The Wine of Angels

by Phil Rickman

  ‘Ms Watkins ... I really am very, very sorry. But it did seem inappropriate at the time to tell you what we were doing. Besides which, we didn’t, at that stage, have what I would have considered sufficient evidence, so I actually hadn’t yet decided precisely how I wanted to handle it. It was what you might call an ongoing situation. Sorry.’

  ‘Just go on talking,’ Merrily said. ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve heard enough.’

  Oh God, but it made terrible sense. It’s sorted, Stefan had said. Richard won’t be having anything to do with this.

  Because Richard had died a bloody but not protracted death in the living room of Upper Hall lodge, under repeated blows from a blunt instrument. Merrily pictured some statuette of a nude biblical male spattered with blood and brain.

  It will be the performance of my life. Perhaps there won’t be another.

  James Bull-Davies had discovered the body when he went to confront Coffey after learning about the proposed evening of drama cooked up by Stefan Alder and the vicar. The living-room curtains had been drawn, but on the front-door frame was a blatant and unavoidable handprint in blood. Bull-Davies had kicked the door in.

  Stefan, it seemed, had made very little attempt to conceal the killing – a crime, very definitely, of passion, but the passion was for a man over three centuries dead. Perhaps, after tonight’s performance, he would have given himself up.

  ‘So why didn’t you just arrest the poor sod before the performance? Did the idea of an audience appeal to your—?’

  ‘Ms Watkins. I’m really not obliged to justify my choice of procedure to you, nor even to—’

  ‘It was James, wasn’t it? He wanted the entire village to know that the man attempting to defame his ancestry was not only a liar but a murderer. Or to conclude that, because he’s now revealed as a murderer, he must also be a liar.’

  ‘Inspector,’ Bull-Davies boomed from behind her, ‘as you so rightly say, you are under absolutely no obligation to defend your methods to this woman, who, in my view, is simply wasting police time. As she has wasted everyone else’s. She might also care to consider that had it not been for her irresponsible promotion of this impromptu fiasco, Richard Coffey would in all probability not have died.’

  ‘It’s not my place to say he’s right,’ Annie Howe said. ‘But I do have to go now. Nobody’s been permitted to leave yet, by the way, because we shall need the name and address of everyone here tonight. DC Thomas will stay and take them down.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Possible witnesses.’

  ‘To what? James’s assault on Stefan Alder?’

  ‘May I have a word in private, Ms Watkins?’

  Merrily followed her down the central aisle, through a parted sea of appallingly excited faces, to the south porch.

  ‘Look,’ Howe said, ‘I’m still looking for Colette Cassidy. It’s possible that the death of Richard Coffey has absolutely no connection with that, but in a village this size it would be amazing if there wasn’t some kind of overlap, however peripheral. So that’s one reason I want to know precisely who is in this building.’

  ‘It’s a church.’

  ‘It’s just another public building to me.’

  ‘I thought you were looking for this ... Laurence Robinson.’

  ‘He’s one of the people we want to eliminate from our inquiries. Why, is he here?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Merrily said.

  ‘No? Well, I’m going back to Hereford now to talk to Mr Alder, but there will be other officers around should you wish to give them any information.’

  ‘A celebrity murder,’ Merrily said tonelessly. ‘Aren’t you lucky?’ It would sound grudging, mean-spirited. Distinctly unsaintly. ‘I need some air,’ she said.

  Outside, she lit a cigarette and walked among the graves.

  So that was it. All over.

  Richard Coffey dead and his play stillborn. Stefan Alder destroyed. Wil Williams reburied in a deeper grave. The troublesome and ineffectual woman priest publicly discredited, last seen plucking feebly at the sleeve of the younger woman who took all the honours.

  God and the Fates had conspired to make the world secure again for the Bulls of Ledwardine. Thank you, Lord.

  And the pink moon shone down.

  After a while, Merrily squeezed out the cigarette and went back into the church to find Jane and go home.

  Wherever that was.

  49

  Badger Baiting

  LLOYD LAUGHED. ‘JUST an ole ewe, Jane. Picked her up from the north field this afternoon, forgot she was still in the back. Second one just dropped dead in two days, you get weeks like that. No reason for it.’

