The Wine of Angels

Gomer caught up with Merrily under the porch lantern.

‘Vicar. Hold on.’ He was out of breath.

She stepped outside again, although she didn’t think she could bring herself to explain what had happened.

‘Gomer—’

‘Seen ’em fetchin’ ’im out, Vicar. At least four people told me the story ‘tween Church Street and the market. Should be more’n halfway round the county by now. Forget that. That don’t matter, see. You gotter get back in there, ‘fore they all leaves.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You gotter tell ’em the truth.’

‘Dear Gomer.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know any truth any more. And if I did, nobody would want to hear it from me.’

‘I know the truth. Me and Lol, we figured it. If you’d just give me chance—’

‘Gomer, whatever it is, it’s too late.’

‘En’t,’ Gomer said obstinately.

She shook her head. ‘I’ve got to find Jane.’

He followed her back into the porch. ‘Vicar, you gotter listen. Lol, see, he’s been puttin’ me in the picture ‘bout a lot o’ things you been keepin’ to yourself too long.’

‘Then he shouldn’t have. It’s all been a waste of time and I should’ve known better.’

Inside the porch, sitting on the stone bench like a smug gnome, Dermot Child smirked at her. ‘Quite an interesting night, Reverend. In spite of everything. I’m sure the repercussions will be many and varied.’

‘Who’s that?’ Gomer peered sourly at him, ‘Ah, it’s you, Mr Child. Didn’t recognize you with your dick in your pants.’ He held open the church door for Merrily.

‘Gomer—’

‘Hear me out, Vicar.’

At the prayer-book table, just inside the door, Detective Constable Ken Thomas was sitting taking names. Ken was local, well known to most of the villagers and Merrily too. He was a nice man, overweight and approaching retirement age, therefore consigned by Howe to such menial, clerical tasks as this. He didn’t seem to mind.

‘You en’t gonner write my full name down, are you, Ken?’ Jim Prosser was saying. ‘Just put Jim, Shop, you’ll remember.’

‘But she won’t, and she’s the one matters.’

‘That girl?’

‘That girl could be divisional commander next year, way things are going. It’s called accelerated promotion. Tonight’s likely shoved her up two more rungs.’

‘Bugger me,’ Jim Prosser said. Behind him, Brenda, his wife, fussed with her inappropriate crinoline. Behind her Dr Kent Asprey looked impatient, Rod Powell dignified and unconcerned. James Bull-Davies, heritage vindicated, hung out by the pulpit, aloof, chin thrust out, gazing up at the opaque apple window, on the opposite side of the church to the Bull chapel where, Merrily was convinced, he’d earlier hacked his way into a seventeenth-century tomb. But who would ever learn about that now?

Nobody seemed to notice Merrily. There was no sign of Jane.

‘Probly gone home lookin’ for you,’ Gomer said. ‘We’ll find her, don’t you worry ‘bout that. Now, where’s quiet? Vestry?’

He held back the curtain and almost pushed her inside.

Jane wrapped her arms around herself, shrinking into the corner where the sunken passenger seat ended and the metal partition separated her and the dead sheep in the back of the truck.

This was the Powell farm, on the wrong side of the new road, the village a sparse and distant glimmering through the orchard.

‘I’m not getting out. I want to go home. You’ve got to take me home.’

‘Stop whining, bitch,’ Lloyd said. ‘I gotter think.’

He was clutching the steering wheel tightly with both hands as though he wanted to bang his head on it. The film of sweat on his forehead was lime-green in the dashlight. The engine was chunnering. A smell of petrol inside the cab, mixed with cattle feed and manure.

‘Then let me get out. I’ll walk home. I can see you’ve got a lot on your mind.’

‘I’ve told you to stop that.’

Lloyd looked up from the wheel, his face severe but kind of bland, like his dad’s. Like being moved by anything was a weakness genetically eradicated in the Powells centuries ago.

‘You think we’re stupid. You think you can soft-talk me and I’ll let you go and you’ll toddle off back to your mother and tell her all about what the bad Powells done to poor Miss Devenish.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Jane lied desperately. ‘I know you wouldn’t do anything to Lucy. Just let me go home, Lloyd. I’m a bit pissed and everything, and I probably won’t remember a thing in the morning. Just let me go back to the orchard and I’ll find my own way home, all right?’

‘Why’d you do that?’ He leaned back, curious now. ‘Why’d you take that bottle of cider into the orchard?’

‘Couldn’t very well drink it at home, could I? And that was where Colette and I came on—’

‘Why there? Why under that tree?’

‘I don’t know. Colette—’

‘Colette, Colette, Colette!’ He slammed a fist into the wheel. ‘That little slapper! You want me, don’t you? Don’t you, Lloydie? Piece of rubbish. Piercing her body, advertising herself. And they paid for that to go to the Cathedral School.’

Jane said, ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

‘Right.’ Lloyd leaned on his door. A second later he was opening hers from the outside. ‘Out.’

She didn’t want to get out. She wondered if she could slide across and somehow start the truck and ...

Lloyd gripped her arm above the elbow and squeezed on the muscle until she screamed in pain.

‘Out’

Outside, there were hulking buildings without lights. Barns and sheds. The air smelled of working farm.

‘Go on then, Jane.’

She struggled out on legs that felt like foam rubber and stood shivering in a stiffened rut made by tractor wheels. The raspberry moon shone out of a bitter chocolate sky. She did want to heave now, but she wouldn’t, not in front of him. Not to order, like a prisoner.

I’m a prisoner.

‘You wanner be sick, be sick.’

‘It’s gone off.’ She looked around for somewhere to run, but they were in a kind of stockade, fencing topped by barbed wire.

‘You en’t leaving now, Jane. Don’t get ideas. And don’t try and fool me with any ole crap about you don’t understand. I’m gonner tell you, so you will understand. Only fair, that is. Lucy Devenish, see, she come up to talk to Father about Colonel Bull-Davies and his ole man, thinking as Father could help her clarify a few points.’

‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ Jane said hopelessly. ‘Honestly. Can’t you—’

‘No I bloody can’t! Too soft-hearted, that’s my trouble. I can feel sorry, see, but it don’t get you nowhere. The little fluffy lamb’s still gotter be killed, the ole sow’s still gonner wind up hanging by her back legs, it’s the way of the world. And some you en’t sorry for, like the fox. When the ole fox starts rootin’ around, he’s gotter go. Fast. Bang.’

Lloyd clapped his big hands.

‘And that was the way Lucy Devenish went. Clean and neat and efficient.’

‘No!’ Jane threw her hands over her ears. ‘I don’t want to know!’

‘Father driving the truck, he pulls in front of the little bike, I tumbles out the ole dead ewe ... smack. Happens in a twinkling. She don’t know a thing. Takes off like an owl from a branch. Dead before she hit the ground, wouldn’t surprise me. Their hearts en’t too strong, that age. Efficient, that was.’