Phil Rickman - The Secrets of Pain

‘When was this?’

‘Liz said two or three years after Byron left the Regiment. Possibly around the time Caradog was published. Would that have been after the burning of the book?’

‘I didn’t know that Sam had ever visited Byron,’ Fiona said. ‘Or imagined he’d want to. What did Liz say about it?’

Merrily told her. Everything, including the shotgun, which provoked a short, sour laugh.

‘Perhaps he felt he needed it as protection. Turning the other cheek was the one Christian premise I always felt Sam could never quite swallow.’

‘You’ve met Liz?’

‘One or twice. At funerals. Walking – metaphorically – half a pace behind Byron. They’re often the ones who get hurt in the end. Wholesale philandering goes with the territory. Like Vikings.’

‘But not Sam.’

‘Sam was a misfit who didn’t know what he wanted or where he wanted to be. The army straightened him out for a while, religion messed him up again.’

‘Did he ever mention Brinsop?’

‘Who?’

‘It’s a hamlet near Credenhill. Where Byron lives. Where, according to Liz, he seems to think it’s very important for him to live. Syd ever mention it?’

‘No. And if you were thinking of going to visit him I’d urge you not to. Some of these guys, there’s another side to them which is great in warfare but, in ordinary life, relatively… antisocial.’

‘Fiona… do you have any idea what all this is about? You must’ve given me those books for a reason.’

‘Knee-jerk reaction. Probably a mistake. I don’t know anything about deliverance, and Wordsworth – no idea what that’s about either. Merrily, I have to go. Have people to see… solicitors… and whoever you see to register a death. I’m sorry.’

Danny pulled down a squared bale of straw and sat on it.

‘Likely you don’t know much about cockfighting. Well, me neither. Us ole hippies, we never done that stuff. Foreign to our nature. But it went on.’

‘Round here?’

‘Part o’ country life. Country folks was cruel, too.’ Danny reached over and turned off the amp. ‘Gomer found a dead gamecock in the vicar’s shed. Turns out young Jane put it there. Told Gomer a feller dumped the sack in a bin on the square. Feller was this Cornel.’

‘Oh…’ Lol closed his eyes ‘… God.’

‘You en’t lookin’ as surprised as I figured you might be.’

‘No.’

Lol pulled the Boswell across his knees and told Danny about what he and Merrily had watched in the Swan, the night before last.

‘Only we got the impression from Barry that it was a pheasant.’

‘He still stayin’ at the Swan, this Cornel?’

‘I think he just comes in for meals now. I don’t know where he’s staying. How did Jane know it was a fighting cock?’

‘Her didn’t. Gomer knowed straight off.’

‘Gomer’s on the case?’

‘En’t nothin’ Gomer wouldn’t do for Jane, is there? Jeez, why they gotter-’ Danny pulled off his baseball cap, sent it spinning to the straw. ‘Cockfights! They tells us we’re in recession, so we gotter degrade ourselves by stagin’ cockfights for the freakin’ tourists?’

‘Who?’

‘Who d’you think?’

‘You really think Savitch would risk his reputation by supporting something illegal and… universally condemned?’

‘Gomer phoned around. Farmers, dealers. Drew a blank. Wherever it’s happenin’ it en’t at no farms round yere. Gotter be some bastard from Off. Now… where was the ole Ledwardine cockpit?’

Lol shook his head.

‘I’ll tell you,’ Danny said. ‘Up by the top bridge, where the river come through in the floods? Used to be a pub there, knocked down seventy, eighty year ago. You can still see the outline, they reckons. Like a depression, middle of a copse, now. Cockpit was back o’ that pub.’

‘So that…’ Lol stroked a sinister E-minor on the Boswell ‘… would be on the ground…’

‘Bought up by The Court last summer – when wassname, Wickhams, sold up?’

‘You’re saying that whatever remains of the old Ledwardine cockpit is now owned by Ward Savitch.’

Suddenly, Lol could see why this just might be Savitch. All for traditions. The first man to stage a cockfight in Ledwardine for a century or whatever. Even if he only did it once or twice, for selected guests.

‘Jane know about the cockpit?’

‘Not yet, boy. See the problem?’

‘Case closed, far as Jane’s concerned. And it looks very likely, doesn’t it? I mean, how else would Cornel’ve been to a cockfight?’

‘Exackly.’ Danny stood up, strapping on his Telecaster. ‘So what’s Gomer do now, boy? Do he tell her… or don’t he? Bein’ as how her’s likely to go off like a rocket.’

‘Even if Savitch wasn’t charged with anything,’ Lol said, thinking hard, ‘it would make him a figure of hate.’

‘Sure to.’

‘Would you be able to tell, if you saw the pit, whether it had been used recently?’

‘Gomer might. But… private land now. Big fences.’

‘Not this weekend. It’s open to the public on Easter Monday.’

‘Still be restricted access. Public won’t get near an active cockpit.’

Lol said, ‘Tomorrow, however…’

Laying down the Boswell in a manger full of last year’s straw, he told Danny about Savitch’s visit and the offer of a site for an open-air music event. Half afraid that Danny, whose musical aspirations had been frustrated for so long, would see it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stage some kind of Welsh Border Woodstock. Danny sniffed and smiled.

‘En’t life a bitch?’

‘So I’ve got these two tickets for the press launch and reception for invited guests. Be far more informal. Fewer stewards, not much security.’

‘Right.’

‘If I gave the tickets to you and Gomer, would you be able to maybe find out one way or another?’

A short, worried whine came out of Jimi the sheepdog as Danny stood up, gripped the Telecaster around the bottom of its neck, pulling it hard to his gut.

‘What time?’

At one stage, the narrow lane to Brinsop pointed you directly at a wooded flank of Credenhill. You felt that if it didn’t veer off soon you’d vanish into a green mouth.

The first time, Merrily missed the turning to the church, then spotted in the rear-view mirror what might be a bell tower. At approaching midday, a pale blue hole in the clouds was broadening into a small lagoon. She reversed into the next track, and the long hill fell away to the side. Nobody about. No other vehicles.

No village. Plenty of fields, woodland, a few dwellings, and a church, on its own, set apart.

Merrily’s stomach was hurting. Really needed something to eat. Maybe she should go home. Only twenty minutes away. Three warnings about Byron Jones – secretive, embittered, obsessive. She didn’t want to find him, not yet. Just to get a hint of what, in Brinsop, had caught his eye.

The church was at the end of a private track with weeds growing up the middle. A sprinkling of homes, old and newish, barns and sheds, and then the Volvo was up against a fenced field of ewes and lambs. A dead end with the churchyard alongside, raised up. Jane maintained that an elevated churchyard always indicated a former pagan ritual site. But then, for Jane, signs of paganism were everywhere.

OK. Merrily stayed in the car and leaned back, easing the pressure on her stomach. Do this properly. She pulled her bag onto her knees and consulted her contacts book.

Dick Willis, priest in charge of the Credenhill cluster of churches. A cautious guy, not far off retirement. The signal here wasn’t good, but she got him.