All of a Winter's Night

by Phil Rickman

  ‘Everybody’s gorra price.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. It’s a matter of pride. The only money Iestyn Lloyd’s interested in is profit from actual farming. It’s what he does. What he wants to be known for.’

  ‘And this lad Hurst, would he share that viewpoint?’

  ‘Now you mention it, probably not. Never particularly interested in farming, as such, as much as other things you could do in the countryside.’

  ‘All right, just give us a few minutes.’

  Bliss got out of the car and went back to his Honda.

  Merrily watched the snow. It didn’t seem to be trying very hard, but the Black Mountains were just a few miles away, and they hadn’t been black for days. Blizzards could make roads round here impassable within a couple of hours. She smiled, a bit desperately. There was a local saying: as rare as a Herefordshire Council gritter on a winter road. It was only funny until you were trying to get from A to B on a winter’s night.

  The passenger door was wrenched open, a sandwich of snow dislodged as Bliss climbed back in.

  ‘I’m gonna tell you this, though it amounts to bugger all except as a character reference. When we first talked on the phone, couple of hours ago, I had my intellectual mate DC Vaynor run a few swift checks on Liam Hurst.’

  ‘Blimey.’

  ‘Hurst is forty-three, civil servant, as you know with DEFRA, the Min of Ag as was. Spends a lorra time around the farms which is… interesting. Valued by the department as he gets on extremely well with farmers – countryman to the core, and not afraid to get his hands dirty – or bloody, for that matter – in time of national need. During the last Foot and Mouth crisis when hundreds of thousands of farm animals were being slaughtered…’

  ‘Holocaust.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Jane’s word for… that kind of thing.’

  ‘Yeh. Well the young Liam was out there with whatever kind of rifle they were using to dispose of stock quick.’

  ‘Massacre – Jane again. Sorry, go on.’

  ‘And then – much more recently – here he is again, butchering badgers for the government, to stop the spread of TB to cattle.’

  ‘Instead of vaccinating them, as in parts of Wales.’

  ‘Where’s the fun in that? Didn’t interfere with his job. Evening work. Went out with a team of shooters in south Gloucestershire.’

  ‘I see what you meant by character reference.’

  ‘Positively public-spirited, Merrily.’

  ‘May have been less so in Africa.’

  ‘Who’s watching out there? They don’t call it the dark continent for nothing. Let’s put that one on ice. I’ve not quite finished, however. Hurst also belonged, for a couple of years, to a club safely based at the army base in Brecon. Pistol range. Professional targets, real ammo. All absolutely legit. Even our senior CSI, Slim Fiddler does it. Does he know Mr Hurst? He’s out on manoeuvres presently but will be snatched by Darth on his return to barracks.’ Bliss beat his fist on the dash. ‘Friggin’ hell.’

  ‘You’re moderately excited now, aren’t you?’ Merrily said cautiously.

  ‘It’ll take a shitload more than this, Merrily. And it won’t be my decision to go after him. Right. When Hurst first came to see you, to ask you to conduct the service for Aidan, would he’ve known Charlie was likely to be there?’

  ‘He was first to tell me Charlie wanted to speak at Aidan’s service, which they wanted to be in Ledwardine. He seemed pleased. Charlie had told him he was going to use the occasion to highlight the problem of unqualified foreign drivers on rural roads.’

  ‘Course he did. Easy to forget how persuasive Charlie could be. Sadly, the old bugger’ll be there only in spirit tonight, so nobody’ll ever find out what he was gonna say.’

  ‘They might.’

  ‘But he’ll be there? Hairst.’

  ‘With or without Iestyn. I’m guessing without.’

  Bliss scrubbed at the vapoured windscreen.

  ‘Doesn’t leave much time. You think it might be better to gerrit called off because of the weather?’

  ‘You wouldn’t persuade Sir Lionel Darvill to do that if the whole valley was snowed in. There’s only one St Lucy’s night. But the less you know about that the more convincing you’re going to sound to… whatever his name was.’

  ‘Kenny. If I’m granted an audience. You going over there now?’

