Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

He liked to feel the presence of the bodies in there, bodies live and dead. Bodies became part of the fabric of that place, said Huw, who had studied it all in nauseating depth. Bodies, not people, because Fred basically was not interested in people , only their bodies.

25 Cromwell Street: a bargain flophouse, a free brothel and a burial chamber, and Fred loved it. Loved messing with it, altering this and that, contriving, bodging. He turned one room into a primitive cocktail bar – the Black Magic Bar, they called it, with optics on the bottles and a big mural of a Caribbean ‘beachscape. It was the first real house he’d ever owned; got it for seven grand, but it needed renovation; it needed a builder, needed him . And he’d keep working on it whenever he had the time: extending it, building new bits, fabricating this, concreting that. Building himself into that house. Putting his consciousness into it.

Such as it was.

Fred’s consciousness was basement stuff, Huw said. Fred thought about sex all the time, talked about sex most of the time he was awake.

And if the walls in 25 Cromwell Street all had eyes, they were Fred’s eyes. Eyes and ears: microphones and speakers, video cameras, so Fred could absorb the sights and sounds of sex – squeals of ecstasy upstairs, sobs of fear and despair in the cellars, the dungeons. 25 Cromwell Street throbbed with it. The house that Fred built, full of Fred’s porno pictures, Fred’s porno videos, Fred’s tools. And the dead.

‘And they knocked it down,’ Huw said. ‘That were all they could think of to do with it afterwards. There was talk of having a memorial garden, for the victims, but nobody wanted to be reminded what had happened there.’

So the council had knocked it down and built a walkway, with street lamps, so that nobody would know it had even been there. So you could walk past where it had been, walk over it, as a short cut to the centre of Gloucester. They’d turned it into another small extension to the old Roman street plan that still lay at the heart of the city – one of the best-preserved Roman street patterns anywhere in Britain. Glevum, the Roman name for Gloucester, meant place of light .

The darkest corner of the place of light: gone. But where had Fred gone? The man who was so attached to the flesh and to gadgets and tools and working with his hands; the man with no morals, no sensitivity, no spark of spirituality.

A one-man definition of the term ‘earthbound’.

Where was Fred? The man who remained unconvicted, who had cheated justice, who was said to have sat in his cell, between interrogations, and dreamed of Cromwell Street.

Where was whatever remained of Fred?

‘This is crazy,’ Merrily said.

‘Is it? You know about Lodge. You’ve been in his bungalow. You’ve seen his facsimile of the Black Magic Bar. You’ve seen the buried cuttings and the photo of him and Lynsey Davies on the sofa, posing like Fred and Rose. All I know is, lass, there were too much holding him to Cromwell Street and they took it away. First, they took his kids away, then they took the dead away. And they took him away, and he couldn’t cope with that. And then, when he was dead and burned and sprinkled over Much Marcle, they took the house itself away… his creation.’

‘Huw…’ Merrily was finding it hard to breathe. ‘This is a notorious killer of the lowest kind who—’

‘I don’t believe you can lay a man like that so easily to any kind of rest. I expected traces—’

‘—Who, in the end, avoided the processes of the law—’

‘I expected traces in the fields at Marcle, but I should’ve realized – he didn’t like it there because it was a village and everybody knew your business. He liked to watch, not be watched.’

‘—And now nobody can get at him,’ Merrily said. ‘All the relatives of the dead denied justice. All the relatives of the missing who’ll never know for sure… never.’

‘No,’ Huw said.

‘And nobody can get at him. Except…’ She was gripping the wheel tightly with both hands. ‘… Except, perhaps, for you, and I wonder what the Christian Deliverance Study Group would think of whatever you have in mind.’

Huw didn’t reply. Merrily drove slowly over Wilton Bridge towards the bypass, and the moon edged out for a moment and glimmered in the Wye.

THE VAN PULLS up in the Tesco car park, where it backs on to the bus station, just the other side of the little wall, and Jane sees him getting out and she has to smile.

Coming towards her, pointing with his stubby right forefinger, a loose semi-grin on his face, plastic carrier bag hanging from his left hand. He’s actually not bad-looking in the right light, for his age, in this gypsyish sort of way. In this earthy sort of way, which you’d probably call ‘coarse’ if you were snobby and middle-class and buttoned-up, which Jane definitely is not.

‘Well, well,’ he says, ‘I thought it was you!’

Jane’s been waiting for her bus to Ledwardine, and it’s late and there’s nobody else waiting in the North Hereford queue, and in fact she was beginning to wonder if she’d missed it. Bugger. Going to be late, so she needs to ring Mum, but she’s left the mobile at home again, and if she goes off to phone and the bus comes, she’ll be stuffed.

‘How you doing, then, girl?’

‘I’m OK, Fred. You?’

‘Busy. Up to the eyes, as usual, look, but that en’t no bad thing.’ Looking her up and down, with the old saucy wink. ‘You’ve grown, en’t you? How old you now?’

‘Seventeen.’ Jane rolls her eyes. ‘Over the hill.’

He smirks in delight. ‘Well, don’t seem no time at all, do it, since we done your bathroom, took out the ole shower? Had a good laugh then, di’n’t we? How’s your ma? Still doin’ the ole…?’ Miming the dog collar like it’s got a ball and chain attached.

‘Well… She’s probably OK now, at this moment,’ Jane says doubtfully. ‘But she’ll be mad as hell if it turns out I’ve missed this bus and she’s late for her communion class.’

‘Missed your bus, is it? Bugger.’

‘It’s OK, there’ll be another three in about two hours.’

‘Well now, hang on…’ He purses his lips, thinking. ‘Just you hang on a mo, Jane… Ledwardine, ennit? I’m off up to wosser- name… Weobley, look. So how far’s that from Ledwardine? No distance, is it, if we goes back along the ole Brecon road – no time at all. Hey, listen, I got Rose in the van, too. You en’t met Rose, did you?’

Jane’s actually curious to know what Fred’s wife’s like, the way he went on about her, this great big bundle of fun, always ready for a laugh, day or night, know what I mean?

But in the van, when Jane gets in – it’s actually quite decent of him to do this; she knows what he’s like, always on the go, always another job lined up, do anything for anybody – Rose doesn’t seem like that at all. Bit frumpy, actually. Got this kind of high, whiny voice. Still, she seems friendly enough, in her way. Just not as instantly outgoing as Fred, as is often the case with wives of really extrovert guys.

Fred’s leaning across, apologizing to Rose. ‘Now I know you won’t mind, my love, not really, but we gotter drop Jane off in Ledwardine. Take us n’more’n five minutes out of our way, I promise. You all right in the back there, Jane? If you moves them tools, in the black bag, there’s an ole mattress, be more comfortable for you. That’s it.’

The van rattling out of Hereford now and into the country up towards Stretton Sugwas, Rose taking the occasional glance back at Jane, to make sure she’s OK in the back. There’s a strong smell of oil in here, and sweat. A working van. Jane remembers the problem with Fred is he’s always working so hard he doesn’t get that much time for baths, as he was the first to admit when he was putting in their new shower at the vicarage. ‘Oughter ’ave a quick one now, Jane – test him out, look. You wanner get in there with me, scrub me back?’ he’d said. Little grin and a wink to show he didn’t really mean it. Totally faithful to Rose, is Fred – not that he don’t get a few offers, mind. Beggin’ for it, some of these housewives, have you up the ole stairs in no time at all, you don’t watch it.