Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

Tomorrow. She’d call them tomorrow. She needed to sleep on this. Needed to sleep full stop.

Except Jane wasn’t back yet. She was late – she’d expected to be home by eleven, because Eirion would then have to head back to Abergavenny, and it was already twenty past. OK, not over -late; maybe she should wait ten minutes before ringing Lol at the studio to see what time they’d left.

She left the bin sack in the hall, went into the kitchen and found the Germolene, pulling up her alb to expose the kind of cut knees that Jane was always bringing home as a kid. Rubbed some on, couldn’t be bothered with plasters. She went to put the kettle on, lit a cigarette and stood for a few moments staring through the open door at the print of Holman Hunt’s Light of the World , the house-warming gift from Uncle Ted. A tired and disillusioned middle-aged Jesus doing this sorrowful simper: I’ll hold up the lamp but I don’t really expect any of you to follow .

She thought, Sod it , went into the hall and brought back the sack that someone had left at the bottom of the aisle. Someone who had entered the church while she was praying, left the bin liner and crept away, leaving her to fall over it. Afterwards, she’d sat there on the stone flags, which also served as memorials, feeling the lumps in the sack, thinking of Roddy Lodge and dead bodies.

Now she emptied the contents onto the kitchen table. She stared at the heap again and tried to laugh. This was beyond insane.

Merrily sat down at the table, picked up one bundle, pulled off the rubber band and counted out the notes slowly and meticulously: £2,000 in fifties. There must be forty or fifty similar bundles. On the top of one there was a printed note on a quarter-folded sheet of A4 copier paper:

For maintenance of the Church at Ledwardine without the need for commercial enterprise. A donation.

She heard a car pull up outside, a door slam, Eirion’s familiar parting tap on the horn. She swept the bundles into the bin liner. Rapid footsteps on the path, then Jane’s key jiggling around in the lock. As she pulled the bag into the scullery, the phone began to ring.

‘How did it go?’ Huw Owen said.

‘Huh? Sorry, Huw, I…’

‘The meeting, lass. The mobile-phone mast?’

‘Oh.’ God, was that this year? ‘Sorry, quite a lot’s happened since then. No, Ted didn’t raise it in the end. However…’ Merrily pulled out the chair, slumped into it, stretched out her sore legs and suddenly felt like talking.

Not about the bundled money; she wasn’t up to discussing that, not until she’d puzzled out a few things. She told him instead about Roddy Lodge, from Gomer’s fire and the death of Nev to the discovery of the body on the truck, from the visit to Lodge’s bungalow to the interview-room session that didn’t happen. It took about twenty-five minutes. After half a day with manic Frannie and the shock of the bin bag, laying out the Lodge affair for the stoical Huw was almost relaxing.

‘Underhowle, eh?’ he said.

‘Not a place I’d ever been to before.’

‘Dobbs went,’ Huw said.

‘Sorry?’

‘The late Tommy Dobbs, your esteemed predecessor. He were in Underhowle a few years ago.’

‘Not at the invitation of the rural dean he wasn’t, unless I’ve been misled.’

‘Who’s the RD?’

‘Banks.’

‘Happen before his time. Five, six years ago? Summat like that. Haunting job, sort of. Reason I remember it, Dobbs did summat he’d never been known to do before.’

‘Mmm?’

‘He rang me for advice. In the normal way, his consultative procedure would begin and end with God.’

‘Flattering.’ Merrily was thinking this couldn’t involve Lodge’s bungalow because it wasn’t even built then. ‘Were you able to assist?’

‘I, er… no. He were right in this instance – not our usual thing. Alleged case of what I’m afraid you’d have to call “alien abduction”.’

‘Yes, that would’ve fazed him.’

‘ “Mr Owen,” he says – always one for formality, was Dobbs – “Humanoid entities in silver suits: what does this convey to you, Mr Owen?” Course Dobbs didn’t have a telly. Bugger-all use referring him to Star Trek .’

‘This was in Underhowle? Someone in Underhowle was claiming to have had a close encounter?’

‘Several, as I recall. Several encounters, not several people. Only one person – young woman, late teens. I believe Dobbs did a report on it, for the record, to cover himself. Sent me a copy. I could probably find it for you, but I expect Sophie’ll have it on the files up at the Cathedral, if you’re interested. Dobbs found it disturbing because he didn’t think the girl was lying or mentally ill, but he still couldn’t do owt with it. I’ve heard of alleged alien cases where blessings or minor exorcisms have helped, mind. Which makes you wonder if there isn’t a spiritual dimension to some of these so-called close encounters. Not this time, though.’

Merrily yawned. ‘OK, perhaps I’ll have a glance at the records. You never know, do you? You wouldn’t remember the name of the girl – for the file reference?’

‘Aye, vaguely. Summat like yours. Melissa? No, Melanie. Pullford. Melanie Pullford.’

Merrily stiffened. ‘Couldn’t have been Pull man ?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘Because if she’s been abducted by aliens again, this time they forgot to bring her back. Been missing two years. Bliss thinks Lodge might have killed her. You have any thoughts on that ?’

‘Aye – tell the bugger.’

‘If it was confidential, between the girl and Deliverance, that might not be entirely ethical.’

‘Tell him anyroad. I don’t like coincidence. He won’t do owt, mind. He’s a copper. If even the likes of us are suspicious of alien abduction…’

On the whole, not the best thing to say late at night to Merrily, who always felt responsible, especially if nobody else did. Sometimes your most appealing quality , Jane had said once. But most of the time your worst fault .

She sighed and made a note on the sermon pad to call Sophie, first thing.

And then Gomer phoned and told her what he was doing in the morning, he and Lol.

Merrily went anxiously to bed that night, and anxiously to sleep. Had anxious dreams.

IT HAD TO be. Had to be. But now, on the steps of Chapel House, Merrily was sandbagged by second thoughts. How did you do this? How did you go about accusing someone of giving you eighty grand?

Tell me , Jenny Box had said the other night on the square, have you asked God? For the money? Have you asked God?

It was a very old house, as old as the vicarage but better kept. A narrow, cobbled alley now separated it from the timber- framed row that began with the Black Swan.

She’d always thought it was called Chapel House because it was across the street from the former Zionist chapel, now selling antique furniture. Obviously, the house was centuries older than the chapel, but she’d imagined it being renamed around the turn of last century, when Nonconformism was hot.

Beginning to feel conspicuous, Merrily lifted the knocker, let it fall and heard a long echo from inside the house. With any luck, Jenny Box would be out. This was a bad move. She wasn’t ready. Yet how could she not have come?