LITMIR.BIZ

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at the fulcrum point, and that’s a distorted view. I want you to ponder on that, Glyn, and to try to take some comfort out of it.’

      Fucking bullshit!

      But of course I kept that to myself.

      Cassie recovered her composure and showed me Jessie’s room. I think I was expected to take comforting vibes from it, rather than look for clues of malice. But I couldn’t get a real feel for it without ransacking it, and that wasn’t on the cards with Cassie beside me, nervously straightening the covers and the battered teddy bears on the bed. Going through another one of her self-imposed therapy sessions, I realized.

      Superficially I picked up that her music tastes ran to Indie bands, and her bookshelves showed a certain age progress, ranging from an anthology of famous ballerinas, the entire J.K. Rowling canon, the Brontë sisters, to edgier stuff by Palahniuk and Houellebecq. No evidence of radical Marxism in the collection, although there was the famous poster of Che Guevara on the wall, which was balanced to a degree by one of Johnny Depp. And no visible dope paraphernalia or extreme counter-culture memorabilia. There were five dusty wooden African statuettes on top of the bookshelf, the sort of tat that was sold in market stalls across tourist Europe.

      I wouldn’t know an ordinary teenager if they parachuted into my soup, but Jessie, from this evidence, seemed to fit into the spectrum. But what had I expected? Death threats written in blood pinned to her corkboard beside a crumpled photograph of the netball team?

      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?

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