by Phil Rickman
‘Hops,’ Merrily said. ‘When you say Stewart was obsessed by hops, you mean from an historical point of view, or what?’
‘Well, that too, obviously. But also hops themselves. I wouldn’t claim to understand what he saw in them. To me, they’re messy, flakey things, not even particularly attractive to look at. But when we first took possession of the house, the walls and the ceiling were a mass of them: all these dusty, crumbling hop-bines – twelve, fifteen feet long – and the whole place stank of hops. I mean, I like a glass or two of beer as much as anyone, but the constant smell of hops… no, thank you. And when you opened a door, they’d all start rustling. It was like—’ He shook his head roughly.
‘Go on.’
‘Like a lot of people whispering, I suppose. Anyway, we cleared out the bines. It felt as though they were keeping even more light out of the place. Some of them were straggling over the windows. The windows in the living room back there once looked out down the valley. Apparently.’
Through the central window in here she could see blue sky. Through the other two, blue paint. It probably hadn’t even been this dark when it was a functioning kiln with a brick furnace in the centre.
‘The barns,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘That’s awful,’ Merrily agreed, ‘but I’m afraid it’s not—’
‘Your problem. No.’
‘Have you talked to a solicitor?’
‘I’ve talked to a lot of people,’ Mr Stock said.
‘Erm – that aroma of hops.’ Merrily breathed in slowly, through her nose. ‘I almost expected you to say you’d been smelling it again.’
She thought his eyes flickered, but it was too dim to be sure. He shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that.’
‘So… what about your wife?’
He was silent. His face seemed to have stiffened.
‘I mean, how badly has she been affected? She saw the… lightform?’
‘My wife…’ He turned away, shoulders hunched. ‘Won’t talk much about it. When the hacks were here, we had to virtually manufacture some suitable quotes for her. Maybe she thinks it’ll all just go away.’
‘You mean she’s not so scared…?’
‘As me? Probably not. Obviously, neither of us likes the darkness – it’s the kind of darkness you have to fight. And you lose. In here, a two-hundred-watt bulb’s like a forty. Bills’ve been horrendous. But Stephie – perhaps she just doesn’t believe Stewart would harm her. Also, more of a religious background than me. Catholic, lapsed. But it doesn’t go away. Not like…’
Merrily smiled.
‘I’m sorry, didn’t mean to be insulting. I was raised in the C of E.’
‘All I meant about your wife,’ Merrily said, ‘is that I think she should be here too, when we do whatever we do. As a blood relative of Mr Ash.’
‘Well, she will be… She’ll be here tonight.’
‘Mr Stock,’ Merrily said, ‘if I could just make a point here. Unless you really think that for some reason it’s important for this to be done at night, I don’t necessarily think that’s a good idea. I think it might be better for all of us’ – better for the Bishop, too – ‘if we said some initial prayers, perhaps a small requiem service for Mr Ash. Without delay.’
‘Now?’ He didn’t quite back away.
‘By daylight, anyway. Personally, I always think there’s an inherent danger in making this all too—’
‘Serious?’ Almost snapping.
‘Sinister. I’ll probably need the book, but we can dispense with the bell and the candle.’
She could almost see his thoughts racing, something almost feverish in his eyes. Did he have plans to involve the media? Had something already been arranged for tonight?
He unfolded his arms. ‘All right. I can call Stephie at work. Maybe she can take time off. How long will the exorcism take?’
‘That might be too big a word for what we do. Not very long, I shouldn’t think. Best to keep things simple. Oh – and I’d also want to ask the vicar if he’d like to join us. Two ministers are better than one in this kind of situation and it’s usual to involve the local guy when possible.’
‘St John?’ Hint of a sneer. ‘He won’t want to know, tell you that now.’
‘I’d like to ask him, anyway, if that’s all right with you.’
He shrugged. ‘Your show.’
‘Yours, actually. And your wife’s. And it would actually be helpful to have a few other people who knew your wife’s uncle. Is there anyone you think—?’
