by Phil Rickman
‘I can’t! Where will I go?’
‘Rooms at the Swan,’ James shouted. ‘Barry’s attending to it now. Just leave the window—’
‘What can I wear? My clothes, my night-things—’
‘Worry about that when we get you out, old girl.’
‘This should not have happened, Mr Davies!’
‘Well, I’m afraid it bloody well has.’
‘Jane.’
Hand on her arm. Jane turned to find Mum at last.
‘God, you’re soaked to the skin.’ Horrifying reversal of usual roles. ‘You’ve got to go back, Mum, and get out of those clothes.’
‘Is Miss Huws OK?’
‘James Bull-Davies is in there, trying to persuade her to come out through the window. They’ve got all the people out of the other houses. And two labradors. Mum, listen—’
‘Good. You can’t believe it, can you? How quickly it happens.’
‘The point is there’s nothing you can do here. Come back to the vic, please. Look at you, your skirt’s all covered with—’
‘Where’s Lol?’
‘Putting his gear away. Barry was saying they should lock it in. He’s worried about looters.’
‘In Ledwardine?’
‘Yeah, well… Look, Mum, please? Something I have to tell you.’
James was helping Edna Huws out of the window and into the Matbro, putting a small suitcase in after her. Miss Huws had a long raincoat round her shoulders; she was making kind of chicken noises as the platform came down to ridiculous cheers. All this crazy goodwill that came with communal adversity and Christmas.
‘Mum! Vicarage!’
‘I seem to have lost a heel.’
Mum reached down and pulled something from a shoe, hobbling back up the street against the flow of water coming down from the square.
All the same, the rain was easing off and the sky was actually clearing, disclosing a fragment of moon now, like one edge of a silver ring in a crumpled grey tissue of cloud.
But it was no better on the ground. Reaching the entrance to Old Barn Lane, Jane saw another, smaller crowd assembling halfway down where there was a dip in the road — like a reservoir now. Front gardens were underwater, all the lights were on in all the houses and there were people with plastic buckets and washing-up bowls vainly trying to send it back.
‘Oh Christ!’
A man’s voice, falsetto with shock. He came stumbling out of the water, shaven head, earring like a coiled spring. Derry Bateman, the electrician.
‘Anybody know about artificial respiration?’
‘A bit…’
Mum started limping over to the crowd making a semicircle on the edge of the flood.
‘I thought it was a sandbag, I did.’ Derry Bateman looking shattered. ‘Oh, bloody hell. Everybody get back, this en’t good.’
‘I think it’s too late, anyway,’ a woman said.
The water almost thigh-high on two men dragging a body. Torchbeams converging.
A woman screaming, ‘Please God, no.’
‘Here…’ Derry guiding Mum to the waterside. Jane didn’t even know she could do artificial respiration. ‘Turn him over.’
The woman said, ‘I think he’s dead.’
Someone else howling, ‘Who is it? Who is it?’
I’m telling you…’ A quavery, elderly voice. ‘Someone was sitting—’
‘I don’t know him,’ Derry shouted. ‘I’ve never seen him before.’
‘You don’t know what you saw, Reg.’
‘I tell you I saw someone… I thought they was sitting on a sack, but they was sitting on him…’
‘Who was?’
‘He went that way. All in black, look. I en’t making this up.’
‘Everybody looks black in this—’
Jane ran down after Mum, but Eirion was holding on to her arm.
‘You don’t know artificial respiration, do you Jane?’
‘Well, no, but—’
‘I saw a boy once who’d drowned,’ Eirion said. ‘Believe me, you don’t want to see this.’
Derry Bateman and a couple of neighbours had carried him out of the flood and laid him in the back of Derry’s van, surrounded by compartments of tools and electrical supplies. Nobody could think of anywhere better. Nobody was volunteering to accommodate a drowned man in a sitting room all decked out for Christmas.
Derry had covered him with blue plastic sheeting, like the stuff draped over cookers and washing machines on the riverside estate.
