A Crown of Lights (29 page)

‘This is my worst nightmare come true,’ says the Rev. Nicholas Ellis. ‘It is the manifestation of a truly insidious evil in our midst.’

Now the acting Bishop of Hereford, the Rt Rev. Bernard Dunmore, is to look into the bizarre situation. ‘It concerns me very deeply,’ he said last night.

It is more than thirty years since the church, at Old Hindwell, Powys, was decommissioned by the Church of England. For most of that time, it stood undisturbed on the land of farming brothers John and Ifan Prosser. When the last brother, John, died two years ago it passed out of the family and was bought by the Thorogoods just before Christmas.

Robin Thorogood, who is American-born, says he and his wife represent ‘the fastest-growing religion in the country’.

He claims that many of Britain’s old churches were built on former pagan ritual sites – one of which, he says, he and his wife have now repossessed.

However, when invited to explain their plans for the church, Mr Thorogood became abusive and attacked
Daily Mail
photographer Stuart Joyce, screaming, ‘I’ll turn you into a f—ing toad.’

Now villagers say they are terrified that the couple will desecrate the ruined church by conducting pagan rites there. They say they have already seen strange lights in the ruins late at night.

The Thorogoods’ nearest neighbour, local councillor Gareth Prosser, a farmer and nephew of the former owners, said, ‘This has always been a God-fearing community and we will not tolerate this kind of sacrilege.

‘These people sneaked in, pretending to be just an ordinary young couple.

‘Although this is a community of old-established families, newcomers have always been welcome here as long as they respect our way of life.

‘But we feel these people have betrayed our trust and that is utterly despicable.’

‘Trust?’ Robin exploded. ‘What did that fat asshole ever trust us with?’ Jeez, he’d hardly even spoken to the guy till a couple days ago, and then it was like Robin was some kind of vagrant.

He sat down, beating his fist on the table. It was a while before he realized the phone was ringing. By that time, Betty had come down and answered it.

When she came off the phone she was white with anger.

‘Who?’ Robin said.

She didn’t answer.

‘Please?’

She said in low voice, ‘Vivvie.’

‘Good of them to call back after only a day.
Did
they know anything about that programme? For all it matters.’

‘She was on the programme.’

He sat up. ‘
What?
’

‘They were both there in the studio, but only Vivienne got to talk.’ Betty’s voice was clipped and precise. ‘It was a late-night forum about the growth of Dark Age paganism in twenty-first-century Britain. They had Wiccans and Druids, Odinists – also some Christians to generate friction. It’s a friction programme.’

Robin snorted. TV was a psychic drain.

‘Vivienne was one of a group of experienced, civilized Wiccans put together by Ned Bain for that programme.’

‘Jesus,’ Robin said, ‘if she was one of the civilized ones, I sure wouldn’t like to be alone with the wild children of Odin.’

And Ned Bain? Who, as well as being some kind of rich, society witch, just happened to be an editorial director at Harvey-Calder, proprietors of Talisman Books. Robin had already felt an irrational anger that Bain should have allowed Blackmore to dump a fellow pagan – although, realistically, in a big outfit like that, it was unlikely Bain had anything at all to do with the bastard.

Betty said, ‘She claims she lost her cool when some woman priest became abusive.’

‘She doesn’t
have
any freaking cool.’

‘This priest was from Hereford. Ned Bain had argued that, after two thousand years of strife and corruption, the Christian Church was finally on the way out and Vivienne informed the Hereford priest that the erosion had already started in her own backyard, with pagans claiming back the old pagan sites, taking them back from the Church that had stolen them.’

Robin froze. ‘You have
got
to be fucking kidding.’

She didn’t reply.

‘She... Jeez, that dumb bitch! She
named
us? Right there on network TV?’

‘No. Some local journalist must have picked it up and tracked us down.’

‘And sold us to the
Mail
.’

‘The paper that supports suburban values,’ Betty said.

The phone rang. Robin went for it.

‘Mr Thorogood?’

‘He’s away,’ Robin said calmly. ‘He went back to the States.’ He hung up. ‘That the way to handle the media?’

Betty walked over and switched on the machine. ‘That’s a better way.’

‘They’ll only show up at the door.’

‘Well,
I
won’t be here.’

He saw that she was wearing her
ordinary person
outfit, the one with the ordinary skirt. And this time with a silk scarf around her neck. It panicked him.

