The Smile of a Ghost

13 Extreme

‘… REMAINS A POSSIBILITY, but, yes, very unlikely to have been accidental.’

The stonework, in jagged close-up, was hard against the patchy sky. Then the picture pulled back, and you could see that the shot had been done from the ground.

This was as near as they could get because the tower was taped off, two police protecting the site. Old videotape from coverage of the Robbie Walsh tragedy, Merrily thought.

They cut back to the policeman who’d been talking over the shot. She didn’t recognize him. ‘… Just about possible to survive that kind of fall, but unlikely,’ the policeman said.

Now Robbie Walsh’s face came up, the school photo, Robbie with his hair brushed and his tie straight, his mouth in an unsure smile, his eyes flicked to one side. The reporter’s voice over the picture:

‘… weeks since the town was shattered by the death of fourteen-year-old Robbie.’

They’d been too late to catch the link into the story and had also missed the first part of the report. It looked like Central News was going heavy on the death of Mrs Mumford, rehashing the events preceding it.

The boy’s photo had been replaced by another one, a poignantly blurred holiday snap of a woman in a sundress leaning – bitter irony now – against a lifebelt hanging from a sea wall.

Merrily bit her lip.

‘And then, at the weekend, came news of the shocking death of Robbie’s grandmother, Mrs Phyllis Mumford, whose body was pulled from the River Teme, flowing just below the castle here. Eighty-three-year-old Mrs Mumford was said by neighbours today to have been inconsolable after the death of her grandson, who’d been staying with her and her husband at the time.’

Shot of the river, a police barrier, two sheaves of flowers lying up against it, the cellophane flapping.

‘The town is in mourning once again. But absolutely nothing could have prepared the people of Ludlow for what was to happen today.’

‘Huh?’

Merrily looked at Sophie. The phone on Sophie’s desk started to ring. Sophie opened a drawer and put the phone in and shut the drawer up to the wire. Merrily moved closer to the TV.

‘… Hard to take in. We’re shocked… shattered.’

Man in his sixties, hair like wire wool and hollow cheeks. George Lackland, Ludlow Mayor, the caption read.

‘… Gather she wasn’t local,’ George Lackland said. ‘We don’t know where she came from, but the thought that she came here – a girl that age – specifically to… you know, to die, in this horrible way… that really doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?’

‘Christ,’ Merrily said.

Long shot of the tower. The reporter saying, ‘And that’s the terrible question that just about everyone here is asking tonight…’

The camera finding the reporter – evidently live, picking up off the back of his taped report – standing outside the castle, on a walkway halfway down the banks above the river, his spread arms conveying universal incomprehension.

‘… Did the girl come here to kill herself in a macabre imitation of the death of Robbie Walsh? There was nothing to suggest that Robbie’s death was anything other than an accident. But two identical accidents at the same castle? As the Mayor said, the implications of this are, to say the least, disturbing.’

In the studio, the presenter, a blonde young enough to be the reporter’s daughter, said, ‘Paul, do we know yet where exactly the girl had come from – how far she’d travelled?’

‘Tammy, my information is that the police do have a name, and the parents of a fifteen-year-old girl are, at this moment, being brought to Ludlow in the hope of a formal identification. But it could be several hours before that name is formally released.’

‘Is there any connection with Robbie Walsh?’

‘It’s a question that’s been asked, but there’s no reason to suppose there was any connection between them at all – except, of course, the circumstances of their deaths.’

‘And what does that say about Robbie’s death, Paul?’

‘Well, there’s no particular suggestion that it throws a different light on Robbie’s death. There’ll always be an element of mystery about that. What I’d guess police and townsfolk are asking is: was this girl, in some awful way, inspired by… by the way he died and, of course, the dramatic location?’

‘Obviously, Paul, this is something nobody could have predicted. But how could it possibly have been prevented?’

‘Tammy, it’s an impossible situation. This is a major tourist attraction that gets hundreds of visitors every day, many drawn in by its dramatic location, at the highest point of the town, with these high walls, these ruined but still very tall towers and this steep drop almost to the river. Yes, of course it’s dangerous, but so are hundreds of beauty spots all over the country and what’s being said is, well, if someone’s determined to die, there’s no shortage of places to go.’

‘But two teenagers – both at Ludlow Castle?’

‘Why here, particularly? Yes, that’s a question a lot of people are now trying to answer. Children do have to be accompanied by an adult and, with the number of tourists increasing daily as we move towards the main holiday season, there’s no doubt at all that attendants here are going to be exercising considerable extra vigilance.’

‘Paul, thank you,’ Tammy said. Turned back to camera. ‘And if the girl’s name is released, we’ll update you on our late-night bulletin.’

Merrily switched off the set. The phone had stopped ringing, and Sophie brought it out of the drawer.

‘A girl,’ Merrily said. ‘A fifteen-year-old girl. What’s it mean? Another one.’

‘Children are impressionable,’ Sophie said.

She used to teach.

Merrily reached for the phone. ‘I’ll ring Andy. He mustn’t’ve known anything about it, either, until he switched the news on.’

Mumford’s line was engaged.

‘Probably ringing the sergeant he knows at Ludlow. Poor guy must feel right out of the loop when something like this happens and he finds out from the news like the rest of us. Especially when it’s going to add a lot of fuel to his own suspicions.’

‘Merrily, as the reporter said, there’s no reason to think Robbie Walsh’s death was anything other than accidental. Children have always been impressionable. Now they’ve become horribly… extreme. They want extreme experiences, extreme sports, sensations…’

‘Death?’

‘They see death on TV, and it’s usually rather exciting.’

Merrily pulled the Silk Cut from her bag. ‘Bloody hell, Sophie.’

Sophie frowned at the cigarettes.

‘When I was a child, the country had just come through a world war, and people were simply grateful to have survived, and we children were aware of that. Today… some of them seem to treat life almost like an unwanted present that they might as well take back. I’m sorry, Merrily, if I seem to be losing my Christian compassion. I’m sure there’ll be a thoroughly heartbreaking story behind it.’

The phone rang. Merrily grabbed it.

‘Andy?’

‘Ah, you are still there,’ the Bishop said. ‘I suppose you’ve heard the news from Ludlow.’

‘Just caught the last part of the TV piece.’

‘Tragic,’ the Bishop said. ‘Awful… wasteful. Three deaths, three… and in fact it’s more than tragic, it’s nightmarish, now, in ways I…’

‘We don’t know where she’s from?’

‘Other side of Herefordshire. Ledbury, I think. That is, George— I rang an old friend in Ludlow, George Lackland, the Mayor – you saw him on the TV thing. Used to be my senior churchwarden. George says the police are saying she seems to have hitch-hiked across.’

‘Thirty-odd miles? Forty?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Do they know why?’

‘Will they ever?’

‘Witnesses?’

‘Someone on the bowling green below The Linney appears to have seen her fall. No one inside the castle was aware of it, although it must have happened while the place was open to visitors. So easily done, you see. You can’t follow everybody around. She apparently paid to go in and just… never came out. Nightmarish.’

‘Was she dead when they found her?’

‘I’m not sure. George thinks there may have been complications. But if she was alive when they found her she didn’t survive long.’

Outside, the rain had started, like nails on the window.

‘Bernie… erm, should we be… involved in any way?’

Merrily heard his breath, slowly expelled.

‘I don’t know. Something did strike me when I saw the TV pictures. Actually, I feel rather foolish and trivial even mentioning it at a time like this, but you just know that some people in the town are going to be talking about it. This sort of gossip… one can’t do anything to stop it. You, ah… Marion. You remember Marion.’

‘I think I can just about remember Marion, yes.’

‘And we were all thinking, yes, but… wrong tower.’

‘The keep, as distinct from the Hanging Tower.’

‘Precisely. Well, you wouldn’t know the layout of the castle, but I do. And there it was, on the news.’

‘Sophie and I missed the beginning of the report,’ Merrily said cautiously.

‘Well, they didn’t make a point of it, but they wouldn’t know either. However…’ The Bishop coughed. ‘They showed it from the outside. Unmistakable. This time, it was the Hanging Tower.’

14 Black Poppies

THAT NIGHT, LOL boiled some water for tea, using a Primus stove in his kitchen, leaving Merrily to finish dressing by firelight. He had something to tell her, but it could wait.

When he came back into the living room with the tray, she was sitting on the end of the sofa, small and demure, with – unless he was deluding himself – the same glow on her face that he’d once seen by the light of altar candles, and her hair tied back with a rubber band. But, too soon, the glow was fading.

‘OK?’

‘I’ll go up to the bathroom later, with a torch and a mirror, to check the fine details.’

‘That’s not exactly what I meant,’ Lol said.

As so often, it had been a touch furtive. Curtains surreptitiously drawn. Cushions from the sofa, this time, on top of freshly washed paint cloths on the flagstones. Like teenagers, when the parents might come in… only the parents were the parish.

‘Jane kept a straight face,’ Merrily said, ‘when I said it was my turn to help you with the painting. And then she spoiled it by murmuring something I didn’t quite catch, about brushes and paint pots.’

Lol smiled. Merrily looked around the fire-lit parlour with its bounding shadows. There were always shadows. Lol thought about Lucy Devenish, who’d made him read the poems of Thomas Traherne, the seventeenth-century Herefordshire minister who believed that God wanted you to be happy. Sitting there listening to your mournful, wistful records. It’s spring! Open your heart to the eternal! Let the world flow into you!

Lucy’s last spring, as it had turned out. Suddenly, he could almost feel her in the room with them – Lucy sensing Merrily’s underlying gloom and frowning, and turning, now, towards him, poncho aswirl, eyes like the smouldering core of the fire.

Do something, Lucy commanded.

Lol gazed into the top of the chromium teapot.

‘I see three male presences looming over you.’

‘Mystic Laurence, huh?’

‘One’s a retired detective, who hates the way his world is being fragmented. One’s a bishop, for whom retirement is looming, and he doesn’t want his longed-for haven spoiled. And the third is a retired psychiatrist, who… Actually I don’t think there’s such a thing as a retired psychiatrist. They never give up analysing.’

‘Wrongly, of course,’ Merrily said.

‘But the message is: retired people are the new delinquents – too much time, nothing to lose. Beware of them. Essentially, the teapot is saying this is not your problem.’

‘Easy for the teapot to say.’ Merrily went to sit on the hearth. ‘Last night, when he rang me in the church, Bernie was, “Oh, let’s draw a line under it.” Tonight, he’s virtually saying, “Sort this out.” ’

‘ “Sort this out for me.” ’

‘He does seem to feel a spiritual responsibility for that town.’

‘Because he used to work there. And hopes to retire there. So maybe nothing spiritual about it at all, really,’ Lol said.

‘Not sure about that.’ She took the pot away from him and poured tea for them. ‘Anyway, he thinks this girl’s death is going to cause a lot of dangerous speculation. And he’s probably right. The legend of Marion de la Bruyère is very well known in the town, and this is her tower. The idea that the girl didn’t know about that seems remote.’

‘Might have a terrible appeal for a certain kind of teenager in despair, sure.’

‘More so, probably, than the accidental fall of a fourteen-year-old boy, from a different tower. I just… There has to be a connection we can’t yet see.’

‘Had the girl been seen in Ludlow before?’

‘We’re not going to know that until they confirm her identity and issue a picture.’

‘You keep saying “we”. It’s not your problem.’

But Lol knew already that this was a lost cause.

‘I looked up Belladonna on the Internet.’ Merrily sugared the teas. ‘Just to see what she’s doing these days. What she’s doing in Ludlow.’

‘And?’

‘Didn’t find out. Learned a lot of history. For instance, the name Belladonna isn’t actually much of an affectation. Her name was Arabella Donnachie. So she was always carrying Belladonna around with her in the middle of her name.’

‘Wonder if her parents intended that.’

‘Says not on her website. Says it was fated… all that kind of stuff. She was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire. Father a well-off accountant. Educated at Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Walked out at seventeen to form a band, for which she was apparently later considered too weird.’

‘In what way?’

‘Didn’t say. I, erm, tried to call Mumford tonight. No answer at home, mobile off. Suppose he’s gone after her?’

‘She can take care of herself,’ Lol said, and Merrily looked up. He shrugged. ‘I had a call from Prof.’

‘Relating to…?’

‘Well… Belladonna.’

‘And you weren’t going to tell me?’

‘Choosing the moment. Did I mention that Tom Storey was at Knight’s Frome, mixing his album?’

He didn’t know if she’d ever been a Tom Storey fan. Always more of a boy’s hero, Tom – like Jeff Beck, Peter Green, Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton before he recorded ‘Wonderful Tonight’.

‘Normally, I keep out of the way when Tom’s there,’ Lol said. ‘He’s, um… irascible. His hair’s all white now, and his moustache seems to cover half his face. It’s like the studio’s being vandalized by the Abominable Snowman, and yet at the end of it all those guitar licks – fluid, economical, delicate—’

‘He knows Belladonna?’

‘—And, underneath it all, a sensitive man. I mean sensitive sensitive. And sensitive about discussing it, because he’s in permanent, neurotic denial. Tom will tell you – just like your friend Saltash – that it’s all crap and all in your mind. Except that Tom knows it isn’t. So when Prof said, hang on, I’m going to put Tom on the line…’

‘Belladonna.’ Big voice filling the mobile phone, making it feel twice as heavy, like an ingot. ‘Bella-fucking-donna.’

Lol had had to sit down.

‘You know what that woman did, Laurence? She had a baby. She’s in maternity when she learns she’s finally got herself a recording contract. The longed-for break. What’s she do? Kid’s born, she gives it up for adoption.’

‘At that stage?’

‘Might have arranged it earlier, I’m not brilliant on details, I’m giving you the sense of it. Gives the father up, too. Dead now, poor sod – smack. That’s the kind of woman. Carries death around like a tray of black poppies. Gives up a child for a recording contract.’

Hard to be sure how accurate this was. Lol knew that Tom felt strongly about anything child-related. His daughter, Vanessa, was Down syndrome. He treated her like a goddess.

‘But that was a long time ago,’ Lol said. ‘She couldn’t have been much more than a kid?’

‘A woman, take my word – then. Gawd knows what she is now.’

Tom talked about the albums – biggish over here, for a while, but in the States… mega. Which was rare for a British punk or New Wave artist.

‘American punks, at least they knew a few chords and they didn’t gob on the audience. British punk, Americans just didn’t get the joke. But, see, Belladonna was never funny. And she wasn’t like the rest. She talked posh. Talked like bleedin’ Julie Andrews. They loved that in the States.’

Because America had quite taken to her, Tom said, Belladonna had made a huge amount of money very quickly. And because she’d looked after it – with Daddy’s assistance – she never wound up on some sad, end-of-the-pier, 1980s nostalgia trip like some other poor bleeders Tom could name.

‘They put the loot into property. Old houses. Bought this dump looked like the Bates Motel, done it up, sold it for triple, never looked back. Daddy saw the value, Bell only bought the place on account of – what’s this tell you about her? – on account of she reckoned it was haunted.’

Lol had asked, hesitantly, what it had told Tom.

‘Tells me she don’t… she ain’t got it. She don’t feel. Haunted, to her, was like romance. This fucking, irresponsible, dilettante bitch.’

They were close to Tom’s barrier here. He’d let go of a huge but unstable laugh at this point, like a big tipper-lorry dumping gravel.

‘The house… the house wasn’t haunted enough, apparently. Or the bleedin’ spooks couldn’t stand the company and pissed off.’

‘She didn’t feel’ – Lol took a chance – ‘the way some people… feel. But she wanted to?’

Tom was quiet, Lol half-expecting him to ring off. And then,

‘Story is, she had meningitis as a kid. Teens, anyway. Came close to checking out, had some death’s-door experience, changed her life. Kept wanting to tell me about it, following me around. Sent me a card wiv… you know, a picture inside. Of her. That kind of picture. I don’t fink so. Outta my face, you crazy woman!’

‘So when was the last time you actually spoke to her?’

‘Gawd… few years ago? She wanted to work wiv me this time. Like I’d be that insane? Didn’t seem to be able to decode the phrase piss off. Kept ringing, bending Shelley’s ear, the missus – I wasn’t gonna talk to her, no way; it’s why we was ex-directory, Gawdsake. We had the number changed, in the end. Mad, sick, stupid woman. And the music… atrocious.’

‘Where was she living, the last you heard?’

‘Moves around. Always moved around, couldn’t settle. I fink – Shelley would know this – I fink, the last we heard, she was on her daughter’s back. Nah, nah, not her daughter, Saul Pepper’s daughter. The poor bastard she married. He had a daughter already. Bell went to live near the daughter, that’s the last we heard.’

‘Would that have been in Ludlow?’

‘Where?’

‘In Shropshire.’

‘Shit,’ Tom said. ‘That ain’t too far away from here, is it? Listen, you ever run into the mad bitch, you never spoke to me in your life, Laurence.’

Lol put a log on the fire.

‘The marriage to Saul Pepper ended, apparently, about six years ago,’ Merrily said. ‘He went to America to work. Has a new family now. One website says the split was amicable. Pepper said she was too’ – Merrily sighed – ‘too weird for him. In the end. Seems to have been too weird for people all her life.’

‘But not too weird for Saul Pepper’s daughter.’

‘Nor, it seems, for Robbie Walsh. Erm… what Tom Storey told you about the near-death experience – that’s interesting. The Church has a strange attitude towards all that. The most common perceived experience of an afterlife, but we’re oh so wary.’

‘You?’

‘Me, no. I’d love to have a near-death experience. Well, not too near, not just yet, but I mean most people who’ve had them – the long tunnel, the glorious light – they immediately seem to lose all fear of dying.’

‘I thought the clergy naturally would have no f—’

‘You’re kidding.’

Lol smiled. ‘Doesn’t really explain Belladonna’s music, though, does it? Her old stage act. Which was not about the delights of the afterlife as much as the trappings of death itself: coffins, biers, all that. What kind of near-death experience accounts for that?’

‘Good point. None of this adds up, does it? I mean, that’s the problem… nothing here adds up. Nothing quite connects. Pieces missing, everywhere.’

‘What about the dead girl?’

‘Especially that. That’s… horrific.’ Merrily stood up, steadying her mug of tea. ‘I’m going to suggest that Mumford talk to Frannie Bliss, see if he can find out what the police have uncovered. I think what Bernie’s saying is that it needs to be sorted – explained – before local people start putting a superstitious slant on it.’

‘Does that really happen any more, in our secular society?’

