The Wine of Angels

by Phil Rickman

‘You knew the people who were supplying them?’

  Jane didn’t reply. Oh no, Merrily thought. Oh, surely not. I’d have known. Wouldn’t I?

  ‘Do you know Mark Putley?’

  ‘Not really. We go to the same school, that’s all. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him.’

  ‘What about Colette?’

  ‘I don’t think she knew him at all. She’d have no reason to. She goes to a different school.’

  ‘Then why was he at her party?’

  ‘Gatecrashed, I suppose. Him and a couple of others.’

  ‘As far as you know, Colette hadn’t invited them.’

  ‘No. I mean ... No.’

  ‘Were you going to say something else there, Jane?’

  Jane trailed her finger through some spilled tea on the tabletop. ‘I suppose I was going to say not officially.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I ...’ Jane hesitated. ‘Oh hell ... She thought the kids her parents approved of – because they knew the kids’ parents and everything – she thought they were all going to be a bit like safe. She wanted to kind of spice things up a bit. So like, yeah, she might have made it easier for the local guys to get in. Like that’s the sort of thing she does. I mean, you never really know what she’s going to do.’

  ‘Or who with?’ Annie Howe stood up. ‘Thank you, Jane. You won’t be going out, will you? We may want to talk to you again. Thank you, Ms Watkins.’

  Merrily saw Jane blow out her cheeks in some kind of relief, and in the middle of it, Howe suddenly turned back to her.

  ‘Oh ... one last thing, Jane ... Did you see anyone else around after the party? Anyone you didn’t know. Or perhaps someone you knew hadn’t been invited?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  Annie Howe said, ‘How well do you know Laurence Robinson?’

  Jane was caught out. She looked startled. Even Merrily thought she looked startled.

  ‘I ... I’ve met him a couple of times,’ Jane said. ‘He sometimes helps out at Ledwardine Lore. I’ve seen him there.’

  ‘Have you ever been to his house?’

  ‘No. Not really. I’ve been ... sort oipast his house.’

  ‘And Colette. Does she know Mr Robinson?’

  ‘I suppose so. I mean, yes. We all kind of know him, because he used to be a kind of rock star. Sort of.’

  ‘When you say we all know him, who do you mean? Other girls?’

  ‘No, just Colette and me. And Lucy Devenish.’

  ‘When did you last see Mr Robinson, Jane?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘You can’t remember all the way back to last night? When you were seen talking to Mr Robinson in Church Street?’

  ‘Was I? Oh. Yes. I think I met him on my way to the party. Yes, I did.’

  ‘But he didn’t go to the party. Or did he?’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  Howe smiled her ice-maiden’s smile. ‘Well, thank you again. As I say, we may come back. Or if there’s anything you or your mother want to tell us, there’ll always be someone at the Country Kitchen. Until we find Colette.’

  Merrily followed them numbly to the door, where Annie Howe said, ‘Do you know Laurence Robinson, Ms Watkins?’

  Merrily said, ‘I may have met him. I don’t really know him.’

  ‘He lives alone, doesn’t he?’

  ‘So I believe. He had a girlfriend. She left, I’m told.’

  ‘And you felt ... all right ... about Jane seeing him. A man twenty years older, living on his own.’

  Merrily said softly, ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘He’s just someone we need to eliminate from our inquiries. I suppose I can tell you. As a clergyperson. I know it’ll go no further.’

  ‘You have my word,’ Merrily said.

  ‘Mr Robinson isn’t at home, but his cottage is in rather a mess. It may be a break-in, it may be a burglary – because there certainly isn’t much furniture in there. But there are signs of what might have been a struggle. The stereo left on. A damaged vinyl record on the turntable. There’s no sign of the owner or anybody else. And Mr Robinson – this is the confidential part, at this stage – has a history. A record.’

  ‘He made records,’ Merrily heard herself saying, ridiculously.

  ‘Our type of record, Ms Watkins. We believe he likes young girls.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Laurence Robinson was convicted of having sex with a minor. Girl. Under-age.’ Howe’s smile was steely and barbed, like a safety pin opening up.

  29

  Cogs

  BY NINE O’CLOCK, they were putting up the last of the bunting and the fancy lights, Gomer Parry lifting Lloyd Powell in the bucket of his pet digger, Gwynneth, and not happy about this – a bit dangerous, it was, see, with no insurance to cover it and all these coppers around.

