by Phil Rickman
Merrily slid the glass across the table.
‘Do you want to finish my whisky?’
He picked up her glass, but he didn’t really want it. He pretended to take a sip and put it down again.
‘Are you still OK about Lucy’s Night?’
‘Sure. In fact that… that’s become the least of it.’
Lol felt his chest tighten.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I have a problem,’ Merrily said.
She was right. It was one of those problems that made all other problems seem banal and trivial.
Lol picked up the glass.
‘Had you met him before? I mean before the funeral?’
She shook her head.
‘He doesn’t go to church, he’s never been dangerously ill and in need of someone to visit him. Or got married, or anything like that. You don’t see him staggering down the steps at the Swan. You don’t hear him booing and jeering at parish meetings. He isn’t one of those vaguely sinister guys of whom people say – when they’d digging up his garden – that he kept himself to himself. He doesn’t. He keeps himself all over the place.’
‘Have I seen him anywhere? What’s he look like?’
‘There you go. He’s nondescript. Like most ginger-haired people, he has freckles. Which we always think of as friendly. What I’m asking myself is would I be thinking like this if I hadn’t talked to Charlie Howe for the first time in a while, and then Sarah Baxter, who I didn’t know.’
‘What was the first thing that… struck you?’
‘Just… warning bells. The kind that most people wouldn’t notice. You can’t live in an area like this and automatically suspect everybody who hunts or shoots. Although you know you’d never do it yourself, you come to accept that some of them are pleasant, generous people who just love horses and riding. And, and… shooting at things that move. When you hear about someone who’s been shooting wildlife since the age of ten and thinks that’s the best thing about living on a farm… that’s a bit… you know… disturbing, but not particularly shocking. And when you hear this person likes to take holidays in Africa because of an interest in wildlife…’
‘Ah.’
‘Is that a huge leap? He might just enjoy taking photographs.’
‘Doesn’t necessarily mean he goes after lions and elephants.’
‘Even if it’s antelope, it doesn’t make me exactly warm to him. But then I’m just a soppy woman. And he seems like a decent guy. Helping his stepfather, after the death of his half-brother. Helping him with the farm he insists he never wants to take over because farming can ruin your life.’
‘It can. It’s no rural myth that a lot of farmers end up hanging from a cross beam in the barn.’
‘No. It isn’t, Lol, it’s just… is he protesting too much, supported and encouraged by his mother? This is Liam, the guy who on no account ever wants to inherit his stepfather’s multimillion pound farm. Sorry, I’m being… it all comes down to nothing, doesn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t say it’s nothing… Tell me the Charlie Howe bit again.’
Inevitably recalling the one time he’d taken on Charlie Howe, when Charlie’s daughter, Annie, had been giving Merrily a hard time over the Frome Valley hop-kiln case. This was before they were any kind of item. But you live in hope, Charlie had said, not long before they’d parted, amicably enough. And then, less amicably, Don’t think this a victory for you, brother. Charlie liked to apply the term brother to men he wanted to feel threatened.
‘Smug,’ Merrily said. ‘Full of it, like “Look what I’ve got.” Then snatching it away, like kids do. Sometimes I’ve come close to liking Charlie. But – you know – not that close. I’ve no illusions about him. He was going on about crimes that go unnoticed in the sticks. How people don’t make waves because it isn’t neighbourly. Perhaps because they’re more isolated, don’t have many neighbours. Bottom line: he’s as good as saying Aidan Lloyd’s death was not an accident.’
‘How can he say that?’
‘I said he was as good as saying it. I don’t know what he knows that nobody else knows, and I was really trying not to speculate. It just… things come together in your head like… like a tune you really don’t like but can’t get rid of. I don’t want it to be true. I don’t want any of it to be true. I do want Aidan Lloyd’s death to have been an accident.’
‘Well, yeah, but…’
‘Charlie Howe’s an ex-copper. They don’t start to see things differently when they’re retired. I’m not a copper.’