  ‘Might be safest. Overnight bag in the back, with all my kit. You can go home and not come out for a week.’

  ‘Might be safest, Merrily, if all the lanes got blocked. Right, I’m gonna ask yer about one more thing, on the off chance. Norra word about this, all right? Kilpeck. An incident involving the burning of a dummy in fancy dress, too late for Guy Fawkes Night, up by the cas— What you looking at me like that for?’

  66

  Complicating the ministry

  STRANGELY, IT HADN’T even started to snow yet in Kilpeck. You could get that anomaly in the border country, stray pockets of protection under the wall of the Black Mountains. But it rarely lasted, and the countryside this late-afternoon was greyly tense, water half-frozen in the ditches and the sound of birds moving inside the hedges like broken biscuits in a shaken tin.

  Merrily stepped out of the Freelander on the edge of the grass apron. Last time she’d been here, there had been Julie Duxbury, brisk and fearless in the bomber jacket. Now, under an anxious sky, there was just the church that Julie had felt she ought to like but didn’t, the church that had a cold glow sometimes.

  No glow at all tonight. No sun to set. The church of St Mary and St David on her mound.

  Her mound? Why did she think that? Was it the rounded apse, jutting like a pregnancy?

  Merrily stood by the car, cold inside the too-thin waxed jacket, the overnight bag at her feet, black like the exorcist’s bag in the film posters. She didn’t feel like an exorcist, never really had. Julie Duxbury had looked more out of that mould. But there was no sense of her here. She was not the kind who came back.

  ‘Mrs Watkins? Merrily?’

  A woman calling from across the parking area wore a sloppy sheepskin coat and baggy wellies and she was out of breath.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I shoulda been here to meet you, but I didn’t think you’d be so early. I, uh, snuck off to the inn for a Scotch. Doesn’t really warm you at all, you just fool yourself.’ A hand came out of her coat. ‘Nora.’

  ‘Of course.’ They shook gloves. ‘As there doesn’t seem to be anything happening maybe we should both go to the pub.’

  ‘Hell, no, he’d kill me. I’m supposed to show you around. You been in there before?’

  ‘Not for very long.’

  ‘Gonna seem a little disappointing. The Victorians got at it. They didn’t take anything away, they just brought in new stuff and polished it.’

  Merrily followed her past the tangly yew tree, its evergreen branches clogged with dusk.

  ‘How many people are we expecting tonight?’

  ‘A lot. It’s a magnet, this place. People show up who aren’t even local.’

  ‘On a night like this?’

  ‘Makes no difference. Bad weather adds to, uh, the otherness, is that the word?’

  ‘One of my daughter’s favourite words. Not necessarily mine.’

  Nora laughed, approached the south door, reaching for the iron ring handle.

  Not much light left now. Merrily had called Lol after Bliss had left. He had instructions to meet the morris side at the inn, would be leaving Ledwardine soon. Bringing Jane and Eirion. The cops still had Eirion’s car because Charlie Howe had died on it. Oh God, like she needed two more to worry about.

  They went in under the face of the green man whose eyes looked horror-struck at the foliage issuing from his mouth, as if he was gagging on it.

  ‘What’s that?’ Merrily pointed up at the tympanum, over the door, the ornate shrub at its centre, with fronds like the one protruding from the green man’s mouth. ‘That connected to the, erm
, Man of Leaves? His larder?’

  ‘That’s usually called the Tree of Life,’ Nora said. ‘Or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil out of Genesis? All about good and evil, this church. Half the images are kind of demonic. There isn’t much Christianity here. What could be an angel in the doorway, only with like monsters’ faces all around? Snakes and dragons. And the Sheela-na-gig. She’s no angel.’

  ‘The medieval way. Good and evil. Not many grey areas.’

  ‘Oh.’ Nora wrapped a gloved hand around the ring handle. ‘The guy you wanted to meet?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Lol called Li about the guy who—’

  ‘Oh hell, I forgot.’ Clapping a hand to her head. ‘So much has happened since—’

  ‘Only, he’s in there,’ Nora said. ‘He thinks he’s meeting Sir Lionel. We agreed six, as you suggested, but he came early because of the weather.’

