To Dream of the Dead (12 page)

‘Well, yeh, but not in quite the same way.’ Bliss looked at the segment of doughnut, then put it back on his plate as dark jam seeped down his fingers. ‘In my desperation to remain at the forefront of the investigation, I’ve floated it to Howe. We’re waiting for a forensic report that might confirm it. In fact I may get back to you, Merrily, if it comes up positive.’

‘Me? Why?’

‘Talk about it then, if we need to. Don’t want to complicate your life unnecessarily. You’re not going away anywhere for the festive season, I take it?’

‘I
work
, Frannie. Night shift on Christmas Eve. We’re having a meditation into Christmas morning.’

‘What happened to Midnight Mass?’

‘That will follow. Quietly. But maybe no raucous carols until the morning.’

‘You little radical, Merrily. That’s not gonna please the drunks. Part of Christmas, staggering into church at five to twelve, belting out, “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” to the tune of “Silent Night”.’

‘Before throwing up their curry and chips over somebody’s headstone. We don’t have that kind of person in the New Cotswolds, Francis.’

‘Oh, yeh . . .’ Bliss fingered up some jam ‘. . . I was gonna tell you . . . Our friend Mr Jonathan Long of the Overpaid Public School Twats Division. Why he might’ve been in Ledwardine?’

‘Blimey, I’d almost forgotten. What a difference a day makes.’

‘Yeh, well, forget about it again. I
was
gonna tell you, but now I can’t. I’d suggested it might help if you were aware of a particular situation, but . . . apparently it wouldn’t. So that’s that.’

‘You’ve brought me here to tell me you can’t tell me?’

‘All I can say is, it’s a temporary thing and it’s something you’ll probably be glad you didn’t know about at the time.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Odd, though.’ Bliss licked raspberry jam from his fingers. ‘All the
picturesque backwaters in all the world . . . and they have to pick on yours.’

He laughed.

When Merrily got in, there was a heap of Christmas cards on the mat, the post getting later and later and bigger and bigger. She sorted out the brown envelopes from the white. Only two, thank God, but one looked like the big one, the one you opened now with trembling fingers. The heating-oil bill. Couldn’t face it tonight; she put it on the hall table.

The other brown envelope, local postmark, contained a white card on which two severe-looking angels formed an archway to a tunnel. At the end of it was a glowing circle, in mauve.

THE CHURCH OF THE LORD OF THE LIGHT

We are praying that at this holy time you will
turn away from the
old darkness
and open
your heart to the
TRUE LIGHT
.

The underlining of TRUE LIGHT had been done in ink. Underneath, someone had scrawled:

Before it is too late for you

A poison-pen Christmas card. Unsigned, but the name of the church was familiar.

Merrily put the card back in the envelope and the envelope on the table, underneath the oil bill.

‘Thank you, Shirley.’

‘J
ANE
. . .’ M
ERRILY HESITATED
‘. . . don’t think I’m being old-fashioned, prudish, illiberal and all that stuff, but—’

‘Yeah, I do know what you’re going to say.’

Jane finished wiping down the refectory table, tossing the cloth from hand to hand. This kid who was a kid no longer. Who was, in fact, less than two years from the age Merrily had been when the pregnancy test came up positive. How terrifying was
that
?

‘Separate rooms,’ Jane said. ‘That would be part of the deal.’

‘It would?’

The issue had been raised after they’d eaten, washed the dishes and made some tea.

‘OK, let me be totally frank and upfront.’ Jane pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down, arms folded. ‘Adult to adult.’

‘I hate it when you say that. Can’t help feeling you’ve not been one long enough to qualify for the badge.’

‘The point about Eirion,’ Jane said, ‘is I do need to know where we stand. I’ve hardly seen him since he went to university. I mean, people change, don’t they?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘When they’re mixing in like a different
milieu
.’

‘Erm . . . good word.’

‘What I’m trying to say, is that if he thinks he’s coming here to start where we left off.’

‘Left off,’ Merrily said. ‘Mmm.’

This was adult to adult, was it? She knew, of course, that Jane and Eirion’s relationship had long been consummated. In fact she knew precisely when – Eirion, in an honest, innocent and rather touching moment, having told her himself, the morning after. A summer
morning, here in the vicarage kitchen, sitting at this same refectory table. Seemed a lifetime ago. It was, what – eighteen months?

