Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

Gomer took out his ciggy tin and extracted one he’d rolled earlier. Merrily stared at him.

‘You knew West?’

Gomer wrinkled his nose in distaste. ‘Wouldn’t say I knowed him, thank the Lord – though you might’ve thought you did after ’bout half an hour, the way he went on. Givin’ it that ’ – making rabbiting motions with fingers and thumb – ‘the whole time. Bugger could’ve yattered for Hereford. ’Bout… private things, mostly, and you can only take so much of that kind o’ chat.’ He lit his ciggy. ‘Good worker, mind, couldn’t fault him on that. Always looked after his tools.’

‘You said photos?’

‘Ones I saw was just pictures of his wife with no clothes on. But this feller I worked with once said West’d offered him, you know, bit of a session with the missus. Free, like.’

‘I’ve heard that.’

‘And later they reckoned there was these video tapes doing the rounds. Never come across ’em meself, mind.’

‘Porno videos?’

‘Worse.’ Gomer looked down at the table.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Ar, well…’ Gomer coughed.

‘Oh God,’ Merrily said.

Quite when it became clear that Gareth Box was actually interested in Jane as a woman , she was not sure, but it must have been fairly soon after he first called her ‘Jane’, as if he really knew her. As if they’d known one another quite some time.

She supposed at first that it was simply a journalist’s thing, assuming this easy familiarity – although he hadn’t been an actual reporter for a long time, she guessed. If Eirion had got it right, he’d already become some sort of executive editor when he’d met Jenny Driscoll.

It was just the way he said ‘Jane’. Hearing her name in his deep, world-weary voice. There was a kind of charge under it. Also an intensity in the way he looked at her. He was a very intense person.

And that wasn’t stupid. And she’d only had one glass of wine. Well, OK, he’d topped it up, so say two, but definitely not much more than that; it wasn’t as if she’d been here very long. And anyway Jane could usually hold her drink, no problem, except for cider. Just have to be a bit careful she didn’t say too much, too soon.

‘My, er, my… ex-boyfriend… wants to be a journalist.’

‘Could do worse,’ Gareth said. ‘Opens lots of doors.’

‘Well, at your level, I suppose. Not round here.’

He shrugged. ‘I started not all that far from here, actually. Worked for a news agency. It doesn’t matter where you start, if you’re good enough, if you can spot opportunities.’

‘Yeah.’ She supposed Jenny Box must have seemed like a good one at the time, if you could put up with her obsessive behaviour. ‘Er, you haven’t actually met my mother, have you?’

Gareth Box sighed. ‘I certainly feel as though I have. My wife talks about your mother quite a lot.’ The way he kept saying my wife , Jane thought, conveyed a definite detachment. ‘I tend to hear about all her problems, though it’s hardly my business.’ He smiled wryly. ‘How are things between her and… er…?’

‘Lol.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Oh, well…’ Wow, the old girl really was getting in with Jenny Box. ‘Complicated, you know, unsatisfactory. But like… what’s new?’

And he poured her a bit more wine and they chatted about Lol for a while, and a few other things. He was very easy to talk to. He concentrated on what you were saying, made meaningful observations, seemed concerned, treated you like a person, a woman. Yes, that was the point: from the first, he’d treated her like an equal. Only Lol had ever really done this before. Even with Gomer, who was never patronizing, it was still always ‘young Jane’. So this felt good, she wouldn’t deny that.

‘So like… how do you feel about the angel thing?’

A pause. ‘More to the point’ – he leaned back in his chair, tossing one long leg across the other, tilting it so that an ankle lay easily on a thigh – ‘how do you feel about it, Jane?’

‘Well, I…’ Jane drew breath and went for it. ‘Frankly, I’m inclined to think it’s kind of bollocks.’

Gareth didn’t laugh. He just nodded, a lock of dark hair falling over his forehead. Jane felt obliged to qualify bollocks immediately and talked about angels and the kind of people who professed to see them. Talking too fast, maybe. He didn’t interrupt. She felt hot now, edged her chair away from the fire.

‘I mean, there’s a history of sightings like this, in certain places, mainly abroad – although most of them sound like mass hallucination. But obviously there’s no history of it here… not over Ledwardine Church.’ She forced a laugh. ‘The problem is, the business my mother’s in, you can’t just knock something like that on the head. Not easily, can you?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I imagine not.’

‘And it’s hard for her, you know?’

Gareth Box nodded. ‘So you thought you’d come over and… knock it on the head.’

She squirmed a little. ‘I just wanted to know what was really happening… what’s really behind it.’ Best not to mention the money at this stage. ‘I don’t like to see her getting taken for a ride.’

He was silent. Shit, I’ve gone too far.

A log collapsed in the hearth. Jane jumped. Gareth Box didn’t move.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean to be offensive or anything.’

He met her gaze, although his own eyes were just shadows. Kept on looking at her steadily, as though he was trying to make up his mind about her. Intense. A little shiver went up her spine. Deliciously.

Then he said, very quietly, ‘What if I was to tell you – in absolute confidence – that she’s done this kind of thing before?’

She jumped again. Oh my God. Didn’t know what to say.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘all this is pretty painful for me, as you can imagine. No man likes to think his wife’s…’ He looked away. ‘How old are you, Jane?’

‘Old enough.’

He smiled. ‘I wouldn’t doubt it. Jane, can I rely on your absolute discretion?’

‘Yes… absolutely.’ She was aware that her voice had shrunk. She found she’d come to the edge of the chair. She saw that two logs had enmeshed, forming a red, ashy heart. The apple-wood scent filled her head.

‘This is a village.’ Gareth Box uncrossed his legs and sat forward with his hands pressed together between his knees, which seemed uncharacteristically hunched and defensive. ‘Whatever’s happening needs to be handled with a certain tact.’

‘I’m used to that,’ Jane said. ‘It goes with the territory.’

He nodded. ‘Look, I don’t know very much about your mother… but I think we both have to accept that, in Jenny’s eyes, there’s only one angel in Ledwardine.’

The log fell apart. Christ.

Standing under the porch light, Merrily watched Gomer walking away down the drive, feeling relieved when he turned right at the bottom, heading towards his home and not the churchyard, not Minnie’s grave.

What a small county this was. Gomer had met Fred West when they were both involved in the renovation of some farm buildings at a small equestrian centre near Ross. Gomer and Nev had been putting in drainage, and Fred had been rebuilding walls and installing the electrics. His van seemed to have been furnished in the back for sex, which he talked about all the time. For all these women he seemed to run into who were begging for it.

Merrily had asked Gomer if West might have had any contact, in the course of his work, with Roddy Lodge. Gomer, who knew a lot of people in the service industries, had said he couldn’t be sure about Lodge but more men – and women, of course – had been associated with West than were ever likely to admit it.