‘Look,’ he cried, ‘listen to me. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry about that picture. I’m sorry for looking like an asshole. I just... I just lost it, you know? I’d just had... I’d just taken this really bad call.’

‘From your friend?’ Betty said.

‘Huh?’

‘From your friend in the village?’

The phone rang again.

‘From Al,’ he said. ‘Al at Talisman.’

The machine picked up.

‘This is Juliet Pottinger
.
You appear to have telephoned me over the weekend. I am now back home, if you would like to call again. Thank you.’

‘Look’ – Robin waved a contemptuous hand at the paper – ‘this is just... complete shit. Like, are we supposed to feel threatened because the freaking Bishop of Hereford finds it a matter warranting
deep concern
? Because loopy Nick Ellis sees us as symptoms of some new epidemic of an old disease? What is he, the Witchfinder freaking General, now?’

He leapt up, moved toward her.

Betty’s hair was loose and tumbled. Her face was flushed. She looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. She always did look beautiful. And he was losing her. He’d been losing her from the moment they arrived here. He felt like his heart was swollen to the size of the room.

‘We’re not gonna let them take us down, are we? Betty, this is... this is you and me against the world, right?’

Betty detached her car keys from the hook by the door.

‘Please,’ Robin said. ‘Please don’t go.’

Betty said quietly, ‘I’m not
leaving
you, Robin.’

He put his head in his hands and wept. When he took them down again, she was no longer there.

L
EDWARDINE SAT SOLID
, firmly defined in black and white under one of those sullen, shifty skies that looked as if it might spit anything at you. Just before nine Merrily crossed the square to the Eight-till-Late to buy a
Mail
.

A spiky white head rose from the shop’s freezer, its glasses misted.

‘Seems funny diggin’ out the ole frozen pasties again, vicar.’

They ended up, as usual, in the churchyard, where Gomer gathered all the flowers from Minnie’s grave into a bin liner.

‘Bloody waste. Never liked flowers at funerals. Never liked cut flowers at all. Let ’em grow, they don’t ’ave long.’

‘True.’ She knotted the neck of the bin liner, spread the
Daily Mail
on the neighbouring tombstone and they sat on it.

‘Barbara Buckingham’s missing, Gomer. Didn’t show up for Menna’s funeral. Never got back to me, and hasn’t been in touch with her daughter in Hampshire either.’

‘Well,’ Gomer said, ‘en’t like it’s the first time, is it?’

‘She just go off without a word when she was sixteen?’

‘Been talkin’ to Greta Thomas, vicar. No relation – well, her man, Danny’s second cousin twice removed, whatever.’

‘Small gene pool.’

‘Ar. Also, Greta used to be secertry at the surgery. Dr Coll’s. En’t much they don’t find out there. Barbara Thomas told you why her was under the doctor back then?’

‘Hydatid cyst.’

Barbara had talked as though the cyst epitomized all the bad things about her upbringing in the Forest – all the meanness and the narrowness and the squalidness. So that when she had it removed, she felt she was being given the chance to make a clean new start – a Radnorectomy.

Gomer did his big grin, getting out his roll-up tin.

Merrily said, ‘You’re going to tell me it wasn’t a hydatid cyst at all, right?’

Gomer shoved a ready-rolled ciggy between his teeth in affirmation.

‘I never thought of that,’ Merrily said. ‘I suppose I should have. What happened to the baby?’

‘Din’t go all the way, vicar. Her miscarried. Whether her had any help, mind, I wouldn’t know. Even Greta don’t know that. But there was always one or two farmers’ wives in them parts willin’ to do the business. And nobody liked Merv much.’

‘Hang on... remind me. Merv...?’

‘Merv Thomas. Barbara’s ole feller.’

‘Oh God.’

Gomer nodded. ‘See, Merv’s wife, Glenny, her was never a well woman. Bit like Menna – delicate. Havin’ babbies took it out of her. Hard birth, Menna. Hear the screams clear to Glascwm, Greta reckons. After that, Glenny,
her
says, that’s it, that’s me finished. Slams the ole bedroom door on Merv.’

Merrily stared up at the sandstone church tower, breathed in Gomer’s smoke. She’d come out without her cigarettes.

‘Well, Merv coulder gone into a particlar pub in Kington,’ Gomer said. ‘Even over to Hereford. Her’d have worn that, no problem, long as he din’t go braggin’ about it.’

