Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

‘Nah, this was in the chapel. The old Baptist chapel. I didn’t like it at first in there, it was a bit cold. I’m like, what’s the point of this? Then I found out.’ Chris Cody shook his head. ‘Roddy and that chapel – crazy. Energy, you know? You come out, you felt you could do anyfing.’

‘Was Roddy on his own?’ Bliss asked. ‘No Melanie?’

‘Nah. I didn’t know about Melanie then, but a few months later we goes along to the chapel – I mean, I’m well into it by then. I had a few qualms now and then, but bloody hell… Anyway, I get there, and Roddy’s on his way over, and there’s this girl like clinging to his legs and that, screaming at him – like does he want to destroy himself, don’t he realize what he’s getting into? And she’s crying and screaming and he’s trying to ignore it and he’s pulling away, but in the end she’s making so much of a scene he has to go back wiv her, and he don’t come in that night at all. And you could really tell the difference wivout him there. Somefing missing, you know? I can’t put this into words, but… somefing definitely missing.’

Merrily glanced at the coffin and caught Ingrid Sollars’s look. Ingrid was sitting straight-backed on the edge of her pew, as if she was on horseback.

‘There was a couple of other times Roddy didn’t show,’ Chris Cody said, ‘and we knew she was getting to him, wearing him down. One night we couldn’t get in – she’d been up and locked the chapel. Which was becoming our place by then – essential. We all knew it was moving now, like big time, and we was ‘scared of losing the momentum. One day, Piers says why don’t we buy it off of him?’

‘With your money, of course,’ Bliss said.

‘Yeah, well, I’d got a bit by then. And this was important. Like, it was all tied in – wivout what we had going there wouldn’t be no money. The energy we was generating, you know? I mean, I know what it must sound like coming out wiv all this in church and everything, but… it didn’t feel bad. It didn’t feel bad . Not then.’

Bliss said, ‘And you thought it might be better, given his domestic problems, if the chapel wasn’t owned by Roddy Lodge.’

‘Wasn’t as if it was worth much, and I felt it was putting something back. So we got Nye to arrange it. And the Development Committee was up and running, and we put in for grants, turn it into a museum. Course we’d still use it. Lynsey said that’d be cool, surrounded by all these ancient ritual artefacts and that.’

Bliss looked across at Ingrid Sollars. ‘Did you know about this?’

‘No, she didn’t,’ Cody said. ‘Nor did Fergus. And I bloody wish I never had, now.’

‘Why?’ Bliss asked innocently. ‘You were doing all right.’

‘Look, I’d probably still ’ve been doing all right. I realize that now, but Lynsey was charismatic. She could make you believe anyfing, especially when it was all so… intoxicating. Like, it was around this time that Roddy gets the contract with Efflapure. Never looked back. Lynsey magicked it. Truth was, Lynsey knew this guy who was a director of Efflapure, and she rigged it – probably blackmailing the guy over something, knowing Lynsey. I found out later, but Roddy never knew. He fought she’d magicked it for him. Magicked it. Bleedin’ hell.’

‘Aye,’ Huw said. ‘That’s how it works. They operate outside the rules. All the rules. Sex, drugs, blackmail. You can never work out where it begins. Or quite where the evil seeps in.’

‘So you fixed up to buy the chapel,’ Bliss said.

‘Yeah. I’d just do fings on a whim then. I was flying, man.’

‘What was Roddy’s relationship with Lynsey around this time?’ Merrily asked. Oh… like he was hypnotized. It was pretty much like you said. She was giving him the make-over.’

‘And Melanie?’

‘She went away for a few weeks. She was ill and she went away, and Lynsey just moved in. Wiv Roddy. And she had him. I mean really had him in her hand. And then this complete make-over. We didn’t know what was happening then, but I never seen a bloke change so fast. And then Melanie’s back. Looking really well, you know? Fresh. I mean, she was a nice girl. And, like the vicar said, she was on at Roddy to get treatment. We didn’t know what that was about, but Lynsey did, and that’s when fings started happening… like very fast. We – me and Piers – we get summoned to the Baptist chapel.’

‘By Lynsey?’

‘Yeah. When you was summoned, you went, mate. You didn’t get her angry, you couldn’t predict what she was gonna… So we went. It was one afternoon, and Roddy was out on a job for Efflapure, and Lynsey’s there alone, except for this big thick plastic sack. Lynsey and a sack. Like she’s just collected the rubbish for the tip. Never forget that fucking sack, tied up with orange baler twine. She opens it up, so we can see in. Jesus.’

‘Melanie?’ Bliss said.

Cody rubbed his eyes. ‘Worst fing I’ve ever seen.’

‘How?’ Bliss said.

‘Strangled. Froat was all black, you know? Tongue out. Stiff. Rigor mortis. And the fucking smell. And Lynsey’s shouting at us. “Come on… move yourselves. Get this out.” And I knew if we didn’t help her… I mean you didn’t know which way she’d go. She wasn’t safe .’

Merrily came closer and realized he was rubbing his eyes because he was crying. Cody looked at her.

‘She said she done it for Fred West. She said Fred West had been wiv us from the start, when we was… doing the business, the rituals. Fred fucking West. Over our shoulders. She said he—’

Huw Owen spoke over Merrily’s shoulder.

‘Liked to watch?’

AS THEY FILED down the hill into the half-lit street, Sam Hall said, ‘Maybe we oughta be chanting a litany. Like, in the darkest hour of the plague, when the minister led a procession through Ross?’

Huw, who was leading them, rounded on him. ‘It’s not a school outing. Best if we don’t even talk.’

He was afraid of shattering the spell, Merrily thought. Dissolving the horror before its time. To keep this little ragbag congregation, he needed them all to accept the continued reality of the evil, needed to keep the lamp of the wicked held aloft, lest anyone should start to see this as no more than a sordid tale of small-town ambition and sexual games gone catastrophically wrong.

She was still holding Melanie’s angel like a talisman, apprehensive. He might know what he was doing, but was he the right person to be doing it? Oh yes, they’d been in the wrong place, Huw had known that from the beginning. Lodge? Leave him be, lass. Who’s he harming now? We’ll do the chapel .

Huw scenting the enemy.

Lol walked beside Merrily. She sensed a calm around him, which meant the concert had either been a big success or a monumental failure. He’d whispered that Moira was taking care of Jane. Moira? Jane and Moira ?

A police car slid past towards the church. Cody and Connor-Crewe had already been taken to Hereford in separate cars. Bliss had not arrested either of them, simply asking, with a certain savage courtesy, if they’d care to discuss it in more depth.

What would the charges be? Accessories to the concealment of a murder? Cody said he and Piers had taken the body through the fields in the early hours, on a trailer pulled by a quad bike. Maybe they could simply have shopped Lynsey, Cody said, and still saved their business lives – all they’d done was participate in what would be known as ‘sex orgies’. No big deal, these days, even out here in the sticks.

Merrily suspected that Lynsey had had more on them than they would ever disclose.

Bliss had seen them into the cars. Then he’d made a short call and cut the connection and waited. Within three minutes the phone had buzzed. Bliss had listened with a foxy little smile, and then said, ‘No real need for you to turn out at this hour, boss.’ Then, cutting the connection again, he’d said ruefully, ‘Fleming’ll be here in just over an hour.’