To Dream of the Dead (46 page)

‘Jane, let the poor guy have a Christmas, huh?’

‘It’s . . . it’s just so obvious, Irene. It
has
been staring us in the face.’

Eirion looked doubtful. She knew he believed in her, maybe more than anybody, but he didn’t see the pentagram at the heart of the apple.

‘It’s why it’s special. It’s the whole key to this place. I’m sorry . . .’ For a moment Jane couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find the breath to say it, totally choked up with emotion. ‘It’s what’s behind the whole thing. The Village in the Orchard.’

‘Y
OU DON’T ASK
much, do you, boss?’ Karen Dowell said.

The cusp of lighting-up time. Bliss was back on the fringe of Phase Two. Still no signs of life in Furneaux’s house, but the Christmas tree was twinkling in Gyles Banks-Jones’s front window, shadows moving behind it.

Fearful shadows, with any luck.

‘And what if he checks
me
out?’ Karen said. ‘How do I explain my interest? And, more to the point, how do I explain why I haven’t just asked Howe?’

Bliss thought about it. Problem was, the DCI babysitting the Lasky case for Howe . . . he didn’t know this feller at all. Came in from Droitwich a month or two ago. Bliss wasn’t sure he’d even been to Droitwich, and a new DCI with Howe to answer to would be wearing belt, braces and two pairs of underpants.

‘All right, tell him the truth.’

‘Which version of the truth is that?’

‘Tell him it’s a long shot. Tell him that although we’ve gorra man well in the frame for Ayling we’re covering our arses and we’d like to compare wounds just in case. Tell him you’ve been trying to get hold of Annie for the last hour, without success. Come on, Karen,
you
know what to say.
Charm him
. And if there’s anything approaching a match on the wounds, take it from there.’

‘What if Howe—?’

‘She won’t. It’s Christmas. The worst she’ll do is make a note to nail you about it when school’s back. Trust me, where Howe’s concerned you have one big thing going for you here, Karen: you are
not me
.’

Bliss saw a face in Gyles’s window, then another face the other side of the Christmas tree. So they’d spotted him. It didn’t matter;
if Furneaux wasn’t available, it would have to be Gyles. Half a story was better than nothing.

‘Gorra go, Karen. Keep me informed.’

‘What if he’s gone home?’

‘So ring him at
home
.’

‘You sound awful manic, Frannie,’ Karen said.

‘It’s me accent.’

The faces had gone from the window.
Manic? Me?
Bliss got out of the car, and strolled directly across the road, pushed the bell and stood there until a light came on over the door and Gyles opened it.

Unshaven, crumpled shirt, open cuffs hanging loose.

‘Well,’ Bliss said, ‘I can’t say this was convenient, to be honest, Gyles, it being Christmas Eve and me off duty, but . . . here I am.’

‘Yes,’ Gyles said.

Bliss waited.

‘Look, I’ve been bailed, Inspector. I don’t—’

‘Why’d you call me, then?’

‘What?’

‘I gave you me mobile number, Gyles, and you called me.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Hang on . . .’ Bliss got out his mobile, opened it up, held it out towards Gyles. ‘Why else would your number be here, under missed calls?’

‘I don’t know.’

Gyles didn’t look at the phone. Bliss gave him a smile that was wry but full of sympathy for the poor bastard’s situation, as Mrs Jones’s voice elbowed in from the hall behind him.

‘Is it that detective?’

Gyles turned, took a step back, telling her it was.

By then, Bliss was inside.

Bliss supposed the reason he hadn’t taken much notice of Mrs Jones before was that Gyles had just confessed to everything. They’d given the house a good going-over and found nothing that Gyles hadn’t already shown them. He had no form, a cleanie.

His wife had been there all the time, assiduously tidying up after them but hiding nothing, saying nothing.

‘We’re glad you came,’ she said now. ‘Aren’t we, Gyles?’

Kate Banks-Jones was plumpish, had long brown hair and a mouth that turned down but made her look unhappy rather than petulant. She wore a long grey cardigan over a striped jumper and jeans and no conspicuous jewellery. Maybe she’d binned it all, in fury. The tension had wrapped itself round Bliss as soon as he’d walked in.

‘I did
not
phone you,’ Gyles said.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Kate said briskly. Her face was flushed, her eyes full of stored heat. ‘We’re glad of the opportunity. And I’m glad you’re on your own this time.’

