Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

‘Yes, it is,’ Piers Connor-Crewe said. ‘It’s bloody exciting. However, we had a taste, at the weekend, of a different kind of tourism.’

Fergus nodded grimly. He clicked on an icon bringing up the Ariconium homepage, clicked again and then the screen went blank. ‘I was about to get to that when you guys arrived.’

Of course, the point was that getting any kind of tourism here was a coup. Not only was Underhowle not a pretty place but it had the misfortune to be surrounded by places that were : riverside Ross and Symonds Yat, Goodrich with its medieval castle, Weston-under-Penyard with its hilltop Norman church. Underhowle wasn’t in the Wye Valley and it wasn’t, strictly speaking, in the Forest of Dean. There would be people over in Ledwardine who’d suggest Underhowle should be grateful for whatever it could get.

‘They’ve been coming down from Gloucester,’ Fergus Young said. ‘Over from Hereford. Up from South Wales, even. Unbelievable. Scores of them. Clogging the lane, parking on all the verges.’

‘Standing there like the morons they are,’ said Piers Connor- Crewe, ‘and just staring at the pylon, or taking photographs of their ghastly children with it in the background. Some of them brought sandwiches . Can you believe that? I mean, have you seen today’s papers?’ Piers turned to Chris Cody. ‘They’re linking Lodge with West now. West! Christ. What was that one… “Spawn of Satan”?’

‘“Devil’s Disciple”.’ Chris was smiling sadly, probably at the outdated excesses of the non-virtual world. ‘In the Sun. Or was it “Demon Seed”?’

‘Just doesn’t go away, does it?’ Piers said. ‘After all these years, that loathsome little man is still a household name. He’s won his place in the Black Pantheon now – the most famous murderer… God forbid, probably the most famous man – to come out of Herefordshire. And now Roddy Lodge. How many has Roddy killed? Could be years before they find them all. And the difference is that Gloucester Council was able to remove 25 Cromwell Street. They turned the site into a walkway so nobody can tell any more where the house was. And, as far as I know, there’s no physical memory of Frederick West in Much Marcle either – I believe they scattered his ashes in the churchyard there, and that was it. Blown away. Gone.’

‘About half the children at this school were watching when Roddy Lodge died,’ Fergus said. ‘Listening to him screaming out all that filth. We’ve talked about it with them, we’ve analysed it, we’ve had individual counselling where necessary. So the children will forget, of course they will – if they’re allowed to. We all realize we’re never going to get rid of the pylon, but we can make sure the tourist trail ends there. Merrily, I beg of you, if you have any influence at all over the Lodges, persuade them to have him decently cremated, and let’s all try to forget he ever existed.’

Chris Cody said, ‘I don’t really have a personal angle on this, but a few of our people – down the factory – are saying they got relatives in that churchyard and they don’t like to fink of them lying in the same, you know, soil, as Roddy Lodge.’

‘It’s a point,’ Fergus Young said. ‘Would you want Lodge buried side by side with members of your immediate family? No, it’s all right, I know what you’re obliged to say.’

Piers Connor-Crewe folded his arms. ‘But if it comes to the crunch, the Church itself can say no – you obviously realize that.’

‘But the Bishop hasn’t said no,’ Merrily told him. ‘I suspect he takes the line that if we were to refuse to bury sinners, it might just contravene one of the basic tenets of Christianity. As well as leaving us with the problem of where exactly to draw the line, you know?’

Connor-Crewe looked pained. ‘I understand that, but I think we’re—’

‘And let’s not forget that Lodge hadn’t actually been convicted of anything.’

‘Neither had West,’ Fergus said, ‘but that didn’t prevent some forceful opposition in Much Marcle. Which I believe succeeded.’

‘In fact, I also think I’m right in saying Lodge hadn’t even been charged.’

‘Look,’ Connor-Crewe said, ‘what you’re dealing with here – that is, us – is the polite form of protest. I can assure you that some of the locals would be more inclined towards what we might call direct action.’

‘As in… what?’

‘Well, if there is a grave, it could well get vandalized,’ Fergus said. ‘And I have to tell you we’re not only talking about relatives. I’m told there are friends of Melanie Pullman already making dark threats. And it seems to me, without laying it on too heavily, that this is as good a reason as any to tell the Lodge family it really can’t be done.’

‘All right…’ Merrily got to her feet. She’d faced hysteria, she’d faced tears and rage; there was nothing worse than reason. ‘Maybe they haven’t thought about the vandalism aspect. I’ll put it to them. But you have to understand there’s family history here. Tony Lodge feels an obligation to his father.’

‘Whereas we merely have an obligation to the future,’ Fergus Young said.

‘ You have voice-mail ,’ the mobile told her when she switched it on.

Merrily put the phone on the dash, sitting for a while, gazing through the windscreen at Underhowle: late-autumnal, yet throbbing with the spring of its future. Education, education, education , Tony Blair or somebody had once said, when asked about New Labour’s priorities for a new Britain. She wondered what it would be like to have Underhowle as your parish: a kindergarten rather than a retirement home. Couldn’t see anything progressive in it for the Church, not short-term anyway. Not with the narrow and cynical Jerome Banks in place.

‘It’s out, then,’ Huw Owen’s voice grated from the mailbank. ‘Bliss – self-seeking little bastard. Lass, I’m coming over tonight. Don’t go anywhere.’

She flung her head back over the top of the seat, where the headrest had come off. Bloody men with their bloody agendas . She closed her eyes.

When she opened them, another shadow had fallen across the side window.

‘I’m gonna take a chance on this,’ Sam Hall said when she wearily wound it down. ‘I think you have to be Merrily Watkins.’

IT WAS ALL here, from the Norwegian cast-iron wood-burning stove – no glass, therefore no friendly flames to watch – to the two solar panels in the roof. Even the radio was clockwork, but there was a small, traditional stereo. His one vice, he said.

Otherwise, showpiece good-life. But how good was it really? It was a dark room, this big living area; the windows were triple-glazed and small. One of them, in a wall insulated with several hundred tightly packed books, offered a view down the hillside, picking up a line of pylons.

The wrong view, it seemed to Merrily.

‘I know… you’re asking yourself why ,’ Sam said. ‘Why, if I want to live like this, don’t I do it on some Hebridean island, or in the empty heart of Wales?’

‘I did wonder that, but then I thought I’d come up with an answer. Which was: because he needs to keep reminding himself of something?’

‘You must’ve been a great loss to the cops, Mrs Watkins.’ Silent laughter in the dimness. ‘That goddam Bliss could’ve saved us all a heap of time and trouble if he hadn’t tried to pass you off as a detective.’

‘Why did he come to talk to you again?’

‘Usual stuff. He saw Ingrid, too. What did we know about Lodge? Did we know of any other girls Roddy went out with? Any guys he hung around with? I doubt if I was able to help him.’