Friends of the Dusk (47 page)

‘Oh, that can wait till I’m elected. No point in wasting it till you can’t afford to offend me any more.’

‘Actually, Charlie,’ Bliss said, ‘it wasn’t about that at all. OK if I offend you about something else?’

Charlie reached across the desk and snapped on the brass desk lamp, aimed the tubular shade at Bliss.

‘This better not be a waste of my valuable time, boy.’

‘In that case, I’ll get straight to it. Let’s look back towards the end of your era as head of CID. A new millennium soon to be dawning, all fresh and free of graft and backhanders, brown envelopes, all the stuff that gave the twentieth century such a bad reputation.’

Charlie said nothing. Bliss talked about historical sexual abuse, how the term had taken off after revelations about Jimmy Savile, the BBC TV personality who helped out in hospitals and helped himself to the patients and anybody else unlikely to complain about being groped by famous hands. Charlie looked irritated.

‘And?’ Charlie said. ‘
And?
’

‘Georgia Welsh,’ Bliss said.

‘Not a name I know, boy.’

‘Mother arrived from London saying she’d been abducted.’

‘By aliens?’

‘Vampires, actually. A DC called Johnny Flynn was asked to look into it.’

‘Flynn. Aye, I remember Flynn. Wasn’t Irish. And, oh, yes, now it does come back to me. A woman with form for robbing a punter. A drunk, a fantasist. Fully investigated. Entirely baseless.’

‘You ever heard of Friends of the Dusk?’

‘Punk rock band?’ Charlie swivelled lightly. ‘See, I don’t get where you’re coming from at all. I had nothing to do with any of this ole shit. That girl, it was run past me as a formality, look. Like dozens of others every week. And, as I recall, she was over sixteen and so able to leave home. And, if my memory don’t fail me – and it
don’t
, Brother Bliss – she turned up.’

Bugger.

‘And you didn’t think to talk to her?’

Charlie put a hand behind an ear.

‘Do I hear the sound of a very thin straw getting clutched?’

‘Here’s another name,’ Bliss said quickly. ‘Hector Pryce.’

‘In what connection?’

‘Mate of yours?’

‘He was a smart young magistrate. A mate of all of us.’

‘You still see him?’

‘Now and then.’

‘You know about Hector’s old man entertaining young ladies –
very
young ladies – at his secluded home in the western hills? Readers of his kids’ books. Like Georgia Welsh.’

‘Selwyn? The distinguished, retired academic, now in a nursing home?’

‘Now in
Hector’s
nursing home.’

‘So?’

‘Charlie, in connection with the murder inquiry you’ve doubtless heard about, we – that’s your daughter, who’s heading up the inquiry – and me are looking at serious evidence of historical abuse of women and children, ten or more years ago, at Selwyn’s rural retreat, Cwmarrow Court. One of those things that just emerge when you’re investigating something else. We think young fans of the books were being invited to linked events at Cwmarrow Court and the ones who were most keen would be invited back to more exclusive functions.’

‘Well, good luck with that inquiry.’

‘Could be big, Charlie, could be wide-ranging. Could be that nobody who had a toe in the pool will walk away. They go on and on, these inquiries and allegations keep coming out of the woodwork for years and years.’

‘And? Scuse me if I missed it, Brother Bliss…’ Charlie folding his arms. ‘… but you don’t yet seem to have pointed a stubby little finger in my direction.’

‘It was your era, Charlie.’

‘End of.’

‘And not a whisper? Word is Johnny Flynn would like to have carried on with that investigation.’

‘What, even though the girl’d turned up?’

‘Lot of other teenage girls passing through the Cwmarrow Valley. Didn’t you think to talk to any?’

You could almost hear the small creak in Charlie’s leathery face.

‘You know what, boy? I should throw you out and lodge a complaint. But I’d hate to think there was anything personal that might damage our relations in the future. Or cause you to become obstructive during my election campaign.’

Charlie was entirely relaxed now, came languidly to his feet and strolled over to one of his filing cabinets.

‘See, when I got a whisper of this, I didn’t believe it. Could’ve decked the bloke who told me, even though he was an old friend. You know what it’s like when you learn something that disgusts you.’

Charlie took out a laminate file, tossed it on his desk.

‘Go on, Brother Bliss. Open it.’

Bliss didn’t touch the file.