‘Especially in our secular society,’ Merrily said. She reached out for Lol’s hand. ‘Nothing wrong, is there?’

‘I… no.’

‘You’re OK about the Bristol gig?’

‘I’ll just take lots of drugs,’ Lol said.

She peered at him to see if he was smiling. He smiled.

A few minutes later, he watched from the front window as she moved across the edge of the cobbled square to the vicarage gate. He felt vacant, spare. She was working seven days a week, letting herself be used to further other people’s agendas. In the past week, he’d written about half a song that was never going to be more than a filler track on the next album, if there was a next album. He felt incomplete, worthless.

The fire was burning low and the room was laden with shadows as dense as old clothes. It was time he got the electricity connected.

15 Ghost-Walk

MUMFORD DIDN’T WANT to talk to Frannie Bliss.

Well, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to Bliss, he said on the phone, just that he didn’t want to put the DI in a difficult position.

Mumford, reluctantly, as Joe Public: a crisis of confidence.

‘You do want to find out about this?’ Merrily said. ‘How this girl’s suicide ties in. If it does.’

‘Suppose I wouldn’t mind, aye.’

Almost certainly Welsh Border-speak for, Yes, I will never rest again until I know. Outside the scullery window, the apple trees’ budded branches dangled uncertainly, and the grey-green moss gleamed coldly on the stone wall between the vicarage garden and the churchyard. Spring had stalled in frosty spurts of morning mist, the exhaust of winter.

‘You heard the local radio, Mrs Watkins?’

‘Some of the early stuff.’

The breakfast lead on Radio Hereford and Worcester had been an extended report live from Ledbury. Not unexpectedly, the parents weren’t talking. Anonymous neighbours said that the dead girl, Jemima Pegler, used to be a helpful, friendly kid, once, but she’d changed. Neighbours in small towns didn’t like to use words like sullen. They said more withdrawn lately.

‘You leave it on for the studio discussion?’ Mumford said.

‘Didn’t have time.’

‘Your friend Dr Saltash?’

Merrily gripped the wooden arms of her chair, Ethel the cat taking off from the desk and raking up a page of the sermon pad.

‘Introduced as a retired consultant psychiatrist with Hereford hospitals, special consultant to the Department of Health, and the author of a paper on self-harming in children and teenagers.’

‘Andy, was this man always bloody ubiquitous, or is it just my paranoia?’

‘Said he couldn’t really comment on an individual case but in the general way of things this particular method of suicide – public place – it was usually a cry for attention. A child saying, You’re all gonner know who I am now, kind of thing.’

‘And two near-identical deaths in more or less the same spot?’

‘Didn’t make much of that. Once a place gets known for it… like scores of folk jumping off Beachy Head, ennit?’

‘He mention your mother?’

‘Not in so many words. Old folk, that’s not so emotive, is it? Not like kids.’

‘And we still don’t know what the police think.’

Giving Mumford another opportunity to say he’d contact Bliss.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I gotter go into Ludlow this afternoon, see about the inquest, get an undertaker on standby for the ole girl. Might talk to some other people while I’m there. Let you know what I find out, all right?’

‘Please.’

‘’Course,’ Mumford said, ‘no partic’lar reason why you shouldn’t give the boss a call.’

‘Bliss?’

‘Always got time for you, as I recall.’

‘And then, like… tell you what he says.’

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Mumford said.

‘Andy Mumford,’ Frannie Bliss said nostalgically. ‘Merrily, I just can’t tell you how much I miss the miserable bastard. The faded rugby-club ties, the knackered tweed jackets he probably inherited from his dad…’

‘His dad’s still alive, Frannie.’

‘Figure of speech, Merrily.’

‘Unlike his mother.’

‘Ah… Jesus.’ Over the sounds of phones and fractured laughter in the Hereford CID room, she heard the side of his fist bump the desk. ‘I’m not thinking, am I? I’m sorry. I was gonna ring him, Merrily, it’s just…’

‘Difficult?’

‘Yeah. Strangers, I can handle the sorry-for-your-loss routine, and when it’s a working copper, you all go out and get drunk together. But a retired DS who never wanted to go. Never even got pissed when he left – you know that? We’re in the pub for his presentation, and he’s shuffling about a bit, trying to pretend he can’t wait to see the back of us. And then I look around and he’s like… just not there any more. Gone. Evaporated. Always that bit of distance, mind: him local, me incomer.’

‘Been trying for two years to get him to stop calling me “Mrs Watkins”.’

‘No chance,’ Bliss said. ‘So… Andy’s slumped in his garden, like a bloody old smouldering bonfire, thinking the Shropshire cops are sitting on information that could reveal the truth about his nephew’s death, right?’

‘And there’s also the question of his mother. And now…’

‘The girl. Listen, I’ve gorra say at the outset, this is not really my case. True, both kids came from this division, but it’s Ludlow’s headache, for which we’re frankly quite glad. I mean is it a case? I don’t know. Has it been a case for you, as it were?’

‘I’ve never yet had anything so clean-cut as “a case”, you know that.’

‘Go on, then,’ Bliss said, resigned. ‘Tell me why you’re interested.’

So Merrily told him about Mrs Mumford and the bereavement apparition/delusion/hallucination. Well, he knew what she was about. He was a Liverpool Catholic, tended not to laugh at her. Not often, anyway.

‘Funny, I remember me ma, when me uncle got killed on the railway, she swore she’d seen him walking up our front path. Didn’t know he was dead, then. Opens the front door, nobody there. Family’s a funny thing, Merrily. What did you do?’

‘Nothing. I had a psychiatrist with me. Not an entirely happy situation, but I won’t go into it now. Bottom line is, what she subsequently said, in front of Andy and me, was that a woman had taken Robbie. Later, she appeared to be suggesting that a woman had pushed him off the tower.’

‘How did she know that?’

Merrily sighed. ‘He’d told her.’

‘Ah,’ Bliss said. ‘The old phantom-witness scenario.’

‘I knew you’d be impressed.’

‘Don’t get me wrong—’

‘I’d have been dubious, too, Frannie, except we talked to someone who’d seen the boy with a particular woman on two occasions. Once in the grounds of Ludlow Castle.’

‘And?’

‘What do you top detectives call it these days when you’ve got a feeling?’

‘We call it time to keep very quiet, Merrily. Because, in the modern, computerized, CCTV, DNA, CPS-conscious, politically correct, focus-group fuckin’ police service, we do not do individual feelings any more.’

‘And there was me thinking you were the last maverick cop under forty. Man who needed to live life on the edge.’

‘That was before I was back with Kirsty. Now I’m a husband and father again, with a mortgage and a career path.’

‘I see,’ Merrily said. ‘Well, then… thanks very much, Frannie. Erm… have a nice life.’

The rest of the morning, she didn’t think about any of it. She had parish matters to deal with, not least the fortnightly Ledwardine magazine which, in recognition of the need to sell a few hundred copies to people who didn’t go to church, had become a general community newsletter. Edited in this parish, inevitably, and somewhat crudely, by the vicar.

It usually carried a few paragraphs on newcomers to the village, and Jane had left a piece on Lol in the file, which Merrily got around to just before noon.

We are delighted to welcome to the select end of Church Street Mr Robinson, who many of you will no doubt remember as the young, good-looking and talented one in the almost-famous 1980s folk-rock band, Hazey Jane. Mr Robinson, who spends some of his spare time with the vicar, has recently relaunched his musical career after a difficult period in his life, but wants it to be known – although far too shy to say so himself – that he will not be available for the Ledwardine Summer Festival or any other piece of crap planned by his fellow incomers to ‘put the village on the map’.

Also in the file was a copy of a letter from an outfit calling itself Parish Pump which had apparently gone to every community in the diocese.

Do YOU want to make your parish magazine into a genuine going-concern – a professional publication that every parishioner will want to buy? If so, we can help you. We can show you how to turn your parish notes into something lively, gossipy and compulsively readable. We can even DO THE WHOLE THING FOR YOU! And if you aren’t satisfied with the increase in income, we’ll refund your fees. Parish Pump guarantees to pump up your income. Contact us NOW.

You had to hand it to them for enterprise, but the idea of turning the Ledwardine Community News into something resembling Hello! magazine somehow didn’t appeal. Still, she put it back in the file; perhaps she’d show it to the parish council. Jane’s contribution, however… she cremated that slowly over the ashtray, with the Zippo. Because the magazine was usually laid out and printed in a hurry, you could never be too careful; it just might get in.

The phone rang. She burned her thumb reaching for it.

‘This woman,’ Mumford said. ‘Sorry – you got time?’

‘Where are you?’

‘Ludlow. On the mobile, in a lay-by. Edge of the town centre, below the castle. Looking at a pair of locked gates. Mrs Pepper’s house, what you can see of it behind all the trees.’

‘I can imagine she wouldn’t want to be too public,’ Merrily said. ‘Some of her old fans could well be slightly disturbed people.’

‘That’s what the feller does the ghost-walk said.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Ludlow Ghost-tours.’

‘Ah. Right.’

‘Don’t stop her roaming the street in the early hours, mind. Sometimes on her own, sometimes with her followers. From out of town, mostly. Weird clothes. Like Dracula.’

‘I saw them, Andy, down by the river.’

‘Been street fights between local boys and these creeps, did you know that?’ Mumford said. ‘A stabbing one time.’

‘In Ludlow?’

‘Like anywhere else at closing time. Local yobs don’t work for the tourist office.’

‘This is what the ghost-walk guy said?’

‘Eventually. Took some time to get anything from anybody. Most folk won’t hear a word against her. I asked around in shops… cafés… the tourist information office. Helpful at first, then they clammed up. Without exception. Either they din’t know or they said it was rubbish, telling you to take no notice of any malicious gossip you gets told, it’s all lies. Woman lives quietly, does nobody any harm. Bit eccentric, that’s her business. What d’you make of that?’

‘That it’s a nice town, where people don’t like malicious gossip?’

‘Shops, Mrs Watkins, businesses. Good customer, mabbe? Rich woman, big spender?’

‘Or maybe they thought you were a reporter.’

‘No,’ Mumford said, ‘they didn’t think that. So, finally, I’m in this café, and an elderly woman having a cup of tea overhears me talkin’ to the proprietor, leaves the money on the table, follows me out.’

Mumford paused; Merrily heard faint voices in the background, passers-by. When it was quiet again, he came back, his voice tight to the phone.

‘Whispers to me, do I mean the woman who walks the back streets, the alleys, very late at night, early morning?’

‘Ah.’

Mumford said the elderly woman lived in one of the discreet courtyard retirement flats between the church and the top car park – new housing cleverly built into the oldest part of town, ancient stone walls merging with new brick, almost the colour of the old. Desirable dwellings, if you didn’t mind a few curious tourists, the occasional drunk.

And the night walker.

‘Walking the back streets dressed all in white, sometimes carrying a candle in a lantern.’

‘That’s your woman.’

‘So I went back to see the ghost-walk boy. Taking what you might call a slightly firmer line with him.’

‘I hope that’s not understatement, Andy.’

‘Only language they understand, his sort. Anyway, he opens up eventually. Telling me how this woman hired him to take her on his walk. This was not long after she moved in. Just him and her. Nearly three hours, questions all the way. Ghosts: when was this one seen? Is it still seen? Have you seen it? I reckon he wasn’t too upset, in the end, at being kept out most of the night, mind.’

‘He was well remunerated?’

‘One way or another, I reckon.’

‘Unfair. People change. Presumably you asked the ghost-walk guy about Mrs Pepper and Robbie?’

‘Nat’rally. Well, first thing – he knew Robbie. All right, no surprise there, they all knew Robbie, all the shopkeepers, the coppers. But the ghost-walk feller, they had an arrangement. He’d come along on the walks, tell folks about the history of the various buildings. Very useful for the ghost-walk feller. People liked him, see – Robbie.’

‘The History Boy.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Would that be how he met Mrs Pepper?’

‘I’d say. Anyway, figured I’d go over to her place down lower Linney, ring the bell, ask her straight out. Come up against a pair of locked gates. No bell, no speakerphone. Just an expensive mailbox. So I climbs over.’

‘That wise?’

Mumford snorted. ‘Walks up the drive, fully visible from the house. Farmhouse, looked like – pretty old. Bangs on the front door. Nothing. But, see… she was in there. Thirty years a copper, you just know when they’re in. And she was… She was in.’

‘You tried phoning?’

‘Ex-directory. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, few weeks ago.’

‘No… maybe not.’

Merrily could sense his frustration. He was panting a bit now. She had the impression that years of bitterness were being funnelled into this, like petrol into a generator.

‘Folks finding candle stubs on walls, tree stumps, where she’s been. Been going on for months. And me – even I seen it. Hovering round Mam’s house with her bloody candle. Why didn’t I go after her?’

‘Because you had no reason to. Because whenever there’s a public kind of death, a big funeral, there’s always someone like that around – leaving flowers, burning candles. I see it all the time. And she was crying, wasn’t she?’

‘Was she crying at the river?’

Merrily paused. ‘No.’

‘I en’t gonner make a mistake like that again,’ Mumford said grimly.

Merrily shoved the parish-magazine file into a drawer, lit a cigarette. This could get out of hand. With the death of his mother – an unnecessary death, a second public death – Mumford wasn’t going to stop.

When the phone went again, she thought it was going to be him ringing back, having cooled down, but it was Bliss. He sounded relaxed or maybe that was just in comparison with Mumford.

‘You remember Karen? Merrily?’

‘Huh? Sorry…’

‘You all right?’

‘Yes. Sorry. Karen…?’

‘Big farm girl? WPC. Acting DC now. With Mumford gone, I campaigned very strongly to get Karen on the team. Another real local country person, somebody who can work a baler and drain a slurry pit – can’t get along with these poncy law graduates. Now then, earlier today Karen brings in a personal computer. Lifting it around like it’s a toaster, what a woman.’

‘Good to hear you have a new bag-carrier worthy of the term.’

‘The computer’s original owner: Jemmie Pegler. Jemima.’

‘I thought you said it wasn’t your case.’

‘Yeah, well… you ringing up like that, out the blue, got me thinking. I always hate it when me mates are talking over me head. And Karen, despite having pigshit on her boots, is also our resident computer expert – bit of a natural, so they sent her on a course for stripping down hard disks, all that – so Shrewsbury asked if she could do the necessary with Jemmie’s gear. And I thought I’d have a peep.’

‘Nice to have you back, Frannie.’

‘Yeah, that really hurt me feelings. Still the last maverick cop under forty, and proud of it.’

‘So what did you find on the computer?’

‘Upsetting.’ Bliss didn’t sound upset. ‘Hard disk is full of links, for instance, to these horribly scary teenage-suicide chat-lines. Would you like to see?’

‘Shall I come now?’

‘Leave it till late afternoon, when the DCI has a meeting at headquarters with some tosser from the Home Office. And no dog collar, eh? I’d really hate it to get back that I still talk to dangerous cranks.’

16 Kindred Spirit

THAT EVENING IT rained again. Hard, brutal, nail-gun rain, like in winter.

For the first time in about a week, Merrily had built a fire of logs and coal in the vicarage sitting room. She sat watching Jane cuddling Ethel on the hearthrug. There was a lot to be chilled about tonight, but it was cosy enough in here, if you averted your eyes from the damp spreading under the window.

‘What is this?’ Jane said. ‘Suddenly, everybody wants to talk about suicide.’

‘Never mind,’ Merrily said. ‘We don’t have to. Put the CD back on.’

‘Not the Belladonna album again.’ Jane put the cat down and made as if to get up, staging a startled glance at the door. ‘Anything but that… in fact, let’s talk about suicide. What do you want to know?’

Jane being self-consciously frivolous, but she really hadn’t liked the CD – Nightshades – that Merrily had found in Woolworths. If you ever do come across that woman in Ludlow, just don’t invite her here.

‘Teenage suicide,’ Jane said sweetly.

‘All I said, flower, was that it seems to have—’ Merrily shook herself. ‘Sorry, did I call you “flower” again? It’s no good, doesn’t seem right saying “Jane” all the time.’

‘Not my fault you wanted a kid called something basic just because you’d been landed with a silly name.’ Jane slumped back down. ‘Just call me whatever makes you happy. And yes, I do know people my age who’ve been into suicide chat-rooms.’

‘Why?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, is it suddenly seen as cool or something?’

‘Is it cool to die?’

‘OK,’ Merrily said. ‘Jemima Pegler was habitually sullen and uncooperative and didn’t talk to her parents.’

‘Hmm. That does sound like a particularly curious case—’

‘Jane.’

‘OK, sorry…’ Jane leaned back, hands clasped behind her head. ‘It’s like one of the uncles said on the news – how were they to know she was seriously depressed when she wouldn’t talk to them?’

‘You don’t sound too sorry for her.’

‘Sorry?’ Jane said. ‘I’m supposed to feel sorry for her? Look, suicide chat-rooms, it’s like it’s the final taboo. The great unknown. The ultimate experience. Because nobody you know – all the cool guys who’ve been there, done that, washed the T-shirt again – it’s the one thing, the one place – death – that they haven’t… do you know what I’m getting at?’

‘Possibly,’ Merrily said. ‘In fact… yes.’

Jemmie Pegler had been fifteen years old. Reading her e-mails, you had to keep reminding yourself of that.

Merrily had left the Volvo in the Gaol Street car park, to find Frannie Bliss waiting for her in the street with an executive briefcase. Annie Howe, the DCI, had been delayed, was still in the building. Bliss had rushed Merrily off to a café in a mews at the opposite side of the car park. On a discreet corner table, he’d laid out a sheaf of printout material from the dead girl’s computer.

But first he wanted to talk about Mumford.

‘Merrily, why the… why didn’t you tell me?’

He’d had his red hair cut tight to the skull, maybe because it had been receding or maybe because he thought it made him look more dangerous. Which it did.

‘I did tell you—’

‘No, you didn’t. You totally did not tell me, Merrily.’

‘I don’t understand…’

‘Mumford’s been in Ludlow today, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Talking to people all over the town about Robbie Walsh and this woman?’

‘Did I mention—’

‘And the reason I know about this is that the DCI told me. And the reason the DCI knows is that she was telephoned by her opposite number in Shrewsbury, a shiny-arsed admin twat called Shaun Eastlake, who was clearly chuffed as a butty at being able to tell her about a… a member of the public stamping around his patch interrogating other members of the public, having identified himself as Detective Sergeant Mumford?’

‘Oh God,’ Merrily said.

‘Now, I think you can probably imagine how the Ice Maiden is reacting to this.’

