Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

‘He’d worked a couple of times for her husband,’ Huw said. ‘Years before – before they’d come to Wales. When Donna was a little girl. When they were living at Highnam, near Gloucester. You never forgot Fred – such a cheerful little man, and a hell of a good worker. Nowt he wouldn’t turn his hand to, Fred. And always a smile for you. Always a smile for a lady. And a big grin for little Donna.’

Huw’s eyes were like glass. ‘Oh dear God,’ Merrily said.

‘That were early days – the first bodies had been found at 25 Cromwell Street: Fred’s daughter Heather and two other girls, Shirley and Alison. Within a week or so, he’s confessed to nine more murders, and the whole bloody nation’s agog. By April they’re exploring two fields on the border of Much Marcle and Kempley. Digging up his first wife, Rena. Two months later, Ann McFall in Fingerpost Field.’

‘You went to the police…’

‘Oh aye. Like the relatives of every other missing girl within a hundred miles of Gloucester. And when it come out that Fred had worked for Tim Furlowe, that he knew Tim’s family… See, all these girls – they weren’t random kidnaps, he knew ’em all, before. Even Lucy Partington, the undergraduate, who seemed like a random snatch off the street, there’s evidence he knew her slightly, way back. “It’s me? Don’t you recognize me – worked for your dad?” ’

‘But if Donna was just a child…?’

‘The feeling was it happened the other way round. Donna bumps into him in the street, in Cheltenham. He was always in Cheltenham. Well, not a face you ever forgot, West. Do anything for you.’

A soundtrack was playing in Merrily’s head. Traffic and the bustle and chatter of a summer pavement and… ‘Oh, gosh, it’s Fred! I bet you don’t remember me. Donna Furlowe?’ ‘Course I do, Donna, well, well, well… Give you a lift somewhere? The ole van’s just round the corner.’

Huw leaned his head forwards, digging his fingers into the skin of his forehead. When he looked up, there were red marks.

‘That was when the police asked me if I knew of any satanic groups. I didn’t, so I went round all the local Deliverance priests. Took some leave from the parish. Stayed in Gloucester for over a month, me and Julia. No more bodies, but they always expected to find more. But I think it was Lucy Partington did it for Julia. Not like the others – an intelligent, cultured girl. Found in Cromwell Street, with tape around the skull, bits of rope. Evidence of— You don’t want to hear this, lass, I don’t want to tell you.’

‘She was Martin Amis’s cousin, wasn’t she? The novelist.’

‘Aye. Cultured lass. Artistic. Sensitive. So the cops are saying now to West, what about Donna Furlowe? Where did you bury Donna Furlowe? He denies it. He always denied it. Just like he denied murdering Ann McFall – buried her, but he didn’t kill her. He loved her, she was his angel – just let him bloody find out who killed her, that’s all… He lied, you see, Merrily, he lied all along. And all the time, I’m saying to Julia, “It’s coincidence. Coincidence, that’s all, let’s go home.” She wouldn’t.’

‘I wouldn’t, either, if it had been…’ Merrily swallowed. She found she was holding a hand to the neck of her black woollen jumper. She wanted to get up and make more tea, but she couldn’t move.

‘We did leave in the end,’ Huw said. ‘We had to. I had to go back to the parish, and the Deliverance courses were about to get started. But it were never the same after that. I’d go over to Bwlch every other day. Stay the odd night. She’d keep saying, “I can’t settle, Shep, I can’t settle.” Always called me Shep. Said I reminded her of a border collie, always ready, always on watch.’

‘Yes.’

Another Christmas. A couple of dozen half-finished paintings. Then a week later, New Year’s Day 1995, Fred West, awaiting trial for a dozen murders, constructed a rope out of shirts – always a practical man – and hanged himself in his cell at Winson Green. Having told his carer he’d killed a lot more girls. As many as twenty more girls. No names.

‘It were summer again before we knew it. This was when Julia told me about the medium in Brecon. I’d asked her to marry me by then, she said let’s leave it a year, see how things are. And that she’d been to a bloody medium.’

It’s understandable. Kind of situation that sends most people to mediums.’

‘ I know that, lass. And all I could do was beg her not to. You know the shite that comes through at these bloody sessions… not to be trusted, mediums, not ever. We had a row. I didn’t see her for a week. I went back, crawling, beginning of August 1995, and stayed the night, and when we got up the next morning there was a call from a copper in Gloucester to say they’d found a female body, butchered, in field near Lydbrook, in the Forest of Dean.’

Merrily tried to say something, couldn’t. She hadn’t known, hadn’t recognized the name.

‘We saw some of the clothes. She were still wearing clothes, but there were thick brown parcel-tape round the lower part of the skull.’

‘Huw…’

‘And bones missing. Finger bones and foot bones.’

Merrily’s nails pierced her palms.

‘See, we’d read it all by then. Hundreds of pages already in the papers, books being written, Rose coming up for trial on ten murder charges. She must’ve known… Oh aye, we all knew by then exactly what Fred West did to his victims, him and Rose. We knew all the details. Fred abusing his children and watching Rose with other men, through a hole in the door. Taking in girls, at first, who were up for it – they thought, but not the things Fred and Rose did, nobody were up for that. Then girls who weren’t up for it, Fred and Rose getting off on the fear.’

And she heard him at Frannie Bliss across the table: cellars and concrete… dreams full of blood and filth and sobbing.

‘Can I tell you what it were like for Julia, then, Merrily? Can I start to tell you?’

‘No need.’

‘Course not. She started painting again, within days. Painting Donna, from photographs. But very pale. Paintings you could see the white paper through, like she was trying to clean off the child’s body. I tried to get her to come to the cathedral. She ‘wouldn’t. But she was still going to the medium. What could I say about that? I couldn’t bring her comfort, the Church couldn’t do owt.’

Huw was feeling in an inside pocket of his tweed jacket, bringing out what looked like an old tobacco pouch of yellow plastic. He unwrapped it and took out a small piece of folded paper. Thick paper, quality notepaper. He unfolded it and passed it across the table to Merrily. She took it to the lamp.

I’ll keep it short, Shep.

I’m so, so sorry about this. But I do believe there is somewhere else – you showed me that – and that Donna needs me there now. She so needs someone to comfort her, I feel this very strongly. I’m so very sorry, because I love you so much, Shep, you know I do, and it’s only thinking of you and sensing your arms around me that’s going to give me the last bit of strength I need for this, so please don’t take your arms away and please, please forgive me, and please go on praying for us. I’m so SORRY.

Merrily stood there by the lamp, holding the paper, feeling its texture, the weight of it. Paper made to last. She was thinking of all those times she’d wondered if there had ever been a woman in Huw’s life.

When he started to speak again, she couldn’t look at him.

‘It were me found her. I think that was what she wanted. Thought I were strong. Owd Shep. Seen it all. She’d left the farmhouse doors unlocked. Lovely balmy summer’s evening, and an overdose of sleeping tablets.’