Phil Rickman - The Secrets of Pain

‘So in other words,’ he said, ‘you’re a set of dull buggers.’

Outside somewhere, a branch snapped. Huw took an unhurried drink.

‘Men and women of common sense and discretion. Selected for their stability. Safe pairs of hands. Individuals who won’t embarrass the essentially secular element inside the modern Church. No mystics, no evangelicals, no charismatics.’

Merrily stared at Huw. That was a bad thing? He shrugged lightly.

‘Well, aye, we don’t want crackpots. We don’t want exorcisms prescribed like antibiotics, to cure shoplifting and alcohol abuse. Ideally, we don’t want them, in the fullest sense, at all. But let’s not dress this up…’

Merrily watched his fingers flexing on the mahogany tabletop then taking his weight as he leaned forward.

‘This is no job for a digital priest. At some stage, if you decide to go ahead with this particular ministry, you’ll be pulled into areas you never wanted to go. You’ll be affected short-term and long-term, mentally and emotionally and spiritually. Every one of you’s guaranteed to encounter summat that’ll ruin your sleep. I don’t want any bugger leaving here thinking that’s not going to happen.’

She was aware of him glancing into the bottom left-hand corner of the chapel, where the shadows were deepest and you couldn’t make out the faces.

‘Which is why I asked this friend of mine to come over. Through the rain and the gales.’ Turning to look at Merrily, who couldn’t kill the blush and frowned. ‘This is Mrs Watkins, deliverance consultant for the Diocese of Hereford. Successor to one of the most experienced exorcists in the country. Quite a responsibility. So… we have to ask, how did a young lass get a job like that? Safe pair of hands? I don’t think so, though she is now. No, she were hand-picked by the Bishop of Hereford at the time, because…’

Huw. Glaring up at him, not moving her lips. For God’s sake…

‘Because he fancied her,’ Huw said. ‘It were a glamour thing.’

Merrily had come in jeans and a cowl-neck black sweater with her smallest pectoral cross. Nowt formal, Huw had said on the phone. She sighed.

‘Runner-up in the Church Times Wet-Cassock competition. Never going to live that down.’

‘ Runner-up.’ Huw sniffed. ‘That were a travesty.’

Only half of them laughed. You could almost see the disdain like a faint cloud in the air around the posh girl who was probably planning a paper on how the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection were part of the same complex metaphor.

‘With Merrily, you can’t see the damage, but it’s there.’

Huw wasn’t smiling now. She noticed that his face was thinner, the lines like cracks in tree bark.

‘Tell them about Mr Joy, Merrily. Tell the boys and girls what Mr Joy did to you.’

And then he turned away so he wouldn’t see her eyes saying no.

Cornel – was that his first name or what? Cornel. You had to try and laugh. He didn’t even need to open that wide, loose, red mouth to be screaming, Look at me, I’m from Off. That too-perfect combination of plaid workshirt and Timberland-type boots… and the Rolex. Or whatever it was. Some flash old-fashioned status watch, anyway, and he’d be thinking all the country girlies would be like, Take me, Cornel… take me away in the Boxter and show me the penthouse.

Well, not quite all of them.

‘I’ve never been up there myself,’ Jane said. ‘The Court… it’s like real mysterious to us.’

The localish accent rolling out nicely, not too pronounced. If this wasn’t so serious it could almost be fun.

‘Mysterious,’ Cornel said.

Did he actually say myshterioush? Was he really that pissed?

Probably. Jane looked up at him, hands on her hips.

‘So go on…’

‘What?’

‘Like what happens?’

‘What do you think happens?’ Cornel said.

‘I don’t like to think.’

Cornel grinned down at her. There was that sour, too-much-wine smell on his breath. More unpleasant, somehow, than beer or whisky. Kind of decadent and louche.

‘You’re really tall,’ Jane said stupidly. ‘You know that?’

‘I was breast-fed. For months and months.’ He looked up from her chest. ‘So my mother tells me.’

‘You got a gun, Cornel? Of your own?’

‘Two, actually. One’s a Purdey. You need another drink.’

‘So, like, what do you shoot?’

‘Things.’

‘ Things? What, like bottles off walls and stuff?’ Jane could see Cornel trying to not to snigger. ‘Well, what?’

The wind came in again. Lights flickered.

‘Darling,’ Cornel said. ‘We get to shoot pretty much anything that comes within range… pheasants, rabbits, those little deer… pussycats…’

Below bar-level, Jane felt the fingers of her right hand bunching into a tight little fist. There’d been talk in the village of cats going missing.

‘Wow,’ she said.

‘What happens at The Court is anything you want… basically. ’Cause you’re paying for it. Or, rather, the bank is.’

‘Oh.’ Jane did the vacant look. ‘Which bank you with? Is it…’ Putting a finger up to her lower lip. ‘Is it the NatWest? Or like that one with all the little puppet people and the tinkly music?’

‘Uh-huh.’ Cornel smiled, shaking his head. ‘Landesman’s. New kids on the block, very progressive.’

‘You do credit cards and stuff?’

Cornel sighed.

‘And what do you do, girlie?’

‘Hairdresser,’ Jane said. ‘Well, trainee. But one day I’ll be doing it big time in Hereford. Or London, mabbe.’

‘Hmm.’ Cornel was swaying a bit and wrinkling his nose like he was figuring something out. ‘Don’t know anybody in Hereford, but I did once handle some finance for a chain of salons in London… and Paris? Paris any good to you?’

‘Paris?’

Jane blinking, like she didn’t dare believe he was serious.

‘And Milan, now, I think,’ Cornel said. ‘You look like you need a drink. A big one.’

‘Had too much already,’ Jane said.

‘Maybe you’d rather have one somewhere else?’

‘Dunno really.’

‘Where we can talk about Paris.’

Jane’s left hand was on the damp mat on the bar top, and Cornel’s much bigger hand was over it and squeezing gently. She pulled, not hard, but the hand was trapped.

She looked up at Cornel and giggled. His eyes were well glazed. It was unlikely that she’d get any more out of him. Probably time to end this.

The odd times when it was needed in an establishment as relatively sedate as the Black Swan, Barry was known for acting with speed and economy and a glimmer of steel. But Barry was on the phone. Lol tensed. The inglenook coughed out smoke and soot.

‘You seen him before?’ Danny said. ‘Do we know if he’s got a room yere?’

Lol shook his head.

Telling himself it would be OK. That this was Jane. Jane who’d once expressed the hope that some myopic Japanese stockbroker would accidentally blow off Ward Savitch’s head.

‘Hell’s bells!’ The main door had sprung open, the wind pushing in James Bull-Davies. Last squire of Ledwardine, partner of Alison Kinnersley, Lol’s ex from what now seemed like another, distant lifetime. ‘Bloody night.’

James thrust the door shut against the gale, shaking drips from his sparse hair, as Lol heard Jane’s unmistakably dangerous laughter, like pills in a jar. Cornel was grinning and Jane’s expression was kind of, Oh you… Almost affectionate, like they’d known one another a long time or she was as pissed as he was.

Lol looked at Danny. Danny sighed.

‘All right, then, boy, we’ll both go.’

He was halfway out of his chair when the weather took over. A wall of wind hit the Swan, the candle-bulbs shivering against the oak panelling. Lol saw Jane’s free hand reaching out to grasp the end of Cornel’s leather belt.