Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels

Old man Powell. This made it two suicides, if you included the hanged minister, Wil Williams. At least two. A place to stay out of, if you were that way inclined. He’d been amazed to find himself following Colette Cassidy into the heart of it last Saturday night. He hadn’t had time to think.

But he was thinking now. Thinking hard. Thinking, You have to do this. You have to keep fighting back.

Against Karl. Dennis behind him now – reluctantly, of course. Dennis was a nice guy. Karl Windling wasn’t. Karl wouldn’t give up. He’d come again to the cottage. And when Karl had finally exhausted his limited powers of persuasion, when he realized there was nothing else to be done, nothing to lose, nothing to gain, he would become destructive. His pride would demand it.

Lol walked on, becoming increasingly depressed. All this blossom, promising apples. The only harvest last year had been logs from dead and dying trees. Last winter, he and Alison had bought a trailer-load of apple logs from the Powells. On the wood-burner, with the doors open, it had perfumed the whole room. No logs like apple logs for perfume; if traditional Christmas cards were scented, this was how they’d smell.

Lol had wanted to make love with Alison on the rug beside the stove at Christmas, but it had never happened.

How she’d changed. How classy she looked in her dark-blue riding gear, very point-to-point. Classy, but not sexy. Too militaristic.

When he turned round, the cottage had vanished into a tangle of white-dusted trees. Soon, he’d reach the so-called Apple Tree Man, where he and Colette had found Jane. It would be today’s test to get that far on his own, to touch the Man’s scabby bark. And then he’d turn and go back.

Clouds had gathered and the sky was nearly white, with holes of wet sunlight and veins like cheese mould. The trees closer packed, their blossom exploding around him, like a flour bomb; whichever way he turned it was the same, and even though there was no breeze, the whiteness seemed to swirl. He felt disoriented, but he wouldn’t stop. A battle against himself. He moved on through the warm, windless snowstorm. When he looked up, the blossom and sky absorbed each other and floated down around him like a crinkling shroud; he didn’t like that, looked down at the ground.

Where he saw, God help him, the girl lying across the path. Apple blossom around her face, like lace.

‘OH, HI,’ COLETTE Cassidy said without enthusiasm. ‘You want to talk to my father?’

Merrily’s heart plunged. The girl shouldn’t be here. She should be somewhere – anywhere – forbidden. With Jane Watkins.

‘Because he’s out,’ Colette said.

She had a luscious, sulky mouth, which seemed to be all there was under heavy, mid-brown hair. She had in abundance what you could only call Attitude. Merrily saw in Colette a lot of things she’d never seen in Jane. Yet.

The girl leaned inside the doorway of Cassidy’s Country Kitchen, arms folded, long denim legs straight. It was a wide doorway, built into what had evidently been the bay of a barn. Colette hardly barred the way, but there was a certain type of customer her presence would deter. And probably another type it would attract.

‘Colette, where’s Jane?’

Colette shrugged. ‘I should know?’

‘I hoped you would, yeah.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ Colette said. ‘Sorry.’

Through the flower transfers on the high, glass doors, Merrily saw Caroline Cassidy scurrying across the delicatessen. Caroline spotted her and changed direction.

‘You’re sure?’ Merrily said.

‘I wouldn’t lie to you, Vicar,’ Colette gave her a Nutra-sweet smile as Caroline came out. Tipping a glance at her mother that said, At least, not like I lie to her.

‘Merrily!’ Caroline wore a kind of milkmaid dress with gingham sleeves; only true townies dressed like this. ‘We’ve been dying for you to come ...’

‘Hello, Caroline.’

‘... but I said to Terrence, for God’s sake don’t pressure the girl, she’s far too much on her plate to worry about our little festival.’

Throwing her all into a smile of sympathy and true compassion. Right now, it almost helped.

‘I was just asking your daughter if she’d seen Jane.’

Caroline’s face hardened. ‘Colette?’

‘No, I haven’t.’ Colette levered herself upright. ‘I really haven’t, OK? I mean, like, what is this, for Christ’s sake? Just because we went out once and got a tiny bit pissed, everybody thinks we’re on some kind of permanent pub crawl. I saw Jane for a few minutes last night and I haven’t seen her since, OK?’

‘Colette, two coffees. Go.’ Caroline pushed her daughter through the doors, turned back to Merrily. ‘Is there a problem here? When did you last see her?’

‘This morning. When she left for school.’

‘Oh, yes, she goes to that ... comprehensive. Isn’t there a special bus?’

‘She wasn’t on it.’

Caroline shook her head with a jingle of earrings. ‘Teenage girls are so utterly thoughtless. She’s probably stayed behind to play tennis or something.’

‘You think so?’ For a moment, Merrily clutched at it. Caroline Cassidy was perhaps twelve years older, she had a very difficult daughter; this must have taught her something. She took Merrily by an arm.

‘Come and have that coffee. You’ve been very lucky with Jane if this is the first time she’s done this to you. Look, why don’t you ring the school from here? There’s always someone around these places for hours.’

‘No, it ...’ It came down on Merrily that, according to the cider-swigging youth, Jane hadn’t even taken the bus this morning. How long, she wondered despairingly, were you supposed to wait before you called the police?

Caroline Cassidy propelled her inside, sat her at one of three empty tables in the deli, went back to the door and turned over the laminated closed sign.

‘You know, teenagers, much more than children, have a problem moving to a new place.’

‘She’s done it several times,’ Merrily said. ‘OK, she was unhappy about it at first, but lately she’s been fine. More or less.’

‘Is there anyone she knows, locally, apart from Colette?’

‘Nobody ...’ She thought of this man, Lol. She’d been remiss; she ought to have checked him out. ‘Nobody special. Look, I’m sorry, I’m probably worrying about nothing, but didn’t a girl go missing from Kingsland or somewhere a few months ago: Petra ...?’

‘Good, I think. Petra Good. But that was back in the winter. Look, Merrily—’

‘And they haven’t found her, have they?’

‘My dear, you won’t find many parts of the country where there isn’t a girl missing. That doesn’t mean— Colette, isn’t that coffee ready yet?’

Merrily said, ‘Do you know Lol Robinson?’

Caroline sniffed. ‘Works for her, sometimes. Miss Devenish. Odd little man. Alison Kinnersley, James Bull-Davies’s ... partner ... she used to live with Robinson. They bought the Timlins’ cottage in Blackberry Lane – old couple, he died, she went into a home. Hadn’t been there more than a few months and Alison’d taken up with James. One suspects there could be a drug problem.’

‘ What? ’ Merrily’s fingers tightened on the seat of the rustic, wooden chair.

Caroline’s look was penetrating. ‘Jane knows him?’

‘She had one of his records, that’s all.’

‘Aw, look ...’ Colette dumped two coffees, with cartons of cream. ‘He’s harmless. He’s just screwed up is all’

Her mother looked up sharply.

‘Look,’ Colette said, ‘we’ve all been round there. At first, you think like, wow, a rock musician, and you’re expecting him to have his own studio and cool people around, but he’s like ... like he could be a bank clerk or something. One old guitar. Anyway, he’s all messed up over Alison. He won’t stay around here. Or, if he does, he’ll like OD or something.’