Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

‘Going round with Gomer, I got to see the whole valley. On environmental grounds alone, I’d like to help. Assuming he’s on the level. I mean, we don’t get to do much for anybody, do we, in this business? Not like some people.’

‘Not like your wee friend the Reverend, huh?’ Moira smiled. Lol stared at her in dismay. People always said she was psychic; they didn’t say she had the ability to uncover the hidden motives you hadn’t even admitted to yourself.

‘It’s so charming, the way you blush,’ Moira said. ‘So few guys today can still do that. Laurence, it’s perfectly fine for you to wannae be involved with the stuff in her life. Like I said the other night, a guy who understands the nature of madness…’

He let out a shallow, baffled sigh. ‘There was something else. It was when I was standing there watching this man climbing up towards… eternity. Knowing how it was going to end. And getting a strong feeling of people wanting it to happen.’

‘What, like the audience at the Colosseum or somewhere, willing the emperor to give the thumbs-down to the gladiator who came second?’

‘I don’t know. It was like there was something there to be… understood.’

‘What did you arrange with this guy?’

‘He said come and see him sometime. “Bring your lady,” he said.’

‘Will she go with you?’

‘I… can’t see her having time.’

‘Tell you what.’ Moira stood up. ‘Suppose I were to tag along, check out this guy. I can be quite intuitive, you know? That wouldnae bother you, if I came along?’

‘No, that would be—’

‘Call him, then.’

‘I can’t call him. He doesn’t have a phone. You leave a message for him at the village hall, and he calls you back. There are lots of things he doesn’t have.’

‘Interesting,’ Moira said.

‘THE WIFE,’ Bliss said, ‘Kirsty…’ Shovelling a third sugar into his coffee, letting the spoon clang on the tabletop. ‘Aw, it’s dead difficult, Merrily, this personal shite.’

The first thing she’d noticed was that he hadn’t shaved. This wasn’t Frannie. Frannie was dapper, Frannie was tidy.

He drank some of the coffee, made a face.

‘I mean, I’ve gorra say I never really wanted a wife. In some ways it was that simple.’

Merrily rolled her eyes.

‘The police… It’s like you either go at it firing on all four cylinders, day and night, or it’s just a… just a job. Me, I never wanted just work . I’m like you, it had to be a vocation, a calling – and there was never gonna be a wife, not till I was pushing forty anyway, and I certainly never wanted kids.’ There were tears in his eyes now. ‘Needy little twats.’

‘Have you had anything proper to eat, Frannie?’ Merrily asked. He’d told her on the square that he’d give her an hour or so to get changed, get sorted – meaning get Jane out of the way, she guessed – and then he’d come and see her, if that was all right.

‘Nothing for me, thanks.’ He put up both hands. ‘Kirsty… she used to make me take a flamin’ yoghurt to work. She doesn’t bother any more. I miss that.’

He looked out of the window towards the ragged apple trees. There was silence, not even the mouse-scratch of Jane listening behind the door to the hall. Perhaps, Merrily thought, she’d grown out of that and therefore really had gone up to her apartment after lunch. She’d be back at school tomorrow.

‘So she’s a local girl,’ Merrily said. ‘Kirsty.’

‘Shit on her shoes soon as she could walk.’ Bliss made a desolate face. ‘All her family’s sunk into these bloody dead-end farms, all within about ten miles – ma and pa and her old bloody gran and about six thousand aunties. Jesus, they look so normal when you first meet them, country girls. She worked in the fashion department at Chadd’s. She was… very chic. So anyway, that’s why I’m still out here, chasing sheep-shaggers. Before we got married, West Mercia was gonna be strictly short-term. I was looking towards – I dunno…’

‘The Met?’

‘Yeh, maybe the Met. Or even back to Merseyside, with a bit of rank to stand on. But Kirsty, she’d just die in a big city, just curl up and… I’m not kidding, I’m not exaggerating.’

‘I know.’

‘I hate that in her. It’s not how wives are supposed to be, is it? She’s supposed to want to follow me to the ends of… wherever.’

‘Except that wherever you go, you’ve always got your family around you,’ Merrily said. ‘Because your family’s coppers – the Job. And she knows that. And she knows that if she’s stuck in some city suburb and all she has is you and you’re not there half the time…’

‘Very slick, Reverend. Very psychologically acute.’

‘True, though?’

‘Probably,’ Bliss said.

‘Tell me if this is not what you came for. I mean, you could always go to your long-suffering priest for five Hail Marys and a—’

‘Yeh, all right, it’s what I came for. Shuffling round the village square like a stray dog on a Sunday morning. It’s finally come to this.’

Merrily poured herself some black tea. ‘So you made a martyr of yourself. You put your career on the back shelf for love.’

‘Tugging me forelock to fast-track floozies like Annie Howe. Grovelling on me knees to po-faced jobsworth gits like Fleming. Listen, I might not be university-educated, Merrily, but I was doing all right. I’ve had… approaches, you know? You get enough results, it’s still possible to make your own fast track.’

‘Until you fall off it.’

‘Yeh.’ Bliss looked at her. ‘You fall off, you go down the flamin’ embankment so fast, you break both legs. So I’ve gorra simple choice: stay here and rot in an office or bugger off. What a waste. Either way, what a fuckin’ waste .’

‘OK.’ Merrily reached for her cigarettes. ‘Let’s look at the facts. After what happened in Underhowle, this Luke Fleming comes over from Headquarters and decides that you mishandled the case from the start. If you hadn’t kept it all to yourself, played all these wild cards, including Gomer, Roddy Lodge would be safely tucked up in his cell instead of on the slab.’

‘I took a risk.’ Bliss leaned on an elbow, hand cupped around his unshaven jaw. ‘Several risks.’

‘Even I could’ve told you that.’

‘You did.’

‘Mmm, well…’

When you thought about it, he was actually lucky his conduct hadn’t been the subject of an internal inquiry. In fact, with an inquest pending, he wasn’t out of the disciplinary shadows yet.

And yet Merrily couldn’t help thinking that the last time she’d been aware of him bending the rules was when, last summer, he’d passed information to Lol that might well have prevented Annie Howe hanging her out to dry on a very public washing line. Did she still owe him? Did it matter, anyway?

‘I mean, it could have been worse, Frannie.’

‘Suspended. Bumped down to sergeant But that would’ve been a public admission that we fucked up. Still comes down to the fact that I’ve no future in West Mercia now, and the normal thing would be to go on the transfer list. And we know what that means.’

Have you asked her?’

‘Indirectly. We had a big row last night. Ended with me driving off and sleeping in the car. My fault… as usual. When the job’s going well, I’m not there; when it’s not, I’m there but I’m flamin’ unbearable. I could stay on in Hereford, work me shifts, gradually mature into the mellow – but secretly bitter and twisted – old DI who lets the youngsters buy him pints and passes on his wisdom.’