  For once, though, the police never even noticed Gomer. Too busy trying to find the Cassidys’ promiscuous daughter. Or was it precocious? No, this time Gomer reckoned he had it about right.

  Got to feel sorry for them, though, the Cassidys. Moved out here to get away from the big bad city. Wound up somewhere little and bad.

  Gomer watched Lloyd Powell up in the bucket, attaching a string of wooden lanterns to a wrought-iron hook on the right-hand gable of the Black Swan. No coloured lights, this wasn’t Christmas; these were Middle Ages-style lamps, handmade by this blacksmith bloke, from Croydon, had a workshop bottom of Old Barn Lane. Feller provided the lanterns free in the hope of picking up a few orders.

  Take more than a few wooden lanterns to light up this place, though.

  Little and bad.

  Now why did he think that? It was a decent village, in many ways. Friendly, on the whole, nobody complaining about the newcomers. Not as it would make much difference if they did, mind, seeing as how the newcomers were now well in the majority, or maybe it just felt like that, on account of they ran everything, with their superior knowledge of marketing and public relations, fancy stuff like that.

  Course, Gomer, he was a newcomer too. Not so much of one, like, on account of he only moved about twenty miles and he talked near enough the same, and he’d done a lot of work in these parts, over the years, so knew quite a few people before he moved in. Like Bull-Davies, whose fields he’d drained. Like Rod Powell, whose new cesspit he’d dug when Lloyd was no more than a babby and ole Mrs Powell, Edgar’s missus, had been alive to terrorize Rod’s wife. Drove her away in the end. Fearsome woman, Meggie Powell.

  Aye, it was a hard place all round, was Ledwardine, when Gomer first come here. Lucy Devenish’d been right about that. Them days, some poor bloke with a Mr Cassidy accent ventured into the Black Swan, there’d be a red-cheeked, stone-eyed young farm-labourer, pissed-up on cheap scrumpy and just itching to punch his lights out for the fun of it. And for resentment’s sake. Nobody hereabouts was rich, see, save for the Bulls, and they always punched back. Except when they punched first.

  Sawdust on the floor of the Black Swan, them days, to make it easier cleaning up the blood and the puke.

  There was an exhibition of posh watercolours opening in the Swan this evening, with a recital by a string quartet.

  At the new tourist information office (once a butcher’s shop, with slaughterhouse behind, blood and offal running down Church Street on Fridays) there was a display of local crafts, crafted by folk from London and Birmingham. On Monday evening, a poetry reading.

  Gomer looked up at a movement. Out of Church Street strode the Bull-Davies floozy, a little smile on her mouth. Now that was a funny business, the big Bull penned up by a woman came out of nowhere. Who was she, what had she got in mind for James, and where had she been this not-so-fine morning?

  ‘OK, Gomer?’

  The chubby face of Child, the organist, up at the window.

  ‘Aye,’ Gomer said. ‘Have him all dressed up by eleven, the ole square, sure t’be. Some o’ the little flags got pulled down last night, see, but we put ’em ba
ck, no problem.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Child. ‘By the way, for my sins, I’ve been coopted as festival coordinator for the duration of the present crisis. Poor old Terrence being hardly in the mood for public conviviality, as you can imagine.’

  ‘Aye,’ Gomer said. ‘Wondered if they might call it off, under the circumstances.’

  ‘We did think about it, but we’ve all put a lot of work in, and as it’s going to go on for the whole season, postponing the opening ceremony would hardly seem like a good precedent. Besides, people coming from miles away, no way of letting them know. Anyway, it’s not as if she’s dead. She’ll be on somebody’s settee in Hereford, sleeping it off with her mouth open and her knickers round her ankles, what d’you say, Gomer?’

  ‘Mabbe,’ Gomer said, noting the relish in Child’s voice. ‘And mabbe not. ‘Scuse me a sec’

  Lloyd Powell having given him the thumbs-down sign from the bucket, Gomer set about bringing him to the ground. Got to do it smoothly; one jerk and he’d be pitching the boy through the window of the public bar, and it was a good few years since anybody done that. Harry Morgan, the feed supplier, had probably been the last, slammed through the glass by John Bull-Davies, James’s ole feller, for putting it around as the Bulls never paid their bills.

  Hard men, the Bulls, always had been, and now here was James being led around the square and back again by the blonde floozie like there was a ring through his nose. Power of sex, eh?

