“Mum,” she had said, “I’ve got some news. Are you sitting down?”
Edna backed into the chair by the telephone table. “What …?” she began, her alarm registering down the phone line, which her daughter picked up with a chuckle.
“Good news, don’t worry,” she said. “Take a deep breath. You’re going to be a grandma again!”
If Edna’s hair hadn’t been so carefully lacquered it might have stood on end. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, I say.”
So many emotions ran through her, so many images fought to escape from the back of her mind that Edna almost blanked herself out. “Are you sure?” she managed to utter.
Amanda trilled a laugh. “Yes, don’t worry, I’ve waited until I was twelve weeks to tell you, but the doctor’s happy and everything seems fine. I’ve even given up smoking, you’ll be pleased to hear.” Amanda crossed her fingers as she relayed this last piece of information.
“Well,” Edna made a supreme effort to sound as any other new grandmother might in a similar situation, “congratulations,” she said, groping around for a follow-up. “I suppose you’ve got Wayne decorating the nursery already?”
“Not quite yet,” said Amanda, “but we’re going to get some colour charts and wallpaper samples this week. I thought you might like to come and help me? Maybe we could go up to Norwich, have a look around Bonds? And a cream tea in Elm Hill while we’re at it?”
Having been denied this opportunity the last time around, Edna recognised the olive branch when she saw it and grasped for it gratefully. “I’d love to.”
“One more thing,” Amanda said. “Would you be able to,” she hesitated, “pave the way with Dad, do you think? So as it isn’t such a shock for him?”
The question, and everything that went with it, hung in the air between them for a stretched-out minute.
“I’ll do my best,” said Edna. Her voice was faint on the line.
“Thanks, Mum,” said Amanda.
For a long while after the call had ended the only sounds in the hall were the ticking of the grandmother clock and Edna’s laboured breathing. When she at last stood up, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror that hung over the telephone table.
It felt like she was seeing a ghost.
* * *
High up in the tower above the Leisure Beach, Eric Hoyle sat at his desk, a frown scoring lines across his forehead, blue tendrils of smoke rising up around him from an ashtray piled high with butts. Beneath him, the magic kingdom languished in darkness, the tourists still a month away, Easter coming late this year. Only the lights from the oil rigs twinkled in the distance, but he wasn’t looking to them tonight. He took another sip of his malt, sour in his mouth with the aftertaste
of tobacco and tar.
Across the desk, Len Rivett hunched forward in his seat, his eyes locked onto the TV screen. Bodies writhing on crumpled white sheets, filling the air with their moaning. The lanky young greaser at the foot of the bed, pumping away for all he was worth, was the prodigal son of the landlady of one of Ernemouth’s most upmarket hotels, caught in the Back Room with enough speed and Red Leb on him to ensure a three-month stretch. His fear of his mother seemingly even greater than that of the law, he could hardly believe that this – along with future, unspecified favours to be called in at Rivett’s request – would serve as his punishment instead.
In the foreground, the woman stared out from between the straps that held the ball-gag in place. Her flesh was white and plump in all the right places. Black leather binds criss-crossing soft flesh, trussing her into an unnaturally submissive position. Raised red welts across the globes of her arse, a cat-o-nine-tails hanging from the bedstead, limp from a pre-coital scourging.
Her black eyes were fixed on the camera with an unblinking gaze of hatred.
The last few seconds of Gina’s screen debut dissolved into a grey rain of static. The machine gave its own mechanical groan, as if in appreciation of Eric’s directorial masterpiece, and began to rewind.
Rivett leaned back in his seat. “Told you she was a natural,” he said, turning to Eric with a grin.
Eric nodded. “Look on her face’d make a dead man come.”
Rivett raised his own shot of whisky. “Here’s to your Oscar,” he said.
Eric murmured agreement, clinking glasses across the table.
Rivett took a hefty swig, enjoying the burn of it down the
back of his throat, while he contemplated his companion’s demeanour. “You don’t look too pleased about it,” he said.
Eric’s scowl deepened as he crushed his cigarette out. “You won’t believe the grief I’ve got headed my way,” he said.
“Try me,” said Rivett, swirling the remains of the amber liquid round in his tumbler. “When you ever seen me shocked?”
Eric fixed him with a steady gaze. “It’s Mandy,” he said. There was a slight tremor in his fingers as he lit another cigarette. “She’s only got herself up the duff.”
