Phil Rickman - The Smile of a Ghost

‘They were engaged before you met her mother, then,’ Merrily said.

George spun round. ‘Stepmother!’

‘Of course.’

‘But yes, you put your finger on it there all right, Mrs Watkins, we had not met her before the engagement.’

‘George, do excuse me,’ Bernie said, ‘but my own knowledge of the, ah, the stepmother is somewhat scant.’

‘Aye, and if my knowledge was as scant as yours, Bernard,’ George said, ‘I’d count myself a happy man.’

Of course, when Susannah Pepper had told them her stepmother was coming to stay, George hadn’t known who this woman was, let alone why she was considered notorious. He knew that Sue’s mother had been deserted by her father for the woman, whom he’d proceeded to marry. It hadn’t lasted, however, and he’d moved to America, starting a new family over there.

Well out of it, as George now realized, although the divorce had been amicable.

‘She has… considerable assets, Bernard. Could probably buy my business twice over. Susannah’s her solicitor and financial adviser. And nursemaid, now. And, by God, she needs one. Day and night. Particularly at night.’

Merrily said nothing. Let this come out in its own way.

‘Whenever they needed to discuss her financial affairs, Susannah used to travel to her stepmother’s home,’ the Mayor said, ‘wherever it happened to be at the time. She moved around a lot, London one year, Paris or Rome the next. And then… she came to Ludlow.’

Well, that first visit of the stepmother… George didn’t think much of it. Not an event he was ever going to keep gilt-framed in the formal gallery of his memory. And nothing particularly amiss at first. They weren’t contemporaries, George and Bell, not by ten or more years, yet for that first meeting she’d been dressed decently and conservatively, if a little eccentrically, in an Edwardian-type summer dress, her blonde hair neatly styled, Nancy had noted. Quite girlish, rather attractive.

And clearly besotted with the town, from the start.

George should have spotted the danger signs: the woman tripping and gliding around the Buttercross, this delighted smile on her face, upturned to the sun. And then breaking into almost a dance. He was quite gratified, at first, in his proprietorial way. Not having any idea then that she was already planning to stay…

… For good.

George looked at the Bishop. ‘Do you know that she tried to get one of the flats at Castle House?’

‘Was she eligible?’ Bernie turned to Merrily. ‘We mentioned this earlier – there was a large house built onto the outer walls in, I think, the nineteenth century. Later turned into council flats, would you believe? Not quite sure what the situation is at present.’

‘There was a couple living there, halfway through a forty-five-year lease,’ George said, ‘and she tried to take it over. She was besotted with the idea of living inside the castle. I think she thought if she could get that apartment she’d soon have the whole house – maybe feel like she owned the castle, who can say?’

‘What happened, George?’

‘Oh, the Powis estate managed to stop it. They have other plans for Castle House. But she has money, my God, she has. The people she tried to bribe! Fortunately, the Earl of Powis is a man of strong Christian principles and I reckon he saw the danger. Eventually, she settled on The Weir House – so called. I don’t know what she gave for it, but the people who rebuilt it seemed to have been well satisfied. As for Bell— Hold on a minute, would you?’

George went over to a long mahogany sideboard, opened a drawer, took out a slim box file, brought it back and emptied out the contents in front of Merrily, as if he was putting all his cards on the table.

‘This is one from the South Shropshire Journal.’

He spread out a photocopy of a press cutting.

Ludlow is my heaven,

says rock diva Bell.

In the colour photo, Belladonna sat on the steps of the Buttercross in a filmy cream dress, arms folded. She looked graceful and calm and strangely demure.

‘She’ll only ever speak to the local papers,’ George said. ‘Reckons this town’s her whole world now, and nothing outside it matters. Oh, they all had a go, when she first moved here – national papers, television. None of them got close.’

‘Don’t suppose they tried too hard,’ Merrily said. ‘She isn’t as famous as she used to be.’

‘If they all knew what I knew, Mrs Watkins,’ George said, ‘she’d be in every paper there is. That’s the top and bottom of it.’

‘And are you ever going to tell us, George?’ The Bishop sat cradling his brandy balloon, with its last quarter-inch of spirit. ‘Merrily’s not exactly one of the Little Sisters of the Assumption. She’s been around, you know.’

‘Thanks very much, Bernie.’

‘George knows what I mean.’

‘What’s ironic,’ George said, ‘is that she’s become a bit of a heroine to many people here – ’specially the new folk, the well-off folk. Ever a bit of timely cash needed to conserve some historic building, she’s in there with her chequebook. Made plans, apparently, for her own trust fund, to protect the old places. And then there was the housing business. You remember the development plan for the Weircroft fields, Bernard?’

The Bishop shook his head. ‘After I left here, I imagine.’

‘Owner of a couple of rough fields not far from The Weir House – bit of a wide boy, you ask me, had the look of a gypsy – he was trying to get planning permission to put houses on them. And there was a fifty-fifty chance he’d get it, too, eventually.’

‘Down by the river?’ the Bishop said. ‘Surely not!’

‘Under the castle walls, near enough. Council opposed it, and so did all the residents nearby, naturally. But the way this government is on housing now – build more and more, ignore the green belts – chances are he’d have won on appeal, especially as he was promising more than the usual quota of low-cost homes which are hard to get in Ludlow now. Then she made him an offer for the land.’

‘Did she indeed?’

‘And a very meaningful offer it was, too, but he had to decide now. Now or never. Well, he couldn’t afford to risk it, and so she bought the ground and declared it preserved. And now none of her neighbours will have a word said against her, because, if she moves, that ground’s gonner be up for grabs again. So all the folk in that vicinity, from Upper Linney to Stanton Lacy, turns a blind eye and a deaf ear.’

‘To what, George?’

‘To a good deal more than rumour, but I’ve never been one for gossip, Bernard, you know that.’

‘Erm…’ Merrily thought that one day she might meet someone who actually admitted to relishing tittle-tattle. ‘She walks the streets, right? At night. With a candle, sometimes.’

George Lackland folded his arms and sucked in his lips.

‘Like a ghost,’ Merrily said.

George dropped his arms. ‘Like a whore.’

‘Oh, really, George,’ the Bishop said.

‘You were here long enough, Bernard. You know what’s what. The prostitutes in this town… they knows their place. And you will agree that place is not, for instance, St Leonard’s graveyard.’

‘Oh, come now—’

‘We manage to keep it all under wraps one way or another. The police – well, if she’s broken the law, it’s not much compared with what else they have to handle nowadays. Can a woman be done for indecent exposure? Minor theft?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Merrily said. ‘What—?’

‘She stole a prayer book from St Laurence’s. Maybe other things, too, but someone saw her put the prayer book in her bag and walk out. And there was more, but we couldn’t tell David Cook, with the state of his health.’