Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

‘ And? ’

‘It’s on Tim Loste’s regular route – they knew this; they’d followed him enough times – takes him close to the Gullet. The plan was to mess him with Winnie’s blood and turn him loose and catch up with him near the Gullet, and then oops . Only, what happened with Winnie, Hugo couldn’t take it, he’s only a boy. Hugo went badly to pieces and Louis had to take him outside, case he left vomit anywhere. And of course by the time Louis’d slapped some sense into Hugo, Tim was away. Not quite on the usual path, either, which was understandable under the circumstances, and they couldn’t find him.’

‘They were going to … ?’

‘Toss him in the Gullet. Drown him. Nothing easier. So many accidents there, but this would be suicide. Louis’s scenario ends with the recovery from the Gullet, maybe tomorrow, of the body. Winnie’s blood not quite washed away. Murder and suicide. Case closed. Only Tim had wandered off. Can’t trust drugs. Where did you put the car, Merrily?’

‘What drugs?’

‘Where’s the car?’

‘In the Dutch barn, like you said.’ Trying to keep pace with Spicer across the yard. ‘What am I not getting? What crucial piece of information have I been denied?’

Spicer kept on walking, pointing around the courtyard, building to building, the density of it, row upon row, nicely leaning stone and timbered alleyways reaching back into the fields and the woodland.

Merrily persisted. ‘Drugs?’

‘They’d spiked his Scotch. Roofies.’

‘What?’

‘Rohypnol. Know what that is?’

‘The date-rape drug?’

‘Compliance. Do what you want with them. Softened up. Plus, it causes short-term memory loss, which is useful. Tim habitually leaves his door unlocked, for Elgar or whoever. Hugo comes in earlier in the day, spikes his whisky with Rohypnol. Tasteless, odourless. Works well with alcohol, as we all know. On men as well as women. If you get the dose right, the effects are usually predictable. Can be used in combination with certain drugs to improve the high.’

‘Hugo told you this?’

‘Emily, once.’

‘Your—’

‘Don’t ask. But whether that means Loste was sitting there with a vacant smile on his face when they were killing Winnie—’

‘Oh my God .’

‘We don’t know that. We don’t know how much he had, but that sounds likely. It can take hours to wear off. Maybe he’s asleep somewhere on the hill, maybe … I don’t know. Time he comes out of it, blood on his hands and his clothes, he may even think Winnie was down to him. But … the plan was he wouldn’t come out of it.’

They reached the car, and Merrily handed Spicer the keys. Glad she wouldn’t be driving.

‘Syd, what is this?’

Thinking what Bliss had said about outrage killing. Fight for our traditions, we’re branded criminals , Devereaux had said. This government’s scum. Anti-English. Don’t get me started .

Rage against the system? Little Englander vigilantism gone mad?

Winnie. Hacked to death by the sons of a former lover, like the climax of some old and bloody folk-ballad.

‘We could spend all night going over the farm,’ Spicer said, ‘and I could doubtless show you signs – things that are obvious when you know – but it would take a long time and I’m afraid we don’t have that kind of time. Whiteleafed Oak, you said. That’s where he goes.’

‘Loste?’

‘Loste, yes.’ He was gripping her shoulders. ‘You’re sure about this.’

‘We were supposed to meet them there tonight, Loste and Winnie. Lol’s waiting in case he—’

‘They’ll find him, then. Maybe they already have.’

‘What about Lol?’

‘I don’t think we should hang around, Merrily.’

‘What will they do to Lol? They surely—’

‘Why don’t I drop you in the village, give you the keys to the rectory?’

‘Don’t even think about it.’

‘All right.’ Spicer opened the passenger door for her. ‘Perhaps a serious prayer wouldn’t come amiss. I can never seem to do it when I’m driving.’

58

Mr Phoebus and the Whiteleafed Oak

Tim Loste and the oak stood together under the moon with its acid-green halo.

‘Tell me about the demons,’ Lol said.

He’d followed Tim out of the barn, leaving the lamp behind in the hay. Tim no longer staggered, as if beating his head on one of the uprights had unblocked something. He looked slowly around the whitewashed wooded valley and finally up at the great oak, its branches laden with dark foliage and glittering things like some weird midsummer hoar frost.

‘A living symphony, this tree. Look at the complexity of it. We’re old mates now. I’m bringing up some of the children.’ Tim started to laugh. ‘Sat here, meditating for hours. All weathers. Freezing cold. Snowed on, soaked to the skin.’

‘Elgar’s mother would have approved.’

‘Yes.’

‘Was nobody curious about what you were doing?’

‘The few people who come here, if you’re meditating they leave you alone. They understand that much.’

Lol tried again.

‘The demons. That is the Royal Oak? The demonic counterpoint to what you’re doing. Like when the demons come for the soul of Gerontius … they’re discordant. They’re taunting him.’

‘Didn’t really notice it,’ Tim said. ‘Not at first.’

‘You didn’t hear the noise?’

‘I could block it out with headphones. Put on the old cans, close my eyes and I’m in a concert hall. Or a cathedral. Or when I’m writing just put them on, unplugged, and it’s a blank canvas. But she made me take them off. She said it was meant.’

‘Winnie?’

‘Made me take my headphones off while I was writing, to experience the violence. Suppose I didn’t react strongly enough. So we walked down the hill one night, a Saturday night – we’d been drinking … well, I ’d been … and she said, this is evil. It’s deriding you. And it was filling the valley, terribly loud, and I was getting pretty sick of it and I said, can’t we go? And then she took me to where there was a loose stone in the wall.’

‘ She made you throw the stone through the window?’

‘Had a few drinks. And you learn not to make her annoyed.’

‘And then…’

‘Just stood there, thinking, what the bloody hell have I done now? Next thing, they’re all on me. Big chaps. Beat the shit out of me.’

‘And where was Winnie?’

‘Gone for help.’

‘She let them beat you up.’

Tim sat down under the tree.

‘She’s a writer,’ he said.

Driving through Wychehill, picking up speed but not too much, Syd Spicer said, ‘You understand about Louis Devereaux, now? Loves to kill.’

Merrily fumbled out a cigarette, both hands shaking. Once you sat down, it all caught up with you again.

‘Odd thing was, Emily was always anti-hunting till she started going out with Louis. And then it was, Oh he just does it for the riding and the excitement . I wasn’t too happy about a teenage kid going out with a bloke six years older. So I asked around. There’s a few hunting types in my other parishes. Some of them very doubtful about Louis.’

They passed the gates of Wychehill Church, with its cracked lantern alight.

‘Can’t you go any faster, Syd?’

‘Too many traffic cops. They’ll stop anybody tonight.’

Merrily had rung Bliss again and left a slightly hysterical, urgent message on his voicemail. Now she was even wondering about trying to get Howe. Meanwhile, groping for self-reassurance. No way anyone’s going to mistake Lol for Tim Loste. Not even in the countryside in the dark .