Merrily was wiping her dripping hands on her sodden skirt. She felt heartsick.
‘You say you know who he is, vicar?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Derry said. ‘There really was nothing we could do.’
‘Nobody see what happened?’
‘Nobody seen a thing, else we’d’ve gone to help him. I still don’t see how he could’ve gone in that far, less he was drunk.’
‘Derry, who’s Reg?’
‘Reg Sutton? David Sutton’s old man. I think he’s Reg, en’t he, Peter? He only come to live yere a couple of weeks ago. He’s pretty old, you can’t really rely on too much he says.’
‘Where’s he live?’
‘He’s… one, two… five houses down, end of the terrace. White gate.’
‘Thanks.’
Derry nodded uncomfortably at the body.
‘Who is he, vicar?’
‘He’s the guy who rents Cole Barn.’
She could still hear him, the exasperated voice of reason: anomalies… blips… means nothing. Saw his fluorescent white smile.
Merrily flattened her back against a gatepost, gazed up at the moon, coddled in smoky cloud.
Above all, it in no way suggests a god. Above all, it does not imply that.
And now he knew. Or not. She looked down at the plastic bundle, fogged and glistening and it was very hard to believe in a life after that. And, oh, this was not right. There was nothing right about this, and certainly nothing to be salvaged from the Book of bloody Daniel.
‘What’s he doing down yere then, vicar?’
‘I don’t know.’
Maybe somebody had called out to him. Maybe there were too many lights at the bottom of Church Street. Christ.
‘We better call the police,’ Derry said. ‘Though how they’re gonner get here tonight, less they can get a helicopter.’
‘I’ll call them,’ Merrily said.
‘Only, if there’s any way of… I mean, I don’t really want…’
‘No, you’re right. He can’t stay here. Why don’t you drive him up to the church? We’ve got a long table in the vestry. Do you mind carrying him again?’
‘En’t got no choice, do we?’
‘I need to find his wife.’
And the old man had said: I saw someone… thought they was sitting on a sack.
Someone. Man or a woman?
She saw Jane and Eirion standing near the top of the lane, hand in hand, like children. All she could think of, as she walked up towards them, was Shirley West. She hadn’t seen Shirley anywhere tonight, only the marks of her madness.
63
Do the Dying
When she called Bliss on his mobile, from the vicarage, he answered in seconds, sounding wide-awake, focused. Excited, even.
‘Merrily, touch nothing.’
‘Too late. They had to bring him out of the water, he might’ve been alive. And we couldn’t leave him in the van.’
‘So where is he?’
‘In the church. Vestry.’
She’d managed to find James Bull-Davies, give him the keys and he was over there supervising it. Well, where else could Stooke’s body have gone, where else?
Bliss sighed.
‘So what are you saying, Frannie, I should’ve got out one of my many rolls of police tape? Cordoned off the area?’
‘Well, don’t let anybody in the frigging vestry.’
‘Damn,’ she said bitterly, ‘and I was planning
to charge admission.’
‘You all right, Merrily? You don’t sound well.’
‘I’m fine.’
Could hardly keep her voice steady. Jane was standing in the doorway with arms full of a bath towel and dry clothes. She’d plugged in the electric fire, all three bars.
Bliss said, ‘Tell me why you think he’s been killed.’
‘I… I just think it can’t be ruled out, that’s all.’
Signalling to Jane to put the clothes on the sofa, telling Bliss quickly about Shirley West, the Church of the Lord of the Light, the damage, the graffiti. He didn’t say anything. He got her to go over a couple of points again. He asked her if Stooke had had any other obvious injuries. Twice he said drowned isn’t right. Clearly he was not impressed.
‘Is there…’ shaking now ‘… something I don’t know?’
‘A lot. Listen, gorra get things organised this end, then I’ll call you back from the car. We’re coming over. Only problem is how we get into the village.’