  ‘Leave you to it, Gomer.’ Dermot Child busied off towards the Tourist Info. Lloyd clambered out of the bucket. Gomer leaned out.

  ‘All finished then, is it? Good boy.’

  ‘What did Child want?’

  ‘Oh, he’s in charge now, boy, is Mr Dermot Child. Cotter do what he says, see.’

  ‘All we need,’ said Lloyd. ‘Got me in his choral thing, he has. Auld cider. Plus, we gotter do this barbershop kind of thing at the opening. Followed by a Cider Tasting.’

  ‘That’d be for folk as dunno what cider tastes like, would it?’

  ‘Kind of thing,’ Lloyd said. ‘Good stuff, mind.’

  ‘The Wine of Angels?’

  ‘Sharp, though. Dry. Take the hairs outer your nose.’

  ‘Your dad done it all by isself then?’

  ‘Old recipe, Gomer.’ Lloyd tapped his nose. ‘Cassidy, he wanted to make a thing out of it, let the visitors in, get a carthorse workin’ the ole mill. Bugger that, Dad says, that’s for the museums. So we done it all ourselves, the millin’ and the pressin’. Served up the casks to Barry Bloom – least you can get some sense out of ‘im – and he organized the bottles. It goes all right, we’ll do it next year. Be a good crop. Plus we won’t have to buy no apples in next time, looks of things.’

  ‘Aye,’ Gomer said and left it at that. Boy was right; never seen that much blossom in the Powell orchard, not in his lifetime anyway. Caused a fair bit of comment, too, grizzly farmers in the Ox mumbling about how it was Edgar’s brains must’ve fertilized them twisted ole trees.

  ‘Looks like that’s it, then, Gomer.’ Lloyd looking up at the bunting and lanterns. ‘May’s well take ‘im home.’ He grinned. ‘If Minnie’ll let you bring ‘im through the gate.’

  Gomer growled. Boy was more right than he knew. Minnie, she’d got this plan for a proper garden now, with rocks and a bloody fountain – cherub having a pee, no doubt. Which would require space, see. And what was taking up more space than a certain collection of near-vintage plant-hire equipment? Things was getting tense.

  He pulled in the bucket, nice and tidy, and gently trundled Gwynneth to the edge of the square. By God, he loved this ole thing. The way she answered to every little flick of the levers. You could do anything with Gwynneth, with both eyes shut. Responsive, see, like a good sheepdog.

  Waiting to get her into Church Street, Gomer saw two people. First was Lucy Devenish in her woolly cape-thing, striding out determined behind her moped. The ole warrior out for somebody’s scalp this morning, sure t’be.

  Second was that little Jane, the vicar’s daughter. Not so bright and smiley today as she come out the vicarage gateway. A friend of that Colette Cassidy’s. Lucky she hadn’t gone with her last night to wherever it was. And Gomer was frankly a bit dubious about Dermot Child’s theory that Colette’d been whisked off by some young stud with pleasure in mind. He did not like the feel of this, the way she’d disappeared into the orchard, no more than he liked the feel of the orchard itself, for all its explosion of blossom.

  Too much blossom. They used to say that orchard’d been no good since it was cursed, back in the seventeenth century, by this Wil Williams, the vicar who done his bit of wizarding on the side and hung hisself when he was rumbled. Well, Gomer had no fixed opinions on cursing, and there was some as said the orchard was just let go on account of the crippling new tax on cider imposed by King Charles II – fifteen pence on a hogshead. But there was nobody could deny that if he’d hung hisself where they said he’d done it, the last thing this Wil Williams would’ve seen as he was swinging there ... was that orchard.

  He’d have stopped Lucy, got her opinion on a few things, except she looked so purposeful you’d have to block the way with ole Gwynneth to get her to pull up.

  Unless you was young Jane, just as determined it looked like.

  ‘Lucy!’ The youngster running after the ole woman down Church Street.

  Gomer saw Lucy stop in the middle of climbing on to her moped, and then they was talking something furious, arms waving and such. What he wouldn’t’ve given to know what they was jabbering on about this gloomy ole morning.

  ‘No, listen, Jane,’ Lucy said. ‘Please listen.’

  Under her hat, her face was very red and her eyes were burning. She looked like an old-fashioned stove, this like huge, massive heat building up inside her.