‘Oh no!’ Both hands went up. ‘Definitely not! I don’t want local people in here, I’m sorry. We don’t exactly have any close friends in the area. I’d rather this wasn’t talked about.’
‘But you went to the press.’
‘I was desperate. I’ve told you, I felt threatened. I didn’t know who I could trust, especially after the vicar refused to help us. Bottom line is I don’t want any of those people in here. All right?’
‘OK. Erm, another point – at a service of this kind, we need to draw a line under the past. A big element is forgiveness. I think that means we’re looking for some kind of reconciliation between you and Stewart, which of course has to be initiated by you.’
He laughed. ‘I’d guess that for Stewart one of the best things about death would be never having to see Gerard Stock again. But… you know best.’
‘Well, I don’t really know anything for sure,’ Merrily said. ‘We’re assuming Mr Ash is what you might call an unquiet spirit.’ Huw Owen would call it an insomniac. ‘Our fundamental purpose has to be to guide him away from whatever’s holding him down here towards a state of—’
‘Look!’ He put his hands on his hips, faced her. ‘Is this going to, you know, tell us anything?’
‘I’m not a medium, Mr Stock.’
‘What if Stewart’s… spirit, whatever you want to call it, is unable to rest because it wants to get a message across? Like, for instance, that his killer’s still out there.’
‘Ah.’ Merrily looked down at the flags. Around her shoes she could now make out the outline of what might have been a stain. Hidden agenda coming out at last? ‘Who’s the killer, then, in your view?’
‘I can’t tell you that,’ he said.
‘Because you don’t know. Or maybe you’ve got ideas?’
‘I’ve got ideas. However, I might be open to legal action were I to share them with you, Mrs Watkins.’
‘OK. What’s the actual time now? I’m afraid I came out without my watch.’
He held his wrist up to the light. ‘Just after ten minutes to ten.’
God, was that all? She needed breathing space, prayer space.
‘Look, I’ll call her now,’ he said. Something seemed to have lifted inside him. ‘Daytime. Yes. I should’ve thought of that. Daytime’s much better.’
‘And meanwhile I’ll go down to the church, talk to the vicar and change. See you back here in… an hour, or less?’
‘Yes. Fine. Thank you.’
They went back through the living room, the former hop-store, where any extra light not blocked off by the barns was absorbed by drab leathery furniture – Stewart’s, probably. By the back door, Merrily turned, looked up at Stock.
‘Could I just ask you – what do want this to achieve? I mean you personally?’
He wasn’t ready for this one, didn’t meet her eyes. Instead, he went to open the door for her, and the day came in like a golden cavalry of angels.
‘I want things to be normal,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’
She drove up to the minor road leading to Knight’s Frome and was almost through the village before she realized that it was the village. The church was out on the edge, the other side of the river; the white house nearby could only be the vicarage. No car outside.
She pulled on to the verge, about fifty yards away from the church, took off her jacket, threw it over the passenger seat, lit a cigarette and checked her mobile for messages.
&nb
sp; Just the one. ‘Merrily. Sophie. I’m afraid I can’t raise the vicar, but Bernard says go ahead without him. He’ll clear up any political debris. Which I suppose means I shall.’
Right, then. Merrily switched off the phone and put out her cigarette. As she was climbing out of the Volvo, she saw, through the wing mirror, a rusting white Astra pulling in about twenty yards behind.
It was already hot, and not yet ten-fifteen. A single cloud powdered the sky over the church, which was low and comfortably sunken, with a part-timbered bell tower. Pigeons clattered in what had once been a hedge surrounding the vicarage.
From the car boot, Merrily pulled her vestment bag and a blue-and-gold airline case containing two flasks of holy water. She’d knock on the vicarage door, on the off chance someone was home. If not, she’d change in the church, always assuming it was open. Slinging the bags over her shoulder, she bent to lock the car. As she pulled out the key, there were footsteps behind her, a quiet padding on the grass. She turned quickly, wishing she hadn’t locked the car.
She froze.
