The Prayer of the Night Shepherd mw-6

by Phil Rickman

  Down by the lychgate she could see Ted Clowes, retired solicitor, senior churchwarden, her mother’s brother and the village’s most reliable opponent of Deliverance, faith healing and anything else that was, in his narrow view, spiritually off-the-wall and fiscally unpromising. If Ted was waiting for her by the lychgate, it was with the intention of following her home to bend her ear on neglect of crucial parish issues.

  Oh well.

  ‘How would you feel about a cup of tea, Dexter?’ Merrily suggested. ‘In fact, there might even be a can or two of Stella in the fridge.’

  Mr Sebastian Dacre JP.

  Danny Thomas and Sebbie Dacre, they was about the same age and had known one another, to a point, since they was boys. But Danny was at the local schools and Sebbie was a boarder at the Cathedral School in Hereford and riding to hounds at twelve and screeching around Kington in a Triumph Spitfire at eighteen. And Sebbie’s ole man used to have close to a thousand wide acres while Danny’s dad had just under forty-three acres of hillside with soil skin-deep over the rock.

  And Danny was Danny Thomas, the Rock ’n’ Roll farmer as was, and Sebbie was Mr Sebastian Dacre JP, Master of the Middle Marches, local organizer for The Countryside Alliance. It was like that.

  Sebbie was clearly headed for the Eagle at New Radnor. Nice pub, situated just perfect in the middle of this nice quiet village — big wide street, widest in Radnorshire, sure to be, overlooked by a lot of houses and cottages and a shop and the Eagle. Danny was reminded of the streets in old Western movies, which were always very wide and quiet and just right for a shoot-out, two fellers approaching each other real slow from opposite ends.

  Greta was wrong. Best to handle this on his own: Danny the negotiator, Danny the diplomat. He wanted something out of this to repair the Justy. Also it was very much time to put the arm on Sebbie to keep his muscle off Jeremy Berrows’s ground. Boy looked like he’d enough to worry about right now, without lying awake at night listening for tyres creeping up the track.

  Most of all, though, Danny wanted to know what was behind it. Why was Sebbie Three Farms employing these three hard-bastard shooters from South Wales?

  A shedload of questions here. And if he followed Sebbie now to wherever he was going, then he wouldn’t have broken his promise to Gret, would he?

  Sebbie parked at the side of the road and Danny come in behind him just as he was climbing down: Sebbie Three Farms, all six foot whatever of him, tough-thin, like streaky bacon.

  Sebbie put on his tweed cap. Always wore a cap because his reddish hair was sparse now and his skin was pale as watered milk. A walking invitation to skin cancer, was Sebbie, and yet he always walked tall and straight, like he was defying the sun.

  Danny come right up behind him. ‘Mr Dacre!’

  It was how you talked to people in these parts, only real close friends using first names.

  Sebbie didn’t turn round at once, like a normal person would; he kept on walking towards the pub door and, when he did turn, it was only to flick a bleep at the Range Rover to lock the doors. At which point he deigned to notice Danny.

  ‘Mr Thomas, how’re you? Working with Parry now, hey? Diversification — only course open in these constricting times.’

  ‘You happen to ’ave a minute, Mr Dacre?’

  Sebbie frowned. ‘People say a minute when they mean half an hour.’

  His pale eyes had screwed up a bit now, cautious. Last thing he’d want would be Danny in the pub with him, where they’d be overheard, and the word spread over half of two counties by sundown.

  ’Cause Sebbie knew what this was about, nothing surer.

  ‘I’ll keep it short, then,’ Danny said. ‘Three of your boys was rampaging over The Nant last night, loosing off the kind of gun you don’t normally see this side of Credenhill base. And the end result—’

  ‘Mr Thomas—’

  ‘End result of this bit of a farm-invasion is this.’ Danny touched his forehead, winced.

  ‘Doesn’t look like a bullet wound to me, Mr Thomas, but more to the point—’

  ‘More to the point, Mr Dacre, is my wife’s car gets battered off the track and looks to me, bearing in mind he’s eleven year old, like we could be looking at a write-off.’

  ‘And you saw who it was, hey?’

  ‘Your boys, it was. Like I said.’