  A spent eye gazed past Jane, who shuddered, thinking of the ewe Lucy had run into, the one that killed her and itself. That was one of the Powells’, too, presumably.

  The truck’s engine rattled into life. Lloyd threw it into gear, switched on his lights and pulled out.

  The last time Jane had been on this road it was with Bella, the radio reporter, bound for King’s Oak Corner, where the police had found some of Colette’s clothing. She didn’t want to be on it again, heading for the spot where Lucy had died.

  ‘Why are we going up here?’ She looked over her shoulder. ‘The village is that way.’

  ‘Because the truck, he was pointing this way,’ Lloyd said, exasperated. ‘And it en’t a good road for doing a three-point turn in the dark. We got to carry on up yere a mile or so then reverse into Morgan’s yard, all right?’

  ‘Oh.’

  Which meant they were going to pass the section where Lucy had hit the sheep. And then they’d have to pass it again, when Lloyd had turned round. He had no right to do this. Who was he anyway? Who did the Powells think they were? Generation after generation of boring councillors and self-righteous farmers who slagged off townies for never having shagged a sheep or whatever.

  Sheep. She thought of the poor, lifeless ewe slung in the back of the truck and then, with a flush of anger, realized that if the Powells had been such brilliant farmers, Lucy would still be alive.

  ‘That was one of your sheep, wasn’t it, that Lucy Devenish hit?’

  ‘Like I said, two ewes gone in two days,’ Lloyd said.

  It hadn’t been quite what he’d said, but Jane pressed on, not wanting to lose the impetus.

  ‘So where did it come from?’

  ‘I dunno. The field across from the orchard, presumably.’ He was driving with one hand on the wheel. His right elbow was resting on the ledge of his wound-down window. He looked pretty cool actually. One of the girls at school had said she’d tried to snog him once at a Young Farmers’ dance, but Lloyd had just kissed her limply and walked off like he had better fish to fry.

  ‘How did it get out?’

  ‘What you on about?’

  ‘The sheep.’

  ‘I got no idea, Jane.’

  ‘You would if you bothered to check your fences,’ Jane said tartly.

  Lloyd eased off the accelerator. ‘What you mean by that?’

  ‘Next to a road like this, you should have decent fences and check them regularly. That way, sheep wouldn’t get out and run in front of people and cause accidents. It wasn’t the sheep’s fault, it was yours.’

  She thought he’d be angry, and she didn’t care, but he seemed relieved, making a small sound that was almost a laugh.

  ‘You’re a cheeky little devil, Jane.’

  ‘And you’re just ... irresponsible,’ she said ineffectually.

  The truck jolted to a standstill.

  Jane looked out of the window for lights and saw none. ‘Why’ve you stopped?’

  ‘Morgan’s Yard. Morgan’s bloody yard, Jane.’

  ‘I can’t see anything.’

  Lloyd sighed. ‘Morgan’s farm’s been derelict these past twenty years.’

  He reversed quickly and carelessly, as though he’d done it a thousand times at night and then, with the car pointing at ninety degrees to the road, took his hands
off the wheel.

  ‘Well, go on, then.’ Jane felt suddenly quite nervous of him. ‘Take me home.’

  ‘No,’ Lloyd said. ‘You got a bee in your bonnet about this Devenish business, I want it sorted.’

  ‘She was good to me. And if you’d seen her lying dead in the road—’

  ‘Well, I didn’t. But if I had, I’d still’ve thought she was a cranky, meddling old troublemaker, and this village better off with her gone.’

  ‘You rotten bastard,’ Jane blurted. ‘What did she ever do to you?’

  ‘Plus,’ Lloyd said pedantically, ‘she was a danger to herself and every other road-user. Two reasons – one, she never wore protective headgear.’

  ‘She liked her cowboy hat, and everybody knew it was her coming along, it was part of her im—’

  ‘Two, that ridiculous Mexican poncho thing. Get the wind under that, it blows up over your handlebars. Up over your head, if you’re unlucky. Which was exactly what happened, wannit?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jane whispered, shutting her eyes as if that would drive away the picture of Lucy’s face under the happy, summer poncho.

  Lloyd revved hard and she was flung back into the passenger seat. ‘Silly bugger,’ Lloyd said and put both hands on the wheel, sending the truck bolting back in the direction of Ledwardine.

