The Lamp of the Wicked (21 page)

The young woman stared at him. ‘You never told me she was helping.’

‘Aha,’ said Connor-Crewe. ‘Lots of things I haven’t told
you
, my sweet.’

‘Shit, Piers,’ she said. ‘He might have dumped her here.’

‘He certainly might have
killed
her here, the way they were carrying on – violent arguments one minute, practically shagging in the mud the next.’

Mumford got out his notebook. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s have a proper chat, shall we, sir? In the house.’

At first, Lol had thought she must be Connor-Crewe’s daughter. Evidently not. She stayed outside with him and Gomer, after Mumford and his notebook had followed Connor-Crewe into the Old Rectory, watching them mark out a circle around the Efflapure, which was sunk into a paddock behind the house.

‘That was a shock, mind,’ she said. ‘Lynsey.’ She looked out across the paddock and another couple of fields to the tops of some houses: Underhowle. ‘We all knew Lynsey, in Ross. Everybody’s saying she was a slag. Which is… yeah, I suppose, dropping babies everywhere, but that’s not the whole story. She was smart.’

‘Who’s looking after them babbies now?’ Gomer said, as Lol uncovered the top of the globular tank.

She shrugged. ‘Who’s always looked after them? Grannies, ex-boyfriends, ex-boyfriends’ mums. Having kids never held Lynsey back. Ace at palming them off on people. “Can you just mind him for a hour?” And then she don’t come back for six weeks. You had to admire it, in a way. She had this fierce determination to experience everything she could get out of life. Used to buy these heavy books from Piers’s shop, which was how I got talking to her. I mean, she wasn’t stupid. When she wasn’t around any more we just figured she’d gone off with some bloke – could be anywhere. You just… couldn’t imagine her being dead, that’s all.’

‘If her wasn’t stupid’ – Gomer slid an oily tow-rope under one of the thick rubberized loops on top of the tank – ‘how come her wound up with Lodge?’

‘Dunno. Probably because he had a fair bit of money – like a
lot
of money compared to Lynsey’s usual men – and a fast car. She did
use
people. Let’s be honest, she was good at men.’

‘You said Lodge was weird.’ Lol stepped back from the tank, started to cut into the turf around it with his spade. He was wondering how deeply involved in all this Merrily might have become, because of Bliss.

‘Yeah, well, he is. You talk to people round here, they’ll tell you like… how he works at night, that kind of thing.’

‘Ar?’ Gomer came over. He got out his tobacco tin. There was one cigarette already rolled in there, and he offered it to the girl.

‘Cheers.’ She stuck it in her mouth; Gomer lit it for her.

‘Works a lot at night then, do he?’

‘It’s what people say. Bound to get all blown up now, so like suddenly he’s become like this vampire.’ She took a long, needy drag and let the smoke out. ‘Piers and me were in the pub last night, in Underhowle. Nobody was talking about anything else, obviously, but the place was divided between the people who couldn’t believe he’d done a murder and the ones who’d always known he was a psycho. Like when he did Mike Sandford’s sewerage Lorna was uptight ’cause he was out there most of the night. They could see him prowling under the full moon, digging.’

‘That’s it for weird?’ Lol said. ‘He works nights?’

‘Well, you know, mood changes. Up in the clouds one day – drinks-are-on-me, chasing all the women. Next day he’s slinking around like he don’t want to know you or anybody.’

‘Like manic depression?’ Lol said.

‘Oh,
sorry
.’ She peered closely at him. ‘I didn’t realize you were a psychologist.’

Lol smiled sadly.

‘
Sure
you’re not a copper? I mean, you don’t
look
like a copper, but you don’t look like… whatever
he
is, either.’

‘No?’ Lol was disappointed; he hadn’t been this muddied-up in years. Not physically.

‘I do like to suss people – as a writer. Short stories, plays. Poetry, when I’m moved. Dennis Potter was going to look at my TV play – he lived in Ross, you know? But then he snuffed it.’

‘And your… has a bookshop?’

‘Piers? Yeah, in Ross. Second-hand, antiquarian. I work there couple of days a week, more in summer. Piers phoned me, said I might want to come up this afternoon – as a writer – because you were digging for bodies. He’s thoughtful like that.’ Something caught her eye. ‘Oh, look, the poor police can’t get a signal.’

Lol turned and saw Mumford had come out of the house, was backing away, staring at his mobile held at arm’s length. He ended up next to Gomer’s truck, the phone now tight to his ear.

