Friends of the Dusk (41 page)

‘The feller who hosted festivals,’ Bliss said. ‘Now in an old folks’ home.’

And unfit to be interviewed, according to inquiries. Advanced dementia. Been in care for years. They’d checked him out last night, and his place in the Golden Valley, now under different ownership.

They listened to Turner talking about this man’s obsession with a story from a medieval chronicler who Vaynor had only vaguely heard of but could probably unearth if it was felt to be useful. Bottom line: Kindley-Pryce’s insistence that the story was based on fact. That it might be the first really solid European vampire story. And that he was living in the place where what Vaynor liked to call a
sanguinary predator
had taken a large number of lives.

A major obsession for Kindley-Pryce, who’d come back from America to buy the place. A minor obsession for Turner who, at the time, had seen a very saleable documentary film in it.

‘He’d also been co-writing these books for older kids, based
on this story, and they used to hold events there, very medieval in atmosphere, very televisual.’

‘And you were a regular guest,’
Vaynor said.

‘I’d made this film,
The Bloodline of Dracula,
and I could see something even better. Had everything. A real villain and also a hero in the knight who eventually succeeded in disposing of him in a very Van Helsing kind of way.’

‘You were thinking you’d follow this Kindley-Pryce in his… quest?’

‘And we already had all these great visuals from his weekend festivals.’

‘Was Tristram Greenaway working with you at the time?’

‘Couldn’t keep him away. He’d gotten to be friends with Kindley-Pryce – Selwyn, he, uh, liked young people around. And Trissie, he just wanted to mix with glamorous, important people.’

‘Your film,’
Vaynor said.
‘It never got made.’

‘It, uh… Few reasons for that. Mainly, end of the day, it was just a story from a medieval chronicle, and medieval chronicles are notoriously full of bullshit. We needed something harder. We needed a peg to hang it on. Selwyn was convinced – from not much evidence – that he was living in the place where the undead guy had done his stuff. He also thought he knew where they’d had to bury the corpse to stop it reanimating, which had to be close to Hereford Cathedral, and he—’

‘Can I stop you there for a sec? Why did he think that?’

‘Bloody hell, Darth,’ Bliss said.

‘Because the Bishop of Hereford, at the time, was involved. If we could’ve found the remains, it would’ve been the biggest thing since they dug up Richard III under a parking lot in Leicester, but the chances of that happening were remote. Selwyn and I had an agreement that if we could harden it up I’d offer a feature-length documentary to the networks. We set up a website to which we could admit people who could be useful, and we called ourselves Friends of the Dusk. Trissie Greenaway was
in the original group. All done under the umbrella of… I don’t really understand these Web set-ups, but it was some outfit that could provide security and filter emails.’

‘But nothing came of it. Was that the only reason you gave up on the film?’

‘You can’t wait for ever. I always wanted to move into feature films, movies, and I got a chance over here.’

‘A call from Hollywood.’

‘Kind of, yeah. You don’t say no to the big H.’

‘When did you last look at the Friends of the Dusk site, Mr Turner?’

‘Don’t recall. Don’t know if it’s still extant.’

‘Do you know anything about an email sent to the Friends, via Neogoth, from Mr Greenaway?’

‘Hell, no… I keep saying, I gave up on all that years ago.’

‘So what would your reaction be if you found out that Tristram Greenaway had posted evidence of a deviant burial a short distance from Hereford Cathedral?’

Pause.

‘You’re saying he did, Detective?’

‘Suppose it was a human skull with a stone in its mouth. Would that be fairly conclusive to you?’

‘Shit, you’re kidding.’

‘And obviously a good image for TV.’

‘Well, yeah, but—’

‘When were you last in the UK, Mr Turner?’

‘I live here now. I’m a US citizen with an office in Burbank. Wife, kid…’

‘When were you last over here?’

‘In the summer. Briefly. Aw, come on…’

‘When did you last see Mr Pryce?’

‘Years ago. He’s probably dead by now. He had Alz— I dunno, some form of dementia. He was a fucking vegetable. Another reason it was never gonna happen. That side of my life, it’s over.’

‘So you weren’t in touch with Tristram Greenaway? You didn’t have an email address or anything for him? Or he yours.’

‘Are you kidding? A boy who once ran errands over fifteen years ago?’

Bliss was impressed with the way the lad had handled it. Could see why he was excited.

‘One thing strikes me immediately, Darth. He’s a TV documentary man. All right, he’s making feature films now, but old instincts die hard. He had to abandon his follow-up to
Bloodline
because it wasn’t sexy enough, but now it’s all lighting up again and he’s got a bloody
mairder.
How friggin sexy is that? And he’s not displaying any excitement. He’s not asking
you
any questions.’

‘That’s true,’ Vaynor said. ‘And also… he’s lying about something else.’

‘Go on…’

‘He said he’d had to give up buying this house, the Court, because opportunity was knocking in the States. The call from Hollywood? But the guy I spoke to who knew him, Leo Defford – documentary producer who evidently didn’t crack Hollywood – said Turner was out there for nearly two years, doing menial assistant-director jobs before he got anywhere. Defford says he could never understand why he got out of the UK so quickly, but it wasn’t for the money.’

‘That’s nice work, son,’ Bliss said. ‘We can use that. I don’t see him as a suspect in the Greenaway or Soffley cases, but it does look like he’s gorra few things to hide. And – this is the point, Darth – it also looks like he has some video I’d
really
like to see.’

‘At Kindley-Pryce’s parties, ten years ago?’

