by Phil Rickman
‘Ar.’ Gomer stood at the edge of the A49, squeezing his fingers together. He seemed to have left his ciggy tin in the van. Merrily pulled out her Silk Cut, offered him one. Gomer shook his head.
‘People thought he must be called Neville. Used to get letters addressed to Mr Neville Parry.’ I thought that, too. What was he called?’
‘Nevin. Seaside place in North Wales, where his folks used to go on their holidays. Likely he was conceived there.’
Merrily smiled, and they both stepped back onto the grass as a high-sided touring coach swished past towards Ross, probably empty except for the driver. Its passenger windows, only feebly lit, were reflected, fragmented, in the leaded upper windows of the Pawson house.
But its dipped headlights set up more of a glare in Gomer’s glasses. And in the dusty back windscreen of the big digger in the drive.
All the breath came out of Gomer in a rush and Merrily actually went cold with shock.
The digger sat there silently, unoccupied, its shovel half- raised in front.
‘It’s him,’ Gomer said drably, after a moment. ‘Lodge. He’s bloody well yere.’
8
Nil Odour
AFTER A MOMENT, Merrily felt calmer. When she’d first seen the JCB in the drive it had been like the instant when a dream turned malignant, when your subconscious mind presented you, unexpectedly, with an image so loaded with menace, within the logic of the dream, that it jerked you awake for reasons of mental self-preservation. And then you thought, surprised at yourself, For heaven’s sake, it was just a truck.
‘Gomer,’ she said, ‘let’s just… let’s think about this.’
But Gomer was already off – the way he’d reacted back at the depot when he’d realized the savage truth behind Cliff Morgan’s gentle probing about Nev’s whereabouts. Only now he had a real, solid target; he was a man with something to prove, something tangible within his grasp. Before she could think to stop him, he was in through the gateway, urgently pushing back shrubs and squeezing around the side of the digger and under its wide front shovel.
Which was as far as he got, because that was when the nightmare came out of remission.
Merrily must have seen it first – a movement from the blackness between the drive and the house, and it made her jump, but she didn’t cry out because it could have been a cat or an owl. And then she saw Gomer come skating backwards, bumping along the side of the digger, bushes ripping at his jacket.
Gomer!’ He crashed back into a timber gatepost. She rushed to him. He was still on his feet but wheezing. ‘Gomer, Christ, are you—’
And then there was another man’s voice uncoiling from the shadows.
‘You want some more? You want some more, matey, you come right back now, look, and touch my digger again.’
Merrily gripped Gomer’s arm, steadying him. ‘He hit you?’
‘Pushed me, was all. Caught me off guard, ennit? Can you… can you find my glasses, vicar? Somewhere just yere.’
Merrily crouched, fingers scrabbling in the gravel, but her gaze was fixed all the time on the narrow alley between the digger and the shrubs at the edge of the drive, made wider by Gomer’s hurtling body. She found she was screwing up her eyes, expecting some sudden harsh light to hit them, but there was none. She could see the uneven roof-line of the house and the moving white dot of a plane between clouds.
She was about to switch on their own torch, then changed her mind because…
Because, oh Jesus, because maybe it was better kept as a weapon. She tightened her grip on the rubber stem of the torch, still patting the gravel with her other hand, while trying to rationalize this, trying to think of any possible explanation other than that Gomer’s crazy theory about Roddy Lodge had been, for heaven’s sake, dead right.
The only other explanations involved coincidence. One coincidence too many.
In the gravel, she touched smoothness and a wire earpiece and, in the same moment, saw a man standing at the end of the drive, between the tailgate and the house, moonlight glinting on the creases of his jacket: leather. He stood in silence, not moving, then he called out.
‘What you at over there?’
Merrily stood up, thrusting Gomer’s glasses into his hands. ‘OK, that’s it. This is where we leave. We’ve seen the digger, we know he’s here. Let’s go.’
‘We can call the police.’
‘Can’t do that, vicar.’ Gomer pushed his glasses on, calmly curling the wires around his ears. ‘Can’t just walk off now.’
‘No good. Buggers en’t gonner believe us. Anyway, time they gets yere, if they comes at all, he’ll be long gone. We got this bastard cold right yere, now… two of us… witnesses.’
