‘You better make this bloody quick, Andy.’ A woman moved out of the shadows and pushed in front of Mumford. ‘And remember, you don’t take nothing.’
She was about Merrily’s age, maybe a bit older, with Mumford’s small features surrounded by a lot of dark hair. Her red leather coat was open, showing that she was pregnant.
‘My sister, Angela,’ Mumford said. ‘This is Mrs Watkins.’
‘Merrily.’
‘Good job you didn’t come in your dog collar,’ Angela said. ‘They eat priests on this estate.’
‘They wouldn’t enjoy me,’ Merrily said. ‘I’m more chewy than I look.’
Angela gave her a glance, unsmiling. So maybe this wasn’t the time to offer condolences.
‘Remember what I said,’ Angela said to Mumford. ‘You don’t take nothing away.’ She tossed him a key on a chain. ‘You got half an hour, no more. Lock up when you’ve finished, key through the letter box.’
Angela walked out without looking back. Mumford tried to pull down the door from the inside but the handle was missing.
‘I would say she’s changed.’ He left a gap under the door, so they could get out again. ‘But she en’t.’
At the far end of the garage, the computer sat on a workbench, already switched on, casting a somehow baleful blue light over stacks of cardboard boxes. Mumford nodded at the boxes.
‘Take a look, Mrs Watkins. See what’s left of Robbie Walsh.’
Merrily walked around the oil. There were about a dozen wine boxes from supermarkets. Warily, she opened one.
Books. She pulled one out, large-format: Everyday Life in the Middle Ages, in Pictures. Heraldic symbols in each corner. Once a paperback, its covers had been stiffened with card, the way you did to prolong the life of a book that you really loved, one that was well used, day after day. It flopped open where a page had been torn out, none too carefully, fragments of it still flapping from the spine. The facing page was headed: TRIAL BY ORDEAL.
Mumford prodded a box with his shoe.
‘All his books are yere. Stuff on castles… armour… weapons. Guide books to historic houses people gave him… all off to a boot sale at the weekend – outside of town, they en’t daft.’
‘They’re selling all his stuff?’
‘Need the space. Another baby on the way – boyfriend’s this time, just to prove he can.’
Merrily put the book back in the box and closed the flaps. It felt like pulling a sheet over a body.
‘What happened to Robbie’s father?’
‘He came to the funeral. Not a bad bloke.’ Mumford opened another box, pulled out a turquoise baseball cap, put it on his own head, where it almost fitted. ‘This was always too big for Robbie, see. Poor little devil never realized why folks were laughing. Tried for street cred, never got close.’
‘You’ve got kids, haven’t you?’
‘Two girls. One in New Zealand, one a veterinary nurse, living with a vet down in Newport. They done OK, considering.’ Mumford took off the cap. ‘When you make CID, you’re as good as lost to your family. “Oh Dad, you’re not working again, we never sees you.” “Look,” I’d say, “I’m protecting you and your mother, that’s what I’m doing.” Any old excuse. See this?’
He’d opened up a book he’d evidently been using as a mouse-mat for the computer. The Tudor Household. Something had been scribbled on the front and then scribbled over. Through the top scribble they could still make out crude black letters: Walsh is gay.
‘Jane tells me the word’s become an all-purpose term of abuse now, among kids,’ Merrily said.
‘Abuse,’ Mumford said. ‘Aye.’
‘What are you thinking?’
Mumford reached into the book box, pulled out a paperback with a white and sepia cover: Castles and Moated Sites of Herefordshire. It looked new, except for the brown tape holding the spine together. A pamphlet fell out: South Wye History Project.
‘Looks like the book was ripped in half, ennit? He was real careful with his books.’
‘What you’re saying is he didn’t do this.’
‘That’s likely what I’m saying.’
‘The boyfriend?’
‘Or it could be Ange. When he was little, if he left toys around after she’d told him to put them away, she’d throw them on the fire. I’ve seen it. This was when she was still with his dad and they were living out at Kingstone. Marital tension. Always felt I… oughter do something for the boy. Couldn’t think what.’ He put the book back carefully in the wine box. ‘Hell, he was never abused, I’m not saying that. Just never encouraged. Which is how he became a loner, up in his room with his books.’
Mumford turned away, stood very still, hands in the pockets of his dark tweed jacket.
‘Andy—’
‘Let’s have a look at the computer.’ Mumford brought out his glasses case; his hands were shaking very slightly. ‘Never got to see the boy much since she moved in with Mathiesson. They never liked me coming round. Not with both neighbours on probation. No excuse, is it? I could’ve done something.’
He put on his glasses and gripped the mouse, began dragging the cursor over icons on the computer desktop. Mumford – Merrily had noted this before – was surprisingly at home with computers.
‘Seems likely the only time the boy ever went out on his own was in Ludlow. Just walking the streets. In his element.’ He clicked on an icon, bringing up a photograph of the ornate oaken façade of the Feathers, in Corve Street, against an improbably Mediterranean blue sky. ‘What he’d do, see, he’d download documents and photos from the Net, compiling his own files. Switch on his computer, straightaway he’s back in Ludlow. Street maps, architectural plans, the lot.’
‘Virtual heaven,’ Merrily said, aware of her own voice giving way. She coughed.
‘Aye. Look…’ Mumford brought up a series of short histories of different buildings; some, like The Reader’s House, she’d heard of. ‘This is what I wanted you to see.’
THE WEIR HOUSE
Name adopted, since recent major restoration, for this onetime farmhouse on an elevated site below the castle and overlooking the Teme. Origins believed to date back to the early fourteenth century, when it was acquired by the Palmers’ Guild, or earlier. Timbers extensively replaced, but one original cruck-beam is preserved and the central fireplace, believed fifteenth-century, remains a significant feature.
NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
‘That’s her house,’ Mumford said. ‘Mrs Pepper.’
There was sweat on his forehead, a small mesh of veins like a crushed insect twitching below one eye.
‘But it… Andy, it seems to be one of over a dozen old buildings he’s got listed there.’
He shook his head. ‘All the others are key historical buildings. This Weir House, it’s just been done up from a shell. It’s the only one on the list that’s not important. And not really in the town itself.’
‘But…’
‘It’s only there ’cause it’s hers.’
‘You think?’
‘Ludlow. The one place he thought he was safe…’ He clicked to a photo of the Buttercross, staring at it as if he could get the full story out of the stones.
‘Safe from what?’
‘Where he thought he was free, then.’ He stepped away from the monitor. ‘You have a look, see if anything occurs to you.’
Merrily went over to the computer keyboard. ‘You checked his e-mails?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No e-mails at all?’
‘I reckon they been wiped – by Ange or Mathiesson, just in case.’