Wild People

I pleaded pressure of work and turned down Cassie’s invitation of a tour of the rest of the Foundation. Something told me it would be useful for her not to know that I was currently off active duty.

I drove back up the farm track to the road thinking that I was no closer to knowing why Jessie could have been the target of a hit. That level of violence was just all too far removed from this neat corner of loving rural tranquillity.

The woman was standing in the middle of the drive as I approached the exit onto the road. She didn’t try to flag me down. She knew I would stop. She stood there with her hands in the pockets of her short red duffel coat, a self-satisfied smile on her face that wasn’t far off qualifying as a smirk.

‘Hi, Glyn, I’m Rhian Pritchard.’ She had moved round to my window after I had stopped the car, and, as a gentleman, I had lowered it. She put her hand in and I automatically shook it. If I had known what was about to go down, I would have said fuck politeness, put my foot down, and driven off.

I had recognized her. She was the one who had been directing the photographer. She had blonde hair tied into a high arcing ponytail, which, with the red duffel coat and skinny jeans with turn-ups, made her look in her mid twenties, although she was probably older. Her face was pale, like someone who didn’t get too much sun and wind with their daylight, but its geometry was pleasant, a composition of complementary curves to the cheeks and the chin, and a good nose that would probably flare when she laughed. But that irritating smile really fucked up the shape of her mouth.

‘Nice to meet you.’ I gave her my dumb-cop smile. I reckoned she was one of those people it was best to start out on the bottom rung with. Let them lead with their preconceptions.

She gestured her head back towards the Home Farm. ‘Is this business?’

‘I can’t say, I’m afraid.’

‘You’re a long way from Cardiff, aren’t you?’ Her smile didn’t waver.

‘What makes you say that?’

She passed me a business card. Rhian A. Pritchard, Freelance Feature and Investigative Journalist, it read above a Cardiff address and an NUJ membership reference. ‘I did some research while I was waiting for you to finish up with Cassie.’ She mimed typing with two fingers. ‘A little bit of Google here, a little bit Cardiff press contacts there.’

And still that fucking smile. ‘Why would you want to do that?’ I asked, struggling to keep it dumb and pleasant.

‘This is a PR gig, it’s boring. A puff piece. How wonderful is the Ap Hywel Foundation and all who fucking sail in her. I could do with working on something with a bit of meat on it while I’m up here. Like what is a hero from Cardiff doing swanning around with the rednecks?’

I tried out a firm manly smile. ‘No thanks. Not interested.’

‘It’ll make a good story. Human interest. Tough city cop finds rural peace. Fuck!’ She leaned her head back, inspired. ‘If we could get a shot of you pulling out a lamb.’

‘You’ve missed the season.’

‘We’ll think of something with an equal schmaltz rating.’

‘No, we won’t. And I’ve got to go.’

She picked up enough from my voice to step away before I drove over her toes. I caught her in my rear-view mirror as I turned onto the road. She was waving. That smile telling me that she had latched onto this and wasn’t going away.

The last thing I needed. My Cardiff disgrace resurfacing.

Jack Galbraith would have me counting the puffins on Skomer Island.

Rhian Pritchard was going to be trouble. I could sense it. That face and attitude screamed devilish persistence, although she probably thought she was radiating cute pluck. She was a byline junkie. I had met the type before. Looking for a hot story under every pair of eyebrows, anything to swell the cuttings file that she hoped was going to land her that regular slot on a national magazine one day.

Why did our paths have to cross? Now she was out to use my head as a fucking career stepping stone and press me deeper into the ooze on the way.

I stacked her away in the groaning pile of future problems when I got back to Unit 13. I logged into my computer. Huw Davies had been true to his word and had emailed the file references to the break-ins and vandalism at the car park.

I opened them up. It was all dross. Huw had been right. This was all low-grade criminal activity. The worst thing that had been done had been the breaking of the cars’ windows. And that was probably as much to do with vandalism as it was with the petty thefts, because they had never demonstrated any intention of stealing the vehicles. And, apart from one portable satnav, the list of the stuff that had been stolen was banal. A travel rug, CDs, a lucky tortoise mascot, an insulated coffee container … It went on in that vein. As Huw had said, trophies, junk to reinforce the memories of the outlaw trips.