‘
Kate, for
—’

‘I wasn’t going to say anything in front of all those other police.’ She didn’t look at Gyles. ‘Or the children.’ She spread her arms to show they were alone. ‘Thank God for grandparents.’

A downlighter illuminated a white-framed sepia photo of Hereford Cathedral, misty, across the river. Apart from the artificial tree in the window, that was the only light. No other festive decorations. About five coloured globes hanging from the ceiling looked seasonal but probably weren’t.

‘I’ve made a full statement,’ Gyles said. ‘I’ve admitted everything.’

‘And
he
thinks that’s an end to it.’

Kate looked up at the ceiling. They were sitting in a triangle, Bliss in a wooden-framed chair that was more comfortable than it looked, the Banks-Joneses at either end of a long settee, a lot of dark blue cushion between them. There was a small plasma telly and a deep bookcase full of books about gems and modern jewellery.

‘Well, yes.’ Bliss leaned slowly forward, hands clasped between his knees, doing sorrowful. ‘It’s very far from the end, Mrs Jones.’ He looked up, from to face. ‘You’ll have read, I’d imagine, about the murder of Councillor Ayling?’

Neither of them expecting that. Kate’s head and shoulders jerked back. Gyles just went rigid. Good, good, good.

‘I’m sorry,’ Bliss said, sliding the blade in. ‘But if you will mix with criminals, it’s no use going into denial about what they might’ve been getting up to when you’re not there.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Gyles said, and his wife turned on him.

‘Don’t be
stupid
, Gyles.’

Couple of days’ worth of scorn in Kate’s eyes.

‘I’ll be honest with you,’ Bliss said. ‘I’d been taken off the Ayling case to investigate this trivial shite, and I wasn’t best pleased. We do actually prefer working on the big ones. Not well-disposed towards you, Gyles. But I’d forgotten what a small town this was.’

‘It said pagans in the paper,’ Gyles said. ‘I know nothing about any pagans. I don’t see how there can possibly be any connection between Ayling’s murder and . . . and . . .’

‘So you have no connections with the local authority? Or anyone who works for it?’

Gyles’s eyes were all over the place, but he never once looked at his wife. Bliss let the silence take over the room.

‘Look.’ Kate Banks-Jones stood up. ‘He couldn’t possibly have any connection with what happened to Ayling. I mean,
look
at him. Does he look like a drug dealer?’

She bit her lip and sat down, probably realising what a silly question that was.

‘And what does a drug dealer look like, Mrs Jones?’ Bliss said. ‘Have a bit of a think.’

She didn’t reply at first, just stared at Gyles until he looked up at her. A little furtively, Bliss thought.

‘I don’t have to think very hard,’ she said.

‘No.’ Bliss nodded. ‘Didn’t think you would.’

‘Kate, no,’ Giles said quietly. ‘Don’t do this.’

‘Oh, the hell with it,’ Kate said. ‘A
real
drug dealer looks a lot like our next-door neighbour.’

The breath that came out of Gyles creaked at the back of his throat. Kate turned away from him.

‘I’m trying to put an end to it.’

‘You’ll put an end to both of us.’ Gyles was rocking on the sofa, gripping his knees, his teeth gritted. ‘Think about the kids.’

Bliss sat still, saying nothing, thinking hard. Rapidly turning things over and over and inside out and, whichever way you looked at it, it made perfect sense that Gyles was no more than the frontman, the façade, the patsy.

‘. . . thought Steve was awfully cool at first,’ Kate was saying. ‘
His
idea that Gyles should bring selections of jewellery to parties. Steve went to a lot of parties all over the West Midlands. Whole new world, wasn’t it, Gyles?’ A sneer, then turning to Bliss. ‘Look, I’m not saying we hadn’t done any coke before. I mean, when we were first married. We’d been students together. I just didn’t want anything to do with it after we had the kids. But Gyles . . . Gyles, unfortunately, was into his second adolescence. Plus, of course, he was making lots of lovely money.’

‘You weren’t complaining,’ Gyles said. ‘You’d been on my back for years about how little we were taking in the shop.’

Bliss said, ‘So it was Steve who had the contacts?’

‘Steve has contacts
everywhere
,’ Kate said. ‘He’s a planner in every sense of the word.’

‘And you are a respectable, long-established family firm.’ Bliss looked at Gyles. ‘Perhaps not doing as well as you once did. Funny, I was in a place the other week, used to be just a rural garden centre, way out in the sticks, now it’s twice the size with a massive jewellery department. Bling up to here. Hard times in the old city, eh, Gyles?’

