by Phil Rickman
Jane stopped by the unlit Christmas tree, over twice her height and swaying in the wind. She could see lights in the vicarage. Should be getting back. Mum had a funeral; she wouldn’t be in the best of moods by now.
‘Her name was Lucy Devenish. Used to have a shop just over there, called Ledwardine Lore. Got knocked off her moped. Killed. On the bypass.’
‘And you… still like to chat with her, do you?’
‘Look,’ Jane said, ‘if you want to catch the best of the early light, you could go down that alley, and you’ll come to a stile which takes you into the remains of an old orchard, with a gateway into—’
‘Coleman’s Meadow. I know. It’s the way I came.’
Jane stared at her, silent.
‘I live near there,’ Lensi said. ‘For nearly seven weeks now, on and off. We’re in a barn conversion.’
‘Cole Barn?’ Jane backed up into one of the oak pillars of the market hall. ‘You’ve bought Cole Barn? But it’s—’
Blighted was Gomer’s word. Been on the market for a while, very desirable property and everything, but who wanted to lay down big money and maybe wind up living next to an estate of luxury executive homes?
‘Just renting it, actually,’ the woman said. ‘We’re checking out the area generally, to see if we like it, before deciding whether we should buy ourselves in.’
Buy ourselves in?
‘And I was reading about all this kerfuffle over prehistoric remains, so now I’m sort of keeping an eye on it for the Indy, in case it blows up into something…’ Lensi stood back and stared openly at Jane. ‘You’re not Jane Watkins, by any chance?’
Damn.
‘They sent me some cuttings, including a picture of the girl who started all the fuss. Objecting to the housing, if I’ve got this right, because it was on a ley line or something? That was before they found the stones.’
Jane said nothing. Lensi peered at her, the camera swinging free, dense coppery hair falling over one eye.
‘You are!’ She began flapping her jacket. ‘Jane, what fun!’
‘Fun?’
‘Sorry!’ Lensi backing off, palms raised. ‘I know — serious matter. I realise that. Is it true you didn’t know anything about the buried stones when you started your campaign?’
‘Nobody did. And if you were at the meeting last night then you already know all this.’
‘Oh… none of that came out. It was quite disappointing. Jane, look, I’m sorry if I offended you. I just want to get this right. How you found out about the stones — just for information, I’m not writing it down or anything.’
Jane sighed. Eirion, who was planning a career in journalism, was always saying that pissing off the media was counter-productive. How could you expect them to publish the truth if you didn’t tell them the truth?
‘Please?’
‘OK… I’m like standing on Cole Hill.’
‘That’s the—’
‘It’s the only hill around here worth calling a hill. It was one evening last summer, and I had this… I’m not calling it a vision or anything, it was just some things coming together.’
How could you explain it to a stranger? How could you convey the sudden awareness, at sunset, of this dead straight ancient track, passing like quicksilver through the field gates at either end of the meadow in direct alignment with the church steeple?
Perfect example of a ley, as first discovered by Alfred Watkins, of Hereford, nearly a century ago, in this same countryside. Alfred Watkins wasn’t known to be an actual ancestor of Merrily and Jane Watkins, but who could say? She’d certainly felt he was there with her, like Lucy. Well, maybe not quite like Lucy.
‘Leys are… nobody knows for certain what they are. Just straight tracks from one ancient site to another, or maybe lines following arteries of earth energy. Or spirit paths. Where the dead walk?’
Lensi said nothing. The sky was shining dully, like a well-beaten drumskin.
‘The dead are very important,’ Jane said. ‘To a community. You need continuity.’
‘Really.’
‘Ancient people knew that, in a way we don’t today. It’s important, for stability, for the spirit of the place, to have the ancestors around, keep them on your side. Which is why we need to keep this ancient path open… passing through the church, through the graveyard and the medieval orchard… then through the standing stones, to the top of Cole Hill, the holy hill.’
‘Why is it holy?’