‘Gomer—’
‘Chicken, then, is it?’ the man enquired, no hint of fear in the voice, although the words were spoken rapidly. ‘You boys chickenshit?’
Merrily whispered, ‘Let it go. Let’s just go back to the van. You’re right, we’re witnesses. It’s all we need. I promise you, Gomer, I’ll back you up all the way, but we need to—’
Gomer straightened up, bawled out, ‘You wanner know who I am, is it?’
‘No!’ Merrily dragged on his arm. Gomer didn’t move, felt as firmly rooted as the gatepost. She let go with a sound she realized was a sob, as he started to shout.
‘WHO AM I? GOMER PARRY PLANT HIRE! THAT’S WHO I AM, YOU MURDERING BASTARD!’
Silence. Merrily closed her eyes, squeezing the torch with both hands. Please, God, get us out of this. She could hear another lorry grinding round the bend in the A49 and considered running out into the road, waving her arms to flag down the driver.
‘Well, well, well,’ the man said.
Gomer stepped away from Merrily. Stood there with his arms by his side. Little soldier, little gunfighter. Merrily shook her head. No.
‘Lodge!’
‘Who says?’
‘What you done with that JCB, Lodge?’
‘En’t your business.’ The voice higher now, like a fox barking in the night.
‘It’s that bloody tank, ennit? You took him out.’
Pause. The lorry rumbled away on the road to Ross.
What tank’s that, then, Mr Gomer Parry?’
‘The bloody Hefflapure.’
‘Oh, you heard o’ that, then?’ Pause. ‘Thought they was still digging cesspits where you come from. Carryin’ it out in buckets.’
Gomer took a breath. There might be method in this madness, but Merrily didn’t think so. A duel: plant-hire rules? And then she thought, What if he isn’t on his own? How could he move that thing without help? What if he’s keeping us talking while someone else… ?
She whirled round. The entrance gaped.
‘You better ’ave a good explanation of where you was tonight, Lodge,’ Gomer said. ‘You better’ve got some good witnesses.’
A moment’s silence.
‘What you on about, little man?’
‘You know bloody—’
‘’Cause I don’t reckon you knows what the fuck you’re talkin’ about any more, Mr Gomer Parry. I don’t reckon you knows nothin’ ’bout nothin’, ole man. Well bloody past it. Clingin’ on by your bloody old arthriticky fingertips. Oughter’ve packed in while you was ahead, look, but you couldn’t let go… else you was just doin’ it to keep away from your ole woman.’
‘You bas—’
‘You don’t bloody know—’ Then Roddy Lodge just erupted. ‘Shit! You don’t know shit!’ Laughter like flames in the night. ‘This yere tank, he en’t no business o’ yours. This is my digger, my fuckin’ tank. I put him in, I took him out. No business o’ yours. Never was your business. You en’t got no business, boy. You en’t got business worth shit, every fucker knows that, knows I’m Number One now, look, I got fuckin’ respect for miles round yere… done tanks for all the nobs all over the Three Counties and down into Wales. I done Prince Charles’s fuckin’ sewage over at Highgrove!’
Gomer shook. ‘You lyin’ bloody toad
!’
‘I done Madonna’s fuckin’ sewage up in the Cotswolds! I done Sting’s shit, down in Wiltshire!’
In other circumstances, Merrily thought, this could have been funny – surreal, anyway. ‘Gomer,’ she whispered urgently, ‘listen to me, you were right, he’s not rational. Let’s get the hell out.’
‘You go fetch the van then, girl. I’ll keep him—’
‘You bloody well won’t! You can come with me now.’
‘Who’s that with you, Gomer? Darren Booth?’ Merrily could see Roddy Lodge’s silhouette, almost full-length now, in the alley between the JCB and the hedge. Bizarrely, Lodge seemed to be bouncing on his toes. ‘Come on out, then, Darren – take you both on. Come on out… come on, boys!’
He sprang into the middle of the drive and started shouting again – voice high and rapid and streaked with outrage. ‘Tried to pinch my business. Tried to blacken my good name. Tellin’ porky pies about me! Come on, boys. Take you both… Her din’t believe you, look. Her knows what I give her was good. Knows I’m Number fuckin’ One, and don’t you ever forget it, Mr Gomer fuckin’ Chickenshit—’ Roddy Lodge broke off, looked up, squinting. ‘En’t Darren, is it?’
