Phil Rickman - The Remains of an Altar

‘Lyndon,’ Lol said softly. ‘She’s just a child.’

Pierce spun round at him.

‘As for you… vicar know you’ve had her daughter upstairs? ’Cause it looks like she’s gonner find out, ennit? But don’t you worry, Laurence, it won’t be from me. Not directly, boy, not directly.’

Lol had to grab Jane and hold on to her to stop her going for Pierce. Or maybe it was the other way round.

Whichever, them holding one another like this, he knew as soon as Pierce stepped briskly outside and all the heads began to turn that it wasn’t going to look good from the crowded street.

Temple of Sound

In the copy of the Malvern Gazette open on Raji Khan’s ebony desk, there was a hole where the face of Leonard Holliday used to be.

Mr Khan stabbed it again with his gold Cross pen.

‘Why are they doing this to me, Mrs Watkins? Can you tell me that?’

He was wearing a cricket shirt and cream slacks and white shoes. His black hair hung beyond his shoulders, cavalier style. In his left ear he wore what might have been an emerald. Merrily sat on the other side of the desk in a dark wood chair which was meaningfully lower than his.

‘Probably just that… this is not what they expect to find,’ she said carefully, ‘in a place like this? Have you tried inviting the Wychehill Residents’ Action Group up here to discuss it?’

Mr Khan’s office, upstairs at the Royal Oak, was like something out of Sherlock Holmes: drapery and brass standard lamps, deep maroon walls and a grey picture-rail. Didn’t really work in summer, but with a coal fire on a December day it would be awfully cosy. A middle-aged Asian woman who dressed like Sophie had shown Merrily up. No doormen apparent on the premises, no DJ Xex.

‘You know, I once did invite them,’ Mr Khan said. ‘They wouldn’t meet me. I am, it would appear, the very spawn of Satan.’

‘And I left the holy water in the car.’

Mr Khan beamed. At first, she’d been thinking how surreal all this was, how unlike anyone’s idea of a drug baron’s lair. But it was, in effect, like a traditional drug baron’s lair, and Mr Khan was behaving curiously like the kind of urbane, educated executive criminal you saw in old films. While she didn’t feel uncomfortable here, it might have made sense to tell Bliss she was coming.

‘Now.’ Mr Khan was leaning back in his leather swivel chair, hands behind his head. ‘Tell me again. You are planning to hold…?’

‘A requiem.’

‘A requiem?’

Repeating it in the manner of Wilde’s Lady Bracknell, disarming young fogey that he was. An expensive education hadn’t quite ironed Wolverhampton out of his accent.

‘Requiem Eucharist, Mr Khan. A Holy Communion for the dead. I wasn’t sure whether your own faith might present some-’

‘Oh, not a problem at all, Mrs Watkins. In my capacity as a patron of the arts and popular culture, I’ve attended no small number of Christian funerals. My initial problem, however… is the fact that I simply didn’t know these poor people as individuals. Many hundreds, thousands, now frequent Inn Ya Face and travel many miles to do so. Did you know the late Mr Cookman?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘And yet you’re proposing to conduct a service in his memory and that of his girlfriend.’

‘Not exactly that. Or rather, not entirely that. It also relates to the circumstances of their deaths and the effects all of that has had on the community.’

‘ All of that?’

‘There have been a number of other accidents. Very minor, in comparison, but there’s a general atmosphere of… discomfort.’

‘ Discomfort.’

‘I’d like this to be a service of closure. Of healing. Which, in my experience, can be quite… all-embracing. Which is why I thought it would be appropriate for you to be there.’

‘And why is it being conducted by you, rather than by Mr Spicer?’

‘Because…’ Aware of painting herself into a corner. ‘Because I specialize in this kind of healing.’

‘You’re a spiritual healer. A faith healer.’

‘That would not be a description I’d welcome.’

‘And what would be?’

Mr Khan waited, his prominent chin uptilted.

‘I’m the Deliverance Consultant for Hereford Diocese,’ Merrily said. ‘I suppose I should explain what that-’

‘You think I don’t know? It certainly suggests that your earlier reference to holy water was not entirely in jest.’

‘It was entirely in jest, but I can understand your… misgivings.’

‘We hear so much nowadays about so-called deliverance.’ Mr Khan frowned. ‘Children and babies being exorcized to the point of abuse and beyond, because they are believed to be harbouring evil spirits.’

‘Not us. If we’re ever invited to exorcize a young child, the social and psychiatric reports come first. And the situation in Wychehill, fortunately, is nothing to do with kids. We’re looking at the relatively high incidence of problems on the road and other… problems. Which have been linked to experiences of a possibly paranormal nature.’

‘I can’t wait to hear this, Mrs Watkins.’

‘People say they’ve become aware of a figure on a bicycle. In the road. Before an accident. That’s it, basically.’

Coming out with this kind of stuff cold was, Merrily often thought, the hardest part of the job. Sometimes you could almost feel the derision on your skin.

‘How extraordinary, Mrs Watkins. And did the civilized Mr Devereaux witness this apparition?’

‘We haven’t yet discussed it in any depth. But it seemed to me that a Requiem Eucharist for two people who’d recently died on the road would be a calming influence, as well as bringing together the local community in a spiritual way. I think I’m right in saying that Islamic theology accepts that social and atmospheric disturbances can be caused by various discarnate… presences.’

‘Oh, very much so. Very much so.’ Mr Khan stood up and moved to the window. ‘So this has absolutely nothing to do with the murder of my employee Mr Wicklow.’

‘Not directly,’ Merrily said. ‘But I’m sure he’ll be very much in our minds.’

He smiled. ‘What diplomacy.’

‘It seems he was a violent man, Mr Khan.’

‘Yes, apparently he was. But still a man. And still, in the end, a victim. Who is mourned. Look…’

Mr Khan beckoned her and she walked over to the window. Down in the courtyard, a man was adjusting the driving seat of a bright orange sports car with an ENGLAND sticker in the rear window. Two women looking on, the older one clutching a tissue.

‘His family?’

‘They’ve been here most of the day, to attend the opening of the inquest and collect his personal possessions – his car, his clothing, his jewellery. His mother’s taken it very badly. He was her only son.’

Merrily said nothing, wondering about the mothers of dead junkies whose habits had been fed by Roman.

‘Perhaps I was naive,’ Mr Khan said, ‘in watching my head doorman walk out onto the hills with his knapsack and his binoculars and being gratified by his seeming appreciation of the natural world. It’s been a sobering experience for all of us.’

He turned away from the window.

‘And you don’t really believe me, do you, Mrs Watkins? You don’t believe I knew nothing about Roman’s enterprise. Perhaps you even think I’m involved in it myself.’

Hadn’t been expecting that.

‘Well…’ She went back slowly to her chair. ‘I don’t think you’re naive. Not all your regulars like to keep going all night unassisted. It’s a chemical culture. If you were widely known for taking a hard line against drugs, this wouldn’t be considered a very cool venue, would it?’