Who was going to kill anyone for a portable satnav?

Cause and effect.

None of the shit that had been taken could possibly have been the cause that had led to the effect of Jessie’s murder. None of those trinkets and baubles could have warranted anything as extreme as that.

Given the tat value of all the other stuff, I even idly wondered whether the reported satnav had actually been stolen, or if someone had used the opportunity to scam his insurance company.

That warped logic clicked on another step.

If someone could have reported something being stolen that hadn’t been, what about something being stolen that hadn’t been reported?

I felt the old familiar clutch in my kidneys as new possibilities opened up.

Something so valuable to its owner that the effect its loss had created was Jessie’s death. Something so valuable and so illegal that its theft couldn’t be recorded?

But what the fuck would something as precious as that be doing left in a car park in the middle of nowhere, frequented by mountain bikers and ramblers and the ghosts of dead monks?

I sidelined that question as irrelevant. It called for too much detailed information. What was important here was the concept. Something of value that couldn’t be brought to the attention of the police after it had been stolen.

But why kill Jessie? What would be gained?

A punishment? Or to scare whoever was holding on to it to give it up?

Or had they already tried to get rid of it?

I got on the phone to Huw.

‘A hypothetical question, Huw. You have a punter who is walking along a railway line and he comes across a parcel that has obviously fallen from a train. He looks inside and finds … Let’s say a camera. An expensive camera, in its original packaging, no owner’s name. So where does he take it?’

‘If he’s local, he brings it to me.’

‘Let’s say he’s been away for a bit and picked up bad habits. And his wife’s just given birth to triplets and he needs instant cash to buy disposable nappies and fags. Where would he take the hypothetical camera?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I’m on sick leave remember, Huw. I’m keeping my mind active, researching cottage industries between jigsaws and sudoku.’

‘Bullshit, Sarge.’ But he laughed. ‘You’ve met him.’

‘I have?’ I was surprised. I had no memories of any encounters with a neighbourhood fence.

‘Yes, our boy Ryan.’

Ryan Shaw. The local low-rent dope dealer. ‘Christ, Huw, is he a crook-of-all-trades? Renaissance Hoodie?’

I heard him laugh down the line. ‘We don’t have enough of the spread round here that you had in Cardiff that enables them to specialize.’

I thanked him and hung up. I had had one previous encounter with Ryan, and he had not been a very happy young hoodlum at the end of it. So much so that he had complained to Emrys Hughes. Because Ryan was also a local snitch.

He was protected. I was going to have to be careful how I approached him.

Orchard Close, Maesmore. Not much had changed. A supermarket trolley had joined the junk installation on the former front lawn outside number 3, Ryan’s house, which he shared with his mother and sister and at least one baby that I knew of.

I was glad to see his purple VW Golf was creating its usual obstruction on the pavement. Because, as I had no official business to go knocking on that front door with, I was going to have to wait for Ryan to come out to me.

It was heavy dusk by now. I calculated the distance I needed and parked a few houses down, facing in the same direction as Ryan’s car. I kept out of the pool of the street light. I didn’t think that he would know my car, but I didn’t want to take the chance. Curtains twitched in the house I was parked outside of, but I didn’t let it worry me. If you lived near a dope dealer you got used to strange traffic, and usually you learned not to complain about it.

When it was dark enough I slid over to the passenger’s side and got out of the car without closing the door. I had already de-activated the interior light. I checked that the street was empty in both directions before making my way up the pavement on the other side from Ryan’s house until I was opposite his car. I checked the street again, and then flowed across it, sinking into a low Groucho Marx stride, and dropping to a crouch at the rear of the VW.

I tied the end of the string to the towing ring and bundled the rest of it with the attached tin cans under the car, out of sight. I made my way back to my car.

Now all I had to do was continue waiting. Ryan could do two things to fuck my plan up. He could decide to stay in for the night, or, if he did elect to go out, he could do a three-point turn and head off in the opposite direction to where I was waiting for him.

In the end he obliged me on both counts.