Gyles said, ‘I want to explain—’

‘I think he wants to explain, Inspector, that our neighbour can be quite unpleasant. People who use cocaine like Steve uses cocaine can get awfully aggressive.’

‘Moderation in all things,’ Bliss said. ‘That’s what my old mam used to say. But they say it doesn’t always work with coke.’

‘He knows some fairly horrible people,’ Kate said. ‘People you don’t want to . . . I wanted us to move. Sell up, get out. But we’re locked into Hereford. Can’t sell the business because Gyles’s parents own half of it, and they know nothing of this. We were going to . . . tell them over Christmas.’

‘Didn’t you say your kids were with them?’

‘With
my
parents. They don’t know, either. We’ve told them we’re terribly busy in the shop – that’s a laugh – and have to work late. You can see the state we’re in. Look at my hands shaking. Some of our older customers are not going to come near us again, are they? And who wants to buy a small shop these days, anyway?’

‘It’s a problem,’ Bliss said. ‘And I’m very sorry for you, but . . . hard to scrap the charges at this stage.’

‘Not even if we—’

‘We
can’t
,’ Gyles snapped. ‘He . . . he’ll take it very badly.’

‘Well, of course he will,’ Bliss said. ‘But look at it this way, Gyles – I’m gonna nail the twat anyway, with or without your assistance. It’s just a question of how long he goes away for. Or if he goes away at all . . .?’

Bliss crossed his legs, leaned back. Kate started plucking at her cardigan.

Gyles said, ‘We’d get protection?’

‘Just ask your questions,’ Kate said.

At one time there had been an underworld, a criminal community.

Ordinary people had nothing to do with it.

Drugs had changed all that, the ubiquity of drugs. The discovery, by ordinary suburban people who served on the PTA, that snorting a line or two of coke didn’t automatically turn you into a denizen of the gutter.

Thus, the suburban snorters became part of the new Greater Underworld.

As Kate had intimated, it was Steve who had the contacts. Steve coming in from Brum to take up his new appointment with the Herefordshire planning department. Very pleasant chap, Kate thought at first. Steve would flirt with her, in an unthreatening, flattering way. At the time, Gyles had been wanting to double the size of his shop window, to allow for a bigger display of his fine jewellery, but the shop was on the edge of a conservation area and the planners had been inclined to refuse permission.

Until Steve had a quiet word in the right place. Steve tapping his nose at Gyles: between you and me, OK, mate?

So Gyles owed Steve a big one, and that was the start of it.

‘Who arranged deliveries, Gyles, once the basic structure had been set up?’

‘I did. Steve would come round with what he called his shopping list.’

‘And
you
’d pay Mebus?’

‘Yes. It would come back . . . threefold. It didn’t seem like crime.’

‘Always for parties?’

‘And personal use. And sometimes he’d come for a large order.’

‘You know what for?’

‘We didn’t ask,’ Gyles said.

‘We didn’t need to.’ Kate sniffed. ‘It was usually before he went away somewhere.’

‘To where?’

‘To something connected with his job. He was on a committee and they went away to thrash out ideas and things.’

‘A
blue-sky thinking
weekend.’ Bliss smiled. ‘So where’s Stevie now?’

His phone was throbbing in his hip pocket. He placed a calming hand over it.

‘We don’t know,’ Kate said. ‘Birmingham or Gloucester . . . or London. I really couldn’t say. He has a lot of friends . . . and a girlfriend who sometimes lives here. Sometimes he brings her back with him.’

‘Not always the same one,’ Gyles said wearily.

‘You think he’ll be back tonight?’

‘’I think so. He says he likes a traditional Christmas. Talked about going to a service in the Cathedral. A place to be seen, I’d guess. And then he’s having a . . .’

‘Party?’ Bliss said.

‘Inevitably.’

‘Tell me, Mrs Jones, what was his reaction to Gyles getting busted? Sympathy? Some advice about taking it on the chin, pleading guilty and keeping shtum? A gentle warning, perhaps?’

‘Not that gentle, really,’ Kate said.

Gyles, well out of this conversation now, looked like he was about to be sick. Bliss took out his phone and inspected the screen.

‘Right then, guys, I’ll leave you to have a think if there’s anything else you want to tell me. I’ll be just across the road. Someone I need to phone back.’

‘I’m still shaking,’ Karen said. ‘I’d rather abseil down the spire of St Peter’s than do that again.’