by Phil Rickman
‘I’m glad.’
‘And how’s the healing coming along?’ Bliss said.
‘Sorry?’
‘One of the DCs, his wife’s had persistent back trouble. Done the rounds of osteopaths and chiropractors, getting nowhere with it. He reckoned somebody had told his missus they ought to come and talk to the vicar of Ledwardine.’
She stared blankly out of the window at the black, spidery apple trees. This could not be happening.
‘Might I have touched on a sore point, by chance?’ Bliss said.
Merrily sighed at length, lit a cigarette, then told him about the Sunday nights, Ann-Marie and Jeavons. The whole sub-Messianic mess.
‘About fifteen years ago,’ Bliss said, ‘when I was a young plod, there was a noise-nuisance complaint at this chapel up near Formby. I go in, and there’s one of these evangelical fellers clutching some poor bastard’s head in his hands and shaking it from side to side, screaming to heaven for some action. Whole place in uproar. Well… no disrespect intended, Merrily, but that doesn’t sound like your thing.’
‘Last night, my usual congregation had doubled. Doubled, Frannie. Two wheelchairs in the aisle. Desperate people, and the health service in perpetual crisis. But… me? What am I?’
‘What did you do?’
She blew out smoke and coughed. ‘What usually happens on the Sunday-night thing is we drag out some pews and arrange ourselves into a rough circle. Too many last night for that. No spiritual calm, no intimate atmosphere — only this… overpowering sense of… need. I just had to stand there in front of them all, in my jeans, feeling like a useless pillock, doing my best to explain that the Diocese was currently taking steps to create a proper healing network.’
‘Are they?’
‘God knows. We did some prayers, but no wheelchairs were abandoned. There was a general feeling like at the pictures once when I was a kid and the projector broke down before the cavalry arrived. Never felt so inadequate — let down the Church, the Women’s Ministry, the people for whom this might have been a last hope. Afterwards, this very nice little woman comes up, says how mortified she is about all these outsiders invading our lovely quiet time. What do you say?’
‘Bit of a shite situation, Merrily. I’m really sorry. However, this Dexter Harris, with the asthma…?’
‘His auntie cleans the church midweek. I’d guess she feels responsible because other people don’t find him terribly lovable. What can I do? I could just pray for him, or I could try and do what Jeavons does and look for an underlying something, a hidden source. Let God in the back way.’
‘Forgive me, this guy sounds like a nutter.’
‘But what if he’s right? What if it works?’
‘All right, look,’ Bliss said, ‘what I’ll do is, I’ll run Dexter past an ancient custody sergeant called Melvyn. Melvyn’s old-Force, very, very discreet and he’s gorra brain like an antique computer — feed him a name, it goes clank, clank, clank for a few hours, and if there’s a connection with anything notably unlawful over the past many years, he’ll deliver eventually, like ticker tape. His specialist subject is Prostitution in Hereford since Nell Gwynne.’
‘That’s a big one.’
‘Leave it with me,’ Bliss said.
After they cut the call, Merrily considered phoning Sophie to see how soon they could arrange a meeting of all the Hereford clergy who’d declared an interest in the Healing Ministry, not including those who wanted nothing to do with Deliverance, Lew Jeavons and women.
How many would that leave? Herself, probably.
The phone went again: Jane, out of breath. Behind her, the patient rumbling of school buses.
‘Mum, look… screwed up. Left vital books for Eng Lit at Stanner, so I… figured I should get on Clancy’s bus and pick them up. That OK?’
Stanner. In a matter of weeks, the whole axis of Jane’s life had shifted.
Merrily frowned. ‘And you’d get home how?’
‘I called Gomer. He’s with Danny, on a blocked-soakaway crisis at New Radnor. He could pick me up around seven, which would be perfect.’
‘So you do want to come home, eventually?’ Merrily said.
‘That a serious question?’
On Saturday, Jane, who didn’t like killing a tree for Christmas, had collected some dead branches, which they were going to spray silver and gold to arrange in the hall. She supposed she’d have to spray them herself now.
