Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

‘No. I haven’t heard of it.’

‘Electrical Hypersensitivity. An allergy affecting people surrounded by electronic gadgetry or living in close proximity to high-voltage power lines and a confluence of transmitted signals, such as from mobile-phone masts, TV transmitters, satellite—’

‘Merrily—’

‘Probably only a very small percentage of people are affected to any marked degree. But in some cases we’re talking about a serious, chronic condition. You might find, for instance, if you looked into it, that Roddy Lodge was unusually sensitive to electric light and wore sunglasses even at night-time. You might find he was unable to wear nylon overalls because of the static or whatever. And we already know about his mood swings – miserable and withdrawn and then, “I’m Number One, I’m Satan, I’m the best drainage man in the known universe, the biggest serial killer…” ’

Bliss smiled. ‘So this is your personal diagnosis. Roddy was suffering from a condition that appears to have gone entirely undetected by various doctors and psychiatrists, but may be identified by priests.’

Merrily sighed. ‘I realize it’s something not universally accepted.’

‘Now tell me something I hadn’t already surmised.’ Bliss leaned back, locking his fingers behind his head. ‘Like what other bullshit Mr Sam Hall filled you up with.’

Jane put her head around the door then. Merrily hadn’t heard her come in from school. A long talk was way overdue.

‘Hello, flower. You want some coffee?’

‘No, thanks. Sorry, didn’t know you were busy.’

‘You can come in if you want, Jane,’ Bliss said. ‘This is nothing I ’d be terribly afraid of a little child hearing.’

‘It’s OK,’ Jane said, with world-weary indifference. ‘I try not to be seen hanging out with the Filth. People might think I’m a snout.’ Her head vanished and they heard her going upstairs.

‘I love that kid,’ Bliss said. ‘She’s just like you, only more so.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Look, don’t get me wrong. I even quite like Mr Hall, the old shit-stirrer, and I think his intentions are good. I even think there’s probably a lot to what he says, about the profusion of overhead power lines arguably causing ill health. I just think that kind of wild speculation, at this stage of the game, about a man who isn’t ever gonna be able to confirm it, is a totally pointless exercise.’

‘It does explain a lot of things, though, doesn’t it? It might even make sense to Mr Nye, the lawyer, who was convinced his client was in poor health.’

‘So tell him! I’m sure he’d absolutely love to spend an hour or so, at no fee whatsoever, discussing his dead client’s medical mythology.’

‘It also explains why Roddy blacked out – which is commonplace, apparently.’

‘Who says?’

‘Frannie, look, I had already heard of this. But it’s something Hall’s been researching for years, here and in America. I find it convincing, or at least worth investigating, but that’s neither here nor there. I’m not out to try to prove or disprove it, I’m just saying it answers – very plausibly – a lot of questions.’

‘No, it doesn’t , Merrily, it just—’

‘And it also explains why Roddy Lodge confessed to every putative murder you could lay on him.’

‘Aw, come on !’

‘EH is an acute condition. It can apparently become entirely unbearable. He’d have confessed to strangling his own granny to get out of that interview room.’

‘Whose side are you on at all?’

‘He’d offer to show you as many bodies as you wanted just to get you to take him out of there. All the people he hadn’t murdered .’

‘All right.’ Bliss finished off his coffee and laid down the mug. ‘Let’s look at this. He wanted us to take him out of the horrible, electronically charged interview room, back to his nice country home under the big pylon – which he then proceeded to climb .’ He gave her a big smile. ‘Go on, you take it from there.’

Merrily didn’t say anything. She’d put the same point to Sam Hall. He’d said that in his experience no two cases of EH were exactly the same. He said allergics were often mysteriously drawn to the allergen in its most obvious form. He said a certain frequency of the electromagnetic field might prove particularly addictive to a particular person. He said this all needed much more research, but it was one explanation of why Roddy had climbed that pylon, just like he’d done repeatedly as a boy.

‘Did you know that Melanie Pullman was a fellow sufferer?’

Bliss’s eyes narrowed.

‘With side effects. You interested?’

‘Go on,’ he said.

She told him about the side effects. She brought out the transcript of Canon Dobbs’s report. Bliss read it slowly. He looked up and didn’t smile. This is getting very silly, Merrily, even by your standards. Now we learn she was taken by aliens. Could even be the same aliens that strangled Lynsey and buried her under the tank.’

She carried on, in the face of it all. ‘I also gather Roddy Lodge had been having inexplicable experiences for most of his life, and that his condition worsened when he moved to the bungalow, where electromagnetic radiation levels were far stronger. It seems likely their relationship – him and Melanie – grew out of mutual support.’

Frannie Bliss gritted his teeth, making a hissing noise. ‘So they were both bonkers. What does that tell us? Does it explain why he might have killed her?’

‘You’re sorry you got me into this, now, aren’t you?’

‘I just don’t understand why you suddenly care so much,’ he said.

‘Because I’m burying him, and too many funerals today are superficial and meaningless and don’t manage to lay anything to rest – we talk to relatives and we gather up a handful of anecdotes about the deceased and reel them off, then it’s on with the soil and bring on the next one. I just think we owe it to them to try to understand what their lives were about. God, didn’t that sound pompous?’

In the dregs of the daylight, she saw a shadow shambling past the big kitchen window. Not many people came round the back, not even Lol. This was someone who liked to move softly, like God’s secret agent. Someone who even used spy-type euphemisms for the negative numina of his trade: volatiles, insomniacs, hitch-hikers … Bliss had his back to the window and hadn’t seen the shadow.

She stood up. ‘So… how are things at home, Frannie?’

‘Crap, thank you,’ Bliss said.

‘Huw’s here.’

‘ Owen? ’ He stood up quickly. ‘Shit. Is there another door out of here?’

SHE’D NEVER SEEN Huw like this before. He was white with anger, and he was wagging a forefinger under Frannie Bliss’s nose.

‘… Always feet first. Bloody great copper’s boots. No matter how long you’re in the CID, you never lose them copper’s boots!’

The finger trembling in the lamplight.

‘Huw…’ Bliss was out of his chair again, and they were nearly head-to-head across the table. ‘It’s my career going down the bloody toilet, pal!’

Not the most well-chosen response, all things considered.

‘Oh aye.’ Huw’s expression was… not priestly. ‘Never a thought for the parents of all them dead and missing girls, lying awake night after bloody night wondering precisely what were done to their kids and how many times. Waking up in the dark, heads full of cellars and concrete. Dreams full of blood and filth and sobbing and wondering how long it went on before they died. How much of it they took before they wound up naked and dead under some… some bloody septic tank.’