Phil Rickman - The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

IT WAS LIKE one of those Victorian clockwork-tableau automatons that you wound up and things started happening, everything interconnected: Brigid Parsons pulsing to her feet and Alma, long practised in restraint, preventing her from moving from the spot, as Jeremy and Jane and Bliss converged and one of the altar candles self-snuffed.

Merrily was putting herself between all of them and Clancy, and shouting, ‘ Baptized? ’

Shouting out to Brigid, ‘ Has she been baptized? ’

Becoming aware that she hadn’t actually shouted it, just mouthed it, and Brigid was shaking her head.

‘That’s OK,’ Merrily said calmly. ‘That’s not a problem. We’ll see to it now.’ She smiled at Clancy and Clancy smiled faintly and vacantly back. ‘Clancy, you up for this?’

Keeping it casual. Playing down what was going to be something very big and crucial, because if this kid got spooked and took off...

Clancy didn’t respond, but she didn’t move away, just stood there like she’d been summoned to the head teacher’s office. Stood there in get-this-over mode. Not sullen or antagonistic, just tuned-out.

Which was dangerous, of course. Merrily lifted up her hands and felt a rush of adrenalin, endorphins, the electricity crackling.

Don’t get carried away. Concentrate .

‘Shush,’ she said softly bringing her palms down, trying to lower the energy level in here because it was becoming negative – too many warring agendas. It was only a hotel dining room, it wasn’t a church, nothing to amplify emotions but no weight of worship to soothe them either. A playground for Hattie Chancery and whatever moved her, but the kitchen would have been worse.

People were back in their chairs, the clockwork winding down. Some hadn’t reacted, like Alistair Hardy, watching her with his head on one side, one arm apart from his body, the hand twitching, fingers flexing. Did she need him out of here? No, let it go. He wasn’t interfering; she had the sense of a spectator, no agenda.

Merrily turned to the altar and gathered up the decanter. This was about the essentials. No fuss... stripped down... clean and simple... the basics. It mustn’t be rushed, however. Keep it casual, but get it right, because this... well, this was a medieval baptism. This was the exorcism.

She was looking into Clancy’s face now – the kid avoiding her stare, which wasn’t hard; she was a good bit taller than Merrily. But this was what Clancy did, she avoided, retreated, did not get involved. The inherited curse of negative celebrity.

In the name of the Father, the Son, the...

When Clancy finally knelt, it was like hands were pushing her to her knees. Merrily was aware of Brigid Parsons drawing in a thin ribbon of breath and the placid, unmoving eyes of Jeremy Berrows. When she closed her eyes momentarily, she could see a ring of candles, tiny snail-shells of light.

She held on to the sense of assurance rising from her abdomen, her solar plexus, as she approached Clancy and the half-perceived form of the woman standing close behind her who was in dark, nondescript clothing, perhaps a two-piece suit, bust like a mantelpiece, close-curled hair, eyes like white marbles.

Taking the stopper from the bottle. Time passing. If there was a preamble, Merrily wasn’t aware of it.

‘Do you... reject the Devil and all rebellion against God?’

Nothing.

‘Say, “I reject them.” ’

Say it, for God’s—

Clancy looked confused. Her face was damp and florid in the crimson glare suffusing the room.

‘Clancy, say, “I reject them.” Say it, if... if you want to.’

Clancy rocked, losing her balance, the words tumbling out.

‘Do you renounce the deceit and corruption of evil? Say “I—” ’

‘I... renounce them...’

The cold sun hung in the red portion of the stained-glass window, like a blood-blister. When Merrily finally drew the cross on Clancy’s skin, she almost expected the water to boil and sizzle. It didn’t.

Anticlimax. No smoke, no mirrors.

It was always best.

Clearing away the remains of the Eucharist, after the baptism and the commendation, Merrily’s hands were weak, but there was still a dipping and rising in her spine, something finding its normal level.

Jane came to help her. At some point – good heavens – she actually squeezed Merrily’s hand.

‘Hey... not bad.’

‘Erm... thanks. Only it wasn’t—’

‘Yeah, I know. It wasn’t down to you. All the same, you could easily’ve blown it. Mum...’ Jane began to fold up the white tablecloth with the wine stains. ‘Is this... I mean, you know, is this it ?’

‘No chance. I’ll probably be back three or four times. Could you... leave the cloth there, flower. Call this superstition...’

‘Oh... right.’

Clancy was at the bottom of the room with Brigid and Jeremy, Bliss and Alma a few yards away, giving them some space.

Merrily shook her head as the old concertina radiator began gonging dolefully behind her, squeezing a little heat back into Stanner Hall.

‘What happened to your wrist?’ Merrily said as they filed out into the lobby, she and Brigid side by side with Bliss in front, Alma close behind.

Brigid said nothing.

‘Happened on the rocks, didn’t it? Last night.’

Brigid shrugged and it turned into a shiver. Brigid was very pale now, pale enough to faint. They moved towards the reception desk, Mumford standing there, his face grey with stubble and no sleep. In the half-light, the lobby looked as dismal as an old hospital waiting room.

‘Brigid,’ Merrily said. ‘Tell me...’

‘All right, it happened on the rocks.’ Brigid turned to her, still walking. ‘Look, I just want to say, you know... thanks. I don’t know what you did, but maybe... maybe something happened. Even I think that. And I’m not impressionable. Not for a long time.’

‘Something probably did happen,’ Merrily said.

‘And I wanted to say... if you could maybe stay in touch with Jeremy, because he...’

‘I know.’

‘It could have happened for us. We were so close to it.’

‘I believe you were.’

On the reception desk, the phone was ringing. Mumford picked up.

‘I wish I’d known earlier,’ Merrily said. ‘I wish somebody had felt able to say something.’

She looked at Jeremy, who must have said more in the past few hours than in his entire adult life.

‘And Clancy...’ Brigid said.

‘Don’t worry.’

‘I’m not going to cry,’ Brigid said. ‘It’s not what killers do.’

Mumford said to Bliss, ‘It’s the DCI, boss.’

‘Tell her we’ve had word that the snowploughs’ve been through and we’re on our way.

‘Boss—’

‘Tell her we’ve gone.’

Merrily said, ‘That was Annie Howe, the head of Hereford CID. If you don’t make a full statement she’s going to give you a very hard time.’

‘That’ll be something to look forward to.’

Merrily said, ‘You see, the point is, that wrist injury – I saw it on Largo’s video.’

Brigid stopped. Alma said, ‘Keep moving, please, Brigid, directly to the porch.’

Then Clancy Craven was there, dragging on Alma’s arm, face all twisted up.

‘You’re not taking her! You’re not! You can’t take her away! ’

Clancy started to scream. Merrily saw Jane behind her, looking upset, unsure how to respond. Jeremy watching her too, with an expression that, if you didn’t know him, you might interpret as anger. Jeremy turned and walked away towards the entrance as Brigid pushed in front of Alma, hugging Clancy. ‘Clan... it’ll be OK. It... Everything’s taken care of.’ Over Clancy’s shoulder, she said to Merrily, ‘Where did you see that video?’