Phil Rickman - The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

‘Can I stay here?’ Brigid said. ‘If it...?’

‘Can you?’

‘It’s a challenge, isn’t it?’

‘Everywhere’s a challenge.’

She was thinking about something Gomer had said about Jeremy’s island of calm in a sea of noise and blood. She wondered what would happen now to Sebbie Dacre’s three farms, whether some other robber baron would come riding over the horizon in his Range Rover, unable to spot the symptoms of history until the disease had set in. It was important to guard the island.

Behind them, a shout went up.

‘That,’ Frannie Bliss said, ‘is outrageous. They think they’re a bloody law unto themselves, these bastards.’

‘It’s a remote area,’ Mumford said. ‘Always been self-sufficient. Half of them have got their own snowploughs.’

Merrily stood at the bottom of the steps, below the hotel porch, as Bliss followed Mumford down.

‘Who we looking at here, Andy?’

‘I’ll give you three names, boss. Berrows... Thomas... Parry.’

‘Damage?’

‘The van with Dacre’s body in it had a headlamp smashed. That’s the only police property. However—’

Merrily hurried over. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Your little friends,’ Bliss said, ‘decided, for reasons of their own, to reverse all the sterling work done to clear tons of snow from the bottom of the drive, thus allowing us all to return to comparative civilization.’

‘They... put the snow back?’

‘They put it back , Merrily, even better than nature had done it in the first place.’ Bliss’s voice acquired some heat energy. ‘They seem to have created an impacted wall of snow harder than the sides of the fucking Cresta Run. So that the first vehicles, thinking the road was clear, just piled into it.’

‘I think it was Berrows started it,’ Mumford said. ‘He was... in a bit of an emotional state. Especially after the girl came down. Then Thomas and Parry arrived in the tractor with a plough, and it escalated. They can go a bit mental, sometimes, Border people.’

‘Nick them,’ Bliss said grimly.

‘And the other bloke’s talking about legal action,’ Mumford said.

‘Sorry, Andy?’

‘The Scottish bloke.’

‘Scottish bloke.’

‘In the Shogun.’

‘I see.’

In the silence, a little smile landed like an insect at the corner of Bliss’s mouth.

‘The impact seems to have dislocated his shoulder,’ Mumford said.

‘Did you tell him how sorry we were?’

‘No, I thought you’d like to do that yourself, boss. As the SIO.’

‘Yes,’ Bliss said. ‘That would be correct procedure. I’ll come now.’

KILLING FOR A chip shop. Killing for what Jane had described as a contemporary dynamic .

Small doorways for big evil.

‘Most motives for murder seem ridiculous,’ Merrily said, in front of the parlour fire as the daylight slipped away. ‘But all that tells you is that the reasons – the motives – are usually irrelevant. For most of us, they wouldn’t be motives. We hope.’

You hoped. You hoped you had an immune system, a natural defence – Christianity, whatever – against all the evil in the air around you. You hoped there was no such thing as an evil person, only someone with a weakened immune system.

She’d been to see Alice this afternoon. Alice had come out of hospital. Alice was at her sister’s house in Belmont – Darrin’s family, Roland’s family. A whole male generation wiped out.

Alice couldn’t move her left side much, but she could communicate, just about – verbal soup dribbling from the right side of her mouth. You could get the sense of it, mostly. For instance, the family’s discovery that no doctor had actually treated Dexter Harris for asthma in over ten years. Since the Family GP had become part of history, such things didn’t come out.

How long had Dexter been feigning attacks to get himself out of various situations and responsibilities? Don’t give me no stress .

Mostly, Alice had just wept, a fiery little woman doused by life. There would be a lot of weeping in that house this Christmas. It was what Christmas would become, for them, for the foreseeable future.

She’d promised Alice and the family some healing. From the Sunday-evening service. The, erm, healing service. Well, what could you do? A forum to discuss setting up a spiritual healing group in the diocese had been arranged for mid-January, at the Cathedral. The Bishop himself would chair the meeting. The idea of having Lew Jeavons as guest speaker had been ruled out.

‘I need to ring him,’ she said to Lol. ‘Do I mention the twelve priests? Or do I wait for him to bring it up?’

‘He may not want to explain.’ Lol was sitting on the rug with his back against the sofa, his head against Merrily’s thigh. ‘Some things just... evolve.’

Just before she and Jane had left Stanner, Alistair Hardy had taken Merrily aside. I’m uncomfortable about this, Mrs Watkins, knowing how you feel about people like me. But after what you said when we met on the stairs, about the twelve priests and Black Vaughan...

He’d counted them, he said. This was just after the incident with the girl during the Eucharist, before Merrily had initiated the baptism. He’d counted all twelve.

And what were they wearing? Merrily had asked, legitimately sceptical. Kind of... monk’s robes? All carrying candles?

Yes, Hardy said, they did have a candle each. But none of them wore monks’ robes. And two of them were black, and one was a woman.

Just thought she might like to know.

Lol had told her that Jeavons had felt bad about the way the Dexter thing was turning out. Asking Lol to ring him as soon as he could find out what time the Stanner Eucharist had been arranged for. He hadn’t said a word to Lol about his international database of over three hundred healing and deliverance priests.

After being given the approximate time, he’d asked for the location. And a map reference.

Hardy said he’d noticed that Merrily’s aura had appeared brighter and more vivid. As the dark essence of Hattie Chancery hazed into something palely grey.

Probably still there, though , Hardy said. There’s probably more to do. You’d know about that .

Aftercare required.

Before lunch, Bliss had rung. DNA tests on Antony Largo’s clothing had proved inconclusive. Maybe he’d managed to dump some. This was not, Bliss said, going to be easy. Antony Largo was not in custody, and he had the worst kind of lawyer. The Crown Prosecution Service, as usual, was demonstrating symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.

However, Strathclyde Police had been helpful. Largo had formerly been known as Anthony McKinnon. Born in the fairly sedate seaside resort of – wait for it – Largs, north of Glasgow, McKinnon, aged sixteen, had been one of several juveniles questioned in connection with the alleged gang rape of a prostitute, who had eventually decided that she didn’t want to appear in court. It wasn’t much, Bliss said, but it was a start.

Brigid Parsons had made a full statement at Hereford and had been released without charge. It was a delicate situation, and its satisfactory resolution depended on Bliss nailing Largo. Bliss wouldn’t give up.

Meanwhile, Natalie Craven and her daughter had returned to The Nant. Former DCI Ellie Maylord had been consulted and would be travelling down. Bliss thought it would be a good idea if she and Merrily met. Merrily agreed.

Aftercare needed.

But Dexter Harris, Bliss said, had been more or less textbook. A black bin-liner had been found in a roadside litter-bin, inside it a claw hammer coated with blood and hair. By this time, Dexter’s truck had been forensically examined. Truck/ hammer/ Darrin/Dexter. A formality. Lol’s part in the final act had not been made public, but he wasn’t looking forward to the inquest.