Phil Rickman - The Smile of a Ghost

‘Or the writer simply reacts to events,’ Lol said. ‘An opportunist.’

‘Do you have any idea who it might conceivably be?’

Lol shook his head. ‘You?’

‘Well… yes.’

‘You do?’

‘Not the notes, but certainly the rumours. It’s a bit obvious, but… Siân Callaghan-Clarke knew everything, OK? I can see only one direct route from Ledwardine to Siân, and it goes through Saltash. Therefore it has to go via the surgery. Because, every week, Saltash goes jogging with Kent Asprey.’

‘Asprey told him?’

‘Breeding ground for germs and gossip, that surgery. Asprey would have been one of the first to know.’

‘I don’t get it. Does Asprey have anything against either of us?’

‘He’d pass it on to Saltash without thinking. A doctor thing.’

‘We can take it neither of them wrote these, then,’ Lol said.

‘Huh? Oh… too legible.’

‘Grammar too correct, also.’

They stood there in Lol’s kitchen, smiling at one another like fools, making light of it. Yeah, trivial, really, something and nothing.

But even though the power was connected now, the place was full of shadows. It was as if some great cosmic force – to which Merrily refused to put a name – had decided that she and Lol… this unlikely liaison was never going to be allowed to work out.

Unsurprisingly, the confrontation by the river and its aftermath had stripped the night of what passed for romance in Hereford, and Jane got taken home well before midnight.

Eirion – normally well balanced and philosophical to the point where you wanted to shake him – was seriously pissed off. She knew he’d been quietly committed for some time to building a career in the media, and the idea that a guy at school his age already had one… Driving back to Ledwardine, Eirion had conceded that it was just about conceivable that this Fyneham had contributed snippets, maybe even the odd concert review to Q . But an interview? A freaking interview ?

She hadn’t seen him like this before – saying how he was going to crack this wide open, and he wasn’t going to wait till Monday, because if this bastard was scamming Lol…

Well, right. Enough shit had happened to Lol, and so J.D. Fyneham was on borrowed time with Jane. too. But she wouldn’t get in Eirion’s way on this; she’d go to Ludlow tomorrow with Mum, do the dutiful-daughter thing.

It was good to find, when she let herself into the vicarage, that Mum was still at Lol’s. She put the kettle on, went up to the apartment, raided her shelves for any books that might mention Ludlow and brought them down to the scullery, where she sat with Ethel and switched on the computer.

J. Watkins, pagan-consultant. She could very much live with that.

However, paganism-wise, apart from the siting of the church, there didn’t seem to be much happening in Ludlow itself… although there were more suggestions that the wider area had been significant in the Bronze Age. Over twenty prehistoric burial mounds had been found at Bromfield, a mile or two north of the town – the Bromfield Necropolis. Cool term.

She checked out the church tumulus again, downloading more detail.

The Irish saints whose remains were found inside the mound were identified as Cochel, Fercher and Ona, who had come to live in the area. However, holy relics were much prized in those days…

Et cetera, et cetera…

Mum had come in, was leaning over her shoulder.

‘It’s OK, I’m quite willing to accept they were more likely to have been the remains of three guys with big beards and horns on their helmets.’

Jane looked up. ‘You sound happier.’

‘We rationalized the situation.’

‘Lol’s OK with it?’

‘Yeah, Lol’s… more OK than I expected.’

Jane smiled and nodded. Best not to tell Mum about J.D. Fyneham until it was confirmed one way or the other. She pointed at the screen, which showed an aerial photo of Ludlow with the church and the castle vying for prominence and the church probably winning, even though the castle had much more ground and the church was crowded by streets on three sides.

‘I think we should maybe check out the church, before we see her,’ Jane said. ‘OK?’

‘But before that we should pop into our own church.’

Jane looked over her shoulder. ‘Why?’

‘I’m not making a big thing of this. I’d just like us to do St Pat’s breastplate and the Lord’s Prayer… if that’s OK?’

‘You think we need spiritual protection?’

‘There’s nothing lost.’

‘OK.’ Jane shrugged. ‘I’ve never been a chauvinistic pagan. But, like, you really think this achingly sad, faded, 1980s icon is a source of satanic evil?’

‘I’ll be honest – I don’t know. We don’t know what she’s collected over the years.’

‘No gold discs, that’s for sure,’ Jane said. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’

She thought of the last time they’d done something like this, before the Boy Bishop ceremony in Hereford Cathedral, back when Mick Hunter was Bishop and Mum was a novice exorcist. It had followed one of the biggest rows they’d ever had, and it seemed like half a lifetime ago, and it was good to think how much more adult they both were about this kind of thing now.

‘Look,’ Mum said, ‘it’s not that I feel particularly insecure about assuming a role which admittedly is in… explicit denial of my Christianity… if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘Didn’t say a thing.’

‘OK…’ Mum put a hand to her forehead. ‘I’m probably lying. Of course I feel insecure. And I really don’t know if it’s a good thing to have you along or not.’

‘I can watch your back,’ Jane said. ‘You know me.’

Mum rolled her eyes and winced at the pain this evidently caused. The swelling had gone down now, but it was still conspicuously a black eye.

The phone rang. They both stared at it.

‘Might be Lol?’ Jane said.

They carried on staring at it, because this was late for any kind of call, until the machine cut in. Then there was a man’s voice Jane didn’t recognize, a Northern kind of voice.

‘Mary… if you’re still up… Shit… I got a problem here. With Bell. I didn’t know who to—’

Mum picked up.

‘Jon?’

Jane could hear a sound of apparent relief, then a lot of gabbled talk, Mum listening, the computer screen turning her face mauve.

‘What about the police?’ Mum said. And then she said, ‘Isn’t there a cottage hospital?’ And then, after about half a minute, she said, ‘All right, I’ll come over,’ and put the phone down and stood there for a moment with her lips set into a tight line.

‘What?’ Jane said.

Mum let out a breath. ‘Jon Scole, the ghost-walk guy. She turned up on his doorstep, about half an hour ago. He’s got a flat over his shop, and there’s an alleyway and some steps, and she was on her hands and knees…’

‘Belladonna?’

‘She was doing her… walk, and they were waiting for her, where The Linney goes down towards St Leonards and the river. Dark, narrow, secluded…’

‘Who were?’

‘Seems to have been girls – women. They were waiting for her, and they started hurling abuse. And then they… they just beat her up.’

‘The women did?’

‘And she won’t have the police brought in, and her stepdaughter’s away for the weekend, and Jon Scole doesn’t know what to do.’

‘We’re going over there?’

‘Looks like I’m going,’ Mum said.

‘What about me?’

‘You get some sleep. I’ll be back as soon as I can. And we’ll still go back tomorrow.’

‘It is tomorrow,’ Jane said.

And sensed that everything was about to go seriously wrong.