Merrily Watkins 11 - The Secrets of Pain (51 page)

‘So it would’ve been used by soldiers travelling between two significant Mithraic centres. Through some fairly hostile country, I would have thought.’

‘And as they built a base here which became – as we’re gradually finding out – quite a substantial community, surviving into the fifth century… well, I’ve often wondered.’

‘Why
did
they build a base here?’

‘All to do with the Wye,’ Neil said. ‘They were probably using the ford at Hereford to get across. You see the reason I wondered if you might have heard something is that there’s a rumour been going round for a while about something of this nature being found in Herefordshire.’

‘Rumour?’

‘Within archaeological circles. Stories of aerial photographs showing interesting linear patterns. I’ve never met anyone who’s seen one, but we’ve been monitoring aerial surveys. Nothing found, so I was thinking it might be apocryphal. Unless you – or someone – know otherwise?’

‘You checked, erm, the Brinsop area.’

‘Actually, we have. Nothing obvious there that we didn’t already know about.’

‘I suppose if somebody wanted to keep quiet about it, they could just cover it up. With a temporary building or something.’

‘It
is
a thought,’ Neil Cooper said.

T
HE EVENING SKY
was blotched with small clouds, like a field of late mushrooms, brown and rotting. Jane stood on the grass bank, watching Cornel taking the leather bag from the back of the van.

A mile or so out of Credenhill, he’d swung the van between some overhanging bushes, branches ripping at the side windows. When he’d hit the brakes, Jane had been thrown forward, the rotting seat belt snapping, her head bumping painfully into the windscreen as the mobile started vibrating in her hip pocket.

She slid it out now and checked it while Cornel was messing with his tool bag. All she could see were small fields keeping wedges of woodland apart and, ahead of them, a conifer screen at the top of a rise. The eastern horizon was formed by the great wooded bank of Credenhill itself, like a crouching bear.

A new text from Eirion –
J… whr t L r u?

What she wouldn’t give to be able to return the call. To be with Irene with his reticent smile and his solid body, just slightly overweight.

Other people would surely be missing her by now. OK, Mum would think she was with Eirion, but if Eirion rang Mum…

‘Cornel,’ Jane said, ‘if you’re worried about going to this place, maybe we could do it some other time?’

He’d become morose, his mood turning like the sky. It was getting cold, too, and the van’s heater didn’t work. This whole
thing with the van… it showed a calculating side of Cornel, a secretive side.

A jangle of tools. What did he need tools for?

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but wasn’t it
you
that wanted to go?’

‘Not in the dark.’

Jane glared up into the fungal sky, wondering now if she really
had
persuaded him, if it wasn’t the other way round. He’d been all too ready for this, with the van and whatever was in the rucksack and the leather bag.

‘It’s always in the dark,’ Cornel said.

And Jane imagined some squalid gathering in an underground chamber. It was going to be horrible, gruelling – she wasn’t sure she could even watch.

‘How far do we have to go?’

‘Mile or so?’

‘A
mile
? But it’s all muddy!’ She felt it was important to retain something of girlie. ‘This is my best jacket. We’re not all loaded like you.’

It seemed to disarm him.

‘If you get messed up I’ll buy you a new outfit.’

‘What’ve you got in the bag?’

‘Wire-cutters. Stuff like that.’

‘You mean we’re going in like… undercover or something?’

‘It might help if you didn’t ask too many questions.’

‘Help who? Where are we going? Is it a farm?’

‘Give me a minute.’

Cornel went crunching off into the woods. Gone to relieve himself. Jane gave him time to, like, get started and then pulled out her phone to send Eirion a text.

But Cornel was back before she could get more than a few words down. She stashed the phone. He seemed happier, a big, wide, sloppy grin across his face. He was breathing hard and fast.

‘OK, let’s do it.’

Jane followed him, his long legs spidering across the darkening grass and the nettles, until they came to a barbed-wire
fence. Cornel unslung the bag, and then the wire-cutters were in his hands. They didn’t look that big, but they went through the barbed wire like it was bailer twine, the ends springing away from the fence, Cornel still grinning like, for him, this was what the countryside was about.

