Phil Rickman - The Secrets of Pain

‘Yes.’

‘Phone for a witness.’

Merrily pulled her mobile from her jeans then put it down on the table.

‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘Long as you’re not playing for time so your congregation turns up.’

‘I wouldn’t expose a congregation to this. We have about forty minutes.’

‘Go on.’

‘When you tried to pass your religion off as just a series of exercises, a discipline – was that just for Lockley and Howe, or do you believe that?’

‘You’ve just reminded me why I found you so annoying.’ He stood up. ‘It’s a secular age. It doesn’t matter what you believe, it’s how you sell it. You have to use acceptable terminology. Nobody likes a crank, certainly not the men I deal with.’

‘I don’t think you’re that cynical.’

‘Who’s your proposed witness?’

‘Gomer Parry.’

‘Sensible choice. Could’ve wrecked my digger last night, but he didn’t.’

‘He would never wreck a digger. You know him?’

‘ Of him. Make your call. Keep it casual, and he comes alone. If an armed response unit arrives, I’ll just bite the barrel. You don’t want that in here.’

God.

‘And there’ll be no money for Fiona.’

She stared at him.

‘Fiona Spicer?’

‘Make your call. And I’ll be listening for nuances.’

Merrily put in the number and waited. It was surreal. Be easier if she could feel an accessible evil: the night stench in the tower room, the squirming male miasma assailing Jane in the mithraeum, which Jane had talked about only once when they were alone, staring blankly into the fireplace, disconnected, as if she was repeating someone else’s story. Jane, whose knowledge of Mithraism had been virtually non-existent then.

‘ Gomer Parry Plant Hire.’

‘Oh. Sorry. Gomer, it’s me. You… got a few minutes to spare? Over at the church.’

‘Sure to, vicar.’

‘Thank you. I’ll be in the vestry.’

Simple as that. When the line cleared, Byron was nodding. Merrily put the phone on the table next to the stack of prayer books.

‘You really think Fiona’s going to accept anything from you?’

He blinked just once.

‘She can give it to her daughter, or a charity of her choosing. I liked Syd. You could only quarrel – on that level of intensity – with someone who was a brother.’

‘And Fiona? What was your quarrel with her?’

He looked at Merrily for a long time, his face blank. Then he transferred his gaze to the wall behind her. She tensed in horror. Mithras always looks away.

But then he turned back to her, his blue eyes steady.

‘I take full responsibility for everything I’ve done. No papering over cracks. No sentiment here. No apology. I don’t do that.’

‘Was that why you left Liz? Because you realized the elements you were dealing with…’

‘… were unsuited to a domestic situation. I’ll confirm that much. I had respect for my wife.’

That’s why you were so very publicly screwing your way around Hereford?

‘And when Mostyn killed the banker, Cornel, did he do that on his own? You know what I’m asking, don’t you? I understand he turned his head away when he did it. Do you think he was entirely responsible then for his own-?’

‘You’re back to the same question.’

‘I’m not a cop. These things matter to me.’

Confronting the impossibility of her own job. The toxic dilemma she’d tried to evoke for the students in the chapel. To what extent you want to demonize this is up to you.

Byron shook his head.

‘Nah.’

‘No, he wasn’t entirely responsible? No, he’d surrendered his-?’

‘How’s Barry?’

‘He’ll lose an eye. They think.’

‘But he’ll live. That’s what it said on the radio.’

‘So I believe.’

‘That was regrettable.’ Byron looked mildly affected. ‘He was a good soldier. Shot, unarmed, by a man who wasn’t fit to clean his boots. I’m taking responsibility. He’ll be the second beneficiary. Fiona, Barry. See to that, would you? Might be enough for a down payment on a big old pub. If there happened to be one on the market.’

‘You’ve thought it all out, haven’t you?’

‘No sentiment, no apology. We take action, then we walk away.’

‘How will you live?’

‘That’s my business.’

‘All right.’ Merrily shook herself. ‘Tell me one more thing. When Syd died on Credenhill… you were there, weren’t you?’

He thought for just a moment.

‘Yes.’

‘What was that about?’

‘No comment.’

‘You must’ve been worried when you heard he was coming back, as chaplain.’

‘I never worry.’

She heard the squeak of the church doors. There was no time. There had to be time.

‘As far as I could see, Byron, there were two ways of looking at this – at Syd coming back – and one would be an opportunity. The chaplain’s the only direct feed into the spiritual life of the Regiment. If there was anything left of Mithras in Syd… if he was, to any extent, in denial… you might still see an old ambition realized. That John the Baptist side of you.’

He shrugged.

‘Did you ask to meet him on Credenhill? Just two recreational runners, paths crossing. Or did he ask you?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Not really. All I’m feeling, very strongly, is that if you wanted to know where his innermost allegiances lay, there was only one thing you could say to him. Only one thing you could tell him, as a test. You’d tell him…’ she put both hands on the table, leaned forward, smelling the sweat and the mud and nothing else ‘… when and where and… and how… you’d had sex with his wife… right?’

His eyes closed briefly in his weathered sandstone face, and she half expected him to smash the pile of prayer books to the ground.

A tapping on the door.

‘ Vicar? ’

‘One minute, Gomer…’ She looked into Byron’s eyes, hissed, ‘You knew exactly what kind of interior eruption that would cause. This savage inner conflict between the soldier who wanted to beat you to a pulp and throw you down the fucking steps and the Christian who-’

‘And now we’ll never know.’

‘I think we do.’

‘Let Mr Parry in,’ Byron said.

Merrily turned away from him, nodded.

Now she could smell it.

When she got back to the vicarage, nobody was home but Ethel.

The phone was ringing.

She’d have to be back in church in less than half an hour. She’d agreed to give Byron Jones ten minutes to walk away – like just another Easter hiker – before she called the police.

She picked up the phone. It was Dick Willis, minister in charge of the Credenhill cluster.

‘I do rather wish you’d given me a hint of this, Merrily.’ There was no anger in his voice. ‘Might even’ve been able to help you.’

‘Dick, it all moved too…’

And was still moving. Gomer had known as soon as he saw the name on the document. She’d told him it was all right. Byron had stood in the farthest corner of the room looking as unthreatening as a man like Byron could ever look. No fear in Gomer, only concern.

She’d firmly squeezed his hand and said it was OK. OK.

‘Don’t suppose they’ve got him yet,’ Dick Willis said.

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Frightening,’ Dick said. ‘Merrily, look, I’m sitting here on a chancel pew, waiting to take a service and I… I think I’d rather go into it with a clean conscience. Especially on Good Friday. When I told you that Colin Jones hadn’t been in Brinsop Church during a service, that was a blatant and unforgivable lie. He came once. Memorably. Though I wasn’t there.’