A Crown of Lights mw-3

by Phil Rickman

  Gomer threw up his hands. ‘Place like this? Nowhere bloody easier, vicar! Local people protects local people. Might keep any number o’ secrets from each other, but if they gets a threat from Off, they’ll close in real tight till it’s over and gone. They thought J.W. Weal had done it, they’d be happy to shovel shit over his tracks, ennit?’

  ‘The other thing that struck me,’ Merrily said, ‘is that the doctor who kept prescribing all that oestrogen that sent Menna’s blood pressure up...’

  ‘Dr Coll, eh? Now there’s a respected man.’

  ‘If Menna did develop dangerously high blood pressure, furred arteries, serious danger of fatal clotting, why didn’t he warn her? Why wasn’t he monitoring her? If she was on the Pill for... I don’t know, twenty years or more...’

  Gomer said, ‘What you wanner do is you wanner talk to Judy. Proper, though. None o’ this circlin’ round each other. Talk to her straight.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘As well as Mrs Starkey? Busy ole night you got lined up there.’

  ‘OK, tomorrow.’ She pulled out her cigarettes and then put them back. ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this. Why am I doing this, Gomer?’

  ‘Because... ’ang about.’ Gomer turned towards the bar. Merrily saw Greg Starkey frantically beckoning them over. ‘I think the boy wants you,’ Gomer said.

  Greg opened the solid wooden gate in one side of the bar, to allow Merrily and Gomer through.

  ‘Just walks in like noffink’s happened, asks for a room for the night. Well, I’ve only got two rooms, ain’ I, and they’ve both gone to reporters. I can’t turn her away, but what if the wife comes out, nursing her Bible, and finds the bleedin’ spawn of Satan under a blanket on the settee?’

  ‘Gomer,’ Merrily said, ‘just don’t call me vicar in front of her, OK?’

  Greg led them into the well-fitted kitchen with the tomato-red Aga. A woman stood next to it, gripping the chromium guard rail, as though she was on the deck of a small boat in a gale.

  The night hag.

  Couldn’t be more than late twenties. Pleated skirt, dark sweater, ski jacket, all that blond hair.

  ‘This is my friend,’ Greg said, ‘wiv the accommodation. Merrily Watkins.’

  Merrily watched the young woman’s eyes. No recognition at all. Clearly not a Livenight viewer, not even that particularly relevant edition.

  OK, she’d said to Greg, in a snap decision, just tell her I’m someone with a big house who does B and B sometimes.

  B and B? Sanctuary? What a vicarage was for.

  Good Samaritan. The good Samaritan, who went to the aid of someone from a different culture, a different ethos.

  ‘It’s only for one night,’ Betty Thorogood was saying. ‘Probably.’

  ‘And this is Gomer Parry,’ Greg said.

  ‘’Ow’re you?’ Gomer flashed the wild-man grin.

  Gotter be a problem for you, this, girl. Question of which side you’re on now, ennit?

  Part Four

  When people experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the reality and presence of God in their lives, they also become more aware of the power of evil.

  Deliverance (ed. Michael Perry) The Christian Deliverance Study Group

  38

  The Real Thing

  MERRILY FLASHED HER headlights twice and then pulled out to the end of the car park and waited for the young woman to come over.

  ‘Funny how things turns out, ennit?’ Gomer said mildly, from the back seat.

  ‘You think this is a terrible mistake?’

  ‘Bit late to worry ’bout that, vicar.’

  The blonde came warily out of the short alley leading to the Black Lion’s yard, and got into the Volvo. Merrily eased the car into the main street, glancing into her wing mirror; nobody was following them.

  ‘Just put my mind at rest,’ Betty Thorogood said. ‘You’re really not from the media, are you?’

  ‘I’m really not.’ Merrily felt deeply uneasy about this now but, at the same time, curiously elated. She drove carefully along the village street, past all the little candles glowing brightly. ‘Actually, Betty, it’s much worse than that.’

  She was getting uncomfortable, anyway, driving with the scarf on.

  Jane had called Eirion back. ‘I’m getting obsessed about this. The more you think about it, the more things occur to you.’

