wept
.
* * *
Seen some service, these cells and they looked like it. Gerry Rowbotham, desk veteran standing in as custody sergeant, stood with Bliss in the dull light outside Zoe’s dungeon, raising a calming hand.
‘
Francis
- no worries. We’ll treat her like—’
‘Listen, I’m not saying it’s likely. Nobody thinks that.’
‘I’ll have her watched like she’s my own daughter. Hard as that is for me to imagine.’
‘Yeah.’ Bliss nodding soberly. ‘She’s a bit weird, isn’t she?’
‘What are you doing here, Francis?’ Gerry’s head swiveling to face him. ‘It’s gone midnight. Saturday morning. Your day off, right?’
‘I’m a dedicated officer, Gerry. Been out for a meal and thought I’d just…’
‘Pizza Hut.’
‘Still a meal.’
‘On your own? No girlfriend yet?’
‘None of your business. She talking to you much? Zoe?’
‘Doesn’t talk at all. Doesn’t respond when you try to be friendly. It’s like you’re not of her social class. Which doesn’t really tally.’
‘It doesn’t.’ Bliss thought for a moment. ‘You ever meet Susan Lulham, the hairdresser? Suze?’
‘Not a lot she could’ve done for me, Francis, even then.’ Gerry patting his dome. ‘You’re thinking of Zoe’s signature on the custody record? What could we do? We’ve had crosses, swastikas, we’ve had Elvis Presley and we’ve had Fuck Off, Copper. She didn’t wanna explain, she didn’t wanna sign another… and it was witnessed.’
‘So now she’s Suze.’ Bliss paused on the steps. ‘You believe in ghosts, Gerry?’
Gerry shuffled up a smile.
‘Done my thirty next year. Most of them in Hereford. Nothing I don’t believe in.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Go home Francis.’
‘Might as well.’
* * *
Merrily went back to the car and called Sophie, asked her to talk to Susan Lulham’s mother. Explain some things. Ask her if she would be happy with this. If she wanted to attend.
A Requiem Eucharist. A Mass. Not a game, an attempted intercession at the highest level. Well-intentioned, but not about certainty. Never that. When had it ever been?
Faith? She hadn’t even found the faith to accept that Geoffrey Unsworth hadn’t made it all up about the feud between the farmer and the architect. She’d had to check. She felt ashamed, a sourness at what she was becoming. What she was afraid of becoming.
As she stood at the bottom of the New House steps, the walkway that veered off from the drive, a memory crashed into her like some mindless child on a bike. That first morning, with a sceptical Zoe looking on, she’d become shockingly aware of the possible craziness of her job. She’d stumbled and kicked the flask of holy water, grabbing it before it could topple from the step and smash, but even then she’d felt disconnected from the mains.
Blame the place.
It was nothing to do with the place.
We
’
re what we
’
ve always been
, Huw Owen said.
The last-chance saloon
.
She made one more call, not knowing if it was the right thing to do. She felt faintly sick.
The windows of all visible estate homes were either dark and vacant or backlit by television and computer-light, the screens to which people surrendered their senses when life wasn’t playing ball. Clouds had taken the moon, and it was like it had been absorbed into the New House.
A pulse happened somewhere around her solar plexus, expanded into her chest. She closed her eyes, drew a long, long breath.
Do the job.
However flakey it seemed, it wasn’t.
Climb back on the wild-eyed, apocalyptic deliverance horse and
do the job
.
19. Send the light in
She’d brought the airline bag in from the car, laid out the kit on the island, like for a picnic. Wine, small chalice, wafers, candles, Bible, Alternative Service book which she didn’t plan to consult during the Requiem.
She put on the pectoral cross.
‘This is really not what I expected,’ Anita Wells said. ‘It’s becoming like one of those claustrophobic dreams
.
* * *
Seen some service, these cells and they looked like it. Gerry Rowbotham, desk veteran standing in as custody sergeant, stood with Bliss in the dull light outside Zoe’s dungeon, raising a calming hand.
‘
Francis
- no worries. We’ll treat her like—’
‘Listen, I’m not saying it’s likely. Nobody thinks that.’
‘I’ll have her watched like she’s my own daughter. Hard as that is for me to imagine.’
‘Yeah.’ Bliss nodding soberly. ‘She’s a bit weird, isn’t she?’
‘What are you doing here, Francis?’ Gerry’s head swiveling to face him. ‘It’s gone midnight. Saturday morning. Your day off, right?’
‘I’m a dedicated officer, Gerry. Been out for a meal and thought I’d just…’
‘Pizza Hut.’
‘Still a meal.’
‘On your own? No girlfriend yet?’
‘None of your business. She talking to you much? Zoe?’
‘Doesn’t talk at all. Doesn’t respond when you try to be friendly. It’s like you’re not of her social class. Which doesn’t really tally.’
‘It doesn’t.’ Bliss thought for a moment. ‘You ever meet Susan Lulham, the hairdresser? Suze?’
‘Not a lot she could’ve done for me, Francis, even then.’ Gerry patting his dome. ‘You’re thinking of Zoe’s signature on the custody record? What could we do? We’ve had crosses, swastikas, we’ve had Elvis Presley and we’ve had Fuck Off, Copper. She didn’t wanna explain, she didn’t wanna sign another… and it was witnessed.’
‘So now she’s Suze.’ Bliss paused on the steps. ‘You believe in ghosts, Gerry?’
Gerry shuffled up a smile.
‘Done my thirty next year. Most of them in Hereford. Nothing I don’t believe in.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Go home Francis.’
‘Might as well.’
* * *
Merrily went back to the car and called Sophie, asked her to talk to Susan Lulham’s mother. Explain some things. Ask her if she would be happy with this. If she wanted to attend.
A Requiem Eucharist. A Mass. Not a game, an attempted intercession at the highest level. Well-intentioned, but not about certainty. Never that. When had it ever been?
Faith? She hadn’t even found the faith to accept that Geoffrey Unsworth hadn’t made it all up about the feud between the farmer and the architect. She’d had to check. She felt ashamed, a sourness at what she was becoming. What she was afraid of becoming.
As she stood at the bottom of the New House steps, the walkway that veered off from the drive, a memory crashed into her like some mindless child on a bike. That first morning, with a sceptical Zoe looking on, she’d become shockingly aware of the possible craziness of her job. She’d stumbled and kicked the flask of holy water, grabbing it before it could topple from the step and smash, but even then she’d felt disconnected from the mains.
Blame the place.
It was nothing to do with the place.
We
’
re what we
’
ve always been
, Huw Owen said.
The last-chance saloon
.
She made one more call, not knowing if it was the right thing to do. She felt faintly sick.
The windows of all visible estate homes were either dark and vacant or backlit by television and computer-light, the screens to which people surrendered their senses when life wasn’t playing ball. Clouds had taken the moon, and it was like it had been absorbed into the New House.
A pulse happened somewhere around her solar plexus, expanded into her chest. She closed her eyes, drew a long, long breath.
Do the job.
However flakey it seemed, it wasn’t.
Climb back on the wild-eyed, apocalyptic deliverance horse and
do the job
.
19. Send the light in
She’d brought the airline bag in from the car, laid out the kit on the island, like for a picnic. Wine, small chalice, wafers, candles, Bible, Alternative Service book which she didn’t plan to consult during the Requiem.
She put on the pectoral cross.
‘This is really not what I expected,’ Anita Wells said. ‘It’s becoming like one of those claustrophobic dreams
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