Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

‘Asking for me to come and look into … ? That ’s the disservice?’

‘I only did what I thought was best.’

‘This is Mr Holliday, is it?’

‘It’s what we’ve become, I’m afraid. It’s all about how it looks . Doesn’t matter what the truth is any more.’

‘Matters to me.’

‘You don’t live here, Mrs Watkins. It’s not a nice place to live any more. Nobody’s friendly.’

‘Is that since these ghost stories—?’

‘I feel I’m becoming a prisoner in my own home. Locked doors and drawn curtains and … and the lights on all night. That’s what it’s come to. I can’t be in the dark. And I love my bungalow. I love the view … I did love it. Now it feels so isolated. I was going to give it till next year, but I’ve been thinking I’d better put the house on the market in the summer.’

‘Do you have anywhere to go?’

‘Back to Solihull, I expect. I should’ve moved back when my husband died. It’s never the same on your own, though I do love my sunsets.’

‘I’m really sorry, Joyce, but I don’t think you should jump to—’

‘Anyway, don’t you worry. If they don’t want you, there’s nothing you can do about it, is there?’

‘I’m sorry … I’m a bit confused here. I’ve had a message on the answering machine from Mr Holliday, who obviously doesn’t want me … but I’m not sure it’s his decision to make.’

‘He said the Rector was going to tell you.’

‘ Tell me?’

‘Not to come to the meeting. That they don’t want you.’

‘I see,’ Merrily said. ‘Would this … have anything to do with the late Sir Edward Elgar?’

‘We haven’t to use that name, Mrs Watkins. That’s what I’ve been told.’

Inside, the huge parish church of St Dunstan was as plain and functional as Syd Spicer’s kitchen. Its Gothic windows were puritanical plain glass, diamond-leaded, and the light on this overcast Midsummer’s Eve was cruelly neutral, showing Merrily how dispiriting it must be for Spicer on Sunday mornings, his meagre congregation scattered two to a pew and less than a quarter of the pews filled. Like a village cricket match at Lord’s.

But, as Wychehill didn’t have a community hall, the church accommodated the parish meetings, so maybe its ambience would confer stability, calm, wisdom, dignity.

Or not.

‘They found drugs in that car, you know.’ Leonard Holliday – she’d recognized the voice at once – was on his feet across the aisle: crimped gunmetal hair, neat beard. ‘ Did you know?’

Holliday must have police contacts. Maybe Masonic?

‘No, I didn’t know,’ Preston Devereaux said wearily. ‘I have a business to run. I don’t have much time for gossip.’

‘Ecstasy tablets, Chairman. They say one can buy them like sweeties at the Royal Oak.’

OK, maybe his contacts weren’t that good.

‘And you know why the district council, as the licensing authority, will not act against that place?’ Holliday jabbing a forefinger at nobody in particular. ‘You know why they won’t shut it down – and I can disclose this with some authority, having worked in local government for forty years, and damned glad to be out of it…’

‘Mr Holliday—’

‘The reason they will not act , Chairman, is that, as with so many tourist areas, the level of government grant-aid is now, to a large extent, dependent on the council and the tourism bodies being able to prove that they are attracting a sufficient number of black and Asian visitors . This is a fact . And these … music nights at the Oak are seen as especially attractive to that particular—’

‘ All right .’ Preston Devereaux banging his gavel. ‘As most of you seem to be members of the Wychehill Residents’ Action Group, I don’t think we need to complicate matters by going further into this issue tonight.’

He was at a table set up at the foot of the chancel steps, the chair next to him empty. The chancel was large and unscreened, its choir stalls in a semicircular formation, like a concert hall. More like a concert hall, in fact, than a place of worship, and as stark as a Welsh chapel.

It was just after nine p.m., the atmosphere thickening. Merrily wore a dark skirt and one of Jane’s hoodies, zipped up to cover the dog collar. She’d slipped into a shadowy and empty back pew, just after eight-thirty. Thirty or forty people sitting in front of her, including … was that Joyce Aird? The normal parish meeting seemed to have started at seven; three people had left in the past half-hour.

Syd Spicer didn’t seem to be here. She wasn’t sure what this meant, but it probably wasn’t a good sign. Preston Devereaux leaned back, looking through half-lidded eyes out into the uncrowded nave.

‘I think we need to keep cool heads as we come to the final item … although, to be quite honest, I don’t want to come to it at all. In fact, I feel embarrassed to be chairing a discussion of this nature, having no wish to watch this community casting off what remains of its reason.’

Devereaux was lean and weathered and keen-eyed, with longish hair the colour of Malvern stone, sideburns ridged like treebark. His accent was local, educated, grounded. He wore a brown leather jacket over a shirt and tie.

‘However, because I find myself tragically implicated in this situation, I feel obliged to give it a public hearing. Essentially, we have a road-safety issue caused, I believe, by an increase in traffic through the village, due to increased tourism and … other developments.’

Somebody laughed. It had a bitter edge.

‘However,’ the chairman said, ‘there has been quite a sharp increase in the number of road accidents lately, which has given rise to rumours which I shall describe conservatively as outlandish. Who’s going to start us off on this? Helen—’

A woman stood up in one of the front pews.

‘Helen Truscott. I use this road probably more than any of you, and I don’t believe in ghosts.’

Someone clapped. Helen Truscott turned to face the assembly. Mid-fifties, brisk, attractive. You’d trust her judgement.

‘I’m a district nurse by profession, and I’m also the carer for my disabled dad. And he worries when I’m out, particularly at night, and I’d like to clear this matter up, so that he can stop worrying.’

This would be the daughter of D. H. Walford who had written to the Rector.

‘Thank you, Helen. We take your point. Anybody else? Mrs Aird?’

‘Well…’ Joyce Aird stood up, alone in a pew halfway down the nave. ‘I think when there are a number of accidents, one after the other, we’re all bound to feel a little nervous, and we can’t help wondering if there’s something going on that we don’t understand. Especially those of us who live alone and perhaps have too much time to think. I’m a churchgoer, so I … when I get upset I turn to God. But I suppose I’m in the minority these days, so I … I’ll…’

She sat down. Merrily noticed that the two vases of fresh lilies she must have put out on the chairman’s table were on the flagged floor beside it.

‘Thank you, Mrs Aird,’ Devereaux said. ‘As we’re all churchgoers tonight, I’m sure God will be sympathetic. But I think this issue lies rather with the creations of man. The problem here’s always been that, because of the positioning of the dwellings in Wychehill, mostly out of sight of the road, motorists do not realize there’s a community here – scattered though it may be – of more than two hundred people. And so they tend to speed. Mr Holliday—’