‘You sure?’ said the woman, leaning across.

‘No. I just fancied a bit of air so I had a little stroll,’ said Gina.

It was kind of these people to be concerned, but she was not in the mood for kindness. She wanted to be left to herself in the private space of her car, to sit there till the darkness cloaked her completely, and to let flow all the still-unshed tears.

She turned to her open car door.

The man and woman exchanged glances, the woman nodded as if confirming a decision, and they both got out.

Even when the man grasped her arm Gina couldn’t believe that this was anything more than a really irritating excess of good Samaritanism. But when the woman opened the back door of the Golf and the man began to push her towards it, her mind did a somersault that brought all of Alex’s warnings about the expendability of staked goats to the surface.

She tried to wrench herself free. All that happened was she felt her arm forced up between her shoulder blades and her head cracked against the frame of the door as she was forced into the VW. She screamed. The man slid in beside her, the door slammed shut, the car set off. She screamed again.

The man slapped her face.

She stopped screaming.

The man said, ‘That’s better, darling. Any more noise from you and I’ll break your jaw.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Vince,’ said the woman. ‘How’s she going to talk then? Let’s find somewhere quiet, then she can scream all she likes.’

When Maggie Pinchbeck turned off the narrow country road to come to a halt before the high gates of Windrush House, the grey Jaguar that had been following her for the last half-mile turned too.

Maggie wound down her window so that the camera could get a better view of her face in the gathering dusk.

A voice she recognized as Milton Slingsby’s said, ‘Hi, Miss Pinchbeck.’

Then the camera adjusted, presumably to look at the car behind hers. Its driver decided to make life easier and got out and advanced till he was peering right up into the lens.

He was a tall imposing figure, in his forties, with a heavy jaw that looked as if it hadn’t seen a razor for a couple of days and a shock of vigorous brown hair, beginning to be tipped with silver.

He glared aggressively at the camera, but didn’t need to give his name as Slingsby said, ‘Mick, hi! It’s Sling. Long time no see!’

A short pause, then the gates swung open.