‘But Merv thought a man was entitled to have his needs met in his own home.’

It explained so much: why Barbara left home in a hurry, also why she had such a profound hatred of Radnor Forest. And why Menna had invaded her conscience so corrosively – to the extent, perhaps, that after she was dead, her presence was even
stronger. When Menna no longer existed on the outside, in a fixed place in Radnorshire, she became a permanent nightly lodger in Barbara’s subconscious.

‘But the bedroom door musn’t have stayed closed, Gomer. Barbara said her father was determined to breed a son, but her mother miscarried, and then there was a hysterectomy.’

Gomer shrugged.

‘But then his wife died. Hang on, this friend of yours...’ Merrily was appalled. ‘If she knew about Barbara, then she must’ve known what might have been happening to Menna.’

‘Difference being, vicar, that Menna had protection. There was a good neighbour kept an eye on Menna, specially after her ma died. Judy Rowland. Judy Prosser now.’

Judy... Judith
. ‘Barbara said she had letters from a friend called Judith, who was looking out for Menna. That eased her conscience a little.’

‘Smart woman, Judy. I reckons if Judy was lookin’ out for Menna, Menna’d be all right. Her’d take on Merv, would Judy, sure to.’

‘She still around?’

‘Oh hell, aye. Her’s wed to Gareth Prosser – councillor, magistrate, on this committee, that committee. Big man – dull bugger, mind. Lucky he’s got Judy to do his thinkin’ for him. Point I was gonner make, though, vicar, I reckon Judy was still lookin’ out for Menna, seein’ as both of ’em was living in Ole Hindwell.’

‘You mean after her marriage?’

‘No more’n five minutes apart, boy at the pub told me.’

‘So if she also still kept in touch with Barbara, maybe Barbara went to see her, too, while she was here.’

‘Dunno ’bout that, but her went to see Greta, askin’ questions ’bout Dr Coll.’

Gatecrashed his surgery. Made a nuisance of myself. Not that it made any difference. Bloody man told me I was asking him to be unethical, pre-empting the post-mortem
.

‘What did Barbara want to know about Dr Coll?’

‘Whether he was treatin’ Menna ’fore she died, that kind o’ stuff.’

‘What’s he look like, Dr Coll?’

‘Oh... skinny little bloke. ’Bout my build, s’pose you’d say. Scrappy bit of a beard.’

‘He was at Menna’s funeral. The private bit.’

‘Ar, would be.’

‘So where’s Barbara then, Gomer? Where is Barbara Thomas?’

‘I could go see Judy Prosser, mabbe. Anybody knows the score, it’s her. I’ll sniff around a bit more. What else I gotter do till the ole grass starts growin’ up between the graves again?’

It was colder now. The mist had dropped down over the tip of the steeple. Gomer’s roll-up was close to burning his lips. He took it out and squeezed the end. He looked sadly at the grave, his bag of frozen pasties on his knees and his head on one side like a dog, as if he was listening for the ticking of those two watches under the soil.

‘I’ve got to go back there today.’ She told him about Old Hindwell seemingly metamorphosed into Salem, Mass. ‘You, er, don’t fancy coming along?’

Gomer was on his feet. ‘Just gimme three minutes to put these buggers in the fridge, vicar.’

Jane was not happy. Jane was deeply frustrated. She telephoned Eirion from the scullery.

‘They’ve found out where that church is! The pagan church? I had
completely
forgotten about it! The one that woman was going on about on
Livenight
? I’d
forgotten
about it. Like, you apparently lose all these brain cells when you have a bump, and I just didn’t
remember
that stuff, and then bits started coming back, and I knew there was something vital, but I couldn’t put my fing— Anyway, it’s all over one of the papers. It’s somewhere just your side of the border. And she’s just raced off over there... on account of there’s this
major
scene going down.’

‘Major scene?’ Eirion said.

‘And I’m, like, I have
got
to check this out! But would she let me go with her? Like, she’s even taken Gomer with her. But not me – the person who is profoundly interested in this stuff? And, like, because of the other night there is, of course, not a thing I can do about it. She just puts on this calm, sorrowful expression and she looks me in the eyes, and she’s like, “You’re going to stay here, this time, aren’t you, flower?” I am completely, totally, utterly
stuffed
.’