“Ah,” said Rivett.
“Yeah,” said Eric, “and you seen what a fine job she done of bringing up the one she already got, in’t you?” His fingers drummed on the tabletop. “Sammy’s been suspended from school,” he went on. “Some stupid haircut she gone and got herself, don’t look much better than a slag these days. She used to be my little princess, that girl,” he said. “But she’s been running wild ever since Mandy let her go to the high school. She in’t got a clue how to control her. What’s it going to be like when she’s got a screaming baby in the house and all?” Eric dragged hard on his cigarette, exhaling a cloud of smoke and malice. “And what am I supposed to do – sit back and let it happen all over again? Edna in’t no help. All she can say is, ‘Oooh, that’s an innocent bay-bee,’” he mimicked his wife’s voice cruelly. “Bloody women.”
Rivett lit a cigar as he watched Eric reach for the bottle.
“The trouble with all the women in your life, Eric,” he considered, “is down to how they look. You’re a sucker for a pretty face, in’t you?”
Eric glugged Scotch into his glass. “Am I?” he said.
“You should have done what I did,” Rivett warmed to his
theme. “Pick a plain woman and you get a grateful wife. Now, my daughters in’t got a whole lot going for ’em in the looks department neither, but they in’t gonna cause me any grief. They’re gonna make two good little housewives, just like their mum. But your Mandy, she was a looker, and look where that got you. Little Samantha’s just the same. You want to make sure she don’t go running off with some lanky, streak-of-piss student wanker,” he nodded back towards the TV as the tape gave another gurgle and then ejected itself. “You better start looking out for some decent husband material.”
Eric looked at him incredulously. “She in’t even sixteen ’til next month,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Rivett, “and as you well know, they’re never too young, are they?”
Eric held his tongue.
“Now, my sister-in-law’s got a nice boy,” the DCI went on. “Dale, his name is. Same age as your Sammy.”
Eric’s eyes narrowed as he rifled through the index folder of his mind for the reminder of that surname. “Smollet?” he said. “Ted’s nephew? Worked out front with him last season, on the arrows?”
“That’s the one,” said Rivett.
“I’ll tell you how nice he is,” said Eric. “One night last July, half my staff suddenly go missing. Turns out, they’re all up on the rollercoaster, getting a good look at your sister-in-law’s boy – with his bare arse going up and down on some tart in the dunes.”
Rivett chuckled affectionately. “Well, he were a bit of a boy, that’s true,” he said. “Which is why she sent him to me over the Christmas holidays, to have a bit of a chat and that. Turns out, he fancy joining the Force, making a man of himself. With the
right guidance, he could go far. Next time there’s a bit of a do on, I’ll introduce you.”
“You’re joking, in’t you?” said Eric.
“No I in’t,” said Rivett. “You know I only have your best intentions at heart, Eric. And a marriage between our families … Think what that could mean.”
Eric opened his mouth and then shut it again.
“Right, well,” Rivett continued cheerfully. “Now old Gina’s got you your jollies like I knew she would, I gotta go clean up the rest of her mess.” He winked as he headed for the door. “Got to catch me a mangy old Wolf – and you have put me right in the mood.”
Sean and Rivett stood under the creaking pub sign, looking into the open boot of the older man’s Rover, at an open cardboard box.
“Two for you,” Rivett reached in and passed the sealed, labelled DNA swab kits over to Sean. “You still want me to look for the third?”
Sean nodded. “Yeah. Does our Mr Prim strike you as the sort of bloke who’d sit up all night burning candles in a pillbox?” he asked.
Rivett raised his eyebrows. “You ever been round a biker’s house?” he asked.
“Can’t say I’ve had that particular pleasure,” said Sean.
“But you’ve seen your fair share of dope dealers’ dives, though, in’t you?”
Sean nodded.
“Then you’ve seen the amount of candles them prats get through. That’s part of the mystical bollocks they all seem to believe in, that go along with their addled memories and poor personal hygiene.” Rivett grimaced. “And according to Einstein back there, we’re looking for someone clean and neat.”
“Point taken,” said Sean, with a smile.
“Still,” said Rivett, his expression brightening. “That won’t do no harm to bend his ear, though, will it? Oh, and here’s them clean ones you wanted.” He produced the remaining kits out of the same box.
“Thanks,” said Sean.