‘Mmm.’ Danger signals in Merrily’s head blinking amber and red. Before Bliss had been promoted to Inspector and Annie Howe to DCI, Mumford had been her bag-carrier and local-knowledge man – history which, in the present circumstances, would matter not a damn.

‘Frannie, look, I didn’t know. Should have realized, of course… should have realized, if only from personal experience, how hard it is to get information out of people if you haven’t got the weight—’

‘Merrily!’ Bliss’s fist came down on the table, a woman behind the counter glancing anxiously across. ‘It’s an offence. Impersonating a police officer? And if you’ve been a police officer, does that make it better? No, it makes it wairse.’ The Mersey in his accent bursting its banks. ‘Is it conceivable the fat bastard’s forgotten that?’

‘Frannie—’

‘You think I’m kidding? This is Annie Howe we’re talking about, not a human being, and her face is as close as it gets to being pink with embarrassment.’

Merrily sat back. ‘One of the people he talked to told the police?’

‘No, they told George Lackland.’

‘The Mayor, right?

‘And county councillor? And vice-chairman of the West Mercia Police Committee?’

‘Oh God, really? But, apart from the element of deception, why would he – or any of the people Mumford talked to – not want the truth to come out about Robbie Walsh and a woman who—?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe she’s well connected. Let’s just say that Ludlow’s one little town where Mumford would be well advised to walk like the streets are tiled with antique porcelain. Bearing in mind that when it comes to bailing-out time, Steve Britton will no longer be his friend. Best to assume he doesn’t have any friends any more, in or out of uniform, at Ludlow nick.’

‘Policemen don’t just drop their mates.’

‘Times change, Merrily. We didn’t used to have divisional chiefs like Howe. So you tell Mumford: any officer spotted discussing the weather with him, it’s a red-card situation. Do you think you could convey that to him?’

Merrily nodded. There was nothing to be said. Mumford was so far out of line he probably couldn’t even discern a line any more.

‘Good,’ Bliss said. ‘Now let’s talk about poor Jemmie Pegler.’

it was realizing i just did it to keep him quiet and so he’d keep paying for the drinks. what’s that say. im anbodys after a few drinks and they just laugh at the desperate worthless fat bitch and when your worthless thats the bottom. your never gonna come back from that are you

Merrily winced. ‘Who’s this one to, Frannie?’

‘Girlfriend. Found it on the end of a reply from the other girl. Karen went to talk to the other girl. She seemed genuinely shattered. Said Jemmie Pegler’s e-mails always went over the top – wanted her mates to think she was a woman of the world who’d had so many men she was bored with sex. Girl thought it was all bullshit.’

‘Doesn’t seem like that to me.’

‘In which case…’ Bliss put a stiff-backed photo envelope in front of Merrily with another e-mail on top of it. ‘The girl said she thought this was bullshit, too.’

they’ve gone out again so i looked in the bathroom cabinet just now and im thinking what would happen if i emptied every packet and every bottle in there and swallowed the lot. well just be sick as a dog most likely. how sad is that, sam. im not going out sad. im not. when i go theyll fucking know ive gone.

Merrily read it a second time, then opened the envelope.

It was a flash photo, in colour: a party pic of a fleshy girl, laughing. Short black hair gelled into gold-tipped spikes. A nose-stud with an implausible royal-blue gemstone. She was gripping a bottle by its silvery neck.

‘When did the computer come in, Frannie?’

‘Soon after we got a firm ID. Last night.’

‘And would Karen have been working on it last night?’

‘She was certainly on last night, and it’s much nicer tucked up in an office with a computer and mug of tea than going out on the cold streets, so probably. Why?’

Merrily went back to the e-mail. ‘This line about not going out sad. Seems to echo what someone apparently said on the radio this morning – that this kind of public suicide was a way of saying, “Now you’re all going to know who I am.” ’

‘Who said that?’

‘I’m probably being paranoid. Dr Saltash, interviewed by Radio Hereford and Worcester. Is he officially assisting the police?’

‘Possibly. He’s done it before. The Ice Maiden’s fond of psychological consultants, profilers, all these buggers who’re supposed to be doing our job for us.’

‘Mmm. And Siân Callaghan-Clarke.’

‘Who?’

‘Colleague of mine.’

Callaghan-Clarke on DCI Annie Howe, the night of the Deliverance Panel: I get on very well with her.

‘Why paranoid, Merrily?’

‘Sorry?’

‘You said you were probably being paranoid.’

‘Oh, it… it’s just that Nigel Saltash has been inflicted on me as a psychiatric consultant.’

‘He probably volunteered when he saw your picture.’

‘Do you have a reason to say that, or…?’

‘Hmm.’ Bliss did a wry smile. ‘If he is a mate of the Ice Maiden’s, forget I spoke. Have a look at this one.’

i want to go away. want US to go away where they cant get at us do you know what im saying. im sick of *guys* im sick of *going to london* in nicked cars only it always turns out to be Worcester and im sick of loading the poxy dishwasher. i want to GOOOOOO AWAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY FOR GOOD!!!!

Merrily went back to some of the earlier e-mails about Jemima not wanting to go to school any more, but not wanting a job either. Jemima professing to despise girls who stuck with one boy longer than a few weeks – suggesting that boys usually dumped her within that time-span.

‘Doesn’t want to live at home, but she thinks it must be crap to have a place of your own and have to clean it. So… she’s overweight and has a reputation as an easy lay because she must be desperate. Self-esteem at rock bottom. Bored with going out with blokes who nick cars because there’s nowhere worth driving to in them. Was she ever diagnosed as clinically depressed?’

‘Parents say not.’

‘Drugs?’

‘In normal life… possibly. Hard to say. When she died, however— This is well off the record, right?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘The window in the ruins we’re fairly sure she went out of is not actually that high up. Certainly not compared with the top of the tower that Robbie Walsh came off. You can’t get to the top of Jemmie’s tower without a ladder – it’s hollow. So you’re going out of one of the reachable windows – quite a drop the other side, and it could kill you, but it’s not a foregone conclusion. Unless, that is, you’ve already shot yourself full of enough heroin to make Keith Richards play the wrong chords.’

Merrily looked up, blinking.

‘She shot up before she jumped,’ Bliss said. ‘Threw the syringe out the window first, it looks like. SOCO found it underneath a yew tree, with her mobile a few feet away, both some distance from the body. PM this afternoon showed cardiac arrest.’

‘Is that—?’

‘Common enough, with an inexperienced user. More often than you’d think, the first fix is the last. Sometimes they don’t even have time to take the needle out before they’ve gone. Dr Grace thinks she might’ve been dead before she hit the ground, but we’ll never know that.’

‘God.’

‘So for all the drama, it’s a sad little death, Merrily. Mobile shows she tried to call her mate, Sam, before she did it. See, we know she wouldn’t have had any problem at all getting the stuff. A useful by-product of getting into Jemmie’s computer was it led us directly to a dealer we didn’t even know about in Ledbury. She’d had Es and dope from the same guy. So delightfully indiscreet, these kiddies.’

Ledbury: pleasant, picturesque old place at the foot of the Malverns. You didn’t think of it happening there. But then, it happened more or less everywhere now.

‘And some links to bigger players in Hereford,’ Bliss said. ‘For all she never spoke to her parents, she’s chatting away to us, from the other side of the grave. Talking of which…’ Bliss spread out some typescript. ‘Read this.’

with a plastic bag u can tie it round your neck but its not really necessary and it will take u much longer to get it off if u change your mind!!! Wot is good about plastic bags is that u dont look really horrible when they find you like with some methods of suffocation cos your eyes dont come out all bloody.

‘You can also read about the delights of hanging yourself,’ Bliss said.

‘This is an Internet chat-room, right?’

‘A specialist suicide chat-room. Adults advising unhappy kids on how to top themselves. Can’t describe what I’d like to do to these bastards with a few plastic bags, but then a few of us Catholics still think suicide’s a sin.’

‘Did Jemmie Pegler join in the discussions in the suicide chat-rooms?’

‘Just eavesdropped, I think. Lurking, as they say. Been doing it, on and off, for weeks, it looks like. Downloaded quite a lot. So we know she’d been dwelling on the possibility of suicide for quite a while.’

‘But no clues as to why she chose this method, this place? No mention of Robbie Walsh? Or Ludlow Castle?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You see, the point is that Robbie fell from the big tower, the Norman keep. No history to that. But Jemima wasn’t the first to go off the Hanging Tower.’

‘Tell me,’ Bliss said.

Merrily told him about Marion.

‘Long time ago, that.’ Bliss reached down to his briefcase.

‘You’ve already indicated this particular tower isn’t best suited to suicide, yet Jemima was determined to go that way. Did she use all that heroin to give her courage, or was it to make sure she died if the fall wasn’t enough?’

‘Interesting question,’ Bliss said.

‘How about Robbie Walsh – did he have a computer?’

‘Apparently not. Karen checked this afternoon.’

‘You’re having second thoughts about Robbie Walsh because of this?’

‘You got me thinking,’ Bliss said. ‘However, according to his mother, he wasn’t the computer type. An old-fashioned reader. Certainly enough books around the place, according to Karen. History books. No personal CD collection, either. Very old-fashioned little lad. An old-fashioned family, the Mumfords. Well, most of them.’ Bliss laid a folder on the pile in front of Merrily. ‘There you go. All ends tied?’

It contained a colour printout from a website.

LUDLOW GHOSTOURS

‘You knew,’ Merrily said.

‘Just thought I’d see if you did. It’s all there. Marion of the Heath. For a small fee, this feller will even guide you to the spot.’

‘She’d downloaded it.’

‘And more besides. Plan of the castle. She knew exactly where she was going and what she was gonna do when she got there.’

‘Anything else you haven’t told me because you wanted to see if I knew it already?’

Bliss smiled.

Before leaving Hereford, Merrily had called Mumford on his mobile, from the car, sitting in the Gaol Street car park with the rain beginning.

‘Aye,’ Mumford said wearily. ‘I know.’

‘Who told you?’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Pointless me asking why you felt you had to pass yourself off as still a copper.’

There was silence. She thought she’d lost the signal. The rain pooled in a dent on the Volvo’s bonnet; when Mumford’s voice came back it sounded dried-up, like a ditch in summer.

‘Can’t talk to people. Simple as that. Never could. Can’t do small talk. Walk into a shop, I can just about ask for what I wanner buy. What do I say? “I’m Robbie Walsh’s uncle and I’m feeling guilty as hell and please can you help me?” Can’t do it. Never could.’

In the same way he could only call her Mrs Watkins. In the same way he’d addressed Gerald Osman as ‘sir’, but not out of politeness. His whole identity had been written on his warrant card.

‘What did Bliss say?’ Mumford asked.

‘He said you should stay out of Ludlow. He was probably hyping it up a little.’

‘Mabbe not.’

Merrily sighed. ‘OK, here’s what else I found out.’

She told him about Jemmie Pegler’s computer and the suicide chat-rooms. Emphasizing that, although his name had appeared briefly on the chat pages, there had been no obvious personal connection with Robbie Walsh. Hopefully, this would keep Mumford out of Ledbury.

‘Computer, eh?’ He let out a slow hiss. ‘Never thought. Damn.’

‘Bliss said Robbie didn’t have a computer.’

‘Of course he had a computer. His grandparents bought it for him. Had me collect it from PC World. Packard Bell.’

‘Well, he hadn’t got it any more, Andy.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ Mumford said.

Driving home, with the rain starting up, Merrily wondered how much was actually known about Marion de la Bruyère, ‘a lady of the castle’. You thought of flowing robes, one of those funnel-shaped headdresses, with a ribbon.

But Bernie Dunmore had been right. You were probably talking about a child. Those precious teenage years were also very much bypassed in the Middle Ages; by Jane’s age you could be a mother of three. Marion was probably about fifteen herself when she died, or even younger. Young enough, certainly, to be fooled by a smart operator she thought was in love with her.

Jemmie Pegler, staving off chronic emotional starvation, maybe profound loneliness, had been in very much the right mental state to imagine that Marion, disaffected, betrayed – a kindred spirit – would be holding her hand as she jumped.

Merrily said to Jane, ‘What sort of state do you imagine someone would have to be in for the idea of suicide to become appealing… exciting?’

‘Look,’ Jane said. ‘Suicide chat-rooms – my basic feeling is that most people who go into suicide chat-rooms are never going to top themselves. It’s just titillation. Like running across railway lines, bungee-jumping. Real suicide, that’s when you just no longer want to be alive. When it seems like there’s absolutely nothing worth hanging on to. You don’t care how you do it, do you? As long as it works.’

‘Jemmie Pegler went through with it. In a way that suggests she cared very much how it was done.’

‘Yeah, that’s weird. And what about Robbie Walsh?’

‘Possibly killing himself? Mmm. I think we’re all starting to have second thoughts about poor Robbie.’

‘Well, thanks, anyway,’ Jane said.

‘For what?’

‘For not saying, “Look, flower, if there was ever a deep source of depression in your life, I hope you wouldn’t hesitate to—” That’s the phone.’

Merrily pointed a menacing finger. ‘Don’t go away.’

By the time she got to the scullery, the answering machine had caught the call – as was intended, to ambush the people who made a point of phoning at night because it was cheaper, to bend your ear for an hour on some parish issue of awesome triviality.

‘Mrs Watkins, if you’re there—’

She sighed and picked up, switching on the anglepoise lamp.

‘Andy.’

‘I’m at my sister’s. Robbie’s mother?’

‘Andy, do you think maybe you need to relax, just a little?’

‘I got Robbie’s computer.’

‘Oh.’

‘Thought you might wanner know. When my sister told Karen the boy hadn’t got a computer, she lied, nat’rally. Which Karen would’ve guessed, of course, but she was hardly in a situation to push it.’

‘I’m sorry – why would your sister lie?’

‘Two reasons. One, they was worried about what he might have on there that p’raps a good, caring parent ought to have known about. Two, they thought they could sell it for a couple of hundred. Taking it to a car-boot sale, along with the rest of his stuff. ’Course, she also tried to tell me they’d already got rid of it, but I remembered the lock-ups.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Garages – a number of which don’t contain cars but serve as storage for various items that residents of the Plascarreg might not want found inside their houses. Sometimes using each other’s garages – or the garage of some harmless old lady with no car – to confuse the issue.’

‘The Plascarreg. Of course. Are you bringing the computer out?’

There was a pause. ‘I could spell this out, but you’re an intelligent woman. My sister’s here on her own. The boyfriend’s down the pub. I got till he comes back to check this over. Not that he scares me, but if I can get away without a scene, that’s best. So I’m gonner go over the hard disk on site, as it were.’

Merrily looked up at the wall clock: 9.05 p.m. Over the phone, she could hear vehicles revving, the tinny sound of hard rain splattering a car roof.

‘Would it help if I came over?’

‘Couldn’t ask that, Mrs Watkins. Not the Plascarreg.’

‘This is Hereford, Andy, not Brixton. What’s the number of the flat?’

‘One thirty-seven.’

‘OK.’ She wrote it down.

‘I can’t ask you to do this,’ Mumford said. ‘Not at night.’

‘You didn’t ask. I’m electing to come. I’m interested.’

‘You’re stupid,’ Jane said. ‘You can’t see what he’s doing to you.’

Merrily standing in the hall, pulling on her coat, Jane in the kitchen doorway, doing the slow head-shake that conveyed superior knowledge.

‘Make this very quick,’ Merrily said.

‘OK. Lol will doubtless confirm the psychology at a future time, but essentially Mumford is a subordinate, officer, right? He never rose beyond sergeant… because he was totally reliable but never had the spark of inspiration that make guys like Bliss – and don’t you ever dare tell Bliss I said this – into a bit of a star.’

‘No worries there.’ Merrily unbolted the front door. ‘Bliss would not believe you’d ever said that.’

‘And now Mumford’s lost Bliss, right?’ Jane came into the hall. ‘He’s floundering. He’s out of his depth. He can’t make decisions. He can’t function without a governor. And so, like, whether he realizes this or not, he’s put you into that essential role…’

‘Jane, that’s—’

‘It’s spot on, vicar, I’m telling you.’

Merrily stepped outside, then turned back. ‘Would you actually like to help?’

Jane’s eyes half-closed. ‘What?’

‘Go on the Net and see if you can find any links between Ludlow and suicide sites and, erm… anything else.’

Jane looked surprised. ‘Yeah, OK.’

‘Thank you, flower.’

‘Any time. I’ll, er… I’ll see you later, then… guv.’

17 Outcast

IN THE CITY the rain had stopped, leaving the roads blurred and gleaming, the white-lit restaurant complex in Left Bank Village like an ice palace beside the River Wye, as Merrily drove across Greyfriars Bridge.

This was tourist Hereford, only seven minutes’ drive away from the Plascarreg Estate, where no tourists went except by mistake.

Plascarreg: Welsh for place of the rocks. If what she’d read some months ago in the Hereford Times was still valid, the only rocks here now were crack-cocaine. Plascarreg was flat-pack brick and concrete housing blocks just off the road between Belmont and the Barnchurch Trading Estate, its windowless backs hunched against the west wind and the city. Half-lit in sour sodium, it looked like a vague idea half-thought-out.

Merrily drove in slowly, on full beam. The derelict land opposite had been scheduled for an extension of the Barnchurch site, suspended through lack of investment or perhaps because someone thought derelict land reflected the Plascarreg ethos better than fields.

The second block was three storeys high: flats behind covered walkways. There was a parking area crammed with vehicles, with just one space free if you put two wheels on the kerb. She reversed in, next to an abandoned van with a stack of crumbling bricks under one rear wheel-arch. It would have been stupid to tell herself she wasn’t feeling vulnerable here, but when you’d started out as a curate in a particular area of Merseyside it wasn’t exactly a fear of the unknown.

Mumford hadn’t said whether his sister’s flat was on the ground floor or if there was a stairwell involved. Nobody liked stairwells at night. She started walking along the edge of the roadway, looking up at dull lights behind tight-drawn curtains, edging round puddles, hands in the pockets of her waxed jacket that was hanging open. The air was damp and chilled and sharp, and there seemed to be nobody—

‘Mrs Watkins.’

‘Andy…?’

Moving softly in the shadows, and it was all shadows here, Mumford took her elbow.

‘Should’ve told you on the phone, we en’t going to the flat. It’s just over yere.’

He led her to a low concrete block, separate from the flats: garages, with up-and-over metal doors. Stopping outside one with a thin rim of yellow light around it, pulling up the door with a clang that echoed like machinery in a quarry. The light came from a caged circular ceiling lamp, reflected in an oil-pool on the concrete floor where a car would have been.

