Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

‘But you’ll be coming back, I take it.’

‘I suppose.’

‘And I might not be. So keep me informed.’

‘And you keep me informed.’

In the north-eastern sky, she could see amber strips. Probably a false dawn. Midsummer morning in Elgar’s England.

‘Not only did they not take his drugs,’ Bliss said, ‘they didn’t even nick his mobile. Work that out.’

Jane, at breakfast, said, ‘I haven’t been trying to avoid you.’

‘Did I say you had?’

‘Lol said you had. Which means the same thing.’

‘Actually,’ Merrily said, ‘I was feeling bad that I hadn’t been, as they say, here for you. Maybe you could take me to see this Coleman’s Meadow? When you get home from school.’

After some sweaty, befuddled dreams that she couldn’t remember but knew were unpleasant, Merrily just wanted to do something normal . She sat and looked at Jane across the refectory table. Wished they could stay here like this all day.

Jane said, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Difficult night.’ Merrily put an extra spoonful of sugar in her tea. ‘After the meeting, Frannie Bliss took me to look at a murder scene.’

‘Scousers really know how to show a woman a good time. Like … why , exactly?’

‘Because the dead man was found with his throat cut on something called the Sacrificial Stone at Herefordshire Beacon and Bliss wanted to eliminate the possibility of it being a ritual midsummer slaughter by pagans.’

‘Wow. For a vicar, you really—’

Merrily watched her daughter, translating every facial twitch: Jane trying not to be impressed while remembering she had guilty secrets and couldn’t afford to be too abrasive over…

‘Pagans doing ritual murder? That is so insulting.’

‘As Bliss pointed out, there are pagans and pagans. Anyway, it was bloody horrible, and I didn’t get back until nearly two a.m. So if you’ve been trying to avoid me, I’ve not been aware of it.’

‘Who was the vic?’

Kid watched too many American crime shows on Channel Five.

‘When I left, he was still unidentified. Jane … do you know anything about a dance venue called Inn Ya Face?’

‘Best thing about that place –’ Jane spread a slab of honey, obscenely, on a crumpet ‘– is its name.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’ve been, obviously.’

‘ When? You never mentioned that.’

‘We didn’t stop long. I mean, it’s a good place to go because there’s masses of parking space, supervised by these hard-looking guys so you don’t get your car nicked, and it’s free. We thought we might go again some time, if there was anybody particularly cool appearing, but we somehow never have.’

‘You and Eirion?’

‘Dr Samedi was supposed to be on – you remember Jeff, from Kidderminster?’

‘Oddly, I was only thinking about Dr Samedi last night. He’s still in business?’

‘Yeah, but we got the wrong night. There was this really poxy band on, thought they were the new Chemical Brothers. Really bad. Not bad as in wicked, bad as in … crap.’

‘Talking of chemicals—’

‘Whoever told you I’m doing drugs is—’

‘I meant the Royal Oak. Inn Ya Face. Could you – if you wanted to – get much there?’

‘Mum, how naive are you? You can get it anywhere . There are like ten-year-old dealers outside playgroups? I mean, all that meet-me-on-the-corner-when-the-lights-are-going-on stuff … that’s costume drama.’

‘That’s an exaggeration, right?’

‘Not much of one. Prices have never been lower in Hereford. So I’m told. Look, Mum … erm…’ Jane’s eyes flickered. ‘You heard from anyone? About … me?’

‘Like who?’

‘I don’t know … Morrell?’

‘The head?’ Merrily drank some hot tea. What was this? ‘Why Morrell, Jane? Does he know about your serial truancy?’

‘Serial—? Mum, that is absolute sh—’

‘How many times?’

Jane picked up a piece of crumpet, put it down again, stared at it and sighed.

‘Two.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I swear. Look, if I’d asked for time off the premises to work on my project I’d’ve got it. I just didn’t want to…’

‘Tell them exactly what the project involved.’

‘Because … All right, because I went round to Councillor Pierce’s place to ask him about this housing plan, and there were all these county council guys there, and one was a woman from the education authority.’

‘Why don’t I like the sound of this?’

‘I mean I wasn’t, you know, rude to them or anything. Just tried to get my point over about Coleman’s Meadow being, essentially, an important ancient monument, and they said that was all crap, and Alfred Watkins was a misguided old man. They called it “acceptable infill”. And Lyndon Pierce said he wanted to build Ledwardine up into a thriving little town with like restaurants and massage parlours?’

‘He said that ?’

‘Well, he said restaurants. And a new village hall – leisure centre – that’s already going ahead, apparently.’

‘That’s rubbish. I’d have heard. Been consulted, even.’

‘No, really. They’re getting a Lottery grant.’

‘Seems very unlikely to me. I was at a christening tea in the village hall yesterday. It’s going to be redecorated next month.’

‘It sounded like a seriously done deal to me,’ Jane said.

‘I’ll check it out. What did you say to them?’

‘Nothing. Not really. When this woman started banging on about Morrell, I just got out of there.’ Jane stood up, brushing cat hairs from her skirt. ‘You do look knackered, Mum.’

‘I am knackered – let’s not get sidetracked.’

Merrily inspected Jane in her school uniform, hoping it wasn’t only familiarity that made her daughter look innocent rather than sultry and faintly menacing like some of the other girls you saw waiting for the school bus. Jane going, on her own, to see Pierce … that was kind of admirable, but whether Pierce would regard it as mature and socially aware was a different matter.

‘You haven’t done anything else I should know about, have you?’

Call it intuition.

‘He used to shoot blue tits off nut dispensers,’ Jane said.

‘What?’

‘Lyndon Pierce. When he was a kid. Lucy Devenish tried to stop him and he pointed his airgun at her, and then Gomer—’

‘Gomer told you this?’

‘Gomer took the gun off him and flattened it under his JCB. I bet the bastard didn’t put that in his election leaflets.’

‘Jane—’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and blackmail him or anything.’ Jane shouldered her airline bag. ‘I’m probably not even going to say anything about his old man, Percy Pierce, doing a dirty deal with the disgusting Rod Powell to get this, like, agricultural restriction lifted.’

‘What?’

‘So he could build Lyndon’s revolting Las Vegas-style villa. I’m not going to hang that on him … yet.’

‘Good,’ Merrily said. ‘I’m delighted you’re probably not going to attempt to blackmail the local councillor, because it is, as you know, a serious crime.’

‘Building on Coleman’s Meadow is also a crime,’ Jane said. ‘Well … better get off, I suppose.’