‘Pretend you are. Just for a minute. Who else might want Aidan dead?’
‘Not his dad. They were getting on well for perhaps the first time, according to his mother. A lucrative deal with Waitrose, apparently more down to Aidan than Iestyn.’
‘Bit of an enigma, though, Iestyn Lloyd.’
‘Good farmer, good businessman. Proud of what he’s done. What he’s got. Always played his cards close to his chest. Not much of a mixer. And – oh yeah, there’s this. His ex-wife is convinced it’s dementia. The reason he’s become even less of a mixer.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m in no position to know. At the funeral, I heard him say just three words, looking into his son’s grave. He certainly didn’t say anything much to me. When I went to say how sorry I was, he just shook my hand and nodded. I took that to mean he just wanted it all done and dusted, didn’t want gossip. I tried again to ring him – today – but he was in a meeting, as they say. In the end I left a message with his farm manager to say the service for Aidan would now be held at Kilpeck, in memory also of Julie Duxbury, and if he wanted to talk about it, et cetera, et cetera. Had a brief call from Liam Hurst to say he wasn’t sure if his stepfather would be there or not, under the circumstances.’
‘He’d know, of course. If Iestyn was…’
‘Of course he’d know. If you want to talk to Iestyn, you wind up talking to Liam. Who fixed up the quiet funeral? Liam. Who didn’t tell me much to say about Aidan? Who was better placed, in his travels from farm to farm, to put it around that Aidan spent most of his time behind a spliff?’
‘You could definitely be right about that.’
‘Sure, when you put all this together, it still doesn’t amount to much. Aidan Lloyd was still killed by a foreign van driver who skipped bail or whatever. Nobody has suggested otherwise.’
‘You know what I’d do?’
‘Tell Frannie Bliss.’
‘Wouldn’t be the first time. And he’s no friend of Charlie. Or Charlie’s daughter.’
‘He’s got Julie’s murder on his hands. And that garage guy on the Rotherwas. He doesn’t need half-arsed theories dumped on him. Besides…’
‘No… please… don’t start thinking this is going to wind up with me and Gomer nicked for illegal exhumation. It’s gone a long way beyond that now.’
‘I’ll think about it. Wouldn’t have much chance tomorrow anyway. Wedding.’ She looked at him. ‘You look knackered.’
‘Border morris… it’s supposed to be looser, more freewheeling than Cotswold. Actually more like a contact sport. I keep asking myself how I got into all this.’
It was already all a mist. Like asking himself how he came to dig up a grave. Like torturing himself with the insane thought that, because the Kilpeck Morris had not done their traditional walking circle around that same grave after their last dance with Aidan, the remains of his corrupted energy had entered the unremembered dreams of the last morris man to open his coffin.
61
Hassma
ALL NIGHT JANE had kept returning to the same overgrown part of the churchyard, where there’d been bones in the grass.
Old bones, scattered, discarded. She’d kicked something that turned out to be an ancient brown skull which had moved quite slowly and then fastened its jaws around her boot at the ankle, bringing her down, and she’d awoken. And then, later, there was the open grave that she didn’t want to look into, kept turning away from, but whichev
er way she turned the open grave kept appearing in front of her. Until at last she did look and there, sitting in the stagnant water in the bottom of the grave, was Sam Burnage, naked, and that was the last time Jane awoke, to bare trees through wet windows
But at least she didn’t seem to have a cold, and her throat wasn’t sore any more, which was something.
She scrabbled around on the floor for her phone.
Nothing new.
Lying on her back, she held up the phone and flipped through the old messages, the cursory exchange with Eirion.
Yeah, all right. The Ox? 8.00pm?
What’s wrong with the Swan?
You KNOW what’s wrong with the Swan.
