We Are the Hanged Man (29 page)

He looked up at Haynes.

'You see the chateau in the background is much more prominent?'

'The chateau?' said Jericho. His tone was slightly mocking and Haynes briefly gritted his teeth.

'It's a French chateau, somewhere in the Loire valley. Owned by a family named Larrousse. Wine producers, although that's a relatively recent development. Forty or fifty years or so.'

'How d'you find it?'

'Spoke to a woman at the British Library about the cards. She recognised it.'

'You showed them to someone else?'

'She doesn't know any of the context. The interesting thing is that even before she recognised the chateau, she was talking about the likelihood of there being some sort of French link with the cards. The thing you said about organisations using them. She said that the style of card we have here was used by people – groups – in France in, like, the 18
^th
century. Similar type of thing. Warnings, calling cards.'

'So something's been done or something's about to be done?'

'Either one.'

Jericho made a smacking noise with his lips. There was no obvious use in that.

'Nevertheless, we have a very clear….' and Haynes hesitated before he spoke, then said, 'French connection.'

Jericho grimaced at the reference.

'So it would appear.'

'Does that mean anything to you?' asked Haynes. 'You have any relationship to France?'

'Me?' said Jericho looking up sharply.

'Well,' said Haynes, 'the cards have been getting sent to you.'

Jericho exhaled a long breath. Allowed his eyes to linger on the card. The vicious scowl of the skeletal figure, knowing and sadistic.

'No,' he said, 'not as far as I know. Don't speak French, don't know anyone who's French. Amanda and I went to Paris once, but then, doesn't everyone?'

'You've never heard of the Larrousse family?'

'No.'

'Ever drunk the wine?' asked Haynes speculatively.

Jericho looked up, a grimace on his face, then saw that Haynes was smiling.

'Bugger off, Sergeant.'

Haynes leaned forward and turned the card so that it was in the middle, side on to both of them.

'Have you found out about the Larrousse family?' asked Jericho.

'Next on my list,' said Haynes. 'The professor recognised the chateau, knew about the wine, but not too much about the family.'

'OK. Well, let me know when you have.'

'I might need to go to France,' said Haynes. 'Although probably not until the summer.'

'Give me the other envelope,' said Jericho to cut off the flow of jokes. His sergeant seemed to be in rather more robust humour than usual.

Haynes handed it over as his phone began to ring. He checked the number, and then put the phone back in his pocket, as Jericho took the lawyer's letter from the envelope.

Haynes opened up the fruit salad, and took a piece of melon which he ate like it might have been poisonous.

Fruit. His dad ate fruit. But then, his dad was sixty. That was the kind of age when you needed to eat fruit in order to go to the toilet. He was still too young to have to debase his body with anything particularly healthy.

Jericho was scowling.

'Bloody crap,' he said. 'What's that all about?'

'No idea,' said Haynes. 'Take it you don't either?'

Jericho shook his head.

'The guy they're talking about,' said Haynes. 'The dead guy. He was one of the suspicious deaths I was looking into when this all started.'

Jericho read the name again and this time recognised it. Chastised himself for the fact that his sergeant had realised it and he hadn't.

'Who was that on the phone?' he asked, while his mind ran through the possibilities surrounding Oliver Davis.

'The office. I'll think of something.'

Jericho leant back and rubbed his chin. Checked his watch. He was already twenty minutes late back for his television appointment. If he left it too long, the bloody camera crew and contestants would probably turn up at the café.

'Dylan'll know where you are. She might be vicious, stupid and power-crazed, but she's not stupid.'

'You just said she was stupid.'

'Not that kind of stupid.'

'Maybe we should show her the cards,' said Haynes. 'It makes sense. We agree that we've moved on from thinking that it's some kind of joke. There's something going on here, it's coming to a head. We need to tell her.'

'Did you cross-reference the date of death with any of the cards?' asked Jericho, ignoring him.

'Yes,' said Haynes. 'It was the first. He died at two in the morning, you got the card in the mail the same day.' He paused, waited for Jericho, but he wasn't talking yet. 'It doesn't necessarily tie them together, as this one could have been referencing something that had happened the previous day, but…'

'They are no coincidences.'

Haynes nodded, then continued speaking while Jericho thought it all through. 'It would have been sent before he was killed, so that you received it afterwards. Unless it was held up in the post… So we have a link between you and one of the suspicious deaths, we have the connection with the cards, we have the French thing…'

'Didn't like the way you said there was a link between me and one of the suspicious deaths,' said Jericho grimly.

Haynes shook his head. Jericho let out a long sigh, and then got to his feet.

'Better go. Do me a favour. Call this lawyer, get me an appointment. Today. Don't care how late. Any time will do. Give me a call and I'll get out of whatever shit they've got me doing in there. And if the shit hits the fan back at the station, just let me know and I'll handle it.'