The night had cooled down to chilly, but he still appeared in just a tight white T-shirt and cinched black jeans to showcase his pumped physique. He got in his car, gunned the motor and headed down the road in my direction.

KLANG! KLANG! KLANG!

I had tied the tin cans to a four-metre-long piece of string, so by the time they started rattling, and he had reacted to what sounded like his straight-through exhaust trailing the ground, he was a couple of car lengths short of me when he stopped. As I had anticipated, he left his door wide open and the engine still running when he jumped out and ran to the rear to investigate his mechanical prolapse.

I glided up, switched off the engine and took the car keys out.

He was still snarled up in the confusion of the moment. He had found the cans. He heard his engine stop. There was too much happening here, and it took him a beat to react. When he did turn, I could tell that he hadn’t recognized me in the dark.

‘What the fuck …?’ he growled threateningly, trying to make sense of this.

‘Shouldn’t leave your engine running like that, Ryan, it fucks up the atmosphere.’

Curtains were twitching all around like Aldis lamps. He stared at me malevolently. I could almost hear the tumblers in his brain clicking through the recognition process.

‘You!’ He pointed at me. ‘You’re fucked! You were warned off after the last time you tried to mess with me.’

‘This is just between you and me, Ryan.’

‘Says who?’

‘If I thought you were going to report me, I wouldn’t help you.’

He chuckled nastily. ‘And how are you going to fucking help me?’

I dangled his car keys. ‘You’re going to have a hard time finding these otherwise.’

‘That’s fucking theft,’ he whined indignantly.

‘Which is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.’

‘Are you trying to fit me up?’ he asked suspiciously, his mind shifting into another gear.

‘No, I want your professional advice, that’s all. You talk to me nicely, and I give you your keys back, and walk away.’

He digested it. Probably wondering what particular branch of his profession I was talking about. He nodded his head carefully. ‘Okay. I’m not promising anything, mind.’

‘Did you know Jessie Bullock?’

‘Never heard of her.’

‘Oh, come on, Ryan,’ I snorted impatiently, ‘she was only the biggest piece of fucking news around here since the glaciers retreated.’

He shrugged, unconcerned about being caught out in the lie. ‘Okay, I might have heard the name.’

‘Did she or any of her friends ever give you something to try and sell for them?’

He looked at me calculatingly. ‘Like what?’ He was trying to work out what I knew.

‘Something valuable.’

He couldn’t help himself. It was embedded in his nature to brag. It was only the tiniest twitch, but I caught it. He smothered it with a big faux doubtful frown and a shake of the head. ‘Not that I remember.’

The bastard knew what I was talking about. I had my first small open chink into this thing. But what leverage was I going to be able to use on this guy to open it wider?

‘Thanks, Ryan.’ I tossed him the keys. ‘Remember the deal.’

‘Yeah. Thanks for nothing. And you can untie those fucking cans before you go.’

I complied. No point in upsetting him any further. Because, if I had my way, I was going to have a lot worse in store for him in the near future.

I even waved sweetly as he roared off.

5

As half expected, he finked on me.

Talk about honour among fucking thieves, I thought, as I listened to Inspector Morgan tearing me off a strip down the telephone line. But Morgan I could tune out. He had the whingeing drone of an ineffectual schoolteacher which whisked me in spirit back to the non-attentive zone at the rear of the classroom.

Jack Galbraith wasn’t quite so easy to sideline.

‘Sergeant Lazarus, I presume?’

‘Sorry, Sir?’ He also was on the phone, so I couldn’t use his expression to gauge what was coming.

‘Am I speaking to the man who miraculously got up off his sickbed and went out into the world to fool around with one of Inspector Morgan’s stoolies?’

‘I think Lazarus was raised from the dead, Sir.’

‘Don’t give me fucking ideas, Capaldi,’ he growled. ‘I detest talking to Morgan at the best of times, so having to listen through another rant from him about your transgressions is nudging my patience and tolerance into the red sector. What the fuck were you doing?’

‘I’ve just been talking to local people who might have known Jessie Bullock, Sir. I think Sergeant Hughes misunderstood and over-reacted when he reported it to Inspector Morgan.’

