Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

‘Well, yeah, everybody expects a perfect life. But it’s been suggested that a lot of Class A drugs pass through the Royal Oak. I don’t know if that’s right, but that’s what they say.’

Devereaux stared at her. ‘Do they? Who?’

Merrily didn’t know how to reply, never entirely happy about being Bliss’s snout, even if it was a two-way street.

‘Aye, well, they’re probably right, Mrs Watkins. And that’s not good. But it’ll pass. Be surprised if that place hasn’t changed hands again by this time next year. Raji Khan’s a businessman. When it goes off the boil he’ll get rid.’

‘You know him?’

‘Stayed with me when he was looking over the Oak. Stayed in one of my lovely holiday lets. Clever man, young Mr Khan. Knows how to surf the economic tides.’

‘You mean Mr Holliday was right about tourism grants to bring ethnic groups into the sticks?’

‘It’s the way this government operates.’ Devereaux took a long pull on his cigarette, holding it between forefinger and thumb. ‘But you know what makes me, laugh, Merrily – you don’t mind if I call you that … ?’

‘Not at all.’

‘What makes me laugh, my dear, is the way middle-class white folks move here from the harmless, peaceful suburbs, saying how glad they are to get away from the big, bad city, with all the drugs and the crime. Truth is, that was an imagined situation fuelled by Crimewatch and the Daily Mail . They’d never actually seen any of it…’

He laughed, at length, the cigarette cupped in his hand.

‘And now here’s the so-called ghost of Edward Elgar – poor dysfunctional bugger he was – and half of them think he’s a traffic hazard and half of them think he’s on their side against Raji Khan. What can you do with people like that? Hello —’

A young man in a rugby shirt was edging round the church gate. He stood in front of Devereaux and did a theatrical salute.

‘They’ll be out in approximately five minutes, sir.’

‘Good lad.’ Devereaux turned to Merrily. ‘My younger boy, Hugo. Took the precaution of stationing him in the vestry, out of sight. What’s the verdict, son?’

Hugo shrugged. ‘No problems, really. Well, that Stella got a bit hysterical, but they talked her down. I think they’re going for what Mrs Watkins suggested.’

‘Which is what? I’d left by then.’

‘Well, I’m not really…’

Hugo was about nineteen, lean like his dad, gelled dark hair and an earring. He looked at Merrily.

‘Mr Devereaux,’ she said, ‘are you saying you had a spy in the vestry all the time?’

‘Dad’s the worst kind of control freak,’ Hugo said.

‘Local intelligence is very important,’ Devereaux said. ‘You live in a village, Merrily, you know what it’s like. They weren’t going to say much with me there, were they? Too official.’ He smiled. ‘No, I exaggerate. Hugo was at the back already, doing the lights.’

He put out his cigarette in a fizzing of sparks against the church wall.

‘Tell me what you’re proposing,’ he said.

‘Well … it’s a requiem service in the church. A holy communion for the dead. So that would be a service for the two people who … died in the accident.’

‘Why them?’

‘Because they’re dead. It’s a big thing, death, but funerals today are often cursory and don’t bring … don’t always bring down the curtain. Don’t bring peace, or even the promise of peace, for the living.’

‘And how would this service achieve that?’

‘Mr Devereaux, we could sit down and I could give you the theology in depth and take up the rest of your night. Let’s just say that it does.’

‘You’re very confident.’

‘I’m not confident at all. That is, it’s not self -confidence, it’s…’

She raised her gaze to the darkening sky. Preston Devereaux laughed.

‘Well … who am I to argue with that? All right, then, go ahead. It’s your show now. This is just a straightforward service, I take it?’

‘Inasmuch as any service is straightforward.’

‘What I mean is, you wouldn’t be conducting what the press could call an exorcism?’

‘You’re right, I wouldn’t.’

‘Because none of us wants silly publicity, and if you can deal with it for us in a discreet and dignified fashion we’d be most grateful to you. Discuss it with the Rector, I should. I think you’ll find he agrees.’

‘Really.’

‘Nice to talk, Merrily. Goodnight to you.’

Preston Devereaux clapped a hand on his son’s back and they walked away to a dark 4x4 parked in front of Merrily’s Volvo. She watched them go, feeling faintly sick. A bat sailed in front of the church lamp like a blown leaf.

Deal with it for us . Coming out of the church she’d felt halfway in control again, now she was a puppet with strings so tangled you couldn’t tell who was pulling them. Merrily heard the voices of the villagers emerging from the church and walked rapidly away along the roadside towards the vicarage.

A car pulled alongside.

‘You all right, Merrily?’

Bliss’s face at the car window. She’d actually forgotten all about Bliss and his incident. She pulled back in mid-stride.

‘Is this going to improve my night, Frannie?’

‘Quite honestly,’ Bliss said, ‘I’d say probably not.’

Merrily jerked her head away. ‘ Oh God…’

The DC, who was called Henry, pulled back his lamp.

‘You could’ve waited over by the truck,’ Bliss said. ‘I did warn you.’

And maybe she would have hung back, but a call a few minutes ago from Lol to say that he’d found Jane had fortified her, made her feel obliged to go across to join Bliss and what lay, in its abattoir splatter, across the jutting shelf of stone.

Bliss had driven up to the car park opposite the Malvern Hills Hotel at the foot of the Beacon, where they’d got into Henry’s police 4x4. A roundabout route along dirt tracks had taken them to the other side of the hill, Henry parking in some woodland before leading them by lamplight, like a shepherd, along an uphill mud footpath.

It had brought them to a wide-mouthed cave in a wall of rocks, like a black gable under a roof. Two uniformed policemen were in the opening, smoking cigarettes. Incident room , Bliss had said, and laughed.

Merrily swallowed. Being sick wouldn’t help the forensics.

‘Frannie?’

‘Uh?’

‘You think there’s a chance he did this to himself?’

The Home Office pathologist, Dr McEwen, looked at Bliss, probably to check that it was OK to speak in front of the woman in the dog collar. Bliss nodded.

‘I’d say the chances that your man did this to himself are fairly remote.’ McEwen was a soft-voiced Irishman in a red and blue baseball cap. ‘With a suicide – if we assume this is something the individual has never attempted before – he’s usually unsure of the best place to go in, so you’ll normally find two or three test cuts above and below the main wound. Now, if you see here…’

This time Merrily didn’t look, turning away towards the few lights of somewhere in Worcestershire laid out like a broken necklace under the ochre-streaked charcoal sky.

‘But there is more than one cut.’ Bliss’s fluorescent orange hiking jacket creaking as he bent down.

‘Sure, but they’re not what anybody would call test cuts ,’ McEwen said. ‘This one here looks like knife-skid, but this one, arguably a secondary slash, is far too deep. See what it’s done to the trachea and the muscle there? There’s also a wound on the back of the head, which might … Look, give me a few minutes more, all right?’