The mirage was wearing a black T-shirt, jeans and those same round, brass-rimmed glasses. She was aware of the bird-song and the laboured chunter of a distant tractor as they stood and stared at one another for two long seconds.
He shuffled a little, nodded at the Radiohead motif on her chest. ‘So, er… what did you think of Kid A?’
‘Erm…’ Stunned, she put down the vestment bag, adjusted the plastic strap of the airline case. She swallowed. ‘Well… you know… it kind of grew on me. Parts of it.’
‘Uh huh.’ He nodded. Then he said rapidly, ‘Merrily, I’m sorry to, you know, spring out at you like this. I did come round to the vicarage quite early this morning, but—’
‘That – that was you knocking?’
‘But there was no answer, so I went to buy a Mars Bar and a paper at the shop, and then I ran into Gomer Parry and we talked for a few minutes and then… when I got back your car had gone.’
‘I… overslept.’ Merrily saw flecks of grey in his hair. It was shorter now; the ponytail hadn’t come back. She bit down on her smile, shaking her head. ‘You really choose your times, Lol.’
‘Because you’re working.’
‘Yeah. I mean, could we…? I mean…’
‘Gerard Stock, right?’
She felt the smile die completely.
‘As… as you know,’ Lol said hesitantly, ‘I’m about the last person to try and tell you anything about your job. But… don’t do this.’
‘What?’
‘Put him off – could you do that? Stall him? Please?’
‘I… No. No, I can’t do that.’
‘Then at least come and talk to the vicar,’ Lol said.
19
And then… Peace
THE VESTRY AT Knight’s Frome was about the size of a double wardrobe and didn’t have a proper door, never mind a lock. She had Lol stand guard just inside the church porch while she changed.
This was getting crazy, too much to take.
She unpacked the bag: full kit plus pectoral cross.
Jane, of course – Jane would love this situation, wouldn’t she just? All the times in the past six months the kid had asked innocently, ‘Have you heard from Lol? Has Lol been in touch? Does Lol spend all his weekends in Wolverhampton…?
Merrily took off her skirt and T-shirt, got into the cassock that she never wore except for services, since a certain incident.
Laurence Robinson: palely sensitive singer-songwriter – in downbeat, low-key, minor chords. Unlucky in love, survivor of a nervous breakdown and some years of psychiatric treatment. Might well have become the next Nick Drake – Q magazine. If, like poor Nick, he’d killed himself, the less satisfactory route to immortality.
But Lol had survived to become droll, self-deprecating and, from Jane’s point of view, dangerously cool. The stepfather to die for. And flirt with, obviously.
Merrily did up all the fabric-covered buttons of the cassock. Fortunately the kid was away. Her own feelings she could control, up to the present.
The last time she’d seen Lol Robinson had been on Dinedor Hill, above Hereford, where a few days earlier a young woman’s death had been shatteringly avenged – leaving Lol in the middle of steaming wreckage with two people dead and one dying. Heavy trauma. In a still December dusk, before Christmas, the two of them had stood next to a fallen beech tree on the edge of the Celtic hill fort and looked down over the city, where steeples and the Cathedral tower were aligned under a shadow of cloud and the distant Black Mountains.
A prayer, a meditation, in remembrance of the victims and then they’d walked back down the hill, hand in hand. And then Lol, no big fan of organized religion, had told her he was wondering if there wasn’t some middle way between spiritual guidance and psychotherapy… a new path, maybe. And they’d walked away to their separate cars and she’d known in her heart that they would meet again sometime, at least as friends, but that this wasn’t the moment to allow things to go further.
Lol Robinson. Just about the last person she’d expected to meet today, materializing in a heat haze at the roadside. And, more confusingly, revealed as one of the anti-Stock contingent warning her to back off.
Like she had a choice.
Abandoning attempts to contact Merrily, Lol had been on the road by seven a.m., knowing that if he didn’t catch her before she went out, she could be anywhere in the diocese and there’d be no chance of talking to her until she arrived at Stock’s tonight – by which time it would be too late.
I truly hope your friend has the sense not to get involved, Simon had said. And then, last night, Isabel: He gets things he can’t put into words.
