Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

‘Had me going,’ Huw admitted. ‘I were quite ready to believe the chapel’s on the site of a Roman temple, complete with spring. And of course it might be.’

‘Exactly,’ Merrily said. ‘It might be. Even if they had an archaeological dig there that found nothing, that still wouldn’t disprove it.’

‘Let me get this right,’ Bliss said. ‘You’re suggesting the whole Ariconium thing’s a scam, to give Underhowle historic status? The Roman town never was underneath here?’

‘I think Sam Hall suspects it. Ingrid Sollars, too, obviously, and she knows about local history. But if we’re only talking a couple of miles, and if it isn’t harming anyone, and it helps put Underhowle back on the tourist map…’

‘All down to Connor-Crewe?’

‘One of his academic jokes. A few finds, a lot of informed conjecture. And they’ll have their visitor centre with audiovisuals and maps and computer-generated mock-ups put together by real experts at Cody’s. All very state-of-the-art. Are they even breaking any laws?’

‘Not if you ignore obtaining large sums of money, in the form of substantial grants, by deception,’ Bliss said. ‘Might have some difficulty proving it. But, when all this is over, we can try really, really hard.’

‘I could be totally wrong.’

‘The fact that it’s even occurred to you – a little priest who tries to think well of us all – might suggest otherwise.’ Bliss looked across at the village, scattered down the hill like the crumbs on his shirt. ‘These obscure little places do attract them, don’t they? Connor-Crewe a liar, Cody with form…’

Merrily blinked. ‘Form?’

‘It’s not exactly in his brochures – and I didn’t, of course, tell you this – but he did a little time. Detention centre, as a teenager. Street crime in London. Car theft, mainly, finally earning him nine months in a grown-up prison.’

‘Bloody hell,’ Merrily said.

‘Which, of course, was where he learned about computers. Discovered a wondrous natural aptitude. Came out directly into software, making more out of it than crime ever paid. And then, when he got into the hardware too, it was probably expedient to move to somewhere he wasn’t known. He’d got relatives in the Forest, and so… Yeh, Andy Mumford, it was, stumbled on that one. One day, if he gets really big, it’ll be part of the Cody legend. But not yet.’

‘Ah, well…’ Huw’s smile was sour. ‘For every sinner who repents and becomes a millionaire…’

‘The morality’s skewed,’ Merrily said, ‘but it’s a flawed world. Look at what Cody’s done for Underhowle in terms of jobs and morale and education.’

Huw nodded at the hillside, where the mobile-phone transmitter poked out of its clearing. ‘And health.’

‘A very flawed world,’ Merrily acknowledged sadly.

Huw turned his face into the rising wind and gazed down the valley, where the Roman road had led from Ariconium to Glevum, the city of light, the way marked now by electricity pylons. And spirits , Merrily thought uneasily. She could almost see the cracks opening in the façade of Underhowle, in the soil and the tarmac, like ruptured graves on Judgement Day.

Gomer came over. ‘Right then, folks. Three places I can see there’s been a bit o’ digging. Nothing recent, mind.’

‘How not recent?’ Bliss asked.

‘Not since summer. Can’t say n’more’n that. So… I got two hours for you, boy.’ He turned to Merrily. ‘That all right with you, vicar? I been up the churchyard with Mr Owen yere. Lodge plot’s out on the edge where it joins the field and the ground’s soft. Reckon I can do the grave by hand – less noise, ennit?’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘ He ’s sure,’ Bliss confirmed. ‘Right.’ He dug into a pocket of his hiking jacket and presented Merrily with his mobile. ‘If you wouldn’t mind holding on to that for me. I’ve asked Mumford to try and get me some more background on Lynsey Davies, since she’s now centre-stage, so to speak. So if he calls I’ll take it. If it’s any bastard from headquarters, you don’t even know where I am.’ He clapped Gomer on the back. ‘Let’s do it, son. We’re looking for a body, female. Maybe more than one.’

‘And what are you looking for, Huw?’ Merrily screwed up the bag that had held the pasties and stuck it in her pocket. She wished all this was over: the digging, the exposure, the secret funeral.

‘Looking for an end, lass.’

She realized she didn’t want to know what he meant.

Frannie Bliss was helping Gomer bring down the mini- digger, a grown-up yellow Tonka Toy with caterpillar tracks. Here was Gomer starting to work again, resilient, his demons dealt with – not entirely satisfactorily, but no longer burning inside his head. But Frannie was like a failing footballer at the start of a winter game: jumpy, rubbing his hands. Dangerous.

Merrily said, ‘What happens now?’

‘All down to you.’ Huw looked her in the eyes – an old wolfhound, trusting.

Deceptively trusting. She was fairly sure now that Huw must have had a hand in setting her up for the Lodge funeral. A quiet call to the Bishop, a favour called in. Huw, by virtue of what he did – a responsibility that few would shoulder – could quietly pull ropes that made bells ring in cathedrals. Huw had unfinished business, and he was looking for a way in, and she was it: the female Deliverance minister, the vulnerable one who relied on guidance.

‘Family wants a small funeral,’ Huw said. ‘Quickie. No hymns, no eulogies. Everybody’d like that. You could give ’em their quickie and walk away. Let Underhowle get on with its bright, clean future full of new jobs and computer literacy.’

‘I could do that. What should I do?’

‘Modern world, lass,’ he went on, as though he hadn’t heard her. ‘And not even your parish. It’s Jerome’s – good old turn-a- blind-eye-for-tomorrow-we-retire-to-the-seaside Jerome. You’re just the hired help, the dishrag.’

‘Yes. Thanks. Now, what do you think I should do?’

‘I’d think about the full requiem.’

She stared at him. ‘A requiem eucharist … for Roddy Lodge?

Are you serious?’ This was not the Roman Catholic Church, not High Anglican. ‘We don’t do requiems in this area, except even for the seriously devout, and…’

Huw regarded her solemnly. The yellow digger trundled slowly past, Gomer in the saddle, Bliss walking in front like he had Gomer on a rein.

‘… The unquiet dead,’ Merrily said. ‘Ah, yes.’

‘The insomniacs ,’ Huw agreed.

‘Huw, this is an actual funeral. At night.’

‘Exactly,’ Huw said. ‘Things need to be laid to rest. Anyroad, if these lads find a body, the whole place’ll be alight by then.’

‘I don’t know.’ In Deliverance, a requiem eucharist was employed to unite a disturbed, earthbound spirit with God. ‘Who are we talking about? Roddy… Lynsey? Or… ?’

‘Or the whole village, if you like. And the evil that’s come into it.’

‘For most people,’ Merrily said, ‘nothing’s come into this village but progress. Therefore, good.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘I don’t know.’ She gripped the top bar of the gate with both hands. It was greasy with lichen. ‘You’re like Sam and his death road. You’re following a black trail all the way from Gloucester, and I don’t know how valid that is. I don’t know if it exists. You always told us to question everything – question, question, question. So now I’m questioning you. Like, how objective is this?’

In her coat pocket, a phone began to buzz. She pulled out two: her own and Frannie’s.