Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

She stumbled into the toilet to wash her face and then went into one of the cubicles and fumbled out her mobile to leave a message on Eirion’s phone, see if he could pick her up after school. Needing someone to howl to.

Soon as she switched on, the voicemail signal buzzed, and she clapped both hands around the phone because Morrell was strict on the use of mobiles during class-time – confiscation had been known, for as long as a week, and in this case would be guaranteed, and then the secret police would have all her private contacts.

You have one message. To access your messages, press one .

Probably be Eirion, saying he was going to be tied up tonight. Jane pressed one .

‘Hello, Ms Watkins.’ This strange, cheerful man’s voice. ‘My name is Jerry Isles, and I work for the Guardian newspaper. I’d like to discuss your campaign on behalf of the, um, Ledwardine ley? Could you please call me back?’

Jane stood there, with her back to the cubicle door, staring into the toilet, the mobile feeling like a stick of dynamite with a fizzing fuse. When she and Eirion had done the document for the Net, she’d put her mobile in as the contact number, mainly because she didn’t want anybody ringing the vicarage. Expecting maybe a couple of concerned ley-hunters who might be prepared to send letters of protest to the council.

The Guardian ? Jeez.

‘And what do you know about this man Loste?’ Sophie asked.

‘Nothing.’ Merrily spread her hands. ‘Hearsay. I’ve never met him. I’ve never even seen him.’

She’d just called Winnie Sparke. The call had lasted around half a minute, Sparke insisting that she didn’t like to speak on the phone and could they meet this afternoon, somewhere other than Wychehill? Great Malvern would be appropriate. She knew a place they could be private.

‘You’re going ?’ Sophie said.

‘What can I do?’

‘This man has been taken in for questioning about a peculiarly savage and revolting murder and you propose to meet his girlfriend somewhere private .’

‘I’m not sure she’s his girlfriend.’

‘Do you even know anything about her ?’

‘There are only twenty-four short hours in a day, Sophie.’ Merrily slumped back in her chair, leaning it against the wall. ‘And I’m already working most of them.’

‘I’m sorry. I ’ll see what I can find out.’

‘I’m sure you’ve a stack of letters to do for the Bishop—’

‘Shush,’ Sophie said, as the phone rang. ‘Gatehouse. Yes, she is.’ Sighing. ‘One moment, Inspector.’

Merrily sat up, groping for the phone.

‘Mr Loste, Merrily.’ Bliss coming at her like a fast train hissing from a tunnel. ‘If you wanna know, in absolute, pain-of-death confidence, why they’ve brought him in, listen up, because I don’t have much time. You got shorthand?’

‘Sophie’s is better.’

‘Then put me back to Sophie. And this really doesn’t go any further than the two of you, understand, or I’ll be in more shite than you could ever imagine.’

‘Sure.’

‘What I’m giving you is a text message received by Raji Khan last night, transmitted from Wicklow’s mobile. Read and destroy, then call me back and tell me what you think.’

‘Texted by Wicklow?’

‘Texted, almost certainly, after Wicklow’s death by Wicklow’s killer or an accomplice and passed on to Howe by Khan in his capacity as an upright citizen. You’ll find it fairly unbelievable. Gimme Sophie.’

Merrily handed over the phone and played nervously with her Zippo, watching Sophie reaching for a notepad and pen, beginning to write.

‘Sign? Oh, thine . I’m sorry … continue.’

Arcane Pitman loops and whorls and dots. Everything suddenly moving unintelligibly fast.

‘Yes … yes…’ Sophie’s eyebrows raised. ‘My God, yes … so it is. No, I won’t do that. Thank you, Inspector.’ She hung up, tore off the top page of her notebook and sat down to transcribe. ‘I recognized it at once.’

‘Recognized what?’

‘Let me finish.’

Sophie reversed the shorthand notebook, pushed it across the desk to Merrily. She’d hand-printed the transcription. ‘I was instructed not to put it into the computer.’

Lord of dread and lord of power

This is thine, the fateful hour.

When beneath the sacred oak

Thrice the sacred charm is spoke,

Thrice the sacrificial knife

Reddens with a victim’s life,

Thrice the mystic dance is led

Round the altar where they bled.

‘What is it?’ Merrily looked up. ‘Black Sabbath?’

‘It’s…’ Sophie frowned ‘… Elgar, I’m afraid. His librettist, anyway. It’s an extract from the cantata we discussed.’

‘ The Dream of —? It can’t be.’

‘ Gerontius is an oratorio,’ Sophie said with no sarcasm. ‘Of a kind. The cantata is Caractacus .’

‘Oh. The one set on…’

‘Herefordshire Beacon. British Camp.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘Literally. The passage relates to where Caractacus, facing his final confrontation with the Romans, is directed by various prophecies from what you might call Druids of the old school. The libretto … particularly on paper, it lacks a certain subtlety of expression. Elgar wasn’t famous then. It was written by a neighbour, a Mr Acworth. A retired civil servant, as I recall.’

‘And this bollocks was texted to Khan?’

… the sacrificial knife

Reddens with a victim’s life

Merrily stood up and turned to the window: Broad Street traffic, T-shirts, summer frocks.

Inn Ya Face.

The phone went again and Sophie took it, her reading glasses dropping down on their chain. She wasn’t on long.

‘I’ll tell her,’ she said. ‘If I see her. Thank you.’ When she looked up at Merrily, her face was creasing with an unexpected, almost motherly concern. ‘You can’t react to everything.’

‘Just tell me.’

‘Detective Chief Inspector Howe’s office. She would like to meet you in Wychehill later this afternoon.’

‘Howe wants to see me ?’

‘The sergeant said she very much hopes it will be convenient.’

‘Which means if I don’t show there’ll be a police car outside the vicarage at some ungodly hour.’

‘I’m sorry, Merrily.’

What the hell was this about? Merrily sat down, laid her palms on the desk, took two long breaths and called Bliss back.

‘No idea,’ Bliss said. ‘But whatever the bitch wants, you keep me well out of it. What do you reckon about the text?’

‘If it wasn’t so bad it’d be creepy. How many people would recognize the words of an Elgar cantata?’

‘In the Malverns,’ Sophie murmured, ‘about four thousand.’

‘Not a great many rival dealers,’ Bliss said. ‘That’s for sure. We must be looking at one of the principal reasons for them picking up Mr Loste.’

‘Maybe he’s just advising them, as an exper— No. Sorry, I’m overtired. It was texted to Raji Khan personally?’

‘To the Royal Oak landline.’

‘Would that work?’

‘You can text a landline and the message gets read out over the phone.’

‘Loste has an oak,’ Merrily said.

‘Sorry?’

‘I just thought. Loste has an oak planted in his front garden.’

‘That’s uncommon?’

‘It is when your garden’s barely big enough for a dwarf apple-tree. A lot of oaks here, that’s all I was thinking. Sacrificial oak. Royal Oak…’