The Secrets of Pain

81

The energy-saving bulbs in the vestry sputtered in nervous dawn-like tints as he shut the door.

‘Lock it,’ he said.

He wore a black woollen hat, hiking gear, a pack too lightweight to be a Bergen. Just another long-distance walker, although the sweat suggested he’d been running and the mud spatters suggested it hadn’t been along established footpaths.

Across the room, from which there was no easy escape, Merrily didn’t move. On one side of her a table with prayer books, on the other a carousel of ‘Beautiful Ledwardine’ postcards. Above her, a window that didn’t open.

He said, ‘Just do it, please.’

‘Byron…’ Keeping her eyes on him, her voice low. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d really rather not be in a locked room with you.’

He smiled, revealing all the black lines in his teeth.

‘Want your help, that’s all.’

‘I really don’t think so.’

Perhaps she should have been afraid, but she was just annoyed. About everything. He didn’t seem to notice.

‘Do you know what Power of Attorney means?’

‘I do, actually. Studied law for a year, before… life took over.’

He reached into an inside pocket, lifting out a long buff envelope.

‘I want to give you Power of Attorney.’

‘Over what?’

‘Disposal of my property. Which is not inconsiderable these days. All the land, all the buildings, the bungalow, all paid for. Also a small apartment in Hereford. Surprising how much money you can make in a short time, isn’t it?’

‘I wouldn’t know, I’m a vicar.’

He didn’t smile.

‘If I appeared irritated with you, back at the cop shop, it was only because I could see you catching on. Picking up on too many things, joining too many ends. But then, your religion and mine do have a lot in common.’

‘Not really, Byron. Ritual murder might be a point of contention.’

He didn’t seem to hear.

‘Of course, you’re also part of the problem. Women priests and guys like that nancy who was filling in for you today. But I did come away admiring you, the way you put your finger on the worm in the apple. Now…’ He extracted the contents of the envelope. ‘I had this done some while back. I’ve always been tidy that way. Had a bloke in mind to expedite things, but we fell out. Go on… read it.’

Merrily moved to pick up the paper, never taking her gaze off him, and backed off with it.

THIS GENERAL POWER OF ATTORNEY is made this day of by COLIN JONES of The Compound, Brinsop, Herefordshire.

I APPOINT MERRILY WATKINS of The Vicarage, Ledwardine, Herefordshire, to be my Attorney in accordance with Section 10 of the Powers of Attorney Act 1971

IN WITNESS whereof I have hereunto set my hand the day and year first before written

SIGNED as a Deed and delivered by the said COLIN JONES in the presence of: ‘This authorizes you to act in my name. Sell all the property and see that the proceeds are distributed, fifty-fifty, to the people I shall name to you.’

She said, ludicrously, ‘You got my name right.’

‘I always knew your name. Legal stuff, you don’t make mistakes. I’m going away, Mrs W, and wish to dispose of my property meaningfully. I shot a man. As you know.’

‘Yes.’

‘Be pictures of The Compound in all the rags. TV, the Net. Truth is, it was as good as over when they killed Farmer Bull. Bloody Kenny. What a mistake he was.’

‘Because he wasn’t a soldier. Because he had no discipline.’

‘Kenny was the worm in the apple. Hanging out with that clown from The Octane Show, appearing on promotional videos. Fame and fortune. That was never what this was about.’

‘But Kenny didn’t kill Farmer Bull. Or-’

‘He let it happen. He was doing stuff on his own, taking men through the degrees. Stuff I didn’t know about. At first, when you take a civilian through the degrees, you think it’ll change them. Nah. Not in the right way.’

‘It changed you.’

She was thinking, Some men win at snooker and some at poker, too…

He sat on the edge of the table.

‘I was responsible. You accept that, then you take action. Mithras doesn’t forgive. Couldn’t exactly fire Mostyn when he owned half the company. Better there was an accident. Not here. Somewhere remote. Beacons, maybe. Just biding my time. Another mistake. Unless you take immediate action…’

He pushed the form towards her. His fingers touched hers, briefly; she looked up into his lined face. Part of him was watching her, impassive, beyond stimulation. She felt that another part of him was already going away, something receding.

‘I still don’t understand why me.’

‘Don’t have many choices. I believe you won’t double-deal. And you know the people concerned.’

‘It needs another signature. A witness.’

‘Someone here you can trust? Preferably not your boyfriend.’

Whose life he might have saved. He just might.

‘Byron, there are several people I can trust. None of whom I’m prepared to expose to a man who I have every reason to think may have a gun with him.’

He grinned, turned his back on her. When he turned around again, it lay across the palm of his big, leathery hand.

‘The Glock.’ He placed it carefully on the table, pushed it towards Merrily. ‘I may ask for it back before I leave.’

She didn’t touch it. They both knew she could pick it up, point it at him and call the police. Always assuming it was loaded, and somehow, she thought, it would be.

Byron placed the pistol in the centre of the table, took a stack of prayer books from the pile and arranged them around the Glock on four sides, finally placing one on top.

‘You got a phone on you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Phone for a witness.’

Merrily pulled her mobile from her jeans then put it down on the table.

‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘Long as you’re not playing for time so your congregation turns up.’

‘I wouldn’t expose a congregation to this. We have about forty minutes.’

‘Go on.’

