The Lamp of the Wicked

by Phil Rickman

  ‘Cannot wait for the album.’ Cola French had come up behind him. ‘Give me a lift home?’

  She’d evidently been waiting for him; Moira had organized her. She followed him out into the blustery night to where the battered Astra was parked, the way he always left it, close to an entrance, vaguely pointing outwards.

  ‘This… is yours?’

  ‘It’s quite safe.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  Lol was fitting his car key into the door when a man said, ‘Lol Robinson?’ The night blared white, three times. He was blinded. He stumbled against the car. ‘Sorry about that, mate,’ the man said. ‘Thanks a lot. All the best.’

  Cola said, ‘Does this mean we’re an item?’

  Lol stared after the photographer, fifty yards away by now, walking fast. He thought he could rule out the Hereford Times.

  It couldn’t even be mistaken identity; the guy had known his name.

  In

  They got into the Astra; he drove to the roundabout and then over Greyfriars Bridge, on to the Ross road.

  Cola said, ‘I’m not even called Cola French, it’s just the name I write under. But if your name was Tracey Gilbert, how would you play it?’

  ‘You said you’d lied when you said you weren’t involved.’ Lol drove south from the city. Not too many suburbs this side; you were soon out of the street lights. ‘What did you mean?’

  ‘She’s pretty,’ Cola said, stepping over the question. ‘She’s not what I imagined.’

  ‘No. What did you mean? Not involved in what?’

  ‘All right. That copper, the Liverpool guy, he asked Piers what kind of people went to his parties. Like, what kind of people would do sex magic? Like he thought it was all black robes and manacles and blood sacrifice. Well, yeah, some of that. Though you don’t realize when you start. You think it’s just games. Risky games, but still games.’

  ‘And you were involved in that?’

  ‘It was like, how can you be a writer if you haven’t lived? At first. And then you think, do I really want to be that kind of writer? And that’s when you know it’s bad. I don’t mean bad, I mean evil. There’s a difference, isn’t there? I mean I’ve been bad lots of times, but I don’t think I’ve ever been evil. Because that’s a thing in itself, isn’t it? A commitment. No going back.’

  ‘So when did you get out?’

  ‘When I knew where it was coming from, of course. I mean… shit.’

  ‘Cromwell Street.’

  ‘I read about it. I went and got the books.’

  ‘From Piers?’

  ‘You’re joking.’ She was hunched up in the seat as though she was very cold. ‘See, he did a lot of stuff nobody could explain. He’d travelled a bit, been to sea, mixed with all kinds of weirdos. Picked up stuff he maybe didn’t understand.’

  ‘West?’ Lol put the heater on; sometimes it worked.

  Yeah. He had all these weird ideas that were maybe just an excuse for kinky sex. There was all this stuff where he was trying to like mix his sperm with the sperm of these other guys who were giving it to Rose. I won’t go into details, but it was like he was planning to create some kind of super-race situation. Genetic experiments. Well, you don’t have to be a bloody biologist to know what kind of bollocks that is. I mean, it’s a joke, right? In the scientific sense. Where did he get it from? Where did he get those ideas?’

  Lol said, ‘You mean it only makes sense at all from an occult viewpoint.’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘And Lynsey?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cola said, ‘I think you could say something made a sick kind of sense to Lynsey.’

  47

  Requiem

  MERRILY WAS SURE she heard this: ‘You were warned.’

  From one of the men in the porch. Just like that. You were warned. Some urban lout with a degree in computer science introducing pseudo-gangland into rural village life. She didn’t recognize his face, couldn’t even see it properly, but she thought she recognized the voice from the phone, muffled under a handkerchief.

  ‘If one of you was the threatening caller,’ she said tiredly, ‘I took your advice. You said if we held the funeral on Friday I’d regret it. This is Wednesday.’

  ‘At night?’ Piers Connor-Crewe said. ‘You’re actually holding a clandestine funeral… at night?’

  ‘Hold on – threats?’ Fergus Young’s sharpened voice raised a silence. He turned to his companions. ‘What does she mean?’ He turned to Merrily. ‘We’d just concluded a meeting at the Village Hall with the MP – to discuss aspects of possible Government funding, when we saw lights in the church. Are you saying you’ve been physically threatened?’

