The Cold Calling Part 2

'The only Margaret Murray I know,' Hatch said heavily, 'is a Labour councillor on the police committee.'

'This one was an academic. An historian. Dr Murray published her anthropological history of witchcraft and paganism in 1931. Her theory was that although William Rufus might have appeared to support the Church, it seems likely he was a lifelong pagan. As the king, he would have been regarded as a G.o.d incarnate, and he was growing old. Well, a G.o.d could never grow old or weak or feeble. He must die for his people, to strengthen their attachment to this new land. And, of course, as the king, he was permitted to select the time and circ.u.mstances of his own ritual death.'

'Dubious privilege,' Hatch said. No doubt thinking, Old Welsh queen's lost his marbles.

Cindy walked into the centre of the clearing.

'The king had prepared himself for death, had eaten and drunk well and taken possession of six fresh bolts for his crossbow. Two of which he handed to Walter Tirel before they left. When he was shot, William then broke off the wooden shaft of the bolt and fell upon the stump.'

'Very interesting, sir,' Hatch said. 'But I'd be glad if you wouldn't mention crossbows to anyone at this stage. Probably be common knowledge by tomorrow, but by then we can've pinned down every crossbow-owning nutter between here and-'

Cindy said, 'Do you see the beauty of it? William let the Earth finish him.'

'To be honest, Mr Lewis, I don't see much of a link here. Two crossbow killings eight hundred years apart?'

'Just thought you should be aware of it, Chief Inspector.'

'Yes. Thank you very much, sir. Do you think we could persuade Mrs Capaldi to go home now?'

Part One.

Stone with magnetic or radioactive properties seems to have been incorporated into some monuments. Certain parts of the brain are sensitive to magnetic fields particularly the temporal lobe region which houses the organs that process memory, dreams and feeling. There is an archaic tradition of sleeping on stones of power to achieve visions.

Paul Devereux, Earth Memory.

I.

Three years later, the autumn night he died, Bobby Maiden was drinking single malt, full of this smoky peat essence. Put you in mind of somewhere damp and lonely. Moorland meeting the sea, no visible horizon.

The whiskies were on the house, all five of them. Could be the same went for the woman. Who was starting to look more than OK, the arrangement of her too-black hair coming apart in a tumble, s.e.xy as a bathrobe falling open. Face white, lipstick a luminous mauve, all very Gothic. When you hadn't been in this situation for quite a while, you tended to forget what an over-scented lady in a pasted-on black frock could do when she was concentrating.

'So, Bobby ...' Shaking out a fresh cigarette. 'Your old man was one too, then.'

Five whiskies. About right for explaining how the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d shafted him.

'A real one,' Maiden said. 'Not many left. As he'd keep telling you. A Plod. Village copper, deepest Cheshire. I mean, there's nowhere very deep in Cheshire any more, but there was then. Police Sergeant Norman Maiden. Never Norman. Certainly never Norm. Not with the uniform on. Question of respect, madam.'

Well after midnight now. Just Maiden and this woman called ... Susan? ... in Tony Parker's nasty new club in the grim, concrete west end of Elham. How this had happened, he'd arranged to meet Percy Gilbert, Snout of the Year, 1979. Be worth your time, Mr Maiden, no question. No-one else in Elham CID had any time, never mind money, for Percy these days. But it was Bobby Maiden's weekend off, so nothing lost. Nothing at all. Sadly.

But the b.u.g.g.e.r hadn't shown. Maiden had ordered a Scotch, and the barman wouldn't take any money special introductory offer for new members, the drink'll be brought to your table, sir. On these soiled streets, a police warrant card bought more drinks than American Express, but he didn't think the barman knew him. Next thing, the woman's arriving with a tray, claiming to be Parker's niece, from London.

By this time, the gears are whirring, cogs clicking into place. A nicely oiled mechanism starting up. The sound of Tony Parker making his move.

Mr Un-nickable. Mr Immunity.

Maiden deciding to roll with it, see where it led.

