Phil Rickman - The Smile of a Ghost

‘If I’m allowed to write your number down,’ Lol said, ‘I’ll call you back if I hear from Andy.’

‘That would be very good of you, long as you remember—’

‘Don’t talk to anyone else, if you’re not there.’

‘That’s exactly right,’ Karen said.

Jane didn’t even ask who he’d been talking to. She pressed him into a chair in the kitchen, knelt down facing him, gripping the chair arms.

‘Lol, listen… just listen, and then answer the questions. When Jack Fine from Q magazine came, what exactly—?’

‘Jane, we need to swap over.’ Lol pushed himself up, patting his jeans to make sure he had his car keys. ‘You need to stay here, and I have to go over to Ludlow.’

‘Huh? Mum is OK, isn’t she?’

‘I’m sure she’s fine. Just some things I need to tell her.’

‘What things?’

Jane’s eyes were concentrated and glittering with so much awareness it was scary. Age of transition: old enough to drive, almost old enough to vote for a new government and get drunk in pubs with the state’s blessing. Old enough to have no more adult so-called secrets being whispered behind your back.

But telling her about her mother and a man who the police didn’t like because his parents had been shot dead… and about the kids on the Plascarreg who’d shown Robbie Walsh what it was like to be hanged… how could any of this really help?

‘You’re feeling sidelined, aren’t you? Out of it,’ Jane said. ‘She never thinks about that.’

‘She doesn’t have time.’

‘You make too many excuses for her. Sometimes she needs to put her own relationship first. Yeah, OK, do it. You go, we’ll stay. But first, we need to ask you some things.’

‘It’s called The Weir House, right, and it’s down below the castle, near the river?’

‘She might not even be there now. Lol—’

‘It’s a small town, I’ll find her.’

‘Lol, you can spare, like, ten… OK, five… five minutes? You do want to know who set you up, don’t you? The anonymous notes?’

‘It was a little kid. I’ve just—’

‘It was a big kid, actually.’

‘Lol,’ Eirion said, ‘she’s right, for once. This is heavier than you know. For starters, Jack Fine’s not from Q magazine, he’s this bastard I go to school with, and he was here purely to get information out of you. I don’t want to hold you up or anything, but basically Jane recognized him and this morning we went to his dad’s house to face him up.’

‘His dad publishes magazines,’ Jane said. ‘He used to be a national-paper journalist, and now he publishes all kinds of trade and, like, professional magazines and junk like that. He also tips off the papers on stories, and the son, J.D. Fyneham – Jack Fine – his personal weekend job is on much the same lines. He’s got all this desktop publishing kit, and he does this church-magazine scam, and he’s open for commissions and it seems to me he’s not fussy where they come from.’

‘We got so far with him,’ Eirion said, ‘and then it became clear there were people he was more intimidated by than, like, Jane.’

‘What, you mean he edits the Yardies’ international newsletter?’ Lol stood up. ‘Look, guys, I’m sure this is significant stuff I’ll really want to know about… tonight?’

‘Just tell us what questions Fyneham asked you,’ Eirion said. ‘And then you can go, and we’ll stop here by the phone.’

‘Well, he… he did try to find out about Merrily and me. I suspect he’d heard something, but I headed him off. I said I wasn’t in any particular relationship at present.’

‘Oh, we know he’d heard something,’ Eirion said. ‘In fact, any day now you could open the Sun and find, like, “Villagers have been shocked by the violent love-affair between their woman vicar and a rock singer with a conviction for a sex offence.” Well, more guarded than that, obviously…’

‘He’s not kidding, Lol,’ Jane said, watching his eyes.

‘Jane, I didn’t tell him anything.’

‘Well, somebody did. Either he’s been sniffing around the village in his spare time, or somebody’s been feeding him sick gossip.’

‘All right.’ Lol told them about Gomer Parry and the small boy and the ten quid. ‘You’re actually saying this guy was behind that?’

‘We don’t know, to be honest,’ Jane said. ‘We think he’s got to be. But who’s behind him? What else did he ask you about?’

‘He went into the court case and what led up to it and the loony-bin years, all that. He knew about it already, and I just made sure he got it right. Told him it really wasn’t much of a story any more.’

‘Hmm,’ Jane said.

‘And the rest was mainly about the music. Was I putting all my bad experiences into songs, like “Heavy Medication Day”? Which was fair enough. He said it sounded like this Dr Gascoigne had done some unpleasant things to me. He was trying to find out what they were. I didn’t tell him.’

‘Anything else?’

‘I don’t think so. If I think of anything else, I’ll call you on the mobile.’

‘Well, leave it switched on,’ Jane said.

‘OK.’ Lol paused in the doorway. ‘So Jack Fine really wasn’t doing an actual interview for Q ? Or anything?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘OK,’ Lol said.

He walked across to the square to collect his Astra, a nobody again. Thinking that it was always harder for a nobody to defend himself, his loved ones, his reputation.

When Lol had gone, Jane switched on the computer, thinking how wise it had been of her to persuade Mum to have an extra phone line installed.

‘Where do we start?’

Eirion raised his eyes to the ceiling. Meaning Jane’s attic apartment where, last summer, she’d lost her virginity to him – not realizing that, despite all his man-of-the-world crap, he was simultaneously losing his to her. Never quite forgiven him for that.

‘Out of the question,’ Jane said.

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘The way you were sitting said it all.’ Jane clicked into Internet Explorer. ‘What are we looking for? Like, has Lol really told us anything we didn’t already know?’

It had become interesting when Fyneham had admitted that the new Evesham computer Jane had been threatening with extinction had been bought for him in return for helping one of his dad’s… hard to say if it was a friend or just a client. But the guy had wanted to know about Merrily and Lol, particularly Lol, which was bizarre.

What he’d wanted to know, basically, as Jane had understood it, was like, well… dirt. Anything damaging. Lol and Mum? Someone wanted to damage Lol and Mum?

Just then, unfortunately, Fyneham’s dad’s Alfa had pulled up outside. Back-up. So Fyneham had become braver. Presumably the old man was as bent as his son. So JD had gone back on his story, claiming he’d been, like, just saying that about this guy, to wind them up.

Eirion pulled out a Parish Pump leaflet he’d picked up from a pile in the office suite. Jane at once snatched it and screwed it up.

‘Parish Pimp , more like.’

‘No!’ Eirion grabbed it back, smoothed it out. ‘I made some notes on this. Listed all the titles his dad publishes.’

‘Does that help us?’

‘Might do. What Hereford Council Can Do for You ? Do we know any bent councillors your mum might have offended?’

‘Most councillors wind up bent after a few years. What else is on the list? I forget.’

‘ Microlite Monthly ? DigiCam !’

‘Anorak rags.’

‘I was saving the best one. The Clinical Therapist .’

‘You reckon?’

‘Google it,’ Eirion said.

The Clinical Therapist. Biannual digest of new developments in clinical psychiatry aimed primarily at hospital-based psychiatrists and allied practitioners. Est. 1999. Lord Shipston. DClinPsych, MSc.