  ‘Oh God, am I really up for this now? Sorry. Yes. My fault. I have to do this. OK. Do you want to go back to the pub or something?’

  She took over the ring handle, turned it before she could change her mind and run.

  The halogen lights were on at the bottom of the nave, but the pews were empty. There were candles in the brackets projecting from the pulpit. Many more candles around the church, dozens of them, fat candles in holders, thin candles in trays on every horizontal surface, benches and narrow tables, prayer-book racks and pew-ends.

  All unlit.

  Nobody in the nave, nobody in the chancel, but she knew she was being watched, turned slowly. Paul Crowden was up in the gallery, looking down.

  Big day for Slim Fiddler, head of crime scene, so it was a while before he showed up in Bliss’s room, looking, as usual, like he was wearing three Kevlar vests under his pullover.

  Worth the wait, mind.

  ‘You don’t think a lot about it, Francis. Most of us go through that phase when we see the coffin-shaped targets at the end of the alley, and we get a very sharp warning about SAS fantasies. No, no, no, this is not a man, this is a target. But, come on, handguns… what else are they for?’

  He was right. Nobody, as far as Bliss knew, had ever gone grouse-shooting with a Glock.

  ‘And you knew him, Slim. Hairst.’

  ‘I knew a lot of shooters. We’d sometimes go for a drink in Brecon afterwards. Not before, obviously. The point is, he was never one of them. Not one of the blokes who really wanted to be dashing into a room then going into a crouch with the gun in both hands, screaming, clear, clear, till he spots a movement and gets five off without blinking.’

  ‘That’s you, is it, Slim?’

  ‘Not for a long time. I don’t do crouches these days. No, Hurst, I’d even say he was more in the instructor mode. Didn’t say much, didn’t smile, didn’t congratulate anybody on nice shooting. But, you know, friendly enough.’

  ‘He go to the pub with you afterwards?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. I don’t think he was doing it for the social side, but, equally, not the kind of guy you feel ought to be watched. Just an ordinary bloke. More ordinary than most of us.’

  ‘Was he good?’

  ‘With a pistol? Shit-hot. Kind of bloke who could drill a neat circle shooting through his legs. Except he wouldn’t do that. Far too professional. You’d’ve thought he was regiment if you didn’t know him. What’s he done, Francis? Not…?’

  ‘Shurrup, Slim, eh?’ Bliss said. ‘Norra word about this. Not yet, anyway, or I’ll be down the road. Norra waird.’

  He needed coffee. Black. Lots.

  Crowden was sandwiched between the front pew in the gallery and the darkwood rail. He was wearing a heavy herringbone overcoat and a retro trilby-type hat.

  ‘We shouldn’t keep meeting like this, Mrs Watkins.’

  ‘We’ve never met like this.’

  He didn’t move along the pew until she began to squeeze into the space next to him.

  ‘It’s no warmer up here, is it, Paul?’

  She shivered, the sleeves of her waxed jacket pulled down over her clasped woollen-gloved hands.

  ‘I was here to speak to Sir Lionel Darvill, Crowden said.’

  ‘As that seems to have been about me, I thought perhaps we could cut out the middle man. Odd that you should be waiting for him up here. Unless I’ve missed the lift…’

  ‘I do know about his disability and I would, of course, have come down when he arrived.’

  ‘Good observation point, meanwhile. Did they send you on an espionage course, or is that classified information?’

  ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I’ve been hearing about your survey… report… whatever. On exorcism in the Church. For which you had to go undercover.’

  ‘That’s nonsense.’

  ‘You haven’t publicized it. Would you like to tell me who commissioned it?’

  ‘No. And it’s not only about exorcism, it’s an examination of all the fringe activities within the C of E. You’d be surprised what… eccentricities still go on.’

  ‘All of which cost money.’

  ‘At a time when we’re obliged to cut back to conserve the core. I don’t want to get into an argument with you, Mrs Watkins. If the evidence shows that some deliverance consultants are complicating their ministry and extending it into areas in which it might be thought the church should not be operating… well, that needs to be known about. But it’s not my judgement call. There are far more senior people who have views on this and are in position to do something about it, whether it’s at synod level—’

  ‘Or something less public. Come on, Paul, you can tell me…’

  He said nothing and didn’t look at her.