He rubbed his chin, then left the card and the letter sitting on the table.

'You'd better keep them. What's the book?'

'History of the Tarot in French Society.'

Jericho nodded. Haynes was doing better work than he was. Of course, Haynes was being given the opportunity to work.

'Get to it, Sergeant,' he said, then he indicated the fruit salad. 'There's no need to be eating that shit.'

He turned. As he did so he nearly bumped into a tall man walking into the café. Jericho didn't look at his face, but grunted an apology.

The man, who generally could only focus on one thing at a time, had barely even noticed that they'd nearly bumped into each other. He said nothing and walked to the counter.

Haynes glanced up briefly, and then refocused on the table in front of him. Speared another piece of fruit and opened up the Tarot book.

Jericho, head bowed and already descending back into his usual depressive state at the thought of returning to the grip of television, had not paid attention to the man who had brushed past him and headed straight for the counter.

It had been thirty years since he'd last seen him, but had he taken the time to look at his face he would have instantly recognised him and wondered how it was that he was no longer in prison.

Durrant, driven out of his hotel room by hunger and, unusually for him, a restless boredom, asked for a coffee and a sandwich, and was directed to the chiller cabinet.

There was a slight movement in one of the two black plastic bags that had been dumped in the corner. Not from Lorraine Allison, of course. She had been killed a hundred times over.

It was Lewis. Not quite dead. Not as dead as Durrant had thought him. Not completely dead.

As his body began to move, Lewis was barely conscious. He saw and felt only suffocating darkness, the slow pushing of his arms and legs against the black plastic liner, the memory of movement. Unthinking, unknowing. Woken by his body's last gasping for breath, as slowly the confines of the bag drew the life from him. Cheap bags, left lying in the room for thirty years. Slightly ripped in the hurried act of packaging up the body, letting in just enough air for Lewis to cling on.

Turgid fingers pushed against the plastic and slowly poked through. Another hand joined them but the effort of ripping even the thin plastic was too much.

Lewis had succeeded in bringing air to his tortured lungs, blessed relief, but it was as much as he could do. His body screamed in pain; he did not open his eyes and he once again lapsed into unconsciousness.

*

Jericho stared across the table at the committee of five. Ando, Xav, Cher, Claudia and Morris. Morris was slightly put out by the fact that Claudia was now sitting in on everything. Saw it as a rebuke for her own performance, which indeed it was.

Washington was delighted by the way the media side of the show was falling into place; the story with Lol had fallen into his lap like a gift from the gods; and poor old Jericho was utterly hapless and consequently perfect television. However, the shows still lacked something. People were watching them because that was what they did, or they thought they should, or they were afraid they'd miss something, or because everyone else at work was watching and they didn't want to be left out of the following day's discussion. They weren't watching because it was actually any good. Yet. They had four nights to make amends.

Washington understood it was too late in the process to make it worthwhile replacing Morris. Her replacement, no matter who it was, would never get up to speed in time. He needed someone that had been there from the start, and at least for that Claudia was perfect. She hadn't wanted to get her hands dirty quite so much in this way – she had genuinely squealed when he'd sent her to Wells – but there was no question that it was necessary.

At five minutes past ten on Saturday evening, Morris was going to be looking for a new job. In fact, Washington was contemplating getting rid of her just before the show started, as her work would be more or less done by then.

'No,' said Jericho eventually. 'Really. No. We can't do that.'

'Can't you?' asked Claudia, her voice dripping with supercilious disdain. 'Look, Chief Inspector, we don't have a lot of time before we need to start putting tonight's show together, so let's everyone just get real for a second. We have continually asked things of you, you have continually said no, and you know what? We get them anyway. So why don't we just cut out all the fucking shit, cut out the boring stage where you pretend that what we want isn't going to happen, and just fucking do it?'

Jericho, who had allowed himself to edge forwards towards the desk, once more slouched back into his seat. His phone beeped. He held Claudia's gaze for a moment and then took his phone out to check. It was something that he found incredibly rude when others did it, and he only did it this time because of the company he was keeping.

Claudia seethed, knew exactly what Jericho was thinking.

It was Haynes. The lawyer was free in the next half hour, would be travelling later. Effectively, now or never. Thank God for that, thought Jericho.

'I need to go,' he said, standing up.

'Sit down!' barked Claudia.

Xav and Ando looked a little uncomfortable, Xav indeed so uncomfortable that he didn't even think about making the awkward turtle sign.

Jericho paused to give her a look. It would have been wrong to say that he hesitated, as he had no intention of not going. The thought of saying something flitted through his head and then, as usual, he didn't say it. He moved towards the door.