The Secrets of Pain

38

Lol watched Merrily collapse back into his sofa. Late sun honeying the room, red veins pulsing among the ashes at the bottom of the woodstove. As so often these days, Merrily looked vacant, wiped-out.

‘So where do I go from here?’

Lol was thinking maybe a new career. It was a crap job, the clergy, and no indication it would ever get better. So much open contempt now. The Church, God, the afterlife – all delusion. Thinking it and getting a buzz out of saying it, loudly, in public, on TV, and the only people who shouted back were the crazy fundamentalists like his late parents who’d cut him out of their lives.

Merrily had come home this afternoon to find the answering machine going, Uncle Ted, the churchwarden, trying to lean on her, before tonight’s parish meeting, about his plans to turn the church into a greasy spoon. It was about paying bills.

The bleeping of the answering machine had chased her out of the house and across the road in search of sanctuary. I think I need help , she’d said, and they’d talked for an hour, sharing an omelette and toast. She’d told him about last night’s visit from James Bull-Davies and everything she’d learned about a man called Byron Jones. From Barry, from Jones’s ex-wife and, finally, Syd’s wife, Fiona.

‘You believe this man raped her?’

‘You think it’s something she’d invent?’

‘But she didn’t go to the police. Or to anyone.’

‘Syd would’ve killed him.’

‘And now he’s dead, does Mrs Spicer want you to do something about this?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Lol sat down next to Merrily.

‘How would she feel about you simply dumping it all on Bull-Davies? Who asked you to share.’

‘She wouldn’t like that. I’m only telling you because I know it won’t go out of this house. I mean, who is William Lockley? Why does he want the information? Does he want to use it or suppress it? Who am I working for?’

‘So tell Bull-Davies what you’ve heard about Jones without naming names. And then back off.’

‘Can’t now. Not with Syd’s funeral.’

‘That,’ Lol said, ‘was a mistake.’

He slid off the sofa, gathered up two logs from the hearth, opened the stove and put them in. Watching the fire seizing one, thinking of the insatiable furnace in a crematorium, where quickie funerals were conducted by a duty vicar who’d never met the customer.

And this… this was the summation of a life, Merrily would protest. Where was the electricity, the surge of transition, the smoothing of the final earthly path by the subtle energy of sorrow? No wonder some of them didn’t rest. She didn’t do quickies. A properly conducted funeral needed the history. Bottom line: if she’d felt an obligation to Syd before, now it was cast in bronze.

‘What was I supposed to say? No, thanks, best to find somebody who doesn’t give a toss? Lol, it’s like he’s haunting me. The way he showed up at the chapel. I keep hearing that flat voice in my head when I’m not expecting it. “Samuel Dennis Spicer, Church of England”. Smell his cigarette smoke in church.’

‘Isn’t there a term for that?’

‘Psychological projection?’

‘Arising from guilt. Self-recrimination,’ Lol said. ‘Misplaced.’

‘No, this is something else.’ Merrily stood up, walked to the window, looked across the cobbles at the vicarage. ‘He was taking steps to protect himself against something he considered evil. He goes out on Credenhill with a Bergen full of Bible, as if he knows he isn’t coming back. And he leaves these books behind like clues to something. One pointing directly at a man who went from good friend to bitter enemy.’

‘Just do a meaningful funeral. Pray for both their souls or something.’

‘Sure.’ She smiled. ‘Walk away. Credenhill’s twenty minutes down the road.’

‘And always go the other way to Hereford.’

Lol had planned to tell her, finally, about Jane and Cornel and the cockfighting, but that would be too much for her to handle. Needed to deal with that himself. At least with Danny and Gomer on the case he felt better about it. Get the evidence, share it with Jane, then take it to the RSPCA and the police. Let Jane take the credit if it worked out; shield her from repercussions if it didn’t.

He sat down on the hearthrug, looking up at Merrily on the sofa. She looked small, vulnerable, and there must be something he could do.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we try and work this out?’

