Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

‘Yeah.’ A whisper.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to hear it like this, because I could be making it up, couldn’t I? To support the stuff you were rubbishing this morning.’

‘Irene... what am I going to do?’

‘I don’t know. What happened... happened to other people. It’s not even a good coincidence. I mean, who believes in any of this crap?’

‘ You do.’

‘I don’t know whether I do or not. And anyway, I’m just a fundamentalist Welsh Chapel bigot.’

‘Were there any other people mentioned on this Web site, apart from Mum?’

‘Probably. I didn’t look, to be honest. What if there’d turned out to be a whole bunch of names and biographies of people and they were all recently dead or...? Shit, that’s how it’s supposed to work, isn’t it? Preying on your mind?’

‘Like, suppose there was this big hex thing and people... all over the country... the world... were being invited to, like, tune in and focus on Mum, the enemy, to put her off. Because, we both know how rubbish she was on that programme. I mean, she was fine on TV tonight, wasn’t she? Kind of cool, almost. Suppose it wasn’t just nerves that night. Suppose there were hundreds – thousands – of people sending her hate vibes or something. And then they all started focusing on that piece of road, where Dad... It’s horrible !’

‘It’s also complete crap, Jane. We’re just stretching things to fit the facts. We’re playing right into their hands.’

‘ Whose hands?’

‘Anybody who frequents the Web site – including, presumably, Ned Bain, if he was the one putting it round about your mum. That doesn’t mean he’s behind any of it. It just tells us where he got his information.’

‘It’s still creepy.’

‘It’s meant to be creepy.’

‘Can you tell when it was originally pasted on the site?’

‘Somebody else might be able to, but not me. For all I know, somebody could have pushed it out after the show, to make it look... I don’t know. It’s all crap, and it makes me mad.’

‘Irene, I’m going to have to tell her.’

‘I think you should. I’ll try and find out some more.’

‘You’re wonderful,’ Jane said. Whoops . ‘Er... how’s the whiplash?’

‘Well, it just kind of hurts when I look over my shoulder.’

Jane instinctively looked over hers and shivered, and it wasn’t an exciting frisson kind of shiver. Not now.

‘A MARTYR?’ THE rain had eased. Merrily pushed back the dripping hood of her saturated, once-waxed jacket. ‘With his chest all splattered. Perhaps that was what he wanted.’

When the police had gone in, she’d walked away from it all. Her first instinct had been to stay on Robin Thorogood’s side of the fence, maybe go and talk to him, but now the cops were doing that. Journalists and cameramen were together in another group by the gate at St Michael’s Farm, waiting for someone to emerge.

Ellis had been driven away in a white Transit van, the cross and the torches packed away in the back. His followers watched the white van’s tail lights disappear along the end of the track, talking quietly in groups. There was an air of damp anticlimax.

‘For just one moment,’ Merrily said to Gomer, ‘I thought—’

‘Coppers thought that, too. Out o’ their car in a flash.’

‘It looked like blood.’

‘Shit does, in a bad light.’

‘It really was?’

‘Sheepshit, or dogshit more like, stuck on a bloody great lump o’ soil. He din’t smell too fragrant then. Likely the real reason he’s buggered off so quick.’

‘Whoever threw it... that wasn’t a great idea. Thorogood was winning their argument.’

‘Young kiddie, it was. ’E had it on the end of a spade. Seen him come up behind the boy in the T-shirt.’

‘Still look good in the press, though,’ Merrily said glumly. ‘On their pictures he will look like a martyr. I...’ She glanced over the gate to where two police were still talking to Thorogood.

‘Look out, vicar,’ Gomer murmured.

Judith Prosser was heading over, without her Gareth. She wore a shiny new Barbour, a matching wide-brimmed hat.

‘They’ve found Barbara’s car, then, Mrs Watkins.’ She spotted Gomer. ‘Ah... I see you have your informant with you.’

‘’Ow’re you, Judy?’

‘Gomer. I heard your wife died. I’m sorry.’

‘Things ’appens,’ Gomer said gruffly. He shook his head, droplets spinning from his cap.

Judith nodded. ‘So what about Barbara, Mrs Watkins? She down there, in Claerwen Reservoir, is it?’

‘Well, I don’t know those reservoirs, Mrs Prosser. But I think if Barbara’s body was in there, they’d have found it by now. I reckon the answer to that mystery’s much more likely to be found here.’

‘Do you indeed?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘You like a mystery, do you?’

‘How’s Marianne?’ Merrily said.

‘Mrs Starkey is quite well’ – wary now – ‘I assume.’

‘Those lustful demons can be difficult to extract.’

The caution was suddenly discarded as Judith laughed. ‘Don’t you believe all you hear.’

‘Like what?’

‘All kinds of nonsense gets talked about, Mrs Watkins. Be silly for you to start passing on rumours, isn’t it? I certainly haven’t heard anything to upset me.’

She smiled; she had good teeth.

‘In that case, you must have a strong constitution, Mrs Prosser,’ Merrily said.

Left to himself, Robin would have kicked the kid’s ass.

Hermes, nine years old, brother of Artemis, twelve, and of Ceres, six and a half.

Max and Bella did not kick Hermes’s ass. They were not the ass-kicking kind. They would, presumably, explain to him later, in some detail, what effect having tossed shit at the Christian priest might have on him karmically.

No hassle from the cops for Hermes, either. Soon as they found out this was a kid, and that they didn’t get to lean on a grown pagan, they didn’t hang around. Soon as the cops had gone, the media went off too, back to the Black Lion. None of them came to the house.

Robin peeled off his sodden T-shirt, towelled himself dry, stood in front of the cheery fire with a bath towel around his shoulders.

‘They’ll be back tomorrow night,’ George said with a good lashing of relish, ‘when we’re in the church. And this time there’ll be hundreds of them. It’s going to get really, really interesting, man.’

Robin said, ‘Did she call?’

‘Betty? Er, no.’

‘That car’s old, Robin,’ Vivvie said. ‘Maybe it’s just broken down.’

‘I listened to the weather forecast,’ George said. ‘The rain’s likely to have passed by morning. It’ll get colder, but tomorrow looks like being dry, so we’ll have all day to prepare the site.’

Robin shivered under the towel. ‘You guys don’t get it, do you? This is not gonna happen without Betty. If Betty doesn’t come back... no Imbolc.’

‘You’re tired, man,’ George said.

‘She will come back,’ Vivvie promised with intensity. ‘She won’t want to miss this.’ Her eyes glowed. ‘Imbolc... the glimmering of spring. This really is the start of an era. This is history. Like Max was saying while you were outside, it’s going to be the biggest thing since the Reformation. But whereas that was just Henry VIII plundering the riches of the Catholic Church, this is about the disintegration and decay of pride and vanity... and the regrowth of something pure and organic in the ruins. This is so beautifully symbolic, I want to cry.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ Robin said. ‘I’m starting not to give a shit.’