‘Hughes? Is that that idiot sergeant up there? The one that looks like a wax museum’s take on Stalin, with the personality to match?’

Who was I to speak ill of a colleague? ‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Fucking prat.’ He came back to me after a pause with a new note of reservation in his voice. ‘This nosing around about the Bullock girl sounds a bit unhealthy to me.’

‘It’s helping me to come to terms with it, Sir. Rounding her out into a real person.’

‘That helps?’ He sounded sceptical.

‘Yes, Sir.’

He gave it a reflective pause. ‘If you’re going to step on Hughes’s toes, do it subtly for Christ’s sake. Don’t give him any excuse to run bleating to Morgan again. Just make sure you keep me out of that particular loop.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘And don’t let your interest in the girl get obsessional.’

I promised that I wouldn’t and decided it was time to put my head down and be a good boy for a couple of days.

Until Jessie’s funeral service, to be exact.

Mackay turned up in the morning as we had arranged. Not very happy about it, but resigned to my intransigence. I knew he was trying to ease me through to the sunny side of a morbid phase he thought I was caught up in. So, while it was all about me, I had decided to take advantage.

He held the camera I had provided limply, and listened sulkily while I went over it again.

‘Isn’t it a bit sick, taking photographs at someone’s funeral?’ he complained.

‘Come on, Mac,’ I protested. ‘One way or another, I’m the guy who made this thing happen, so it would be a lot fucking sicker if I was seen filming it.’ He was still morose, so I tried a tactful approach. ‘And people record funerals now, they’re up there with weddings, christenings, Bar Mitzvahs and …’ I couldn’t think of another example.

‘Stasi mementos?’ he suggested cynically.

‘Just photograph the mourners …’ I had almost called them guests. ‘I need a record of her friends. Something I can use later to identify individuals. And I want to see who groups with who.’

He shook his head dismally. ‘I don’t know where you’re fucking going with this.’

‘Trust me. I’ve got my reasons.’

The fine weather was holding. The hawthorn blossom was finally out in the hedgerows, tiny red flowers were fighting a losing battle with docks and nettles in the verges, and the lambs were getting a little plumper and sadly a little less manic.

It was a good day for her funeral. It was an even nicer day to be alive, I reflected guiltily.

We drove up the hill from Llandewi and joined the tail-end of the queue of cars shortly after we crossed the cattle grid at the start of the boundary wall of the Plas Coch estate. Mackay got out at one point while we were waiting and started listing: ‘BMW, Jaguar, Audi, Audi, Mercedes. And I can make out at least one Bentley up near the front. What kind of fucking playground is this, Capaldi?’

‘I don’t know. This is most definitely not local farm-sale traffic.’ I didn’t get it. This was more like the kind of machinery you saw parked in the members’ enclosure of an exclusive Home Counties polo club.

Slowly we moved on up to the main gates. A couple of uniform cops were security checking the cars as they went through, which was the reason for the hold-up.

‘Hi, Sarge,’ PC Friel, one of Emrys Hughes’s sidekicks, bent down to look across to scope out Mackay.

‘He’s with me,’ I said. ‘And what’s with the cordon stuff?’

‘There are some important people here. Politicians and celebrities. Inspector Morgan wants them reassured that we’re running a tight operation.’

I jerked my thumb at the line of cars waiting behind me. ‘This will chasten them all nicely. Teach them a useful lesson in patience and humility. Probably something they’re not used to.’

The starfucker gleam dimmed in his eyes. I had pricked his mondo-celebrity bubble. He waved us through quickly, his eyes anxious now and turning towards the waiting traffic.

Mackay moaned audibly.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Celebrities! Now I’m not only going to be playing a voyeuristic ghoul, I’m going to look like the fucking paparazzi as well.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Exposure’s oxygen to them. Just tell them you work for The Tatler.’

‘That’s the point. I’m going to have to smile at the fuckers. Against all my socialist principles.’

We were diverted down a side track off the main drive before we got a sight of the big house, and parked where we were directed. Still grumbling, Mackay separated to go off and start taking photographs. I walked towards where people were congregating in front of an old chapel that harked back to the days when landowners built their own direct conduit to God to cut down on the commute and regulate the clientele. It was small, rectangular, stone built and buttressed at the corners, with simple lancet windows, and had lost its roof long ago, but money had obviously been spent to preserve it as a comely ruin.