Charlie laughed and went back to his swivel chair.

‘I’ll do it for you, then.’

There were half a dozen photographs in the file. Big ones, blow-ups. Charlie took one out, held it up. Bliss saw a woman in a cream trench-coat and hat, getting out of a car in a parking bay, a shop front lit up in the background. Charlie took it away and put it face down on the desk, revealing the second photo in the pile: same woman, face visible, on a doorstep.

A sequence. The sixth picture had been taken from across the road, through the big front window. It showed the woman in the trench coat standing with her arms around a man who looked just slightly shorter. His face wasn’t visible, but that wouldn’t be important.

Charlie made a little amused noise.

‘I gather you’ve started drawing your curtains sooner now. Well, too late, boy.
Too late.
’

‘Charlie, this is—’

‘See, I knew there was somebody. I started dropping hints.
Anne was given every opportunity to tell me who she was seeing. Not a word.’

‘Like it’s any of your business.’

‘I didn’t like that. I thought it might be worth hiring a private inquiry agent.’

‘You wouldn’t do that, Charlie. You’d look up a discreet ex-copper who owed you one.’

Charlie didn’t smile.

‘It was sheer disbelief when I first saw these.
Sheer disbelief.
I had to confirm it. Driving past Anne’s block and saw your car. That bad night. Hurricane Lorna. Parked up a short distance away, rang her up and said I’d be calling in. Sure enough, out you come within minutes, scurrying into the storm. I remember thinking, terrible driving conditions. Good night to get himself killed. But we can’t have everything, can we?’

Bliss said nothing. Sat and took it like a flogging. Thinking hard and coming up with more of nothing. Watching Charlie’s mouth turn down in distaste.

‘I won’t need to tell you how very disappointed I was in Anne. Even after I thought, how far would this little man sink to get at me? I knew you were hurting, look, after our last chat. So… love, is it?’

‘Don’t use words you don’t understand.’

‘And you, boy…’ Charlie’s finger came up. ‘… will see just how much that word means to Anne when one of you’s invited to go on the transfer list. Not just out of the division, out of West Mercia. Hereford’s two most senior detectives in and out of one another’s beds and keeping it secret? I don’t think so, Brother Bliss. Mabbe one of you gets out of the Service, and
I
think that’d be you. Annie wouldn’t go. Her life now, the Job. Something to prove.’

‘She’s still your daughter, Charlie. Remember?’

‘Only nominally now, Brother Bliss, since her descent to a ratty little Mersey mongrel. But…’ Charlie’s mouth smiled.
‘… it don’t need to come to that, do it? We can all be friends. Distant friends, but friends nonetheless.’

‘Yeh, right.’

Bliss’s mouth felt like the bottom of a ditch in July.

‘Meanwhile…’ Charlie brushing the air with a hand. ‘… get out of my house, there’s a good boy.’

Bliss got out.

He was sweating. Sweat was even worse than rain. Driving back to Hereford, he felt too close to crying. What if Charlie was right? What if there was nothing between him and Annie that didn’t depend on them being coppers? Meeting furtively like they were undercover, lying in bed in the early hours, talking about crime, how sick was that?

63

Darker glasses

T
HE WIND HAD
gone. Nothing moved at the top of the vicarage drive except for the night clouds, quite slowly. Merrily thanked the cop and got out and, feeling dizzy, held on to a young sycamore as he drove away.

Images were shuffling like picture cards in her mind: a crushed head and a skull with a stone in its mouth, trees and bone and the ravaging wind. Meaningless, pointless connections, alongside a terrible new thought about how she might have killed Adam Malik.

Jane had the door open, came to take her arm – she looked
that
bad? She saw big writing on the notepad by the phone in the hall.

‘No.’ Jane putting herself in front of the hall table. ‘Don’t try and call anybody. The insurance guy rang about the car. They’ve taken it to a garage in Hereford. They’ll be in touch on whether it’s a write-off, but its age says yes. Now come and eat.
I’m
cooking.’

‘You’re my mother now?’

‘Not planning to be anybody’s mother,’ Jane said briskly. ‘Not ever. I thought you’d got that message. Go and sit down. It’ll be crap, but you’ll be too tired to notice.’

She made it through the omelette. Like all Jane’s omelettes, it was the texture of a bathroom mat. She said how good it was. She sat and inhaled vapour and was starting to tell Jane about Caroline Goddard when the doorbell rang.