Maybe she should’ve been more polite. They never had been polite to one another – what kind of relationship would that have been – but it wasn’t as if she’d emailed or texted him in many weeks. Couldn’t bear to. No way had she wanted to discover he was living with some nice Cardiff girl who had shown him how easy love could be with a sane person. Well into his second year at university now. Another year, then a post-grad year at some journalism college, and then he’d be springing into the world, a player. If she went to uni next year, as planned, she’d be two years behind him. By the time she was out of the education system, he and the nice Cardiff girl or her successor could be, like, parents.
The semi-sob caught her by surprise. Life moved like the wind when your third decade was in sight. Usually an ill wind that blew you away and then dropped you somewhere you didn’t want to be. For so long, she’d thought she wanted to be here, Ledwardine, capital of the new sodding Cotswolds, but perhaps she just wanted to belong somewhere.
Somewhere she could feel she was making a difference, and if it wasn’t going to be here then wasn’t it best to get the hell out ASAP?
Third decade!
No sooner had Mum buggered off to her wedding – another smiley for the album or the video, how could she keep that up? – than the phone rang.
Sophie.
Oh.
‘Sophie listen, I’m really sor—’
‘I’m not dying, Jane. Could you get her to call me when she gets home? On the mobile.’
‘It’s not more bad news, is it?’
‘It’s information she might be able to use. Will be able to use. Or, if she doesn’t, I shall.’
‘You don’t want me to—? No… OK.’
The next call was from Fred Potter of the Three Counties news service, the freelance agency serving newspapers, radio and TV. Wanting details of the Monday night memorial service at Kilpeck.
‘Why?’
He laughed.
‘No, really, why? What’ve you heard?’
She put the scullery computer to sleep. The phone had started ringing while she was Googling St Lucy, immediately getting sidetrack by the brilliant poem from John Donne. The year’s midnight – how wonderful was that, from round about half a millennium ago?
‘All right, I’ll tell you,’ Fred Potter said. ‘A memo’s gone round that a person of interest might be saying something newsworthy as part of a tribute to the late Aidan Lloyd. I’ve been asked to see if I can find out some background in advance to judge whether it’s going to be worth people actually turning up.’
‘What, TV crews?’
‘Regional TV. They do think twice about paying people to come out at night.’
‘I’ll tell her you rang,’ Jane said. ‘I’m sure if she can think of anything likely to discourage them from turning out, she’ll get back to you.’
‘Actually, I don’t think they’ll need that much discouragement,’ Fred Potter said. ‘Snow’s forecast.’
‘Doesn’t mean a thing. Snow’s been forecast every day this week.’
It didn’t come that night. It hadn’t come by Sunday morning. It was probably too cold for snow. On awakening, Jane checked her emails and there was nothing from Eirion. Well, that was good. Wasn’t it?
When she came downstairs, Mum had left for Holy Communion. She made herself some tea and toast and honey, then pulled down her parka and walked down Church Street to Gomer Parry’s bungalow.
‘Can’t stop thinkin’ about it, Janey,’ he said in his kitchen, puffing on his vape stick. ‘Why’d they do it?’
He deserved to know. She didn’t think Mum or Lol would object. She didn’t even ask him to sit on it because she knew he wouldn’t say a word.
‘He was actually a member of the Kilpeck Morris. He kept going back to dance. His father didn’t know that.’
‘Ar,’ Gomer said.
He didn’t question these things.
‘After he was dead, someone at Churchwood evidently found his morris kit and they took it to Kilpeck the night before his funeral and put it on like a scarecrow frame? And poured petrol over it and set light to it.’
‘Buggers can’t leave nothin’ alone.’
‘It didn’t go down well in Kilpeck, so the morris side came back the next night. With a full kit for him. And a spade.’
‘And made a bloody mess of it.’ He took a puff of his vape stick. Jane had got him the flavour that seemed most like roll-up. He didn’t wince at the taste, anyway. ‘Boys could’ve assed me.’
She stared at him.
‘You’d’ve dug him up for them?’
