Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

‘My first experience of nightclub websites, I confess.’ Sophie said.

‘You surprise me.’

‘To save you some time, this establishment is just across the boundary into Worcestershire – and out of the diocese. Another good reason not to get involved.’

Sophie scrolled up to uncover a picture of a bejewelled black man called DJ Xex. Instantly dismissing him with a contemptuous flick of the mouse.

‘It appears that the Royal Oak is now owned by a Mr Khan – apparently quite a well-known entrepreneur in the West Midlands?’

Sophie glanced at Merrily, who shook her head. Never heard of him.

‘Quite a number of local press reports about local people calling on the appropriate authority to have Mr Khan’s licence withdrawn. I’ve printed them out for you.’

‘But you didn’t print the picture of DJ Xex for the noticeboard?’

‘This would be less amusing to you, Merrily,’ Sophie said, ‘if you had to live with it.’

Possibly true. All the innocent fun of inner-city club-land in the romantic Malverns: punters swarming in every weekend from the teenage wastelands, cars screaming through the village at one a.m., windows open, boom, boom, boom . Kids stopping to throw up in front gardens, relieve themselves in the churchyard. Have sex on graves … allegedly. And now a fatal road accident of the kind that people always insisted had been waiting to happen.

‘Sounds as if the victims of Saturday’s crash had spent the evening at the Royal Oak.’ Merrily gathered up the on-line news stories Sophie had printed. ‘Colliding with the chairman of the parish council, returning from a wedding.’

Sophie winced.

The stories were mainly from the Malvern Gazette : petitions to Hereford and Worcester councils, letters to MPs. Counter-allegations of NIMBYism and racism by the leader of a youth project who thought the restyled Royal Oak was the best thing to happen in the Malverns this century.

‘What did Frannie Bliss say?’

‘We didn’t have much time to talk. He asked how you were, and I explained that you were looking into an alleged occurrence at the eastern end of the diocese and then simply asked if he knew anything about the Royal Oak.’

‘Or, as it’s now apparently called…’

‘ Don’t .’

Merrily smiled at Sophie.

‘Inn Ya Face? That’s quite good, really.’

‘In Elgar’s hills.’ Sophie’s lower body trembled slightly as if the ground beneath her feet had shifted. ‘One day, Merrily, I think we may be pushed just slightly too far.’

‘I wonder…’ Merrily tapped her lower lip with a pen ‘… if that’s why Syd Spicer’s a little sceptical. I wonder if he thinks that the ghost of a traditional cyclist – an image symbolic of gentler times – is someone’s idea for stirring the pot.’

Sophie raised an eyebrow.

‘It happens. Just occasionally. But then Syd doesn’t seem to know about Hannah Bradley.’

‘You found that convincing?’

‘It’s about as convincing as it gets.’

‘The girl thinks she’s been sexually assaulted by … ?’

‘I wouldn’t put it that strongly, and neither does she. Quite a healthy attitude towards it, really. That’s one of the things that makes it so credible.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Collate all the reports. Try and find out if anybody’s ever been killed on that road on a bike. If I can tie it down to an individual, the obvious answer would be a straightforward Requiem Eucharist in the church, with as many of the witnesses as we could get. Plus the Rector, of course.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Sophie picked up a notepad. ‘The Rector.’

‘You checked him out.’

‘Ordained eight years ago.’ Sophie raised her glasses on their chain to read her shorthand notes. ‘Installed as Rector of Wychehill, with two other neighbouring parishes, in autumn 2003. Renowned, apparently, for his strenuous youth-work – previously, he ran a shop in Eign Street specializing in Outward Bound-type pursuits. Mountaineering, geology. And before that, his career, as you say, was with the Army. The file doesn’t mention which regiment, but then, if he served in Hereford, it hardly needs to.’

‘No.’

Merrily was thinking of Spicer’s distinctly unemotional response to the carnage at Wychehill, the minimalism of his kitchen, his total self-reliance. I’m very capable .

‘My experience of the Special Air Service, Merrily, is that they tend to dispense information on a need-to-know basis.’

‘If at all,’ Merrily said.

Remembering a story someone had told her about a Hereford dentist with a serving-SAS patient who’d dropped in for a heavy-duty root-canal filling and – by way of an exercise – had declined the anaesthetic.

Might have been apocryphal, probably not.

Mentioning the Royal Oak to Frannie Bliss … this had been like opening the door of the CID room and rolling a grenade through the gap.

They were in the café in the Cathedral cloisters, with a Gothic-framed view of the Bishop’s garden. Bliss was doing his eager-fox smile, raspberry jam from his doughnut oozing between his fingers.

‘Clever little bastard, though, Merrily. His old feller’s some kind of professor of Islamic Studies in Wolver-hampton. Also, a consultant to the Home Office.’

He evidently thought she knew more than she actually did.

‘The lad’s been doing his bit, too, advising the council on community relations in Worcester. Oh, and he also runs an ethnic art gallery in Malvern, where the Prince of Wales once attended a reception.’

‘Yes,’ Merrily said, ‘I’m sure the Prince of Wales would have enjoyed that, but—’

‘In fact, so snugly has Raji fitted himself into the system that the little shit was actually one of the speakers at a symposium last year on new directions in community policing. Having earlier – this may surprise you, or not – had lunch with my esteemed ruler.’

‘Annie Howe? Why would that surprise me? Frannie, just give me the building blocks … How does this guy come to be the owner of a country pub in the Malverns?’

‘Oh, and then , following the symposium – attended by civic leaders and other useless suits – I get meself formally introduced to young Mr Khan. Merrily, he patronized me.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘“From Liverpool , then, sergeant.”’ Bliss putting on this poncy public school accent and a twisted smirk. ‘“That’s quite a cultural quantum leap, isn’t it?”’

‘He called you sergeant?’

Bliss leaned back. His red hair was receding slightly, and something throbbed in his temple.

‘Full name Rajab Ali Khan. Twenty-seven years old, and already the owner of – as well as the nice gallery – nightclubs in Worcester and Kidderminster. And now, yeh, the Royal Oak Inn, as was, in the heart of the glorious Malverns. I think he even had grant-aid. He’s good at that.’

He put down the remaining half of his jammy doughnut. On the side plate, it looked like debris from a post-mortem.

‘And at this point I’ve gorra say, Merrily, that I believe Raji to be a main player in the supply of a substantial percentage of Class A drugs entering the Border counties.’

Merrily stirred her coffee. ‘You know that?’

‘No, I said I believe it.’

‘I believe in God, Frannie, but—’

‘And I also believe there’s a firewall around him, for reasons I’m either not sufficiently elevated to have been told about or because…’ Bliss picked up his doughnut. ‘Ah, what’s the point? The service is in flux again, and the best we can do is keep our noses down until it’s over.’