‘You better make this bloody quick, Andy.’ A woman moved out of the shadows and pushed in front of Mumford. ‘And remember, you don’t take nothing.’

She was about Merrily’s age, maybe a bit older, with Mumford’s small features surrounded by a lot of dark hair. Her red leather coat was open, showing that she was pregnant.

‘My sister, Angela,’ Mumford said. ‘This is Mrs Watkins.’

‘Merrily.’

‘Good job you didn’t come in your dog collar,’ Angela said. ‘They eat priests on this estate.’

‘They wouldn’t enjoy me,’ Merrily said. ‘I’m more chewy than I look.’

Angela gave her a glance, unsmiling. So maybe this wasn’t the time to offer condolences.

‘Remember what I said,’ Angela said to Mumford. ‘You don’t take nothing away.’ She tossed him a key on a chain. ‘You got half an hour, no more. Lock up when you’ve finished, key through the letter box.’

Angela walked out without looking back. Mumford tried to pull down the door from the inside but the handle was missing.

‘I would say she’s changed.’ He left a gap under the door, so they could get out again. ‘But she en’t.’

At the far end of the garage, the computer sat on a workbench, already switched on, casting a somehow baleful blue light over stacks of cardboard boxes. Mumford nodded at the boxes.

‘Take a look, Mrs Watkins. See what’s left of Robbie Walsh.’

Merrily walked around the oil. There were about a dozen wine boxes from supermarkets. Warily, she opened one.

Books. She pulled one out, large-format: Everyday Life in the Middle Ages, in Pictures. Heraldic symbols in each corner. Once a paperback, its covers had been stiffened with card, the way you did to prolong the life of a book that you really loved, one that was well used, day after day. It flopped open where a page had been torn out, none too carefully, fragments of it still flapping from the spine. The facing page was headed: TRIAL BY ORDEAL.

Mumford prodded a box with his shoe.

‘All his books are yere. Stuff on castles… armour… weapons. Guide books to historic houses people gave him… all off to a boot sale at the weekend – outside of town, they en’t daft.’

‘They’re selling all his stuff?’

‘Need the space. Another baby on the way – boyfriend’s this time, just to prove he can.’

Merrily put the book back in the box and closed the flaps. It felt like pulling a sheet over a body.

‘What happened to Robbie’s father?’

‘He came to the funeral. Not a bad bloke.’ Mumford opened another box, pulled out a turquoise baseball cap, put it on his own head, where it almost fitted. ‘This was always too big for Robbie, see. Poor little devil never realized why folks were laughing. Tried for street cred, never got close.’

‘You’ve got kids, haven’t you?’

‘Two girls. One in New Zealand, one a veterinary nurse, living with a vet down in Newport. They done OK, considering.’ Mumford took off the cap. ‘When you make CID, you’re as good as lost to your family. “Oh Dad, you’re not working again, we never sees you.” “Look,” I’d say, “I’m protecting you and your mother, that’s what I’m doing.” Any old excuse. See this?’

He’d opened up a book he’d evidently been using as a mouse-mat for the computer. The Tudor Household. Something had been scribbled on the front and then scribbled over. Through the top scribble they could still make out crude black letters: Walsh is gay.

‘Jane tells me the word’s become an all-purpose term of abuse now, among kids,’ Merrily said.

‘Abuse,’ Mumford said. ‘Aye.’

‘What are you thinking?’

Mumford reached into the book box, pulled out a paperback with a white and sepia cover: Castles and Moated Sites of Herefordshire. It looked new, except for the brown tape holding the spine together. A pamphlet fell out: South Wye History Project.

‘Looks like the book was ripped in half, ennit? He was real careful with his books.’

‘What you’re saying is he didn’t do this.’

‘That’s likely what I’m saying.’

‘The boyfriend?’

‘Or it could be Ange. When he was little, if he left toys around after she’d told him to put them away, she’d throw them on the fire. I’ve seen it. This was when she was still with his dad and they were living out at Kingstone. Marital tension. Always felt I… oughter do something for the boy. Couldn’t think what.’ He put the book back carefully in the wine box. ‘Hell, he was never abused, I’m not saying that. Just never encouraged. Which is how he became a loner, up in his room with his books.’

Mumford turned away, stood very still, hands in the pockets of his dark tweed jacket.

‘Andy—’

‘Let’s have a look at the computer.’ Mumford brought out his glasses case; his hands were shaking very slightly. ‘Never got to see the boy much since she moved in with Mathiesson. They never liked me coming round. Not with both neighbours on probation. No excuse, is it? I could’ve done something.’

He put on his glasses and gripped the mouse, began dragging the cursor over icons on the computer desktop. Mumford – Merrily had noted this before – was surprisingly at home with computers.

‘Seems likely the only time the boy ever went out on his own was in Ludlow. Just walking the streets. In his element.’ He clicked on an icon, bringing up a photograph of the ornate oaken façade of the Feathers, in Corve Street, against an improbably Mediterranean blue sky. ‘What he’d do, see, he’d download documents and photos from the Net, compiling his own files. Switch on his computer, straightaway he’s back in Ludlow. Street maps, architectural plans, the lot.’

‘Virtual heaven,’ Merrily said, aware of her own voice giving way. She coughed.

‘Aye. Look…’ Mumford brought up a series of short histories of different buildings; some, like The Reader’s House, she’d heard of. ‘This is what I wanted you to see.’

THE WEIR HOUSE

Name adopted, since recent major restoration, for this onetime farmhouse on an elevated site below the castle and overlooking the Teme. Origins believed to date back to the early fourteenth century, when it was acquired by the Palmers’ Guild, or earlier. Timbers extensively replaced, but one original cruck-beam is preserved and the central fireplace, believed fifteenth-century, remains a significant feature.

NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

‘That’s her house,’ Mumford said. ‘Mrs Pepper.’

There was sweat on his forehead, a small mesh of veins like a crushed insect twitching below one eye.

‘But it… Andy, it seems to be one of over a dozen old buildings he’s got listed there.’

He shook his head. ‘All the others are key historical buildings. This Weir House, it’s just been done up from a shell. It’s the only one on the list that’s not important. And not really in the town itself.’

‘But…’

‘It’s only there ’cause it’s hers.’

‘You think?’

‘Ludlow. The one place he thought he was safe…’ He clicked to a photo of the Buttercross, staring at it as if he could get the full story out of the stones.

‘Safe from what?’

‘Where he thought he was free, then.’ He stepped away from the monitor. ‘You have a look, see if anything occurs to you.’

Merrily went over to the computer keyboard. ‘You checked his e-mails?’

‘Nothing.’

‘No e-mails at all?’

‘I reckon they been wiped – by Ange or Mathiesson, just in case.’

‘In case of what?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘You been through the deleted mails?’

‘Bugger-all. See for yourself.’

Under deleted mails, Merrily found one that said GHOSTOURS. Re half price. She clicked on it.

Hi Robson!

Thanks for your mail and your interest in GHOSTOURS. Yes, it certainly is half-price for children. However, we don’t usually allow anyone under sixteen to go on the walk unless accompanied by a responsible adult. Mind you, it’s usually the adults who are most scared!

Is there a parent or relative who would come with you? If so, we usually gather in the Bullring on Friday and Saturday evenings, at 8.00 p.m. But pop into the shop when you’re here and we’ll see what we can do!

Cheers,

Jonathan Scole,

Ludlow Ghostours.

‘That’s months old,’ Mumford said. ‘Boy making plans for his holiday. This is the ghost-walk feller the Pepper woman paid to take her round. Would she have made a responsible adult for Robbie, you reckon?’

‘Andy, that—’

Merrily turned round. A boy had squeezed under the metal door. He looked about ten or eleven. She tapped Mumford on the shoulder, gave the kid a quick smile.

‘Hello.’

The boy said nothing.

Mumford eyed him with naked suspicion. ‘What d’you want, sonny?’

The kid moved further into the garage, baseball cap pulled down. ‘What you doing?’

‘What’s it look like we’re doing?’ Mumford said. ‘We’re playing computer games.’

‘What you got?’

‘Sonic the Hedgehog,’ Mumford said. ‘Before your time. En’t you got something violent to watch on TV?’

‘That Robbie Walsh’s stuff?’

Mumford clicked off the e-mail. ‘Makes you think that?’

‘Their garage, ennit?’

‘You knew Robbie Walsh?’

‘You his grandad?’

‘No I en’t, you cheeky little sod.’

‘Ange said we could have a look at his stuff, see if there’s anything we wanted.’

‘Aye, I bet she did.’

‘Honest!’

‘All right, goodnight, son,’ Mumford said. His tone had hardened. His hands hung by his sides. Mumford still had police presence. The kid backed off, ducked under the opening, then stuck his head back in.

‘Don’t want none of that shit, anyway. Robbie Walsh was gay. I’d get Aids or some’ing.’

And disappeared, laughing. Mumford said nothing, but went over and pulled down the metal door, leaving a much smaller gap at the bottom this time.

‘He probably doesn’t even know what it means, anyway,’ Merrily said when Mumford came back to the computer.

‘I know what it means.’ He didn’t look at her. ‘Means the boy was different. Sensitive. Bit academic and didn’t hang around with whatever gangs operated on the estate. An outcast, in other words.’ He picked up the book with the damaged spine. ‘Therefore a target.’

‘He was being victimized? Bullied? That’s what you think?’

Mumford didn’t reply. He put the book back and laid a hand on the mouse, running the cursor from icon to icon.

‘Try Internet Explorer and click on History,’ Merrily suggested. ‘Find out where he’s been lately.’

But Robbie’s most recent ventures on the Net amounted only to Ludlow tourist sites, Ludlow historical society documents. Nothing unexpected. Nothing that looked like a suicide chat-room. After about fifteen fruitless minutes, Mumford went back to the desktop, where nothing looked promising unless you were seriously into medieval history.

It was cold in here, and Merrily was no longer sure what they were looking for. It all came down to Mumford’s feeling that the boy had been in need of help and he hadn’t noticed. Perhaps thinking he’d got off too lightly with his own daughters, to whom nothing bad seemed to have happened.

‘School Projects,’ she said. ‘Try that. Sounds boring.’

Mumford looked at her. A vehicle went slowly past the garage.

‘Maybe a bit too boring,’ Merrily said. ‘Do you think?’

Mumford clicked on it. An e-mail appeared at once.

Dear Robbie,

Thanks for the stuff you sent me. It was great. It’s cool that we’re interested in the same things and OF COURSE I won’t stop writing to you.

But DON’T WORRY! I know things can seem really bad but like my nan says it’s always darkest before the dawn and I know this is going to work out for you and you’ll get away from that awful place. Just HANG ON IN THERE and thanks for sharing this with me, I feel really privileged.

Look, Robbie, I’ve got a lot to do with exams and stuff coming up, so if you don’t hear from me for a bit don’t think I’ve forgotten, all right. Love and GOOD LUCK!

Merrily read it again. There was no signature.

‘Well done, Mrs Watkins,’ Mumford said.

‘It looks like he’s copied the e-mail onto a document, deleting the signature and the e-mail address. He’s hidden it away where nobody’s likely to look for it and if anyone finds it they won’t know who sent it.’

‘Mabbe scared of his mother or Mathiesson getting into his computer when he en’t around.’ Mumford scrolled up. ‘Hang on, here’s another.’

Dear Robbie

You’ve made me cry. I just wept when I read your mail. Those bastards! You can’t let them do these things to you. You have to tell someone, do you understand? You could even tell the police, never mind about your stepfather or whatever he is. You’ve got to do something, do you understand? I’ll tell the police for you if you want, I don’t mind. Just DO SOMETHING!

love

‘I take it all back,’ Merrily said.

‘You didn’t say anything.’

‘I thought it. I thought you were making something out of nothing.’

Mumford scrolled up again. No more e-mails.

‘We need to go through everything, Mrs Watkins, no matter how unpromising. He’s probably got stuff scattered all over the place.’

Merrily read the last one again. ‘Obviously a girl. A boy would never admit to crying. It’s also someone close to his age…’

‘Because she talks about exams.’

‘And if we assume the last one was sent first…’

‘Then he’s replied to it, obviously,’ Mumford said. ‘He’s replied and deleted his reply from his own computer. He’s upset he’s made her cry, and so he’s saying, Oh, things en’t that bad. And he’s told her something. And he’s sent her something.’

‘ “Thanks for sharing this with me”… what’s that mean?’

‘Sounds like he’s told her about some plan for getting away. Right.’ Mumford straightened up, rubbing his hands. ‘I’m taking this computer home. Then I’m gonner come back tomorrow and talk to Angela. You agree? I en’t overreacting?’

‘No, you’re not overreacting.’

‘Accident – balls,’ Mumford said. ‘That boy killed hisself.’

‘It’s starting to look more like it.’

‘And if I—’

Mumford spun round as the garage door came up suddenly and violently, like a car crash. Breath shot into Merrily’s throat and she toppled a box with her elbow, spraying books across the floor. She saw still figures in the gaping night.

Silence except for a metallic chink.

There were four of them. One, in a hooded top, had something like a dog-chain doubled up and stretched between his fists, and he kept pulling it tight, letting it go, snapping it tight.

Chink.

18 Departure Lounge

THE CLAUSTROPHOBIA IN the Departure Lounge was so intense that Jane had to go into the kitchen for a glass of water. Didn’t like this at all any more.

Dipping into the Internet was sometimes like lowering yourself into hidden catacombs or potholing. Going down… click, click, click… one site dropping into a deeper site, crawling through narrow tunnels, until you found you’d sunk so far that, when you looked up, the patch of light over your head had totally vanished, and the air was too filthy to breathe.

Of course, she knew what this was: too many bad experiences with confined underground places linked with death – the cellar at Chapel House, the crypt of Hereford Cathedral. It was close to phobic, and she resented that but it still didn’t mean she could handle it.

She filled a tumbler with sparkling water. All she needed now was a bottle of old-fashioned aspirin to wash down. Twenty should do it, right?

Naw, twenty is nowhere near enough, Karone the Boatman, from Nevada, had written for the benefit of Dolores, from Wisconsin. Ya don’t just wanna be sick…

Jane had started with the new teen-oriented search-engine I Wanna, which dealt mostly with shopping wannas. Shopping to topping yourself was quite a long and tortuous trip and meant circumnavigating all the agony-aunt sites that wanted to talk you out of it.

But she was getting better at this, nearly as good as Eirion now at knowing what to look for. Which was how she’d wound up with the disgusting Karone the Boatman in the Departure Lounge.

Welcome to the Departure Lounge. Take a seat. You are among the best friends you have ever had, perhaps your last good friends. Help yourself to a drink (see our wine list, left). Listen to some music (see our selection, right).

As you can see, the Departure Lounge has two doors. You may leave at any time, through the door on the right. Or you may choose, if invited, to enter, through the left-hand door, into the Inner Lounge.

If invited? It was confusing. The walls of the Departure Lounge kept shrinking and expanding, and the doors on both right and left would alternate from black to white, and sometimes they were both grey. This was technically quite a sophisticated site. More sophisticated, at least, than some of the sickos who hung around in the virtual lounge like virtual pimps.

Karone the Boatman, from Nevada? Jane guessed he’d taken his name from Charon, the boatman who ferried the dead across the Styx in Greek myths… only he’d never read any Greek myths; someone had probably just told him the name, mispronouncing it, and he’d never even bothered to check it out. She pictured some earnest, humourless, semi-literate, burger-munching git in a sweaty baseball cap, who was arrogant enough to imagine it was his mission in life to help other people end theirs.

Karone kept printing up a link to his personal website, on which Jane had tentatively clicked, thus learning how to make a foolproof noose. Shutting down the site at this point, before slime could start oozing through the monitor.

She went back and perused the music selection: some classical stuff and a few names Jane hadn’t heard of. Plus Leonard Cohen’s ‘Dress Rehearsal Rag’, which it said Cohen had banned himself from singing – was this a joke? – and a song called ‘Gloomy Sunday’, which definitely was not a joke.

God.

‘Gloomy Sunday’ – also known as ‘The Hungarian Suicide Song’ – had been written and recorded in 1933 by Rezso Seress after breaking up with his girlfriend.

In the song she dies and he decides to follow her. The actual girlfriend later killed herself, leaving a note saying only ‘Gloomy Sunday’. Rezso Seress himself jumped to his death from his apartment in 1968.

‘Jumped to his death.’ Jane found that she’d whispered it.

She was starting not to like this. She learned that the song had been banned by the BBC and other broadcasters because it had been linked to so many suicides, some within the music business – one of the more recent had been one by the Scottish duo, The Associates, who’d recorded it in 1980.

But the most sinister version remained the original, which had recently been cleaned up. It was said to promote nightmares, depression and irrational fear in listeners, but was not available for downloading on this particular site.

However…

The cleaned-up version was not available in 1999, when ‘Gloomy Sunday’ was covered by Belladonna, and the singer insisted that the crackles and scratches on the 1933 recording be scrupulously duplicated on her own version. Record company executives refused to include the Belladonna version on the album The Pervading Dark – for which it had been recorded – after a spate of suicides, including an assistant engineer, a secretary and the singer’s former lover, the session musician Eric Bryers, who threw himself from high up in a block of flats in south London.

Jane drank some water. Christ, another one. Did Mum know about this? Somehow she suspected not.

One theory was that the music was part of an occult ritual devised by Seress for purposes unknown, in which his girlfriend was expected to take part. But the implications of it terrified her, and this might have been linked to her suicide.

The words ‘Gloomy Sunday’ were blinking at Jane from the monitor.

Uh-huh. She drew back and clicked away the panel.

Belladonna. There were some artists who’d been big in the 1980s that it was still cool to kind of like: Elvis Costello, Julian Cope and XTC, of course, who would have been totally celestial if they hadn’t stopped touring and been forced to compete against dreary synth bands. But Belladonna…

Belladonna had embraced synthesizers. Her voice even sounded like it had been produced electronically, thin and screechy with occasional pulses – part of the machine. Belladonna was distant, lacked any kind of intimacy. But in its dismal-as-January way, the music did, Jane was forced to concede, sometimes carry you away. Just not to anywhere she could imagine ever wanting to be carried.

Actually, she was being particularly wimpish tonight. Could be something to do with being alone in the vicarage. She really should download Belladonna’s ‘Gloomy Sunday’. It was almost certainly a scam – that whole story sounded phoney.