‘Ariconium,’ the young woman said. ‘Last defensive outpost against the techno-invasion.’ She came right up to Lol. She wore a black fleece, the zip pushed halfway down apparently by the pressure of her breasts. ‘I’m Cola French.’

‘Gosh.’ Lol didn’t move. ‘Really?’

‘All names are real. What’s yours?’

‘Lol.’

‘There you go.’

‘What’s Ariconium?’ Lol said.

‘Roman town. On the old iron road between Glevum and Blestium – that’s Gloucester and Monmouth to you. The historians say it was down the valley, where Weston-under-Penyard is now, but Piers reckons most of it was where Underhowle is now. It’s his new buzz-thing. Piers gets obsessions, then there’s no stopping him.’

Mumford came over. ‘Leave that a moment, boys.’

‘Woooh!’ said Cola French. ‘Something came up. Go, go, go!’

Mumford ignored her, jerked his chins towards the house. Lol and Gomer trudged after him to the edge of the paddock, Cola French watching them from behind her writer’s knowing smile.

‘Let’s just quietly pack up the gear,’ Mumford said. ‘We’re on standby to meet Mr Bliss.’

‘Oh we are, are we?’ Gomer said.

‘Bear with us, Gomer,’ Mumford said tiredly.

‘Been bearin’ with you all morning, boy, and we en’t found a bloody thing. Your gaffer wants to check his information ’fore he gets carried away, ennit?’

‘My gaffer,’ Mumford said, ‘says that Roddy’s finally talking.’

‘Ar? Talked about what he done to Nev yet, has he?’

‘I don’t know, Gomer.’

‘They ever tell you
anything
, Andy boy?’

Mumford, maybe sensing mutiny, said, ‘All right. This goes no further.’

Gomer looked scornful.

‘Looks like he’s coughed on three,’ Mumford said. ‘Lynsey, Melanie Pullman and the girl from Monmouth, Rochelle Bowen.’

Lol turned away. The sky was shabby and sunless now, and only the line of pylons gleamed.

‘Soon as he decides to remember where they’re buried,’ Mumford said, ‘they’re bringing him out to show us. That good enough for you?’

Gomer clapped his hands together, producing a sharp echo from the direction of conifer-clad Howle Hill.

‘W
HEN
I
FIRST
came here,’ Mrs Box said, ‘I’d spent the whole day looking for somewhere to live. An agent had sent me the particulars of a place in the country out past Hereford that was far too big and had all this land – what was I supposed to do with seven and a half acres, buy myself a tractor? Besides, the local church was ugly and the minister was a disinterested auld devil.’

‘I won’t ask which one it was.’ Merrily stood with her back to the candlelit altar and the long painting.

‘Doesn’t matter, I can see that now.’ Jenny Box was demure on the oak settle, hands forming a cross on her knees. ‘But at the time – and for other reasons, too – I was very deeply depressed. And the countryside was flat and unwelcoming and I felt lonely and unwanted and… unnecessary, you know? I’d spent a holiday here once, with my husband when things were good with us, and I loved it and I’d built up my hopes of finding somewhere… but now ’twas all wrong. I didn’t feel I belonged, or was
ever
going to belong. I was starting to question the whole idea of moving out here. And the clouds were gathering, and I just got into the car and drove in any direction, I didn’t care.’

Merrily asked hesitantly, ‘Your marriage had—’

‘Broken up? No. Oh no. And still hasn’t, though he goes his own way, and has his women like he always did. Well, that’s fine, I don’t have a problem with
that
any more. No, I just decided I wanted a place in the country and he was in no position, quite frankly, to object. I mean, he comes down sometimes, from London, at weekends, to discuss business matters – you’ll have seen him, no doubt, though not in church – but if he looks like staying for more than one night I’ll go and stay in London for a few days. The marriage, you might say, is winding down slowly.’

Merrily recalled the gist of her words from the other night:
The business I was in, the things I was doing for money and self-gratification, all that’s repellent to me now. I came here to cleanse myself
. A reference, it had seemed, to her modelling days, her brief career in daytime TV. Was there more to it, though?

‘But you’d still be business partners,’ Merrily said.

‘Would you happen to’ve been in one of the Vestalia stores lately, Merrily? Cheltenham? Cardiff?’

‘Er, no. I don’t seem to get out of the county too often.’