Hell of a long time for teenagers, though.

‘So I said I’d ask you,’ Jane said. ‘And I have. And it’s your decision, Mum, and if it’s inconvenient or you say no for any other reason, I’m not going to take it any further. I am not going to argue.’

‘In other words, you’re saying you want me to make the decision for you.’

‘’Course n— Well, I mean your advice would obviously—’

‘Do you
want
to see him?’

‘Probably.’

‘Probably?’

‘Well . . . yeah, I do. But I just . . . I just feel it may not be right. That I might be looking back on it in years to come and thinking,
that
was when it all went wrong, that Christmas. Because Christmas is an intense kind of time, isn’t it?’

‘It can bring things to a head.’

‘Like in Hereford last night.’ Jane raised an eyebrow. ‘
Head?
Never mind.’ She twitched her nose. ‘Bad taste.’

‘You heard about that, then.’

‘All over the school by lunchtime. Lots of sick jokes. You know what kids are like.’

‘Erm . . . yeah.’

‘So what I’m really thinking is, like, are we
too young
to have been together for
so long
? That’s it, really.’

‘Sorry?’

‘That’s the dilemma.’ Jane’s mind was like a pinball machine. ‘Also, I’m thinking . . . you and Dad?’

‘That was
entirely
different.’

‘How was it different?’

‘Because we . . . because we’d known each other for a lot shorter time than you and Eirion and there were a lot of things about him I didn’t know, and . . . are you
trying
to embarrass me?’

Jane grinned.

‘And because you and Eirion will not, unless you’re incredibly stupid or incredibly drunk,
have
to get married. So unless, at some stage, you . . .’ Merrily slumped at the table. ‘Sorry, flower, been a difficult day. Has there been anyone else in the interim I don’t know about?’

‘He says not.’

‘No . . . I meant you.’

‘Me?’ Jane’s eyes widened. ‘Listen, I don’t do
that
any more – I mean go behind your back. And if you were thinking Neil Cooper, I
quite
fancied Coops. Especially when I— All right, maybe we shouldn’t be talking like this.’

‘Especially when you what?’

‘When I . . . found out he was married, I had a weird little fantasy about being the Other Woman. But I didn’t
do
anything, Mum, I didn’t make any approach and neither did he, and I’ve got past it now.’

‘Erm . . . good.’

‘Have I shocked you? Anyway . . .’ Jane sprang to her feet. ‘Let’s bring it in, shall we?’

Meaning the too-big Christmas tree that Merrily had called for at a farm shop outside the village. She’d forgotten. She prised herself to her feet as Jane went out to untie the tree from the roof-rack of the car.

‘Jane . . .?’ Merrily thought for a moment and then called after her. ‘OK, tell Eirion I’d be happy for him to come.’

It was a time for commitment.

She watched Jane turn and bow – ‘
Thank you
, single parent’ – as the phone starting ringing in the scullery.

‘
Always
liked Eirion. Just didn’t like to say it too often.’ Going back into the house, alone, murmuring, ‘In case it put you off him.’

‘
Four
television crews!’ Sophie said with distaste. ‘Marching up and down, filming the house from various angles. Reporters knocking on doors, reporters under lights, talking to the cameras. Satellite dishes! It’s quite unbearable.’

The rain chattered inanely on the window pane. Merrily shifted the Bakelite phone from one ear to the other, switching on the Anglepoise at the same time.

‘So when did they reveal his name?’

‘I don’t know. Early this evening, I think. How long will this go on, Merrily?’

‘It’ll seem like for ever, I’m afraid. But I suppose tomorrow will be the worst day. Surely they have police with Helen Ayling now?’

‘No, Merrily, she’s here.’

‘Where?’

‘Helen’s staying with us. It was, in the end, the obvious solution. The press have been encouraged to think she’s left the area, with unnamed relatives.’

‘God, Sophie, is this a good idea?’

‘It was either that or some family liaison officer in the house. Besides, I’ve discovered I’m fairly competent at driving the media from my doorstep. Wanted
us
– neighbours – to talk about Clement. On television.’

