Mean Spirit

XXVI

During the ten or so minutes it took to drive Ron Foxworth back to his car, Maiden quizzed him politely about the murder inquiry at Stroud. Making conversation, talking shop.

Learning that the dead man had been found by a farmer, near the village of Bisley. The body was tumbled into a ditch with about six inches of water in the bottom so that, at first, the farmer thought this was some drunk who’d drowned. Until he turned the bloke over and was sick.

‘So … confirmation,’ Seffi said when Ron was gone and they were sitting in the Jeep, in the layby above Stroud, with the engine running.

‘How far would that be from your place?’

‘Bisley? Three, four miles, I suppose.’

‘So how did he get there?’ Maiden demanded. ‘And what happened to his mate? There’s something missing. It doesn’t make sense.’

‘It’s going to make some awful sense to Grayle,’ Seffi said. ‘Just when she thought she was in the clear. I’d almost be inclined not even to tell her.’

‘What, so she can read about it in the papers?’

At eight-thirty tomorrow they’d be out there in force, Ron had said. A roughly regimented march through the fields in search of a weapon.

‘Could be about six years, however, before they get around to putting divers into the Wye at Ross,’ Maiden said morosely.

He saw that Seffi was bent over the steering wheel, her shoulders heaving. He thought she was sobbing then realized it was wild, unhealthy laughter.

‘Oh Christ!’ She raised herself up. ‘Bobby, there’s a gap on the wall.’

‘What?’

‘Back at the lodge. There’s a bloody gap on the wall… probably with the perfectly etiolated outline of an antique hedge hacker. Do you see what I mean?’

‘At the lodge?’

‘Mrs Dronfield, the cleaner, comes in on a Monday. I’ve never thought of her as a deductive genius, but she can certainly gossip for Gloucestershire …’ She looked across at him, those lush lips slack with dismay. ‘Police combing the fields for miles around, everybody talking about it, being careful to lock their doors … and here’s a perfect outline of the murder weapon set up for Mrs Dronfield. It’s not terribly funny, is it?’

Cindy was not a person who believed the press was there to be avoided. Had he complained when all those articles appeared commenting on what a refreshing change he had wrought upon the previously tedious Lottery programme? No, he had not.

In sickness and in health.

He sat upon the clifftop, meditated for ten minutes in the sea-haunted silence and then went into the caravan and switched on the mobile phone for the first time since recording his BBC radio interview.

It bleeped within twenty seconds.

‘At last. Is that Cindy?’

‘No, Kelvyn here. Who wants to speak to Cindy?’

‘Ho ho. Listen, mate, it’s Greg Cook at the Mirror.’

The showbiz editor, or whatever title they gave them these days. At past midnight on a Sunday morning? What on earth was this?

‘Good heavens, boy, are you in the office?’

‘No, I’m at home, actually, Cindy. I know it’s late, but the reason I’m ringing … Are you listening, Cindy? Because I know it’s late and you’re probably knackered.’

‘Listening most intently, I am.’

‘Because I’m ringing to warn you.’

‘A tidal wave, is it, bound for the Pembrokeshire coastline?’

‘Er … ha ha. No, it’s a bit of information that’s come our way just quite recently … well, tonight, actually … that another publication, which shall be nameless, is planning, not to put too fine a point on it, Cindy, to shaft you.’

‘Hello! magazine?’ Cindy said. ‘My, there’s worrying.’

‘We both know who we’re talking about here, mate. And, yeah, it is worrying.’

‘For me or for you?’

‘For both of us. You know the Mirror’s always been on your side. I mean, you do know that, don’t you?’

‘I would trust the Mirror like my own mother, Gregory,’ said Cindy, whose mother had abandoned him, newborn, on the steps of the Bethesda Chapel in Dowlais. ‘How do they propose to, ah, shaft me?’

‘That crash tonight, Cindy. Yeah?’

‘Poor man.’

‘Tragic. And the heart guy. And other incidents. Allegedly.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Also, stories going round about you. I wouldn’t repeat them, but somebody’s been looking into your past.’

‘Indeed.’

‘And offering certain material for sale. Came to us, first. Naturally, we refused point-blank. Showed him the door.’

‘Asking too much, was he?’

‘But he went straight to the opposition, and we understand a deal’s been made. You can expect to read about it next week. It’s almost certain to cause a storm. And inevitably put the world’s media on your back. Unfairly, in our belief.’

‘You …’ Cindy became aware that the hand holding the phone was shaking. ‘You’re having me on, I think, Gregory.’

‘Cindy, I wish that were the case.’

‘But I don’t … I don’t … I have no idea what this can be about.’

But he was rather afraid that he did. Some of it, anyway.

He began to breathe harder and covered the mouthpiece to conceal it. He was what he was; he had never attempted to cover it up. He was renowned as an eccentric — this was accepted. He had no sexual secrets — well, not many. But yes, the ammunition was there, he had always been aware of that.

But people liked him. He was popular. On the stormy seas of controversy, was not popularity the greatest balast?

‘Cindy, I want to help you,’ Gregory Cook said. ‘No bullshit, all right? I personally contacted the editor — rang him at home, tonight, not two hours ago — and, as a result, I’m empowered to offer you … let’s call it sanctuary. We’ll move you to a luxury hotel, a secret destination. We’ll give you a sum of money, precise details of which I can discuss later. And we’ll let you tell your side of the story — in effect your life story — to an experienced writer, probably me, which we’ll publish exclusively and simultaneously — that’s the key point — thus negating the damage caused by our dockland friends. Are you with me?’

‘I may be just slightly ahead of you. You want me to co-operate in the manufacture of what I believe is called a “spoiler”.’

‘Yes,’ Gregory Cook said. ‘In a word. We can have you away from your little tin shack before those bastards are out of the pub. What do you say?’

‘Gregory, it’s …’ Cindy took a breath, thinking fast. ‘A magnificent gesture, it is, on your part.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I would like, however, a few minutes to peruse my BBC contract. To make absolutely sure it contains no clause precluding my acceptance of your generous proposal. I don’t think, for one minute, that there is such a clause, but I would like to be certain.’

‘No problem, Cindy. Bring the contract with you. We’ll get our lawyers to run through it.’

‘Please. It will take me ten minutes. Just give me your number and I shall call you back.’

‘Cindy, these fuckers could well be on their way. They’ll certainly be there by morning.’

‘Just a few minutes, Gregory. A few short minutes.’

A few short minutes it took him to unpack his cases and repack them with fresh things.

And gather his drum and his cloak of feathers.

And Kelvyn Kite in his pink case.

And load them all into the Honda, which he drove to his lock-up behind Dai Gruffydd’s lightless service station on the Haverfordwest road.

Why? Why this? Why this now?

In the lock-up was nested his Morris Minor. Unthinkable, somehow, to flee in the Honda. Cindy hoped she would start for, if she did not, it would be the very worst of omens.