  ‘Then stop thinking about it. Go to bed.’

  ‘I’d just lie awake, getting spooked. I keep thinking how keen they were to get Mum on that programme, all those calls from Tania. Why would they go to all that trouble for just one person who’s not very controversial.’

  ‘Nice legs, nice face – tabloid television?’

  ‘But they told Bain about her – or somebody did – well beforehand. So they’d have plenty of time to prime Kali Three.’

  ‘I doubt anyone at Livenight’s even heard of Kali: the Web site or the goddess. When you’re putting a programme together you must make all kinds of deals to get people to come on. I don’t really think we’re looking at any kind of big conspiracy – it’s just the way things turned out. However...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just I hit on another site. It’s called Witchfinder. It’s for people who want to contact a coven. Wherever you are in Britain, it’ll put you in touch with your nearest group: e-mail addresses mainly.’

  ‘Any around here?’

  ‘Loads... well, two. But that’s not the point. From Witchfinder, I clicked on another site, which was a kind of pagan Who’s Who?’

  ‘The Which Witch guide?’

  ‘Very good, for somebody with brain damage.’

  ‘It’s because of the brain damage. Normally I’m serious and pedantic.’

  ‘I got it to search for Ned Bain. Turned up a surprising amount. I assume it’s true, but anybody can put anything on the Net.’

  ‘Unflattering stuff?’

  ‘Not particularly. Biographical stuff, mainly. He’s a writer and publisher, now in charge of Dolmen Books, the New Age imprint at Harvey-Calder. Been married twice, high priest of top people’s coven in Chelsea. A champagne pagan, that’s what he gets called.’

  ‘Sham-pagan?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, since he’s been into it a long time – since he was at university and possibly before. But what’s really significant is that we suddenly have an explanation of why he hates the Church so much.’

  ‘He never said that,’ Jane said crossly. ‘He insisted his lot were an alternative to Christianity. He didn’t say anything about—’

  ‘Well, it’s pretty obvious, when you read about his background. His father was an academic – a professor of English literature at Oxford, and also a fairly acclaimed poet, though I’ve never heard of him. Edward Bainbridge?’

  ‘Bainbridge?’

  ‘That’s also Ned’s real name. His father died back in the mid-seventies. He was... I wish you could see this stuff. I don’t want you to think I’m jumping to the wrong conclusions.’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘It’s just that his father was stabbed to death.’

  Jane gripped the phone. ‘Ned Bain’s father was murdered?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Spill it. No, hang on a sec.’ She pulled the phone from her ear. Sound of a car in the drive. ‘Mum’s here. I’ll call you back – if not tonight, first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll go back online,’ Eirion said. ‘See what else I can discover before midnight.’

  ‘Anorak.’

  ‘Don’t lie there getting spooked, Jane. Think of me, think of my strong body.’

  ‘In your dreams, Welshman.’

  The headlights exposed Ethel trickling across the lawn – a black cat, witch-friendly, crossing the beam of the sensor which then activated the lantern on the porch, spraying light up the 400-year-old black and white facade of Ledwardine vicarage.

  Merrily switched off the engine. How would Nicholas Ellis react if he could see h
er giving sanctuary to the spawn of Satan, a child of the dragon, a worshipper of profane, heathen deities... filth, scum, spiritual vermin. How, come to that, would the bishop react? The pagans’ll have you down as a jackboot fascist, while Ellis is calling you a pinko hippy doing the tango with Satan.

  The elation was long over. Merrily’s head was choked with contradictions. The twenty-five-minute journey through deserted country lanes had been, at best, awkward, their conversation sparse and stilted. It was evident that there was far more wrong in the life of Betty Thorogood than Nicholas Ellis and the Daily Mail, but very little had come out. What was she supposed to say to this woman: ‘Trust me, I’m a priest’?

  Gomer, sensing the tension, opened his side door. ‘How ’bout you gives me your key, vicar? I could put the ole kettle on, and explain a few things to young Jane first, if she’s still up.’

  ‘Brilliant.’ Gomer could be uncannily perceptive.