‘I don’t really know,’ she said.
A few minutes later, rinsing her mug at the sink, she heard a song of Lol’s in her head, the one he’d written in — she’d always supposed — a state of bitter despair about ever getting into her bed.
Did you suffocate your feelings
As you redefined your goals
And vowed to undertake the cure of souls?
She wiped the mug and hung it from the shelf over the sink. And thought about Lol and told herself she was too old for one-night stands.
She needed emotional back-up, someone to hold at night, when everything else was falling away: Jane growing up, moving on, and the cure of souls — the job, the calling — wobbling on the rim of the irrational.
Snowy dusk on the Border, but the moody pines rearing behind Stanner Hall were still black and green, dark guardians. The snow had stopped after a couple of hours last night, but it had frozen by morning, and Stanner was locked into winter, the witch’s-hat towers shining like white lanterns under an icy half-formed moon.
Such a lovely, lovely shot.
Jane leaned back, shoulders braced against one of the gateposts, both hands supporting the camcorder, holding it tight but not too tight. Sure, Irene, avoid hand-held. But if she wasted time rushing up to the hotel for the tripod, the dusk would be over and this incredible image would be history.
Jane triggered the shot, trying to breathe evenly. All day at school, she’d kept the equipment concealed in her bag to avoid attracting a crowd of sad boys with Quentin Tarantino fantasies. At lunchtime, in the school library, she’d studied her notes on Eirion’s instructions and added to them, remembering things he’d said.
Make sure your shots are long enough — remember you’re recording what might be a familiar scene to you for people who’ve never seen it before, so hang in there.
No hardship lingering on this one: pure Baskerville Hall. Was this what Conan Doyle had been picturing when he wrote about dull light through mullioned windows, holes in the ivy? OK, there was less ivy here, and it wasn’t built of black granite; if he hadn’t altered some of the minor details he’d have given it away.
She contained the urge to zoom in on one of the towers, holding the shot instead until she became aware of Clancy Craven shivering, kind of miserably — which, in that wildly expensive Austrian ski-jacket, Clancy was definitely not entitled to do.
Jane lowered the camera. ‘You can almost hear the distant howling, Clan.’ She threw back her head and howled at the cautious moon. The howl was unexpectedly resonant, echoing back off the Hall.
Clancy said, ‘Don’t.’
She had her shoulders hunched and her hands deep in the pockets of her blue jacket. Jane looked up to see if she was serious. Clan, though younger, was quite a bit taller than Jane. She was bony now, but you could tell she’d be like Natalie in a year or two, with a bonus of natural blonde hair. Clearly destined for serious beauty, this was a girl who really ought to be happier than she was.
Clancy shivered again, although this one was probably faked. ‘You really like spooky things, don’t you, Jane?’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’ Jane squeezed the camera back into her overnight bag, Poor Irene — he’d have been gutted to the point of self-mutilation if she’d told him that Antony was bunging her a hundred a week for this. Money for jam.
‘I don’t,’ Clancy said. ‘I never have. All the kids are on about Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. I can’t watch that stuff.’
They had nothing in common, did they? Jane shouldered the bag. Of cou
rse, she’d have to tell Mum about the hundred a week at some stage. Maybe she could actually spend the money on, say, a new automatic washing machine to forestall the Second Great Flood.
‘Why do they have to try and invent things to scare us, when there’s so much…’ Clancy shook her head and began to trudge up the drive, keeping out of the slippery tyre tracks in the snow, and Jane started giving her some attention, because something was very much bothering this kid.
The fact that she was here at all tonight was unusual. Normally, Clancy would go straight home to Jeremy’s farm. On the bus just now, she’d told Jane that Natalie wanted her to come up to the hotel from now on, so that they could go home together in the car. Jane wondered if there could be some problem with Jeremy. Older men, teenage girls in the house — these things happened, right?
‘Your mum’s not scared of anything is she, though?’ Jane probed, catching up with her.