‘It’s like the guardian hill for the village. Cole is actually an old word for juggler or wizard. And Coleman’s Meadow, at its foot… The Coleman… the shaman? So, like, if you uncover the old stones after centuries and then take them away and build an estate of crappy executive homes for wealthy—’
The sapphire earrings twinkled.
‘If you build houses we don’t even need,’ Jane said, ‘then you’re breaking the only link we have with the earliest origins of the village for purely commercial reasons. So we set up the Coleman’s Meadow Preservation Society—’
‘We?’
‘Me and my… ex-boyfriend.’
‘This was a pagan sort of thing, was it?’
‘Kind of.’
‘As in worshipping old gods?’
‘The sun. The moon. Yeah, I suppose old gods. But obviously it’s not only pagans, it’s everybody who’s concerned about preserving what’s important. We’ve had a lot of support from all kinds of people, all over the country… abroad, even.’
‘Old gods.’ Lensi smiled in her patronising way, like all this was so incredibly quaint. ‘It was a stone circle?’
‘Just a stone row, they think.’
‘And that’s where the dead walk, is it?’
‘It’s a big subject.’ Jane looked up as a few isolated raindrops fell. ‘Look, I’m sorry… if I don’t get back I’m going to miss the school bus. I need to change.’
‘Of course. Jane,’ Lensi looked down at her camera, ‘I’d like to take a few pictures of you, if I may. I don’t mean now, obviously…’
‘Some people reckon we’ll have floods in the village,’ Jane said. ‘Could be some pictures for you there.’
‘Ordinary local news… that’s not really my thing.’
‘It’s just I got a lot of stick over it last time.’
‘Because of your mother’s job? What kind of pagan are you, exactly, Jane?’
‘I’m sorry — why are you interested?’
Lensi shrugged. Maybe she was just looking for a coven or something to join. It happened. Happened a lot these days, apparently. Like in the old days incomers would want to know about the tennis club or the bridge circle.
And this was a set-up, wasn’t it? This woman had recognised her and followed her into the churchyard. Didn’t really give a toss about the sunrise.
‘Look, I’ve got to — Going to be late for school, OK?’
The rain came on suddenly, like all the taps in heaven had been turned on. Lensi was shielding her camera, Jane backing off towards the vicarage, dragging up the hood of her parka, then turning to run, hard against the downpour.
Hearing Lensi calling after her, but she didn’t stop.
10
Peace on Earth
There was a sourness to it, this weather. The rain was rolling down from the Black Mountains like bales of barbed wire. It was relentless, and it sapped you.
Merrily slowed the Volvo behind a tractor and trailer. About five roads were closed, diversions in place. The route to Hereford took you through hamlets you’d forgotten existed, past flooded fields with surfaces like stretched cellophane. Was there such a condition as rain-sickness?
‘Why do they never dredge the rivers? That’s my point.’ Phone-in voice on Radio Hereford and Worcester. ‘How do they expect us not to get flooded if they don’t dredge the flamin’ rivers? Can you tell me why, Colin?’
Studio voice: ‘I’m afraid I can’t, Robert, but it’s a good point and one we’ll be putting to our expert from the
Environment Agency who, of course, should’ve arrived by now but he’s — yes, you’ve guessed it — been held up by the floods.’
On days like this, virtually every programme on Hereford and Worcester turned into a flood programme. Which was useful but not the main reason Merrily was listening.
Finally showing up, with about ten minutes to spare, Jane had claimed she’d only been checking on the river.
Been away too long just for that, of course, but there was no time to go into it before the kid was off to catch the school bus, carrying a slice of yolky toast across the square. Merrily guessing she’d been over to Coleman’s Meadow to make sure nobody had come in the night and dug up the stones.
As if, having been the first in the new millennium to identify something odd about Coleman’s Meadow, she was now feeling personally responsible for it.
Was obsession too strong a word for this? Lucy Devenish, Thomas Traherne, Alfred Watkins, Nick Drake… a pale company of dead people with whom Jane felt—
‘Christ!’
