The Lamp of the Wicked (MW5)

by Phil Rickman

  ‘I didn’t know about the suicides,’ Merrily said. ‘But I’ve heard about the other health scares.’

  ‘It’s estimated that the deaths caused by power lines equate with the number of fatalities on the road. But, as only one in fifty of the population lives under power lines, that makes the risk fifty times as big. We’re talking heavy shit here, Reverend, and it’s no surprise that governments and the power industry try to rubbish it.’

  ‘I understand that, but…’

  ‘But where do you come in? I’m getting there. Let’s look at what’s more or less proven. Magnetic fields reduce the body’s production of melatonin, which is manufactured by the pineal gland at night and regulates mood. People living under power lines suffer insomnia – sleep deprivation. And because of the reduced melatonin levels, people living under power lines are prone to depression. Sure, you’ll find wonderfully cheerful, fit characters who spent their whole lives under 140,000 volts – some folk produce more melatonin than others. However, those with a tendency to depression may find they become very depressed. And those already very depressed may become suicidal.’

  ‘And people suffering from manic depression…?’

  ‘May become more manic and more depressed. Loosely, whatever you got there’s a strong possibility that electromagnetism will intensify it. And a certain number of people are gonna develop a chronic condition that we called electro-hypersensitivity – EH. That’s where the whole body becomes allergic to electricity. So you see, the risks from power lines are many and varied… and more varied than any of us could’ve imagined.’

  He replaced the loose-leaf folder on the shelf, placed his hands on his knees and looked down, gathering his argument.

  ‘When I was living near the Nevada Desert, in the eighties, the alternative lifestyle was getting jaded – too many bad drugs, too much paranoia. The spark had gone out. Around the time my daughter got sick, one of the guys in the commune started rambling about saucers coming in the night, landing in the desert. Humanoids in silver suits who came and took him out of his bed and messed him around. Ten years earlier, we’d have been like: Hey, cool, let’s all light candles, get out there and welcome the mothership, man! In the eighties, however, we were suspecting he might be a little crazy.’

  ‘A lot of it about – alien-abduction stories.’

  ‘Sure. Those were paranoid times, the Reagan years. Was it aliens, or was it the government?’

  ‘So when did you hear about Melanie Pullman’s experience?’ Merrily asked.

  ‘Aha!’ He leaned forward. ‘Who told you about that?’

  ‘Her family called in my predecessor, suspecting their house might be haunted. We actually have files.’

  ‘And you’ve seen the file?’

  ‘Yes.’ She told him about the red or orange light bathing the bed, Melanie’s belief that she was taken away by grey creatures with big eyes like mirrors and subjected to an examination that ended with one of them having sexual intercourse with her. ‘Which she seems to have found not entirely unpleasant.’

  ‘Good,’ Sam Hall said. ‘I mean, that’s right. That’s what she told me.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Year or so after she saw the priest, I’d guess. She told me he’d said some prayers and threw a little holy water around but that it didn’t help much, long term.’

  ‘So it happened again.’

  ‘Twice. Not precisely the same, but similar enough as makes no difference.’

  ‘This was widely known around the village?’

  Hell, no. Nobody wants to be thought crazy. No, it came out when I ran into Melanie one day leaving the doctor’s surgery – Ruck, you know him? Asshole of the old school. Anyway, the kid looked like shit, and the point is, I knew where she lived, and I’d heard she hadn’t been well.’

  ‘She lived on the former council estate.’

  ‘Yeah, but whereabouts? Right in the arc of the turning circle at the end of Goodrich Close is where. The damn pylon – next one along to the one where Roddy Lodge died – is almost in the back garden. The lines are directly overhead. Plus you’re in line with the TV booster across the valley and… I won’t go on, but this is close to the centre of the hot spot defined by Lodge’s garage and the old Baptist Chapel.’

  ‘So you think…’ Merrily was getting an idea of where this was going. She remembered Canon Dobbs’s conclusion that Melanie Pullman had undergone a genuine hallucinatory or dream experience, had not been making it up. ‘You think that the effects of, for instance, sleep loss caused by electromagnetism might have been causing her to hallucinate. Like your friend under the power lines in the Nevada Desert?’