  Thank God for that, Jane thought. Suddenly, the idea of being dumped back at the vicarage or outside the church with some snide little comment to Mum about keeping her daughter off the booze seemed almost cosy. She only hoped, the speed Lloyd was going, that no more sheep had strayed on to the road.

  There was a cold explosion in her head.

  Oh God.

  Second one just dropped dead in two days, you get weeks like that. No reason for it, he’d said.

  Not, And that makes it two with the one Lucy Devenish ran into. He was saying it had already dropped dead. How could he possibly know that?

  Plus that poncho thing. Up over your head, if you’re unlucky. Which was exactly what happened, wannit?

  How did he know that? How did he know Lucy had been lying dead with the poncho over her face, when he said he hadn’t seen her? Nobody had, except Jane and Bella and the police who’d immediately concealed the area.

  Lloyd put his headlights on full beam, as the truck began jolting like all the tyres had gone flat or something.

  ‘What’s happening? Why’s it gone all bumpy?’

  ‘Short cut,’ Lloyd said tersely. In the green glow from the dashboard, he looked angry.

  ‘No, it’s not, where are we going?’

  He rounded on her. ‘Shut up!’

  ‘What’s the matter? What have I done?’

  ‘This is all your bloody fault, you stupid little cow. I never bloody wanted this. I tried to be fair with you and you just kept pushin’ it and pushin’ it and pushin’ it. You couldn’t leave well alone.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. What have I said?’

  ‘It’s not what you said, it’s what you made me say. Leadin’ me on all the time, laying traps. You come yere, you all think you’re so smart. You and your university-educated parents and all I ever went to was the local agricultural college, all laughing behind your hands, bloody ole yokels, we’ll show ’em how to organize ’emselves, oh you think you’re so—’

  ‘We’re not ... My mother dropped out of university,’ Jane said. Desperately grabbing at a change of topic, anything not to do with sheep and road accidents. ‘She got pregnant. She’s worked really hard all her life. We’re not posh townies, Mum’s family came from—’

  ‘Shut your bloody clever little gob.’ The truck slithered to a greasy stop. ‘Let me think!’

  ‘Take me home.’ Jane discovered she was crying. She didn’t feel disgusted with herself, anybody would cry in this situation. ‘Please, Lloyd.’

  ‘You’ve had that, miss. You won’t get home now.’

  ‘Where are we?’ She made a grab for the door handle; he reared over her. She screamed. The scream floated away out of the window, into nowhere.

  ‘Don’t make me touch you,’ Lloyd said.

  Jane got both hands to the door-pull, but it just kept clicking and the door didn’t open.

  ‘Don’t work from the inside n’more,’ Lloyd said. ‘I was gonner get him fixed, then I saw he had his uses.’

  Gomer caught up with Merrily under the porch lantern.

  ‘Vicar. Hold on.’ He was out of breath.

  She stepped outside again, although she didn’t think she could bring herself to explain what had happened.

  ‘Gomer—’

  ‘Seen ’em fetchin’ ’im out, Vicar. At least four people told me the story ‘tween Church Street and the market. Should be more’n halfway round the county by now. Forget that. That don’t matter, see. You gotter get back in there, ‘fore they all leaves.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You gotter tell ’em the truth.’

  ‘Dear Gomer.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know any truth any more. And if I did, nobody would want to hear it from me.’

  ‘I know the truth. Me and Lol, we figured it. If you’d just give me chance—’

  ‘Gomer, whatever it is, it’s too late.’

  ‘En’t,’ Gomer said obstinately.

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve got to find Jane.’

  He followed her back into the porch. ‘Vicar, you gotter listen. Lol, see, he’s been puttin’ me in the picture ‘bout a lot o’ things you been keepin’ to yourself too long.’

  ‘Then he shouldn’t have. It’s all been a waste of time and I should’ve known better.’

  Inside the porch, sitting on the stone bench like a smug gnome, Dermot Child smirked at her. ‘Quite an interesting night, Reverend. In spite of everything. I’m sure the repercussions will be many and varied.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Gomer peered sourly at him, ‘Ah, it’s you, Mr Child. Didn’t recognize you with your dick in your pants.’ He held open the church door for Merrily.