‘Oh hell, aye. Never seemed right, Janey. All too bloody quick, that burial. Just get him in the ground. Never even throwed the soil on his box. Iestyn Lloyd, he got part of him missin’. Part as says there’s more to life than turnin’ a few bob. Or a few million. Don’t tell the ole feller.’
‘What?’
‘What the boy said when he found where we oughter sink the borehole. Mabbe not exaccly them words, but that was the sense of it. Well, now, if Iestyn got a bit missin’, that boy got an extra bit.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Only he din’t know it, see. Not till he was growed up. Couldn’t do it as a kid.’
‘Dowse?’
‘Or nothin’.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘He did. When we sunk the hole, I says, how long you been doin’ that, boy? Year or so, he says. An’ don’t tell the ole feller. I reckon he couldn’t do it till he got rid o’ the hassma, see. The hassma stopped it. Feels it comin’ through, the ole whatdyoucallit, his breath just closes up. Must’ve been frit to buggery, poor kid.’
‘It was like a nervous reaction? A block?’
‘Sure t’be.’
‘And it wasn’t just dowsing. What he did?’
‘I en’t no hexpert, Janey. But I’ve met a few folks like him, over the years. En’t allus hassma. Could be bad headaches. Anything as stops ’em bein’ what they could be. Mabbe there’s a word for it. Mabbe you knows it, what that word is.’
‘No,’ Jane said. ‘I’m not sure I do. But I think I know what you mean.’
‘And young Darvill, he’d know,’ Gomer said.
Jane blinked.
‘Lionel Darvill? You know him?’
‘Done his ditches a time or two.’
‘Why didn’t you say?’
Gomer looked affronted.
‘No bugger assed me.’
62
Fairy tales
MERRILY LEFT AT twenty to seven to prepare the church for the Sunday evening meditation, having waited until the last minute for Jane to come downstairs. She’d spent what must have been a couple of hours upstairs in her apartment, presumably deciding what to wear to meet Eirion, though you wouldn’t have thought it when she eventually came down wearing perhaps her third best white hoodie, cursory make-up and a sad, defiant smile.
‘That’s what you’re wearing?’
‘Aren’t you going to be late, Mum?’
‘I thought Eirion was picking you up to go somewhere.’
‘No. I’m meeting him here.’
‘In the Swan?’
‘The Ox. Less public. Unless Dean Wall is there, but I expect I can deal with him.’
‘Right. Flower…’
‘Mmm?’
‘I was going to say, it’ll be fine, and good luck and… all that.’
‘Thank you.’
She flung on her parka and slumped out into the icy night.What would Eirion see after all this time, at the end of a fractious period during which Jane appeared to have embraced adulthood but not with any conspicuous joy or relief?
What a strange kid she was.
Kid: no apology. Merrily didn’t recall going out on anything approaching a date without striving to look her best. That was part of it. Eirion, she recalled, had been doing work experience at the South Wales Echo, mixing a lot with journalists. The adult world, the city. Jane could well be back home before the pubs closed, with Eirion consigned to the flat file marked friends. Was that what she wanted?
Had to put it out of her mind. Off to the church and The Cloud of Unknowing. She’d left them in darkness last week but, at this time of year, the Middle Ages would have been ready to light solstice lamps. St Lucy’s Night was a festival of light, celebrated these days more in Scandinavian countries – Denmark, Sweden, with their long, long winters. In the third century, Lucy had brought food to Christians hiding in the catacombs, wearing a wreath of candles around her head to light her way, leaving her arms free to carry more goodies. Reminded Merrily, slightly uncomfortably, of the crown of lights worn by women in certain witchcraft ceremonies.
At least there wasn’t much else here for Jane. Having died at the age of twenty-five, all St Lucy shared with the seventy-something Lucy Devenish was a kind of demonstrative courage: when they tried to burn her she wouldn’t stop talking even when a Roman soldier stuck a spear into her throat.
They never ended well, these stories, but a good St Lucy’s night, well celebrated, would ensure sufficient light for the long dark months to come.