‘You’ll have to leave your vehicles the other side of the footbridge at Caple End, and I’ll have to persuade people to pick you up. How many?’
‘Say half a dozen, initially. More later if we agree with you. Or if…’
‘What?’
‘Keep your mobile on, I’ll see you at Caple End.’
‘It won’t be me. I have a service to do.’
‘Oh, Merrily!’
‘It’s Christmas Eve. It’s what I do. How long before you get here?’
‘Thirty, forty minutes. I can call you back in five from the car.’
‘All right, I’ll wait.’
Despite dry clothes and the electric fire, she was still shivering. The rain was no more than a peppering now and, through the scullery window, you could see the grey-blue froth of night clouds.
Gomer was going to Caple End with his big Jeep, Jane and Eirion to the church to tell people the service would be a little delayed. But first…
Jane came into the scullery alone, shut the door behind her.
‘It won’t wait, will it?’ Merrily said. ‘Only—’
‘No,’ Jane said, ‘I don’t think it will.’
Jane told her about Professor Blore’s private report to the Council. His alleged discovery of comparatively modern masonry and artefacts under one of the stones.
‘What does Neil Cooper say?’
‘He thinks Blore’s lying. Really he’s scared to say what he thinks. Scared of losing his job. Looks like Blore could’ve been got at by… I don’t know.’
‘A combination, probably. Landowner, developers… maybe several of them already getting in line for a stake in Ledwardine New Town.’ Merrily instinctively reaching for a cigarette, letting her hand fall empty to the desk. ‘Would take a lot, mind, to make it worthwhile for Blore to virtually destroy everything. The henge? How sure are you and Neil about the henge?’
‘It’s got to be more than wishful thinking. It’s just—’
A tapping on the window. Lol’s face. Thank God.
‘I’ll let him in,’ Jane said.
‘No, I’ll do it. You go to the church with Eirion. Tell whoever’s there, if anybody, that I’m sorry and I’ll be with them in ten minutes, soon as I’ve spoken to Bliss again.’
‘Mum, you don’t have to do this. We’re in the middle of a crisis here. Even the church has been—’
‘That’s why I have to do it.’
‘And I haven’t finished,’ Jane said.
But Merrily was already into the passage, and the phone was ringing behind her.
You could only see the ghost of the last word now. Witch.
James Bull-Davies had been as good as his word. The Bull, Lucy used to call him, always having difficulty separating him from his more unsavoury ancestors. Maybe she would now, having seen him scrubbing at her gravestone.
He was in the church, making sure nobody went near the vestry. His old car wouldn’t start, and Eirion had gone in his place to Caple End to ferry cops to Ledwardine. Jane put her hands on the shoulders of Lucy’s stone. It was becoming a natural thing to do, made her feel stronger and less confused. In theory.
‘That your gran, is it?’
She looked up, mildly startled; hadn’t noticed him coming over.
‘What are you doing here? I thought you’d gone home for Christmas. Thought you’d be legless in High Town by now.’
‘Bleeding bridge. Should’ve left earlier. The fucking sticks, eh?’
‘You could’ve gone on one of the coaches.’
‘Prefer me own wheels, sweetheart,’ Gregory said. ‘Anyway, I don’t live in Hereford. Not enough happening for me. Figured in the end might as well stay here as go there.’
‘You went to Lol’s gig?’
‘Who?’
‘Lol Robinson? The gig at the Swan?’
‘Didn’t you see me?’
‘I didn’t get to see much of it in the end.’
‘It was good,’ Gregory said.
The night was lighter now. Not much, but enough to make out his thin features. He looked starved. He was wearing a short leather jacket and tight black trousers that looked like they were fused to his legs.
‘You’re soaked.’
Really soaked. He even smelled wet. ‘Where’s your bloke, Jane?’
‘He’s… gone to help bring some people from Caple End.’
‘Coppers?’
‘Maybe.’
‘They’ve even closed the footbridge now. Nobody can get across the river without having to walk about ten miles to the next bridge. That’s what people’s saying. What’s that about?’