  ‘You know, don’t you?’ Jane said. ‘You know where she is.’

  ‘No.’ Lucy took hold of both Jane’s shoulders, propelled her backwards into the alley by the side of the Ox, where she and Colette had escaped from Dean Wall and Danny Gittoes. ‘I don’t know. But Jane, you must stay well away from it. Listen to me. What you must do is stay with your mother. Talk to her. Make her understand something.’

  ‘Till the apple appeared on the ground, I thought, you know, I thought the worst that could happen was she’d get like ... taken away. Like me. And maybe she wouldn’t be able to handle that because of the kind of person she is, and—’

  Lucy’s grip tightened on her shoulders. Her hands were terrifically strong, and there was so much heat there that Jane was scared into silence. She’d never seen Lucy like this before.

  ‘Jane. Are you listening now?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jane felt very small. It was quite dim in the alley on a dull day like this. She could detect the thin, acid odour of urine from the Gents’ toilet. It reminded her, in some awful way, of cider.

  ‘Something happened to your mother last night,’ Lucy said. ‘In the church.’

  ‘She was ill. Dean Wall and those creeps were making a big joke about it at the party and saying she was like possessed by a demon or something.’

  ‘And they won’t be the only ones,’ Lucy said. ‘Others may be subtler. There’ll be pressure on her. Much of it from inside. Self-doubt. Do you know what I mean?’

  Jane wasn’t sure she did. ‘She gets a bit overtired sometimes. She’s not as certain about things as she used to be, but, like, she doesn’t talk much about it. She just asks me questions I can’t answer.’

  ‘Yes, I know you can’t. But what I mean, Jane, is that it will have occurred to her, consciously or not, that she became ill at the moment of taking her vows because she was not meant to take those vows. Not meant to commit herself to this parish. At some point, if it hasn’t happened already, she’ll be telling herself it was all wrong and that she really knew this all the time. That she made a mistake.’

  ‘What, becoming a vicar? Going into the Church?’

  ‘Possibly that. Or comi
ng here. I know that must have been a shock for you, too, having a mother who suddenly decides to commit herself to God.’

  ‘I’m not really jealous of the Old Guy.’

  ‘I know.’ Lucy’s grip softened. ‘But perhaps you haven’t been as supportive as you might have been.’

  ‘I’ve tried, really. I mean, we always talked the same language basically, if we stayed off religion. And like, after what’s been happening I thought maybe there’s some chance we could connect there as well, but we’re coming at it from different directions, aren’t we? I mean, sometimes I feel really ... alight with it. But I can’t tell her, she’s like so blocked ... yeah? With all the dogma and stuff. I mean, I left the Traherne book lying around, but she’s always so busy.’

  ‘Jane.’ Lucy looked very serious. ‘This is not the time to sit up on your superior teenager’s perch ... And don’t look at me like that, you little snot. Your mother may have a restricted viewpoint professionally, but there’s a thinking, feeling, responsive person under that cassock.’

  ‘She doesn’t wear that thing any more, thank goodness. Except, like, on the shop floor.’

  ‘Yes. A sign, perhaps, that the person’s re-emerging. She’ll come to it in her own way, perhaps, and while you might have had a crash course, her knowledge is still a hundred times greater than yours. But you have to help her. If she won’t come to me, and I can understand why she won’t, then she needs you to tell her that coming here was not the mistake she’s fearing it may have been. That she’s very much needed here. She needs assurance from you, not from the bishop, not from the Cassidys, not from that pompous old fool, Ted Clowes.’

  ‘She just asks me questions!’

  ‘Then answer them as best you can, and pray for help.’

  ‘Pray?’ Jane turned away from the toilet smell, avoiding Lucy’s hawk-like eyes. ‘Who to?’

  ‘You’ll know,’ Lucy said. ‘And there’s another thing. Last night, your mother indicated to me that she was going to refuse to allow Richard Coffey to put on his dreadful play in the church.’

  ‘Yeah. We had a bit of a row about it. She talked to Stefan Alder and she thought he’d got this unhealthy obsession. This kind of gay thing, you know? But that’s not why she’s against it. It’s because he’s in love with someone who’s dead and it’s like, you know, spiritual necrophilia and all that yuk stuff she doesn’t think I know about. Like she doesn’t want him to satisfy his weird lusts or whatever in church. I said I thought it was cool and kind of beautiful and she was being stupid.’