Phil Rickman - The Chalice

He beamed at them, smugly.

'It's, erm, joss sticks,' Jim said.

'What?'

'You said "jazz sticks".'

'Gah!' Griff Daniel pushed back his chair and slouched off in search of more malleable company. After a few moments he turned on his heel, raised a hand to the barman and went out.

'Oh my Gods'. It's him. He's coming. Quick! Mustn't let him see us. Where can we go?'

'Into the bookshop.' Diane pulled out her keys, seizing the opportunity to get the crazy woman off the street.

Inside, she steered Domini into the back parlour and flung a log into the stove.

'Energy.' Domini pulled at her hair. 'I had to use the energy. The spore's in the air. Now or never, Diana.'

She'd left a trail of coloured plates perhaps a hundred yards long from The George and Pilgrims to the door of Holy Thorn Ceramics. Except it wasn't Holy Thorn Ceramics any more. Domini had gone into the shop and switched on the lights in the window.

The lights were purple now. They spotlit a crudely repellent squatting earthenware woman with a hole between her legs the size of a chimney pot. Around her lumpen head with its jagged grin was a wreath of brambles.

'No more Holy Thorn!' Domini had screeched. The Goddess lives here now. The Goddess lives!'

'Tea, I think,' Diane said.

'No wine?'

'The last thing you need is wine.'

She'd half expected Domini would suddenly collapse into tears, shattered by the realisation of what she'd done while carried away on this dangerous overflow of energy.

But the golden woman had slipped gracefully into the rocking chair, crossing her legs, the diaphanous white dress gliding back along her thighs.

Diane put the kettle on. 'This is really ever so silly, you know. It's not incompatible at all.'

'That's what I thought at first,' Domini said. 'I became aware of the need for a religion, and this was the only really English one. I mean, all that stuff about Israel – the Holy Land. Well it never seemed very holy to me, all these Jews and Arabs killing each other. This was my holy land. England. I mean, why not?'

She stretched her neck, leaned her golden head into the spindly back of the rocking chair. At least some of the hyper-urgency had gone out of her. She was like a racehorse steaming in the winners' enclosure.

'That hymn, I suppose, turned me on to it, when I was at school. And did those feet in ancient times…? All those lovely lines, the bow of burning gold… Wonderful. Until you get to the last bit.'

'"Till we have built Jerusalem…"'

'Exactly. If you've got a green and pleasant land why deface it with a filthy warren full of Arab muggers? Anyway, our religion's so much older than theirs. They'd heard about this legendary holy island in the West with the power to transform people's lives, a place where you could walk with the spirits, and they wanted a piece of the action. Simple as that.'

A ragged voice came from the street.

'Where are you, you heartless, evil bitch?'

'Ah.' Domini didn't move. 'Tony seems to have found one of his plates.'

There was a ringing silence. Then a long wail of pure, cold anguish from the street. As if the man out there had suddenly taken a knife deep into his stomach.

And then a window shattered.

'Something afoot,' Jim said. 'Something involving Daniel and Archer Ffitch. You hear what he said? Glastonbury First. You see, that's Archer's new slogan. It's all in here…'

He fumbled at the paper. Totally ignoring the swastika story, Juanita noticed.

'Can Archer Ffitch afford to lose that much credibility?' she wondered.

'Don't underrate that man.'

'Which of them do you mean?' Juanita got up. 'Same again?'

'Either. Both. Stay there, sit down, I'll get them. I owe you more than a few drinks.'

'You don't owe me a thing.' But he'd already gathered up their glasses.

While he was at the bar, Juanita took the opportunity to open out the evening paper. The headline was no less shaking.

Swastika Clue in Bus Body Mystery New-Age travellers all over the West were being questioned by detectives today following the discovery of a man's body in an abandoned 'hippy' bus. The dead man, believed to have head injuries, was found inside the vehicle early this morning by a woman walking her dog in woodland at Stoke St Michael near Shepton Mallett. Police say the battered black bus had false number plates and no road fund licence, and describe the death as suspicious. Their only clue to The identity of the man, said to be aged 19 or 20, is a distinctive swastika symbol tattooed on the top of his head. Avon and Somerset police are appealing for anyone who might have seen the man or the bus…

Juanita could still hear Diane in the back of the Volvo, crying to persuade them to go back to Moulder's field. He might look like a hard case, with the swastika on his head and everything.

She and Jim hadn't been close enough to the boy to see that kind of detail, and presumably Jim hadn't heard or had forgotten what Diane had said in the car. Either way, he didn't know and, sooner or later, she was going to have to tell him.

Jim put down Juanita's fourth glass of wine. She thanked him and swallowed half of it. Jim looked at her with concern.

'Sorry,' Juanita said absently. She was still trying to get her head around the possibility that Rankin was a murderer and Lord Pennard an accessory.

'Sometimes delayed shock is even worse, you know,' Jim said. 'You were very strong last night. Me, I couldn't sleep, with or without the booze. But I've learned my lesson. I'm feeling better now – I think anger helps, don't you? Archer and his evil plans, Griff Daniel…'

Juanita looked at him and thought, quite calmly, We could stop him. If you swallowed your pride and we went to the police and implicated Rankin and Pennard in this boy's death; even if they got away with it, the scandal would touch Archer. Archer would have to resign the candidacy.

When she was younger the idea would have excited her. The adrenalin would have drowned all Jim's objections, carried the pair of them all the way to the police station at Street. Or to the Press.

When she was younger.

Juanita gripped the base of her glass to prevent her throwing back the rest of the wine. And to prevent her hand from shaking. The noise of the pub swelled and deflated around her, a dozen conversations boiled together, the way it was when you were very drunk. Was she drunk?

Just jittery… OK, frightened. Frightened of jumping to the wrong conclusions. Frightened at the way everything was going out of control.

She was aware that Jim was looking steadily at her, his honest eyes unmoving in his honest, English-apple face.

It was a look she'd seen before, but never quite so obviously in the face of Jim Battle, sixty-three, a friend, a good friend in the best, the old-fashioned sense.

'Juanita…' His voice coming towards her along a very circuitous route. I'm… very fond of you. you must know that. Very fond.'

'Jim…' He was drunk. He didn't know what he was saying. She had to stop him. Not here, not now, not…

Not ever. How could she say that to him, her best friend? Her best friend.

'I mean..There was sweat on his forehead. 'That is, I don't have any illusions, of course, that…'

Please God…

It was, ironically, Griff Daniel who saved her. And saved Jim, probably. Griff back already, half-grinning, half-scowling. Making an explosive arrival at the bar.

'Bloody hippies. Bloody mad bastards!'

Everybody heard him, everybody turned. Griff ordered another pint of Guinness.

'Bloody drugs, it is. Sends 'em out their minds. One minute they're almost rational, the next…'

'What they done, then, Griff?' somebody called out. 'Sprayed your ole truck luminous pink?'

There was laughter. Griff Daniel took delivery of his pint of Guinness, took his time about swallowing some. Knowing he had an audience, he composed himself.