Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

‘What do you think it is?’

Jane pulled out a thin sheaf of printouts.

‘Kali Three.’

She read about her mother and her father.

At home with a young child, Merrily Watkins was horrified to discover that her husband was ‘representing’ Gerald McConnell, a West Midlands businessman who would later be jailed for four years for fraud and money-laundering. It was this...

Jane looked across at Eirion. She felt embarrassed.

Eirion drove serenely on. ‘There but for the grace of God, Jane. When my father was on the board of the Welsh Development Agency... Never mind, he’d have been out by now even if the charges had stuck.’

‘You’re just saying that to make me feel better.’

‘I wish. Read the other stuff, on Bain and his old man. Start at the top of page five.’

Jane read:

Ned was ten years old when his mother, Edward Bainbridge’s first wife, Susan, walked out on her husband. They were quietly divorced and, soon afterwards, Bainbridge formed a relationship with Mrs Frances Wesson, the widow of a chaplain at his college. Mrs Wesson had remained a strong, even fanatical Christian, although the extent of this did not become apparent to Bainbridge or his son until after the marriage.

Strange how formally this was written. Like out of a real biography, not the usual chatty crap you got off the Net. It drew you into what, even though it was then the mid-1970s, seemed like a Victorian kind of world.

Thus Ned entered his teenage years in a stifling High Church household dominated by the beautiful but austere Frances Wesson, whose own two children seemed to be accorded special privileges. To please his new wife, Bainbridge, hitherto a lukewarm Christian at most, began to attend church services twice every Sunday. Ned was soon glad to be sent away to public school, where he was free to pursue an interest in subjects which would certainly have been forbidden at home.

During school holidays, he became aware of his father’s slide into depression. Edward Bainbridge had given up writing poetry after his latest volume had been derided as maudlin, self-pitying and, indeed, pitifully inept. Unsurprisingly, his academic reputation was crumbling and his drinking had become a problem. All of this was concurrent with the dissolution of the Bainbridge marriage, with the couple living increasingly separate lives. If Edward now no longer attended church, his wife had inflicted all its trappings and symbolism on what remained of their domestic life. The house in Oxford had become heavy with icons and crucifixes; its drawing room had a constant and pervading smell of incense, and Frances had even set up a private chapel in a pantry next to the kitchen.

The summer of 1975 brought a severe and life-changing shock for Ned. Edward Bainbridge’s brother, David, arrived at the school to break the news that his father was dead. Ned learned, to his horror, that his father had bled to death on the floor of the private chapel, and that his stepmother had already been charged with murder.

Some days later, to the eighteen-year-old Ned’s outrage, the charge was reduced to manslaughter, to which Frances Bainbridge had agreed to plead guilty. There was, she had claimed, a strong element of self-defence. According to Mrs Bainbridge, her husband, who had been drinking heavily for most of the day, had come hammering on the door of the chapel while she was at prayer and, when she refused to admit him, had kicked in the door, burst into the tiny chapel and proceeded to tear down drapes and overturn the altar. When she screamed at him to get out, he began to slash viciously with a kitchen knife at a Victorian picture of Christ, until he stumbled and dropped the knife – whereupon Mrs Bainbridge snatched it up. Edward Bainbridge then attacked his wife, tearing at her dress, and in her struggle to get away she stabbed him fatally in the throat.

The original murder charge was reduced to manslaughter after Frances Bainbridge’s description of the events – somewhat unconvincing to Ned – was supported by her son Simon, aged fifteen, and her twelve-year-old daughter Madeleine, both of whom said they had witnessed the struggle. Frances Bainbridge pleaded guilty to manslaughter, but walked free from the court after being given a two-year suspended sentence because of the mitigating circumstances.

Ned Bainbridge returned to school to sit his A levels before going up to Oxford, to his father’s old college where, with fellow students, he formed his first coven.

Eirion drove into Hereford via Whitecross. ‘Quite a significant family skeleton, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘You can understand that guy not being over-fond of the Church.’

GREG HAD SHAVED. He wore a clean shirt. He stood in the back doorway at the end of the yard and made rapid wiping movements with his arms.

‘No, no, no .’

Merrily stopped about four yards away. ‘She’s worse?’

‘She’s better,’ Greg said. ‘That’s the point, innit? I’m grateful for you taking the witch away and everyfing, but I’m not having you upsetting my wife.’

The day, like Greg, had hardened up. Merrily dug her hands into the pockets of Jane’s much-borrowed duffel coat. She nodded, resigned, looking down at all the crushed glass ground into the pitted concrete yard.

‘I’m sorry, Reverend,’ Greg said. ‘I said I’d ask her if she’d talk to you, but I didn’t in the end. I don’t want noffink bringing it back. These past two days – bleedin’ nightmare. You understand, don’t you?’

‘You think she’s coming out of it?’

‘She’s talking to me. That’s enough for now.’

‘Right, well...’ Merrily shrugged. ‘Thank you. I’ll see you, Greg.’

It was nearly eleven a.m. Martyn Kinsey, of BBC Wales, had spotted her going into the yard, and given her a conspiratorial wink. Martyn was going to be her last resort, if she got nowhere with Marianne Starkey. Martyn Kinsey and a big, unchristian lie: Entirely off the record, the diocese has received two complaints, of a very serious nature, against Father Nicholas Ellis. Yes, of course from women.

Last resort, though.

Merrily had reached the entrance to the alley which led from the Black Lion yard to the village when she heard the wobble and slide of a sash window. ‘Who’s this?’ a woman called down.

‘’S all right,’ Greg rasped. ‘I dealt wiv it. Just go back and siddown, willya?’

‘Hey!’ Marianne leaned out of the upstairs window. ‘I saw you, din’ I?’

Merrily paused. Please, God ...

‘Inna toilets,’ Marianne said, ‘with Judy Prosser. ’Cept you was wearing a... whatsit round your neck.’

Merrily put a hand to her throat. ‘Day off today.’

Greg said nervously, ‘Marianne, just leave it, yeah?’

‘You wanna cuppa tea, love?’

‘That would be really very nice,’ Merrily said. ‘It’s quite cold again today, isn’t it?’

Greg hung around, restive, breathing down his nose. Marianne waved him away. ‘It’ll be OK. You go and replace your kegs.’

They were upstairs in the living room of the flat above the pub. The furniture looked inexpensive, but it was all newish, as if they’d ditched all their old stuff when they moved here. For a bright new start.

Greg waved a finger at his wife. ‘You just say what you wanna say.’

Marianne was in a cream towelling robe, and she wore no make-up. She slid back into a big lemon sofa opposite the television. The sound was turned down on two young women ranting at Robert Kilroy-Silk.

‘Slept late,’ Marianne said. ‘Must have a clear conscience.’

‘Good.’

‘You reckon it can really do that? Wipe the slate clean?’