‘And what did Ms Watkins have to say?’
‘She said that while there was no evidence of a temple or whatever on the premises he was certainly some kind of active practitioner of… something. She was gonna try and find out if anything was known about him. Exorcists are well genned-up on what you might call the spiritual byways. Trouble is, once you follow one you wind up in places where, because no obvious crime’s been committed…’
‘The police and the CPS are not equipped to function. And Watkins is?’
‘She can sometimes translate it into a language we can understand, that’s all I’m saying.’
Annie gave him a level look.
‘So what are you going to do about PC Winterson?’
‘Hope to God she comes back before bedtime. Otherwise, I wouldn’t know where to start.’ He sat down in the armchair opposite her. ‘You’re not making me feel good about this.’
‘I’m sorry. You’re probably right. She’ll be out with some man, or her phone’s run out of juice.’
Bliss leaned forward, hands on his knees.
‘Half an hour ago, I was wondering if I’d ever see you again. Like this.’
He felt tears behind his eyes. Shut them fast, shaking his head. What the fuck had happened to him? He was a friggin shambles. When he opened his eyes, Annie’s severe face had softened, or seemed to, in the lamplight.
‘Oh, I’ll keep coming back. I think you’re my Nemesis.’
‘That a basis for a relationship?’
‘Nearest I’ve ever come to one,’ Annie said. ‘Go on. Do what you have to. Ring Winterson’s brother back. See if she’s home and, if not, get some details. Without alarming him.’
Bliss nodded, groping for his phone.
27
Orange spine
DAVID HAMBLING? Peter Rector? Capel-y-ffin?
Gomer Parry was shaking his head, pulling out his ciggy tin before remembering they were in the Black Swan. He pushed it back into his old tweed jacket, scowled.
‘Can’t be doin’ with them Welshies, see, vicar.’
Merrily tilted her head to one side.
‘But you are Welsh.’
‘No, them Welshies. Some Welshies is all right, not much different to the rest of us. But other Welshies… Oh hell, keep your distance, vicar, that’s my view of it.’
Gomer’s bottle glasses were reflecting milky light from the panes of a small mullioned window in the lounge bar. His cap lay on the table next to his cider, his carrier bag from the Eight-Till-Late at his feet. She’d been absurdly grateful to see Gomer.
‘And it en’t about the ole language, vicar, don’t you go thinkin’ that.’
‘Right.’
Some things were better left alone. It was probably a plant-hire issue: somebody quibbling over the bill for a complex system of drainage ditches and tarnishing, in Gomer’s eyes, the reputation of an entire region.
‘But you worked in Hay, did you? That’s Wales.’
‘Oh hell, aye. Mabbe ten years on and off, sure t’be.’
He was smiling dreamily, glasses misted. Radnorshire-born, from farming stock. Gomer Parry Plant Hire dating back long before he was living in Ledwardine, digging Merrily’s graves and cutting hedges on the side.
‘So does that mean…?’ She thought of a book found unexpectedly in Peter Rector’s esoteric library. ‘You ever actually work for Richard Booth, Gomer?’
‘Ha!’
The whole bench rocked, Barry, the proprietor, looked across from behind the bar, his eyepatch lifting, Gomer holding down his frenzied white hair.
‘You ever see that little tin plate I had on the side of the ole digger, vicar?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Gwynneth One, it was, or mabbe it was Muriel. Damaged in the fire at the ole depot. Never got round to replacing it. The tin plate, this is.’
‘What did it say on the tin plate?’
There was a half-chewed matchstick between Gomer’s teeth. He took it out.
‘By Royal Commission,’ he said.
‘The King of Hay.’
‘Worked for him for years. Good times, vicar. Sometimes I even got paid. Well, thinkin’ back, you always got paid, one way or another. Even if it wasn’t in actual money. What you gotter understand about the King, see, is he was… what’s that word for all over the place?’
‘Never mind, I think I know what you mean. Oh… chaotic?’
‘Exackly! And he never looked the part. Well, that was part of the joke, ennit? Belly out over his baggy pants, glasses on crooked kind o’ thing. Talks for best part of an hour and you never made no sense of a word of it. But you knowed there was sense there, see. Just that you wasn’t smart enough to get it.’