When he found Merrily had left the vicarage, he’d gone into Hereford, checked the Bishop’s Palace parking area, then called the office to make sure she wasn’t there. Mrs Hill remembered him but wouldn’t tell him where Merrily had gone. She’d offered to pass on a message; Lol said it was OK, no problem. He’d decided to stake out the entrance to Stock’s place, all day if necessary, to catch her before she could go in.
But he’d arrived back in Knight’s Frome to find she was already there. Shoved the car into some bushes, gone running down the gravel track by the kiln, about to go and hammer on the door, disrupt whatever was happening… when the door had opened and she’d walked out—
—followed by Stock: Merrily and Stock together. The first time he’d seen her in six months and here she was with Stock, who was looking, from this distance, as pristine as the husband in some old soap-powder ad, a man on the side of the angels. Merrily had been nodding to him – conveying understanding and sympathy – and at one point seemed about to take his hand. But then she’d turned and walked towards her car and Lol had sidled along the bushes, back to the Astra, to follow the Volvo.
When she’d parked close to Simon’s church, it had seemed meant. He’d made his move. Shock value. It hadn’t even been too difficult to persuade her to walk with him the few yards to the white vicarage.
Where it had all seized up like an overwound clock.
The door had been opened by a woman of about sixty-five, in a pinny, who told them the vicar and Mrs St John had gone shopping in Hereford. They always went on a Tuesday, see, because it was a slack day in the city, between the weekend rush and the Wednesday market. Easier for Isabel to get around town, the housekeeper had explained. Easier for Hereford if Isabel was in a good mood, she’d implied.
Blank wall. How could he persuade Merrily to back away from this when he couldn’t tell her any more than she already knew?
Like, what was the real reason Simon had refused to exorcize Gerard Stock’s kiln? It was becoming clear that there was more to it than the vicar’s declared belief that Stock was fabricating the whole thing either to screw Lake or milk some money out of an inheritance he couldn’t sell.
Isabel had implied, Trust him. Lol didn’t trust him – too many suggestions of instability there. And if anybody
could spot instability, it was Lol.
He stood gazing down the aisle of Simon’s very basic little parish church – no fancy carving, no stained glass – towards the altar. The truth was he had no reason to trust anyone in the clergy, except—
He turned at the swish of the velvet curtain, and she emerged from the vestry like she was stepping out of a dress-shop cubicle. Apparently, some men were kinky for women priests, like with nurses and meter maids, because of the uniform. But when Lol watched Merrily stepping into the nave, in her cassock and white surplice, it only made him scared.
Stock was very bad news. Simon knew more than he was saying.
Lol… was just a guy who wrote songs.
She gave him a small smile. She looked like a child playing dressing-up – the silly-vicar outfit. Then he saw the lines at the corners of her eyes. New lines.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Merrily said. ‘It’s what I do.’
Walking back to the car, she sensed his discomfort. She didn’t think he’d ever seen her in the full gear before. Now she was a priest, with an aura of black and white sanctity; not a woman any more. There was even a new stiffness, a formality, in the way he spoke to her.
‘I just think,’ Lol said, ‘that perhaps you should ask him why he can’t sell the kiln – just to see what he says.’
‘Lol, that’s…’ It was childish, but she did it: pushed herself onto the bonnet of the Volvo, with the surplice fanning out around her. ‘That’s irrelevant, isn’t it? I’ve heard all about him, I know what kind of man he’s been, I realize he probably went to the papers for the express purpose of stirring it for this guy Lake, or capitalizing on it in some other way. But it – it doesn’t change the fact that I do think he’s got some trouble here. If I had to like and admire all the people I was asked to help, then… well, I’d be having a lot of days off, you know?’
Lol kept peering up the road and Merrily knew he was hoping to delay things until Simon St John got back from Hereford.
‘If you’re thinking about me…’ She felt suddenly edgy and embarrassed and delved in her bag for cigarettes. ‘I’m protected. From above, by the Bishop. And… from further above. I mean… you know… come in with me, if you want.’