  ‘My boys? My boys?’

  ‘Said you was payin’ ’em to shift foxes.’

  Sebbie squinted, like the sun had come out. ‘That sound awfully likely to you, Mr Thomas?’

  ‘I’m tellin’ you what they said. Three Welshies from down the Valleys, sounded like.’

  ‘And you saw them actually damaging your car, did you, these boys? At night.’

  ‘Men, they was, more like. And I sure enough seen—’

  ‘You informed the police, obviously.’

  ‘I sure enough seen one of the buggers come over and clobber me with the butt end of his fancy gun.’

  ‘And naturally you’ve told the police about that, too.’

  ‘No.’ Danny glanced down at his boots. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘And you’re saying these men claimed to be working for me. That’s an actual allegation you’d be prepared to make in front of witnesses and my solicitor?’

  Danny fell silent. You forgot how hard it was getting a feller like this to put his hands up to anything. Outsiders, townies, they didn’t believe Sebbie’s sort existed any more, thought they was a joke — music-hall villains, feudal stuff out of history. But even now, with the countryside shrinking faster than a pair of market-stall jeans, Danny could still point you out five or six like Sebbie within twenty or thirty miles.

  Sebbie gave out a look that was all but a mouthful of spit. ‘I thought you’d know better, Mr Thomas, than to come accosting me in the street with this kind of half-baked drivel.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘They named me?’

  ‘Aw, come on, everybody knows it, Mr Dacre. Folk around yere en’t daft. Nobody understands it, why you’re letting foreigners in with illegal shooters, but they knows it’s down to you. And they knows there’s history between you and Jeremy Berrows.’

  ‘Who does?’ Sebbie was half-smiling, hadn’t broken sweat. ‘Who knows all this? Give me some names, Mr Thomas, hey? Give me some names and I’ll sue their arses orf in a court of law.’

  Danny said nothing at all. Who was he supposed to drop in the slurry? You didn’t, did you? Not to a man who never forgot a name. Danny felt ashamed. He should’ve brought Gomer along, like Gret said; Gomer, to put it mildly, wasn’t fazed by nobs. Danny hadn’t said half of what he’d planned to say, and already it was all going pear-shaped on him. His head throbbed and his vision was lopsided somehow, so that he saw Sebbie Dacre like Sebbie was some tripping image, an acid flashback: thin neck craning out of the collar of his Viyella, and his head, under the beak of his cap, like a hawk’s watching a rabbit.

  ‘Easy target, en’t he, Jeremy Berrows?’ Danny said.

  ‘Mr Thomas, Jeremy Berrows would be an easy target for the Women’s Institute bowling team. Now geddout of my hair.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Danny said. ‘How come you live next to Jeremy all his life, and suddenly you’re turnin’ the heat on?’

  Sebbie just looked and half turned away like the very sight of Danny was starting to offend him.

  ‘Or mabbe it’s the woman,’ Danny said. ‘Nat’lie.’

  Sebbie swayed just slightly and then he came out with this one, real nonchalant, like he’d just been ferreting in Danny’s mind.

  ‘You still using drugs, Mr Thomas?’

  ‘That en’t bloody fair!’ Danny blurted, before he could stop hisself. His head pulsed and he felt faint.

  ‘Ain’t fair?’ Sebbie’s head shot forward like Danny’s words had pressed a button. ‘I’ll tell you what ain’t fair. What ain’t fair is what’s happening to the countryside under this fucking government. If they persist in trying to stop us hunting with hounds �
�� make us subject to licensing and regulations, put the countryside into a suburban strait-jacket… if they go on trying to challenge our traditional way of dealing with vermin… then they can bloody well expect what one might call Less Orthodox Methods of Pest Control.’

  At this point, Gwilym Bufton, the feed dealer, came across the road towards the Eagle, with another feller, and they exchanged ’ow’re yous with Sebbie, and Sebbie raised two fingers to his cap in a kind of mock-humble salute. When they’d gone into the pub, he came a bit closer to Danny, his pinky eyes shining. The street was quiet around them, and Danny had the feeling of folks at their windows, like this really was a showdown in a Western town starring the big-time rancher and the shabby dust-bowl farmer who couldn’t afford a haircut. Sebbie’s voice was low.

