Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

Masochism, Merrily thought. A martyrdom trip.

‘I’m a defiant man, Merrily. Don’t go thinking this began with the arrival of the Thorogoods. I’ve been set up for this. I’ve been getting poison-pen letters for months. And phone calls – cackling voices in the night. Recently had a jagged scratch removed from my car bonnet: a series of vertical chevrons like a dragon’s back.’

‘Maybe you do need support.’

He hit the metal desk with an open palm. ‘I have all the support I will ever need.’

‘What do you plan to do?’

‘God shall cast out the dragon – through Michael. I made a civilized approach to Thorogood. I told him I wanted to perform a cleansing Eucharist in the church. He put me off. He can’t do that now. He faces the power of the Holy Spirit.’

‘And the cold shoulder from the people of Old Hindwell.’

‘You mean our Demonstration of Faith? You disagree with that?’

She shrugged. ‘Candles are harmless. I just hope that’s where it ends.’

‘My dear Merrily’ – Ellis walked to the door – ‘this is where it begins . And, with respect, it’s not your place to hope for anything in relation to my parishioners.’

‘Aren’t the Thorogoods also your parishioners?’

He expelled a mildly exasperated hiss.

‘And if they’re trying to make a point about reclaiming ancient sites, hasn’t it occurred to you that you’re just helping to publicize their cause?’

‘And what’s Bernard Dunmore’s policy on the issue?’ Ellis demanded. ‘Say nothing and hope they won’t be able to maintain their mortgage repayments? Try to forget they’re there? Is that, perhaps, why the Church is no longer a force in this country, while evil thrives unchallenged? Perhaps you should find out for yourself what kind of people the Thorogoods really are. Maybe you could visit their property. Under cover of darkness again?’

Damn! She stood up. ‘OK, I’m sorry. It was a private funeral, and I had no right. But I was looking for someone. Someone who, as it happens, has now been reported missing from home.’

‘Oh?’ For the first time, he was thrown off balance.

‘Barbara Buckingham, née Thomas? Menna’s sister?’

‘I’ve never heard of her. I didn’t even know Menna had a sister.’

Merrily blinked. ‘Didn’t you ever talk to Menna about her background?’

‘Why should I have probed into her background?’

‘Just that when I have kids for confirmation we have long chats about everything. Rebaptism, I mean. I’d have thought that was something much more serious.’

‘Merrily, I don’t have to talk about this to you.’

She followed him into the hall. ‘It’s just I can’t believe you’re one of those priests who simply goes through the motions, Nick.’

‘I do have an appointment. I’m sorry.’

‘Splish, splash, you’re now baptized?’

When he swiftly lifted a hand, she thought, for an incredible moment, that he was going to hit her and she actually cringed. But all he did was twist the small knob on the Yale lock and pull open the front door, but when he noticed that momentary cower, he smiled broadly and his smooth face lit up like a jack-o’-lantern.

She didn’t move. ‘I still don’t fully understand this, Nick.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘And you must ask yourself why.’

‘I mean I don’t understand why you’re using the enviable influence you’ve developed in this community to put people in fear of their immortal souls. You didn’t have to make that inflammatory statement to the Mail .’

He looked at her as if trying, for the first time, to bring her into focus and then, finding she was too flimsy to define, turned away. ‘I can’t believe,’ he said, ‘that you have somehow managed to become a priest of God.’

She walked past him through the doorway, glanced back and saw a man with nothing much to lose. A man who had stripped himself down to the basics: cheap clothes, a small council house, a village hall for a church, and even that impermanent. There was something distinctly medieval about him. He was like a friar, a mendicant.

‘Of course,’ she said from the step, ‘ they’re also helping to publicize you . And maybe the villagers aren’t afraid for their immortal souls at all, they’re just assisting their rector to build his personal reputation. If you were in a town, virtually nobody would think this was... worth the candle.’

‘This is a waste of time,’ Nick Ellis said. ‘I have people to see.’

The door closed quietly in her face.

Merrily stood on the path. She found she was shaking.

She hadn’t felt as ineffectual since the Livenight programme.

AS MERRILY GOT back into the car, Gomer pointed to the mobile on the dash.

‘Bleeped twice. Third time, I figured out how to answer him. Andy Mumford, it was, that copper. Jane gived him your number. He asked could you call back.’

‘He say what about?’

‘Not to me.’

She picked up the phone, entered the Hereford number Gomer had written on a cigarette paper, having to hold the thin paper close to the window because it was beyond merely overcast now – and not yet one p.m. Three fat raindrops blopped on the windscreen. This was, she told herself, going to be positive news.

‘DS Mumford.’

‘It’s Merrily Watkins.’

‘Ah.’

‘Has she turned up?’

‘Afraid not, Mrs Watkins.’

‘Oh.’ She heard Ellis’s front door slam, and saw him coming down the path. He was carrying a medium-sized white suitcase. He walked past her Volvo without a glance and carried on towards the village centre.

‘But I’m afraid her car has,’ Mumford said. ‘You know the Elan Valley? Big area of lakes – reservoirs – about thirty miles west of Kington? They’ve pulled her car out of one of the reservoirs.’

‘Oh God.’

‘Some local farmer saw the top of it shining under the water. Been driven clean through a fence. Dyfed-Powys’ve got divers in there. When I checked, about ten minutes ago, they still hadn’t found anything else. Don’t know what the currents are like in those big reservoirs. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Reverend, but I thought you’d want to know.’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘If I hear anything else, I’ll get back to you. Or, of course, if you hear anything. It’s been known for people to...’

‘What, you think she might have faked her own death?’

‘No, I’m a pessimist,’ Mumford said. ‘I tend to think they’ll pull out a body before nightfall.’

It began as a forestry track, then dropped into an open field with an unexpected vista across the valley to the Radnor Forest hills of grey green and bracken brown, most of which Gomer knew by name.

And strange names they were: the Whimble, the Smatcher, the Black Mixen. Evocative English-sounding names, though all the hills were in Wales. Merrily and Gomer sat for a moment in the car and took in the view: not a farm, a cottage or even a barn in sight. There were a few sheep, but lambing would come late in an area as exposed as this: hill farming country, marginal land. She remembered Barbara Buckingham talking about her deprived childhood – the teabags used six times, the chip fat changed only for Christmas. As they left the car at the edge of the field, she paused to say a silent prayer for Barbara.

She caught up with Gomer alongside a new stile which, he said, had been erected by Nev for the archaeologists. This was where the track became a footpath following the line of the Hindwell Brook, which was flowing unexpectedly fast and wide after all the rain. It had stopped raining now, but the sky bulged with more to come. Gomer pointed across the brook, shouting over the rush of the water.