Jane switched out the lights, went to peer through the hall window and came back whispering.

‘Up the back stairs. Don’t argue. Without a car, he doesn’t know you’re here. I’ll get rid of him.
Go!
’

‘Never mind.’

Too tired to move, anyway.

Jane didn’t leave the kitchen. She went over and made tea, although he’d shaken his head. He wore a sober suit and a black tie. No velvet, nothing eccentric. He sat down well away from the lamp, telling them he’d had a meeting in Worcester lasting most of the afternoon, so hadn’t heard the news until he came out.

He pushed fingertips into his forehead.

‘I do apologize for burdening you.’

‘Not a burden, Mr Khan.’

‘You may not be saying that when I’ve gone.’

‘Depends how long you’re here,’ Jane said.

‘My daughter’s renowned for her tact.’ Merrily laid down the e-cig. ‘You’ve probably heard I was there. Part of what happened.’

‘I can see you were there. I’m so sorry. I hope you’re not too—’

‘It’s superficial. The pictures in my head are far, far— Look, it’s awful, it’s unbelievably awful. I didn’t get it right. If I’d pushed harder to see Aisha the last time I… but who am I to demand anything?’

‘Easy to play
what if
, Mrs Watkins.’

‘The worst thing that occurred to me – just now, on the way back – did he see my car ahead and slam the brakes on? Thus arriving directly in the path of the tree when he might have got through before it was down. His car was at an angle. I thought he must’ve swerved to avoid the tree, but you wouldn’t, would you? The tree’s going to cover the entire road and both hedges… But you
would
swerve, while braking hard, to avoid an oncoming vehicle on a single-track lane.’

‘Mum, for Christ’s sake—’

‘Act of God,’ Khan said, ‘was the phrase used at the hospital.’

‘Act of Allah,’ Jane murmured, quite bitterly, into the kettle hiss. ‘Only fair to share the blame in these situations.’

Khan sighed.

‘In the eyes of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, there’s only one God. Though it appears that some people see him through darker glasses than others. At the moment, I myself might as well be blindfolded.’

‘How’s Aisha?’ Merrily said quickly. ‘Do you know?’

‘They thought at first an arm might be broken, but now they don’t think so. Mrs Watkins, as Jane may have mentioned, I came early this morning, when you were presumably…’

Merrily looked up at Jane, who did a helpless, too-much-happening thing with her hands.

‘I… braved the storm and went over to talk to Adam last night. He was in… turmoil would not be too strong a word. Bothered about things he hadn’t told you. Trying to be cool and sensible and rational, while Nadya…’

He broke off. The sweat-glaze on his forehead was the first sign of distress she’d ever seen him display.

Jane delivered the tea, thankfully not Earl Grey, to the table.

‘Things I need to do,’ she said. Tactfully. ‘Back in a few minutes.’

‘I was at Oxford with women like Nadya,’ Raji Khan said. ‘Radical in every possible way. Supported the Palestinians against the Israelis in any given situation. Saw the honourable side of the Taliban. Nothing so wrong with that, until it becomes a rigid mindset and one loses a sense of balance. She wasn’t popular in the Worcester community. People were suspicious of her. Some of them laughing at the idea of a jihadi seed in an English ornamental garden.’

Merrily could see her now, in the Maliks’ sitting room. The prim blue hijab.

‘My feeling,’ she said, ‘was that Nadya had a problem with religion. Any religion.’

‘You’re right, of course. More conversant with the Koran than Adam ever was, but that doesn’t mean she believes in God. Or… any lower spiritual manifestation.’

‘She introduced the djinn…well, not as something she believed in, but as a superior Islamic answer to primitive Western superstitions about ghosts. Spirits of the dead,
pfft…
’

‘Yes. Precisely. She believed that what happened to her father was an hysterical product of overwork, obsession and his fear of growing old. He simply didn’t want to admit that the house was too much for him. Nadya wanted to bring in an ordinary building firm to modernize it as much as was permissible under listed building regulations and have done with it.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Another source of tension. Adam was the peacemaker. But when he… when something happened to
him
…’

Merrily sat up.

‘You’re talking about before the tree—’

‘It’s why he wanted to talk to me last night. He asked me where you lived. It was his intention to try and see you. Today. On his own.’

‘To say… what?’