The Prayer of the Night Shepherd (MW6)

by Phil Rickman

  Sure it was. Fellers like Gwilym doing the rounds, farm to farm, was the reason this valley leaked like a smashed sump.

  ‘So what’s this gotter do with me?’ Danny said, patient as he could manage with a bad head. ‘If Dacre’s losin’ it, he’s losin’ it.’

  ‘And then Sebbie’s going, “It’s coming out of Berrows’s ground... Berrows’s ground.” ’

  Danny’s hand tightened on the cordless. He said casually, ‘Good to know the bastard recognizes the boundary now.’

  ‘He says, “It’s Berrows. Berrows and that bitch.” ’

  ‘Zelda tell you this herself?’

  ‘Zelda’s pretty scared, Danny. Her asks Sebbie about it next morning, over breakfast, bugger hits the roof. Sweeps the bloody cups off the table, everything smashed. Thought he was gonner hit her. White with rage.’

  ‘He’s always bloody white, Gwilym, it’s the skin he’s got.’

  ‘So, like, Zelda says to me, “Can you ask Jeremy Berrows ’bout this? I can’t never talk to him.” ’

  ‘Which is why you’re askin’ me,’ Danny said.

  ‘En’t real sure what I’m asking, Danny. You’re the nearest he’s got to a friend – do any of this make sense?’

  Danny thought about it.

  ‘No,’ he said after a bit. ‘Do me one favour, Gwilym, don’t spread this around. Gimme a chance to find out what I can. Or am I too late already?’

  ‘You knows me, boy.’

  ‘Aye,’ Danny said. That was the bloody trouble.

  ‘What was that about?’ Greta said when he’d clicked off.

  ‘Feller Gwilym knows with a David Brown tractor for sale. I said I’d pass the word on to Gomer.’

  ‘In other words, keep your nose out, Greta,’ Greta said.

  Danny stared into the reddening wood-stove.

  16

  Responding to Images

  FRANNIE BLISS, OF Hereford CID, called back on Monday afternoon, just as the light was fading.

  ‘Not a career criminal, Merrily, I can tell you that much.’

  ‘Didn’t really think he would be.’ Merrily brought the cordless and a mug of tea to the kitchen table. ‘I just thought, with mention of all the clubs... drugs?’

  ‘Certainly not a recognized dealer and if he was dealing he doesn’t sound bright enough that we wouldn’t know. Doesn’t sound like he could run very fast, either, if we were after him.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She pulled over the ashtray, fed up now. ‘Shouldn’t have asked you.’

  And wouldn’t even have considered an approach to any other copper, but by now she and the Mersey exile Bliss knew too many of each other’s flaws for him to sell her down the Wye.

  As for the ethics, it went like this: she was following through on something that might help Dexter Harris with his medical condition. She had nothing to tell Bliss that might get Dexter nicked. She hadn’t even told him why she wanted to know if Hereford Division had ever heard of Dexter, and he hadn’t asked her.

  ‘Mind you,’ he said, ‘I’ve known a few disabled villains over the years. Only difference is they tend to have less conscience. Feeling the world owes them. A wheelchair ramp at the town hall is often considered insufficient recompense.’

  Merrily found a grin. ‘It’s so reassuring to talk to a man for whom the pit of human depravity can have no floor.’

  ‘Ah, you’re following your nose. You’re a priest. How can you know if a gut feeling isn’t a tip-off from God?’

  ‘That’s very empathetic, Francis.’

  ‘Yeh, well...’ Bliss was a Catholic from what was probably still the most Catholic city in England. He knew all the questions priests asked themselves with little hope of a convincing answer.

  ‘So, how are... things?’ Merrily said.

  ‘Kirsty? We’re not out the woods yet, but we’re having what you might call a trial reconciliation. It’s a start. The Job: I’m not on any shortlist for DCI as yet, but the word is that the main man in Worcester who, as you know, does not love me like a brother, may be on the top-detectives’ transfer list, with an eye on Thames Valley. So that could be goodish news.’

  ‘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 whol
e 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 course, 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 bee
n 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.