‘You sounds a bit on edge, Mr Bliss,’ Jeremy said.
He was what people called an old-fashioned kind of farmer, open to superstitions and signs and portents. A haloed moon, three magpies, the ash out before the oak, all that. Jeremy thought his land confided in him.
Bliss said, ‘You’ve got Mansel Bull’s dogs, I believe. All of them.’
‘They’re a gang. He didn’t wanner split them up. Problem with that?’
‘We’re talking to everybody who’d had dealings with Mansel.’
‘Wasn’t exactly a deal. Bit of an agreement, that’s all, between two blokes as knew a bit about dogs and sheep. Not everybody got along with Mansel, but he looked after his dogs.’
‘And you came and took them after he died.’
‘Before. Just as well. His brother woulder stopped it. Trained dog’s worth money. Or mabbe he’d’ve had the whole bunch shot.’
‘What?’
‘Mabbe that’s unfair,’ Jeremy said.
‘See, apart from the inhumanity of that, Jeremy, it would indicate a fairly strong element of not exactly honouring his brother’s memory.’
Jeremy didn’t reply. Bliss liked the sound of the silence. He’d once listened to the lovely Natalie at the right time, and whilst Jeremy didn’t exactly owe him…
‘Word is,’ Bliss said, ‘that Sollers wasn’t too pleased when Mansel sold that ground. Any whispers about that?’
‘Don’t go much on whispers. Too many of ’em round yere’s been about me and Nat. As you know.’
‘How is she?’
‘Good.’
How many local people knew about Natalie’s time in detention was debatable. The probability was that the gossip was just about how a little woolly-haired farmer held on to a serious beauty from Off. But it was unlikely either of them would ever be able to relax.
‘Jeremy, you’re a straight sort of bloke, as farmers go, so I’ll be straight with you. I think there’s quite a lot Sollers Bull hasn’t told us. I accept you don’t listen much to gossip, but how did you feel things were between Mansel and Sollers?’
‘Different generations, different attitudes. Mansel was a businessman in the ole sense. Tight as a duck’s arse, but you knowed where you was. Sollers is all for the image. Puttin’ hisself around. Prize cattle at the Royal Welsh, diversifyin’, farm shops and cafes. Huntin’. I was at school with him for a few years. Lady Hawkins.’
‘And what was he like at school?’
‘Head boy.’
‘Figures. See, I’m guessing Mansel would realize Sollers wouldn’t be too keen on him flogging that ground to the fruit farm. So why’d Mansel do it? Bit of pique, maybe?’
‘No, no, that wasn’t it at all, he…’
Jeremy sounded uncertain again, like he was worried about breaking a confidence.
‘He’s dead, Jeremy. He was killed. It was mairder. Remember?’
‘Wasn’t going well, that’s all. The dogs. Mansel thought mabbe he was losin’ it.’
‘What, his marbles?’
‘His skill. Had three shelves full of awards. Come close to winning One Man and His Dog on the box, once. Then it wasn’t workin’ n’more. Used to train his dogs down by the river, but Sollers wanted more ground for his cattle, and he had to move up to the top field. Not used much for stock, usually they just had the hay off it. And it wasn’t the same. Seemed obvious to me it wasn’t the dogs, but he was losin’ heart. Mansel, either he was on top or he didn’t wanner know – got that much in common with Sollers, at least.’
‘I’m not sure what you’re saying, Jeremy.’
‘Couldn’t hack it. Dogs was all over the place some days. He’d give a command, dog’d go for it real slow. Or run off, back down to the river. Couldn’t count on ’em. He was gettin’ real depressed. Thought it was his age. Got so he didn’t wanner take the dogs out n’more.’
‘So you got all these valuable dogs for nothing from a man who’s known for being tight as a duck’s arse?’
‘Too many dogs is more of a burden than anything, Mr Bliss. We agreed mabbe he’d have ’em back one day. I told him I reckoned it wasn’t about him and it wasn’t about his dogs. They works fine yere. Poetry.’
‘I’m not getting this.’
‘You’re a copper, Mr Bliss. Nobody ’spects you to get it. Had to be a reason them top fields wasn’t used much – and that was how it was for years. Generations, mabbe. I had a walk over it when I went to fetch the dogs. Some places, the air feels loaded. A place looks quiet, but it en’t. A lot of ravens, too, for some reason.’
‘Ravens.’ Bliss thought about this, and it was Vasile Bocean all over again. ‘You know what, Jeremy?’ he said. ‘I’m tired.’
He sat at his desk for several minutes. All right, raised a Catholic and, whatever anybody said, you never lost that and all the baggage. And what Jeremy had been hinting at – feelings, atmosphere – he wouldn’t entirely rubbish any of it. Privately. In the midnight hour. It was just nothing to do with police work. It didn’t help.
He got up and stood by his window. The sky was like the inside of an orange peel. The light nights were coming. Didn’t like them any more, dark was best, watching the lights going out across the road, on the hill above Great Malvern.
Colleagues only. The way those words had been pinballing round his head all day. Telling himself she didn’t mean it, she’d come round. He’d find some way of bringing her round. Have to. Couldn’t lose this. Couldn’t let it just come apart like a cheap supermarket bag.
Somehow, he had to get Kirsty to refute any suggestion that he’d ever abused her physically. She could call him any kind of shit as long as she told the truth about that, sent it back up the line.
Bliss pulled out his iPhone, checked his incomings. No e-mails of any consequence, just the one phone message.
Annie Howe. Thank Christ. Bliss clicked on it. Annie’s voice was very low, but not so low the words weren’t metallically distinct.
‘ Didn’t think I could be surprised any more at the level of your blind stupidity.’
Bliss clapped the phone tight to his ear, both hands around it in case anybody came in.
‘ Don’t know how you could have thought for one minute that I wouldn’t find out. Your wife. Your own bloody wife.’
Deadness for several seconds.
‘ Anyway,’ Annie said, ‘ That’s it.’
End of message.
Bliss wrenched the phone away from his ear, stabbed at the screen to call her back. All right, no, he couldn’t explain why he hadn’t told her about Kirsty’s suspicions, except to say that he hadn’t believed the bitch, couldn’t imagine how she could possibly know about Annie. Still didn’t know.
Annie’s phone was switched off.
Bliss stared at the iPhone, all the little symbols, the ten thousand useless friggin’ apps. Rubbed the cold sweat from his forehead.
So who had the bitch told?
He strode out of the office, through the CID room without speaking to anybody, down the stairs and out of the building, his face and the back of his neck feeling like they were badly sunburned.
38
Lol watched Merrily collapse back into his sofa. Late sun honeying the room, red veins pulsing among the ashes at the bottom of the woodstove. As so often these days, Merrily looked vacant, wiped-out.
‘So where do I go from here?’
Lol was thinking maybe a new career. It was a crap job, the clergy, and no indication it would ever get better. So much open contempt now. The Church, God, the afterlife – all delusion. Thinking it and getting a buzz out of saying it, loudly, in public, on TV, and the only people who shouted back were the crazy fundamentalists like his late parents who’d cut him out of their lives.
Merrily had come home this afternoon to find the answering machine going, Uncle Ted, the churchwarden, trying to lean on her, before tonight’s parish meeting, about his plans to turn the church into a greasy spoon. It was about paying bills.