On the other hand, she was pretty sure The Associates had existed. The trouble with the Net was that it was always very good at half-truth and conjecture.

Jane clicked back to the music panel. Immediately, ‘Gloomy Sunday’ began to flash. Her hand hovered over the mouse.

Mumford calmly put his glasses in their case, tucked it down the inside pocket of his jacket. He stood there, turning his head slowly from face to shadowed face, as if he was matching each one to a mugshot. Then he straightened up, hands by his sides, cleared his throat.

‘Help you boys?’

And Merrily realized that they were boys. Mainly young teenagers, plus the kid of eleven or so who’d been here earlier.

The tallest and presumably the oldest of the teenagers peeled himself away from the others. ‘So what’s happening, dad?’ He was about a head taller than Mumford.

‘Heard you was having a garage sale.’ The beefy kid with the chain grinned from inside his hood, like some kind of malevolent gnome. He pulled the chain tight. Chink.

‘Con,’ the tall kid said, ‘will you put that fuckin’ thing away?’ He looked mixed-race, had prominent teeth, a stud in the cleft of his chin. His silky black jacket had zips everywhere, like ridged operation scars. ‘Sorry about my mate, dad, he’s seen too many old videos.’

‘Don’t apologize,’ Mumford said mildly. ‘Just take him back to the home and we’ll say no more about it.’

‘Good one, dad. So…’ The tall kid with the zips looked around. ‘This is it, then, is it? The official Robson Walsh closing-down sale? Everything must go, yeah?’

‘Knew Robbie, did you?’

‘We was only his very best mates, dad. We had some awesome laughs with Robbie.’ He turned to the others. ‘Am I right?’

The eleven-year-old giggled. The other small kid – yellow fleece, combat trousers, watchful eyes – looked down at his trainers.

‘You had some laughs.’ Mumford’s voice was a thin, taut line. ‘With Robbie.’

‘So, like, basically, we thought we’d like to buy something to remember him by. Not the books, though. The books are shite.’

‘What kind of laughs you have with Robbie?’

‘See, I was thinking that computer. How much?’

‘Not for sale,’ Mumford said.

‘Tell you what, dad… forty quid.’

‘You en’t listening, son.’

‘All right – sixty. You en’t gonner get sixty for a second-hand computer that old, are you?’ The tall kid unzipped his jacket, felt in a pocket of his jeans, took out an amazingly dense wad of notes. ‘OK, I’ll go seventy. Seventy quid. How’s that?’

Merrily saw that the boys had arranged themselves in a rough semicircle around Mumford and her, the width of the garage, so that nobody was going to get past them.

‘Lot of notes you got there, Jason.’ Mumford’s face was set like cement, his eyes steady on the tall kid. ‘Been nicking little children’s dinner money again, is it?’

Jason? Mumford knew him? Merrily kept quiet, staying in the corner beside the workbench. They were only boys, after all. The eleven-year-old… he could even be ten. The other younger one, maybe twelve or thirteen, kept glancing nervously at the tall kid, as if he was worried about where this was going.

Merrily felt the heat of sweat on her forehead.

‘You talking to me?’ the tall kid said. ‘Is that my name, dad?’

‘Ah well…’ Mumford reached up and unplugged the computer from a socket over the workbench; the screen sighed and faded. ‘Could be I made a mistake. Just you reminded me for a minute of Jason Mebus, star of a whole stack of CCTV nasties – urinating in High Town… nicking Big Issues from a disabled man. Jason’s just waiting for his seventeenth birthday, he is, so he can be in prison videos.’

‘Fuck are you?’ the tall kid said.

He might as well have pinned on a lapel badge that said Jason.

‘Then again, it’s a bit dark now.’ Mumford looked into the black screen. ‘So I might’ve been mistaken. And if you was all gone from yere ’fore I had a chance to get a good look…’

Good. Merrily breathed slowly. That was sensible.

Jason didn’t move. The gnome with the chain stifled a laugh.

Merrily saw something dance into Jason’s eyes. He reached out a hand, laid it on Mumford’s shoulder.

‘You a cop, dad?’

‘Take your hand off me, boy,’ Mumford said mildly.

Jason’s grip tightened. ‘No, come on, dad… are you a c—?’

Mumford came round faster than Merrily could have imagined, had the boy’s arm down behind his back, had him swinging round and rammed up – smack – hard against the side wall, squashing his open mouth into one of its concrete blocks.

‘No. For your information, I en’t.’ Mumford’s forearm in the back of Jason’s neck. ‘Which means I can do what I like to you, ennit, boy?’

Merrily saw a bloody imprint on the wall where Jason’s mouth had kissed it.

‘Andy…’ She came out of the corner. If Mumford had smashed this boy’s front teeth, they were in trouble. ‘Let’s just—’

‘You can start by explaining why you want the computer, Jason,’ Mumford said, ‘or mabbe who sent you in to get it for them, and then—’

And then Merrily was dragged aside from behind, and stumbled to her knees, and saw across the bench that the boy in the yellow fleece had hold of the plug on the computer lead and had started to pull on it, his face red with effort and a kind of panic in his eyes.

By the time she was back on her feet, the dog-chain was around Mumford’s throat, the fat kid tugging on it from behind, swinging on it, both feet leaving the ground, and Mumford’s eyes bulging out of his veined, florid face.

19 The Joy of Death

SADGIRL. OK, IT wasn’t sophisticated, but it was simple and it sounded vulnerable and inoffensive: SADGIRL, HEREFORD, ENGLAND.

It would do.

So Sadgirl left a message in the Departure Lounge.

i lost my baby, and i lost my fella. i’m seventeen and i dont want to get any older. dont want to do any of this again. i listened to belladonna and shes given me the courage to do what i have to do. i want to rest for ever with my child. this is serious.

Rest for ever with my child. Jane thought this was moving and resonant. She felt better hiding behind Sadgirl. Putting her own name in there would have been awful: planting some part of herself in the electronic depths – a suicide seed.

Sadgirl was cyber-bait. It just needed someone to come through and harden the link between Belladonna and suicide. Jane had a picture of the dragon lady lurking, logged on from Ludlow, waiting to entrap damaged people.

Which wasn’t entirely ridiculous. She instinctively didn’t like this woman. OK, she hadn’t even been born when Belladonna was famous, and she hated almost all 1980s music on principle, but it went beyond that now. She’d logged on to the Belladonna websites – surprised at how many there were, mostly unofficial – and they were all creep sites. You had an immediate sense of something unhealthy, sexually perverse and kind of slick and clammy, like those things people put up to catch flies.

And the woman – her music, at least – was sharing the same cyberspace as Karone the Boatman, sultan of sickos.

Maybe – and the idea wasn’t total fantasy because anything was possible in cyberspace and everyone was equal – Sadgirl could lure Belladonna into the open. She just needed to know more. Mum had not divulged enough to give her much of a handle, and Mum was out of reach, which left…

Lol.

It was useful, not to say comforting, to have Lol just across the street. Jane stayed connected to the Net and phoned him on her mobile.

Lol said, ‘She’s out with Mumford? At this time of night?’

‘It’s not a date, Lol. And like, I’m sure that, while a certain kind of woman wouldn’t be able to resist that gruff, monosyllabic—’

‘I’m backing off, all right?’ Lol said. ‘Just because I’m across the road—’

‘No, I like you to be concerned about her. It’s old-fashioned.’

‘Meanwhile, what exactly is bothering you about Belladonna?’

‘Just need a clearer picture of where she fits in. Like, why is she in Ludlow? What’s she doing there?’

‘Everybody’s got to live somewhere, Jane. It’s a very sought-after place these days. However… apart from the fact that her stepdaughter’s in the area, we really don’t know.’

‘But there is a definite connection between her and Robbie Walsh, right?’

‘Seems that way. However—’

‘Therefore, if I was to firmly link her with Jemmie Pegler, as well…’

‘You haven’t…?’

‘Got to be close. Mum says Pegler was visiting suicide chat-rooms, and if they’re the ones I’ve just peered into, they’re more or less recommending Belladonna as, like…’

‘Music to slash wrists by? That’s no surprise. It doesn’t mean she’s authorized it.’

‘She could have, though.’

‘It, um… sounds like you’ve been having an interesting night.’

‘Educational. I tell you, Lol, if I was ever contemplating an exit, it’s the last place I’d go for help.’

‘That’s the idea, isn’t it?’

‘Ha ha. No, listen, there’s this guy who comes on like, are you cool enough for it? Like, do you have what it takes to be a statistic? You can imagine people who are really, really depressed, and this creep’s sneering at them, like it’s a challenge – are you hard enough to top yourself?’

‘Could be reverse psychology.’

‘Not that subtle. It’s telling them that if they can’t find the balls to do it, they really will have failed. You know?’

‘Out of interest, which Belladonna songs?’

‘Well, she – this is probably some kind of sick joke – but she’s supposed to have done a cover version of something. “Gloomy Sunday”?’

Lol said, with no hesitation, ‘The Hungarian Suicide Song.’

‘Shit, Lol…’

‘It’s fairly well known. Billie Holliday did a version.’

‘And survived?’

‘For a while. She didn’t have a very nice life.’

‘Did you know that Belladonna had recorded it?’

‘No, I didn’t. Doesn’t surprise me, though.’

‘See, there’s supposed to be an original version from 1933 that if you hear it…’

‘I’ve heard that, too. Not the song. I’ve heard what it’s supposed to do. The music business is full of ghost stories.’

‘They only had the Belladonna version on the Departure Lounge recommended listening list. Along with a Leonard Cohen song he apparently doesn’t play any more.’

‘And Nick Drake’s “Fruit Tree”? That’s usually among the top ten suicide songs.’

‘I didn’t see that. Lol, the Hungarian guy who composed it and Belladonna’s ex-lover, Eric…’

‘Bryers.’

‘You knew him?’

‘I know people who I think did.’

‘They both committed suicide by, like, throwing themselves off buildings. Did you know that?’

‘It’s a popular method, Jane.’

‘Especially in Ludlow, apparently,’ Jane said.

‘Jane, let’s not… Like I say, Belladonna might not even know they’re using her songs.’

‘Nah, I think she’s there. I can feel her lurking like an evil presence. And Jemmie Pegler was definitely into those sites.’

‘Let’s not get carried away, Jane, OK?’

‘Hey, when did that ever happen?’

Lol was silent. She could picture his expression.

‘You had any more anonymous letters, Lol? You would tell me?’

‘You’d be the first to know.’

‘I bet.’ Jane leaned into the computer screen. ‘Hey, something’s come up. I’ll have to go.’

‘Jane, you didn’t listen to—’

She cut the line. This could be significant. But how would she handle it if Belladonna herself had left a message for Sadgirl? Well, it was possible.

But it was Karone the Boatman who’d come back, and he was not sympathetic.

Sadgirl, u r in the wrong room, babe. Nobody here wants to know about ya problems. Come back when ya ready to DO THE THING.

The heartless bastard! You’d lost your baby, got dumped by your guy, and this scumbag…

Jane started to laugh. Oh God, she must really be overtired. She finished the fizzy water, thinking how it would be best for Sadgirl to react now. She knew how she wanted to react, but that wouldn’t achieve anything outside of personal satisfaction.

She switched off the desk lamp, sat back in the chair and closed her eyes to think this out.

Standing in the wreckage of Robbie Walsh’s torn-off life, Merrily lit a cigarette and smoked half of it and then threw it down on the concrete and stamped on it. When she put a hand to her face, it sent up a hot wire of pain. Afterwards, her fingers were slicked with blood and water and mucus.

‘Should mabbe see a doctor.’ Holding his head at an angle, Mumford bent and picked up a cardboard box. Books were scattered all around, oil soaking into the pages, the turquoise baseball cap crushed flat. ‘Shouldn’t’ve let you come, Mrs Watkins. Should’ve realized.’

‘What about you, for God’s sake?’ Merrily could see the flush on his neck, a glaze of blood where the chain had bitten.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Oh sure – that’s why your voice is like a penny whistle someone’s trodden on.’

She tried for a laugh, but she was still too shaken, the scene replaying itself from when she’d thrown herself at the fat kid, trying to get a grip on his gelled hair – at the same time aware of the kid in the yellow fleece pulling the computer, by its cord, towards the edge of the bench. She remembered seeing Mumford turning into the chain, his hand crabbed across the face of the fat boy, thrusting him away. Merrily feeling grateful that he’d found the strength… until, at the same time as the computer hit the concrete, the boy’s elbow had pistoned back into her face.

Sitting on the floor, semi-stunned, she’d heard one of the younger kids crying out, ‘Car coming!’ and been aware of Jason Mebus lurching away, eyes flashing hate at Mumford, blood from his mouth forming twin channels either side of the stud in his chin.

In the next memory-frame, there was just her and Mumford amid the wreckage.

He stood over the computer for a moment before lifting it back on the bench where it sat lopsided, looking like a badly fractured skull.

‘Andy, we have to tell the police.’

He laughed.

‘Andy, come on… Blood on the wall? You half-garrotted? God knows what I look like. We’re supposed to just walk away?’

Mumford sighed. ‘Mrs Watkins, you know how these things work. They appear in court in their school uniforms, hair all neatly brushed. Look real scared and helpless. One’s got a missing front tooth. They got Mr Ryan Nye representing them, on legal aid, making references to my mental state following the death of my nephew – who these boys will deny they ever met – and then my mother. I need to paint you a picture?’

‘Suppose I phone Bliss at home?’

His expression was enough to shut her up. He put out a hand and tipped the computer lightly. Something inside it collapsed.

‘Got what they wanted, then.’

She remembered Jason Mebus, on his way out, putting in two vicious, hacking kicks, splintering the back of the computer.

‘Probably won’t fetch much at the car boot sale now, Andy.’

‘No.’

‘What are you going to tell your sister?’

Mumford bent down, picked up Robbie’s baseball cap. ‘Not a thing.’

‘Sorry?’ Merrily had found a tissue in her coat pocket; she brought it cautiously to her face, winced, looked up at him through one eye. ‘Is there something here I’m not understanding?’

‘I was thinking at first it was the boy told the others we were yere,’ Mumford said. ‘But then I’m thinking, wouldn’t Ange stay with us? Wouldn’t you stay with somebody wanted to mess with your dead boy’s stuff? Make sure they didn’t find anything you didn’t want found?’

‘What are you saying?’ She had a full view of his throat now, red and purple and swollen and lacerated. At least his wife was a nurse.

‘Funny Ange en’t come back, ennit?’ he said. ‘Funny we en’t seen nothing at all of her feller, Mathiesson.’

‘You think they put those kids…?’

‘Could be they all had reasons for making sure we never got to see what was on that computer. The kids too.’ Mumford’s eyes were pale and hard. ‘Tells us why Robbie was afraid to come back from his gran’s, mabbe?’

We was his best mates, dad. We had some laughs with Robbie.

‘As someone trained always to see the best in people, I confess to having a problem with those kids,’ Merrily admitted.

‘Let’s not dress this up, Mrs Watkins,’ Mumford said. ‘They killed him. As good as.’

And she was in no position to dismiss it. When they left, stepping under the door into the dark and the damp, she noticed Mumford stuffing the crushed turquoise baseball cap into his jacket pocket. Then he picked up the computer.

‘Long shot,’ he said. ‘But it’s possible the hard disk might not be totally destroyed.’

Jane woke up so suddenly that Merrily had to hold on to the chair to stop it tipping over.

‘Sorry…’ She held on to the kid’s shoulders. ‘I didn’t realize you were—’

The scullery was lit only by the computer. Merrily felt she’d had about enough of computers for one night. She had to have a bath. She felt exhausted and aching and soiled and useless.

‘Why haven’t you gone to bed?’

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘How long have you—?’ She saw what was on the screen. ‘You fell asleep online?’

‘Oh shit… listen, it’s been twenty minutes max. Anyway, it doesn’t cost much at night.’

‘Forget it, it’s my fault.’ Merrily switched on the anglepoise lamp and turned off the computer. ‘I should’ve rung – except I thought if you’d gone to bed— Don’t look at me like that. Things were… difficult. I realize it’s unlikely I’m looking my best.’

‘Shit…’ Jane breathed.

‘Jane—’

‘Things really were bloody difficult, weren’t they?’

‘I’m OK. I’ll tell you about it in the morning. In confidence.’

‘So, like, did Mumford do that?’

‘Huh?’

‘Was it Mumford gave you the black eye?’

‘What?’

Merrily stumbled out of the study, through the kitchen to the mirror in the hall, slapping lights on. From the framed print, Holman-Hunt’s Jesus Christ regarded her with sorrow and pity and eternal understanding.

‘Oh shit,’ Merrily said.

When she came back to the study, holding a cold sponge to her eye, the computer was back on and Jane was in front of it. Didn’t even turn round to reinspect the injury.

‘Mum… take a look at this.’

‘You know what time it is?’

‘Yeah, yeah. Listen… The suicide chat-rooms, OK? I got into this one, and it seemed to be just, like, crap. There was this guy in Nevada, and— Anyway, I logged on under a false name—’

‘Sadgirl?’ Merrily leaned over the desk. ‘That’s you?’

‘And Belladonna was there. Or least her music was, but Lol said somebody might have just ripped that off. And there was a song she covered, a famous suicide song, where lots of people connected with it topped themselves. It was Hungarian originally, composed in 1933.’

Merrily dabbed at the eye, wishing now that she hadn’t brought Jane into this. ‘Sounds a bit tenuous.’

‘Except Belladonna’s boyfriend also committed suicide, just like the original composer, by – get this – jumping off a high building?’

‘Well, that’s… it’s tragic and everything, but it’s not exactly an uncommon method.’

‘Yeah, well, I was trying to find a stronger connection. I dropped in the name Belladonna and got a nasty reply from this bastard, Karone, which is what he seems to specialize in, and then – this must’ve come in while I was asleep, right?’

‘OK, let me see…’

Merrily eased Jane away from the screen. Sneery message from someone called Karone the Boatman, and then someone called Dolores had written,

Sadgirl, you have to understand Karone is a technical adviser and inclined to be abrupt. i think what he’s saying is you need to go back and think things out. this is the biggest thing you have ever done or will ever do. i myself know, because of my condition, that i’m going to have to do this thing sometime, and all that is important to me is that when the time comes i do it efficiently and quickly and without leaving an unsightly mess for my folks to clear up. you sound like your problems are emotional and i beg you to go away and think again because it will surely pass.

