The Lamp of the Wicked mw-5

by Phil Rickman

  Thank you, Gomer.

  He knew as well as she did that it couldn’t have happened like that, because the fabric of the clothes had not rotted. The angel shone from Merrily’s hand and burned with a soft heat. A witness. Perhaps it had found its own way to the surface.

  ‘What do you think, Piers?’ Bliss asked.

  ‘What should I think? I have no proof you’ve found anything at all.’

  Bliss said steadily, ‘You planted her, pal. Let’s start with that, see where it gets us.’

  ‘You dare to accuse me of that – in front of all these witnesses?’

  ‘I’m feeling lucky.’ Bliss opened the door into the porch. ‘Go on, if you want. You go home and have a couple of glasses of your favourite fifteen-year-old malt and a good night’s sleep. Or maybe you’d prefer to lie awake all night and think about it, work out your story.’

  Bliss was winging it, Merrily thought. He wouldn’t even have seen what was in the grave.

  ‘Or perhaps, if you want to be less public about it, you could drop in at police Headquarters tomorrow.’ Bliss held open the door and froze. He took a cautious step back, then relaxed, smiling thinly. ‘Ah, Mr Laurence Robinson, as I live and breathe.’

  Merrily almost ran down the aisle. Lol stood in the doorway, smiled bashfully at her, the way he always did when she was in uniform. But the slanting alien eyes were watching sardonically from the region of his chest. Merrily stopped.

  ‘If you’ve come to collect the little woman, she may be a while yet.’ Bliss let Lol in and closed the door.

  ‘Who the hell’s this?’ Connor-Crewe was looking limp with unease now.

  Lol said nothing. He went to stand with Gomer in a shadowed spot under a stone plaque commemorating Ald. Joseph Albert Persham: 1894–1966.

  ‘If you drop in at Headquarters,’ Bliss said to Connor-Crewe, ‘we can fingerprint you, take a little DNA swab… and that should put you in the clear.’

  ‘You don’t frighten me in the least,’ Connor-Crewe said. ‘You’re an ambitious little bastard, but of limited intelligence.’

  ‘He don’t need intelligence.’ Chris Cody was leaning wearily against a pew-end, rubbing his face and then looking over his fingers at Connor-Crewe. ‘And for what it’s worth, he frightens me. You got no idea, have you, Piers? You don’t know what these animals are like, mate.’

  Merrily’s hand closed around the angel. She was staring, like everyone else, at this slightly built man in an oversized overcoat, who could buy and sell all of them and the church around them. Cody shook his head like he was sick of the whole thing.

  ‘It’s a murder inquiry now. They lose all sense of proportion on a murder, ’specially if it’s a woman or a kid. They’ll lie, they’ll plant evidence, they’ll have you on a fucking sandwich, mate. You’re this upper-class bastard who’s been to fucking Oxford. They love nailing a nob.’

  ‘Chris, what on earth are you…?’ Connor-Crewe was sweating.

  ‘You go out there,’ Cody said, ‘you’ll find another twenty coppers lined up like bleeding dominoes. I’m telling you, soon as I knew they had the body, I’m like, you know, this is it, we been set up. We walked into it.’

  Merrily exchanged glances with Frannie Bliss. The tip of an angel wing was piercing her palm and she felt almost faint. But Bliss was deadpan, entirely relaxed, as if he’d been expecting this and wondered why it had taken them so long. But he hadn’t; inside, he’d be as shaken as she was. She looked around for Huw and found him sitting on the chancel step, leaning forward with his hands in prayer position between his knees, not looking at anyone, listening.

  Bliss said, ‘Who killed Melanie, Mr Cody?’

  Cody looked at Piers Connor-Crewe and shrugged.

  ‘Lynsey, of course,’ he said. ‘Oh yeah – and Fred West.’

  Moira Cairns drove quite slowly out of Hereford, her face lightly tanned by the dashlight. Hands low down on the wheel, relaxed. Like they had been all night. Like she was totally unaware of the tension in Jane.

  ‘He was awfully good.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like, I was scared out ma mind when he first went out there but, Jesus, once he was into it, it was like this was the second week of his long-awaited world tour. And I guess the reason for that was he had something bigger on his mind.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  A long pause as Cairns let this huge lorry come growling past. For Christ’s sake.

