Phil Rickman - The Smile of a Ghost

‘Picture of a gallows on it,’ Mumford said. ‘Or a gibbet. Picture of a feller being hanged. And a detailed picture of a working model.’

And he decided there and then that he wasn’t gonner say any more about this aspect of it. Poor bloody Ange. She’d been a crap mother, but it was clear enough now that she hadn’t known any of this. Whether Mathiesson had and had chosen to keep quiet about it was something to be considered later. For now… well, there’d be enough shadows over Ange for the rest of her life without the details Mumford had finally got out of Niall Collins – the kid refusing to talk about it until Mumford had applied the kind of emotional pressure that had brought Mark Collins and his wife rushing in and would undoubtedly be relayed to Bliss and probably Annie Howe.

Which was why Mumford couldn’t go home until this was finished.

‘What I wanted to ask you,’ he said, ‘was how well known was it that Robbie went to Ludlow during his holidays?’

Ange looked up at Mathiesson, his tattoos gleaming with sweat.

‘Don’t look at me – I never told nobody. Why would I?’

‘It en’t far to go, is it?’ Mumford said. ‘My original thought, see, was they was just bullying him ’cause he was a bit of a swot, didn’t fit in. And mabbe they made his life such a bloody misery that he couldn’t bear to come back yere and so, last day of his holidays—’

‘Stop it!’ Ange started rocking from side to side, holding herself and Robbie’s unborn sibling. Mathiesson straightening up in shock, suddenly getting the point.

‘They wouldn’t! Shit, they wouldn’t kill him, Mumford, just keep him quiet… wouldn’t top him just to keep him out their hair…’

‘Mabbe it was an accident, Lenny. Mabbe they just wanted to put the fear of God into him. But, then again, I always said it was only a matter of time with Jason Mebus.’

‘The Collins boy told you this?’

‘It don’t matter where I got it from. But what you got with the likes of Mebus, see – and wossisname, Chain-boy, Connor – is kids who’s up here with the excitement of it. Wanner prove themselves as hard men. You been through that phase, surely, Lenny…’

Mathiesson said nothing.

Ange said, ‘If you think Lenny had anything to do with it, you’re wrong.’

‘And I’d like to think I was,’ Mumford said, ‘for your sake if nothing else.’

‘He had every reason to keep Robbie alive.’

‘Ange…’ Mathiesson gripped her shoulders. ‘There’s no need. He en’t a copper no more. You don’t have to—’

‘Sit down, Andy,’ Ange said, real quiet.

WHEN THE SINGING stopped, Merrily was aware that the warm night and the foliage had come alive, but not with foxes or badgers or bats or rats.

Unease made her stop on the edge of the path, looking all around her. Over her shoulder the top of the church tower was visible, its weathercock spiking a cluster of mushroom-coloured night clouds. And somewhere, although the singing had stopped, she could hear voices, rushing through the undergrowth like blown leaves. When a giggle crept up behind her, she spun round. Shadows were moving among the bushes, skidding feet.

A girl’s voice squeaked, ‘No, Nez, don’t!’

What sounded like a beer can bounced off the castle wall, and somebody shouted after it, ‘Mad ole slapper!’ and Merrily became aware of a bunch of them at the side of the track, about ten yards away. She felt a glow of very basic fear. But it couldn’t be the women who had attacked Bell; these were just kids.

Just kids.

We had some awesome laughs with Robbie.

‘What do you want?’ Her voice coming out cracked and coarsened by twenty years of smoke. She started to cough, muffled it with an arm.

A kid said, ‘Whossat?’

‘Police,’ Merrily said, with determination. ‘This path is closed. Now push off, the lot of you, or you’ll be banged up for the night.’

‘Aw, get lost, you’re not the police.’

‘Then you’ll be able to pretend in the morning that you’re not having your breakfast in a cell.’ Remembering the mini-Maglite torch she’d stuffed into a pocket of her jeans before leaving the car, she started fumbling under her fleece. ‘Now, do you want to go in the van or—’

The little torch was bugger-all use for hitting anybody, but it was very bright. She flashed it at head height, found a girl in a shocking-pink top who looked about thirteen, and the girl squealed and backed off, stumbling.

A boy said, ‘You’re never protecting that mad ole slapper, are you?’

Then, ‘Oh, no!’ the girl was wailing. ‘My heel’s gone! Nez, you bloody wuss, I told you I didn’t want to come down here.’

‘I’ll carry you…’

‘Oh, get—’

‘What’s going on?’

Outrage and a yellow light, probably from one of the cottages in The Linney.

‘Shit,’ one of them whispered. ‘It’s my grandad. Sorry, OK? We’re off now. We just wanted to see if it was true, all right? We’ll leave you to it. Goodnight.’

‘Erm… yeah… Goodnight.’ Merrily smiled.

She switched off the flashlight, waited until it was quiet again and the light in The Linney had gone out. We just wanted to see if it was true . How often did this happen?

She put the torch on again, twisted the neck until there was just a thin beam, directing it at the ground, following it along the track until it found the fat bole of Marion’s yew tree. And Bell Pepper sitting under it, in silence now, with something across her knees, her elbows resting on it and her face between her hands, a small light at her feet.

‘I don’t want protection,’ she said.

‘You’ve been getting it, anyway.’ Merrily switched off the torch. ‘For a long time.’

‘Oh.’ Bell Pepper turned her head. ‘I thought I… it’s Mary, isn’t it?’

‘I’m sorry, I followed you. Didn’t like to think of you going back out there after what happened.’

‘It was very stupid of Jonathan to phone you.’

‘He was worried, too. Can we talk?’

Merrily sat down next to her, between the roots. The space under the yew’s dense canopy was lit like an earthen grotto by the candle in the lantern, and she could make out Belladonna’s once-famous patrician profile, recalling an album cover where her face had been sprayed with creamy white plaster, eyes calmly closed, like a death mask.

‘Children,’ Bell said. ‘I expect I was some kind of goddess to their parents. Now I’m a mad old slapper.’ She gazed out between the trees towards the invisible river. ‘When they’re spraying your name three feet high on walls, you never imagine that one day you’ll be…’

Normal , Merrily thought. Ordinary . It was odd – she’d always thought that Lol was the exception in his line of work because he seemed, in spite of everything, so normal. Odd how you could be taken in by the intentional mythologizing of rock musicians.

‘Maybe in ten years’ time those kids’ll think you’re a goddess, too,’ she said. ‘Tastes change rapidly in music. And then they bounce back again.’

‘How would you know?’

‘I was a fan. I came to one of your gigs once. And my boyfriend’s in the business.’

‘Business?’

‘Music. He plays. Writes songs.’

‘You poor cow. Would I have heard of him?’

‘I don’t know. Lol Robinson? OK if I smoke? Tobacco, that is. I’m feeling a bit…’

‘Go ahead. Christ, I remember Lol Robinson. Hazey Jane? They put him away, didn’t they?’

‘Psychiatric hospital.’ Merrily found the Zippo and the Silk Cut packet, crushed, in her fleece. ‘He fell into the system.’