‘Sorry, that’s not the one.’ Jane scrolled down. ‘I feel really bad about Dolores. She’s obviously got something really horrible wrong with her.’ She put a forefinger on the screen. ‘This one.’

REVENANT

Sadgirl, Belladonna understands.

Death is eternal life without pain.

Know that we must make our own eternity.

20 Old Ludlow

‘CANON CALLAGHAN-CLARKE is looking for you,’ Sophie said, without glancing up. ‘She’s rung here twice already. Claiming your answering machine isn’t switched on.’

‘Can’t believe how inefficient I am sometimes.’

Merrily dumped her bag on the desk, pulled out the chair opposite Sophie, who was addressing an envelope by hand with a fountain pen. Glasses on the tip of her nose, Sophie put the envelope in a tray, for the ink to dry, and started on another.

They’d talked on the phone soon after nine, when Jane, clear-eyed and superficially undamaged by minimal sleep, had carried off a slice of toast and marmalade to the bus stop. Merrily had told Jane a certain amount, not everything, about last night. She’d told Sophie – because there were probably confessionals less secure than this office – the whole situation. More or less.

‘Oh yes,’ Sophie said. ‘On the filing cabinet – this morning’s Daily Mail.’

‘Oh.’

The paper was folded at page five and a fuzzy picture of Jemima Pegler at a party, collapsed in laughter, with two other girls holding her up. The circumstances of her death had come to light too late for yesterday’s morning papers to indulge in more than straight reporting.

What a difference a day made: on the other side of the page from Jemima was a line drawing of a woman in a medieval robe and headdress.

A leap across time… Eight centuries separated them. But now Jemima Pegler and Marion de la Bruyère are united in tragic death.

Obvious the media would discover Marion. And nobody waited for an inquest any more; the police line ‘no suspicious circumstances’ was a strong enough pointer to suicide. The story said Jemima’s death had the hallmarks of a copycat suicide, but who was she copying – Robbie Walsh or the death-plunge of the twelfth-century woman whose ghost was said to haunt the castle?

The story is certainly well known in Ludlow, according to Jonathan Scole, who runs Ghostours, which organizes lectures and guided walks around the town’s haunted buildings.

‘Our tours are getting increasingly popular, and this poor kid may well have come to one. We do occasionally get groups of teenage girls.

‘Marion is a very romantic figure, and one of the highlights of the tour is gathering under the castle wall at the precise spot where she fell.

‘It’s intended to be pure entertainment, and I’m afraid I do tend to ham it up a bit.

‘Naturally, it horrifies me that the story could have had this kind of impact on someone, but I doubt it did. If we’d had a multi-storey car park, it’s quite possible she would have jumped off that.

‘I think if someone’s determined to die, they’re going to do it somehow, aren’t they?’

But an experienced psychiatrist who is studying the Ludlow deaths, said that a second fatal fall at the castle was disturbing because it indicated the formation of a behavioural pattern.

‘Saltash.’

‘He does seem to be cornering the market in what one might call soundbite psychology,’ Sophie said.

‘He might be right, actually – the teenage pack-mentality, the need to feel that, even in death, you’re not alone. Anyway, someone has to be around to do the psychobabble.’

‘How far have you read?’ Sophie murmured.

‘What?’

and teenage girls are particularly susceptible to the fantasy world of ghosts and the supernatural as an escape from the ordered world of school and the prospect of exams,’ said Dr Saltash, who is also a special adviser on mental health to the Diocese of Hereford, which includes Ludlow.

‘Special adviser on mental—?’ Merrily let the paper drop to the desk.

‘You notice he doesn’t neglect an opportunity to file psychic phenomena under the general heading of fantasy,’ Sophie said, ‘thus detaching it from the Church’s official area of belief.’

‘This isn’t going to stop, is it?’

Merrily slumped down next to the window. It wasn’t warm out there, but there was enough early-afternoon sunshine for a few people on Broad Street to be wearing dark glasses. She took hers off just as the phone rang and Sophie looked up.

‘Ah.’ Sophie’s hand froze over the receiver. ‘I thought there might be some minor aspect of last night that you hadn’t mentioned.’

‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Merrily tilted her head to the window. The sunlight hurt. ‘Purplish last night, now a delicate bottle green.’

‘What are you putting on it?’ Sophie picked up the phone.

‘Just the glasses.’

‘Gatehouse.’ Sophie tucked the phone between shoulder and chin, just above the pearls, leafing through her letters. ‘Yes, Bishop, I’m doing them now, they’ll be in the lunchtime post… Certainly… Well, yes, she’s here now as a matter of fact… I will.’ Sophie put down the phone. ‘He’s coming over later. He wants to talk to you.’

Merrily had started to roll up the Daily Mail into a stiff, tight tube. She stopped, sensing the change, and saw that Sophie’s face had hardened and darkened in a way that… just didn’t happen.

‘God almighty, Merrily! What the hell are you getting into?’

‘It was— OK, it wasn’t exactly an accident, but it—’

‘You do know that’s what’s known as assault causing actual bodily harm? What did they do to Mumford?’

‘Some…’ Merrily let the paper unroll, shaking her head helplessly. ‘Some damage. Nothing serious. We hope.’

Before leaving home, she’d talked on the phone to Mumford’s wife, Gail, who’d sounded cold and guarded, saying Mumford could hardly turn his head this morning. Hardly the first time he’d brought injuries home, but that was supposed to be all over now, wasn’t it?

Sophie wasn’t letting it go, either.

‘Did he even think about what might happen to you last night, when he took on these savages?’

‘I don’t suppose he did.’ Merrily reached for her bag; a woman with a painful black eye was allowed a cigarette. ‘With hindsight, I think he was quite happy when they invaded the garage. He was on home ground. Recognized one.’

‘Can we at least assume this will bring him to his senses?’

‘Sophie, we both know it’s going to make him worse.’

Blokes like Mumford – the bag-carriers, the local-knowledge men, the stoical, taciturn, imperturbable, down-beat, low-key, salt-of-the-earth types – when those guys started to come apart, it was like landmines: you were never sure where the next one was going to explode.

‘We now have – or we had last night, it’s destroyed now – evidence that Robbie Walsh was scared to go home to Plascarreg. We have it from his e-mail correspondence. Also his letters to… We also know he fantasized about Marion de la Bruyère. Saw her as some kind of a confidante and wrote to her.’

The postcard she’d seen, next to Robbie’s sketches, was now making perfect, heartbreaking sense.

Sometimes I pretend you are walking next to me and we are holding hands and it’s brilliant!!!! Everything is all right again, and I never want to leave cos this is our place… I was so miserable I didn’t think I could stand it till the end of term. Its worse than ever there. I hate them, they are stupid and ignorant and they are trying to wreck my whole life. The nearer it gets to the end of the holidays the sadder I feel and don’t want to go back.

‘If there’s anything that makes me feel a very unchristian hatred, it’s bullying. From cruelty to animals to…’ Merrily drew in too much smoke, suppressed a cough as colliding clouds sucked a sunbeam from the desk between her and Sophie. ‘We even know who some of them are, now. They as good as admitted it. But bullying’s not quite a crime, and neither’s suicide any more. Three people dead, and none of them crimes. Doesn’t make them any less dead.’

‘This woman,’ Sophie said. ‘Mrs Pepper…’

‘I don’t know what to think about that any more, Soph. She’s a woman who makes mournful music, evidently chosen as a suicide soundtrack by people who run unsavoury websites and chat-rooms. There’s undoubtedly a cult – or cults – of suicide operating on the Internet. If she is into all that and she talked to Robbie Walsh – as we know she did – and he was suicidal, is it remotely conceivable that she would actually have encouraged him to jump off that tower? I mean, I hate bullying, but I can understand the spiritual vacuum it comes out of. But this…’

‘There are Internet sites that are actually urging people to take their own lives?’

‘That’s the implication, according to Jane. And chat-rooms. Bit like the Samaritans in reverse, isn’t it?’

Sophie’s expression didn’t alter. Sophie was a Samaritan.

‘Merrily, if you think this woman might be connected with one of these organizations, it’s surely our duty to expose it.’

‘In what capacity? It’s not a Deliverance issue, is it?’

‘Isn’t the woman fascinated by ghosts?’

‘That isn’t, in itself, a Deliverance issue, either. Anyway, if I follow agreed procedure and consult the Deliverance Panel, are they going to let me get within ten miles of Mrs Pepper? Mumford’s already been warned off by Annie Howe, with whom Siân Callaghan-Clarke says she “gets on well”. Probably attend the same kick-boxing classes.’

‘This is a mess, Merrily.’ Sophie folded her reading glasses, snapped them in their case. ‘Everything seems to be a mess at the moment.’

The Bishop arrived before lunch. He looked pensive. He sat on the edge of Sophie’s desk, picked up a pen and kept tapping its top into the palm of his left hand.

‘George Lackland, Merrily. You haven’t met him, have you?’

‘Mayor of Ludlow.’ She had her sunglasses back on. ‘Vice-chairman of the Police Committee.’

‘That’s the one.’ He unbuttoned his jacket, and his purple shirt strained over his stomach. ‘Long-standing county councillor, magistrate. George is… the epitome of Old Ludlow.’

‘And your old friend.’

‘Yes. An honourable man. Conservative in every conceivable sense of the word, of course. Retails traditional furniture, as distinct from so-called antiques.’

‘He sounds… very influential,’ Merrily said.

The Bishop looked pained. ‘I realize that, to you, attaining power and influence means being as bent as… as…’

‘A crozier?’

‘Thank you, Merrily, I’m all too conscious of the opportunities for personal gain afforded to an unscrupulous bishop. But some of us do our best, and so does George Lackland.’

‘Sorry, Bernie.’

‘Anyway, he’s been in touch. Called me last night, and we spoke again this morning. As you can imagine, George is very concerned – as are many people in the town – about these deaths at the castle. Everything that happens in Ludlow, he takes personally, always has. It’s that kind of town – people feel privileged to belong to it.’

‘Mmm.’

‘That part of the castle – the Hanging Tower – has now been closed to the public, for obvious reasons. But already, sightseers have been turning up on the other side of the wall – where this girl fell. Can’t do anything about that: it’s a public right of way.’

‘What sort of people?’

‘Young people, mainly. A group of them were observed last night. They’d gathered with candles. Singing and chanting. There’s an old yew tree. They were clustered around it. Near where she fell.’

‘Jemima.’

‘And, ah, the other one.’

‘Robbie?’

‘Marion,’ the Bishop said.

‘Why would they gather there, Bernie?’

‘Would you expect a coherent reason? Everything seems to become a shrine these days.’

‘Well, perhaps if they knew the full facts, they’d find it less romantic.’

There’d been nothing in the Mail or anywhere else, presumably, about the heroin overdose.

‘They’ll draw their own conclusions, anyway. As some people in the town are now doing.’ The pen was going tap-tap on the Bishop’s palm again: agitation. ‘You see, George Lackland’s always been a man of the Church. Senior churchwarden until his civic duties became too onerous. Seen by many of the older residents as something of a figurehead, and not only in a temporal sense, especially with David Cook still in convalescence. So George has… been approached.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t look at me like that, it’s how things are done there. People worried about the town’s reputation have made… approaches.’

‘Tourist association?’

‘Well, yes, but also church people. All kinds, not just us. The RC church, various Nonconformist chapels. Individuals who fear for the spiritual health of the community. People who might feel happier talking to the Mayor than to each other.’

‘And what are they saying?’

‘ “Hinting” would be a safer word. No more than whispers. Undercurrents.’

‘Mmm?’

‘You’re not getting me to say it, Merrily.’

‘Some people are suggesting that the recent spate of tragedy is somehow rooted in… whatever happened on the same site over eight hundred years ago?’

‘Ah…’ The Bishop cleared his throat, uncomfortable. ‘I don’t imagine anyone’s expressed it with that degree of… exactitude. Rumours trickle through the streets about a place becoming unlucky, and they gather momentum. Even when I was there, you’d get people saying the town was becoming ungodly, selling out to Mammon – new restaurants, rich incomers.’

‘How does that relate to two teenagers and an elderly woman?’

‘Well, it… That is, George says some people were suggesting the Walsh boy had become a little too obsessed with the past. Aspects of the past, that is, that should be left to, ah…’

‘Has he seen the papers this morning?’

‘For once, it seems, the papers are only echoing what’s already been whispered. It’ll die down in the press, probably before the week’s out. The media always treat these stories as a joke. Not in the town, however. Things will be blamed on it that have no connection whatsoever.’

‘So what’s the Mayor want?’

‘A meeting. He’s asked me to go and see him. Tonight. I’ve told him I’d like to bring someone with me who knows more about the elements being, ah, hinted at. Are you free tonight, Merrily?’

‘I could be.’

‘Good. Excellent.’

‘Right, then,’ Merrily said. ‘So, do you want me, or Sophie, to inform the Deliverance Panel?’

The Bishop looked blank.

‘Procedure,’ Merrily said. ‘All possible cases must be referred to the panel for assessment before any action is taken.’

‘Who decided that?’

‘The panel.’

‘Well, I think’ – the Bishop stopped tapping and closed his hand around the pen – ‘that we ought to regard this as a preliminary and essentially informal discussion. Don’t you?’

‘If that’s what you think, Bishop.’

‘Oh yes. I do.’ He placed the pen carefully on the desk. ‘I… your eyes, Merrily. Is there something wrong with your eyes, or are you trying to look sinister?’

21 Tradition

THE MAYOR CLOSED his heavy front door, and they stepped into a hall that was cream-panelled and bright with shards of crystal light from an electric chandelier. Through Merrily’s new glasses it glowed amber and pink, like a rose garden at sunset.

‘This is the Reverend Mrs Merrily Watkins,’ the Bishop said. ‘Merrily is my, ah, Deliverance Consultant.’

‘Oh yes?’ The Mayor shook hands stiffly. He wore a mid-brown three-piece suit, with a watch chain, and you didn’t come across many of those any more. ‘I see.’

He obviously didn’t see at all. You could be close to the church your whole life without being aware of what went on in the crypt. Bernie Dunmore didn’t explain; Merrily felt he was still faintly embarrassed, even in Ludlow, about perpetuating a tradition as medieval as hers.

‘Come on through, Bernard,’ the Mayor said. ‘Let’s sit down in the drawing room and hope to discuss all this in a civilized manner.’

George Lackland’s home was above and behind Lackland Modern Furnishings, midway down Corve Street. The Corve was the more modest of Ludlow’s two rivers, and this ancient street sloped steeply down from the town centre to meet it. The shops here didn’t look like shops at night; most were fabricated inside historic buildings, and the owners hadn’t been allowed to enlarge windows or put up new signs. Much of Corve Street was frozen in various eras, all of them pre-neon.

Even the Mayor looked like part of the façade. His forehead jutted like a mantelpiece over the deep-set embers of his eyes. He looked more like a bishop than the Bishop.

‘Nancy sends her apologies, Bernard. Meeting of the festival committee. Some very big names coming to town this year.’

‘You mean the few who don’t live here already?’ Bernie said. He was still in his episcopal purple shirt. He’d told Merrily that George would expect this.

She followed the Mayor down the hall to his drawing room, unbuttoning her black cardigan so that the dog collar was fully on view. She wasn’t insecure about the women’s priesthood any more, but he might be.

‘This is nice,’ she said.

Well, it probably had been, once. The room was lodged in the era when cream leather three-piece suites were cool, and carpets were always fully fitted because bare floorboards were a sign of penury. There was a high ceiling, with mouldings and another crystal chandelier. French windows revealed a moon-bathed sunken garden, and that really was nice.

‘Yes, we’re fortunate – if that’s the word – to have quite a number of famous folk living here now.’ George’s voice had an Old Ludlow roll, Shropshire easing into Hereford. ‘We seem to have become a bit of a refuge from London – actors, television personalities, political people…’

‘Singers?’ Merrily said.

‘Aye, singers too.’

The Mayor put on a cautious smile, showing Merrily to a chair near the hearth, where a log-effect gas fire fanned out tame flames. He opened a drinks cabinet, glancing towards the French window – perhaps, by daylight, you’d be able to see the castle ruins from here. Then he looked back, with uncertainty, at Merrily.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Watkins… what exactly was it that you said you did? I don’t fully…’

‘Perhaps…’ Bernie coughed. Sweat had pooled in the centre of his expanding male-pattern tonsure. ‘Perhaps I ought to explain, George, that Deliverance Consultant is the modern term for what we used to call Diocesan Exorcist.’

A silent moment, flames flickering emptily among the artificial logs. Conscious of what the Bishop had said about her looking sinister, Merrily had dived into Chave and Jackson on Broad Street and picked up this pair of less-dark glasses that might even be taken as ordinary tinted spectacles. On the outside, the glasses looked light brown, but they turned these flames bright red, like a miniature synthesis of hell.

‘Merrily’s our adviser on the paranormal.’ Bernie sank into the leather sofa. ‘That is, the person who advises people who believe they’re having problems with… what we loosely refer to, George, as the unquiet dead.’

There. He’d said it. His hands came together in his lap as the cushions broke wind with a soft hiss.

‘This young woman?’ George said. ‘Oh dear.’

And then he changed the subject and went to get them drinks.

Merrily saw, against a far wall, an elderly radiogram: polished mahogany case with gilded fabric over the speakers. She could imagine the records: nothing later than Elvis.

She sipped her tonic water. ‘Mr Mayor, is there any history of… disturbance, unrest… around the Hanging Tower?’

It had taken half an hour to get to this point, via the new restaurants (a good thing in general, better than nightclubs) the new Tesco’s (there was demand for it, and it could have been worse, long as it didn’t put the traditional butchers out of business) and the new people.

The new people? Well, they had money, which they spent in the new shops. Buying the sort of old rubbish that George and Nancy, not so long ago, used to throw out. But at least the new people appreciated the town. Sometimes too much.

‘Disturbance?’ the Mayor said. ‘You mean these young people dancing around?’

‘No.’ Merrily looked at the Bishop. ‘I mean paranormal phenomena.’

‘Of what… nature?’

The Bishop avoided her gaze and said quickly, ‘Merrily knows about the breathing, the gasping sounds. Alleged.’

Alleged, huh? When I realized I was actually cringing into the stones, like a cornered animal, I… threw out a prayer, like a sort of yelp.

George Lackland came to sit down opposite Merrily, a leather-topped coffee table between them, with a hard-backed loose-leaf file on it.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘there’s always been stories. You expect it, don’t you, in an old place? Different stories all over the town. Catherine of Aragon’s been seen, some say. There’s an old woman who walks through the churchyard – that’s a regular one. But Marion, aye, she’s probably the oldest. The breathing, like someone in a deep sleep, quite a few folk reckon they heard that. Nobody’s said they seen her lately, mind – not in years.’