  As well as Connor-Crewe and Chris Cody, Merrily recognized the fat man from the Post Office and Stores, who had said, We ain’t rolling over for this one, no way. She didn’t know any of the others.

  ‘It was just the one call,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m not making a thing about it.’

  It does matter.’ Fergus’s long face hardened. He wore a dark suit and a tie tonight. ‘We don’t descend to that level. We’re not thugs. Does anybody here know who was responsible for that? Richard?’

  ‘Not me, Fergus,’ the Post Office man said. ‘But I know a lot of people were upset when Lodge got tied in with Fred West.’

  Fergus, already taller than the rest of them, seemed to rise up further, his chin jutting. ‘Well, I would like very much to know who was prepared to risk tarnishing this community’s reputation. We are civilized people, we are educated people. We do not issue anonymous threats to members of the clergy or anyone else.’

  Bizarre. It was the first time Merrily had seen him behaving like an old-fashioned headmaster. He treated the kids at school as equals, but seemed about to threaten these adults with mass detention unless the culprit confessed.

  She was worried. If it emerged now that Melanie Pullman’s body had been found, the entire village would be up here within ten minutes. Melanie left to rot in the soil while her murderer lay here in state, the subject of a requiem eucharist, no less. How did that look?

  Huw Owen met her gaze and looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he smiled, stepped to the doors and, just when she thought he was going to slam them in Fergus’s face, flung both of them open like the church was a bingo hall.

  ‘Gents. Huw Owen, my name. The Church, in its old-fashioned way, didn’t feel it were appropriate for a lady minister to conduct the funeral service for a murderer. Not on her own, in such a hostile community. I’m back-up.’

  ‘Look, I apologize,’ Fergus said tightly. ‘However, this remains a betrayal of our—’

  ‘Please!’ Huw lifted his hands. ‘Let me explain. All we’ve got here is a simple memorial service. Something the Diocese feels is essential to clear the atmosphere surrounding a chain of events going back… oh, quite a long way.’

  He stepped back into the nave. Richard, from the shop, saw the coffin. ‘Bloody hell, he is here.’

  Huw went to stand by the coffin and put a hand on it, almost affectionately. ‘First, I should tell you that, without wanting to appear to bow to any kind of pressure – particularly the kind of drunken behaviour we observed the other night – Mr Lodge here has now said he’d be quite happy for this lad to be consigned to the flames.’

  Cherry Lodge looked up at her husband, as if afraid he was going either to deny it or change his mind. But Tony Lodge said nothing.

  Fergus looked at both the Lodges and smiled stiffly. ‘We all know Underhowle’s emerging from half a century of hardship. All we want is for it to be known as a decent and progressive place. Not some sinister haunt of darkness and perversity, famous for its murderer. I’m sorry if that sounds blunt.’

  ‘Blunt’s my language, lad,’ Huw assured him. ‘Let’s all be blunt. Now, we’re here as Christians, and all we want is to send this lad to his maker – not, as you seem to be insinuating, in a furtive way, but along a path lit by truth and honesty. He’s avoided earthly justice,
but that’s not the end of it as far as we’re concerned, as you can imagine.’

  Merrily thought, God, he’s good.

  Huw stepped away from the coffin, rubbing his nose.

  ‘We didn’t want a circus, and we didn’t want the press lads here. And we honestly didn’t think it were likely that any of you would want to join us. However, seeing as you are here…’

  There was some shuffling. Richard mumbled something about having to get home for a phone call at ten, and he started backing towards the door. Some of the others hadn’t even bothered to come in.

  Ingrid Sollars said, ‘Personally, I think it would be very appropriate if the members of the Development Committee – as representatives of the future of Underhowle – were to assist Mr Owen and Mrs Watkins and the Lodge family to draw a line under this whole miserable episode.’

  There was silence. Huw waited, smiling his placid, benign- priest smile.

  ‘Very well,’ Fergus said. ‘Why not? Thank you. Let’s end this discord.’

  ‘Wonderful!’ Huw went over to the doors. ‘We have any more committee members?’