You could feel the shudder in the phone.

‘I noticed
you
went off with the police,’ Sophie said.

‘Bliss.’

‘And what did you learn?’

‘He seems to be looking for a connection with Clement Ayling’s council work. Fairly obvious, I suppose. Councillors make enemies.’

‘Yes.’ Sophie sounded calmer. ‘You were right. They begin by eliminating the spouse. And then they get to the heart of it.’

‘Which is . . . what?’

‘It seems that Clement had been receiving abusive letters and phone calls. In relation, as you say, to his council work. Or a particular aspect of it.’

‘What – rage against school closures? That kind of thing?’

‘Road rage, actually,’ Sophie said.

Jane insisted that a Christmas tree should only be borrowed from the earth. By the time Merrily finished on the phone, she had the tree up in the hall, surprisingly perpendicular, in one of the stone tubs from the garden. Damp soil and stones around the roots – cold enough in here to ensure survival well beyond Twelfth Night.

‘Sunday, then?’ Jane was sitting on the stairs with her mobile. ‘No, that’s fine . . . Yeah, it will be.’

Eirion, evidently. Merrily sensed Jane trying not to sound too affectionate. She waited in the kitchen doorway.

‘Sure. I’ll certainly tell her. No, couldn’t make it up, could you? Bloody hell. Yeah, right. Bye.’ Jane looked up. ‘He says it’s really good of you. He wanted to thank you himself, but I said you were working. Mum, look, there’s something else you—’

‘Spare me a few minutes, flower?’

‘Sure.’ Jane sprang to her feet. ‘What’s the problem?’

Jane was happy, hadn’t even objected to being addressed as ‘flower’. She stood up. Open boxes of tinsel and tree-lights sat at the foot of the tree, Ethel checking them out, pawing delicately at a coloured ball, then dancing away.

No point at all in keeping quiet about this, now Clement Ayling’s name had been released. Of course, it was nothing to do with her really, but with Sophie involved . . .

‘Could I consult you about something?’ Merrily said. ‘Something you know much more about than I do.’

‘Fine wines? Jane Austen?
Vampire Weekend?
’

‘The Rotherwas Ribbon.’

‘Oh.’

‘Or as you probably know it, the Dinedor Serpent.’

‘Say no more.’ Jane came downstairs, shedding her smile. ‘What can I tell you about those bastards?’

A
FUZZ OF
viridian forestry, a band of lime-green field and, in the foreground, a vast open spread of red clay where the surface had been peeled away by the road contractors.

Sitting at the scullery desk, Jane had opened up the picture to full-screen. You couldn’t see the top of Dinedor Hill, where tall trees enclosed the Iron Age camp, but you
could
see the Dinedor Serpent. For what it was worth.

‘This is what it was like before they covered it up again,’ Jane said.

In the middle of the exposed clay, a greyish trickle of small pebbles.

Merrily said, ‘That’s
it
?’

You might not agree with him, but you could see where Ayling had been coming from.
Clement went with a delegation to view the site
, Sophie had said.
Afterwards, he was quoted in the
Hereford Times
as saying it just looked like, ah . . . patio gravel
.

Succinct. And probably forgivable, if you weren’t an archaeologist.
His opinion was that anyone who thought a vital relief road should be abandoned or even diverted to preserve
that
must be quite insane. He said that, even if it
was
preserved, it was hardly going to be a tourist attraction. Adding that Herefordshire Council couldn’t let itself be dictated to by hippies and outsiders
.

An old-style local politician. Like Bliss said, Clem Ayling’s younger colleagues would have been crouching behind some trite press statement. Ayling would hold forth . . . railing against the idiots and the cranks.

Jane, of course, had been following the story from the other side, with frequent explosions of Jane-rage: another example of the jackbooted
bastards at County Hall sacrificing Herefordshire’s sacred past in the cause of dubious progress. A crime against history and the environment.

But it still looked like patio gravel.

‘You’re not getting the full picture here,’ Jane said. ‘That’s not possible with hardly any of it uncovered. Take it from me – if it was fully exposed, this could be the most amazing archaeological discovery of the last century. Anywhere in the country. And far, far,
far
more important than another stretch of crap tarmac.’