  ‘Which, at the time, we attributed to far too many drugs over the years. But let me say first of all, this is not only me. There’s been considerable research – OK, fringe research, but that’s how it usually starts – which demonstrates a correlation between both alien-visitation experiences and some plain old- fashioned hauntings, and the presence of high-voltage overhead lines, usually in conjunction with other radiation from TV transmitters, mobile-phone masts, sub-stations… I could find you scores of examples.’

  ‘Well, sure… but how is it explained?’

  ‘The effect of electromagnetic fields on the brain… on specific areas of the brain – irradiation of the temporal lobes, for instance, can promote a sensation of what you might call “presence”. Of not being alone. Stimulation of the septum area of the brain can produce intense sexual sensations, which explains—’

  ‘Except that, in Melanie’s case, there was also, if I recall, a vaginal infection?’

  ‘Mrs Watkins…’ Sam spread his hands. ‘I wouldn’t claim to be any kind of authority on women’s clinical conditions. However, the growth on the body of various fungal bacteria, of the candida type, can, I assure you, be accelerated by exposure to a significant degree of electromagnetism. You are free to check this out with whatever scientific or medical sources you may have access to.’

  ‘Can I have a cigarette?’

  ‘Depends what kind of lighter you have… No, I’m kidding, help yourself. If tobacco was all we had to worry about, I’d be a happier man. Look, Mrs Watkins, this kind of stuff is not helpful to me or my cause, which is why I’ve never made an issue of it. Tell the Great British Public they could be in for leukaemia or a brain tumour and you’ve got their full attention. Warn them of possible encounters with alien beings or a ghost in the bedroom, they heave a big sigh of relief, say: “Phew, so it can’t be true about the cancer either.” Believe me, I do not need this shit. I beg your pardon if that seems to be demeaning your profession – it wasn’t intended that way.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. What happened with Melanie?’

  ‘She worked at a chemist’s, in Ross, and I met her for lunch one day and it all came out. For instance, for some time she’d been finding it impossible to watch TV and was going up to her room – which made it worse, of course. Her room was at the rear of the house, backing onto the pylon, wires zooming immediately overhead. She couldn’t sleep and… you know the rest. Also, by this time, she was becoming allergic to her place of work – all those huge bright lights in the drugstore. I advised her to start looking for another job… someplace darker, at least.’

  ‘And was she involved with Roddy Lodge at this time?’

  ‘She’d been with Roddy ’bout a year. See, this was before Roddy’s big change. He hadn’t been long in his own place, and I imagine she was his first real girlfriend. It was a case of like attracting like. Although he was maybe ten years older than she was, they’d both had experiences they couldn’t explain – stuff they couldn’t even discuss with most other people. It must’ve been kind of a relief to both of them when they found out they weren’t alone.’

  ‘Roddy being under the same power lines…’

  ‘Well, let’s not forget he’d been around power lines all his life – got some big ones going over the farm. But when he moved, he was right in the heart of
the hot spot. Whatever was happening to him before must’ve been intensified hugely once he was in that bungalow.’

  ‘Did they know this? Had they put two and two together?’

  ‘I don’t believe they had. People often don’t. Roddy, for instance, was convinced there was something wrong with his eyes. Took to wearing dark glasses and working at night when he could. And I’m sure that relieved the symptoms to an extent. No, I told Melanie what I knew and referred her to an alternative practitioner in Hereford who wasn’t as blind to all this as the medical profession seems to be. I don’t think she managed to persuade Roddy to go, too, because things were becoming complicated by then. Am I making the remotest kind of sense to you, Mrs Watkins?’

  ‘I rather think you are.’

  ‘You’re making connections.’

  ‘Too many.’

  ‘Anything you want confirmation of, I have whole shelves of reports…’

  ‘I just want to think about this. How much have you told Bliss?’

  ‘Hell, none of it. Guy’s a cop. He’s gonna believe Lodge’s behaviour was conditioned by electromagnetic radiation? Does he care? He just wants to know where the other bodies are buried.’