Clancy stopped, fingering the drawstrings at the waist of her costly ski-jacket. Most of Clancy’s clothes were expensive. ‘Only thing she’s scared of is something happening to me.’
‘They’re all scared of that. Erm, I’ve never liked to ask…’ Jane zipped up her fleece. It was very cold; you didn’t notice the conditions when you were working creatively. ‘What happened to your dad?’
Clancy started walking again. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh.’
‘He wasn’t anybody special. Just some guy who got her pregnant.’
‘You mean like at a party or something, when everybody was pissed out of their heads?’
‘Something like that. Your dad was killed, wasn’t he?’
‘Car crash on the motorway. With his assistant, Karen. Assistant and lover. He was a lawyer. Having a thing on the side. Both killed.’ Jane was aware of the subject having been changed, but she was casual enough about this now. ‘Bit of a bastard, my dad. Obviously, I remember him as being really nice, but I don’t remember that much, as the years pass. I was still quite little when he died.’
‘I suppose your mother hasn’t been with many guys since. Being a vicar.’
‘It’s what makes it hard getting this thing with Lol beyond first base. She doesn’t know what you’re supposed to do, how you’re supposed to play it. Women priests haven’t been around long enough to establish a precedent.’
‘Excuse me?’
With her being so tall, sometimes you forgot Clancy was a couple of years less experienced and sat in classes with little children. ‘I meant, there seem to be no rules on whether it’s OK for a female parish priest to be having a conspicuous relationship with a man if neither of them’s married.’
‘They could always get married.’
‘Lifetime commitment? These are two very timid people, Clancy.’
Jane paused at the bend in the drive, where the Hall suddenly opened out in front of them, panels of light from the ground-floor bay windows imprinted on the clean, white lawns. Was this worth another shot?
Nah — face it, none of this was going to get used, anyway. Antony would deal with the arty stuff himself. All he wanted from Jane were snatches of what Eirion called ‘actuality’ — short exchanges, things happening around the place, people in motion. Get Amber in, and Natalie, when you can, Antony had told her. But be discreet about it, they’re not performers like Ben.
Clancy said, ‘It’s the first time we’ve lived with a man. It’s strange… not like I imagined.’
Jane wanted to ask, how… why? But they were getting too close to the Hall to approach an issue this big. The high pines were all around them now. It was like a medieval castle: the pines were the curtain wall and the lawns sloped up to the Hall, which was like the keep on its mound in the centre. In the dark, Stanner looked much older than Victorian. There obviously had been more ivy on the walls than there was now; you could see where it had been cut away for repairs, so maybe when Conan Doyle was here…
‘Something happened at the farm, the other night,’ Clancy said. ‘Something horrible.’
Jane stopped, a hand on Clancy’s arm. ‘You mean between Nat and Jeremy?’
‘No!’ Clancy shook her off. ‘Why do you always have to think of things like that? She was at work, anyway, she was here. It was Saturday night, and Jeremy and me were watching a video… and suddenly there was this blinding light through the window and all this shouting, and these men were outside the farmhouse, with guns and a big spotlight thing.’
‘The shooters — the ones Ben’s been getting hassle from?’
‘I don’t know. They were just… It was like a raid.’ Clancy stood at the edge of the lawn, looking over her shoulder. ‘They came out of the trees with their guns, and they were like surrounding the old barn opposite the farmhouse. They were going to shoot Flag.’
‘The dog?’
‘They would have!’ Clancy’s voice was raw and strained in the razory air. ‘They’d have shot him. It was like they owned the place, and they could do what they wanted. Jeremy told me to stay inside, but I couldn’t. I went out after Flag. And then Jeremy’s mate Danny was there, and one of them hit him with his gun.’
‘Danny Thomas?’
‘Long hair and a scraggy beard?’
‘That’s him.’
‘They hit him on the head, over an eye and made it bleed, and then they shoved his car into the ditch.’
‘Jesus. Is he all right?’
‘I think so, but—’
Jane was appalled. ‘Have you told the cops?’