  You’re a friend of Craig Innes, I believe.’

  ‘I do know Bishop Craig, yes.’

  ‘He’s making economies. Just reduced his long-serving lay secretary to two days a week.’

  ‘Doesn’t that show he’s accepting his share of cutbacks?’

  ‘I don’t think so. She also coordinates deliverance activity. Runs the office. Extremely efficiently. And works assiduously for the Cathedral. This is more a demonstration of the Bishop’s views on the importance of exorcism.’

  ‘What am I supposed to say? He’s entitled to those views.’

  Merrily let this hang.

  ‘Of course, your own economic situation must be fairly tight now.’

  ‘Mrs Watkins—’

  ‘With recently getting married and everything. This your first time?’

  ‘As you probably know, I had a partner. We split up last year.’

  ‘And you wound up with the two kids.’

  ‘I got custody.’

  ‘I’m sure your three new stepchildren think you’re wonderful, too.’

  ‘I see no reason to discuss my personal situation with you.’ He shifted on the pew. ‘In fact I seem to have been the victim of what might be called a set-up. So I shall be leaving now. I was going to stay for tonight’s service, as a mark of respect for the Reverend Duxbury, who I knew slightly, but the weather’s looking quite threatening and I have a long drive, so if you don’t mind…’

  ‘Wouldn’t be such a problem – the long drive – if you were only coming from Ledwardine.’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Crowden rose, picked up his briefcase from the pew.

  ‘Must be quite crowded in your current vicarage, Paul.’

  ‘This is quite preposterous behaviour,’ Crowden said quietly. ‘And more than a little juvenile.’

  ‘And with another on the way… six kids. Six! Wow. Problem is, won’t find many vicarages these days with that level of accommodation. Used to be the norm, of course – the vicar with a healthy bunch of kids – which is why the Church had so many huge old properties to flog.’

  ‘Do excuse me.’

  Merrily didn’t move.

  ‘But… there’s Ledwardine. Almost unique in this area. Personally, I’ve always felt a bit embarrassed about having all that space,
with just me and Jane in there. Especially as the head churchwarden’s my uncle. A retired solicitor, as you might know, who’s determined that the parish should hold on to this valuable listed building and seems to be able to swing that, somehow, with the diocese. There must be a good economic reason for this, but I don’t know much about it, and he doesn’t like me asking. He doesn’t like deliverance, either, so you should get on with him pretty well if you and Innes get me out.’

  ‘That is absolutely…’

  ‘Ridiculous, yes. If it wasn’t so bloody cold I’d be laughing now. It’s quite cold in Ledwardine vicarage, too. Only a few rooms we can afford to heat. And just across the road my… best friend… boyfriend… has a far cosier dwelling, and I’ve been feeling so tired and fed up lately that I’ve been on the verge of saying, sod it.’

  ‘Your level of commitment to the ministry impresses me.’

  ‘But then… finding out how small and squalid all this is, the idea that it might all come down to getting a much bigger house—’

  ‘It’s nonsense.’

  ‘Anyway, I’ve decided to fight back. And I won’t be alone.’

  ‘May I come past, please?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Merrily stood up and stepped out of the pew and into the one behind.

  At the top of the stairs, Crowden turned to face her.

  ‘My perception is that you’re becoming an embarrassment. You’ve become almost drunk on your own perceived success… your relationship with the police, your ghost-hunting, your liberal attitude to your daughter’s paganism… and your relationship with former Bishop Hunter.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  ‘No smoke…’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘I don’t believe you have anything you can use against me, and if I were you I’d think very carefully about your future. We don’t want any unpleasantness, do we? Merrily.’

  Silence.

  He smiled and buttoned his overcoat.

  ‘Thank you, Paul,’ Merrily said. ‘That’s a start.’

  She unclasped her gloved hands, and the iPhone slid from the right-hand sleeve of her coat into her palm. She looked at it to make sure the recording needle was still in motion.