Wild People

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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.

‘Why didn’t anyone fucking tell me, Huw?’ I had to keep my frustration quiet.

‘You’re on sick leave, Sarge. And Ryan Shaw was outside of your jurisdiction.’

‘What happened?’

‘We don’t know exactly, but it looks like one of his dope buying expeditions went tits up.’

‘Where was this?’

‘They found his car in Cheshire. They’re working on the assumption that he was on his way back from Manchester.’

‘Had he had an accident?’

‘The car was found on a track leading to a worked-out sandpit. It had been burnt out, with him inside.’

I did a quick mental exercise. Having met Ryan twice I could dismiss suicide. And guys in his business didn’t drive down deserted tracks in the hope of spotting a rare orchid or an elusive bittern. ‘Did the fire kill him?’

‘I don’t know. You’d have to ask Emrys Hughes. He’s been appointed the liaison officer to help out the Cheshire force with what we know this end.’

‘Let me know if you hear any more on that front.’

‘One thing …’ His voice went sombre.

‘What’s that?’

‘There’s talk that he’d been tortured.’

It’s hard to emerge from a rhododendron bush nonchalantly, but I did the best I could while still stunned and fogged with the revelation of Ryan Shaw’s messy end. Our unfinished business hung there like an abandoned bridge project. Now we were never going to reach the other side. Not without hiring a fucking medium.

It could just be coincidence.

He was in a risky profession. He was a cocky bastard. He may have tried to stiff the wrong guys. Shit, knowing the reputation of some of those bastards, he may even just have sneezed at the wrong time.