  Chris Cody came in, looking uncomfortable. He wore a dark brown overcoat that almost reached the stone flags, a leather cap that he pulled off. Connor-Crewe, still in his cream suit, shambled in after him, scowling. Merrily noticed Gomer slipping out.

  Huw pulled the doors to and rubbed his hands.

  ‘Bit parky in here, but that’ll sharpen our senses, won’t it? Take a pew. Where were we up to, Merrily?’

  ‘Well, we…’ Merrily stood under the pulpit as Cody and Connor-Crewe went to sit in the pew behind Ingrid Sollars and Sam Hall, and Fergus sat alone behind the Lodges. ‘As you can see, this is rather an unusual service. With so few of us, we decided to dispense with the hymns, but we’ll be taking communion later. Perhaps Huw could…’

  … Get me out of this again.

  ‘Aye.’ Huw took up a position across the chancel arch, to the left of the coffin. ‘Happen we should explain what we’re at to God, eh? Let’s start with a prayer.’

  Cherry Lodge was the first to kneel, Connor-Crewe the last. Connor-Crewe kept his eyes open, which Merrily knew because she didn’t close hers either – nerves. She was aware that at some point Huw had switched off the lamps at the bottom of the nave, so that this small but significant congregation was pooled in light, while the shadows behind suggested there were others back there in the darkness.

  Huw began softly: ‘Lord, we come here tonight in all humility, with a full awareness of our own ignorance. We come here on behalf of certain sad, unquiet spirits on either side of the Divide. We come… to seek healing.’ He paused, then his voice roughened. ‘But we realize that, before there can be healing, there must be knowledge of the condition. Secrets must be laid open. There must be truth. Help us to find that truth. Hold up your lantern for us. Throw its light into the blackest, dingiest corners of human experience, where only the lamp of the wicked flickers with its bilious flame. Help us. Through Jesus Christ, amen.’

  There was a hollow hush. They were all watching Huw, even Piers Connor-Crewe.

  But Huw was looking at Merrily.

  ‘Your show, lass. I believe you were about to address the subject of our friend here. Roddy.’

  Cairns was nauseatingly wonderful, of course. Eirion was right, Eirion was always right about these things, and one day she would tell him. But anxiety brought Jane out before the end, slipping up the aisle during the climactic applause for something epic called ‘The Comb Song’, and standing at the back, examining the entire audience, row by row, left to right.

  Mum was not there.

  Check again. Her gaze tracked systematically along the backs of heads, right to left this time. Definitely not there.

  It was nearly nine-thirty p.m. At first it had been anger: nobody should have missed Lol’s totally mesmerizing, electrifying comeback, least of all the woman purporting to be in love with him. It was just a complete, total insult.

  But in the electric brightness of the foyer, she admitted that Mum was not like that, never had been. Mum always felt responsible.

  Emotions cocktailed inside Jane, making her feel slightly queasy. She could hear the music, Cairns’s voice all smoky- smooth. She thought she’d spotted Eirion in there, worship- ping. Maybe she could crawl down the aisle, throw herself at his trainers.

  She went to the entrance and pulled out her mobile. Sometimes, Mum would leave a message for her on the answering machine. She put in the number.

  Hello, this is Ledwardine Vicarage…’ She keyed the code, waited, heard several bleeps.

  ‘Merrily, this is Ted…’ Didn’t even listen to that one. ‘Flower, this is me…’ Right.

  ‘… Look, I’m really, really sorry I missed you this morning. No excuses apart from being completely knackered, and if this all goes as badly as I suspect it’s going to… and, God forbid, I don’t make it tonight, I’ve told Lol, so please look out for Lol afterwards, OK? I’m sorry.’

  Yeah. She hung on in case Mum had called back with an update.

  Bleep.

  ‘Merrily, it’s Jennifer Box. It’s… I don’t know what time it is, it’s dark. Please help me. He’s defiled the chapel, he’s defiling everything. He’s the evil you are fighting. And, dear God, he’s coming back.’

  Merrily stood there, behind the lectern with her prayer book on it. The lectern, which stood to the left of the pulpit, was a dark mahogany stand with a brass eagle, wings spread to hold the heaviest old Bible. Apart from in the oldest churches, the lecterns – like this one – were always too high for her.