“Right,” said Rivett, slamming down the boot lid. “Happy hunting. See you back at the office.”
Sean limped slowly back to the car, the effort of his reconnoitres across the dunes and the bitter wind having frozen the iron in his legs and rendered his fingers almost numb. Rivett, on the other hand, seemed keen to get away from the place. He exited the car park swiftly, honking his horn as he went.
Sean watched the Rover crest the top of the bridge and disappear from view. Then, casting around to make sure he was alone, he retraced their footsteps back to the sea wall. At the bottom of the steps he found what he was looking for.
The stub of Rivett’s cigar went into the first of the plastic bags.
* * *
“Hello?”
Sean had stood on Sheila Alcott’s doorstep for ten minutes, ringing the bell and then, deciding it must be broken, rapping the brass knocker against the front door. He stood back, looking up at the diamond-patterned windows, as he shouted out a greeting.
The windows returned a blank gaze.
Sean shook his head and walked around to the back of the building, checking his watch. Ten minutes past three, it read, the second hand still gliding steadily around the face. He was on time and he was expected.
“Hello?” he called again.
The dull cawing of rooks was the only reply.
The Alcott smallholding, optimistically named Greenfields Farm, comprised of a flint-clad farmhouse, clasped so deeply within the gnarled embrace of an old wisteria that it looked as if the plant was holding it upright, and a series of outbuildings clustered around a concreted yard. Behind lay acres of grazing, dotted with the distant, black-and-white bodies of Friesian cows.
The buildings were surrounded by a copse, the bare upper branches of the trees thick with the nests of the rook parliament. The sun had given up its earlier attempts to break through the clouds, which had darkened to the point of a rainburst as Sean drove up the Acle Straight. Now clouds hung like a shroud over the humps of the buildings, droplets running along the telephone wires overhead.
Sean’s eyes travelled around the yard. One of the barn doors was open, revealing an ancient tractor in shades of rust and mud, and various other pieces of machinery that seemed to Sean like an assembly of medieval torture implements – spikes and scythes, great rolls of chains on giant spindles. His mind drifted back to the book he’d bought in Farrer’s, the stories of the Swing mob.
A pair of green eyes peered out of the gloom. For a split second, Sean’s heart jumped in his chest, before he realised what it was. Just a fat tabby cat, sitting on top of a hay bale. The creature opened its mouth, revealing sharp white teeth, and emitted a yowl. At the same time, a creaking noise and the crunching of feet made Sean jump, his head snapping around to see a short woman in a wax jacket, corduroys and Wellington boots, a headscarf barely containing her frizz of
salt-and-pepper hair, come trundling into the yard, pushing a wheelbarrow.
“Oh!” she looked at Sean aghast, plonked the handlebars of her wheelbarrow down and scrabbled up her sleeve to find her watch. “Is that the time?”
Sean chuckled with relief. Sheila, with her lopsided headgear and Mother’s Union badge pinned to the front of her jacket, was a far cry from the sinister apparition of bloodthirsty nineteenth-century villagers his mind had conjured out of the gloomy farmyard.
“I was just down at the compost heap,” she explained, picking up the handles again and manoeuvring the barrow into the open barn. “I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting. You must be Mr Ward?”
“That’s right.” Sean followed her in. The cat roused itself onto its legs, stretching and yawning, then jumped down from the bale and made a beeline for Sean, rubbing its big, flat head against his legs and purring like a steam train.
“Sheila Alcott.” She took her right hand out of a thick, yellow leather glove and offered it to shake. “You
are
honoured,” she glanced down at the cat. “She doesn’t normally talk to strangers, do you, Minnie dear?”
Sean caught a trace of a Midlands accent as she spoke. She had been here a long time, but Sheila wasn’t local.
“Come in,” she ushered him out of the barn, closing the door behind them, “and I’ll put kettle on. You look frozen.”
“Yeah,” Sean admitted as he followed her out. “Does it take very long to acclimatise?”
“Oh,” said Sheila, opening the back door, “only about thirty years.”
Sean had to duck to get through the doorway, but inside
the farmhouse was as full of colour as the outside was grey. In Sheila’s kitchen, wildflowers spilled from red and blue glass vases, dried herbs hung from the beams that ran up the walls and along the ceiling and cheery faces in photographs smiled out at Sean from every shelf and windowsill.