  ‘Gomer—’

  ‘Hear me out, Vicar.’

  At the prayer-book table, just inside the door, Detective Constable Ken Thomas was sitting taking names. Ken was local, well known to most of the villagers and Merrily too. He was a nice man, overweight and approaching retirement age, therefore consigned by Howe to such menial, clerical tasks as this. He didn’t seem to mind.

  ‘You en’t gonner write my full name down, are you, Ken?’ Jim Prosser was saying. ‘Just put Jim, Shop, you’ll remember.’

  ‘But she won’t, and she’s the one matters.’

  ‘That girl?’

  ‘That girl could be divisional commander next year, way things are going. It’s called accelerated promotion. Tonight’s likely shoved her up two more rungs.’

  ‘Bugger me,’ Jim Prosser said. Behind him, Brenda, his wife, fussed with her inappropriate crinoline. Behind her Dr Kent Asprey looked impatient, Rod Powell dignified and unconcerned. James Bull-Davies, heritage vindicated, hung out by the pulpit, aloof, chin thrust out, gazing up at the opaque apple window, on the opposite side of the church to the Bull chapel where, Merrily was convinced, he’d earlier hacked his way into a seventeenth-century tomb. But who would ever learn about that now?

  Nobody seemed to notice Merrily. There was no sign of Jane.

  ‘Probly gone home lookin’ for you,’ Gomer said. ‘Well find her, don’t you worry ‘bout that. Now, where’s quiet? Vestry?’

  He held back the curtain and almost pushed her inside.

  Jane wrapped her arms around herself, shrinking into the corner where the sunken passenger seat ended and the metal partition separated her and the dead sheep in the back of the truck.

  This was the Powell farm, on the wrong side of the new road, the village a sparse and distant glimmering through the orchard.

  ‘I’m not getting out. I want to go home. You’ve got to take me home.’

  ‘Stop whining, bitch,’ Lloyd said. ‘I gotter think.’

  He was clutching the steering whe
el tightly with both hands as though he wanted to bang his head on it. The film of sweat on his forehead was lime-green in the dashlight. The engine was chunnering. A smell of petrol inside the cab, mixed with cattle feed and manure.

  ‘Then let me get out. I’ll walk home. I can see you’ve got a lot on your mind.’

  ‘I’ve told you to stop that.’

  Lloyd looked up from the wheel, his face severe but kind of bland, like his dad’s. Like being moved by anything was a weakness genetically eradicated in the Powells centuries ago.

  ‘You think we’re stupid. You think you can soft-talk me and I’ll let you go and you’ll toddle off back to your mother and tell her all about what the bad Powells done to poor Miss Devenish.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Jane lied desperately. ‘I know you wouldn’t do anything to Lucy. Just let me go home, Lloyd. I’m a bit pissed and everything, and I probably won’t remember a thing in the morning. Just let me go back to the orchard and I’ll find my own way home, all right?’

  ‘Why’d you do that?’ He leaned back, curious now. ‘Why’d you take that bottle of cider into the orchard?’

  ‘Couldn’t very well drink it at home, could I? And that was where Colette and I came on—’

  ‘Why there? Why under that tree?’

  ‘I don’t know. Colette—’

  ‘Colette, Colette, Colette!’ He slammed a fist into the wheel. ‘That little slapper! You want me, don’t you? Don’t you, Lloydie? Piece of rubbish. Piercing her body, advertising herself. And they paid for that to go to the Cathedral School.’

  Jane said, ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘Right.’ Lloyd leaned on his door. A second later he was opening hers from the outside. ‘Out.’

  She didn’t want to get out. She wondered if she could slide across and somehow start the truck and ...

  Lloyd gripped her arm above the elbow and squeezed on the muscle until she screamed in pain.

  ‘Out’

  Outside, there were hulking buildings without lights. Barns and sheds. The air smelled of working farm.

  ‘Go on then, Jane.’

  She struggled out on legs that felt like foam rubber and stood shivering in a stiffened rut made by tractor wheels. The raspberry moon shone out of a bitter chocolate sky. She did want to heave now, but she wouldn’t, not in front of him. Not to order, like a prisoner.