Gomer said nothing.
‘If it en’t Darren, who is it? I bet it’s only that fuckin’ fat mental-defective you got workin’ for you.’
Merrily could almost see herself, as if in a film, slow-motion, making a lunge for Gomer and Gomer not being there – Gomer moving away from her, along the side of the JCB, thin branches whipping behind him, until he and Roddy Lodge were facing each other in the open.
‘You murdering bastard!’
No, no, no… Merrily started edging around the other side of the digger. It was a tighter squeeze and it brought her up against the half-raised shovel, about six feet wide, with a piece of tarpaulin hanging over the rim. Please God…
‘Meaning what?’ Roddy Lodge said, and she could see his lean body and then his face: concave, with a jutting, pointed jaw, pointed nose, eyes that slanted slightly. A puppet kind of face, she thought.
And he was tense now; this was clear even in vague moonlight. A sheen of sweat on his face. He’d run out of banter and mockery. He was nervous.
Because he did it, she thought. He did it. She could hardly breathe. Roddy Lodge and Gomer were standing only feet apart, on a paved forecourt in front of the house. If Lodge made a move on Gomer, took one step, she would have to go for him with the torch.
She started to tremble.
‘You set fire to my yard,’ Gomer said.
‘Never!’
‘You set light to my place tonight, boy. And my nephew, he was in there. I dunno whether you knowed that, but it don’t matter… he still bloody died.’
Roddy Lodge stood there, taking this in. She couldn’t make out his expression. She raised the torch, ready to run out.
‘And that’s murder,’ Gomer said.
Roddy Lodge didn’t move but something did – maybe a cloud, because now his face was washed by pallid light, and she could see he was smiling. It was this big, loose smile, causing his jaw to drop, as though all the tension in him was evaporating in the moonlight.
Lodge said easily, ‘You know what, Parry? You’re fuckin’ mad, you are. You’re fuckin’ out of it.’
‘It was murder,’ Gomer said.
‘Whatever you say, matey.’ Lodge’s voice was quieter now.
‘You en’t denying it. You en’t even—’
‘I en’t even talkin’ to you n’more, ole man. You’re senile. Fuck off home, I would, while you can still walk.’
Lodge began to move towards Gomer, not hurrying but not delaying either, and whatever he could see now in Gomer’s face, it was making the smile on his own grow bigger and whiter. The torch felt sweaty in Merrily’s hand as she squeezed past the digger, along the rim of its front shovel, trying to transfer the flashlight to her other hand… feeling it slip out of her grasp and down into the shovel. She expected a clang, but it landed on something soft: the tarpaulin. She leaned over, reaching down into the metal maw, grabbed for the torch, stumbled, clutching at the tarpaulin, dragging some of it back, releasing a curling, piercing, pungent sweet aroma… and her scream.
And she watched Roddy spinning round with all the inevitability of slow motion.
‘Who’s that? Who is it?’
Merrily pushed herself away from the shovel and staggered out into the forecourt, shaking hard, feeling sick.
Roddy Lodge walked towards her across the moon-stroked flagstones. Her stomach was turning over.
He wore a grey leather jacket, tight leather jeans and cowboy boots, everything covered with drying red mud.
‘A woman?’ His voice rose to a note of wonderment.
‘You leave her alone!’
Merrily saw Gomer Parry about five yards away, both arms down by his side, fists tight, glasses opaque. Gomer’s voice was weaker now, could have been coming from half a mile away. She was willing him not to move, and all the time her mind was scrabbling for purchase on a sheer cliff-face of solid ice. It can’t be.
When Roddy Lodge came up to her, the first thing she noticed was his aftershave. He must have put it on with a paste brush. She almost retched.
‘Nice one, too, en’t you?’ Roddy was examining her, as if she was something that had just been delivered to his door. ‘Very nice. What you doing with the likes of this little toe-rag, my darlin’?’
The aftershave was so pungent it made her think of Nil Odour, the fluid undertakers used in coffins – the stuff the nurses at the General had kept under the bed of Denzil Joy, whose stench still sometimes soaked through her sleep.