  They watched him let himself into the vicarage. When he opened the door, a light came on in the hall.

  ‘I promise I won’t be sick as I walk in,’ Betty Thorogood said drily.

  Merrily leaned her head on the back of her seat. ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘I can tell you’re having second thoughts.’

  ‘Being psychic.’

  ‘I’m not psychic that way.’

  At the first sight of the dog collar, Betty Thorogood had not screamed or hurled herself at the passenger door. This was not a Hammer film. This was not Livenight.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Merrily said. ‘It was a stupid remark.’

  ‘Aye, well. Nearly as stupid as mine about being sick.’ Something – tiredness, probably – had brought out a Northern accent. Yorkshire? ‘Look, I realize what you did was a spur-of-the-moment thing. You couldn’t have known I’d walk into that pub.’

  Merrily said, ‘What actually brought you there?’

  ‘Couldn’t go back home.’ Mirthless laugh. ‘Place was full of witches.’

  The porch light went out. Merrily could no longer see Betty’s face.

  ‘Also,’ Betty said tonelessly into the darkness, ‘I’d just been virtually accused of murder.’

  Despite Livenight, Jane still always thought of them as dark-haired, dark-complexioned. Celtic. But this was an English rose, and a wild rose at that. She had a subdued energy about her. Or maybe that was just a subjective thing, because, thanks to Gomer, Jane knew.

  Wow!

  ‘This is Betty,’ Mum had said casually. ‘She’s staying the night. This is my daughter, Jane. Brew some tea, flower. We’ll be down in a few minutes.’

  Under normal circumstances, this would have been an ultra-cool moment, a significant chapter in the liberalization of the Anglican Church.

  But the chances that the Thorogood woman was not involved with Ned Bain were pretty remote. Pagans stuck together, so clearly Mum could have invited in more than she knew.

  ‘We keep a room fairly ready,’ she was saying. ‘It’s not very grand, but the bedding should be aired.’

  ‘Anything, please,’ Betty Thorogood said.

  Jane forgot about the tea, followed them upstairs. The blonde, it had to be admitted, did not look like a threat. Instead she looked done in. By now, most people who’d never been here before would be commenting on the atmosphere and the obvious antiquity of the place – the twisting black beams, the bulging walls, the tilted ceilings. This woman might have been climbing the stairwell of a concrete apartment block.

  Mum said, ‘If you need a change of clothes I’m sure we can sort something out. I’m a bit on the stunted side, but Jane’s got a lot of stuff from the days when you were supposed to buy everything a couple of sizes too big.’

  The self-styled witch and Mum were standing on the landing, near the second staircase leading to Jane’s apartment. ‘Bathroom’s that one.’ Mum indicated the one door that was slightly ajar. ‘It’s bleak and cold and horrible, but one day, when we get the money...’ She broke off.

  From six stairs down, Jane witnessed this clearly. Betty Thorogood quivered for just an instant before tossing back her mass of hair and, almost absently, shaking out a word.

  ‘Apples?’

  Mum froze; Jane saw her eyes grow watchful.

  Mum said, ‘I’m sorry?’ As though she hadn’t heard, which of course she had.

  She and Jane both had. And they knew what it meant. For a moment, the air up here seemed almost too thick to breathe.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Betty said. ‘I just... you know... Sorry.’

  Jane marched up four steps. ‘You had a feeling of apples?’

  Mum frowned. ‘Jane...’

  ‘What kind of apples?’

  ‘I...’ Betty shook her head again, as if to clear it, her hair tumbling. ‘I suppose not apples as much as blossom. White, like soft snow.’

  ‘Oh, wow,’ Jane breathed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Betty said. ‘It just came out.’

  Mum bit her lip.

  Jane said, ‘And we thought Wil had gone...’

  Mum started flinging lights on. ‘Betty, if you want to just check out your room...’

  Betty Thorogood nodded and followed her.

  She wasn’t getting away that easily.

  ‘Wil was our ghost,’ Jane called after them. ‘Wil Williams, vicar of this parish. Found dead in the orchard behind the church in sixteen seventy. Hanging from an apple tree – when the blossom was out.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Betty Thorogood said again. ‘It’s a problem I have.’

