Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

‘And was she involved with Roddy Lodge at this time?’

‘She’d been with Roddy ’bout a year. See, this was before Roddy’s big change. He hadn’t been long in his own place, and I imagine she was his first real girlfriend. It was a case of like attracting like. Although he was maybe ten years older than she was, they’d both had experiences they couldn’t explain – stuff they couldn’t even discuss with most other people. It must’ve been kind of a relief to both of them when they found out they weren’t alone.’

‘Roddy being under the same power lines…’

‘Well, let’s not forget he’d been around power lines all his life – got some big ones going over the farm. But when he moved, he was right in the heart of the hot spot. Whatever was happening to him before must’ve been intensified hugely once he was in that bungalow.’

‘Did they know this? Had they put two and two together?’

‘I don’t believe they had. People often don’t. Roddy, for instance, was convinced there was something wrong with his eyes. Took to wearing dark glasses and working at night when he could. And I’m sure that relieved the symptoms to an extent. No, I told Melanie what I knew and referred her to an alternative practitioner in Hereford who wasn’t as blind to all this as the medical profession seems to be. I don’t think she managed to persuade Roddy to go, too, because things were becoming complicated by then. Am I making the remotest kind of sense to you, Mrs Watkins?’

‘I rather think you are.’

‘You’re making connections.’

‘Too many.’

‘Anything you want confirmation of, I have whole shelves of reports…’

‘I just want to think about this. How much have you told Bliss?’

‘Hell, none of it. Guy’s a cop. He’s gonna believe Lodge’s behaviour was conditioned by electromagnetic radiation? Does he care? He just wants to know where the other bodies are buried.’

‘And were you able to help him on that?’

‘No.’ Sam stood up and walked back to the window with the view down Howle Hill towards the pylons and Underhowle. ‘Do I think Melanie Pullman’s dead? Maybe… but maybe not. There was every reason for her just to get the hell out of here and not look back. See, she was coming to see me quite often those last few months – reporting her progress. She’d taken a vacation with some relations up in Shropshire, well away from power lines. Done some walking up there. Cut out the Valium, of course. When she came back home, she switched bedrooms to a smaller room at the front of the house, not directly under the cables. Gave in her notice at the drugstore. She was feeling a little better – even just knowing about it makes you feel a different person. But electro-allergy goes deep. It takes a long time to get it out of your system, if you’re lucky enough to be able to do that totally. There’s good reason to think she just upped and left Underhowle, knowing there was no future for her, healthwise, in this place.’

‘Leaving all her possessions, all her clothes?’

‘Maybe she went someplace else and felt so good she just didn’t come back. Maybe she met somebody. People do this kind of thing with far less reason than she had.’

‘What about Roddy?’

‘I think she tried to help him, I really do. I just don’t think he wanted to know. Besides, he had a new girlfriend by then. He had Lynsey. And he was changing – boy was he changing .’

‘Would you mind if I told Bliss about this?’

He shrugged. ‘Long as there’s no comeback on me.’

‘I think I can guarantee that.’ Merrily stood up. ‘So that’s what you meant when you told Lol about a spiritual aspect to all this.’

‘Uh…’ Sam turned his back on the view, plucked at his Icelandic sweater. ‘I guess I still hope it is. I’m not sure. I have a friend – you met Ingrid Sollars?’

‘At the hall.’

‘Sure you did. Well, Ingrid and I are very close friends, but we don’t always agree. And there’s stuff happening here…’ Sam shook his head. ‘I dunno…’

‘What stuff?’

‘Could I go fetch Ingrid?’

Merrily looked at her watch. ‘I have to go and see Cherry Lodge, and then I’ve got to get back for someone. Can I call you? Tonight, maybe?’

‘Sure.’ Sam followed her to the door. ‘This has become a weird place, Mrs Watkins. And more than a little sick.’

Parked outside the Lodge farm, Merrily called Bliss from the car and left a message on his voice-mail. Cherry Lodge, in her army parka, was coming round the side of the house, carrying a paper sack of mixed corn.

‘Been and seen them, have you, Reverend?’ She put down the corn sack. Freed from fog, the farmhouse behind her looked less stable, with rubble-stone showing through holes in the rendering. Less fortified.

‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ Merrily said. ‘Has anybody threatened you?’

Cherry Lodge managed a tired smile. Merrily decided not to tell her about her own anonymous caller.

‘Just I was told that people – friends of Melanie Pullman – had threatened to damage Roddy’s grave, if… if there was one.’

‘There’s brave of them.’ Cherry pulled the sack of corn up against the wall. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

‘No, thanks, I’ve got to get back. Erm… the other argument is that it’ll be an unpleasant sort of attraction to the wrong kind of tourists. But the committee said that to you, didn’t they?’

‘The wrong kind of tourists. Oh yes, we had that.’

‘Cherry, in your e-mail, you said how much Roddy had changed when he went to live on his own. You said he’d become more confident. Did he change in any other way? I mean, for instance, he went around all the time in dark glasses… people saying he was a bit of a poser. But could there have been another reason? For instance, Sam Hall thinks—’

‘Sam thinks a lot of things and some of them sound sensible and some sound like rubbish and I don’t think he knows the difference. What does it matter now? Roddy killed a woman – only one woman, as far as we know, despite all this West rubbish – and then he killed himself. And if he was going to kill a woman – and don’t go quoting me – then he couldn’t have chosen a better one. Slut. Gold-digger. She kept coming back. He’d try and get away from her, go out with other women, but she kept coming back. Maybe, God forbid, he couldn’t get rid of her any other way.’

‘Look,’ Merrily said. ‘I’ll have to ask you one more time, because I don’t really know how deep the feelings are down there, but you do still want to go ahead with burial? You won’t opt for cremation, perhaps a plaque in the church?’

‘Mrs Watkins…’ Cherry’s face wore BSE and foot-and- mouth and stupid EU regulations in layers of dried-out anxiety; what did she care about petty village vigilantes with a manufactured crisis? ‘If anyone vandalizes the grave, it’s up to the police to deal with it. Anyone threatens us, we’ll deal with it.’

‘And you’re… happy about tomorrow, rather than Friday.’

‘We’re not happy about any of it,’ Cherry Lodge said. ‘But if it’s what we have to do to keep it quiet, it’s what we’ll do.’

‘What about flowers and things? You got all that arranged?’

‘Flowers for Roddy? I don’t think so.’

Merrily nodded. ‘You know my number.’

‘Don’t take too much notice of Sam,’ Cherry said. ‘And don’t try and find excuses for Roddy – it’s not worth it now.’

‘Don’t you want to know the truth?’

‘I don’t think we ever will know. Perhaps some of it’s beyond knowing.’

‘You mean the ghosts? The dead women?’