  ‘And were you able to help him on that?’

  ‘No.’ Sam stood up and walked back to the window with the view down Howle Hill towards the pylons and Underhowle. ‘Do I think Melanie Pullman’s dead? Maybe… but maybe not. There was every reason for her just to get the hell out of here and not look back. See, she was coming to see me quite often those last few months – reporting her progress. She’d taken a vacation with some relations up in Shropshire, well away from power lines. Done some walking up there. Cut out the Valium, of course. When she came back home, she switched bedrooms to a smaller room at the front of the house, not directly under the cables. Gave in her notice at the drugstore. She was feeling a little better – even just knowing about it makes you feel a different person. But electro-allergy goes deep. It takes a long time to get it out of your system, if you’re lucky enough to be able to do that totally. There’s good reason to think she just upped and left Underhowle, knowing there was no future for her, healthwise, in this place.’

  ‘Leaving all her possessions, all her clothes?’

  ‘Maybe she went someplace else and felt so good she just didn’t come back. Maybe she met somebody. People do this kind of thing with far less reason than she had.’

  ‘What about Roddy?’

  ‘I think she tried to help him, I really do. I just don’t think he wanted to know. Besides, he had a new girlfriend by then. He had Lynsey. And he was changing – boy was he changing.’

  ‘Would you mind if I told Bliss about this?’

  He shrugged. ‘Long as there’s no comeback on me.’

  ‘I think I can guarantee that.’ Merrily stood up. ‘So that’s what you meant when you told Lol about a spiritual aspect to all this.’

  ‘Uh…’ Sam turned his back on the view, plucked at his Icelandic sweater. ‘I guess I still hope it is. I’m not sure. I have a friend – you met Ingrid Sollars?’

  ‘At the hall.’

  ‘Sure you did. Well, Ingrid and I are very close friends, but we don’t always agree. And there’s stuff happening here…’ Sam shook his head. ‘I dunno…’

  ‘What stuff?’

  ‘Could I go fetch Ingrid?’

  Merrily looked at her watch. ‘I have to go and see Cherry Lodge, and then I’ve got to get back for someone. Can I call you? Tonight, maybe?’

  ‘Sure.’ Sam followed her to the door. ‘This has become a weird place, Mrs Watkins. And more than a little sick.’

  Parked outside the Lodge farm, Merrily called Bliss from the car and left a message on his voice-mail. Cherry Lodge, in her army parka, was coming round the side of the house, carrying a paper sack of mixed corn.

  ‘Been and seen them, have you, Reverend?’ She put down the corn sack. Freed from fog, the farmhouse behind her looked less stable, with rubble-stone showing through holes in the rendering. Less fortified.

  ‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ Merrily said. ‘Has anybody threatened you?’

  Cherry Lodge managed a tired smile. Merrily decided not to tell her about her own anonymous caller.

  ‘Just I was told that people – friends of Melanie Pullman – had threatened to damage Roddy’s grave, if… if there was one.’

  ‘There’s brave of them.’ Cherry pulled the sack of corn up against the wall. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘No, thanks, I’ve got to get back. Erm… the other argument is that it’ll be an unpleasant sort of attraction to the wrong kind of tourists. But the committee said that to you, didn’t they?’

  ‘The wrong kind of tourists. Oh yes, we had that.’

  ‘Cherry, in your e-mail, you said how much Roddy had changed when he went to live on his own. You said he’d become more confident. Did he change in any other way? I mean, for instance, he went around all the time in dark glasses… people saying he was a bit of a poser. But could there have been another reason? For instance, Sam Hall thinks—’

  ‘Sam thinks a lot of things and some of them sound sensible and some sound like rubbish and I don’t think he knows the difference. What does it matter now? Roddy killed a woman – only one woman, as far as we know, despite all this West rubbish – and then he killed himself. And if he was going to kill a woman – and don’t go quoting me – then he couldn’t have chosen a better one. Slut. Gold-digger. She kept coming back. He’d try and get away from her, go out with other women, but she kept coming back. Maybe, God forbid, he couldn’t get rid of her any other way.’