The old Volvo was suddenly bucking against a wall of water, as the tractor and trailer up ahead plunged into a flooded dip in the lane where the ditch had overflowed. Merrily frantically wrestling for control as the black tide rose around the car, and the force of it, the weight of it, was unexpectedly frightening.
Then she was through.
But, hell, you could see how easy it would be to get trapped — tonight’s TV news screening a video clip, shot on somebody’s mobile phone, of a woman in a cassock being pulled by firefighters out of a side window of her drowning car.
She was testing her brakes, letting out her breath, as Colin on the radio suggested that, with Bishop’s Meadow already annexed by the swollen Wye, Hereford’s crucial Belmont roundabout would be closed before the evening rush hour. Colin sounding quite excited. However, as flood-relief seldom involved detectives, it seemed unlikely this was what Frannie Bliss had meant when he’d suggested that Merrily kept the radio on.
She’d called him on his mobile after Jane had caught the bus.
‘Norra good time, madam,’ Bliss said.
Not referring to her by name a signal that he was in the CID room. Understandably, Bliss had never liked to advertise a working relationship with the diocesan exorcist.
‘Any chance you could call me back, Frannie? Only wanted to ask one question.’
‘Yeh, I’ve heard that before.’
‘What would your Special Branch colleague be doing in Ledwardine?’
‘When?’
‘Last night.’ No use pretending she might’ve been mistaken; it was him. ‘At a parish meeting about the Coleman’s Meadow stones. He’d obviously come in after everybody else, sitting near the door, first one out.’
‘No idea, Merrily, I’m not one of his confidants. Maybe he’s bought himself a holiday cottage in Ledwardine. They’re on good money, the funny boys. Fringe benefits.’
‘I didn’t even know he was still around. Thought he’d gone back to the Met or wherever they hang out.’
‘Look,’ Bliss said, ‘I’ve gorra go. I’ll get back to you when I can, all right?’
‘Has something happened?’
‘Put your radio on,’ Bliss had said. ‘And keep it on.’
The travel update warned of serious flooding around Bromyard in the east, which could be a problem; she’d need to get over there within the next few days to pick up Lol’s Christmas present. Couldn’t leave it much longer — too much to do around the big day, and there was the delicate issue of introducing the midnight meditation on Christmas Eve.
Always a problem to alter anything in a village.
‘And if you’re having problems in your particular part of the two counties,’ Colin said, ‘ring in and tell us… our lines are open all day, every day right through Christmas.’
Christmas. Why did the glow always seem to fade, the closer you came to it? Why was there always some damn crisis? Peace on earth, goodwill to all—
‘—However, as you may have heard on the news, the floods aren’t the only problem in Hereford. Police have sealed off part of the city centre in the wake of last night’s—’
Ah…
‘—shocking discovery of a human head in the ruined Blackfriars Monastery in the Widemarsh Street area. Our reporter Arabella Finch is at the scene. Bella, what’s happening now?’
Merrily slowed, crawling into tree-fringed King’s Acre in the city’s western suburbs. The female voice came back in low quality, probably from a radio car.
‘Colin, I’m talking to you from one of the back streets between Widemarsh Street and Commercial Road from where it’s usually possible to see the ruins of the medieval Blackfriars Monastery. But not this morning. The whole area’s been completely screened off by the police who’ve set up an incident room at the Cantilupe School next door to the monastery. I’ve been told a press conference has been scheduled for twelve noon, when obviously we hope to learn more. But I can tell you that the head was found last night by a member of the public on or near the medieval preaching cross in the rose garden at the front of the monastery ruins.’
‘Bit of a shock for someone, Bella. And of course, this all happened when the city was absolutely packed with Christmas shoppers, in town for the traditional Wednesday evening late opening.’
‘There probably weren’t as many shoppers as usual, Colin, because of the floods, but obviously it’s made the police investigation a lot more difficult. With so many extra people about, it would be far easier for whoever left the head to come and go unnoticed.’