‘People used to?’ Merrily said.

The Bishop’s chin was sunk into his chest.

‘The White Lady,’ the Mayor said. ‘Marion of the Heath. Walked the ruins. And the path around the walls. And people who used to live in the flats at Castle House used to talk about strange noises and… what do you call it when things misbehave?’

‘Poltergeist phenomena?’

‘Aye. But, like I say, nothing about that lately. Although somebody did blabber on about strange lights round the old yew tree, year or two back.’

‘What kind of lights?’

‘Hovering lights.’ The Mayor made a ball shape between his hands. ‘Orbs of lights.’

Routine stuff. Low-key energy-fluctuation.

The Mayor’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you looking for, exactly?’

‘I’m not looking for anything that isn’t there… at some level,’ Merrily said. ‘It’s just that what you’ve told me doesn’t sound as if it’s particularly bothering anyone.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You see, we don’t consider it our function to investigate all inexplicable phenomena just because they’re there. We like to think that we’re here to try and help people who are frightened or upset by what’s happening to them.’

‘Well…’ George Lackland leaned towards her. ‘Top and bottom of it is, if you don’t mind me saying so, Mrs Watkins, that a great many people have been very gravely upset by these deaths. Folks remember Mrs Mumford in the shop, and they were fond of that boy, too. Walked into my shop one day, asked if he could look at the old fireplace in the back, and the cellar. Very polite, very knowledgeable. All the little tearaways as breaks your windows and writes on your walls, and the one who falls to his death has to be the decent one.’

‘He didn’t fall from the Hanging Tower, though.’

‘He was the start of it. The start of something.’ The Mayor looked into her eyes; maybe he could see the discoloration through the glasses. ‘See, I truly love this old town, Mrs Watkins. We’re not from here; my family’s roots are in East Anglia, but we’ve been here nigh on two centuries – wool merchants originally.’

‘That sounds… pretty local to me, Mr Mayor.’

‘We’re settled, but we don’t feel we own it. Been selling furniture here for over seventy years – real furniture, hardwood, none of your stripped-pine rubbish. We believe in solidness and quality – what this town always stood for. Solidness. We can be relaxed about the side-effects of the tourism and the new people – because we’ve got a solid heart. And the Church… the Church has always played an essential role here, and still does.’

George turned away, staring fiercely into the gas flames.

‘What about the owners of the castle?’ Bernie said. ‘What do they have to say about all this?’ He turned to Merrily. ‘The Earls of Powis, the Herberts, have owned the castle for many generations. Edward Herbert was MP for Ludlow in the early nineteenth century, prior to inheriting the earldom.’

‘Bit of a silence so far,’ the Mayor said. ‘Apart from taking the obvious steps to ensure it don’t happen again – plans to get that window barred, that kind of measure. It’s a question of what other steps might be taken. On what you’d call a spiritual basis.’

‘We’d have to go carefully, George.’ Bernie took a hurried sip from his brandy balloon.

‘Let me put it to you directly,’ Merrily said. ‘Do you personally really believe that the two deaths at the castle are in some way connected with a paranormal presence dating back to the twelfth century?’

George Lackland grimaced at the stupidity of the question.

‘Top and bottom of it is, it don’t matter what I believe, Mrs Watkins. I’m the Mayor. My role is to go along with the will of the people. And among the older residents there’s a strong sense that something’s very wrong. Very bad.’

‘Is there a history of suicide here?’

‘Well, obviously—’

‘I mean in the rather lengthy period between the twelfth century and a few weeks ago.’

The Mayor didn’t reply. Bernie Dunmore shot a warning look at Merrily, to which she didn’t respond.

‘I mean, what actually happened, do you think, to make two teenagers take—’ She bit off the sentence: no suggestion of suicide in Robbie’s case, although after last night… ‘Lose their lives in a place that had been the scene of just one suicide, over eight hundred years ago?’

George Lackland looked at the Bishop. ‘Am I supposed to be able to answer that?’

‘George, I think what Merrily’s saying is that we have levels of response. Perhaps in the old days, the – let’s get the word into the open – the rite of exorcism was enacted without many preliminaries. Today, with the, ah, levels of bureaucracy within the Church…’

‘Is this lady going to help us, Bernard, or not?’

‘Of course she is,’ the Bishop said.

Help us? Merrily had the sense of being woven into someone’s fabric. It was time to tease out George Lackland’s agenda. This was the man to whom the traders and tourist operators had gone when Mumford had started questioning them about Belladonna. This was the man who, as vice-chairman of the police committee, had leaned on the head of Shrewsbury CID, who in turn had contacted Annie Howe to get Mumford warned off.

Right. She took a sip of tonic. ‘Erm… the strange people gathering around this yew tree below the Hanging Tower. With their candles, and their chanting. Who are they, Mr Mayor, do you know?’

‘Not local.’ As if this was all that needed to be said about them.

‘What did they look like?’

‘Oh… stupid. Horror-film clothes. You know the kind of thing.’

‘What I heard,’ Merrily said, ‘was that there’d been quite a few of them around the town recently. Possibly before the deaths.’

The Mayor spread his hands. ‘It’s possible. We get all sorts comes and goes.’

‘And there was a bit of a fight with some local boys.’

‘More of that than there used to be, regrettably – street violence. Too much drink about.’

‘And someone got stabbed?’

‘First I’ve heard of that, Mrs Watkins.’

But she’d seen the twitch of a nerve at the corner of an eye.

‘Perhaps people like this were… attracted here by the ghost stories?’

‘I wouldn’t know about that.’ He smiled apologetically and shook his bony head. ‘To be honest, I feel a little bit daft sitting here in this day and age talking about ghosties and ghoulies and things that goes bump.’

‘Oh, I get used to it,’ Merrily said. ‘But the thing is, before we can organize any kind of remedial action, we have to eliminate all the possible rational explanations. For instance, somebody told me that these kids in fancy dress are probably just fans of… one of your rich settlers? A singer?’

George Lackland said nothing. Nothing twitched this time, but she was sure that she saw a quick glitter of anguish in the hollows of his eyes, and he planted levering hands on his thighs as if his instinct was to walk out.

‘Can’t remember her name… used to sing these mournful songs all about death and… and things like that.’ Merrily smiled ruefully at George. ‘Not your cup of tea, really, I suppose.’

The flame-effect gas fire gasped, the Bishop’s brandy glass chinked on an arm of the sofa as he sat up, and she felt his curiosity uncurling in the air.

‘No,’ the Mayor said at last. ‘Not my cup of tea at all.’

He came to his feet, screwing his eyes shut for a moment and swaying slightly, rubbing a hand wearily over the back of his neck.

‘Ah, that’s the trouble with public life,’ he said. ‘Always some malcontent ready to shoot his mouth off.’

‘Something here you should be telling us, George?’ the Bishop said.

22 Stepmother

THE BISHOP’S GAZE swivelled back to Merrily, and in it was incomprehension… and suspicion.

Well, she could understand it. The hour-long journey here had been filled with an explanation of her bruised eye and everything that had led up to it: Jemmie’s sordid e-mails, Mumford and Robbie’s computer and the history books and Jason Mebus. Not reaching the Departure Lounge until they were leaving the bypass at the Sheet Lane entrance into town, with the moist blue night dropping over Ludlow like the lid on a jewel box.

And so not quite getting around to Belladonna.

‘I’ve got nothing to hide about this,’ George Lackland said. ‘Nobody could possibly expect me to like the woman.’

He was standing up now, behind his cream leather chair, both hands gripping its wings. One of the bulbs in the chandelier had blown and was hanging there like a bad tooth, making the room seem just slightly tawdry.

‘When the boy came home with this girl, Susannah, she was everything you’d want for your son – respectable, steady, nicely spoken. And a solicitor, too, of course. Always useful to have a solicitor in the family, especially with a firm like Smith, Sebald and Partners.’

Merrily glanced at Bernie, both eyebrows raised to convey that she had no idea what the hell the Mayor was talking about.

‘Sorry, George,’ Bernie said, ‘I’m a bit out of touch – which boy is this, Douglas, or, ah…?’

‘Stephen, the younger one. The one who went to university. Like Nancy said, when you think of the girls he might have brought home from that place…’

‘He’s, ah, engaged, is he?’

‘To this girl from Smith, Sebald, as I say. Very well established firm, as you know – offices in Ludlow, Bridgenorth and Church Stretton. She’ll be a partner one day, Bernard, no question of that.’

‘I’m sorry, George – who exactly are we talking about?’

‘Susannah,’ the Mayor said. ‘Susannah Pepper.’

‘Ah,’ Merrily said.

Of course.

Bloody hell.

‘Your… future daughter-in-law… her father would be a record producer called Saul Pepper?’

The Mayor looked at her with keen interest. ‘That’s quite correct, Mrs Watkins. But how could you—?’

‘I have a friend in the music business. I gather Saul Pepper lives and works in America now, since the break-up of his marriage to… Mrs Pepper.’ She turned to Bernie. ‘Who lives in the renovated farmhouse at the bottom of The Linney – and was seen in the castle with…?’

The Mayor’s hands tightened on the chair wings, and then he turned away. Merrily could tell that getting the story out of him was going to be like dredging a pond – a lot of discoloured water and sludge, and the bottom never quite exposed.

But enough had now been clarified – particularly the warning-off of Andy Mumford – to make the exercise well worthwhile, no matter how long it took.

‘They were engaged before you met her mother, then,’ Merrily said.

George spun round. ‘Stepmother!’

‘Of course.’

‘But yes, you put your finger on it there all right, Mrs Watkins, we had not met her before the engagement.’

‘George, do excuse me,’ Bernie said, ‘but my own knowledge of the, ah, the stepmother is somewhat scant.’

‘Aye, and if my knowledge was as scant as yours, Bernard,’ George said, ‘I’d count myself a happy man.’

Of course, when Susannah Pepper had told them her stepmother was coming to stay, George hadn’t known who this woman was, let alone why she was considered notorious. He knew that Sue’s mother had been deserted by her father for the woman, whom he’d proceeded to marry. It hadn’t lasted, however, and he’d moved to America, starting a new family over there.

Well out of it, as George now realized, although the divorce had been amicable.

‘She has… considerable assets, Bernard. Could probably buy my business twice over. Susannah’s her solicitor and financial adviser. And nursemaid, now. And, by God, she needs one. Day and night. Particularly at night.’

Merrily said nothing. Let this come out in its own way.

‘Whenever they needed to discuss her financial affairs, Susannah used to travel to her stepmother’s home,’ the Mayor said, ‘wherever it happened to be at the time. She moved around a lot, London one year, Paris or Rome the next. And then… she came to Ludlow.’

Well, that first visit of the stepmother… George didn’t think much of it. Not an event he was ever going to keep gilt-framed in the formal gallery of his memory. And nothing particularly amiss at first. They weren’t contemporaries, George and Bell, not by ten or more years, yet for that first meeting she’d been dressed decently and conservatively, if a little eccentrically, in an Edwardian-type summer dress, her blonde hair neatly styled, Nancy had noted. Quite girlish, rather attractive.

And clearly besotted with the town, from the start.

George should have spotted the danger signs: the woman tripping and gliding around the Buttercross, this delighted smile on her face, upturned to the sun. And then breaking into almost a dance. He was quite gratified, at first, in his proprietorial way. Not having any idea then that she was already planning to stay…

… For good.

George looked at the Bishop. ‘Do you know that she tried to get one of the flats at Castle House?’

‘Was she eligible?’ Bernie turned to Merrily. ‘We mentioned this earlier – there was a large house built onto the outer walls in, I think, the nineteenth century. Later turned into council flats, would you believe? Not quite sure what the situation is at present.’

‘There was a couple living there, halfway through a forty-five-year lease,’ George said, ‘and she tried to take it over. She was besotted with the idea of living inside the castle. I think she thought if she could get that apartment she’d soon have the whole house – maybe feel like she owned the castle, who can say?’

‘What happened, George?’

‘Oh, the Powis estate managed to stop it. They have other plans for Castle House. But she has money, my God, she has. The people she tried to bribe! Fortunately, the Earl of Powis is a man of strong Christian principles and I reckon he saw the danger. Eventually, she settled on The Weir House – so called. I don’t know what she gave for it, but the people who rebuilt it seemed to have been well satisfied. As for Bell— Hold on a minute, would you?’

George went over to a long mahogany sideboard, opened a drawer, took out a slim box file, brought it back and emptied out the contents in front of Merrily, as if he was putting all his cards on the table.

‘This is one from the South Shropshire Journal.’

He spread out a photocopy of a press cutting.

Ludlow is my heaven,

says rock diva Bell.

In the colour photo, Belladonna sat on the steps of the Buttercross in a filmy cream dress, arms folded. She looked graceful and calm and strangely demure.

‘She’ll only ever speak to the local papers,’ George said. ‘Reckons this town’s her whole world now, and nothing outside it matters. Oh, they all had a go, when she first moved here – national papers, television. None of them got close.’

‘Don’t suppose they tried too hard,’ Merrily said. ‘She isn’t as famous as she used to be.’

‘If they all knew what I knew, Mrs Watkins,’ George said, ‘she’d be in every paper there is. That’s the top and bottom of it.’

‘And are you ever going to tell us, George?’ The Bishop sat cradling his brandy balloon, with its last quarter-inch of spirit. ‘Merrily’s not exactly one of the Little Sisters of the Assumption. She’s been around, you know.’

‘Thanks very much, Bernie.’

‘George knows what I mean.’

‘What’s ironic,’ George said, ‘is that she’s become a bit of a heroine to many people here – ’specially the new folk, the well-off folk. Ever a bit of timely cash needed to conserve some historic building, she’s in there with her chequebook. Made plans, apparently, for her own trust fund, to protect the old places. And then there was the housing business. You remember the development plan for the Weircroft fields, Bernard?’

The Bishop shook his head. ‘After I left here, I imagine.’

‘Owner of a couple of rough fields not far from The Weir House – bit of a wide boy, you ask me, had the look of a gypsy – he was trying to get planning permission to put houses on them. And there was a fifty-fifty chance he’d get it, too, eventually.’

‘Down by the river?’ the Bishop said. ‘Surely not!’

‘Under the castle walls, near enough. Council opposed it, and so did all the residents nearby, naturally. But the way this government is on housing now – build more and more, ignore the green belts – chances are he’d have won on appeal, especially as he was promising more than the usual quota of low-cost homes which are hard to get in Ludlow now. Then she made him an offer for the land.’

‘Did she indeed?’

‘And a very meaningful offer it was, too, but he had to decide now. Now or never. Well, he couldn’t afford to risk it, and so she bought the ground and declared it preserved. And now none of her neighbours will have a word said against her, because, if she moves, that ground’s gonner be up for grabs again. So all the folk in that vicinity, from Upper Linney to Stanton Lacy, turns a blind eye and a deaf ear.’

‘To what, George?’

‘To a good deal more than rumour, but I’ve never been one for gossip, Bernard, you know that.’

‘Erm…’ Merrily thought that one day she might meet someone who actually admitted to relishing tittle-tattle. ‘She walks the streets, right? At night. With a candle, sometimes.’

George Lackland folded his arms and sucked in his lips.

‘Like a ghost,’ Merrily said.

George dropped his arms. ‘Like a whore.’

‘Oh, really, George,’ the Bishop said.

‘You were here long enough, Bernard. You know what’s what. The prostitutes in this town… they knows their place. And you will agree that place is not, for instance, St Leonard’s graveyard.’

‘Oh, come now—’

‘We manage to keep it all under wraps one way or another. The police – well, if she’s broken the law, it’s not much compared with what else they have to handle nowadays. Can a woman be done for indecent exposure? Minor theft?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Merrily said. ‘What—?’

‘She stole a prayer book from St Laurence’s. Maybe other things, too, but someone saw her put the prayer book in her bag and walk out. And there was more, but we couldn’t tell David Cook, with the state of his health.’

‘More of what, in particular?’

‘We didn’t exactly hold on to the evidence.’

Merrily waited. Bernie Dunmore took a precautionary sip of brandy.

‘What she left in the church’ – George spoke tightly, as if his throat was closing up – ‘back of one of the misericords. Well, you don’t keep… articles like that.’

‘Perhaps I’m somewhat naive,’ the Bishop said.

‘Corey House in Broad Street, Bernard? The decorators?’

‘Architectural Interior Designers and Restorers, I believe they call themselves now.’

‘Decorators,’ George said. ‘The son, Callum, he went to finish off a wall for her at The Weir House. Had some very peculiar requests made of him. His father’s on the town council, and he had a word with me. They’re newcomers, but they’re a decent family. Thought I should know.’

‘What were the requests?’ Merrily asked. But George shook his head in a shuddery kind of way.

‘And there’s the parties. The young people. The singing.’

‘What kind of singing?’

‘I only use that word out of politeness,’ George said. ‘Sounds like a tribe of tom-cats.’

‘You’ve heard it?’

‘Just the once. I was advised to walk down The Linney and have a listen. There was something resembling a song, but I couldn’t distinguish the words. I think it was her and some other people.’

‘Possibly the ones who gathered under the Hanging Tower after the girl’s death?’

‘Aye. The neighbours… they look the other way. Some of the local boys are less tolerant, ’specially when they come out the pubs.’

‘Was it… one of these local boys who was stabbed that time?’ Merrily asked.

George took a long breath, said nothing.

‘But nobody was charged, right? Perhaps somebody was persuaded not to make a complaint?’

‘Probably wasn’t serious,’ George said quietly.

‘As a leading member of the Police Authority,’ Merrily said, ‘I suppose it’s a bit difficult for you.’

The Mayor’s eyes flared with anger, like coals far back in an old kitchen range. Merrily came back quickly, before he could clam up again.

‘Did you know that Mrs Pepper had been seen with Robbie Walsh not long before he died?’

‘Well, of course I knew. She was seen all over the town with him – in the church, the path by the yews as leads down to the back entrance of the Bull, the old alleyways…’

‘Do you know what brought them together?’

‘No. But then, I’ve not had what you’d call lengthy conversations with her. Wisest not to.’

‘Do you have any idea at all why she does… the things she does?’

George didn’t reply. He began scratching at the back of his hand as if he’d been stung.

‘You’ve evidently been covering up for her, George,’ Bernie said. ‘For quite some time, it sounds like. For, ah, Susannah’s sake. And Stephen’s, naturally.’

