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The Magus of Hay(36)

By:Phil Rickman


‘I don’t think Hardwicke even qualifies as a village.’

Tap on the door. Sound of crockery wobbling on a tray.

Hardwicke?

‘Oh my God.’ Merrily stared at Bliss. ‘Not her…’

Bliss shrugged, looking helpless. It made sense now. She’d tie him in knots.

God, the way you just walked into these situations. Merrily, exasperated, opened Hills of Vision to slip the paper back inside, saw what was on it, recoiled.

‘Frannie…’

They intercepted Tamsin with the tea, took the tray, with the book and the paper, back into the kitchen. Laid the paper on the worktop under the window.

It was a photocopy. A black and white photo occupying the middle of a single piece of A4 copier paper folded in two.

Bliss didn’t touch it.

Merrily said, ‘Do you think she’s dead?’

‘I don’t know.’

The picture was grey and grainy. It was a photo of a woman seen from behind and from above.

At least, the narrow shoulders suggested a woman. Her head had been shaved, but not carefully, leaving some tufts of hair and a lattice of blood trails. And on the skull, the way skinheads used to have it done and maybe some still did, a crude and bloody swastika.

Under the picture, a single hand-printed line. Felt pen, it looked like.

It said,

What will you do now?





17

Putrid


ROBIN LOOKED OUT of the sitting room window, down into Back Fold.

‘Only drawback here, is what you see. Or don’t see.’

What you saw were the modern buildings opposite, housing an opticians and some other stores that were not exactly historic. What he hadn’t realized before was that Back Fold was only half medieval. What you couldn’t see from the bookstore was the castle.

‘Downside of actually having the castle wall as your own back wall. You wanna see the castle, you gotta go open the bathroom window, stick your head out.’

‘Or perhaps,’ Betty said, ‘you could just pop downstairs and out of the front door and… wooh, a castle!’

Yeah, what the hell. He hauled the rolled-up rug they’d brought into the middle of the room, and they both unrolled it. Only a plain rust-coloured rug, but it gave the room a new warmth.

Betty stood in the centre of the rug.

‘Only real problem is that we can’t have a fire.’

‘We have fireplaces.’

‘Two,’ Betty said. ‘Ground floor and here. However, if you go outside, walk up the castle drive to the point where you can look over the wall and down on this place, you’ll see a plain, slate roof with no stack, and no aperture through which smoke may be released into the air.’

‘Huh?’



‘Check it.’

They went downstairs. No need to walk up the castle drive. Even from street level you could see the roof was all slates, no chimney. The castle’s curtain wall rose just higher than its apex. Had this been the original wall? Probably, in some form. No reason why it shouldn’t date back at least to the twelfth century when the castle had belonged, like most of the southern border castles, to the de Braose Family.

‘Shit,’ Robin said. ‘You’re right. Wonder if there’s a planning law to prevent us installing a small wood-burner and shoving a neat flue up between the tiles? This is like when we make so much money we buy the place from Oliver.’

Betty gave him a smile. He was in optimistic mood today. He’d chosen a bedroom for his studio.

The phone beeped.

‘You leave a message for me? Tom Armitage, Salisbury?’

Betty said, ‘Sorry, you’re breaking up. Can you hang on?’

She pointed at the phone, conveying to Robin that she needed a stronger signal, and took it to the top of the alley, watching Robin going back into the shop. Hadn’t said a word to him about her call to Mr Oliver or any of this.

‘That’s better.’

‘Sounds exactly the same to me,’ Tom Armitage said.

The size of his website suggested he was thriving in Salisbury, which doubtless still had a good percentage of residents who could afford antique furniture. He asked Betty who exactly she was.

‘I’m a bookseller.’

‘In Hay? Are there any left?’ His accent wasn’t local to Hay. Or Wiltshire, come to that. He sounded posh, a touch cavalier. ‘Booth still there? Indefatigable old bugger. Luck of the devil. When he’s gone – if he ever consents to go – he’ll be seen striding the battlements with his tin crown under his arm. What’s the problem, Mrs Thorogood?’

‘We’re opening a book business in your former premises. In Back Fold.’



‘And?’

‘I was interested in who might have had it before. Its history.’