‘Somebody got drowned.’
‘That a fact.’
‘Guy who lived near your site, actually. Cole Barn?’
‘Don’t know it.’
‘You never walked over there?’
‘What for?’
‘Just… a walk.’
‘A walk,’ Gregory said. ‘You people kill me.’
‘What people?’
‘People who can live in a shithole like this and go for… walks.’
‘Hey, it’s not my fault you got wet.’
‘Never said it was.’ He seemed on edge. Angry. ‘Not seen Blore, have you?’
‘Not for a while.’
‘He’s got the keys to my bleedin’ caravan. Give him the keys when I thought I was leaving.’
‘If I see him, I’ll… get somebody to tell him you’re looking for him.’
‘Thanks.’
Jane said, ‘Gregory… you know all that stuff you were giving us about Blore having sex with his students?’
‘So?’’
‘Anybody special?’
‘When?’
‘Currently?’
‘Nah. He don’t separate them out much when he’s pissed. It’s all fires and mantelpieces with Blore.’ Gregory nodded at the people filing into church. ‘Wass all this?’
‘Midnight service… delayed. They’re waiting for my mum. She’s the vicar.’
‘Must be popular, night like this.’
‘I think people are a bit… spooked. The flood. The drowning. Want a bit of reassurance. And — I keep forgetting — it’s Christmas. Come in if you want.’
‘What happens?’
‘Well, it won’t be an ordinary midnight mass. In view of everything, I think she’ll be playing it by ear.’
‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to one. I mean… you know…’ Gregory shrugged awkwardly ‘… why?’
‘You don’t believe in anything?’
‘Never thought about it. Wassa point? It don’t get you anywhere, do it?’
‘You don’t think it’s, like… interesting to think there might be something, somewhere, bigger than all this?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like, you know, a life beyond this life? Somewhere you go after you die?’
‘Best thing is not to die. Let other people do it.’
‘Huh?’
&nb
sp; ‘The dying,’ Gregory said roughly. ‘The trick is to let other people do the dying.’
CHRISTMAS DAY
Shall dumpish melancholy spoil my joys…
Thomas Traherne ‘On Christmas Day’
64
Sickness
‘We have to try and hold this together,’ Merrily said.
Standing on the chancel steps, in jeans, a black woollen top, her heaviest pectoral cross.
No mass, no meditation, but the church was full. It was almost eerily full, as if there’d been a timeslip back to medieval days, when the timbers of Ledwardine were young. When life was simpler and faith, out of a kind of necessity, was strong.
And when, as each new comet was sighted, they’d still talked about the Endtime.
She saw Jim Prosser and Brenda sitting with Brian Clee. In the Bull pew, James Bull-Davies with Alison. Maybe fifty local people and as many strangers. She saw the man with the ruby earring. She saw the witch from Dinedor who’d had visions of the Druids along the Serpent.
Something was holding them together.
Edna Huws was at the organ. A good thing for her, perhaps, and for all of them. There would be carols. There would have to be carols, voices raised against the dark.
There was no sign of Shirley West.
‘No point in dressing this up,’ Merrily said. ‘A man’s been found drowned at the bottom of the pitch in Old Barn Lane. A man I’d got to know… if not well.’
Or not well enough soon enough.
‘The police are on their way. And, erm… they may need to come in here. Which limits us a bit.’
Murmurs. Merrily looked down and saw she was still wearing wellies. She wanted to get them to pray in silence for what remained of the spirit of Christmas, some small, still light, to come into this place. But there wasn’t much silence in her head.
* * *
She’d called Bliss back on her mobile. Listening, while walking over to the church with Lol, to his theory that Clem Ayling had been murdered by contract. A connection with the non-democratic focus group Hereforward, to which Ayling had been co-opted by the county council. Ayling discovering that his colleagues on Hereforward had been indulging themselves, on weekends away, with cocaine supplied by a man called Steven Furneaux.