'... course, all the kids were terrified of this flesh-eating dinosaur in the tall hat. He had the human race divided into three: the police, the evil toerags and the Public who were grateful for your protection and showed a bit of respect. So there was only one role for a real man and, particularly, for Son of Plod. Thing was, Su ...'

Suzanne. That was the name. But, remembering it, he'd forgotten what he was going to say.

Suzanne put down her vodka and orange, kind of thoughtful. What had she asked him, to start him off about Norman Plod? What's a sensitive guy like you doing in the police? Maybe. Couldn't remember.

One thing about Suzanne: she was professionally unknown to Maiden. That is, not one of Tony Parker's regular slags. Plus, she had a certain bizarre style.

'There was some poet, Bobby ... wrote this really deep-down truthful line. Tennyson, Keats, one of those. I don't go much on poetry, but ... "Your mum and dad, they always f.u.c.k you up ..." Something like that. Wordsworth, would it be?'

Maiden ogled the ceiling. 'That would be before or after he wrote about the f.u.c.king daffs?'

'Nah, what I'm saying, a man like him ...' Suzanne leaned her head back, blew out smoke. 'I can see, a man like your dad, why he wouldn't want you to be a painter or nothing like that.'

And then you get out of your nancified art college, what happens then, eh? Norman Plod, gardening in police boots and ragged old police shirts. What you gonna do for readies then, with no government grant to prop yer up? Eh? Eh?

Maiden realized he was doing his Norman Plod out loud.

Artists? Parasites, lad. n.o.body wants 'em till they've snuffed it. Live off the State and sponging off their mates. Go b.l.o.o.d.y mad, cut their ears off.

'Cut their ears off.' Maiden shook his head. 'I'd forgotten about that.'

'Right. Yeah.' Suzanne's white face bobbing like a j.a.panese doll's. 'I think I heard of a guy that happened to.'

'Fancy.' Was this woman real?

Look, Norman said, back from the Conservative Club, flattening a tube of flake white with his size nines. Do yourself a favour. Get rid of this nancy s.h.i.t. Else they'll think you're a poof. Think you're a poof, lad!

'What a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Did you?'

'What?'

'Get rid of it.'

'No. Just went undercover.'

And still was. There were nights now when he was painting through till dawn: pale, minimal, imaginary landscapes, not much more than air and light. Paintings of the white noise in his head. Not, in fact, a long way from the cutting-off-the-ear stage, when you thought about it.

'What do you paint?'

'Places. Feelings. Usual c.r.a.p. Never sold one. Never tried. Copper's little hobby, who needs it?' Me, I need it, he thought. There's nothing else. Isn't that terminally pathetic?

Suzanne smoked in silence for a few seconds, then she said, 'So you wanted to paint and he was determined you were going to trail in his big footsteps. Where was your mother all this time?'

Bobby Maiden stared into his gla.s.s.

'In heaven.'

You know what happens to them, coppers like Maiden, the sensitive ones ... Two possible career projections. Either they go to the top faster than they deserve...

This was Martin Riggs, Divisional Super now, talking to veteran DI Barry Hutchins at the CID Christmas binge. Barry just loved to tell this story, especially loved telling Maiden, who unforgivably avoided the Christmas binge. Barry had taken a retirement deal, worked for Group Four Security now, so he could say what he liked.

... or else they crack up, Riggs tells Barry. Top themselves. Look at the situation. He's thirty-five, still a DI. Goes off to the Met, can't stand the heat, and he's back after a year. In this job, Barry, if you want to get on, you don't come back.

This was very true. You certainly don't come back when the new boss is someone you happened to run into in London, in circ.u.mstances that convinced you he was bent.

'You still got them, Bobby?'

'Huh?'

'Your paintings.' Her eyes were opaque.

'Oh.'

'Only I wouldn't mind seeing them,' Suzanne said.

He choked off a laugh into the whisky.

'Let me get this right. You're saying you would like to come up and see my etchings?'

'Whatever.' Suzanne ground her cigarette into the ashtray and reached across the table for her bag.

'You mean now?'

Got to think, got to think.

