Phil Rickman - The Remains of an Altar

Purgatory. I think we can deal with purgatory right here, Winnie Sparke had said.

How true that was.

It’s as good as over. Directing this thought at the Angel of the Agony. I expect you know all about being burdened with crap.

She’d knocked on Hannah Bradley’s door. No answer. Probably one of her days at the Tourist Office in Ledbury. The mountain bike wasn’t around. If Stella had lied and Loste was delusional, how likely was it that Hannah had told her the truth?

But she’d been so convincing. It had been like a breath of pure air. Who could you trust?

Merrily stared at the writing on the tomb.

‘ALL HOLY ANGELS PRAY FOR HIM CHOIRS OF THE RIGHTEOUS PRAY FOR HIM.’

So the quarry owner, Joseph Longworth, had seen an invented angel in a blaze of light and built a huge and costly church?

Wondering if Tim Loste’s choir was praying for him, she heard not prayer but laughter and, peering around the tomb, saw two people walking into the church drive.

One of them was Winnie Sparke in her long, pale, flimsy dress. Winnie was laughing, her good and abundant hair thrown back.

Merrily slid down behind the tomb.

The man with Sparke was a very big man. Overweight, but with the height, almost, to carry it. Wide-shouldered, wearing a flannely sort of shirt outside his trousers. His dark hair was long and brushed back, and he had a moustache – not Lord Lucan, not Freddie Mercury, but a wide, black, muscular kind of moustache, like the one on the face on the back of a twenty-pound note.

Jane had washed her face; her eyes were bright but a little wild.

‘I can’t find the printer.’

‘Haven’t got one.’

Lol shut the front door and, for some paranoid reason, barred it. Although Church Street was deserted, there would be eyes at windows. This was Ledwardine.

‘Lol… you’ve got a laptop but no printer?’

‘Just an oversight. I’ll get one sometime.’

‘Jeez.’ Jane stood up. ‘Did you see anybody?’

‘Gomer. The fence guys’ve gone now. Gomer’s not sure what’s happening there either, but he does know a lot of people.’

‘He’s still on our side, though?’

‘Jane, this is Gomer Parry. Anybody rung?’

‘Bloke called Dan. Friend of Prof Levin’s. I said you’d call him back. Then I had to go on-line. You ought to get broadband.’

‘Don’t use it enough. What did you find?’

‘I was going to print it out when you got back, but under the circs I’d better give you the basics.’

Lol sat down on the sofa. Jane had the laptop on the desk, with a curtain half-drawn.

‘Wychehill Church. Dedicated to St Dunstan, who’s one of the patron saints of music. He was Bishop of Glastonbury in the eleventh century, and he played the harp or something. But the church was only dedicated in the 1920s. Built in the Victorian Gothic style by Joseph Longworth, quarry owner, after his conversion which – get this – was said to have followed a visionary experience on the hill.’

‘What kind of visionary experience?’

‘Haven’t been able to find out. This was a boring ecclesiastical website, mainly dates and architectural features. All it says is that Longworth was stricken with remorse at the damage his quarrying had done to what he now realized was “holy ground”. And so he went to Little Malvern Priory and prayed for forgiveness and was subsequently directed to this spot.’

‘By God?’

‘That’s all it says about that. But something must’ve directed him because when he got there he found the remains of what was described as “a single-cell rectangular building” which was thought to be a monk’s cell or a hermit’s sanctuary.’

‘Next to the road?’

‘There wasn’t a road there in those days, just a quarry track, and that was a few hundred yards away, so the road must’ve been put in later, probably after Longworth was dead. So he built his church on top of the foundations of the single-cell rectangular building – you could get away with that kind of thing in those days. It says he built a church big enough to take a full choir and orchestra.’

‘Interesting.’

‘And then he built the rectory and houses for the church warden and the choirmaster. And then other people built houses there, as the Malverns had become fairly sought-after with the spa and everything. So Longworth is actually credited with establishing what is now considered to be Wychehill. Lol – is all this anything to do with that guy getting his throat cut on the Beacon?’

‘Anything’s possible,’ Lol said. ‘It’s a holistic world.’

‘You want me to keep searching?’

‘No, give it a rest. I’ll ring this bloke. Thanks, Jane.’

‘Took my mind off things a bit.’ Jane closed the laptop. ‘Feel like a… fugitive.’

‘We’ll deal with it.’

‘It’s not your problem.’

‘I suppose I’d like to think it was,’ Lol said.

‘Sorry.’ Jane smiled. A strained kind of smile. ‘I’d be honoured to be your problem. Especially if you can restrain Mum.’

Dan turned out to be the choir guy and he lived up near the Frome Valley, which was presumably how he came to know Prof Levin. He also knew…

‘Lol Robinson! I was at your concert at The Courtyard. Amazing. Shit hot. I mean it, man. A comeback in the truest sense.’

‘Well… thank you. That’s very kind.’

‘Best tenor in these parts, me,’ Dan said. ‘But I’d give it all away for a croak if I could write songs like you. Seriously, I’d rather be in a band – Robert Plant, or something, big-voice stuff – but if you’ve got the finest tenor in Much Cowarne you’re expected to use it. Cross to bear, man. On the plus side, you get to work with some unexpectedly wild people.’

‘Tim Loste?’

‘Yeah.’ Dan’s voice came down like he’d been unplugged. ‘Prof told me. It’s crazy, man. You look at Tim Loste, you think, yeah, wouldn’t like to meet him on a dark night in a back alley. You talk to Tim Loste… no way. With a knife? Utterly out of the question. Problem is, the police talk to him… different wavelengths, you know?’

‘Can you tell me a bit about his… wavelength?’

‘Oh man, I could bend your ear for hours about Lostie. Only, I’m still in the choir, in a loose way, so none of this came from me, right?’

‘Count on it.’

‘Well, it’s a big choir. The Loste boys – and girls. Drawn from maybe a fifty-mile radius. And you don’t have to totally love Elgar, but it helps. Me, I like him better than I used to – when you’re born in this area, you get the guy shoved down your throat from an early age. You live in Elgar Country. It’s an honour. Yeah, thanks.’

‘So you sang at Wychehill Church?’

‘St Timothy’s. As we call it. Acoustics are amazing. The quarry tycoon who had it built… Longthorne? You know that story?’

‘Longworth?’

‘That’s the man. Venerated Elgar, saw himself as like Gerontius, from the oratorio, an ordinary man who’d sinned a bit, and now he’s facing the final judgement and he’s shitting himself. So the guy builds a bloody church. Stairway to heaven or what?’

‘A very big church designed for sacred music.’

‘I think he wanted to buy into the Three Choirs.’

‘Right. That would be The Three Choirs Festival? Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and Herefordshire?’

‘Oldest fest of its kind in the country. Dates back to about 1700. But it’s a cathedral thing, mainly, so I don’t suppose Wychehill was much involved. The road wouldn’t’ve been much more than a quarry track in those days. But it obsesses Tim. I don’t get too close, to be honest, you get… roped into stuff, and for every one that works there’s a lot of time-wasters. He’s inclined to exploit people – fair enough, he is a bit inspirational, and the women fancy him, not that they can get too close with the Witch of Endor around.’