Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

‘Now we’re getting to it,’ Merrily said.

‘ Are we, Mrs Watkins?’

Merrily tried to sit up in the chair. She felt like a child. Around the walls were dozens of photographs, mostly of men wearing chains of office, although a group of more recent ones showed boys with motorbikes and trophies.

‘What are “we” getting to?’ Judith leaned back, arms folded.

‘The question of Old Hindwell preferring to do its own thing. Which is kind of admirable in one sense, I suppose.’

Judith reared up. ‘It is entirely admirable, my girl. This is an independent part of the world. What do we need with the mandarins in Cardiff and London and Canterbury? The English. Even the Welshies... they all think they can come out yere and do what they like. When Councillor Prosser was on the old Radnor District Council, they used to have to employ young officials, trotting out their fancy ideas – hippies and vegetarians, half of them. It was, “Oh, you can’t build there ... you have to use this colour of slate on your roofs... you can’t do this , you can’t do that .” Well, they were put in their place soon enough. The local people, it is, who decides. We know what’s needed, we know what works. And Father Ellis, even though he’s not from yere, is a man with old values and a clear, straightforward, practical approach, based on tradition. He understands tradition.’

Merrily was tired of this. ‘How many people has he exorcized so far?’

‘I can tell you that all of them have come freely to him and asked for it to be done.’

‘Like your son?’

A pause. ‘Gomer Parry again, I suppose.’

‘Doesn’t matter where it came from. I just wondered if your son actually went along to Ellis and asked to be cleansed of the taking-and-driving-away demon.’

‘His parents took him.’ Judith scowled. ‘Another problem in today’s world is that parents don’t take responsibility. We took him to Father Ellis, Councillor Prosser and I. It was our duty.’

‘And you really think he had a demon inside him that demanded the full casting-out bit?’

‘Oh... Mrs... Watkins...’ Exasperated, Judith stood and went to lean an arm on the high mantelpiece. ‘They all have demons in them, whether it’s mischievous imps or worse. In the old days, the demons were beaten out of them at school. Now, if a teacher raises a hand to a child, he’s in court for assault, and nothing the poor magistrate can do to help him.’

‘I see.’ There was an awful logic to this: exorcism as a tool of public order. Evidently the local women had decided that the wanton demon in Marianne Starkey – which perhaps made some local men a little restless, a touch frisky – should be eradicated before it led to trouble. Marianne’s reaction to the male witch adding a piquantly topical flavour to the exercise.

‘Menna,’ Merrily said. ‘What about Menna?’

Judith brought her arm slowly down to her side, stiffening ever so slightly.

‘Judith, did Menna herself go to Father Ellis and beg for exorcism, to get rid of the molesting spirit of Mervyn Thomas?’

Judith was silent.

‘Or was it J.W.’s idea? In his role as husband. And father figure.’

Judith said, eyes unmoving, ‘How do you know she was cleansed?’

‘Wasn’t she?’

‘Is that any business of yours or mine?’ First sign of a significant loss of cool. ‘What would I know about the private affairs of Mr and Mrs J.W. Weal? Was I supposed to be her guardian and her keeper all her life?’

‘You were obviously still concerned about her. You went to visit her regularly. You were still, by all accounts, her only real friend. You were the best person to realize she was... still a victim.’

‘He loved her!’

‘He suffocated her, Mrs Prosser. When she was in hospital, he tended her, he washed her, hardly let the nurses near her. I saw him with a bowl of water, as if he was baptizing her all over again. As if he was somehow confirming and reinforcing what Father Ellis had done.’

‘You see everything, don’t you?’

‘Look, I just happened to be there, with Gomer the night his Minnie died. J.W. was like a priest, giving his wife the last rites. But she was already dead. Ellis said at the funeral that he’d baptized them together. Was that a public thing? Were you present?’

Judith came away from the fireplace. There was a large, iron coal stove in it, closed up. She walked to the small window and stood looking out. She was thinking. And she evidently did not want Merrily to see her thinking.

‘No,’ she said eventually. ‘No, I was not there, as such.’

‘Am I right in thinking that Menna was still felt to be... possessed, if you like, by her father?’

‘He was not a pleasant man,’ Judith said.

And did you get Menna on the Pill from an early age because you were afraid that what happened to Barbara might happen to her, too? Merrily didn’t ask that. It perhaps didn’t need asking, not right now.

‘You couldn’t really be sure that Merv was leaving her alone, could you?’

Judith didn’t reply.

‘And whatever he was like, she was still dependent on him. Dependent on a strong man? Which Weal realized, and lost no time in exploiting.’

Judith kept on looking out of the window. ‘He was too old for her, yes. Too rigid in his ways, perhaps. But she was a flimsy, delicate thing. She would always need protection. She was never going to have much of a life with Jeffery, but she would at least be protected.’

‘Like a moth in a jar,’ Merrily said – and Judith turned sharply around. Merrily met her clear gaze. ‘When exactly did you begin to think that J.W. Weal, in his way, might be as bad for Menna as her father had been?’

‘It was not my business any more.’

‘Oh come on, you’d known that girl all her life. Did it really not occur to you that Weal might think he was somehow still in competition with the dead Mervyn Thomas for Menna’s affections? If that’s the right word? That maybe he didn’t think he was getting... everything he was entitled to.’

Judith came back to the fireplace. ‘Who is this going to help now?’

Merrily thought back to Barbara Buckingham. Possession is nine points of the law. Perhaps there was still a chance to help Barbara.

But that wouldn’t matter much to Judith Prosser.

‘Menna,’ Merrily said softly. ‘Perhaps it will help Menna.’

And so it came out.

The big room at the back of the house. The dining room in which probably no one ever dined. The bay-windowed room with rearing shadows. The room facing the mausoleum.

‘This was where it was actually done?’ Merrily said. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Because I watched, of course. I stood in the garden and I spied, just as you did on the night of Menna’s funeral. I was in our yard when I saw Father Ellis’s car go past slowly. I followed on foot. I saw him enter the old rectory with the medical bag he carries for such occasions. It was towards evening. I saw Menna dressed in white. I saw Father Ellis. I did not see Jeffery.’

Something had snapped. Something had fallen into place. Perhaps something which, even to a local person , was no longer defensible.

Merrily said cautiously, ‘And did what happened bear comparison with what took place at the village hall yesterday?’

‘I don’t know,’ Judith said. ‘It was not possible to see what was happening below the level of the window.’

Merrily’s palms were damp. ‘You’re saying she was on the floor at some point?’

‘I’m saying she wasn’t visible.’