‘It’s not enough, is it?’
‘If you put it all together…’
‘Yeh, but that’s not how we work, the police. We don’t collect many points for preventing the hypothetical. All right, occasionally it blows up in your face, and you all look like dicks. What I’m saying, I do appreciate what you’ve done, but…’
‘This is the payoff, is it?’
‘Heard from Billy Grace this affy. He says Rector drowned. There was a cut in his head, but nothing too damaging. Probably scraped on a rock, as we thought. No complications, nothing requiring further investigation. Maybe his hat blew off into the pool and he was clambering over the rocks trying to reach it.’
‘He seem to you like the sort of ninety-odd-year-old man who’d go climbing over rocks to get his hat back?’
Bliss sipped his coffee.
‘End of the day, Merrily, like I say, while we don’t like mysteries to remain unsolved, we don’t go out of our way to create them. Can I have another spoonful of sugar in this?’
Merrily went into the kitchen, replaying Athena White in her head. They like to claim certain places… As portals where the energies they’re seeking can be drawn down. Or up. Places of sacrifice.
Mystical drivel. Bliss was right, of course. It was a different language. When she came back with the sugar bowl and a spoon and another mug of water for herself, he was rubbing stiffened fingertips hard into his brow and didn’t look good.
‘Frannie, do you have anyone at all you can, you know, call on? At home.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re not, though, are you? What if things get difficult? However much you play with words, it’s still a head injury. Unpredictable.’
Bliss looked furtive. Really, furtive was the only word that came to mind.
‘Gorra friend,’ he said gruffly. ‘Comes weekends, mostly. All right?’
‘Oh. Woman?’
‘Maybe.’
‘You can’t tell?’
Chances were, a cop. Someone who could shaft me bigtime with West Mercia if we ever fell out. Absolutely no use asking him; he was already steering the conversation into a different lane.
‘Another reason to gerrout of Gaol Street was in case I inadvertently told Brent he’d been fast-tracked up his own bum. Like you said, bit of a tightrope. Merrily, I’m grateful for your help, just don’t want to waste any more of your time, that’s all.’
Merrily lifted Ethel on to her knees.
‘Athena White, the thing about her, as we know, she worked in some capacity for the security service. Just happened to be studying the cabala over lunch in the park instead of The Times crossword. All I’m saying, she’s not some New Age airhead. If Athena White’s on edge, I think that’s cause to worry.’
‘About what? Rector’s dead. Do we have a specific other person to get anxious about? Miss White herself?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Let’s just keep an eye on it.’
Merrily nodded. What could she say?
‘I’ve got one more thing, Frannie. Arranged to meet Huw up at Capel-y-ffin on Saturday, hopefully to get an idea of what Rector was doing up there. He thinks I’ll find it significant, anyway. And seeing I could be on holiday from tomorrow, when my locum moves in…’
‘Merrily… have a rest.’
‘If anything starts looking dangerously rational, I’ll let you know.’
Bliss finished his coffee.
‘If anything dangerously rational happens, you won’t need to.’
Half an hour after he’d gone, she was still staring into the reddening stove. You started out doing a small favour for Bliss, finding out, within a day, that there was something here that probably needed pursuing, and then he was backing off.
But you couldn’t. You didn’t need rationality. Rationality was not your remit.
The cat jumped down, and Merrily stood up, finding she was shaking, the image of the woman’s slashed skull as vivid as when it fell out of a book about religious life in the Black Mountains. What struck her now was that it hadn’t been a professional-looking picture. It was a snap.
Didn’t know whether it was rage or fear or a sense of helplessness, but it sent her out of the front door on to the empty square.
Needed to go to the vicarage, anyway. One more night to pick up the mail and check the answering machine before it became Martin’s responsibility. She went back for her keys.
The mail amounted to one item. Postcard. Picture of Hereford Castle from across the river.
Dear Ms Watkins,
After learning that you
were not away, as I was
told, we came to call on
you.
We shall come again.