What happens is anything you want
…

Barry said, ‘Got a job interview next week, Lol, did I say?’

Business in the Black Swan was slow. Barry had brought some drinks, pulled out a chair and sat down with Lol who’d been trying, not too successfully, to lay down some lyrics between pacing the square, waiting for Merrily to call, Danny to come in, anything.

‘Where?’

‘Wiltshire.’

‘Oh.’

Lol didn’t remember a Ledwardine without Barry. Originally the manager at the Cassidys’ restaurant, then seamlessly taking over at the Swan. Wry, unflappable, trained killer in a black tie, balancing a loaded tray while helping old ladies with their cases.

‘My second wife, she lives down near Swindon, and we’re, you know, talking again. I had it in mind she’d come back up here, but maybe this is best.’

‘Can’t believe you’re letting Savitch drive you out of the area.’

‘Clean break, new start. Done it before, I can do it again. You can’t live with resentment, Laurence.’

‘No.’

‘Mind you, it gets hard sometimes,’ Barry said. ‘Remember how you were accusing me of telling Savitch about the open-air concert thing?’

‘Wasn’t
accusing
you exactly—’

‘It
was
my fault. Should’ve found it. Marion, it was, found it this morning. Women and dusters always get into places men don’t even see. Anyway, there it was, nicely concealed in a picturesque crack… in that beam?’

‘What are we talking about?’

‘I just ripped it out. Before I’d really thought about it, I’d ripped it out and stamped on it, how bleedin’ stupid was that? Little microphone and transmitter, Laurence. Size of your thumbnail. Maybe wouldn’t work too well when the bar was crowded, but on a quiet day, just a few of us there…’

‘A
bug
?’

‘You stand and you think, who’d do a thing like that?’

‘Savitch…
planted a bug
?’

‘Don’t
know
it was him. But… find out who you can win round, who you can buy, who’s best avoided…’

Lol shut his lyrics pad, thinking of everything that had been said about Savitch in the Swan. Speculation about some corrupt alliance with Councillor Pierce. Barry remarking that if Savitch bought the Swan there was no way he’d be sticking around.

Now there was no way he could.

‘Who do you think actually planted it?’

‘He’s got half a dozen staff at The Court. I know Hardkit used to market listening devices and spy-video toys, from their website. Could actually be Mostyn himself – he’s been in a few times with his clients. Kind of thing he’d do for the sake of it. James Bond.’

‘Barry, what is
happening
to this place?’

‘I should’ve left it in place, fed him disinformation, but I just… lost it. Knee-jerk. Getting old and crusty.’ Barry looked steadily at Lol. ‘What you waiting for?’

It seemed like a good time to tell him some things.

They seemed to have been walking for ever, getting nowhere, when Jane tripped over something hard, twisting, and went down.

Sitting, almost tearful, in the damp grass, rubbing at her ankle and then angrily picking the thing up, whatever it was. Cold, wet metal. She held it up to the emerging moon as Cornel kept on walking up the rise, following his jaw, the way he did, before tossing what Jane took to be a grudging glance over his shoulder.

‘Come on, come on, come on, it’s just an old CCTV camera. Put it down.’

Jane looked up and saw a wooden pole in the trees with a boxy shape on top, wires spraying from it. Her ankle twinged. She tried to stand, and then went down again.

‘Get up, Jane, you’re not hurt,’ Cornel said breezily. ‘Hadda be done, hadda be done.’

‘
You
did it?’ Her bum felt damp, her new jacket was ripped. ‘You broke somebody’s security camera? Jesus, Cornel—’

‘Bit of payback. Now will you—?’

‘What’s that mean?’

Jane squirmed to her knees, still holding the remains of the camera. CCTV? What kind of place
was
this? Cornel waited for her to reach him, then he grabbed the camera out of her hands, half-turned, drew back his arm and hurled it deep into the wood.

‘Payback for what?’ Jane said.

‘Lower your voice, eh, Jane?’

‘I’m not going any further till you explain.’

‘What you gonna do then, girlie? Limp all the way home?’

He turned away. She hissed at his back.

