‘That guy seemed to know you.’
‘That’s because I’ve hired this heap a couple of times before.’
‘What for?’
‘Because a Porsche can be a bit obvious?’
‘Oh. Right.’
Jane supposed it would, at a cockfight.
‘So we’re going there now?’
‘Wait till dark.’
‘But…’ Oh God. ‘You mean we’re actually going to a…?’
‘That bother you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Thought you wanted evidence.’
‘Erm…’
OK, nailing Savitch would be the best thing she’d ever done in her life. And there might be a few other people there she could identify, maybe even sneak some pictures of them on the mobile, shot from the hip. But what if anybody recognized her? No secret in Ledwardine where she stood on these issues.
Jane watched Cornel wrestling with the steering. He was driving without a seat belt. She’d felt sorry for him a couple of times and, OK, she was grateful that he was actually going to help her, but that didn’t mean she could actually like him. There were two sides to him: the ruthless and the kind of weak. And he’d done things, obviously. He’d shot things without a thought, and he’d been to a cockfight and wanted to eat a cock because he’d lost money on it.
‘How do you get on these courses, anyway?’
‘Sponsored by your firm. I was the first from my bank, as it happened. Heard about it on the grapevine.’
‘Heard what?’
‘How some other guys were so impressed that they kept coming back for more. You could see the effects, somehow. In their attitude. Well, not only that. Some guys, it was almost awesome, the difference.’
‘So you got to come back?’
The van went rattling onto the main road, its suspension creaking. When Jane looked at Cornel to see why he wasn’t answering his face seemed to have darkened.
‘Lot of envy in my business, Jane. People whisper lies, and get believed. People who didn’t want you going all the way.’
‘All the way?’
‘Because you just might go further than them, and that would never do because they went to Eton and you struggled through the system. And so the knife goes in.’
‘Dead,’ Carly said. ‘He’s, like, “She’s dead.”’
‘This is the man?’ Bliss leaned across the table. ‘The man with Victoria?’
‘And then he’s, like, “All I done was push her.” And then Victoria, she’s a bit annoyed, she goes, “Oh, she fell on a kerb.”’
‘Kerb?’
‘Kerbstone. That’s what she said. She says, “Oh, she must’ve got a head like a…”’ Carly jerked back, her raven’s wing of hair flying up. ‘I can’t do this…’
Bliss said, ‘Head like a…?’
‘…eggshell.’ Carly twisted away. ‘And then she goes, “You’re f-” Can’t we do it later? Tomorrow? I might be able to remember better. I’m all-’
‘Carly,’ Bliss said. ‘I want you to tell me precisely what Victoria said. The words exactly as you remember them.’
‘She says, “You’re fucking right. She’s passed away.”’
Something penetrated Bliss’s spine. He leaned across the table.
‘She used those actual words? “Passed away?”’
‘Yeah.’
‘And what did the other one say? The other sister?’
‘I don’t reckon she understood what they was on about. Then there was like a bit of a… like a scuffle? And then, like, Victoria…’ Carly grabbed Mr Nye’s arm. ‘I can’t say this stuff. Tell him I can’t do this. Tell him.’
‘You’ll note my client’s level of distress, Inspector. This was quite evidently something so abhorrent to her that she could hardly believe it was happening.’
‘Point taken, Mr Nye. For the moment. Carly, what did Victoria say next?’
‘I won’t have to see her again, will I?’
‘I’m guessing not for many years, if at all,’ Bliss said softly. ‘If you tell us the truth.’
‘I can’t go to prison.’ Carly’s cheeks all zebra-striped with damp mascara. ‘You gotter promise me I won’t go to no prison.’
‘Out of my hands, Carly. I mean, you know, sometimes I get listened to. But you’d have to get me on your side first, and you’ve gorra long way to go before-’
‘Where’s my mum? Did you call my mum?’
‘Carly, you refused to have your mum in with you.’
‘Well, now I want her.’
Bliss thought about his own kids, how they might turn out after exposure to the influence of a rich, cocky farmer with hunting skills. Carly must’ve seen the darkening of his face. She seemed to throb.
‘Gonner be sick.’
Bliss didn’t move.
‘What did Victoria say, after she noticed the lady had passed away ? Come on, Carly.’
Carly sniffed hard, eyes filling up.
‘What did Victoria say, Carly?’
Carly leaned back in her chair, face shining with teary snot.
‘“That’s…” She said, “that’s a bugger.” Then she said, “We’re… gonner have to do the other one now.”’
Bliss watched Karen Dowell’s lips forming a distinct o.
‘I think this might be a good time to take a break, Inspector,’ Mr Nye said.
62
Should have seen this coming, from the first tap of James Bull-Davies’s umbrella on the vicarage door. In this job, looking stupid was part of the package.
It was a rectangular room with pale yellow walls and a row of windows overlooking the east city. William Lockley accepted the padded chair at the top of the conference table. He wore a crumpled grey suit and a grey woollen tie, and his moustache screened his lips. An air of wariness. If Lockley looked less than comfortable, maybe that was something to do with women. Things you could discuss with them, things you couldn’t.
And then there was Annie Howe, putting down her briefcase, taking the chair opposite Merrily, who was trying not to stare.
No rimless glasses, longer hair, hoop earrings. A soft, stripy woollen sweater. Soft? Stripy? You’d almost think there was a man in the background.
‘We’re here because Ms Watkins seems to have convinced Mr Lockley that I should be considering a possible connection between the death, due to heart failure, of Samuel Dennis Spicer, chaplain to the Special Air Service… and the murder of Mansel Bull. Is that correct?’
As if she was addressing a fourth person at the table. At least the voice hadn’t changed. Still crunching ice cubes.
‘And the link,’ Howe said, ‘would appear to be a third man, Colin Jones. A man in whom Mr Lockley’s people seem to have been interested for a while.’
‘Been felt…’ Lockley cleared his throat ‘… that an eye should be kept on him, yes.’
‘Although nothing was conveyed to us. Until now, when it might just be getting embarrassing.’
‘Nothing to say until now, Annie.’
Howe leaned back, arms folded, a posture reflecting decades of resentment between the police and soft-shoed spooks who wrote their own rules.
‘Who exactly did you have keeping an eye on Jones, Mr Lockley?’
‘People we trust, mostly ex-army. And it’s been very low-key. For example, we once booked a chap into a tourism course that Jones’s ex-wife was attending. Which was quite productive.’
Merrily sat up. Those old contracting walls. Garrison Ledwardine.
Annie Howe bent to her briefcase and slid out a laptop, which she opened up on the table.
‘And there’s another man, in whom we ’ve had a mild interest over the years – Kenneth Mostyn, Jones’s business partner. Since establishing Hardkit he’s been suspected of selling imported surveillance equipment – illegal at the time, though nowadays there’s not much you can’t obtain through the Internet.’
‘Mostyn’s very much a type,’ Lockley said. ‘More common in the US, where you find whole communities of them in cabins in the wilds, living out their fantasies of the collapse of civilization. Every man for himself, usually armed to the teeth.’
‘He certainly sells a range of shotguns. How he became involved with Jones… can you throw some light there?’