Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

Lol’s hands felt numb as he stared into the huge, cavernous silence and all the people stared back at him with a tremulous fascination – that apprehension-turning-to-anticipation which had been so palpably apparent when Roddy Lodge was high in the pylon, reaching out to the insulator, the killing candle.

Lol saw Jane, close to the front. Jane Watkins who one day, before he knew her mother, had come into the cluttered folklore emporium, Ledwardine Lore, when he was minding the shop for Lucy.

What the hell was his first song supposed to be? Oh God . The amplified silence boomed in his head. How long had he been standing here like this? How long before they started the slow handclap? How long before someone pulled the curtain? What was he supposed to do ?

Directly opposite him was the glass-fronted control booth where Prof Levin sat. Prof was standing up, very still, his hands theatrically over his eyes, like this was some Greek tragedy.

Then Lol saw Eirion, on the far left, probably the only person in that audience not staring back at him, because he was looking at Jane, who was looking at Lol, hands clasped, face taut with anxiety. Suddenly all she sees is darkness, doom, nothing… nothing amazing out there any more .

There was an unexpected prickling in the corners of Lol’s eyes. He hadn’t mentioned the gig to the Boswells, wouldn’t have dared – it must have been Prof. But who had told Alison and Bull-Davies? And surely that was… who could possibly have told Sophie Hill … who was sitting with a man who must be her husband, very near the back, presumably in case the sound level proved insufferable.

‘Hey, man, where you been?’ A lone male voice curling out of the third row.

Nervous laughter from somewhere. The sweat in Lol’s hands felt like cold honey.

He whispered into the mike, ‘Away.’

The whisper was as crisp as an iceberg lettuce, and huge; how sound systems had improved.

‘When you reckon you’ll be back, then?’ the guy in the third row said.

‘Well, I don’t really know,’ Lol said. ‘It depends on…’

… remembering what the first song is.

And then suddenly he did, his fingers finding the riff. Into the mike, he said,

Tuesdays on Victoria ward We always hated Tuesdays.

And he must have sung it, kind of, because the lights went down and some applause bubbled up.

The last face Lol saw before the whole audience went into deep shadow was Jane’s. She was slumping in her seat with her head thrown back, and he could almost hear the whoosh of breath coming out of her, as he did the number.

Did the number!

Leaning on the guitar, now, as he went into the chorus.

Someone’s got to pay

Now Dr Gascoigne’s on his way

And it’s another…

HEAVY MEDICATION DAY.

Wondering, for the first time, whether it might have been wiser to change Dr Gascoigne’s name.

Nah. Stuff you, Dr Gascoigne, you cold-eyed sadist.

Lol discovered he was smiling. The people out there, the unknown faces, must have thought it was part of his act, faking disorientation. Only a real professional could do that and get away with it. Lol felt he was floating, and when the song was over, someone at the back started shouting, ‘ “Sunny Days”!’ and there were ragged handclaps in support.

Well, he wasn’t going to do that trite crap, not in a million years.

Definitely not.

When he reached the chorus, he was staggered at the number of people singing along.

And it’s always on the sunny days you feel you can’t go on On rainy days it rains on everyone But I’m running for the subway and I’m hiding under trees On fine days like…

‘Yes.’ Sam Hall held the angel under the brass-shaded pulpit light. ‘It’s what’s known as a bio-electric shield pendant.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ Merrily said. ‘Jane – my kid – was looking for one. I just couldn’t remember what it was called.’

The two of them were up in the pulpit, voices lowered. The service had been suspended. What else could she do? There was no way this coffin was going in that grave. A grave that, before the night was out, would be surrounded by what Bliss called the Durex suits.

‘In here’ – Sam put a finger on the cameo part that had made the angel look pregnant – ‘we have a bunch of crystals – quartz, maybe some malachite – that are supposed to interact with the body’s own energy field to deflect electromagnetic radiation. Often worn by people who work with computers.’

‘And… have you seen one before? In Underhowle?’

‘Yep.’

So, when you said Melanie Pullman was getting nothing but Valium from Dr Ruck, and you suggested she should consult an alternative practitioner in Hereford about her EH, was this… ?’

‘This was one of the items they got for Mel. Told her to wear it day and night. For a short while, she was a familiar figure in the village, with the angel around her neck. In fact, you can ask Bliss about this, but I think, when she went missing, the description the police put out suggested that she might well be wearing it.’ Sam gave the angel back to Merrily. ‘Where did this come from, Reverend?’

‘Excuse me, Mrs Watkins.’ Down in the nave, Mr Lomas was tentatively on his feet. ‘I don’t like to interrupt, look…’

Merrily flashed a warning glance at Sam, and went down to talk to the undertaker. Taking Mr Lomas over to the door where Gomer was waiting, telling him there’d been an unforeseen problem with the grave, that it wasn’t empty. Mr Lomas nodded, not entirely surprised; he’d been here before.

‘What do you want to do, then, Mrs Watkins? I don’t suppose it’s a problem easily dealt with until tomorrow. Which might cause another problem here.’ Mr Lomas nodded at the coffin. ‘You want us to take him back? Or you could lock him in here for the night, and we’ll be back tomorrow.’

Tony Lodge came over. He’d overheard. ‘Can’t be nobody else in that plot, Reverend, it was a field twenty years ago. Our field. That’s how we got the family plot extended – we gave the field to the Church.’

‘Sloping graveyard, ennit?’ Gomer said knowledgeably. He’d replaced half the soil over the remains, for concealment. ‘Slippage, see. Likely there was coffins under that field when you was still ploughing him.’

‘God, God, God .’ Cherry Lodge was out of her pew. ‘Is this bloody nightmare never going to end?’

‘Don’t you worry, Mrs Lodge,’ George Lomas said. ‘We’ll get this sorted in the morning, no problem. We’ll sort out another plot, but you can’t do that by torchlight.’ He looked at Merrily. ‘Leave him here, then, is it?’

Merrily looked at Tony Lodge, who looked non-committal. ‘I suppose so. Yeah… OK. Thank you, Mr Lomas.’

And so the Lomases left. And then there were seven, with Gomer. Seven and a corpse. Merrily looked at the four mourners, all of them on their feet, faces waxy under the sour- cream lights. ‘I don’t really know what to do now.’

She was aware of Huw Owen moving quietly up the aisle. Sam Hall said, ‘You can tell us about the body. That’d be a start.’

She nodded. ‘Well… it’s a woman, as you’ve gathered. And it isn’t in a coffin.’

‘Oh God almighty,’ Cherry Lodge said.

‘Roddy…’ Merrily hesitated. ‘Roddy dug graves for the church sometimes, didn’t he?’

‘They always had a regular gravedigger,’ Tony Lodge said, ‘but when the ground was difficult or they hit rocks, they’d call the boy in with his digger.’

Ingrid Sollars came over to inspect the bio-electric angel. She took it out of Merrily’s hands, held it tenderly in her own. ‘It is Melanie, then?’