‘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