Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

Cullen broke off. There was the sound of someone calling from a distance, then Cullen said, ‘Two minutes, Josie, all right?’

‘Bloody hell,’ Merrily said, ‘don’t stop now.’

‘Ach, normal way of things you wouldn’t get this out of me with thumbscrews. All right. Weal goes out by one of the back doors near the consultants’ car park. You can get across the yard there to the temporary visitors’ car park. It’s the quickest way, if you don’t mind there being no lights. Which I wish to God there had’ve been, then I could’ve said it was a reflection.’

Merrily revved the engine to blow more heat into the Volvo.

‘I could still say it was,’ Cullen said defiantly. ‘I can say any damn thing I want to, as I’m an atheist. I do not believe in God, I do not believe in angels or demons.’

‘And you don’t believe what you saw. A lot of people say that. That’s OK.’

‘Feel free to be patronizing, Reverend. I’ve woken up about seven times in the night since then. Gets into me fockin’ dreams, the way you get a virus in your computer. And everything freezes on you.’

‘I know.’

‘Oh, you know everything, so you do!’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m standing in the doorway, just the other side of the big plastic doors, and I’m watching him walk across to the visitors’ car park, which is all but empty now. Nobody about but him and this... Jesus.’

Merrily’s eyes turned this way and that, determinedly counting nine candles in nine windows, banishing all wildly flickering thoughts of the old rectory garden, while Cullen kept her waiting.

Until, at last, over the sound of footsteps in the hospital corridor and a woman squealing, she whispered, ‘Just a hovering thing, you know? Like a light. Not a bright light... more kind of greyish, half there and half not. That’s as best as I can tell you. You could see it and then you couldn’t. But you knew... you bloody knew . I went very cold, Merrily. Very cold, you know?’

‘Mmm.’

‘And him... Oh, he knew it was there, all right. I swear to God he knew it was there. Twice, he looked back over his shoulder. I... Aw, hell, I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud. It made me go cold, you know?’

‘I do know,’ Merrily said.

GOMER WAS STANDING up at the bar with Greg Starkey, talking to him between other customers buying drinks. Greg glanced at Merrily through bloodshot eyes, trying to keep his voice muted, not succeeding.

‘I’m on eggshells, trying to run a boozer, while she’s up inna bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring into space. If I put a hand on her it’s like I’ve hit her, you know? Like she got no skin? That’s what it does to them, is it? A blessing?’

A blessing ? ‘How much did she tell you about it?’ Merrily asked.

‘Not a lot. I fought it was all gonna be “Praise the Lord” and that. I was geared up for that. Woulda been better than the battered wife routine. Who’s that bastard fink he is?’

‘Thinks he’s St Michael,’ Merrily said soberly. ‘Greg, do you think she’d talk to me? ’

‘I just told Gomer I’ll put it to her. Soon’s I get a minute, which could be closing time. How long you got?’

‘As long as it takes.’

‘I’ll do what I can. Yes , sir... Carlsberg, is that?’

Merrily beckoned Gomer back to the cold place nobody else wanted, near the door. She told him what she’d discussed with Eileen Cullen, about the reasons they figured J.W. Weal might have wanted Menna cleansed.

Gomer said shrewdly, ‘You reckon Barbara Thomas knew?’

‘About the baptism? It’s possible, isn’t it?’

The steamy light pooled in Gomer’s glasses. ‘Likely what Barbara Thomas found out got her killed then, ennit?’

‘Good God, Gomer!’

Gomer sniffed. ‘Reckoned I’d say it ’fore you did. Mind your back, vicar.’

A young woman had come in alone. She stood on the mat, shaking back wild, corn-coloured hair that somehow looked not only out of place in Old Hindwell, but out of season. She drew a breath, scanned the crowd in the bar and then walked through.

‘Until there’s a body,’ Merrily said, ‘she hasn’t been killed. Until there’s a body she isn’t dead.’

‘Who you got lined up for it, then? Big Weal ’isself?’

‘Shhhh!’

Gomer looked around, unconcerned. ‘He en’t yere.’

‘OK,’ Merrily whispered, ‘considered objectively, it seems ridiculous. I mean, if Barbara found out Weal arranged to have his wife exorcized by Ellis, as some kind of primitive pyschological therapy... well, he might not want that out in the open, but it’s only slightly dirty washing. And it is Christianity, of a sort. It’s no reason to kill somebody. And would he really expect to get away with it in a place like this?’

Gomer threw up his hands. ‘Place like this ? Nowhere bloody easier, vicar! Local people protects local people. Might keep any number o’ secrets from each other, but if they gets a threat from Off, they’ll close in real tight till it’s over and gone. They thought J.W. Weal had done it, they’d be happy to shovel shit over his tracks, ennit?’

‘The other thing that struck me,’ Merrily said, ‘is that the doctor who kept prescribing all that oestrogen that sent Menna’s blood pressure up...’

‘Dr Coll, eh? Now there’s a respected man.’

‘If Menna did develop dangerously high blood pressure, furred arteries, serious danger of fatal clotting, why didn’t he warn her? Why wasn’t he monitoring her? If she was on the Pill for... I don’t know, twenty years or more...’

Gomer said, ‘What you wanner do is you wanner talk to Judy. Proper, though. None o’ this circlin’ round each other. Talk to her straight.’

‘Tonight?’

‘As well as Mrs Starkey? Busy ole night you got lined up there.’

‘OK, tomorrow.’ She pulled out her cigarettes and then put them back. ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this. Why am I doing this, Gomer?’

‘Because... ’ang about.’ Gomer turned towards the bar. Merrily saw Greg Starkey frantically beckoning them over. ‘I think the boy wants you,’ Gomer said.

Greg opened the solid wooden gate in one side of the bar, to allow Merrily and Gomer through.

‘Just walks in like noffink’s happened, asks for a room for the night. Well, I’ve only got two rooms, ain’ I, and they’ve both gone to reporters. I can’t turn her away, but what if the wife comes out, nursing her Bible, and finds the bleedin’ spawn of Satan under a blanket on the settee?’

‘Gomer,’ Merrily said, ‘just don’t call me vicar in front of her, OK?’

Greg led them into the well-fitted kitchen with the tomato-red Aga. A woman stood next to it, gripping the chromium guard rail, as though she was on the deck of a small boat in a gale.

The night hag.

Couldn’t be more than late twenties. Pleated skirt, dark sweater, ski jacket, all that blond hair.

‘This is my friend,’ Greg said, ‘wiv the accommodation. Merrily Watkins.’

Merrily watched the young woman’s eyes. No recognition at all. Clearly not a Livenight viewer, not even that particularly relevant edition.

OK , she’d said to Greg, in a snap decision, just tell her I’m someone with a big house who does B and B sometimes.

B and B? Sanctuary? What a vicarage was for.

Good Samaritan. The good Samaritan, who went to the aid of someone from a different culture, a different ethos.

‘It’s only for one night,’ Betty Thorogood was saying. ‘Probably.’

‘And this is Gomer Parry,’ Greg said.