  ‘What I’m saying is, if they’re going to make us illegal, turn decent people into poachers, then they shouldn’t be surprised to find bands of brigands roaming by night.’

  Danny was thrown — this was surreal. ‘What the hell’s that mean? You’re supposed to be a bloody magistrate!’

  ‘And with more of our local police stations closing every year,’ Sebbie said, ‘they won’t have the means or the manpower to counter it. Look, I don’t know what happened to your damn car, and I expect you’ve got another half-dozen clapped-out wrecks in your buildings to replace it, but I can tell you one thing… this is only the start. And if you’re not part of it, you should stay at home, get yourself quietly stoned and keep your nose out, eh? Word to the wise, Mr Thomas, word to the wise.’

  He turned away. Danny didn’t move, couldn’t believe what he’d heard. This was a magistrate. He shouted after Sebbie Dacre, ‘Why’d you tell them Welshies Jeremy Berrows didn’t own his own farm? Why’d you tell ’em Jeremy was your tenant?’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You know what, Sebbie?’ Danny pointing the finger. ‘I don’t believe you. I think you’re full of shit. I reckon you’re covering some’ing up, boy.’

  ‘And you’re a faded old hippy full of pathetic, drug-induced conspiracy theories.’ Sebbie stopped at the pub door. ‘I’ll give you a question, now. Why did Berrows call to you for help? Why didn’t he call the police, hey? Give that some thought, I would, Mr Thomas, and be sure to hide your stash somewhere safe, because you can expect a visit in the early hours from the Dyfed-Powys Drug Squad. Good day to you.’

  Then he went into the pub, and Danny saw the curtains twitching along the street and found he was shaking, like with cold turkey.

  15

  Milk into Concrete

  When Merrily brought Dexter Harris into the kitchen, Jane had already made soup and sandwiches — not many big Sunday lunches in this household — and they’d shared them with Dexter, who at first was all shy and shambling, twice using his inhaler.

  He ate steadily, glancing at Jane and occasionally at Merrily, something evidently on his mind. It took both cans of Stella to bring it out.

  ‘They, er, they reckons you’re the whatsit — county exorcist.’

  ‘Well, nowadays, they don’t…’ Merrily’s shoulders sagged. He’d have seen the movie on DVD — explanations were useless. ‘Yeah, kind of. Alice told you?’

  Dexter shifted uncomfortably. Maybe he was expecting her to toss holy water at him, thrust a cross in his face, instructing the demon of asthma to vacate his system. Maybe that was a course of action Lew Jeavons might even advise.

  In which case, one of them was in the wrong job.

  ‘It’s probably not what you think,’ Merrily said.

  But what was she going to do? What did Alice actually expect of her? She smiled nervously at the big guy wedged into a dining chair with his leather jacket over the back. She felt worse than inadequate, she felt like someone recruited into a fraudulent enterprise, a trainee on a travelling medicine show.

  And while the lager had loosened Dexter up, it didn’t make the situation any more promising. He was eyeing Jane now, and claiming that today was the first time he’d been inside a church since his christening. Tell the truth, he was only doing this to shut Alice up — her nagging him and his ma about it. Dexter lived at home with his ma and his younger sister in the Bobblestock area of Hereford. Useful to have somebody around if he had an attack, look. Also it was cheaper, and most of his girlfriends had their own flats or houses, so that was all right.

  Suppose he had an attack here, what then? Merrily looked at Jane. If Dexter’s breathing changed rhythm, any laying-on of hands would take place only while they were waiting for the paramedics to get here.

  Dexter started asking Jane which clubs she went to in Hereford at weekends. Jane named four, Merrily seriously hoping that she was lying. Dexter smirked at the last one, telling Jane he’d probably see her there sometime. Maybe he didn’t think of himself as being twice as old.

  At about two-thirty, they heard a car pulling into the vicarage drive and Jane sprang up, conspicuously relieved.

  ‘It’s Eirion.’

  ‘Jane’s boyfriend.’ Merrily stood up, too, moved to the door of the scullery. ‘Let’s leave them to it, huh, Dexter?’

  ‘Boyfriend?’ Dexter looked like he’d been short-changed.