The Mayor went to the French windows and pulled a cord to draw the velvet curtains. Stood with his back to the dusty pink folds, as if he was keeping something out.

‘And the good of the town, of course,’ Bernie said slyly.

‘She’s a sick woman, she’s…’ George Lackland reached up and pulled the curtains together at the top, where one had slipped off its glider, and Merrily thought she heard him say ‘evil’ but couldn’t be sure. He turned around. ‘Pressure of wondering what she’s gonner do next is getting to me a bit, have to say that. Top and bottom of it is, I wish she’d never come, and I wish she was gone.’

‘I might be slightly off course here,’ the Bishop said, ‘but it seems to me that all your problems might conceivably be part of the same one. Do you think?’

George Lackland didn’t reply.

‘And you can’t involve the council, George, and you can’t involve the police. Therefore, I suppose that’s why we’re here.’

‘Maybe I just wanted to talk to somebody who knew the town and could see the picture,’ the Mayor said. ‘Even if they thought there wasn’t anything they could do. At least they’d understand a few things.’

‘Some things are not easily understood.’

‘Likely I used the wrong word. I’m not an educated man, as you know. But there’s areas of… areas of experience where education don’t help that much.’

The curtains were swaying a little in a draught from somewhere. George Lackland watched them with a faint smile.

‘I remember a young chap thought he was up for a bit of easy money – just spend a couple of hours on his own in the Hanging Tower.’

‘Oh now, George, that was a long, long time—’

‘Never seen a man more scared, from that day to this. Comes running across the old inner bailey, stumbling and tripping – didn’t think his pals could see him, and they didn’t like to rub it in at the time.’

‘What?’

‘Didn’t want you trying to escape, Bernard, so we took a few bottles of pale ale into the old Magdalene Chapel and kept very quiet. Sobering, though, in the end. We all thought you were faking it, at first.’

Merrily smiled. The Bishop saw her and scowled.

‘Bastards.’ He finished his brandy. ‘All right, George, suppose someone was to look into it. All of it. Discreetly. Someone sympathetic but, ah… knowledgeable in all the necessary areas. And, of course… utterly reliable.’

‘Then I would be most grateful to that person,’ George Lackland said, ‘and provide what assistance I could.’

Down by the fake logs, Merrily froze.

23 Duality

THE ROAD TO Hereford was due south, more than twenty moon-washed miles. For the first three or four, neither of them said a word. Merrily’s black eye was pulsing. Her new sunglasses lay on the dash. Somewhere behind its facia, the old Volvo was ticking like a time bomb.

Eventually, the Bishop coughed.

‘Mother-in-law from hell, eh? Well… stepmother-in-law.’

Merrily glanced to her left: moonlight bathing the Bishop’s brow. At the Little Chef at Wooferton, the lights had gone out.

‘What have you done, Bernie?’

‘I think the word “evil” passed old George’s lips at one point, but I’m afraid he had his back to me at the time.’

‘And that justifies it, does it?’

‘We have nothing to justify, Merrily.’

‘Not yet.’

‘It’s all quite legitimate.’

‘So you’ll send an official memo to the Deliverance Panel first thing in the morning, saying you’re personally authorizing me to investigate a cluster of deaths and their possible connection with a woman who’s causing considerable embarrassment to the Mayor of Ludlow.’

‘We can deal with that,’ the Bishop said. ‘And surely… you want to, don’t you?’

‘I think I’d want to know why I’m doing whatever I’m supposed to be doing. I mean, let’s establish, first of all, what your long-time friend the Mayor is after. For instance, when he was close to advocating exorcism, which woman do you think he was talking about, the dead one or…?’

That duality again. It had been there from the start: Why did God let her take him? Why did God let that woman take our boy?

‘Look, I had no idea,’ the Bishop said. ‘I didn’t know there was any connection between George and this woman. Until that chap who makes calendars brought her up, I’d never even heard of her.’

‘Because bloody George is using his position to hush it all up! He’s already had Andy Mumford warned off. Plus, a guy who was stabbed in the street has probably been given a bung to keep quiet about it.’

‘You don’t know that—’

‘Ha! I mean, sure, I can see the Mayor’s problem – she’s landed like an alien being from a world he can’t even comprehend – but there’s no way I want to appear to be working on behalf of someone who works the system like good old George.’

‘Merrily, he hadn’t even mentioned Mrs Pepper. It was you who introduced the subject.’

‘You think? You know what, Bernie? I think he was talking about her all along. From the beginning. I think she’s what’s causing unrest among the older God-fearing folk of Ludlow, far more than the possible influence of a silly little girl who got taken for a ride in the twelfth century. On which basis, by the way, I’m buggered if I’m going to even consider exorcizing the Hanging—’

‘Merrily!’

‘Sorry. Didn’t get much sleep last night. Got elbowed in the eye by a psychotic teenager.’

‘How come you know so much about this Mrs Pepper?’

‘Lol. And Jane on the Internet. It doesn’t take very long to find out about anything any more. Also, I saw her, when I was on the river bank with Mumford and you were in the pub with his dad. I recognized her… realized this was who Osman meant.’

‘Well, I don’t know anything about her, as I said, but I do know that George Lackland, while he may work the system, is a decent man who thinks his beloved town is being contaminated, if only by having its moral tone lowered. Is he exaggerating this? I don’t know.’

‘Personally, I just can’t see a wealthy middle-aged woman going in for wholesale alfresco sex in a town she regards as heaven. And I don’t want to get involved—’

She braked, catching a movement on the grass verge: badger about to scuttle across the road.

‘—get involved with a witch-hunt.’

‘Witch-hunt.’ The Bishop leaned his head back over the passenger seat, from which the headrest was long gone. ‘How simple things were in those days. The mob would have dragged her in front of some judge who thought he was God, and then taken her out and hanged her at Gallows Bank.’ He turned his head towards Merrily. ‘Still there, you know. Still this patch of open space, in the midst of modern housing. You can see where the actual gibbet stood, so that executions would be visible all over town. Ludlow, you see, looks after its past.’

‘Unlike Hereford?’

‘We try. Unfortunately, I think our old execution site is underneath Plascarreg.’

‘Really?’

‘Don’t you dare make anything of that.’

Merrily smiled.

‘And try not to hang George. He’s an old-fashioned civic leader. Middle Ages, he’d have been the sheriff. When they eventually come to lay him out, they’ll find the imprints of chain links on his chest.’

Of course, he’d know exactly how George felt because it was how he felt. If Ludlow was tainted, George was tainted, and if Bernie let George down he would probably feel he’d forfeited his right to come back and live out his sunset years in the benign shadow of the Buttercross.

‘Of course, the woman’s obviously mad,’ he said. ‘Too many chemicals in years gone by, one assumes.’

‘You think we should inform the Diocesan Director of Psychiatry?’

She felt him staring at her, working this out. He shifted, something clicking ominously under his seat.

‘Saltash.’

‘You read the Mail, then.’

He grunted. ‘It was in The Times, too, actually. Yes, that man did rather exaggerate his role, didn’t he?’

‘Glad you think so.’

‘Heavens, Merrily, last thing we want is worried people avoiding Deliverance for fear of being considered eligible for assessment under the Mental Health Act.’

‘But under our new, agreed working practices, I’m supposed to report – for instance – what we’ve just been told, for consideration by the panel before any action is taken. Like I said earlier, I shouldn’t even have come tonight without clearing it with them.’

‘It’s preposterous, Merrily.’

‘It’s what we agreed.’

‘What they agreed, you mean.’

In theory he could, as Bishop, overrule any of it. In practice, it would be impossible without dispensing with the panel and making lifetime enemies of Siân and Saltash, and the Dean who had brokered the deal. She left all this unsaid, but it was drifting between them as Leominster appeared over to the right, an island of lights.

The Bishop sighed.

‘Merrily, let’s not fool ourselves. Look at me: overweight, over sixty and not up to much in the pulpit. I’ve never been under any illusions. I’m a caretaker here and I suspect my time’s already running out.’

‘Come on, Bernie, people like you.’

‘Like? What’s that got to do with it? There are those who could have me quietly retired in no time at all, if they chose to whisper in the right ears. And I rather suspect Ms Callaghan-Clarke’s one of the potential whisperers.’

‘You think Siân wants you out?’

‘I don’t know what I think. Hereford’s not the most exalted of dioceses, and nicely out on a limb. Good place for a woman to have a chance at the helm, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Siân Callaghan-Clarke?’ Was that the wheel shaking, or her hands? ‘Bishop of Hereford?’

‘I’m simply saying it’s a possibility that’s occurred to me, that’s all. May be years off, yet. Then again…’

‘Christ,’ Merrily said.

‘And there’s… something else. I’m not supposed to tell you this yet, but… the Archdeacon came to see me this afternoon. You know Jeff Kimball’s moving to St John’s at Worcester, leaving a major vacancy at Dilwyn?’

‘I didn’t.’

‘Well, he is. And with Archie Menzies retiring in the autumn, your area of north Herefordshire’s going to be stretched. Inevitably, the Archdeacon’s looking at the possibility of a shake-up – introduction of a collaborative ministry in that area: rector, team vicar, et cetera. And, as all this would be happening very close to the Ledwardine parish boundary, it’s been suggested that Ledwardine should be included in the review.’

‘Oh.’

Her hands slackened on the wheel. She could see where this was going. Only a matter of time.

‘And, of course, someone pointed out that you had only one parish,’ the Bishop said.

‘Inevitably.’

‘Something of a rarity these days, you will admit.’

‘Who, er… pointed that out?’

‘No idea, but I expect you could make a solid guess. My opinion, as I’ve frequently stated, is that, with an expanding Deliverance department to run, one parish is quite ample, and I do know you’re working seven days most weeks. But when I pointed this out to the Archdeacon, he said it had been suggested to him that perhaps Deliverance was something that, ah, expanded according to the time and the manpower – or, indeed, womanpower – available.’

‘The Archdeacon’s been got at.’

‘So it would seem.’

‘Someone wants me to have a bunch of extra parishes. Thus leaving very little time for Deliverance work.’

‘Draw your own conclusions. The thinking, I would guess, is that Deliverance would itself then become something of a team-ministry.’

‘And the post of Diocesan Exorcist – under whatever title?’

‘Would disappear.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s neither here nor there.’ Merrily kept her eyes on the road. ‘Except that the end result would probably be that Deliverance itself – as a specialist field – would eventually also disappear.’

‘I can see that happening, yes,’ the Bishop said. ‘It’s a political thing, isn’t it?’

They hit the Leominster bypass, picking up speed and extra rattle. The Bishop seemed tired, almost defeated. Merrily wondered how close he was to pre-empting attempts to remove him while a suitable property in Ludlow was still within his price range.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to tell you tonight.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

‘I may be misinterpreting it.’

‘I don’t think you are. It explains a lot. Well…’

‘Quite.’

‘If I fight it, it’s going to look like pure self-interest, extreme selfishness – some ministers struggling to support seven parishes, while I’m poncing around with a flask of holy water.’

‘There’s so much resentment in the Church now. I’ll hold out against it, of course…’

‘You can’t. I wouldn’t expect you to. Anyway… let’s see what happens. Meanwhile, there’s the Ludlow situation to sort out.’

‘Look,’ he said, ‘if you think you should take it to the Deliverance Panel, do it. If they say leave it alone, leave it alone.’

The parish church of St Mary, Hope-under-Dinmore, rose up on the left, separated from its parish by the fast road. Our Lady of the Bypass. Merrily slowed; this stretch had a bad record for deaths.

‘Stuff them,’ Merrily said. ‘I’ll do it. But if anything rebounds on George I won’t try to catch it first, OK?’

‘Of course not. Merrily, look, I’ve been thinking about this whole situation. Why don’t you take a week or ten days off from the parish – get Dennis Beckett in as locum. Then you can look into the situation and you won’t be responsible to anybody, will you? You won’t be there. You’ll be working… what’s the word?… not plain clothes?’

‘Undercover?’

‘That’s it. Afterwards, you produce a report for me, and I inform anyone who complains that this seemed to me to be the best way of dealing with a delicate and rather nebulous situation.’

‘Bernie, have you really thought this through?’

‘And it’s not a witch-hunt, Merrily, it’s pastoral care. It’s very clear that this woman needs help. Women don’t behave in this way because they’re happy and fulfilled. They don’t leave used sanitary towels down the back of a fifteenth-century misericord, they—’

She turned to him. ‘I don’t remember him telling us that.’

‘He didn’t. He got halfway and became embarrassed. The incidents – it happened three times in successive, ah, months – were mentioned as a whimsical footnote in a report on church maintenance I was obliged to read.’

We didn’t exactly hold on to the evidence.

‘That’s weird, Bernie.’ She followed a pale grey ribbon of road up the long hill towards Hereford. ‘Not to say faintly ridiculous.’

‘Play it by ear. Follow your conscience.’ The Bishop loosened his seat belt, settled back with his hands folded on his stomach. ‘Do have a cigarette, Merrily, if you want.’

‘You’re a true man of God, Bernie,’ Merrily said.

Merrily didn’t have the cigarette until she’d dropped Bernie Dunmore at the Bishop’s Palace, behind Hereford Cathedral. It was about nine-thirty p.m., a few people about. She parked for a few minutes on the corner of Broad Street and King Street, opposite the cathedral green, took the Silk Cut from her bag and thought about Belladonna and Marion de la Bruyère.

About ghosts.

In the 1930s, a cowled, monkish figure had been repeatedly seen in the cathedral close. Seen initially by policemen. The whole town had been hugely excited, apparently. Excited rather than frightened. As many as two hundred people would gather here on the green, night after night, in the hope of spotting the ghost. Like a football crowd, someone had observed at the time.

Merrily smoked and gazed out at the green and the Cathedral and the soapy spring moonlight splashing through the trees, where all those people had stood in anticipation of… a multiple psychological projection, a shared hallucination on a grand scale?

The existence of ghosts, the nature of ghosts. At least half of the raison d’être of Deliverance.

She rang Jane to say she was on her way home. The kid sounded tired.

‘I’ll probably have an early night. Take it nobody beat you up or anything?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice. Look, I’m sorry I had to go out again.’

‘Save it for Lol. He’s off to Bristol tomorrow.’

‘Oh my God, I forgot!’

‘You always forget.’

‘I’d better go round.’

‘Stay the night, I’ll be OK.’

‘I’ll be back by midnight,’ Merrily said.

‘Yeah,’ Jane said morosely. ‘I expect you will.’

She parked the car at the vicarage and let herself in. A kitchen lamp had been left on, but there was no sign of Jane. She gave Ethel a foil pack of Felix and then, out of habit, went quietly up to the attic apartment, just to make sure.

‘Er… night-night, Mum,’ Jane said from the other side of the door.

Merrily smiled. Forgiven. Kind of.

She managed to catch the Eight till Late just before it closed, picked up some cigs and a bottle of white wine, carrying the bottle openly down Church Street. The village was deserted, but there were a lot of windows on either side. It was the darkened ones you had to worry about – not all of them were holiday homes.

However, the darkened ones did not, tonight, include Lol’s.

He’d seen her coming. He was standing in his doorway.

‘You’ve had the electricity reconnected!’

‘No going back now,’ Lol said.

He still seemed bewildered at finding himself a man of property. The hall behind him was lit by a low-wattage bulb dangling over the newel post where Lucy Devenish used to hang her poncho.

Merrily felt a rush of emotion.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Definitely no going back.’

In full view of all the darkened windows in Church Street, she stepped up to the doorway and kissed him on the mouth. Saw his eyes widen close to hers as he manoeuvred her inside, throwing the door shut behind them.

‘What have you done?’

Oh God, her glasses! They were still in the car.

‘I…’ She swallowed. ‘Would you believe it if I said I’d walked into a lamp-post?’

‘No.’

‘Thought not.’ She put the bottle on the floor, felt at her dog collar. ‘Look, I’m sorry I’m still in the kit. It’s coming off tonight, for… for at least a week. I’ve been told to get a locum in, so I can be a… an ordinary person.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m probably demob happy, Lol, that’s what it is.’

A lock of hair brushed her bruised eye like a bird’s wing. She pushed it aside with a hand and winced.

‘Tell me what happened,’ Lol said.

She looked up the stairs and imagined Lucy Devenish standing at the top, watching them with a weary disappointment, her poncho drooping. And then caught a sudden mental image of Belladonna down near Ludford Bridge, wrapped in her floor-length cape, electric-blue light on her beautiful, predatory face.

Thought about Marion de la Bruyère – a young girl who had reacted to betrayal in the manner of the times, now a ghost more than eight centuries old – and what the Mayor of Ludlow might be asking.

Probably her last task as a Deliverance minister.

And it wasn’t even official.

‘Actually,’ she said, ‘to be honest, I’m not so much demob happy as demob… very pissed-off.’

Could have done a deal with Bernie, Merrily told God later. I could have said save my ministry, get those two bastards off my back, and I’ll help you in Ludlow. That was the obvious thing, wasn’t it?

But, like, playing politics – that’s not what the Church is supposed to be about, is it? Yeah, yeah, the Church has been deep into politics from the start, but that didn’t make it right. Or did it? I mean, it survived, didn’t it? Would it still have survived if there hadn’t been political popes, reformation, renewal and… and…

I don’t want it to end. That’s what I’m trying to say. Deliverance. I don’t want it to be over.

Thought I was starting to get it… to get some of it right. Maybe helping people. Sometimes. OK, I was too late to help some people, like Roddy Lodge, and too blind to help others – Layla Riddock? But I had a strong feeling You were using me to give Nat and Jeremy a chance at Stanner last winter. That was… I mean sometimes it’s been amazing.

And, sure, I’ve felt desperate because it didn’t seem to be working, or I wasn’t getting it right. And guilty when it was fulfilling, when it felt like I was wielding light… guilty because I only had one parish and didn’t have to go on the road on Sundays and learn how to preach properly.

Have I been guilty of pride? Are there ministers in this diocese – there surely are – who could do this so much better than me? Did YOU send Siân and Saltash? Am I stupid and naive and blind? Is it Your will that I give this up, let it be taken from me, stop meddling in the affairs of the dead, run five, six, seven parishes instead, watch it all falling away for all of us…?

I’m sorry. I don’t know. I don’t know. Do I fight this or lie down? Which is worse, cowardice or pride?

And do You ever listen any more?

Merrily opened her eyes, standing by the window, moonlight sugaring the trees on Cole Hill, no easy answers written in the sky.