  ‘And you’re thinking Lol and I are making out, yeah?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, too, if that’s way off,’ Cairns said, ‘but I couldnae think of a better reason for you behaving the whole time like a wee pain in the arse, you know?’

  ‘It’s the way I am,’ Jane said. ‘I am a pain in the arse.’ And then, as Cairns slowed right down for the Whitecross roundabout, she said, ‘Are you?’

  ‘Er… no. We’re not.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Where’s Eirion, Jane?’

  ‘Dumped me.’

  ‘For being a pain in the arse?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Moira Cairns drove in silence for maybe half a mile. The road was quiet, too. Then she said, ‘But when life’s such a bitch, and the world’s this big kidney stone floating in a universe of liquid manure, where’s the point in not being a pain in the arse?’

  Jane turned her head and looked directly at Cairns. Neither of them was smiling.

  Jane moistened her lips. ‘Have you been speaking to Eirion?’

  ‘Not since the night the both of you were there, at Prof’s. And Eirion was doing most of the talking then. Why?’

  ‘Just… wondered.’

  They hit the countryside, and she turned away to look out at the empty fields opening up on the left, all the way to the Black Mountains.

  ‘Tell me something, Jane. Does it make it worse when your mother’s a priest of God?’

  How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, she’s up in the pulpit, telling a dwindling audience about the Kingdom of Heaven, and you’re thinking, what’s this shite?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that to her.’

  ‘Or at least no more than twice a week.’

  ‘That’s not exactly—’

  ‘But, hell, if it’s what you think… ?’

  Jane said, anguished, ‘It’s not what I used to think.’

  ‘But in those days you’d had no real experience of life, right?’

  Jane slumped. It was like all her thoughts and fears had been laid out in this smorgasbord situation, and the Cairns woman was collecting a slice of this, a segment of that on a plate, and poking them with her fork, but not actually eating anything.

  ‘Next right,’ she said. And as they made the turn, at the sign pointing to Weobley, she rallied, hit back with the big one. ‘Do you believe in God?’

  They must have driven for nearly a mile before the reply came. They were passing through a wooded stretch, no visible sky, the headlights on full.

  ‘Doesnae mean I have to like the bastard.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘God – whatever he/she is – if it thinks you can take it, it’s likely to give you a hard time. You want a nice life, the best way is to turn up for the weddings and funerals and don’t even think about any of it the rest of the time.’

  ‘But that—’

  ‘Or, of course, the other way is, whenever some shit comes at you, you say, Ah, well, it’s the Will of God. That works. That saves a lot of heartache.’

  ‘So your philosophy is what?’

  ‘You just heard it.’

  ‘I don’t think I believe you.’

  ‘But once in a while I forget, and I stick my head out the trench, then slam… two black eyes, chipped teeth, nosebleed.’

  ‘And when people say you’re psychic… ?’

  ‘Aw now, Jane, you know what a pile of crap that is.’

  Jane said, ‘Can’t you go any faster?’

  ‘Probably. W
ould there be a good reason to?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jane said.

  ‘You could try telling me.’

  Chris Cody looked over at Connor-Crewe. ‘There’s no point now, mate.’ He folded his arms, his back braced against the pew- end, and addressed Bliss. ‘One night, Piers asked me round, and there was four of us, Piers and me and Lynsey and this woman who worked for Piers down the shop, and – after some stuff – Lynsey says, “What would you like most in the world? Apart from this?” And she pulls up her… Anyway, that’s how it started.’

  ‘The magic.’ Bliss smiled.

  ‘I dunno what I was expecting – black robes and upside- down crosses, maybe, but it was nothing like that. Well, candles… bit of atmosphere. And a circle. Bit of mumbo-jumbo, but nuffing you couldn’t live with. The others had done it before, but Lynsey said that wasn’t a problem. She said outsiders could bring in new energy.’

  ‘Lynsey was in charge.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Piers was – I’m sorry, mate – like a bloody schoolgirl when Lynsey was there. Sometimes you felt she’d got more testosterone than any of us. Anyway, we were pretty small-time at the factory then – struggling, you know? And there was this contract I was after, to run a system for this new stationery manufacturer over at Tewkesbury, and Lynsey asks me to describe the place and talk about it, and then refine what I want into this like single image.’