  Merrily held open the office door. She was still in her dog collar and the Morning Worship kit, minus surplice, and this was probably for the best — too much informality could well convey the wrong impression to an overweight, dough-faced man of probably thirty-plus who seriously imagined someone Jane’s age could fancy him.

  They went in and sat down, facing one another across the desk, like one of them had come for a job. On the desk: computer, answering machine, phone, Bible, sermon book.

  Now what, Lew?

  This… is at the heart of spiritual healing — taking the time to know people, making small deductions. How many doctors have the time or the patience to do that now — talking and considering and leaving time for small leaps of inspiration?

  She had a cigarette half out of the packet when Dexter blandly shook his head, making wiping motions with his hands, his lower lip projecting like an outlet pipe. She pushed the cigarette back into the packet, wondering how he survived in the clubs. Putting the Silk Cut packet out of reach. We suffer, Jeavons had said.

  An hour passed. It was growing dark.

  Dexter was talking about the collapse of his engagement two years ago — how it had really knocked him sideways to learn that his girlfriend, Farah, had been seeing another bloke for months, apparently weighing up which of them was the best bet and then deciding, for some weird reason of her own, that it wasn’t Dexter.

  Bitch. Made you stop trusting women, Dexter said. Made you want to start scoring a few points of your own. Dexter had hit the clubs. Shagger Harris, the foreman started calling him, down the tyre depot. Dexter grinned, looking down at the Bible on Merrily’s desk.

  If we take the time to absorb what people are telling us about themselves, directly and indirectly, and we are in a suitable state of relaxation — a contemplative state — then the clues they come together and a feeling — or a word — sometimes drops into our minds.

  ‘How old are you, Dexter?’

  ‘Me? Twenny-nine, now. Soon be thirty. Yeah, I know I look younger.’

  ‘Nobody special since Farah? Just casual stuff?’

  ‘Just casual sex,’ Dexter said.

  ‘Doesn’t the asthma…?’ Merrily broke off, embarrassed.

  Dexter wasn’t. ‘Naw, they reckons it’s stress brings it on, look. Well, I only gets stressed-out when I en’t having no luck. Most times I can go all night, know what I mean? Don’t get no problems that way.’ He smiled at her. ‘Funny thing, that, ennit?’

  Merrily leaned back. ‘You don’t really think this is going to help you, do you?’

  Dexter sniffed. ‘Like I say, if it keeps the old woman quiet, it’s something. No offence meant. I’m not much of a believer. Can’t help that, can I?’

  ‘No. If you try and force yourself to believe,
that only causes… stress.’

  ‘Doctor says I’ve gotter avoid that. People gives me stress, I don’t bother with ’em no more.’

  ‘Do you remember the first one?’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘The first asthma attack you ever had.’

  He shook his head. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Do you remember how old you were? Or has it always been a problem?’

  ‘’Bout twelve, thirteen.’ He didn’t look at her. She felt a tightening of the air between them. ‘Do it matter?’

  ‘I was just wondering what might’ve brought it on. If there was a particular… emotional problem that might’ve caused it. I mean, I don’t know what Alice told you, but I’m not any kind of medical expert. I’m just looking for… maybe something we can focus on in our prayers.’

  ‘Prayers?’ He looked at her now. ‘Strange, a nice-looking woman like you being a vicar and going on about prayers and that.’ He looked down at her breasts. ‘You must’ve been quite young when you had your daughter.’

  ‘What do you think about when you’re having an asthma attack?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘What goes through your mind?’

  ‘Sorter question’s that?’

  ‘I don’t know, it just came into my head. Nobody ask you that before? The doctors?’

  ‘Why would they?’

  ‘I’d just like to know what it’s like.’

  He stared at her defiantly. ‘It’s like you’re drinking a glass of milk, and it turns into fuckin’ concrete halfway down your throat. That’s what it’s like.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sounded like an image that went way back. A childhood image.

  ‘Don’t you get me going,’ Dexter said. ‘If I starts thinkin’ about it, I’ll get stressed.’

  He wasn’t much more than a big silhouette now — wide shoulders, a pointed head. It was dark enough to put on the lamp. She reached out automatically, then paused, with a finger on the button of the Anglepoise.