‘When you tried to pass your religion off as just a series of exercises, a discipline – was that just for Lockley and Howe, or do you believe that?’

‘You’ve just reminded me why I found you so annoying.’ He stood up. ‘It’s a secular age. It doesn’t matter what you believe, it’s how you sell it. You have to use acceptable terminology. Nobody likes a crank, certainly not the men I deal with.’

‘I don’t think you’re that cynical.’

‘Who’s your proposed witness?’

‘Gomer Parry.’

‘Sensible choice. Could’ve wrecked my digger last night, but he didn’t.’

‘He would never wreck a digger. You know him?’

‘ Of him. Make your call. Keep it casual, and he comes alone. If an armed response unit arrives, I’ll just bite the barrel. You don’t want that in here.’

God.

‘And there’ll be no money for Fiona.’

She stared at him.

‘Fiona Spicer?’

‘Make your call. And I’ll be listening for nuances.’

Merrily put in the number and waited. It was surreal. Be easier if she could feel an accessible evil: the night stench in the tower room, the squirming male miasma assailing Jane in the mithraeum, which Jane had talked about only once when they were alone, staring blankly into the fireplace, disconnected, as if she was repeating someone else’s story. Jane, whose knowledge of Mithraism had been virtually non-existent then.

‘ Gomer Parry Plant Hire.’

‘Oh. Sorry. Gomer, it’s me. You… got a few minutes to spare? Over at the church.’

‘Sure to, vicar.’

‘Thank you. I’ll be in the vestry.’

Simple as that. When the line cleared, Byron was nodding. Merrily put the phone on the table next to the stack of prayer books.

‘You really think Fiona’s going to accept anything from you?’

He blinked just once.

‘She can give it to her daughter, or a charity of her choosing. I liked Syd. You could only quarrel – on that level of intensity – with someone who was a brother.’

‘And Fiona? What was your quarrel with her?’

He looked at Merrily for a long time, his face blank. Then he transferred his gaze to the wall behind her. She tensed in horror. Mithras always looks away.

But then he turned back to her, his blue eyes steady.

‘I take full responsibility for everything I’ve done. No papering over cracks. No sentiment here. No apology. I don’t do that.’

‘Was that why you left Liz? Because you realized the elements you were dealing with…’

‘… were unsuited to a domestic situation. I’ll confirm that much. I had respect for my wife.’

That’s why you were so very publicly screwing your way around Hereford?

‘And when Mostyn killed the banker, Cornel, did he do that on his own? You know what I’m asking, don’t you? I understand he turned his head away when he did it. Do you think he was entirely responsible then for his own-?’

‘You’re back to the same question.’

‘I’m not a cop. These things matter to me.’

Confronting the impossibility of her own job. The toxic dilemma she’d tried to evoke for the students in the chapel. To what extent you want to demonize this is up to you.

Byron shook his head.

‘Nah.’

‘No, he wasn’t entirely responsible? No, he’d surrendered his-?’

‘How’s Barry?’

‘He’ll lose an eye. They think.’

‘But he’ll live. That’s what it said on the radio.’

‘So I believe.’

‘That was regrettable.’ Byron looked mildly affected. ‘He was a good soldier. Shot, unarmed, by a man who wasn’t fit to clean his boots. I’m taking responsibility. He’ll be the second beneficiary. Fiona, Barry. See to that, would you? Might be enough for a down payment on a big old pub. If there happened to be one on the market.’

‘You’ve thought it all out, haven’t you?’

‘No sentiment, no apology. We take action, then we walk away.’

‘How will you live?’

‘That’s my business.’

‘All right.’ Merrily shook herself. ‘Tell me one more thing. When Syd died on Credenhill… you were there, weren’t you?’

He thought for just a moment.

‘Yes.’

‘What was that about?’

‘No comment.’

‘You must’ve been worried when you heard he was coming back, as chaplain.’

‘I never worry.’

She heard the squeak of the church doors. There was no time. There had to be time.

‘As far as I could see, Byron, there were two ways of looking at this – at Syd coming back – and one would be an opportunity. The chaplain’s the only direct feed into the spiritual life of the Regiment. If there was anything left of Mithras in Syd… if he was, to any extent, in denial… you might still see an old ambition realized. That John the Baptist side of you.’

He shrugged.

‘Did you ask to meet him on Credenhill? Just two recreational runners, paths crossing. Or did he ask you?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Not really. All I’m feeling, very strongly, is that if you wanted to know where his innermost allegiances lay, there was only one thing you could say to him. Only one thing you could tell him, as a test. You’d tell him…’ she put both hands on the table, leaned forward, smelling the sweat and the mud and nothing else ‘… when and where and… and how… you’d had sex with his wife… right?’

His eyes closed briefly in his weathered sandstone face, and she half expected him to smash the pile of prayer books to the ground.

A tapping on the door.

‘ Vicar? ’

‘One minute, Gomer…’ She looked into Byron’s eyes, hissed, ‘You knew exactly what kind of interior eruption that would cause. This savage inner conflict between the soldier who wanted to beat you to a pulp and throw you down the fucking steps and the Christian who-’

‘And now we’ll never know.’

‘I think we do.’

‘Let Mr Parry in,’ Byron said.

Merrily turned away from him, nodded.

Now she could smell it.