  ‘Wow,’ Jane said, in serious awe. Nobody knew about the apple blossom. Not even Kali Three. ‘You’re the real thing, aren’t you?’

  39

  Witches Don’t Cry

  THE KID BROUGHT them tea at the kitchen table and then started filling the kitchen with the seductive scent of toast. It was ten-thirty. As far as Jane was concerned, Betty Thorogood had proved herself.

  Merrily had stopped agonizing about this stuff. Where sensitives were concerned, seeking the cold, earthly, rational explanation could be wastefully time-consuming. Life was too short to question it too hard; it just was. It would have been less impressive in Betty’s case if she hadn’t, in other respects, appeared defeated, demoralized, broken. As though she’d looked into her own future and seen black water.

  ‘Is Wil still here?’ demanded Jane, galvanized – knowing nothing about the death of the elderly woman, Mrs Wilshire. ‘I mean as a spirit, not just an imprint?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Betty said. ‘Sometimes it’s hard to qualify what I feel. I just get images sometimes. Fragments, incomplete messages.’

  The apple blossom. Last year, when they’d first moved in, Merrily had been sensing an old distress locked into the upper storeys of the vicarage, the timeless dementia of trapped emotions. Jane, under the influence of Miss Lucy Devenish, folklorist and mystic, claimed to have actually smelled the blossom, felt it on her face like warm snow.

  It was this undismissable haunting and the Church’s general disinterest which had prodded Merrily in the general direction of Deliverance. There needed to be someone around to reassure people that they weren’t necessarily losing their minds.

  Jane was saying, ‘Were you like sensitive before you became a witch?’

  Betty looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s why I became one. If you exclude spiritualism, Wicca’s one of the few refuges for people who are... that way. My parents are C of E, which doesn’t encourage that kind of thing.’

  An apologetic glance at Merrily, who also caught a triumphant glance from Jane, little cow, before she went greedily back into the interrogation. ‘But, like, who do you actually worship?’

  ‘That’s probably the wrong word. We recognize the male and female principles, and they can take several forms. Most of it comes down to fertility, in the widest sense – we don’t need more people in the world, but we do need expanded consciousness.’

  ‘And you, like, draw down the moon?’ The kid showing off her knowledge of
witch jargon. ‘Invoke the goddess into yourself?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  Betty was reticent, solemn in the subdued light of the big, cream-walled kitchen. Maybe having a vicar in the same room was an inhibiting factor, but this woman was certainly not Livenight material. Merrily sat down at the table and listened as Betty, pressured by Jane, began explaining how she’d actually got into Wicca at teacher training college, before dropping out to work for a herbalist. How she’d saved up to go with a friend to an international pagan conference in New England, where she met the American, Robin Thorogood, making a film with some old art school friends. So Robin had found Betty first, and then Wicca, in that order. Betty’s face momentarily shone at the memory. Her green eyes were clear as rock pools: she must literally have bewitched Robin Thorogood.

  The phone rang. Jane dropped the cheese grater and carried the cordless into a corner.

  ‘You have a disciple,’ Merrily said softly.

  ‘Kids only find Wicca exotic because it’s forbidden. When it becomes a regular part of religious education they’ll find it just as boring as... anything else.’

  ‘Don’t feel you have to talk it down on my account.’

  ‘Merrily’ – Betty pushed back her hair – ‘there doesn’t need to be conflict. There’s actually a lot of common ground. Spiritual people of any kind have more in common than they do with total non-believers. In the end we want the same things, most of us. Don’t we?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Jane said loudly, ‘No, I’m sorry, she’s not here. I was kind of expecting her back, but in her job you can’t count on anything. Sometimes she spends, like, whole nights battling with crazed demonic entities and then she comes home and sleeps for two days. It’s like she’s in a coma – really disturbing. Sure, no problem. Bye.’

  ‘Flower,’ Merrily said, ‘you do realize that little exercise in whimsy might be lost in the transition to cold print.’

  ‘In the Independent?’

  Merrily nodded. ‘So just don’t say it to the Daily Star.’