‘Now it’s a… it’s the head of a man, is that correct?’
‘That’s what we understand, Colin.’
‘And is this someone who was actually, you know, beheaded?’
‘My information is that it was done after death.’
‘Do they know who it is yet?’
‘Well, personally, I think they do, and there’s quite a buzz about it. I can’t see that they won’t be revealing a name in the course of the day, but relatives will have to be told first, of course. There has, obviously, been an extensive search for the rest of the body, but no suggestion that anything’s been found yet.’
‘And what about local people, Bella? The people living and working in a very built-up part of the city. How are they reacting?’
‘Well, as you can imagine nobody here can quite believe that something so, you know, horrific and barbaric should have come to Hereford. Earlier this morning, I talked to people living in the streets behind Blackfriars Monastery, as well as some coming to work in shops and offices around lower Widemarsh Street—’
Merrily switched off the litany of shock and disbelief and what’s the world coming to?
A black Christmas for somebody. No surprise that Bliss didn’t have time to speculate about what Jonathan Long might have been doing in Ledwardine.
Peace on earth, goodwill to all men.
Yeah, right.
Under a sky the colour of wet mortar, she came off the White Cross roundabout at the fourth exit, for the crematorium.
11
A Sense of Eternity
Quite a turnout for Tom Parson, and Merrily had known him well enough to make it meaningful — as much as you ever could with another funeral party waiting outside, stamping its feet and rubbing its hands.
Tom had been Old Ledwardine — at least, that was what she’d thought until she’d talked to the family.
‘Tom was… a character,’ she said in the chapel at the crem. ‘Someone of whom, now he’s gone, we say, We won’t see his kind again. Someone who was part of the fabric of the village. Old Ledwardine. I’m… not exactly Old Ledwardine, and I just assumed Tom’s family had been around the village for generations.’
In fact, she’d discovered, Tom Parson had been an incomer, a retiree. OK, thirty years ago and only from Shropshire. But there was surely a message here about how a community — even a landscape, or, as Jane would insist, the spiritual essence of a plac
e — would absorb and condition people.
If it happened slowly. If it happened naturally. And if you kept open a few pathways to the past. If you had that grounding.
She didn’t say any of that. There wouldn’t be time — that was her excuse. Anyway, there’d be a memorial service for Tom back in the village after Christmas, followed by interment of the ashes in the churchyard; she’d be able to do a better job then. Tom’s niece had sent her away with a pile of his historical notes which she thought the parish ought to have. Maybe Jane could go through them.
But that was it for today. Merrily drove into the city centre and found a parking space on the corner of Broad Street and King Street, just across from the Cathedral, its sandstone tower wadded in charcoal cloud.
There was a light on, up in the Deliverance office in the gatehouse, and she could see Sophie Hill standing at the window, quite still, poised like a mannequin in some discreet dress shop for elegant women of a certain age.
But the composure was illusory. By the time she was halfway up the stone steps, Sophie was looking down at her, rigid now, in the office doorway.
‘Merrily—’
‘Just dropped in to see if you fancied a bit of lunch?’
‘Can’t. I’m sorry.’
‘Soph?’ Following her into the office, Merrily noticed that the white hair was coming adrift and a silver-blue silk scarf lay discarded in the correspondence tray. ‘Is there something…?
Looking into Sophie’s eyes. On any other woman’s face, the expression would convey maybe mildly disturbed. On Sophie it suggested horribly distraught.
‘Merrily, you’re not in a hurry, are you?’
‘Well, no, I—’
‘Could I ask you to mind the office for an hour? I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. You’re not in a hurry, are you?’
‘You just asked me… No.’
‘Good. Thank you.’
Sophie pulled her coat from the peg. Merrily took off her black woollen funeral coat and went and sat down behind the desk. In the centre of it was the leather-bound pad Sophie used to take down the Bishop’s dictation. Nothing else.
