It was Calder who phoned to tell Souleby of Hayley Conyer’s passing. That didn’t surprise Souleby. They were two of the last three selectmen, and he had always been closer to Calder than to Luke Joblin, who was too flash for Souleby’s liking. What did surprise Souleby was Calder’s tone. He knew. He knew.
‘Who found her?’ Souleby asked.
‘Chief Morland,’ Calder told him, and it was there in the way that he said ‘Chief’. ‘He thinks she might have had a heart attack.’
‘And I’ll bet Frank Robinson is signing off on it as we speak.’
‘That’s what I hear.’ A pause. ‘Morland will be coming for you, Thomas.’
The phone felt slick in Souleby’s hand. His palms were sweating.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘What about you?’
‘He’s not afraid of me.’
‘Maybe he’s underestimated you.’
Souleby heard Calder chuckle sadly.
‘No, he knows me inside and out. This is my little act of defiance, my last one. I’ll be resigning from the board.’
‘Nobody resigns from the board.’
Only death brought an end to a selectman’s tenure. The elections were just for show. Everyone knew that.
Calder was sitting in the back of Ben Pearson’s store. In reality it was as much his as it had been Ben’s, but Calder didn’t regard it as anything other than Ben’s store, even with Ben no longer around. He looked at the bottles of pills that he had been accumulating since Ben’s death.
Soon, he thought. Soon.
‘There are ways, Thomas,’ he said. ‘You step lively.’
Now, with his bag packed, Thomas kissed his wife and prepared to leave.
‘Where will you go?’ asked Constance.
‘I don’t know. Not far, but far enough to be safe from him.’
Calls had to be made. Souleby still had plenty of allies inside the town, but he couldn’t see many of them standing up to Morland. They weren’t killers, while Morland was.
‘What will I tell him when he comes?’ asked Constance.
‘Nothing, because you know nothing.’
He kissed her on the mouth.
‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
She watched him drive away.
He had been gone less than an hour before Lucas Morland arrived at her door.
Souleby drove as far as Portland and parked in the long-term garage at the Portland Jetport. He then took a bus to Boston, paying cash for the ticket. He didn’t know how far Morland would go to track him, and he was no spy, but he hoped that, if Morland did somehow discover the whereabouts of the car, it would throw him a little. He asked his son-in-law to book a room for him under the name Ryan at a club off Massachusetts Ave that advertised through Expedia. Souleby knew that the club didn’t ask for ID, but simply held a key for the name listed on the reservation. He then walked over to Back Bay, sat in a coffee shop across from Pryor Investments and waited. When Garrison Pryor eventually appeared, cell phone to his ear, Souleby left the coffee shop and followed him. Souleby caught up with Pryor when he stopped at a pedestrian signal.
‘Hello, Garrison,’ he said.
Pryor turned.
‘I’ll call you back,’ he said, and hung up the phone. ‘What are you doing here, Thomas?’
‘I need help.’
The signal changed. Pryor started walking, but Souleby easily kept up with him. He was considerably taller than Pryor, and fitter too, despite his age.
‘I’m not in the helping business,’ said Pryor. ‘Not for you or your board.’
‘We’ve exchanged information in the past.’
‘That was before tridents began appearing in the woodwork of houses in Scarborough, Maine. Have you any idea of the trouble you’ve caused me?’
‘I counseled against that.’
‘Not hard enough.’
‘We’re having difficulties in Prosperous. Serious difficulties.’
‘I noticed.’
‘Our chief of police is out of control. He has to be … retired before we can restore stability. Recompense can be made to you and your colleagues.’
‘It’s gone too far.’
‘Garrison.’ Souleby put a hand out to stop Pryor, forcing the shorter man to look up at him. ‘Morland is going to kill me.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, Thomas,’ said Pryor. ‘Truly, I am. But we’re not going to intervene. If it’s any consolation to you, whatever happens, Prosperous’s days are drawing to a close. In the end, it doesn’t matter who is left standing: you, Morland, the board. There are men coming to wipe you from the map.’
Souleby’s hand dropped. ‘And you’ll let this happen?’
Pryor took out his cell phone and redialed a number. He watched it connect, raised the phone to his ear, and patted Souleby on the shoulder in farewell.
‘Thomas,’ said Pryor, as he walked away, ‘we are going to watch you all burn.’
* * *
Morland sat in his office. He was frustrated, but no more than that. Souleby would have to return. His life was here. In Souleby’s absence, Luke Joblin and Calder Ayton had agreed that elections to the board should be held just as soon as Hayley Conyer was safely interred. Neither had objected to Morland’s list of nominees for the three vacant positions.
Morland had a fourth name ready too. He had a feeling that another vacancy would soon arise.
55
Chief Morland next faced Thomas Souleby as they stood over Hayley Conyer’s open grave. In recognition of her long and generous service to the town of Prosperous, she was buried in the old cemetery, in the shadow of the church whose legacy she had done so much to protect, and in which her body had reposed on the night before its burial. Only a handful of the most important citizens were permitted to enter the church for her funeral service, although a temporary sound system relayed the proceedings to the townsfolk who stood outside. God played a part in the proceedings, but so too did nature, and the metaphor that ran through Warraner’s oratory was of the changing of the seasons, the life’s journey from spring to winter and thence to a new form of rebirth.
Once the coffin was lowered into the ground, it was left to the selectmen, assisted by Morland and Warraner, to fill in the grave. It was a sign of respect, but Morland was inevitably reminded of the last time he had wielded a spade in service of a body. The townsfolk started to leave. Tea and coffee were being served at the Town Office, where memories of Hayley Conyer would be exchanged, and talk would turn to the election of the new selectmen. In addition, nobody wanted to miss the chance to gossip a little under the fag of mourning: Thomas Souleby’s absence until the morning of the funeral had not gone unremarked, and the tension between him and Chief Morland was common knowledge in the town, even if the catalyst for this particular bout of hostilities – Hayley Conyer’s forced departure from this world – was not.
Morland caught up with Souleby halfway across the churchyard. He grabbed the older man’s arm, steering him away from the gate.
‘Walk with me a while, Thomas,’ he said.
Souleby’s wife was waiting for him outside the railings. Morland thought that she might spring over them to protect her husband when she saw the chief approach him, but Souleby raised a hand to let her know that he was okay. If Morland intended him harm, he would do so another day, and under other circumstances.
‘We missed you,’ said Morland. ‘Your absence was unfortunate. The town was in mourning. It looked to the board for leadership, and the board, in its turn, looked to you as the senior selectman, but you weren’t there.’
Souleby wasn’t about to accuse Lucas Morland of murder, not here, not anywhere. There remained a possibility that he could still survive this, and even turn the situation to his advantage. The three nominees to the board were comparatively young and open to manipulation. They were not his creatures, but neither were they Morland’s. He could not give Morland an excuse to act against him, although the flaw in this line of reasoning was easily apparent to him, for Morland might not even need a reason to act.