Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

‘You said Lodge was weird.’ Lol stepped back from the tank, started to cut into the turf around it with his spade. He was wondering how deeply involved in all this Merrily might have become, because of Bliss.

‘Yeah, well, he is. You talk to people round here, they’ll tell you like… how he works at night, that kind of thing.’

‘Ar?’ Gomer came over. He got out his tobacco tin. There was one cigarette already rolled in there, and he offered it to the girl.

‘Cheers.’ She stuck it in her mouth; Gomer lit it for her.

‘Works a lot at night then, do he?’

‘It’s what people say. Bound to get all blown up now, so like suddenly he’s become like this vampire.’ She took a long, needy drag and let the smoke out. ‘Piers and me were in the pub last night, in Underhowle. Nobody was talking about anything else, obviously, but the place was divided between the people who couldn’t believe he’d done a murder and the ones who’d always known he was a psycho. Like when he did Mike Sandford’s sewerage Lorna was uptight ’cause he was out there most of the night. They could see him prowling under the full moon, digging.’

‘That’s it for weird?’ Lol said. ‘He works nights?’

‘Well, you know, mood changes. Up in the clouds one day – drinks-are-on-me, chasing all the women. Next day he’s slinking around like he don’t want to know you or anybody.’

‘Like manic depression?’ Lol said.

‘Oh, sorry .’ She peered closely at him. ‘I didn’t realize you were a psychologist.’

Lol smiled sadly.

‘ Sure you’re not a copper? I mean, you don’t look like a copper, but you don’t look like… whatever he is, either.’

‘No?’ Lol was disappointed; he hadn’t been this muddied-up in years. Not physically.

‘I do like to suss people – as a writer. Short stories, plays. Poetry, when I’m moved. Dennis Potter was going to look at my TV play – he lived in Ross, you know? But then he snuffed it.’

‘And your… has a bookshop?’

‘Piers? Yeah, in Ross. Second-hand, antiquarian. I work there couple of days a week, more in summer. Piers phoned me, said I might want to come up this afternoon – as a writer – because you were digging for bodies. He’s thoughtful like that.’ Something caught her eye. ‘Oh, look, the poor police can’t get a signal.’

Lol turned and saw Mumford had come out of the house, was backing away, staring at his mobile held at arm’s length. He ended up next to Gomer’s truck, the phone now tight to his ear.

‘Ariconium,’ the young woman said. ‘Last defensive outpost against the techno-invasion.’ She came right up to Lol. She wore a black fleece, the zip pushed halfway down apparently by the pressure of her breasts. ‘I’m Cola French.’

‘Gosh.’ Lol didn’t move. ‘Really?’

‘All names are real. What’s yours?’

‘Lol.’

‘There you go.’

‘What’s Ariconium?’ Lol said.

‘Roman town. On the old iron road between Glevum and Blestium – that’s Gloucester and Monmouth to you. The historians say it was down the valley, where Weston-under-Penyard is now, but Piers reckons most of it was where Underhowle is now. It’s his new buzz-thing. Piers gets obsessions, then there’s no stopping him.’

Mumford came over. ‘Leave that a moment, boys.’

‘Woooh!’ said Cola French. ‘Something came up. Go, go, go!’

Mumford ignored her, jerked his chins towards the house. Lol and Gomer trudged after him to the edge of the paddock, Cola French watching them from behind her writer’s knowing smile.

‘Let’s just quietly pack up the gear,’ Mumford said. ‘We’re on standby to meet Mr Bliss.’

‘Oh we are, are we?’ Gomer said.

‘Bear with us, Gomer,’ Mumford said tiredly.

‘Been bearin’ with you all morning, boy, and we en’t found a bloody thing. Your gaffer wants to check his information ’fore he gets carried away, ennit?’

‘My gaffer,’ Mumford said, ‘says that Roddy’s finally talking.’

‘Ar? Talked about what he done to Nev yet, has he?’

‘I don’t know, Gomer.’

‘They ever tell you anything , Andy boy?’

Mumford, maybe sensing mutiny, said, ‘All right. This goes no further.’

Gomer looked scornful.

‘Looks like he’s coughed on three,’ Mumford said. ‘Lynsey, Melanie Pullman and the girl from Monmouth, Rochelle Bowen.’

Lol turned away. The sky was shabby and sunless now, and only the line of pylons gleamed.

‘Soon as he decides to remember where they’re buried,’ Mumford said, ‘they’re bringing him out to show us. That good enough for you?’

Gomer clapped his hands together, producing a sharp echo from the direction of conifer-clad Howle Hill.

‘WHEN I FIRST came here,’ Mrs Box said, ‘I’d spent the whole day looking for somewhere to live. An agent had sent me the particulars of a place in the country out past Hereford that was far too big and had all this land – what was I supposed to do with seven and a half acres, buy myself a tractor? Besides, the local church was ugly and the minister was a disinterested auld devil.’

‘I won’t ask which one it was.’ Merrily stood with her back to the candlelit altar and the long painting.

‘Doesn’t matter, I can see that now.’ Jenny Box was demure on the oak settle, hands forming a cross on her knees. ‘But at the time – and for other reasons, too – I was very deeply depressed. And the countryside was flat and unwelcoming and I felt lonely and unwanted and… unnecessary, you know? I’d spent a holiday here once, with my husband when things were good with us, and I loved it and I’d built up my hopes of finding somewhere… but now ’twas all wrong. I didn’t feel I belonged, or was ever going to belong. I was starting to question the whole idea of moving out here. And the clouds were gathering, and I just got into the car and drove in any direction, I didn’t care.’

Merrily asked hesitantly, ‘Your marriage had—’

‘Broken up? No. Oh no. And still hasn’t, though he goes his own way, and has his women like he always did. Well, that’s fine, I don’t have a problem with that any more. No, I just decided I wanted a place in the country and he was in no position, quite frankly, to object. I mean, he comes down sometimes, from London, at weekends, to discuss business matters – you’ll have seen him, no doubt, though not in church – but if he looks like staying for more than one night I’ll go and stay in London for a few days. The marriage, you might say, is winding down slowly.’

Merrily recalled the gist of her words from the other night: The business I was in, the things I was doing for money and self-gratification, all that’s repellent to me now. I came here to cleanse myself . A reference, it had seemed, to her modelling days, her brief career in daytime TV. Was there more to it, though?

‘But you’d still be business partners,’ Merrily said.

‘Would you happen to’ve been in one of the Vestalia stores lately, Merrily? Cheltenham? Cardiff?’

‘Er, no. I don’t seem to get out of the county too often.’

‘Ah well, there’s one supposed to be opening in Hereford in a few months’ time, and that’s what you might call a bone of contention. I don’t like the name much any more – ’twas from my sad New Age days, I was one for the goddesses then. Well, it’s too late now to change that, but I want the Hereford store to reflect a more robust spirituality.’

Merrily recalled what she could: the concept of Vestalia was about introducing spirituality into the home, from sacred candles and ornamental crystals to very expensive hearths like pagan altars. ‘You mean… ?’