‘Don’t have much time. Parish meeting at seven. Maundy service tomorrow. Chrism mass at the Cathedral – I’m not going to make that this year. Why does Easter always come at the wrong time?’

‘Does Barry know anything about this?’

‘I don’t think Barry’s told me everything he knows. I don’t think he knows about the rape, but he does think Byron’s a dangerous man. Warned me not to try and talk to him.’

‘But you still went to find him.’

‘No… I just went to the church because there was clearly something there that fascinated him. He must’ve spent virtually everything he had buying that land.’

‘Where he now stages war games behind barbed wire?’ Lol leaned back against an inglenook wall. ‘The rift between him and Syd – what was that about?’

‘All we know for sure is that he hated Syd becoming an ordained priest. Byron’s own religious beliefs, if he had any, appear to have been pagan. Saw himself as a Celt, like his hero Caradog. Locked away in his tower room, turning himself into Caradog. Leaving Caradog’s… ambience.’

‘If I’ve got this right,’ Lol said, ‘Caradog held out against the Romans until he was betrayed and captured and taken to Rome. Where his oratory made him a celeb. A hero.’

‘But Byron’s fictional story seems to deviate. He’s not interested in oratory. His Caradog has to impress the Romans with his military skills. Which are obviously akin to SAS methods. I called in at the bookshop to see what the chances were of getting his other books, but Amanda says they’re out of print.’

‘And Caradog was a druid?’

‘He worked with druids. According to the stories.’

‘What might Jones have been doing, then, in that tower room?’

‘Maybe meditation, visualization. To focus his mind for the writing.’

‘And the smell?’

‘I don’t even want to think about the smell.’

‘Did Syd know Byron was at Brinsop, when he took on the job?’

‘That’s the interesting question. I’d say he did. My feeling is that he always knew where Byron was, at any given time. When Byron was at Allensmore, Syd went to see him, maybe to try and sort something out… but maybe not. “They’re all dead,” he’s saying. “All dead now.” Who did he mean?’

Merrily spread her hands in defeat.

Lol said, ‘Would Syd have known, do you think, the reason Byron wanted to live at Brinsop? Or at least have an idea?’

‘Let’s assume he did. Let’s also assume there a connection with this very unusual church, which Byron kept photographing from the air.’

‘How would he do that?’

‘Not a problem in this area. He’d know people with private planes. Helicopters. A lot of the SAS had contacts with Shobdon airfield. Recreational. Parachute clubs, all this.’

‘It’s just that aerial photography might suggest the site of the church is more important than the church itself,’ Lol said.

‘And lines. He’d drawn lines across the aerial photos.’

‘Woooh… leys?’

‘Possibly. Not saying a word to Jane. I don’t want her within five miles of Byron Jones.’

‘Leys, if they exist, are pre-Celtic,’ Lol said. ‘Bronze Age or earlier.’

‘I’m just telling you what Liz said.’

‘I’d quite like to look at Byron’s book sometime.’

‘It’s in my bag.’ Merrily gathered it up from the floor and stood. ‘In fact, they’re all here. I’ll leave you the Wordsworth, too. Any perceptions, flashes of inspiration… would be very welcome.’

‘Merrily…’ Just inside the door, he grabbed hold of her, hugged her, hard. ‘I’m sorry…’

‘What for, exactly?’

She kissed him and he felt a quiver in her.

‘Been letting things slide,’ he murmured. ‘When something’s finally paying the mortgage, you tend to go at it round the clock in case it doesn’t last. And you forget what’s really important.’

‘At least you don’t have God on your back. Swan later?’

Lol opened the front door. Up the street, at the Eight Till Late, Jim Prosser was taking in his paper rack. A news bill said: HEREFORD HORROR.

Lol watched Merrily walking back to the vicarage. The voice in his head sang, Do something. But he didn’t know where to start.