‘Ah well, there’s one supposed to be opening in Hereford in a few months’ time, and that’s what you might call a bone of contention. I don’t like the name much any more – ’twas from my sad New Age days, I was one for the goddesses then. Well, it’s too late now to change that, but I want the Hereford store to reflect a more robust spirituality.’

Merrily recalled what she could: the concept of Vestalia was about introducing spirituality into the home, from sacred candles and ornamental crystals to very expensive hearths like pagan altars. ‘You mean… ?’

‘A Christianization. I’ve been looking at Hereford Cathedral – at the ornamental chantries in particular. But we’ll have a High Church feel, with censers and things. I’m going to London next week to talk to some designers. I want a store which is going to reflect the true magic, if I can use that word, of Christianity. The angelic.’

‘And your husband…’

‘Hates and deplores it. Thinks it’s going to destroy us. Well, the hell with him, I’m the one with the ideas. Gareth has the contacts and the business acumen. Gareth it was who persuaded countless Londoners to install wood-stoves, to burn scented sacred apple logs brought up from the country at enormous prices. Would’ve been cheaper for some people to chop up their furniture and feed it to the flames.’ Mrs Box laughed coldly. ‘I don’t even want to discuss that man, thank you very much, in this holy place.’

She stood up and glided to the door and reached up and put out the lamp, so that the sacred cell was lit only from the altar, and then she went back to her seat, in shadow now.

‘Anyway… ’twas springtime,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry?’ Merrily stepped to one side so she wasn’t blocking the candlelight.

‘This day I found myself driving out towards Leominster. I’m leaving the main roads behind, soon as I can, looking for somewhere to get out and walk and think. ’Twas spring, and the leaves were half out, and some blossom on the trees, which were all startling white against a sky that was deep and mauve- coloured and loaded with rain that it wasn’t about to part with until it was good and ready. I parked up close to a footpath sign, and I climbed over a stile and here I am on the top of a hill overlooking what proved to be this very village.’

‘I think I know which place.’ Merrily recalled a certain afternoon walking with the late Miss Lucy Devenish, proprietor of Ledwardine Lore, who had known everything there was to know about the history of the village and made informed guesses about the rest.

‘Of course you do,’ Jenny Box said. ‘And you’ll know how it overlooks the orchards, with the spire poking out through all the apple blossom. So very white, the blossom was, this day, under that heavy, heavy purple sky. And here’s me just kneeling there on the grass, and praying and weeping, and weeping and praying… You know how it comes over you?’

‘I…’ Merrily looked down at the flagstones. ‘Yes.’

A movement: Jenny Box sliding gracefully to the end of the settle.

Sit with me.’

Merrily hesitated and then came to sit on the oak seat, opposite the altar and the picture of the church and the figure of light in the sky. There was some other movement, almost imperceptible, a small quiver, a flutter in the close air. Jenny Box gazed directly at the altar. When she began to speak, Merrily felt something like the breeze under Jenny’s voice.

‘I found myself praying to the Highest to be relieved of all that useless so-called spiritual debris. Praying with this absolutely overwhelming intensity – but the intensity wasn’t from me, y’understand. It wasn’t that half-phoney, feverish passion I’d known before; it was something
out there
that came around me and enveloped me. Something I was powerless to resist, to give you the auld cliché.’

Merrily nodded.

‘You understand that, Merrily? You understand what it is I’m talking about here?’

‘Yes,’ Merrily said and relaxed for a moment into common ground and memories of blue and gold. Yes, this did happen.

‘Of course you do,’ Jenny Box said. ‘See, I’d always thought myself to be a deeply spiritual person. But ’twas a poor spirituality, if I had but known it – Tarot cards and magical crystals and all the shiny paraphernalia of the Devil. Paganism slithering in round the back, like a door-to-door salesman with a suitcase full of glittery trash.’

Merrily, whose attitude towards paganism had become less black and white lately, said nothing.

‘But I was drawn to it all, in the beginning, you see, because of its leanings to the feminine, its exaltation of
womankind
. Let no one say, Merrily, that it isn’t men that’ve brought the world to the state it’s in. Let no one
dare
to tell me that – me that was hurled away from the Catholic Church when I was barely out of my teens, soiled with the sick hypocrisy of men.’

Ah. ‘Is this men in general?’ Merrily said. ‘Or…’

‘Or more specifically, our parish priest, Father Colm Meachin.’ The words coming out in a rapid, breathy monotone.