Phil Rickman - The Remains of an Altar

The voices, male and female, poured down like a slow fountain.

‘It’s… Gregorian chant?’ Lol said.

‘I don’t know. I mean, that’s…’

‘Something like that, maybe. It’s certainly Latin.’

‘But that’s… I know things aren’t as hard and fast these days… but this is an Anglican church.’

Lol shrugged.

‘You want to go in?’

‘Better deal with what we came for.’

Merrily unfolded the order-of-service for a funeral, on which Syd Spicer had written the names and addresses, beginning with Tim Loste, Caractacus Cottage. Down the road, past the Rectory.

‘He’s got to be conducting it, hasn’t he?’

‘Hell of a choir for a village this size,’ Lol said.

‘A village where, according to the Rector, people don’t even talk to each other much. So, like, they just sing? Why didn’t Spicer tell me Loste wouldn’t be available tonight?’

‘I don’t suppose he knew you were coming. How far away are the others?’

‘Chairman of the parish council has a farm about half a mile away. I was going to save him till last, as he apparently hasn’t yet claimed to have seen anything. The other’s a Mrs Cobham. Converted barn. Two minutes’ walk, according to Spicer. Call that ten for the likes of us.’

‘He was in the SAS?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Is it common for an ex-SAS man to go into the Church?’

‘Church welcomes hard men. Good for the image. Bit of balance.’

They walked through the cutting, past Hannah Bradley’s cottage. No sign of Hannah. Although there was nobody about, Merrily felt conspicuous and zipped up her thin black fleece over her dog collar. Now the road was curving away around a hill defined by ascending houses and bungalows, several of them hidden behind conifer walls.

‘How about for him?’ Lol said. ‘Not a bit tame?’

‘We have people in the C of E make the Taliban look like a tennis club.’ Merrily stopped, looked up the hill. ‘Do you think that ’s it?’

The barn-conversion was set back from the lane, its bay filled with plate-glass panels, mirrors of gold in the early-evening light. Expensive. The new gravel driveway had been given a curving route to make it seem longer, maples planted in careful stockades either side of it. A white Mercedes 4?4 sat at the top, outside the oak front door.

‘This is the woman whose car apparently went out of control and hit a camper van.’

But, again, there was nobody in. Merrily felt that, even before Lol let the knocker fall twice against its steel plate, the clunks echoing inside the barn like footsteps in an empty ballroom. She stepped back.

‘Not my night, obviously.’

‘Maybe it’s the wrong house.’

‘So which other one couldn’t we miss?’

Lol knocked again.

‘Maybe they’re in the choir.’

‘A whole village of brilliant, classically trained singers?’

Merrily moved back towards the lane which, beyond the barn, became a dirt track.

‘It’s like someone we can’t see is laughing at us.’

Maybe Syd Spicer. Maybe the Rector of Wychehill was laughing at them. Laughing silently, lying in some ditch, covered with branches, his face streaked with dark mud, like in the old days.

He should be here, as back-up. The protocol was that the local priest came with you, the first time, didn’t just throw the addresses at you and leave you to get on with it.

Merrily went to the edge of the lane and looked down into a bucolic kaleidoscope: swirls of woodland and cider-apple orchards and maybe vineyards, around sheep fields which glowed like emerald and amber stained glass as the sun began its scenic dive into the Black Mountains forty miles away.

By the time they’d walked back towards the church, the chant had stopped.

‘Maybe the whole community turns out to listen.’ Lol walked into the entrance, along the gravel path bordered with yew trees, turning to look back at Merrily. ‘You’re allowed.’

‘I don’t know that I am, to be quite-’

‘Pardon me?’

A blur of movement. Merrily turned slowly. A woman had appeared out of the trees by the entrance. She wore a pale sleeveless dress so long that it completely covered her feet, and it seemed somehow as if she’d risen from the ground.

‘You’re looking for someone?’

‘Well, we-’

‘Is there a concert on?’

Lol had wandered back. The woman smiled at him.

‘Choir practice, is all.’

She had a loose, wide mouth and big, deep-sunk eyes that seemed swirlingly aglow.

‘You’re in the choir?’

‘I don’t sing, although I have an interest. I was taking some air during the break. I live in a cottage back there. Wyche Cottage? Like the Wyche in Wychehill, which means salt, only, the real-estate guy in Ledbury, when he told me the name on the phone, I thought it was witch , and I’m like… woooh.’

She shook her tumble of brown curls.

‘Disappointing, really,’ Lol said.

‘How so?’

‘That it just means salt.’

‘Yeah. I guess. I changed it, anyway. Starlight Cottage now. Look-’

She came forward, stumbling over the dusty hem of her dress, coming up very close to Lol and peering at him. Contact lenses, Merrily thought.

‘Pardon me,’ the woman said to Lol, ‘I don’t want to appear… but I think I know who you are?’

He took a pace back. Occasionally he was recognized, usually by someone who’d bought a Hazey Jane album nearly twenty years ago and was mildly pleased that he hadn’t killed himself like Nick Drake. He never relished it.

‘OK…’ The woman gazed hard at Lol. ‘Listen, I may have this totally wrong, but see, I’m not so stupid. I was expecting an old guy in a big hat with like a black bag, and it’s no business of mine, really, but you should know that some people in this place are just a little crazy.’

‘How so?’ Lol said.

‘Not so simple. Like, you’re talking about something, you know, sacred?’ She looked down and brushed a leaf from her dress. ‘I’m sorry. This is not my place. But there’s something here that must never be parted, you know what I’m saying? Like, you can walk out on the hills at twilight and you can sense his nearness. It’s a strange and awesome thing.’

‘Yes,’ Lol said. ‘I can imagine it would be.’

‘So, like, you know, I mean no disrespect here, but the whole idea of exorcizing this… wonderful, magical thing – from the Malvern Hills, of all places – that’s gotta be a bone of contention, right?’

This was the third time they’d stood outside a front door getting no response, but Merrily had heard the radio playing inside the house and she kept her finger on the bell.

It was still more than a minute before the door opened and Spicer stood there, unsmiling, in jeans and a black clerical shirt.

‘A word, Syd.’

He stared at her without expression, then looked at Lol. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, as if he’d been dealing with one of those household tasks he performed privately to prove he had no need of outside help.

‘ Why didn’t you tell me?’

She’d pulled down the zip of her fleece to reveal the collar, show him she was kitted out this time.

Spicer said, ‘Who’s your friend?’

‘I realize local loyalty is a good thing,’ Merrily said, ‘and crucial for a parish priest, I accept that. But there’s also the question of loyalty between people who share a… a calling? So you give me half a story, set me up to appear in front of the entire parish-’

‘It won’t be the entire parish. It won’t even be half the parish. Who’s your friend?’ he asked again.

‘This is Lol Robinson. He’s standing in as witness, back-up, second opinion. All the roles normally filled by the particular parish priest who’s requested assistance. If the parish priest can be bothered.’