The Magus of Hay(16)

One of the three uniforms was waiting for him on the edge of the field, slim, freckly, red-haired girl.

Bliss said, ‘The dog walker thought there was some blood, did I get that right?’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘that was what he thought. On one of those sticky-out shelves of rock? Long washed away though now, obviously, sir. But then, if the gentleman fell from the other side… that is, went over the barrier from the road…’



‘If the dog walker saw blood on the rocks, it suggests he was on the scene not long after the old feller went in.’

‘I suppose. This was not yet six, still pretty dark down here amongst the trees.’

‘Early risers,’ Bliss said. ‘The SOCO’s friend, your dog walker.’

The numbness was in his forehead, travelling down the left side of his face. He started to sweat.

‘We have a possible name, sir. The chap recognized his hat. He wore a distinctive hat, with like a brim? It was wedged… down there. In like a crevice?’

‘Gorrit? The hat?’

‘Bagged, sir. Anyway, I’ve just been to his house. His back door’s unlocked, nobody home. He lived alone. His name’s David Hambling.’

‘He have a dog?’

No, sir.’

Bliss nodded. Sometimes people got themselves drowned going in after a pet.

‘No suggestion of dementia, sir, according to the neighbours. Even though they reckoned he must’ve been getting on for ninety. If not more. Could be a suicide?’

‘Worth the effort at ninety? Morning, Billy.’

Dr Grace, maybe twenty years older than Bliss, was striding over in his blazer and his old-fashioned gumboots, neon teeth whiter than the water. Mother of God, when even Billy’s frigging teeth hurt your eyes…

‘Francis?’ Billy contemplating Bliss with his chin tucked into his collar, all faux puzzlement. ‘Something I haven’t been told?’

‘Been advised to get more fresh air, Billy.’ Bliss turned to the uniform. ‘What’s this river called, again… um…?’

‘PC Winterson, sir. Tamsin. It’s not actually a river, it’s the Dulas Brook. Just a bit swollen with all the rain. It’s supposed to mark the actual border between England and Wales. Another few metres, this’d be one for Dyfed-Powys. Sir—’



‘What are you—?’

Bliss spinning round so fast he stumbled. Billy Grace was looking him up and down. Actually up and down. Another frigging expert feeding him through quality control. He walked – carefully – right up to the doc, leaving PC Winterson, thanks to the water-roar, just out of earshot.

‘I’m not your patient, Billy,’ Bliss said tightly. ‘All right?’

‘By virtue of being still alive after a savage kicking?’ Billy beamed. ‘Just about?’

‘Piss off.’ Bliss backed away, raising his voice. ‘As it happens, doctor, this sad case is unlikely to interest me any further. Just an old feller. So, in the absence of anything iffy, I’ll probably be leaving you in the capable hands of Tammy here.’

‘Tamsin, sir. Sir, there’s one other thing. Something we found in his kitchen?’

‘Porno DVDs? Bomb-making kit?’

‘Cannabis, sir.’

‘Really.’ Bliss blinked. ‘A ninety-year-old dopehead?’

‘Not exactly unheard of, Francis,’ Billy Grace said. ‘Occasionally prescribed by some of my more liberal colleagues for its analgesic qualities. And, of course, more often self-prescribed. Though I think if you’re suggesting the old boy might’ve toddled down here high as a bloody kite—’

‘You’d be able to tell?’

Billy shrugged

‘Immersion cases are almost invariably problematical. Even simple drowning… ridiculously hard to prove.’ He walked down to the stream’s edge, where you could see the waterfall and most of the pool. ‘Might’ve died through the shock of hitting cold water, or natural causes, precipitating the fall into the pool.’

‘Only if he was sitting on the barrier at the time,’ Bliss said.

‘Or wandered in from this side, across the fields.’

‘Yeh, I suppose.’

‘And there’s some other things, actually sir,’ Tamsin said to Bliss. ‘Probably nothing to do with, you know, what’s happened… but a bit, you know…’

‘Things?’

‘Funny things. Oh God—’

Tamsin shook. Quite suddenly, the body had come up between the two divers, like an old inner tube, water sluicing through a jacket that might once have been white, froth like bubblegum around the mouth. Bliss winced, turned away and stumbled slightly in the mud.