Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

She stood in the dimness, staring no longer at the illuminated wall but into the very thin lines of grey and white between the blades of the Venetian blinds.

‘They’re all paste-ups?’

‘Not all of them. I think some were just piccies he got off on. Part of the mix-’n’-match. I expected to find one of Lynsey, but she’s not there. Maybe because she’s not had her picture in the papers, yet. There’ll be a reason. He…’ Bliss paused. ‘He might tell you what it is.’

It was as though he’d opened the door of a deep-freeze.

‘I can’t do it,’ she said.

‘That’s your decision, Merrily. I can’t force you to see him.’

‘He doesn’t want to talk to me. You know that. He just wants a woman in the room with him. Any woman. You know that.’

She remembered Roddy Lodge passing her his card, scrutinizing her as if taking a mental photograph, offering to tell her all the scary things he’d told the local vicar about what he’d seen in the night. She didn’t like to think now about what he might have seen in the night, inside or outside his own head.

Thanks , she’d said. I’d like that.

Yeah. You would indeed, my darlin’.

Merrily pushed her fists hard into the pockets of Jane’s duffel coat, determined not to shiver. ‘You’d better tell me what you know,’ she said to Bliss. ‘How did he kill Lynsey Davies?’

He shrugged. ‘Strangled her. The PM should confirm it. Roddy told the lads in the car he’d “throttled” her. He just hasn’t said it for the tape yet. Probably not bare hands, we think something was used – possibly a belt.’ He paused. ‘You can probably understand now why I want to dig up a few more Efflapures.’

‘Yes.’ Bliss was probably right to want to dig up every Efflapure that Roddy Lodge had ever planted.

‘I didn’t want to say too much in advance. Open the blinds now, if you’re feeling a bit oppressed.’

She tugged on the cord and grey daylight made the room look merely tawdry. The view, sliced horizontally by the blinds, was further slashed and diced by the great steel legs of the pylon at the edge of Roddy’s garden.

‘Would it offend the crime-scene people overmuch if I had a cigarette?’ Merrily said.

EIRION SUBJECTED JANE to this sideways perusal she didn’t care for. They were heading out of Hereford on the darkening Ledbury road, bound for Knight’s Frome.

‘Like what ?’ Jane demanded. ‘Go on, say it!’

They’d been dissecting her mother’s love life to discover precisely why it was going nowhere. From the lofty plateau of a relationship that was actually working – OK, within the restrictive parameters of herself and Eirion being still at school and stuff like that – Jane figured this was legit, her duty even. After all, it had taken her over a year to engineer the Mum/Lol thing.

‘ Jane ’ – Eirion did this exaggerated sigh – ‘you didn’t, though, did you?’

‘What?’

‘Engineer it. It was nothing to do with you. In fact, if you’d kept your nose out completely, it would probably actually have happened before it did.’

‘Thanks!’

‘Well, it’s true. You can’t leave anything alone.’

‘You totally smug fat git !’

She glared out of the window at the newly stripped hopframes around Perton. When Eirion had picked her up at five p.m., she’d noticed he’d put on a bit of weight, a big Welsh problem.

‘It’s because of all this driving to pick you up,’ Eirion said. ‘Maybe I should stay in and do sit-ups and weight training.’

I’m sorry,’ she said gruffly, not looking at him. ‘I didn’t mean fat… exactly.’

He didn’t respond. They drove in silence for a mile or so. They were in Eirion’s new old car, a little grey Peugeot with one of those CYM stickers identifying the driver as a resident of Wales who’d taken the vehicle abroad, if only to England. In fact, usually only to England.

And everything – like everything – was irritating Jane tonight. Obviously, she loved to talk and theorize about Mum and Lol, but right now – she realized this, she wasn’t stupid – it was also an escape from the aura of manic desperation surrounding Gomer. She wished there was something she could do for him, but even Eirion didn’t have an HGV licence, probably wasn’t old enough. Besides, it would take more than dealing with a backlog of digging contracts to put Gomer back together this time. The big pendulum had taken him down once too often this year. Anxiety began to inflate in her chest; she folded her arms over it.

‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter who engineered it if it was meant to happen, if it’s the right thing for her – and for Lol, obviously – and it quite clearly is. But because of what she does she’s got to be sure it’s the right thing by… Him. Like He deserves that kind of deference. If He exists.’

‘It’s a big responsibility, being a priest,’ Eirion said lamely.

‘The truth is,’ Jane said, ‘they’re both basically wimps. Neither of them had the confidence to commit. They were just kind of moving warily around one another, like cats.’

‘That’s not being wimpish, it’s what you do when you’re an adult,’ Eirion said, the trite bastard. ‘You’ve made a few mistakes before, and you don’t want to jump into anything without being sure of the territory… especially when there’s additional baggage.’

‘You mean me ?’

‘No, you egomaniac – emotional baggage! History.’

‘Well,’ Jane said, ‘it’s not like they’re still not making a complete bollocks of it – all this about everything having to be kept under wraps… which is like totally ridiculous.’

‘It’s not, totally, when you think about it.’

Jane leaned back against the passenger door. ‘What’s to think about ? If you look at the Anglican Church as a whole, about half the priests are gay, right? And they ’re not hiding their private life any more, are they? They’re practically announcing it from the pulpit.’

‘Dearly beloved brethren…’ Eirion did this reedy voice. ‘This morning, I have to impart to you all that the big black guy living with me at the vicarage is not really a Nigerian theological student, as originally announced in the parish magazine. In fact, he’s my special friend .’

Jane fought back the grin. ‘But I mean, with a gay vicar you’ve got an ordained minister who’s having sex with one or more partners with no possibility of any of them ever becoming the vicar’s wife, in the traditional sense, so why can’t two heterosexuals—?’

‘Because, right now,’ Eirion said in his explaining-to-the- child tone, ‘neither of them needs the shit . She’s had more publicity than she ever wanted just lately. Plus, Lol’s got a lot to work out, with this album and the chance of a comeback after, well, a very long time. Be bad enough for someone who hadn’t had… the kind of problems he’s had.’

‘I’ll tell you one thing, Irene, if Mum had walked away, he wouldn’t’ve been able to finish that album. If you listen to the new songs, most of them are actually about her. Which has got to be just the most incredible turn-on, hasn’t it? Like being the Dark Lady of the Sonnets.’

‘Jane, with all respect and everything—’

‘OK, hyper. But if I was his Muse…’

Eirion stopped for the traffic lights at Trumpet. ‘You still fancy him, don’t you?’

She stared at him, resentful again. He’d refused to let her drive, claiming the car wasn’t insured for a learner. Which was bollocks, probably. The truth was he was afraid.