Flash image: the half-cooked corpse of Nevin Parry. She felt faint with nausea.
Can’t be. Can’t be. Not again.
Automatically, her mind was erecting a segment of St Patrick’s Breastplate:
I bind unto myself the Name
The strong Name of the Trinity…
‘I’m very sorry about this,’ Merrily said calmly. ‘I’m really sorry, Mr Lodge.’
He had his head on one side, peering down at her. His eyes were aglow. He had a luminous white smile. She sensed a lot of energy there and even some humour. She sensed him wanting to touch her. She didn’t move away. Her coat had come open over her chest. She was expecting him to become aware of her dog collar, then realized she’d taken it off in the van.
She took a breath. ‘Mr Lodge, my name’s Merrily… The Reverend Merrily Watkins. I’m Gomer’s parish priest. I’ve been with him all night, since we first heard about the fire.’ She paused. ‘Mr Lodge, I’m sure you can imagine what kind of effect all this has had on Gomer. His nephew dead, everything destroyed.’
‘Why’s he reckon it was me?’ Roddy Lodge said.
‘Look…’ Her voice felt warm and soothing, full of pulpit- projection. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him. The police… the police said Nev had been drinking heavily, and they think he probably started the fire himself, accidentally.’
She didn’t look at Gomer, but she could feel it setting around him: a shabby concrete overcoat of bafflement and betrayal. She lowered her voice.
‘He’s an old man, Mr Lodge. He’s lost everything. When he wanted me to drive him here, I… I didn’t know anything about this… whatever history there is between you and him. I just assumed this place… that it held some memories for him and Nev, or something. I don’t know what he’s got against you or why it’s come up now, but I’m really sorry.’
‘Turned his mind, is it?’ Roddy said.
‘I’m sure he’ll come through this, with help. I’m just… I mean, I hope you’re not going to go to the police or anything. I promise you I’ll talk to him.’
‘Come and talk to me, you want, sweetheart.’ Roddy grinned. It was a wide engaging grin, but separate from his eyes, which seemed to have their own staccato light, like the sparks from her Zippo. ‘Vicar, eh? I goes and talks to our vicar sometimes. Nice feller.’ He u
nzipped a breast pocket of his leather jacket. ‘En’t as sexy as you, though. I reckon he’s a bit scared of me, tell the truth.’ He laughed, a high barking. ‘I scared him, I did. I scared the ole vicar.’
‘Did you?’
‘Told him ’bout all the things I seen in the night. Spooky!’
‘Sounds… interesting.’
‘Well, then…’ Merrily didn’t move as Roddy pulled out a card and came right up to her. ‘You come and talk to me any time you want. Any time. And anything you want doing, I’m your man. Special rates for the Church, look.’
He inspected her face, as though he was committing it, feature by feature, to memory.
‘Thanks.’ She took the card. ‘I’d like that.’
‘Yeah,’ Roddy said. ‘You would indeed, my darlin’.’
Merrily walked away without once looking back, Gomer following behind like a beaten old dog. She didn’t look at him, either.
She walked along the side of the big yellow digger without glancing at it or breathing in, walked out of the gateway and along the verge of the A49, with the long grass wet and cold around her ankles, sensing that Roddy Lodge was watching them and so not hurrying, not giving in to the urge to run, to the pushing in her chest. She walked around the bend in the road to where the van was almost embedded in the hedgerow. She unlocked the van and opened the door wide, so that Gomer could climb across to the passenger seat, where he sat in silence, sagging, as if all the life-energy had been vacuum-pumped out of him. She got into the van and turned the key in the ignition and for a moment was afraid it wasn’t going to start, but the engine caught on the second turn and she waited until there were no headlights in view before carefully reversing the van out onto the road. She drove for a mile or so in the direction of Ross before pulling off the road into the car park of a darkened pub. She switched off the engine but left the headlights on, illuminating a hanging sign featuring a rabbit or a hare, with a fluffy tail, seen from behind.
Merrily needed light. She needed to see anything coming. She tossed her head back over the peeling vinyl of the driving seat and let the breath out of her mouth, and when it came out it was an enormous sob, her body slumping into shudders.
