Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

Maybe the holding of Tim Loste was not yet official. But he looked far more guilty to Merrily now than he had before she’d spoken to Winnie Sparke.

On the computer in the scullery, Jane tapped in the URL that Eirion had dictated. She found, with an unexpected sense of shock and dismay, the picture of herself looking what he’d described as pissed-off but sexy . Behind her, Cole Hill was serene and enigmatic in its morning gauze of bright mist.

Oh God, why had she let him talk her into this? Probably all that stuff about the firm young breasts inside the school blouse. Underneath, she was just a whore.

‘Yeah, got it,’ she said into the mobile. ‘What site is this?’

‘EMA,’ Eirion said. ‘Earth Mysteries Affiliates. It’s a campaigning outfit – kind of a mystical Greenpeace. Didn’t waste any time, did they? But then it’s probably the best story they’ve had all year.’

Under the picture, it said: Jane Watkins – fighting for Alfred’s ley . Below that, the hand-drawn map that she and Eirion had scanned, showing all the points on the Cole Hill line.

‘But it’s only been up a few hours. How could the Guardian have got on to it so soon?’

‘They wouldn’t have. What’s obviously happened is that one of the guys who runs the EMA site saw there was a potential news story here and scored himself a tip-off fee. I mean, I could’ve tried that, but the papers are never as interested if it comes from the people involved – just looks like you’re desperate for publicity.’

Eirion was at home in Abergavenny. He’d left school early; you could apparently do that on the smallest excuse when your final days as a schoolkid were ebbing away.

‘I’m not sure I am now,’ Jane said.

‘Not sure you’re what?’

‘Desperate for publicity.’

Feeling a little intimidated, to be honest. She told him about Morrell.

‘Jane, you can’t have it both ways. You started this. When are you going to call him back?’

‘The Guardian guy? Don’t know whether I am. I mean, the national press? Like, I thought it was OK pissing off the council, but that bitch can really damage me. And Mum, probably.’

‘I doubt it,’ Eirion said. ‘She’s only a councillor, isn’t she? A servant of democracy.’

‘ She doesn’t think she’s a servant. Vice-chair of Education? She thinks that’s serious power. It’s obvious she went straight to Morrell and told him that one of his students was making trouble for her mates.’

‘It’s the way they work. He’s their employee. But she couldn’t really threaten him. Least, I don’t think she could.’

‘Irene, Morrell is, like, insanely ambitious, and he’s quite young. Moorfield’s just a stepping stone. He’s not going to offend a powerful councillor for the sake of one student … who he hates and would really like to get rid of anyway.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘You’ve never seen him! All right … what should I do?’

There was a silence.

Come on , there shouldn’t be a silence! Eirion’s dad was a BBC governor in Wales and he had a cousin who was news editor on the Western Mail in Cardiff. Eirion was, like, totally steeped in the media.

‘I don’t know,’ Eirion said.

‘Thanks.’

‘Let me think about it. I’ll call you back.’

‘Soon?’

‘Soon. I’m sorry, Jane.’

‘It’s OK.’

She sat staring at the screen, feeling terminally forlorn.

Jane Watkins – fighting for Alfred’s ley . As Lol had pointed out, there was no proof that it was Alfred’s ley. Alfred might not even have known about it. Or, worse, he might have discounted it. There could be some element here that totally disqualified Coleman’s Meadow. Just because it looked right…

Could be she’d stitched herself up.

Jane couldn’t face looking at that smug pout any more and switched off the computer. Just sat there waiting, dolefully stroking Ethel who was sitting in the in-tray. Best thing would be to leave it for a day or two, give the dust time to settle.

On the other hand, the planning committee would be meeting next week to make a decision on Coleman’s Meadow.

Sure, she could leave it. She could walk away and spend the rest of her life regretting it, despising her own cowardice.

Or she could take some more time off school, in open defiance of her head teacher, and follow it through, because…

… Forget earth-energy, forget spirit paths; at the very least, whether Alfred Watkins had known about it or not, this was a rare alignment of ancient sacred sites which had somehow survived for maybe…

… Four thousand years?

Four thousand years of mystical tradition against one more year of schooling for somebody who wasn’t sure whether she even wanted to go to university at the end of it.

Jane felt the weight of the ancestors on her shoulders.

This was probably one of those situations where Mum would go to the church and pray for guidance – Jane thinking that if she did that, after all she’d said over the years, it would at least give God the best laugh he’d had since he hit the Egyptians with a plague of locusts.

The scullery phone rang.

‘Look, Irene,’ Jane said, ‘I’ve been thinking—’

‘Jane, I’m really sorry…’

‘Oh. Mum.’

‘I’m also sorry for not being Eirion. Listen, flower, you can probably guess what’s coming.’

‘You have to go back to Malvern. Don’t call me flower.’

‘Right. I’m sorry. I’m there now, and I have someone else to meet. Will you be OK?’

‘Sure. I’ve already fed Ethel. I’ll get something for me later.’

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Everything’s fine.’

‘I won’t be late. I promise I won’t be late this time.’

‘Honestly, take as long as you like,’ Jane said.

She hung up and felt tearful. Felt like a stupid, ineffectual kid who got caught up in fads and crazes and thought she was so smart and spiritually developed but, faced with a crunch situation, didn’t basically have the nerve to follow through.

Tim Loste’s house. The heart of the enigma.

A flat, grey Victorian or Edwardian town house that just happened to have been built in the country. A tiny front garden held in by iron railings. An oak tree that shouldn’t be here.

Merrily stepped into the house called Caractacus with some trepidation and an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. Well, not quite, because she knew where this feeling was coming from, remembering when Bliss had invited her to the home of a suspected serial murderer obsessed with the Cromwell Street killings. All black sheets and pin-up pictures of dead celebrities.

‘Stay with me,’ Annie Howe said, ‘and don’t touch anything. We’ve been over it forensically, but— What? ’

‘Nothing,’ Merrily said.

In the dim, narrow, camphor-smelling hallway, she’d come face to face with a dead celebrity.

He was life-size, in bowler hat and hacking jacket. Standing there behind his black, yard-brush moustache and the high handlebars of Mr Phoebus, as if he was about to wheel the bicycle out of the shadows towards the front door.

‘Yes, rather startling at first, isn’t it?’ Howe said.

The black and white photograph, massively blown-up, had been fixed to a wooden frame and propped up against the end wall of the passage so that it filled almost the full width, and when you came in by the front door you were looking directly into the grainy eyes.

Of all the pictures of Elgar, why this one? Merrily had the feeling that the huge, stately Mr Phoebus, important to Elgar, was also very important to Tim Loste: a bike that meant business, could take Elgar anywhere, a symbol of the mobility of the spirit.