Phil Rickman - The Secrets of Pain

No, forget it. She wandered over to the window, looked down at the Cathedral Green. Seasons slowly shifting out there, winter retiring into the mist, spring blinking warily in the tepid sunshine. Then the clouds took it away, and she saw a lone daffodil, still in bud, flattened by someone’s shoe.

‘The Bishop’s been quiet lately.’

‘He’s increasingly tired. I think he’ll probably hang on until the autumn, then we’ll hear something.’ Sophie stood up. ‘I’ll make some tea. I’ve itemized your calls, in terms of apparent priority. Three inquiries in the past week, none of which I felt you needed to be alerted about. One’s that rather querulous person who seems to think you can get her grandson off heroin by… exorcizing his inner junkie. I’ve taken the precaution of quietly alerting her parish priest and suggesting she talks it over with him.’

‘Thank you.’ Merrily sat down. ‘Nothing from the Holmer?’

A fortnight ago she’d been called out to a single space in a factory parking area where a manager, newly divorced, had – like poor Frank Collins – asphyxiated himself in his car. Several workers had claimed that they’d felt him sitting next to them in their own cars if they parked there. The local vicar had dismissed it as hysteria.

‘Nothing.’ Sophie shook her head, filling the kettle. ‘In fact, you really didn’t need to come in.’

‘Well, I came in because… I need to make a possibly tricky phone call.’

For some reason, it was easier from here. Like you had the weight of the Cathedral around you. And Sophie to consult. Pretty much the same thing.

‘It’s Syd Spicer. Now at Credenhill?’

‘Ah, yes,’ Sophie said.

‘How long have you known?’

‘Since the Bishop approved it. It’s been announced now, has it?’

You were inclined to forget that her principal role was as the Bishop’s lay secretary, guardian of episcopal secrets.

‘I’ve been a bit naive about all this, Sophie. Until a few days ago, it didn’t strike me that to become a chaplain you had to actually join the army. Or rejoin.’

‘Yes, that’s a requirement.’

‘Problem?’

‘Well… I suppose I can tell you. We were in two minds about his suitability. Since leaving the city for Credenhill, the Regiment does seem to have become more remote from us. Not even in the same parliamentary constituency. So Hereford, technically, is no longer a garrison town.’

‘Appointing one of their own as chaplain makes them more remote?’

Sophie said nothing. Merrily looked at the phone. Much of the incentive had gone. She looked up at Sophie.

‘OK, can I tell you about this?’

Lol had had to force himself to go back to work this morning. Couldn’t bear to finish the one about the village musician who found recovery in the back of a JCB. When the knock came on the front door, he was messing with the lyrics for ‘The Simple Trackway Man’, one he was trying to persuade Danny to sing. A homage to Alfred Watkins, the Hereford man who discovered ley lines.

I am a simple trackway man Who walks the lanes by ancient plan

Leading the people from beacon to steeple

And steeple to stone

And all the way home.

Back in the 1920s, Mr Watkins, controversially, had traced possible cross-country tracks connecting prehistoric ritual sites – stones and circles and burial mounds – and the medieval churches built on ancient sacred enclosures. Most of his research had been done in his home county and Danny’s native Radnorshire. Unlocking the British countryside for future generations who wanted to connect again with the land. Jane’s hero.

Lol’s song had been written carefully in the vernacular, borrowing material from Watkins’s classic work, The Old Straight Track. He was quite proud of it. A song that should’ve been written decades ago, to be sung in folk clubs and on village greens at Whitsuntide. Or by chains of walkers stepping out to refresh themselves and the countryside at Easter. Mr Watkins as some unassuming, low-key pied piper of the border hills.

Sitting on his sofa, with the Boswell across his knees, Lol sang ‘Trackway Man’ to the wood stove glowing ashy pink against the morning sunlight.

Across the fields where gates align

Ole scarecrow gives us all a sign

Where stand of pine marks sacred shrine

And secret dell hides holy well.

He saw the man in the cap walk past the front window, didn’t take much notice, and it was about half a minute before the knock came, as if the man had walked past the door towards the village square and then either had remembered something or had second thoughts and turned back.

Answering the front door, Lol didn’t recognize him at first. He wore a rust-coloured gilet and a leather cap. Incomer wear, nothing unusual. He had his chin up and his hands behind his back. He had a quick, efficient smile.

‘Lol Robinson?’

‘Yes.’

‘My partner introduced me t’your music.’

‘Oh… right…’

The hand came out, a leather glove removed.

‘Ward Savitch. Is this convenient?’

‘Too much reticence can be counterproductive,’ Sophie said. ‘You deserve at least an explanation.’

They were looking at the SAS base on Google Earth. Half surprised to find it there, this unexpectedly large network of utility buildings, parked vehicles. A community probably bigger, if more compact, than the village of Credenhill. You pulled back, and the wide view was all open countryside, apart from the wooded slopes of the hill itself, close enough to overlook the base.

‘You feel like you’re breaking the Official Secrets Act just doing this, Sophie. Like they’re going to know, and the door will fly open and men will be there with automatic rifles.’

Sophie looked severe.

‘When they were at the old Stirling Lines, they were part of the city. Part of the community. Mrs Thatcher liked to call them her boys . But, essentially, they were our boys. Part of Hereford since the Regiment was formed in 1941. That’s a long time.’

‘But the glamour years only began in the 1980s.’

After the SAS had travelled from Hereford to rescue hostages in the Iranian Embassy in London, abseiling down the walls from the roof live on TV.

‘And we were always discreet, Merrily. When a new recruit came off the train and asked for directions to the army base, he wasn’t told.’

‘I’ve heard that.’

‘We all knew where it was, but we didn’t tell just anyone. The Regiment was inside the city itself, but it was anonymous. And yet a presence.’

‘Like the Cathedral?’

‘Call Spicer,’ Sophie said abruptly. ‘He used you. I’m tired of seeing people used.’

Merrily looked at her, curious. Was she thinking that nobody had been murdered on the streets of Hereford when the SAS was still in town?

She picked up the phone, put in the number Huw had given her. And was almost grateful when there was no answer, no machine, no voice-mail.

Last night, she’d told Lol about Syd at the chapel. Lol had met him once, at the end of a very dark night in the Malverns, when Syd had been very much in denial. Merrily had said, You really don’t see anything bordering on the paranormal? and Syd had said, You mean you do? ’

She let his phone ring for half a minute before hanging up. Tried twice more before lunch and also called home to see if there were any messages on the machine. Sometimes, if she’d had to leave early, Jane would leave one for her. Jane, whose mood last night, when Merrily had got in from the Swan, had been changing like traffic lights, flickering erratically, red-amber-red-amber. Like she’d wanted to talk about something, but couldn’t. Said nothing this morning, either, and you wondered if it would be better or worse when she went to university.