Remains of an Altar

presumably was why she’d brought him down from the hill.

Lol adjusted his glasses and read what it said on the sign, which was headed HEREFORDSHIRE COUNCIL PLANNING DEPARTMENT.

What it said, basically, was that an application had been submitted to turn Coleman’s Meadow into an estate of twenty-four high-quality detached executive homes. It invited observations from the public.

Oh.

Lol turned, at a click of the latch on the gate, to find that Jane had followed him.

‘Only they’ll need to kill me first,’ Jane said.

6 The Sunset Chair

Joyce Aird’s drive sloped steeply down from the road in a tunnel of dark trees. It was like entering a badger set, until you emerged into a vastness of light.

‘Oh dear,’ Mrs Aird said. ‘Your sins always find you out, don’t they? Yes, bring that chair out, dear, we can sit together in the window. Bring your tea.’

The sun-lounge overlooked the valley, across the long village of Colwall and on and on over Herefordshire, all the way to the Black Mountains and Wales.

‘How did you know?’

Mrs Aird had the kind of West Midlands accent which wore anxiety like old and trusted slippers. She was about seventy-five, soft-featured and with lightly blonded hair.

‘Oh…’ Merrily put down the cane chair with its thick, padded seat. ‘It’s just that if anyone’s inquired about exorcism, the arrangement is that the office tells me or our secretary, Sophie. And nobody seems to have.’

‘Well, no, I never rang the Diocese. That’s just what I told Mr Spicer. He’s a good man, Mr Spicer, at the bottom of him, give him his due, but he’s a man, isn’t he? And he has had a lot of personal problems lately. I thought, he’s just not going to do anything, is he? And I was telling a friend – we used to be neighbours when I lived in the Forest of Dean and we’ve kept in touch, and I was telling her on the phone about what had happened, and she immediately said I should get the Rector to ask for you. That’s how I got the number. Her name’s Ingrid Sollars.’

‘Oh.’ That was OK; nothing wrong with Ingrid Sollars. ‘Yes, she was involved in … a problem we had. She’s a nice woman.’

‘A much stronger person than me, I’m afraid. I get very frightened about things I don’t … well, none of us understands them, do we? We can’t. We’re not supposed to. But Ingrid gave me your number and she said you’d take it seriously, but it would be best to go through the Rector, for political reasons. But I get so frightened, now, you see.’

Mrs Aird had a single, lonely chair in the window. Called it her sunset chair. Never missed a sunset. You could just see Herefordshire Beacon, on the far left, but nothing of the road, although you could hear the traffic above you, like a sporadic draught in the attic.

‘I used to think it was better this time of year with the holiday cottages starting to fill up and the village more like a real village. I’ve got to know some of the holiday people, and they’re quite nice. Gave me their keys to go in and make sure their cottages were all right, switch the heating on in winter. Made me feel useful and I thought it made them feel more welcome so maybe they’d stay for a bit. But I’ve had to give the keys back. I don’t like to go into a strange house alone any more. Well, would you?’

Merrily must have looked blank because Mrs Aird leaned forward, going into a whisper.

‘There was a poor man – a bit solitary – who’d come in the summer for weeks at a time and we never knew whether he was there or not, and one day … someone noticed all the flies.’

Mrs Aird gripped the arms of her chair, shuddering.

Merrily apprehensively balanced her tea, in its willow-pattern china cup, on her knee.

‘Doesn’t the Rector go to see people?’

‘Well, he does. Comes to see me about once a week, but then I’m a regular churchgoer. But some people don’t like it – see it as an intrusion, as if he’s going to evangelize. But of course Mr Spicer’s not like that, is he? And he’s got these other parishes to look after. And he’s on his own, too, now. Not been easy for him, with his wife … and his daughter. And everything that’s happened.’

Mrs Aird sat with her arms folded, looking expectant.

‘You were there when … the lorry driver…’

‘It was like an explosion, Mrs Watkins. I have a key to the church and I’d gone in early to put the flowers out because there was a funeral that day – Mrs Hatch, a mercy – and bang. I went rushing out, and the cab of the lorry was almost flattened on the driver’s side. He had to come out of the other door. I brought him in here and I gave him a cup of tea while we were waiting for the police and the breakdown people. He had his hands to his eyes, just thinking about it, and he said – I’ll always remember – he said, It was like a little sun.’

‘But it wasn’t a sunny day?’

‘It was later, but it was very dull then. Only about half past seven. When the police came, they breathalysed him straight away, and he was completely clear. They said he couldn’t have seen a light, but he insisted that was why he’d swerved, and he was a nice man – not young. One of the policemen said to me afterwards, Oh, I expect he fell asleep at the wheel and dreamed it. I said, That’s not fair, you don’t know…’

An orb, Merrily was thinking without much enthusiasm. Very fashionable with cable-TV ghosthunters, orbs. Bit of glare got recorded by the camera and it was an orb, a semi-formed manifestation. What Huw Owen called a spirit-egg, though you were never quite sure when Huw was being disparaging.

‘Did the driver think there was anything … strange about the light?’

‘Well, it was certainly strange, but I didn’t think there’d have been anything ghostly. Not then. But then there was Mr Loste … and the others.’

‘Mrs Cobham.’

‘She’s a bit…’ Mrs Aird put her nose in the air ‘… if you ask me. And not over-friendly. Mr Loste … well, some people think he’s a bit … what’s the word … ?’ Mrs Aird waved her cardiganed arms about in a random sort of way. ‘Maniac … manic. Obsessed with his music and his choirs … and, give him his due, he’s marvellous. He’s done wonders. But some people think he’s not reliable in other ways. And his friendship with the American woman who goes to the wells. Bit peculiar. But … he saw what he saw, and he’ll tell you as much, give him his due.’

‘I’m hoping to see him later. I’ll probably need to go back and see the Rector first.’

‘He’s not in,’ Mrs Aird said. ‘His car’s gone.’

How did she know that from down here? Had she got a periscope?

‘He’s got three parishes, you know. And all his problems.’

Merrily drank some tea.

Oh, well.

‘I’m … afraid I don’t really know anything about that. Don’t really like to ask him these things.’ Peering over her cup. ‘Sounds like I’m prying.’

Mrs Aird looked up at the ceiling and made a sad, wounded noise.

‘It was his daughter wrecked everything. Emily. Got a son as well, but he’s too young to cause trouble. Emily would be … what, eighteen? Mrs Spicer, Fiona, she was from Reading, somewhere like that, near London. She didn’t really like the country, and when Mr Spicer left the Army—You know what he was, don’t you?’

‘Erm … no.’

‘S … A … S.’

Mrs Aird mouthing it silently, like a breach of the Official Secrets Act.

‘Really?’