‘Payback to who?’ And then, absurdly, ‘Whom.’

He just kept on walking. Anger spurted inside Jane like a blowlamp, and it just came out.

‘The bloke who filled you in at the back of the Swan?’

Cornel stopped.

Oh hell… mistake
.

Jane slid back down, both hands grasping wet grass. She felt the tearing of a fingernail. Story of her life. Never thought things out.

‘Cornel, look—’

He’d come shambling back, and now he was hanging over her, loose and lopsided like a hastily assembled scarecrow, black against the cobalt night sky.

‘You slippery, slippery little bitch.’ Yet he sounded… pleased? His jaw was rolling, like he was gnawing something. Which was not right, was it?

B
LISS’S SECOND RAID
on the Plascarreg Hilton was, of necessity, low-key. He parked in front of the shops, got himself a bag of chips from the chippy. Went on foot through the estate, listening to kids’ voices bouncing off the flat-pack walls, the urban birdsong of the night.

First thing he noticed was all the vehicles parked at the far end, on the derelict land separating the Plas from the Barnchurch trading estate. Cars and vans and four-by-fours. Fifteen, twenty of them.

Like there was a party at the Hilton, but there obviously wasn’t. Few lights on in there, and only a couple of cars on the forecourt, where a young lad was sitting on the wall smoking. Tossing Bliss a glance.

‘What you want, pal?’

‘Come to see Goldie. You gorra problem with that?’

‘She’s not in.’

‘You obviously don’t know her very well, son.’ Bliss offered the kid a chip. ‘She’s always in.’

‘She’s resting.’

The kid took a hot chip, bit nervously at the end.

‘Goldie rests like an owl rests, till it eyeballs a mouse,’ Bliss said. ‘I know these things on account of I’m her nephew. From the north. You go and ask her. Tell her it’s her nephew Francis.’

The kid slouched away, leaving Bliss counting the cars. Minute or so later he was back, shrugging, and Bliss went in to find
Goldie in the chintzy, brassy lounge watching TV.
EastEnders
, or some similar shite, in fifty-inch plasma. She sat up when Bliss came in but never took her eyes off the screen. The remote was on the chair arm, but she made no move to turn down the sound. She wore a black silk robe and had a steaming mug that smelled of chocolate and alcohol.

‘Why you keep pestering me?’

‘I’m an auxiliary with Help the Aged.’ Bliss crumpled up his chip paper. ‘Where do I put this?’

‘Stink the bloody place out. En’t good for you, all that vinegar.’ Goldie pointed at a velvety basket. ‘I gived you what you wanted, din’ I?’

‘Almost, Goldie. Almost.’

On the TV, a squat, bald twat was threatening somebody. Whenever you accidentally switched on
EastEnders
there was always this same squat, bald twat threatening somebody.

‘Turn it down, Goldie.’

‘Leave it.’

Bliss pulled up a cream leather chair next to Goldie’s, sat himself down.

‘Victoria Buckland, Goldie. How long you known her?’

Goldie kept on watching TV.

‘Since her was smaller than me.’

‘That’d be before she started school, then. Now, you’ve been known to have a… what we might call a
wairking relationship
with Victoria, haven’t you, Goldie?’

Goldie mumbled something that Bliss couldn’t hear for the noise of the squat, bald twat knocking over furniture.

‘Sorry, Goldie?’

‘I said I wouldn’t go that far.’

‘As I understand it, she’s occasionally been useful when your guests neglect to pay their bills or complain about the standard of service.’

Goldie sipped from the mug, like a crow at a birdbath.

‘See, the situation is,’ Bliss said, ‘that we now know for sure that Victoria and an associate had gone to administer
retribution to the Marinescu sisters. For the personal reasons you’ll know about.’

Goldie said nothing. On the box, the squat, bald twat said, ‘
Cause you’ve always been a bleedin’ slag, is why
.’

‘Now, I really don’t believe that Victoria intended it to end the way it did, Goldie, if one of the sisters hadn’t been discourteous enough to die on them. Leaving poor Victoria with no option – as she saw it – but to ensure the other one was too dead to make a capable witness.’