'All right then,' he said. 'I'll just pop to the bog.'

Alone in the gents', Maiden slapped cold water on his face.

OK. Think.

Owen Anthony Parker, entrepreneur. Fairly new in town. Cheery, beaming Londoner making a fresh start in the provincial leisure industry. Looks dodgy as h.e.l.l, but no record. In no time at all, Parker has two clubs, one lowlife, one upmarketish, and five pubs. Public figure, hosts charity evenings. Thanks to Mr Parker, Elham General Hospital has its long-battled-for new body-scanner.

Also, thanks indirectly to Mr Parker, the recently opened drug-dependency unit has a whole bunch of extra clients.

Tony Parker. Mr Immunity.

Why?

Well, several people have a good idea. And somebody in CID has to be fully in the picture.

Maiden dried his face on a paper towel. Too many whiskies for this, really.

Still. See what happens, then. Suzanne.

By the time the minicab dumped them outside the blackened Victorian block at the bottom of Old Church Street, where it meets the bypa.s.s, her perfume was everywhere. At first it was s.e.xy, then it became nauseating. Maiden always got sick in the back of cars.

Thigh to thigh, they hadn't talked much. He hadn't made a move on her he still had some style. Plus, there was the problem that the quiet, grizzled cabbie just might have been the father of a kid nicked for dealing crack three months back. A kid who'd sworn the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds had planted the stuff. Clutton. Dean Clutton.

'This is nice, Bobby.'

'It's just a nice front door.' Sorting drunkenly through his keys. 'Not nice at all inside.'

Might not have been Clutton's dad; too dark to tell, really. He unlocked the communal door with the lacquered bra.s.s knocker and five illuminated bell pushes.

Dean Clutton had hanged himself in his cell while on remand, this was the thing. Before Maiden got a chance to talk to him.

'Sad, isn't it?' Suzanne said wistfully, long fingers playing with the collar of her black silk jacket.

'What?'

'You start your married life all fresh and clean, get yourself a nice, tidy little home together ...'

'It was a little Georgian-style semi. In Baslow Road. Yeah, it was nice. For a while. And tidy.'

Except for the night Liz had impaled four canvases, one after the other, on the pointed newel post at the top of the stairs. One after the other, with a stiff, crackly, ripping sound. That was when he'd taken the chance of a transfer to the Met. A new start, somewhere neither of them had connections, where they'd need to rely on each other.

As it turned out, Liz had hated it. Hated her job at the huge, crazy London hospital. Liz wanted to come back. There was a vacancy for a DI in Elham Division; he'd walked into it. Back with the old crowd. Who resented him. Naturally.

'Baslow Road,' Suzanne mused. 'I wouldn't know where that is. Being a stranger.' She followed him inside and he felt for the light switches, flipped all three, but only one greasy yellow bulb came on.

'You're right.' Suzanne's nose wrinkling as she took in the state of the hallway. 'It is a bit of a s.h.i.thole. You OK, Bobby? You're not going to throw up, are you?'

He said, 'You're not serious about this, are you?'

'Course I'm serious. Why I came,' Suzanne said. 'Come on, let's see them.'

'All right.' Despite the half-dozen whiskies, Bobby Maiden, on the last night of his life, was feeling almost shy as he propped the biggest canvas against the TV.

This was weird. He couldn't figure this out at all. Started out like a direct approach, now it was just very strange.

Just as coppers in the Met above a certain rank could expect an invitation to join the Masons, in Elham there'd be a friendly, innocent overture from the Tony Parker organization. It was like a recognition of status. Almost above board.

Because Maiden stayed off the police social circuit, it had been a long time coming. But now it was here, and it was strange.

'Little haven you've created here.' Suzanne ran a finger along the art books. Grinned. 'Bobby's burrow.'

Maiden propped the other pictures against the table legs. Acrylics. And some watercolours, because there was less mess and they were easier to conceal if anybody turned up. n.o.body at the nick had ever known about it.

'Hey,' Suzanne said. 'Not what I was expecting. Where is it, Bobby? Morocco?'