‘You see a better opportunity of gerrin all your suspects on view together in one place? It’s like friggin’ Hercule Poirot in the library.’ Bliss was out of his chair. ‘Get back on to him.’

‘He’ll be in bed.’

‘Well, get the bastard
out
of bed. Lean on him. Threaten him. Tell him we’ll talk to the FBI and see it gets leaked to the
LA Times
that he’s being questioned as part of an investigation into… into
the mairder of a young gay man in England.
’ Bliss sat down again, pleased with that. ‘I don’t give a shit how you do it, but I want a DVD of Mr Pryce’s parties on this desk by mid-morning.’

He went up to the MIR to tell Annie. She was with Karen Dowell and the lads going through the CCTV for about half the city. Nobody looking impressed.

‘About twenty-five people who might have gone into Organ Yard at an appropriate time. We’ve identified about half of them, and none looks terribly interesting at this stage. But—’

‘When you gerra minute, ma’am, there’s something I’d like you to listen to.’ What a turn-on it was, calling her ma’am, especially when a case looked like shifting up a gear. ‘The parties at this Kindley-Pryce’s place, Cwmarrow. We actually think video exists of the Friends of the Dusk at play.’

Annie raised an eyebrow.

‘Interesting. Oh… just so you know – Cwmarrow. Traffic are attending an RTC there. Storm-related. Fallen tree.’

‘I do hope there wasn’t a skelly underneath.’ Bliss smiled. ‘Anybody hurt?’

‘One dead,’ Annie said.

55

Grim visitor

T
HE POWER CAME
back before ten a.m. Could’ve been worse, often was. In case it went off again, Jane was straight up to her apartment and the computer.

She’d awoken several times in the night – probably the wind hammering the house – but each time she’d remembered the story from
De Nugis Curialium
.

Still hadn’t found a complete English translation, but she had found what was probably the best modern retelling of the story.

Of all places, it was in a book she’d been dipping into for years,
The Folklore of Herefordshire
by Ella Mary Leather. The reason she’d forgotten was that it wasn’t part of the book itself, was only mentioned in the introduction by E. Sidney Hartland who’d been discussing burial anomalies, including…

Oddly, it wasn’t told by Mrs Leather in the book itself. Tempting to think that was because she regarded it as history rather than folklore, but more likely because it wasn’t linked to a specific location.

Jane copied E. Sidney Hartland’s version into the computer, highlighting significant bits.

The background had been related to the Bishop of Hereford, Gilbert Foliot. Jane Googled him. An absolutely real person, a monk, appointed to the Hereford diocese in 1148, in the reign of King Stephen. Later became Bishop of London, so he must’ve known what he was doing.

The man who approached him was an English knight, William Loudun.

Yes! Jane confirmed that Cwmarrow Castle had been in the hands of the
Loudon
family. Presumably the same name.

Hartland wrote:

So far, the story was more or less identical to the one retold by Kindley-Pryce in his
Borderlight
and later appropriated for Foxy Rowlestone’s
The Summoner.

Gilbert Foliot had been dead for more than ten years when, in 1199, Walter Map had
almost
become Bishop of Hereford. But, as Map described himself as a man of the Welsh borders, it seemed unlikely that he hadn’t encountered Foliot. Kindley-Pryce hadn’t mentioned this, but then why should he?
Borderlight
was less an academic book than a showcase for Caroline Goddard’s artwork.

Had Map actually had this story first-hand from Gilbert Foliot? Like why not?

According to Hartland’s translation, Foliot suggested William Loudun dig up the body of the summoner and sever its neck with the spade. Both the corpse and the grave should then be ‘asperged’ with holy water and the body put back.

Didn’t work.

And then the summoner – Hartland was actually calling him a vampire by this stage – called out William himself ‘with a threefold citation’, whatever that was. She’d find out. One day.

But William had had enough.

Now that was interesting. Took Jane back to last night’s research into the djinn. She rechecked. The sword. Both djinns and fairies were said to be repelled, weakened, damaged by iron. Why? It was just there, in universal folklore. It had been speculated that it was because human blood contained iron and therefore connected with human life-energy. Anyway, iron was magical. These threads just went round and round.

So what was the
maleficus
: vampire, djinn, or… something else?

OK…

On the Net, she’d found nothing approaching a complete translation of the story, but there were samples of it. Like this alleged direct quote from Gilbert Foliot, as he attempted to explain the nature of the summoner.

Lost soul
implied what was left of the
maleficus
, but
evil angel
suggested something more elemental and demonic.

It suggested possession. A possession beyond death.

This aspect was not discussed in Kindley-Pryce’s version in
Borderlight
, but he did take it a little further, saying that Bishop Foliot had invited William Loudun, partly as a way of safeguarding his community, to remove the body and the head from its original grave and bring it to Hereford, where it would be reburied ‘in suitable fashion within sight of the Cathedral but not within its sacred precincts.’

They had hands-on bishops, didn’t they, in the Middle Ages?

So… Cwmarrow.
Was
this the place? The name Loudon certainly fitted.

Hartland said Map had identified the place as being in Wales. It was likely that Cwmarrow had been in Wales in medieval times – certainly Welsh-speaking. Even now, it was only a few miles from the border.

The village that disappeared would fit the Map story. It would be interesting to try and find descendants of the last people who had lived there into the nineteenth century. Had anything happened to disturb their sleep, make them feel oppressed? Had there been illness, bad harvests, poverty?

She didn’t know enough. So much research to be done. Kindley-Pryce, historian, folklorist, anthropologist, must surely have set it all down somewhere.