As I got nearer I started to recognize faces, and was cross with myself for being impressed. Senior politicians of all hues, television pundits, actors, and a couple of novelists I could name. They looked like they had been displaced en masse from a fashionable London gala event. They were all immaculately dressed and radiated well-practised charm, confidence and power. The local mourners stood out like wallflowers that had strayed into a bouquet of tight bud roses.

I spotted Emrys Hughes and Inspector Morgan arrayed in dress uniform and full solemnity. Morgan gave me a cursory nod of acknowledgement that warned me to approach no closer. It suited me.

Rhian Pritchard was in her element working the crowd. She waved across to remind me that I was still in her basket, but wasn’t going to be bothering with me today with this feast of the famous to pick at. She also had her photographer working for her, which was going to help to stop Mackay from looking out of place.

At the front of the chapel I saw through the open gothic archway that Jessie’s simple wicker coffin had been placed on a shrouded bier at the centre of the building. A single white lily stood in a vase at the head of the coffin. It was all very understated, but the cynic in me wondered how much effort had gone into creating that effect.

An absence that had been niggling at me suddenly clarified itself. Apart from Rhian and her photographer, this was all a middle-aged to elderly crowd. There were no young people. Where were all the friends of Jessie’s that her mother had told me about?

As if on cue, a stirring in the crowd drew my attention to a procession that had appeared on a path between huge rhododendron bushes. At the head of it was Cassie in a black coat, no hat, her head down, and a small bouquet of primroses in her hand that could not deflect from the obvious misery in her gait. Her other hand was resting on the arm of a very tall and elegant man in a beautifully-cut grey coat, wearing a sad patrician’s smile, and a striking head of long white hair swept back behind his ears.

Behind them I recognized Ursula ap Hywel flanked by a middle-aged man and woman, and, behind them, what must have been Jessie’s friends, a mixed bunch of local youth, looking uncomfortable with the occasion and the attention.

They arranged themselves along the front of the chapel, Cassie and her male partner to the front. A ripple of expectancy went through the crowd, damping conversations down to dispersed random coughs. A crow cawed into the one moment of pure silence.

The man began to speak about Jessie. A deep rich baritone voice with an educated South Wales accent. He talked with an easy familiarity. It was evident that he had known her well. I saw Cassie’s hand tighten on his coat sleeve. He wasn’t a funeral director, as I had first supposed. He had obviously been chosen to give her eulogy.

I sidled up to a uniform cop I vaguely recognized. He nodded at me warily. It was the effect I had on local cops.

‘Who’s he?’ I whispered, gesturing towards the speaker.

‘That’s Rhodri ap Hywel.’

Ursula’s husband. The owner of Plas Coch. Foundation benefactor. I slotted him into place. ‘What about the couple who were walking beside his wife?’

‘The Stevensons. They look after the place.’

‘How come there are so many big names here?’

He shrugged. ‘Don’t really know. Probably friends of the ap Hywels’. They spend most of their time at their place in London. And from what I’ve heard, they get a lot of famous people staying at the Foundation.’

I nodded reflectively. I looked across at a woman who had been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in her last film. Her name escaped me. Was she one of the Foundation residents? Her dark Prada outfit was a far cry from a fucking jug of water on a picnic table.

I was aware that another cop had appeared beside the one I had been talking to. They started conversing with each other in funeral undertones. I scanned Jessie’s friends, looking for something in their faces that might trigger a signal, until I realized that I had just overheard a familiar name.

I nudged the guy beside me. ‘What was that you just said about Ryan Shaw?’

He looked at me, surprised. ‘You haven’t heard?’

‘Heard what?’

‘Ryan Shaw’s dead.’

I felt myself freeze. I had been staring at Jessie’s wicker coffin when he said this. Talk about fucking transference!

I sneaked off into the gloomy middle of a rhododendron bush to call Huw Davies. From here I could just make out the teary and desolate voice of one of Jessie’s friends adding her contribution to the occasion from the direction of the chapel.