The Lamp of the Wicked

by Phil Rickman

  ‘Don’t you sometimes feel,’ Frannie said, ‘when these horrible little coincidences occur, that there’s a wider plan, and it isn’t always constructed by somebody with our best interests at heart?’

  ‘I don’t get paid to feel that,’ Merrily said uncomfortably.

  That night, she prayed by the landing window overlooking the square. She didn’t see a woman out there with a white scarf over her head.

  But she found she still had Melanie’s angel, and she slept with it under her pillow.

  CLOSING CREDITS

  NOBODY WHO HAS studied the Cromwell Street case believes it was satisfactorily resolved or even, in the end, fully investigated – there is a limit to police resources. Estimates of the number of West victims still undiscovered range from ten to more than forty. All over Britain, there are relatives of missing women and girls who are unlikely ever to know whether their worst fears are justified.

  The idea that the guilt extends beyond Fred and Rose is not new but is still rarely spoken of. Researching this book, I was told more unpublished West stories than I could reasonably use. The Black Dai story is true; a thirty-two-year-old man was jailed for life on 4 December 1996. The Terry Crick story is also true.

  I owe particular thanks to West’s official biographer, Geoffrey Wansell, who knows more about Cromwell Street than anyone should ever have to. For information about the West case, electricity, radiation, EH, septic tanks, Ariconium and other related issues, many thanks also to: Rosemary Aitken, Penny Arnold, Caroline Boots at GPU, Krys and Geoff Boswell, William Corlett, the Courtyard, John Deeley, Paul Devereux, Kate Fenton, Philip Grey, Paul Harrison, Prof. Dennis Henshaw, Michael Howard, Prof. Bernard Knight, Mike Kreciala, Rebecca Lacey, John Mason, John Mayglothling, Ed Richmond, The Electric Shop at Ross, Lisle Ryder, Andrew Taylor, Rebecca Tope, Hereford Samaritans and West Mercia Police at Hereford, who were very accommodating and probably very grateful not to have Frannie Bliss in the CID room. Thanks also to Gruff Rhys, of Super Furry Animals for permission to quote lines from the excellent album Rings Around the World.

  I leaned heavily on three books on the West Case: An Evil Love by Geoffrey Wansell, Happy Like Murderers by Gordon Burn and She Must Have Known by Brian Masters. Also Paul Britton’s The Jigsaw Man. The more bizarre effects of electricity and the hot-spot phenomenon are discussed in Albert Budden’s Allergies and Aliens. You can find out about Ariconium in Brian Cave’s The Countryside Around Weston and Lea (The Roman town of Ariconium and its district), which may be out of print now but was published by The Forest Bookshop, Coleford, where I got mine second-hand.

  Frankly, this was not exactly an easy book to write, and I relied throughout on the judgment and penetrating editorial skills of my wife Carol, who spent many weeks disentangling it and pulling me back from the brink of excess. The songs from Lol Robinson’s Courtyard gig can be found on the CD, Songs from Lucy’s Cottage, obtainable through the website www.philrickman.co.uk. The background and locations for The Lamp of the Wicked are explored in Merrily’s Border by Phil Rickman, with pictures by John Mason, published by – Logaston Press.

  One day the whole truth may come out. But I’m not holding my breath.

  www.corvus-books.co.uk