Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels

‘Just go on talking,’ Merrily said. ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve heard enough.’

Oh God, but it made terrible sense. It’s sorted, Stefan had said. Richard won’t be having anything to do with this.

Because Richard had died a bloody but not protracted death in the living room of Upper Hall lodge, under repeated blows from a blunt instrument. Merrily pictured some statuette of a nude biblical male spattered with blood and brain.

It will be the performance of my life. Perhaps there won’t be another.

James Bull-Davies had discovered the body when he went to confront Coffey after learning about the proposed evening of drama cooked up by Stefan Alder and the vicar. The living-room curtains had been drawn, but on the front-door frame was a blatant and unavoidable handprint in blood. Bull-Davies had kicked the door in.

Stefan, it seemed, had made very little attempt to conceal the killing – a crime, very definitely, of passion, but the passion was for a man over three centuries dead. Perhaps, after tonight’s performance, he would have given himself up.

‘So why didn’t you just arrest the poor sod before the performance? Did the idea of an audience appeal to your—?’

‘Ms Watkins. I’m really not obliged to justify my choice of procedure to you, nor even to—’

‘It was James, wasn’t it? He wanted the entire village to know that the man attempting to defame his ancestry was not only a liar but a murderer. Or to conclude that, because he’s now revealed as a murderer, he must also be a liar.’

‘Inspector,’ Bull-Davies boomed from behind her, ‘as you so rightly say, you are under absolutely no obligation to defend your methods to this woman, who, in my view, is simply wasting police time. As she has wasted everyone else’s. She might also care to consider that had it not been for her irresponsible promotion of this impromptu fiasco, Richard Coffey would in all probability not have died.’

‘It’s not my place to say he’s right,’ Annie Howe said. ‘But I do have to go now. Nobody’s been permitted to leave yet, by the way, because we shall need the name and address of everyone here tonight. DC Thomas will stay and take them down.’

‘Why?’

‘Possible witnesses.’

‘To what? James’s assault on Stefan Alder?’

‘May I have a word in private, Ms Watkins?’

Merrily followed her down the central aisle, through a parted sea of appallingly excited faces, to the south porch.

‘Look,’ Howe said, ‘I’m still looking for Colette Cassidy. It’s possible that the death of Richard Coffey has absolutely no connection with that, but in a village this size it would be amazing if there wasn’t some kind of overlap, however peripheral. So that’s one reason I want to know precisely who is in this building.’

‘It’s a church.’

‘It’s just another public building to me.’

‘I thought you were looking for this ... Laurence Robinson.’

‘He’s one of the people we want to eliminate from our inquiries. Why, is he here?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Merrily said.

‘No? Well, I’m going back to Hereford now to talk to Mr Alder, but there will be other officers around should you wish to give them any information.’

‘A celebrity murder,’ Merrily said tonelessly. ‘Aren’t you lucky?’ It would sound grudging, mean-spirited. Distinctly unsaintly. ‘I need some air,’ she said.

Outside, she lit a cigarette and walked among the graves.

So that was it. All over.

Richard Coffey dead and his play stillborn. Stefan Alder destroyed. Wil Williams reburied in a deeper grave. The troublesome and ineffectual woman priest publicly discredited, last seen plucking feebly at the sleeve of the younger woman who took all the honours.

God and the Fates had conspired to make the world secure again for the Bulls of Ledwardine. Thank you, Lord.

And the pink moon shone down.

After a while, Merrily squeezed out the cigarette and went back into the church to find Jane and go home.

Wherever that was.

LLOYD LAUGHED. ‘JUST an ole ewe, Jane. Picked her up from the north field this afternoon, forgot she was still in the back. Second one just dropped dead in two days, you get weeks like that. No reason for it.’

A spent eye gazed past Jane, who shuddered, thinking of the ewe Lucy had run into, the one that killed her and itself. That was one of the Powells’, too, presumably.

The truck’s engine rattled into life. Lloyd threw it into gear, switched on his lights and pulled out.

The last time Jane had been on this road it was with Bella, the radio reporter, bound for King’s Oak Corner, where the police had found some of Colette’s clothing. She didn’t want to be on it again, heading for the spot where Lucy had died.

‘Why are we going up here?’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘The village is that way.’

‘Because the truck, he was pointing this way,’ Lloyd said, exasperated. ‘And it en’t a good road for doing a three-point turn in the dark. We got to carry on up yere a mile or so then reverse into Morgan’s yard, all right?’

‘Oh.’

Which meant they were going to pass the section where Lucy had hit the sheep. And then they’d have to pass it again, when Lloyd had turned round. He had no right to do this. Who was he anyway? Who did the Powells think they were? Generation after generation of boring councillors and self-righteous farmers who slagged off townies for never having shagged a sheep or whatever.

Sheep. She thought of the poor, lifeless ewe slung in the back of the truck and then, with a flush of anger, realized that if the Powells had been such brilliant farmers, Lucy would still be alive.

‘That was one of your sheep, wasn’t it, that Lucy Devenish hit?’

‘Like I said, two ewes gone in two days,’ Lloyd said.

It hadn’t been quite what he’d said, but Jane pressed on, not wanting to lose the impetus.

‘So where did it come from?’

‘I dunno. The field across from the orchard, presumably.’ He was driving with one hand on the wheel. His right elbow was resting on the ledge of his wound-down window. He looked pretty cool actually. One of the girls at school had said she’d tried to snog him once at a Young Farmers’ dance, but Lloyd had just kissed her limply and walked off like he had better fish to fry.

‘How did it get out?’

‘What you on about?’

‘The sheep.’

‘I got no idea, Jane.’

‘You would if you bothered to check your fences,’ Jane said tartly.

Lloyd eased off the accelerator. ‘What you mean by that?’

‘Next to a road like this, you should have decent fences and check them regularly. That way, sheep wouldn’t get out and run in front of people and cause accidents. It wasn’t the sheep’s fault, it was yours.’

She thought he’d be angry, and she didn’t care, but he seemed relieved, making a small sound that was almost a laugh.

‘You’re a cheeky little devil, Jane.’

‘And you’re just ... irresponsible,’ she said ineffectually.

The truck jolted to a standstill.

Jane looked out of the window for lights and saw none. ‘Why’ve you stopped?’

‘Morgan’s Yard. Morgan’s bloody yard, Jane.’

‘I can’t see anything.’

Lloyd sighed. ‘Morgan’s farm’s been derelict these past twenty years.’

He reversed quickly and carelessly, as though he’d done it a thousand times at night and then, with the car pointing at ninety degrees to the road, took his hands off the wheel.

‘Well, go on, then.’ Jane felt suddenly quite nervous of him. ‘Take me home.’

‘No,’ Lloyd said. ‘You got a bee in your bonnet about this Devenish business, I want it sorted.’