  ‘Image?’ Huw said from the chancel steps.

  ‘I’m not telling you what it was, ’cause I’m superstitious. Wasn’t then, but I am now. The four of us had to fink about the image and then we sat in a circle, naked, almost touching, but not quite, and then—’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Connor-Crewe snapped, ‘they can imagine the rest.’

  ‘And you got the contract,’ Merrily said.

  Oh yeah. First of many that year. Before I went home, Lynsey told me some fings I could like… practise. Fings I could do…’ He grinned uncomfortably. ‘You know, on me own. To build up… the visualization skills in connection wiv… Anyway, the next time I went – no, the time after that – Roddy Lodge was there. I didn’t know who he was, but there was a hell of a… I mean it was incredible. Powerful, you know? It was like you’d taken somefing. Acid or somefing. At one stage, I could’ve sworn there was other people wiv us. Big black figures. Weird.’

  ‘This was still at The Old Rectory?’

  ‘Nah, this was in the chapel. The old Baptist chapel. I didn’t like it at first in there, it was a bit cold. I’m like, what’s the point of this? Then I found out.’ Chris Cody shook his head. ‘Roddy and that chapel – crazy. Energy, you know? You come out, you felt you could do anyfing.’

  ‘Was Roddy on his own?’ Bliss asked. ‘No Melanie?’

  ‘Nah. I didn’t know about Melanie then, but a few months later we goes along to the chapel – I mean, I’m well into it by then. I had a few qualms now and then, but bloody hell… Anyway, I get there, and Roddy’s on his way over, and there’s this girl like clinging to his legs and that, screaming at him – like does he want to destroy himself, don’t he realize what he’s getting into? And she’s crying and screaming and he’s trying to ignore it and he’s pulling away, but in the end she’s making so much of a scene he has to go back wiv her, and he don’t come in that night at all. And you could really tell the difference wivout him there. Somefing missing, you know? I can’t put this into words, but… somefing definitely missing.’

  Merrily glanced at the coffin and caught Ingrid Sollars’s look. Ingrid was sitting straight-backed on the edge of her pew, as if she was on horseback.

  ‘There was a couple of other times Roddy didn’t show,’ Chris Cody said, ‘and we knew she was getting to him, wearing him down. One night we couldn’t get in – she’d been up and locked the chapel. Which was becoming our place by then – essential. We all knew it was moving now, like big time, and we was ‘scared of losing the momentum. One day, Piers says why don’t we buy it off of him?’

  ‘With your money, of course,’ Bliss said.

  ‘Yeah, well, I’d got a bit by then. And this was important. Like, it was all tied in – wivout what we had going there wouldn’t be no money. The energy we was generating, you know? I mean, I know what it must sound like coming out wiv all this in church and everything, but… it didn’t feel bad. It didn’t feel bad. Not then.’

  Bliss said, ‘And you thought it might be better, given his domestic problems, if the chapel wasn’t owned by Roddy Lodge.’

  ‘Wasn’t as if it was worth much, and I felt it was putting something back. So we got Nye to arrange it. And the Development Committee was up and running, and we put in for grants, turn it into a museum. Course we’d still use it. Lynsey said that’d be cool, surrounded by all these ancient ritual artefacts and that.’

  Bliss looked across at Ingrid Sollars. ‘Did you know about this?’

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ Cody said. ‘Nor did Fergus. And I bloody wish I never had, now.’

  ‘Why?’ Bliss asked innocently. ‘You were doing all right.’

  ‘Look, I’d probably still’ve been doing all right. I realize that now, but Lynsey was charismatic. She could make you believe anyfing, especially when it was all so… intoxicating. Like, it was around this time that Roddy gets the contract with Efflapure. Never looked back. Lynsey magicked it. Truth was, Lynsey knew this guy who was a director of Efflapure, and she rigged it – probably blackmailing the guy over something, knowing Lynsey. I found out later, but Roddy never knew. He fought she’d magicked it for him. Magicked it. Bleedin’ hell.’

  ‘Aye,’ Huw said. ‘That’s how it works. They operate outside the rules. All the rules. Sex, drugs, blackmail. You can never work out where it begins. Or quite where the evil seeps in.’

