The Magus of Hay(128)

‘Nobody. Although people evidently saw me.’

‘Kelly James. And – assuming pregnant Kelly has nothing to hide – someone else. There are several possibilities, and the one that seems most likely is that someone saw you go in and, when you’d left, came down here to take a look. What’s he find, Claudia. The King’s in his chair?’

Bliss was talking faster, battling his condition with an unnatural, forced, clipped authority.

‘The King’s always in his chair,’ Claudia said.

‘For Christ’s sake, Frannie, stop it!’ All the breath pumped out of Merrily and thank God it was only breath. ‘This is not an interview room, this is… this is…’

But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop.

‘The King’s robe was red, but not with blood. The King had already gone, right? Whoever it was didn’t want the effigy messed up?’

‘I don’t see why he wouldn’t.’ Claudia’s voice high and hoarse. ‘If his intention was to desecrate the temple. Blood, piss… anything. You know what they’re like.’

‘No, I don’t, necessarily. Who?’

‘People who’d do this.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘Frannie, can we get the… get out of here? Please?’

‘You didn’t have to come in, Merrily. It was your decision. All right, let’s say he – or even they – came in for a look around.’

‘So the intruder just takes the King – planning to throw him in the river? Is that what he’s come here for?’

‘Or in the brook,’ Claudia said. ‘More likely the brook.’

‘Why? Under your… rules. Quick, Claudia. Don’t stand there refining it, you’re not presenting a defence.’

‘All right!’ Claudia’s hands up in front of her face. ‘One – it was the brook where Peter died. Two – lots of rain lately, the water would be high and rushing. Wouldn’t take long for it to get washed down to the Wye.’

‘Why?’

‘A kind of ritual drowning of… all our efforts? The project? I don’t know. I’m just talking off the top of my head, Francis, and I may be talking balls.’

‘Doesn’t matter. So Tamsin, having been alerted by Kelly James, turns up, looking for you. Sees the barn door’s open and the hatch. Comes down and confronts the intruder, the way she… the way she would. What’s he thinking, then? He hasn’t done anything? He hasn’t even broken in. He’s just a trespasser. He’s just curious. He’s like, “Sorry, officer, but… well… you gorra admit it’s a bit weird in here, isn’t it?” That’s what he’d say.’

‘If he was an ordinary trespasser.’

Claudia stood looking at Tamsin, making herself look, Merrily thought, in case any of this was her fault. Looking at the big cakes of dried blood encrusting the poor kid’s T-shirt.

‘How does that,’ Bliss said, ‘lead to this?’



Hardening his questions now, Merrily thought. Going for Claudia – almost certainly unconsciously, but it was there – the way so many defence barristers must have gone for him in the witness box. But the corpse, in all its pitiful horror, was never in court, where the only smell would be wood polish.

‘Do you know all the people in Rector’s coven or whatever you prefer to call it?’

‘I think so.’

‘How well?’

‘Christ, Francis!’ Claudia snatched away her white mask. ‘These are not bloody satanists! They’re people – mainly elderly people – of a gentle and spiritual disposition. Learned people. They don’t do… sacrifices. Not of anything living.’

‘Then who would? What about someone she knew? Say the trespasser is someone she’d talked to. In her spare-time inquiries into Rector’s death. Suppose she came face-to-face with someone she’d already had cause to be a bit suspicious of?’

‘Wouldn’t the killer be covered in blood?’

‘That would depend if… if he knew what he was doing?’ Bliss went to stand behind the chair. ‘I’m inclined to think she’d been disabled first. Maybe barely conscious when she was arranged in this chair like the effigy. If she was already disabled, he could’ve done it from behind, one slash, jump back, stand in the doorway, watch her…’ His breath catching in his throat ‘… bleeding out.’

Merrily heard Claudia’s indrawn breath, or maybe it was her own.

‘And then,’ Bliss said, ‘having hidden his or her own motor in any one of a few dozen places within walking distance, the killer – at some stage – drives Tamsin’s Clio back to Hay, with her phone in there, leaves it on the car park and goes back across the fields to Cusop for his vehicle. How long a walk – twenty minutes?’