Phil Rickman - The Remains of an Altar

And barbed wire.

OK, there was no proof that anyone from the council was involved in this. But it was likely, at least, that the landowner had the support of the Establishment.

And they’d fenced off something they didn’t believe existed. They’d blockaded an idea.

Standing on the edge of the old orchard, Lol began to sense some of Jane’s feelings about Alfred Watkins, who stood for independence of thought. Well into his sixties, a respected local figure, when The Old Straight Track was published, and the archaeological establishment had immediately turned on him. A barrier had gone up, and it was still up.

Independence of thought. Always a crime in the eyes of the Establishment. Lol was starting to feel suffocated, as if the air had been turned into shrink-wrap, when Gomer Parry came ambling out of the orchard, an inch of roll-up gummed to his lips.

‘Lol, boy…’

Gomer extracted his ciggy, blew out a grey balloon of smoke. Lol wondered if a disused orchard was now classed as a public place where, although it might be entirely legal to light a massively carcinogenic bonfire, nobody was allowed to smoke.

Gomer nodded at the wire.

‘Janie seen this yet?’

‘What do you think?’

Gomer said, ‘What I think is, Lucy Devenish was still alive, she’d drag Lyndon Pierce yere by the scruff, make the bugger tear it down with his bare hands.’

Lol thought what a pity it was that this kind of organic, natural justice was purely the preserve of old ladies.

‘You think Pierce had something to do with this?’

Gomer’s shoulders twitched under his summer tweed jacket.

‘You know this guy Murray, who owns the land?’

‘By sight. Never worked for him. Big farm, and does his own drainage.’

Does his own drainage. Lowest of the low in the planthire world.

‘Knowed his auntie, though, Maggie Pole, her as left him the meadow. Nice lady. Always very fond o’ that meadow.’

‘I don’t think I knew her.’

‘Left before you was here, boy. Went to an old folks’ home, over towards Hay. Hardwicke.’

‘The Glades?’ Lol smiled. ‘I used to know somebody there. How do you mean, fond of the meadow?’

‘Used t’ be a bench near the gate, and her’d go and sit there sometimes on a nice day. Peaceful place, nobody disturbed her. That was all I remembered, but after Jane come over the other night, I went to see an ole boy name of Harold Wescott. Know him?’

Lol shook his head. Gomer pinched the ciggy from between his lips with his thumb and forefinger.

‘Gotter be over ninety, now, has Harold, but still got his own house. Can’t tell you what he had off the meals-on-wheels yesterday, but you wanner know about anything happened in Ledwardine fifty year ago, he’s your man. Anyway, Harold, he knowed Maggie Pole pretty well, and he remembers her was real careful who her let the meadow out to, for grass. Wouldn’t have no overgrazin’, no ploughin’ up. Said it was a piece o’ history.’

‘ Did she?’

‘Don’t get too excited, boy, wasn’t nothin’ to do with ley lines, far as Harold knows. ’Fact, he didn’t know nothin’ about ley lines. Not many of the old folks does. That was harchaeology – not for the likes of we.’

‘So why was the meadow a piece of history?’

‘Dunno. Harold reckoned it was Maggie’s mother used to go on about it. Maggie’s dad, ole Cyril Pole, he was a bit of a rough bugger, but her ma was a lady – real cultured, read books, had her own wind-up gramophone. Point is, Harold Wescott says Maggie told him her ma always said Coleman’s Meadow wasn’t to be touched.’

‘And it… you’re saying it was left to Maggie Pole on that basis?’

‘Sure t’be. But things get forgot, ennit? No kids, see, Maggie, never married, so that’s why it all went to the nephew and the niece. Niece got the money, this Murray had the ground.’

‘Did anybody else know the meadow wasn’t to be touched? Could be important, don’t you think?’

Gomer put the last inch of ciggy into his mouth, took a puff.

‘Hard to say, boy. Been all overgrown, round there, see, for a good while, since the orchard started goin’ to rot. Hell, aye, I’m sure some folks knowed, over the years, but mabbe they thought it best kept quiet about, like all these things. I’ll keep askin’ around. Where’s Janie now?’

‘My place. Should be at school, really, but she’s hiding from the papers and the TV. Not so sure any more that she’s got it right, you know? What are people saying in the village?’

‘Hippie thing,’ Gomer said. ‘That’s what they’re sayin’, boy. Sorry.’

Figured. In this area, the antique term hippie applied to any incomer of relatively unconventional appearance who couldn’t afford a luxury executive home.

‘What about the housing scheme, the loss of the field, the view of Cole Hill?’

‘Don’t affect many folks, see. They’ll do bugger-all, ’less it affects them personal. You listens to ’em, spoutin’ off in the shop…’

‘What are they saying about Jane?’

‘Leave it, Lol. These is just folks as don’t know the girl. Not like what we does.’

‘No, come on… what are they saying?’

Gomer squeezed his ciggy out.

‘They’re just ignorant people with too much time.’

‘Gomer…?’

‘Ah… sayin’ it’s no wonder her’s goin’ off the rails when her… when her ma en’t around half the time. And no wonder Janie’s livin’ in a bit of a fantasy world when the vicar spends her time chasin’ things as don’t exist.’

‘Instead of looking after the parish.’

‘Ar, more or less. Sorry, boy, but you assed.’

Three Choirs

Walking down the lane towards the church, Merrily tried Lol’s number again. Still engaged. Tried his mobile and Jane’s. Both switched off. Left a message that just said, in a voice which she hoped did not sound over-hysterical, ‘The Guardian?’

She’d asked Stella Cobham if they happened to take the Guardian. They didn’t.

She replayed the message from Amanda Patel of BBC Midlands Today, watching Mrs Aird leaving the church with a shopping bag, crossing the road and becoming gradually shorter as if she was sinking into the green verge on the other side. Wychehill people disappearing into their homes like rabbits into burrows.

There were now six more messages on the machine about Jane: BBC Hereford and Worcester, Central News, Daily Mail, Hereford Times, Hereford Journal. And a clipped and icy Robert Morrell, school director, Moorfield.

‘ Mrs Watkins, perhaps you can call me, ASAP.’

No wonder the bloody kid was out early. Merrily walked into the churchyard. Where, for heaven’s sake, was she going to get a Guardian in Wychehill? She was recognizing the onset of a cold sweat when a seventh message was delivered by a voice like suede and sounding close enough to lick her ear.

‘Mrs Watkins. Khan.’

Quite a long pause, as if Mr Khan was used to people dashing to disable their answering machines and pick up once they knew it was him. And then he said, ‘Call me back, would you?’ A patina of impatience. ‘I’m in my Kidderminster office.’

She plucked half a pencil and a cigarette packet from her shoulder bag and sat down on the steps of the Longworth tomb to write down the number. No hurry to call him back. It was probably going to be a courtesy call, apologizing for bothering him. Any requiem now was likely to be a cosmetic exercise.

She ought to call Morrell. At least he’d be able to tell her what was in the Guardian. On the other hand, if she revealed to Morrell that she didn’t know, what was that going to look like?

Leaning her head into the still-cool shadow of the stovelike tomb Merrily found herself staring up into the grotesque inverted rictus of the Angel of the Agony.