  ‘Look,’ Merrily said. ‘I’ll have to ask you one more time, because I don’t really know how deep the feelings are down there, but you do still want to go ahead with burial? You won’t opt for cremation, perhaps a plaque in the church?’

  ‘Mrs Watkins…’ Cherry’s face wore BSE and foot-and- mouth and stupid EU regulations in layers of dried-out anxiety; what did she care about petty village vigilantes with a manufactured crisis? ‘If anyone vandalizes the grave, it’s up to the police to deal with it. Anyone threatens us, we’ll deal with it.’

  ‘And you’re… happy about tomorrow, rather than Friday.’

  ‘We’re not happy about any of it,’ Cherry Lodge said. ‘But if it’s what we have to do to keep it quiet, it’s what we’ll do.’

  ‘What about flowers and things? You got all that arranged?’

  ‘Flowers for Roddy? I don’t think so.’

  Merrily nodded. ‘You know my number.’

  ‘Don’t take too much notice of Sam,’ Cherry said. ‘And don’t try and find excuses for Roddy – it’s not worth it now.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know the truth?’

  ‘I don’t think we ever will know. Perhaps some of it’s beyond knowing.’

  ‘You mean the ghosts? The dead women?’

  ‘I won’t talk about that again. It needed to be said, that’s all. It was hanging over me. Hanging over the family and never talked about. I just thought that, now he’s gone, someone outside should know. Just to… take it off us.’

  Merrily nodded. There was more than one level of exorcism.

  But she no longer thought it was beyond knowing.

  When she was on the A49, the other side of Ross, the mobile bleeped and she pulled the Volvo into the kerb. It was Bliss, and she told him what she wanted.

  34

  EH

  RECORD OF INTERVIEW

  Person interviewed: RODERICK LODGE

  Place of interview: HEREFORD HQ

  Time commenced: 10.30 a.m. Time concluded: 11.23 a.m.

  Duration of interview: 53 mins Tape reference no.: HHQ

  3869/1

  Interviewing Officer(s): DI BLISS, DS MUMFORD

  Other persons present: NONE

  MERRILY HAD PHONED Frannie Bliss to ask if he had a copy of the actual tapes, but transcripts was the best he could do. He’d arrived at the vicarage as t
he day was fading, in hiking jacket, jeans and a terrible mood.

  ‘This better be worth it, that’s all. Coming, as it does, on a day I just want to be… over.’

  ‘Caffeine?’

  ‘Intravenous, if you have it, please, Merrily.’ He hooked out a dining chair with his foot, collapsed into it.

  ‘I’ve only seen the Telegraph so far,’ she said.

  ‘How I wish I could say the flamin’ same.’

  She poured coffee for him and sat down opposite. She’d changed into jeans and a black, cowl-neck sweater. ‘I thought you wanted it to come out about West.’

  Not like this.’ Screwing up his eyes as if he’d been hit in the face. ‘When I had some evidence. When I could go in and say, right, dig there, lads. I agreed it was the best thing to sit on it, meanwhile not to panic parents, husbands…’

  What had happened was that Bliss had asked Andy Mumford to keep his ear to the ground, and one of Andy Mumford’s contacts in Much Marcle, birthplace of Fred West, had told him that Roddy Lodge had been seen there a couple of months ago with a woman answering Lynsey’s description. Mumford had gone over there, in his own time, and talked to a few people, testing out an idea of Bliss’s that Lodge might have disposed of a body in the area of Fred’s old burial ground – some kind of homage. It was one of the blokes Mumford talked to in the pub who’d gone to the press.

  ‘He’d had some money in the past for background stuff on the West family – in these difficult times, farmers are encouraged to diversify. Well, I couldn’t let Andy take the shit for that. Had to phone Fleming, tell him it was me behind it.’

  ‘Honourable of you.’

  ‘Yeh. What the Japanese call the honourable way out.’

  ‘And how did Fleming react?’

  ‘Dunno, Merrily. I was on the mobile and the signal was weak, you know?’

  ‘You got cut off.’