  ‘So you fixed up to buy the chapel,’ Bliss said.

  ‘Yeah. I’d just do fings on a whim then. I was flying, man.’

  ‘What was Roddy’s relationship with Lynsey around this time?’ Merrily asked. Oh… like he was hypnotized. It was pretty much like you said. She was giving him the make-over.’

  ‘And Melanie?’

  ‘She went away for a few weeks. She was ill and she went away, and Lynsey just moved in. Wiv Roddy. And she had him. I mean really had him in her hand. And then this complete make-over. We didn’t know what was happening then, but I never seen a bloke change so fast. And then Melanie’s back. Looking really well, you know? Fresh. I mean, she was a nice girl. And, like the vicar said, she was on at Roddy to get treatment. We didn’t know what that was about, but Lynsey did, and that’s when fings started happening… like very fast. We – me and Piers – we get summoned to the Baptist chapel.’

  ‘By Lynsey?’

  ‘Yeah. When you was summoned, you went, mate. You didn’t get her angry, you couldn’t predict what she was gonna… So we went. It was one afternoon, and Roddy was out on a job for Efflapure, and Lynsey’s there alone, except for this big thick plastic sack. Lynsey and a sack. Like she’s just collected the rubbish for the tip. Never forget that fucking sack, tied up with orange baler twine. She opens it up, so we can see in. Jesus.’

  ‘Melanie?’ Bliss said.

  Cody rubbed his eyes. ‘Worst fing I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘How?’ Bliss said.

  ‘Strangled. Froat was all black, you know? Tongue out. Stiff. Rigor mortis. And the fucking smell. And Lynsey’s shouting at us. “Come on… move yourselves. Get this out.” And I knew if we didn’t help her… I mean you didn’t know which way she’d go. She wasn’t safe.’

  Merrily came closer and realized he was rubbing his eyes because he was crying. Cody looked at her.

  ‘She said she done it for Fred West. She said Fred West had been wiv us from the start, when we was… doing the business, the rituals. Fred fucking West. Over our shoulders. She said he—’

  Huw Owen spoke over Merrily’s shoulder.

  ‘Liked to watch?’

  49

  Apocryphal

  AS THEY FILED down th
e hill into the half-lit street, Sam Hall said, ‘Maybe we oughta be chanting a litany. Like, in the darkest hour of the plague, when the minister led a procession through Ross?’

  Huw, who was leading them, rounded on him. ‘It’s not a school outing. Best if we don’t even talk.’

  He was afraid of shattering the spell, Merrily thought. Dissolving the horror before its time. To keep this little ragbag congregation, he needed them all to accept the continued reality of the evil, needed to keep the lamp of the wicked held aloft, lest anyone should start to see this as no more than a sordid tale of small-town ambition and sexual games gone catastrophically wrong.

  She was still holding Melanie’s angel like a talisman, apprehensive. He might know what he was doing, but was he the right person to be doing it? Oh yes, they’d been in the wrong place, Huw had known that from the beginning. Lodge? Leave him be, lass. Who’s he harming now? We’ll do the chapel.

  Huw scenting the enemy.

  Lol walked beside Merrily. She sensed a calm around him, which meant the concert had either been a big success or a monumental failure. He’d whispered that Moira was taking care of Jane. Moira? Jane and Moira?

  A police car slid past towards the church. Cody and Connor-Crewe had already been taken to Hereford in separate cars. Bliss had not arrested either of them, simply asking, with a certain savage courtesy, if they’d care to discuss it in more depth.

  What would the charges be? Accessories to the concealment of a murder? Cody said he and Piers had taken the body through the fields in the early hours, on a trailer pulled by a quad bike. Maybe they could simply have shopped Lynsey, Cody said, and still saved their business lives – all they’d done was participate in what would be known as ‘sex orgies’. No big deal, these days, even out here in the sticks.

  Merrily suspected that Lynsey had had more on them than they would ever disclose.

  Bliss had seen them into the cars. Then he’d made a short call and cut the connection and waited. Within three minutes the phone had buzzed. Bliss had listened with a foxy little smile, and then said, ‘No real need for you to turn out at this hour, boss.’ Then, cutting the connection again, he’d said ruefully, ‘Fleming’ll be here in just over an hour.’