by Phil Rickman
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what this has taught me, if anything, about the nature of ghosts.’
‘Why did Siân suddenly scream when you were there in the Hanging Tower with Sam?’ Lol said. ‘And was this the same moment that the candles on the church tower went out?’
‘Wouldn’t say a word, you know,’ Merrily said. ‘Not to me, anyway.’
‘Siân?’
‘White as a sheet. Said she’d felt faint and gone out for some air. Perhaps thinking — commendably, I suppose — that her own inherent scepticism might damage what we were trying to do. And she walked across the Inner Bailey to the gatehouse.’
‘The Keep? Where Robbie fell.’
‘And Marion, probably. The Hanging Tower wasn’t built in Marion’s time, but the Keep definitely was. Maybe, the evening he died, Robbie had taken someone to the top of the Keep to explain to that someone his theory that this was actually where it happened.’
‘What do you think Siân saw?’
‘Or felt? Whatever, she was terrified. I suppose it’s so much worse for someone who despises… superstition. Maybe she saw whatever remains of Marion. Whatever it was the Bishop once saw. Not terribly benevolent, that. Anyway, Siân wants to resign from her self-appointed role of Deliverance Coordinator.’ Merrily leaned back into a corner of the sofa. ‘I asked her to stay on. Amazed myself.’
‘I liked her,’ Lol said.
‘You like everybody who isn’t a psychiatrist.’
‘Ah,’ Lol said, ‘about that…’
He told her about the call from the ennobled Gavin Gascoigne.
‘Bloody hell,’ Merrily said. ‘Governments scare me more than spooks.’
‘They think they’re protecting themselves for the well-being of the nation.’
‘Is Saltash going to back off?’
‘He’ll do whatever Gascoigne wants. When you think about it, what he did — this kid Fyneham and everything — that was incredibly stupid. People like Saltash and Gascoigne, they’re treated like gods for years, gods who can see into the minds of men. And then they retire.’ And become delinquents, Lol was thinking. ‘Anyway, Saltash is my problem. Unfortunately inflicted on you.’
‘Our problem. A problem shared…’
‘What about Sam? You’ll go and see her?’
‘With Sandy Gee, tomorrow for a start. Pastoral care. Sam’s not out of it yet. She started talking about the e-mails Robbie sent her about the bad time he was having on the Plascarreg. All the things she should have done. And then there’s Jemmie… maybe it’ll need a Requiem for Jemmie. A dark presence there. Needs attention.’
There was also the question of what to do about the contents of the mandolin case. So much to sort out yet. Nothing ever finished.
Jane and Eirion were planning a raid on the Internet suicide sites tonight — well, safer with two of them, Merrily said. She suspected that Belladonna’s ubiquity on death sites and in chat-rooms had been in some way down to Jonathan Scole. Karen Dowell’s first dissection of his hard disk had shown that he’d been posting messages on the Net purporting to be from someone very close to Belladonna. Someone calling himself Revenant.
Death is eternal life without pain.
Know that we must make our own eternity.
How much of that would Scole have understood at the time? Had he adopted that name, Scole, because it was the name of a village in East Anglia where experiments had famously been carried out into the existence of spirits? Something else they’d never know. Scole had been his mother’s son, Merrily said — layered.
‘And what about Robbie Walsh?’ Lol said. ‘Does he get a Requiem?’
‘I’ll see what Andy thinks about it.’
‘Some tension there? Mumford?’
‘Mmm, Bliss… I really think Bliss thought Andy might’ve killed Jason Mebus.’
‘Do retired policemen in Hereford routinely kill suspects they couldn’t nail?’
‘Mumford took him down by the river,’ Merrily said. ‘Near the old Campions Restaurant? Mebus kept insisting he hadn’t, you know, gone to Ludlow to find Robbie. But Mebus is such a smart-arse. Hardened villain already, at Jane’s age. Mumford said he didn’t believe him. Admitted he completely lost it, had Mebus on the edge of the water. He told Bliss he thought Mebus must’ve hit him with a stone or something and got away.’
‘Mebus did get away?’
‘Not for long, however. He and Chain-boy nicked a car last night and turned it over on the A49. Chain-boy has head injuries, Mebus broke his collar bone and fractured two ribs.’
‘Karma,’ Lol said.
‘Don’t go there.’
Lol heard a car door slam and then Jane outside, laughing. Jane had a laugh like a firework going off.
‘So what did Mumford say to you at the door, after Bliss had left?’
Lol remembered seeing them together by the print of The Light of the World. Mumford looking uncomfortable, mumbling something quickly and then leaving without turning back. Merrily standing on the mat, exchanging thoughtful looks with Jesus.
‘He said something about… about the face he’d seen reflected in the Wye, when he was forcing Mebus’s head down towards the water.’
‘Not Mebus?’
‘No,’ Merrily said. ‘Not Mebus.’
Closing Credits
Well, it’s all there, if you want to check it out… Marion de la Bruyère, the Hanging Tower, the yew tree, the Palmers’ Guild, the Hungarian Suicide Song.
Visit Ludlow. You won’t regret it.
Detailed history of the town and its church can be found in the many books and leaflets by the tireless David Lloyd. His The Concise History of Ludlow (Merlin Unwin Books) is a good place to start. On the subject of the Guild (or Gild) I also consulted Michael Faraday’s Ludlow 1085–1660: A Social, Economic and Political History (Phillimore) and, on the castle, the sumptuous Ludlow Castle, Its History and Buildings, edited by Ron Shoesmith and Andy Johnson and published by the excellent Logaston Press. Peter Underwood’s A Gazetteer of British Ghosts (Pan, 1973) details relatively recent Marion experiences.
The Ludlow ghost-walks are now devised and led by Stuart Liggins and Leon Bracelin, who has far deeper roots in the world of psychic studies than the unfortunate Jonathan Scole and showed me a few… openings.
Vince Bufton of the South Shropshire Journal was very helpful with crucial details, as were Sally Boyce, Mike Kreciala and Alun Lenny. Also Stanton Stephens and Mike Lloyd of the Castle Bookshop and my CWA colleagues Bernard Knight (forensics) and Rebecca Tope (post-mortem couture). Nicky Carey and Lindy Reed, of Nevill Hall Hospital, Abergavenny, made the obstetrics work. Thanks also to Paul Devereux (Earth mysteries) and Merrily’s other spiritual consultant, Peter Brooks. The Powis Estate, owners of Ludlow Castle (where children, it’s worth emphasizing, must be accompanied by an adult), inadvertently supplied an interesting plot strand by refusing to help and suggesting that I change the location. Thank you, guys.
Thanks, finally, to the cool-headed but sensitive and encouraging editorial team of, in order of appearance, Peter Lavery, John Jarrold and Nick Austin.
As usual, however, before they saw any of it, The Smile of a Ghost was exhaustively edited, psychoanalysed, reoriented, sharpened and finally rescued from the abyss, over many weeks, by my wonderful wife, Carol, without whom…
About the Author
Phil Rickman was born in Lancashire and lives on the Welsh border. He is the author of the Merrily Watkins series and The Bones of Avalon. He has won awards for his TV and radio journalism and writes and presents the book programme Phil the Shelf for BBC Radio Wales.
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