Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

Gomer had stayed behind with Bliss, to show the Durex suits where to dig.

As she walked towards the crossroads, with the old duffel coat over her alb, Merrily was still hearing: Done it for Fred West… wiv us from the start .

Fred West, several years dead, who liked to watch. It was all that Huw had needed.

They were passing the school now. Fergus Young held up his long head, his hair high in the wind, and didn’t give it a single sideways glance.

How much had he known? He must have known something .

At the bottom of the hill, past the steel-shuttered Post Office and Stores and the Head Office unisex hair salon, Cherry Lodge waited for Merrily and whispered, ‘We won’t come with you, if that’s all right.’

‘Nobody could expect you to.’

‘I feel somehow empty inside now,’ Cherry said. ‘Do you know what I mean? These were the very people who came to our door, asking us to see some sense, not damage the community.’

Merrily squeezed Cherry’s arm. ‘At least you know now why they were so keen to prevent Roddy going into that grave.’

It didn’t take much to spark a protest, not with people like Richard, the newsagent, around – a word here, a word there, a suggestion that the value of your property might be damaged.

‘And if you want to arrange something at Hereford Crematorium, soon as you like, I’d be happy to do it properly.’

‘Thank you,’ Cherry said. ‘We might sleep tonight. Eventually.’

Merrily raised a hand as the Lodges walked away, following their lamp up the narrow lane to their bleak farm on the hill above the place that was, or wasn’t, Ariconium.

What would happen to all that now: the plans, the reconstructions, the suspect artefacts and the audio-visuals?

Underhowle… where nothing succeeded for long.

By the grimy gleam of the last street lamp, she saw the face of Ingrid Sollars and wondered about all the things Ingrid must have chosen not to see for the sake of progress. And yet, in this light, you might have thought Ingrid’s expression was actually one of relief.

But then, Ingrid couldn’t know what Huw had in mind, as he brought out a stubby torch to lead the rest of them past the darkened community hall and out of the village towards Roddy Lodge’s garage and the track to the old Baptist chapel.

No wonder he didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Jane saw Jenny Box as soon as they came into the square at Ledwardine.

It was just on closing time at the Black Swan, and some people were leaving, urged into their vehicles by an irritable wind.

Jane saw James Bull-Davies and Alison Kinnersley, who she was sure she’d spotted at the Courtyard – could have got a lift with them if she’d realized in time. She saw Jim Prosser back from the Eight-till-Late, and she saw her appalling ex-schoolmates, Dean Wall and Danny Gittoes, going into the Swan in the hope of a last pint.

And then, between the rainy haloes around the fake gaslamps, she saw Jenny moving across the square – not from the pub, but from the other side, from the direction of her home, Chapel House. Jenny Box, with her scarf over her head like the Virgin Mary and that flickering, flinching blur passing across her face, as she paused on the edge of the cobbles as if looking for a light in the vicarage, before turning back.

‘Moira, stop!’

Moira braked. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s her. Jenny Driscoll.’

‘Where?’

‘Just going… the woman with the white scarf over her head.’

‘Uh huh,’ Moira said.

‘She doesn’t know this car. Did you see?’

‘What?’

‘The look on her face. That look she has – as if her expression’s out of synch with her feelings.’

Moira pulled up on the edge of the square, where you weren’t supposed to park. In the last fifteen minutes, Jane had just kept talking, without thinking, like someone did when they were drunk: talking about Jenny Box and the angel, which seemed to have brought everything to a crisis. Telling Moira Cairns what she’d never told anyone – about the night she’d drunk wine with Gareth Box and fallen under his spell and the spell of the house: autumn wine and firelight, the sheer intoxication of it, the first time in weeks that she’d found any texture in her life.

And then about last night, walking these streets with Jenny – how weird that had been – discovering that she actually liked this manipulator, this hate-figure. Finding that she could understand Jenny’s aching need for a true spiritual refuge, somewhere she could feel safe from abuse, safe from hypocrisy.

Not daring, while she was saying all this, even to look at Moira Cairns, who had been, after all, the other significant hate-figure in her recent life.

‘Jane.’ Moira cut the headlights. ‘Seriously. What do you think is happening here?’

‘I reckon Gareth Box is in her house, and she’s afraid to go back there. She said he’d defiled her chapel.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know, it was only a message on the machine. She’s obviously looking for Mum, but there’s nobody in at the vicarage. She doesn’t know about this funeral, you see. She thought it was on Friday. She’s confused, messed up. You could see that.’

‘OK,’ Moira said. ‘Why don’t we just make sure first that your Mum really isnae back yet?’

Jane salvaged a smile. ‘Before you stick your head out of the trench?’

‘That your house?’

‘Just behind those trees.’

‘All right. I’ll find somewhere safer to park and I’ll wait for you here.’

‘And then what?’

‘Might be a wee bit premature to call the police. We’ll go knock on this woman’s door.’

‘Right.’ Jane slid out of the car. She was aware of the sharpness of the wind and the shape of the cobble under her shoe: texture .

When they reached the chapel, Merrily was thinking: Question everything .

The feeling was confirmed once they were inside the wooden porch and Ingrid had pulled her keys out, while Huw put down his bag of wine and wafers, lurched ahead with his torch and tried the door.

Which, thank God, stayed shut.

‘You wanted it to be open, didn’t you?’ Merrily said in dismay. ‘Just like in the stories.’

Huw didn’t reply. He levelled his torch beam at the lock so that Ingrid could fit her key. He wanted it to be open. He wanted someone waiting there for him .

From just outside the porch door, someone said hesitantly, ‘Would this be the one about how, if you find the door open and you go in, something’s… ?’

‘Lol?’ Merrily stared at the compact silhouette against the sludgy sky.

‘It’s just that I’ve had another long talk with the person who started it all,’ Lol said. ‘Who was asked by Lynsey Davies to plant the story. As an experiment. She had to sit in a café in Ross, where the schoolkids go, and tell the story to some friends in a very loud voice.’

‘That actually happened ?’

‘Must’ve been all over the school by going-home time,’ Lol said. ‘What happened after that was that Lynsey would borrow Piers’s keys some nights and go down and unlock the chapel door. So that, you know, sometimes it was locked and sometimes…’

Sometimes kids, like Zoe Franklin and Martin Brinkley, would be able to walk into the hollow vastness of it, and the air would be vibrant with the power of suggestion. Could it be that simple?

Ingrid Sollars sounded relieved. ‘I’d never have admitted it, but that scared me. If I had to come down here after dark, I’d get Sam to come with me.’ She looked over her shoulder at Lol. ‘I’m sorry – I don’t even know who you are.’

‘This is Lol Robinson,’ Merrily said comfortably. ‘Him and me – we’re like you and Sam, only even more secretive.’ She started to laugh.