  She was very aware of the grave-dirt on the hem of her alb.

  Earlier, before Gomer had come in with his lamp, she’d planned to address the subject of Roddy’s afflictions, the multiple pressures on him, of which perhaps no one here was fully aware. Hoping that, by the end of it, she’d at least have planted the seeds of understanding and something would come of it. One day.

  It was different now. The atmosphere was charging up. Soon, arc lights would be burning in the churchyard, tapes would go up, police would guard the site until dawn. Then statements would be taken; they’d all be making statements in the search for a kind of truth that perhaps wouldn’t be the truth at all. And there would certainly be no sympathy for Roddy Lodge.

  She became aware that she was clutching Melanie’s angel, very tightly, in her right hand. It felt almost hot.

  Truth. Directness. Simplicity.

  ‘I…’ Because of the height of the lectern, she was almost speaking into her prayer book. ‘I met Roddy Lodge just the once. I was with my friend Gomer, who was convinced Roddy had started a fire that killed his nephew. Roddy was manic, dancing about as if he was on strings. He was talking a lot of rubbish about all the famous people he’d installed drainage for. All lies. While there, on his trailer, not ten yards away, lay the decomposing body of Lynsey Davies.’

  Merrily looked up, registering the surprise on the faces of people who, at every funeral they’d hitherto attended, had listened to all the bad stuff being swept under the pews.

  ‘Gomer was wrong, as it turned out. Roddy Lodge didn’t start the fire; he was nowhere near there that night. But Roddy had a reputation – as a liar, a crook. And Gomer – and there isn’t a nicer, more well-meaning bloke in my village – had demonized him. The way that, first this village, and then maybe the whole country has done since. Demonization – a lot of it about. A monster.’ She tapped the coffin lid. ‘There’s a monster in here. What do we do about him?’

  She stared at them, helpless.

  ‘I thought I wouldn’t have anything to do with Roddy Lodge ever again. But then another friend, a detective from Hereford, said Roddy remembered me from that night and wanted to speak to me. Well, that never happened, in the end – he’d acquired a solicitor, who didn’t want him to speak to me or anybody else, and yet allowed him to make a very wide-ranging confession. I gather a few of you know him – Mr Nye? Ryan Nye?’ />
  She looked at Chris Cody. He’d taken off his leather cap. His once-shaven head had grown into a tight, light-brown bristle.

  ‘Yeah, we… we figured Lodge ought to have a brief.’ He looked a lot younger, somehow: a street kid, the tearaway who’d discovered a massively lucrative talent. ‘We’d used Ryan when

  546 we was buying the chapel off of Roddy. We put work his way when we can.’

  ‘You sent him to represent Roddy?’

  ‘We… yeah. We figured he needed a brief.’

  Merrily nodded. ‘Mr Nye stopped me talking to Roddy, and I was glad. We’re trying to build a spirit of honesty here, so, yes – shamefully – I was glad I didn’t have to talk to a monster. I knew he was a monster, because I’d seen his bedroom, plastered with pictures of famous women, all dead, with parts of nude pin-ups added. Obscene, degrading, sick. A monster – my mate, the detective, wanted to dig up every Efflapure in the county, fully expecting bodies underneath some of them, and I’m thinking, yes, it’s possible.’

  She wondered where Frannie Bliss was now. How he’d react when Gomer told him about Melanie. The sensible thing would be to call Headquarters, which meant she and Huw didn’t have much time. And with a eucharist to organize…

  ‘And then the next night, Roddy wanted to come home, so they brought him back. He’d confessed to three murders – all the murders that my friend, the detective, had put it to him that he’d done. Why was he so keen to confess, to come back here and show the police where he’d buried the bodies? Had Mr Nye told him it was for the best? Why would Mr Nye tell him that?’

  She looked at Chris Cody, who looked perturbed.

  ‘Well, Mr Nye isn’t here, so we can’t get any enlightenment there. But there was another good reason why Roddy Lodge found Hereford Police Headquarters – with its mass of equipment, its radio transmitters and especially its almost subterranean interview rooms – an unbearable place to be. Because Roddy had become electrically hypersensitive. He had to get out of there and he didn’t care what it took.’