Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels

‘What is it?’

‘Supermarket cider, boy. Pop. Not quite cheap muck, not far off. This never come out o’ the ole Powell cider house, the Bull cider house as was, I’d stake my JCB on it. They bought this in, knowing poor bloody Cassidy and his flash friends wouldn’t know the difference if it come out of a fancy bottle. Now why they done that?’

‘That’s a mystery,’ Lol said dubiously.

‘Aye.’ Gomer’s glasses gleamed. ‘Another bloody mystery, boy. You might reckon that en’t got nothin’ to do with nothin’. But cider, as Lucy used to say, was the lifeblood of Ledwardine. This is central, boy. Central’

‘I know I’m not thinking too well tonight,’ Lol said, ‘but I don’t see where this is going.’

‘Nor me,’ said Gomer. ‘Not yet. But it all smells off. We looks at things and we draws conclusions and sometimes they’re wrong – like the vicar sees all these coppers movin’ in on the church and she reckons they’re after you. I think there’s summat else afoot, but we’ll have to wait and see, isn’t it?’

‘Except we don’t have time to wait,’ Lol said. ‘Merrily’s playing it by ear in there, Bull-Davies is planning to get it stopped and drive her out of the village for good, and a lot of things are ... closing in, you know?’

‘Ar,’ Gomer said.

They stood there in Lucy’s living room, two little guys in glasses who wanted to help and didn’t know how. Eventually Lol said, ‘You know anything about Wil Williams, Gomer?’

‘Not a lot.’

‘Thomas Traherne?’

‘Know Lucy was keen on the feller. That’s about it.’

Lol looked across at the framed photograph of Lucy and a young, blonde woman feeding a pony from a bucket.

‘Patricia Young?’

Gomer thought for a moment. ‘No.’

‘Susannah Hopton?’

Gomer shook his head.

Lol picked up Mrs Leather, opened it to the handwritten notes on the inside back cover. ‘Hannah Snell?’

‘Ar.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Hannah Snell,’ Gomer said. ‘I know who she is, all right.’ He cleared his throat and began to sing in a tuneless tenor.

‘ All ye noble British spirits

That midst dangers glory sought

Let it lessen not your merit

That a woman bravely fought ... ’

Gomer beamed. ‘Thought you was some sort o’ folk singer, Lol. You en’t never yeard that? My ole gran used to sing me that as a nipper. Hannah Snell. Bugger me, that takes me back.’

‘Tell me,’ Lol said. ‘ Tell me.’

When Gomer had finished, he said, ‘Tell Merrily.’ And ‘Christ.’

James Bull-Davies came almost languidly to his feet.

‘So.’ He leaned forward, both hands on the rim of the prayer-book rack. ‘You’re suggesting my ancestor was, ah ... gay.’

Stefan Alder stood defiantly in front of the pulpit.

‘He was in love with me.’

‘Gord’s sake, man, do we have to have this bloody playacting?’ His voice filled the church. ‘You make accusations about my family, you don’t hide behind bloody Wil Williams. You, Stefan Alder, are saying Thomas Bull was a poofter. Correct?’

‘That’s not a word I would use.’

‘I’m sorry. A homosexual. This man with four children.’

‘It doesn’t make any difference. You must know that.’

‘But that’s what you’re alleging. Come on, man, you can’t libel the dead, spit it out.’

‘All right. I believe that Tom Bull had a physical relationship with the Priest of Ledwardine and when there was a danger that it would become a matter of general knowledge in the village, in his family, in the courts where he presided, he sought to have Wil condemned as a witch. He had a neighbouring farmer accuse Wil of diminishing the productivity of his orchard. He had a local artisan who was dependent on his patronage invent a story about him dancing with sprites, or even ...’

Stefan glanced around his silent congregation.

‘Don’t stop, Alder,’ Bull-Davies said. ‘We’re all agog.’

‘... or even paid some of the local youths to disport themselves naked in the orchard to torment poor Wil beyond his powers of endurance.’

Murmurs of disbelief and disapproval, mostly from the northern aisle.

Bull-Davies sighed. ‘Went to an awful lot of trouble, didn’t he?’

Stefan had been too long in the light. His hair was damp and darkened, his shirt hung limp and grey with sweat.

‘What I find most objectionable, is your slur on the integrity of the man.’

‘You don’t understand.’ Stefan’s face streamed. He refused to move out of the light. ‘I do think Tom believed in what he was doing. He convinced himself that Wil Williams had occult powers. How else could he, a Bull, possibly fall in love with a man? Unless that man had bewitched him.’

A hush. Merrily saw James’s hands tighten on the prayerbook shelf of the Bull family pew. Very slowly, James straightened up and walked out of the pew and into the well below the pulpit, stopping two yards from Stefan Alder.

‘And on what,’ he said, with a clear menace, ‘do you base your evidence?’

Stefan didn’t move. ‘He kept a journal, did he not?’

‘And you, of course, have seen this journal?’

‘You know I cannot possibly have seen it, as your family keeps it in a bank vault in Hereford.’

Murmurs in the pews.

‘And unless and until you are prepared to produce this journal, you’re in no position even to pretend to refute any of what I’ve said. Are you?’

James said confidently, ‘There is no journal relating to your spurious allegations in any bank vault, to my knowledge, in Hereford or anywhere else.’

They faced one another at the end of the tunnel of light, James heavy in tweeds making Stefan look even more pale and fragile. Somebody should stop the fight, Merrily thought absurdly.

‘So you’ve taken it out of the bank, have you?’

Stefan stared into James’s eyes, his body arching towards the big soldier, his hands weaving in the light in an almost womanly distress. When he spoke again it was in a soft, imploring voice.

‘Please tell us the truth, James ... Please don’t hold back any more ... You know that Tom, before he died, made a confession to the then priest, together with an enormous donation to the church in order that his body might lie where it lies now – behind me – in the area between the altar and the orchard where his beloved Wil lay, in unhallowed ground; a man who took his own life rather than face conviction for the crime of being gay. Conviction – and betrayal – at the hands of a dishonest man and a false lover, who—’

‘You ... little ... shit ...’ With a roar James was on him and the church exploded into light. Some women on the left screamed, men in the centre were on their feet.

Blinded by the glare, Merrily threw both hands up to her eyes and through the fingers saw figures converging on the threshing bodies below the rood screen. She stumbled down the aisle towards them, aware of Annie Howe striding in front of her. Scrambling up the steps under the chancel arch she saw policemen holding back Bull-Davies and Stefan Alder, and she filled her lungs and screamed out, ‘In the name of God, stop this!’

And for a moment, there was quiet.

Annie Howe looked up at Merrily and smiled pleasantly. ‘Thank you, Ms Watkins.’

The two detectives holding James Bull-Davies let him go and James stepped away from them, brushed down his jacket and straightened up and stood quite stiffly, looking directly across the nave at nobody.

The detective holding Stefan did not let him go. It was Mumford. Stefan sullenly tossed his head back against Mumford’s shoulder. Mumford went rigid. Annie Howe said, ‘Bernard Stephen Alderson, I’m arresting you for the murder of Richard Coffey. You don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you fail to mention —’