‘Jeremy was funny about it. He didn’t want to talk about it afterwards.’
‘But he told your mum?’
‘That’s why she won’t let me walk down to the farm on my own any more. I think she and Jeremy think they’ll come back.’
‘Does Ben know about this?’
‘Don’t say a word! Jane, please, you haven’t to say a word! I’m not supposed to talk about it.’ Clancy started walking rapidly towards the house, face splattered with light from the big windows.
Jane thought of the men that she and Ben and Antony had encountered at Hergest, who claimed they’d been hired by a local farmer to get rid of foxes. If one of his neighbours was involved, this might explain why Jeremy didn’t want to cause any trouble.
‘Clan, did they have Valleys accents?’
‘What?’
‘Were they from South Wales?’
‘Might’ve been. I’m not sure.’
‘You should tell Ben. He’ll get something done without implicating Jeremy. Ben doesn’t—’
‘No!’
‘He doesn’t care about treading on people’s toes. He likes that.’
‘Please, Jane…’ As they reached the Hall, Clancy was nearly in tears. ‘I wouldn’t’ve told you if I thought you were gonna go telling tales. I just… suddenly everything’s a mess. It was OK in summer when we came, but now everything’s gone crap. I don’t like the people round here. Wish we could go back to Shropshire.’
‘Where were you in Shropshire?’
‘Craven Arms. It’s between Shrewsbury and Ludlow.’
‘Yeah, I know. Clancy Craven, of Craven Arms, huh?’
Clancy didn’t react.
Jane said, ‘Look, you’ve got to keep me informed of anything else that happens, OK?’ And Clancy nodded, looking relieved. Jane knew what it was like in these small Border communities: you wondered whether the normal rules of Western civilization applied or if you were part of some tight, taciturn little Anglo-Welsh banana republic. Well, she’d be seeing Gomer in a few hours, and if he didn’t know about this, as Danny’s partner…
The very last of the daylight was soaking away into night-cloud, and Jane was glad she’d stopped to do that moody, glistening shot. Even if it never got used, the fact that she’d thought to capture it showed she was like responding to images.
Despite the weather, there were extra cars on the car park. Apart from Jeremy’s old Daihatsu, used by Nat, and Ben’s MG, covered with old carpet where the soft-top wa
s jammed, there were three of them she’d never seen before.
‘Guests? On a Monday?’
‘They’re not staying,’ Clancy said. ‘They’re just here for a meeting. Mum has to run the bar. She was moaning that they probably wouldn’t be drinkers anyway, people like that.’
‘People like what?’ Jane could see some figures through the bay window of the lighted lounge. They were standing around like they were making small talk. Ben was one of them, and then Jane saw a woman with pale hair, and a small thrill rippled through her. ‘Oh wow… it’s them, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t want to know,’ Clancy said, miserable again.
‘It’s the White Company, isn’t it?’ Jane had like just known she had to be here tonight. Psychic or what?
‘People round here are sick,’ Clancy said.
This time, Frannie Bliss was calling her from his home, out near Leominster. She could hear his kids in the background, squabbling over something that made techno-bleeps.
‘Merrily. Just had a call from Melvyn. He was pretty sure about this, but he likes to check his facts. There is a story, but it’s not quite what you thought. And it goes way back. The last time Dexter Harris saw the inside of an interview room was nearly twenty years ago.’
‘When he was nine?’
‘Twelve, actually. And looked older, Melvyn says. Big lad, even then, which was how he wound up in the grown-up felons’ interview room. Hang on a sec, Merrily. I said, No… Daddy will fix it later… Gerrout, or I’ll nick the pair of yer for aggravated assault. Let me shut the door, Merrily.’ Bliss put the phone down and when he came back he said, ‘I had my way, the age of criminal responsibility’d be reduced to four. You might want to make notes.’
Merrily found a pen, pulled over the sermon pad.
‘Right,’ Bliss said, ‘I’ll give you the bottom line first: Dexter killed somebody.’