Phil Rickman: The Lamp of the Wicked

‘That’s nonsense.’

Really rubbing their noses in it, Lol. Cromwell Street, the whole bit… where she’d come from, and therefore where they were coming from. What they were – by association – now part of. It must have seemed very dirty and repugnant. Maybe Piers could take a little of that, but I’m not sure about the others. I mean, Chris was a street kid, but… bloody hell. As for Fergus… a primary-school head? A man in charge of developing the minds of little children? But she knew that. I think she knew what it would do to Fergus and that’s why she was concentrating on him .

‘When we found out about her,’ Fergus was saying, ‘I’m not even going to try to tell you what that was like for me.’

Lol said, ‘But your whole future – and the future of the community – was somehow mortgaged to her now. I mean, if she did something again, if she killed somebody, and this time she got caught… it would all come out.’

Fergus shook his head. ‘Wasn’t so much her we were worried about as him – Lodge. She was going round with him, looking for… opportunities for him.’

‘Like Mrs Pawson?’ Lol said. He saw Merrily’s face twist.

‘I don’t know anything about that, but there were other instances. They were becoming totally irresponsible, the pair of them. Like delinquents. Undisciplined. They thought they were protected, invulnerable. Protected by us, in a way, because we were at the centre of the establishment – especially Chris and

me. Lodge, by this time, was becoming quite mad, and his condition was worsening – he’d be having blackouts all the time. But he didn’t realize, or he didn’t care because, in other respects, he was having the time of his life.’

‘ Number One ,’ Merrily said.

Lol said, ‘ Satan ,’ and Sam Hall looked at him. And so he gave them the explanation of this that he’d had on the phone from Mephisto Jones.

‘Sometimes, with EH, you experience dramatic temperature changes, particularly at the extremities. Hands, feet… genitals?’

‘Holy shit,’ Sam Hall said.

‘In the days of the witch-hunts, when women would be made to confess to having intercourse with the Devil, they’re supposed to have said that they could tell it was him because his penis was so cold.’

Merrily was nodding. ‘Yes, and in Roddy’s first statement to the police, he said Lynsey liked to call him Satan because he was hard and cold . And therefore… I mean, maybe she convinced him he could have… relations with any woman he wanted. Particularly if she was dead. Maybe in his dreams, I don’t—’

‘His electric dreams,’ Sam said.

‘It’s quite obscene,’ Fergus said. ‘Everything we had going here was threatened by this unstable, odious little twerp, his fantasies and his… his keeper . Yes, I’m afraid we were all immensely relieved when he killed Lynsey. Getting rid of both of them, two people who were beyond the pale, seemed like a kind of cleansing. We could move on now. And if that’s a terrible admission to make, I’m facing the truth. I’m facing my demons.’

Not really, though, are you? Lol was thinking.

And maybe Sam wasn’t fooled either. ‘I wouldn’t rule it out, Fergus, that one of you somehow got it over to Roddy that Lynsey murdered his girlfriend, Melanie. How far off the truth would I be there?’

Fergus reared up. ‘ No . Certainly not. Being glad at what happened – even grateful – is one thing, but actually conspiring to make it happen? No. I couldn’t do that. You know me. You must realize how deeply, deeply sorry I am for ever becoming involved in something so ultimately obnoxious. I only ask you to believe that it began at a difficult time emotionally for me… and that I did not know the kind of psychotic individual we were dealing with. And I want to go on serving this community. Because there’s so much for me still to do – you know that. Ingrid… Sam… you know that. We mustn’t fall back .’

Lol looked at him standing there in his white shirt, the local hero, regrettably a little tarnished by an unfortunate choice of friends in adverse circumstances, but humbly seeking redemption: Here I am, baring my back for the lash .

Fergus turned to Huw. ‘I would like to take communion from you. I would like to confess. To pray for absolution. I would like you to exorcize me.’

Huw didn’t respond.

Lol felt suddenly very, very tired, and he just wanted to get this over. ‘Mr Young,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you just tell them how you killed Lynsey?’

Jane went timidly into the bedroom, the only one with a light showing under the door. On the bedside table, a small table lamp with a parchment shade was spreading a honey warmth.

The bedlinen was all white. There were magnolia rugs on the oak floorboards. A plain wooden cross hung on the white wall over the bed under oak beams stained almost black. There was an overwhelming silence in here, as thick as candle wax.

Jenny wore a long white nightdress with a high neck. She lay on her back with her hands, loosely clasping a small white prayer book, crossed over her breasts.

Her eyes were open but there was a glaze on them, a blur.

She would always be blurred.

There was a carafe of water on a bedside table and a glass and two small brown bottles with their tops off.

Designer death , Jane thought cynically, for just a moment before she began to cry quietly, going down onto her knees and touching one of the hands, which was like porcelain. And cold.

‘Don’t, Jane,’ Moira said softly. ‘Don’t touch a thing.’

‘She’s not a thing,’ Jane said.

‘No. I’m sorry.’

Jane looked up at Moira. ‘I don’t understand. She’s so cold.’

‘She’s been dead quite some time, Jane. Since long before we got here.’

‘No. She couldn’t be. We… saw her. On the square. On the cobbles. She…’

There was silence. The leaded window was grey-green and mysterious in the subtle lamplight, with just a faint reflection of the room, of Jane herself kneeling by the bed. But Jenny Box was invisible in the reflection and even in reality remained amorphous and indistinct.

‘No,’ Moira said gently. ‘We didn’t see her. You did.’

Jane’s voice rose, querulous. ‘You must’ve seen her.’

‘No.’

Jane’s voice almost vanished. ‘Oh God,’ she breathed. ‘Oh my God .’

But what if he was wrong? This had been kicking at Lol’s insides ever since he’d watched Lodge up there, edging towards inevitable death, since the night he’d lain in bed with Merrily and said, How can anybody feel sorry for a man who killed women?

That sense of Lodge as just another loser.

What’s it like? he’d asked Mephisto Jones. How long does it last?

Oh, man, complete disorientation, Mephisto said. You don’t know where you’ve been or what you’ve done. It’s not like drink, not even quite like dope. You’re well out of it, well out of it .

The final piece had dropped into place just now in the church, when the computer guy had been spilling it all to Bliss. The thing was, Lol hadn’t been able to see either of those two in the role. But this one… this one he could see.

Cola, trying to conceal the fear, had said, Just make sure it isn’t for nothing .

He looked up at the visceral hanging bulbs, so reminiscent of the dull lights in the hospital corridors of his twenties, and at the drabness of the place. Above all, he hated drabness. His own song was raging in his head now: Someone’s got to pay, now Dr Gascoigne’s on his way . He looked at Fergus and saw Dr Gascoigne whom all the nurses loved.