The Wine of Angels

I’m saying. That’s it. Show’s over. I’m leaving. Goodnight.’

To a chorus of groans and protests from the pews, he strode away to the south porch, didn’t look at Ken Thomas, went out. Alison glanced at Merrily then followed him.

Merrily shrugged and followed Alison. Behind her, a score of conversations were detonated.

Garrod Powell had a Sunday car, a silver-grey Ford Escort. Whenever he came to church, he parked it in the same place on the square adjacent to the market hall where it reached out towards the mews where Cassidy’s Country Kitchen was and Ledwardine Lore. Rod’s space. Only tourists parked there when Rod wasn’t in town.

When Gomer spotted the car, Rod was in it, talking on the phone.

Gomer pulled his Jeep into the kerbside at the mouth of Church Street and waited.

Bull-Davies strode past towards his blue Land Rover, almost dragging the floozie behind him. He was unlocking the driver’s door when the little vicar caught them up.

Alison suddenly snatched her hand away and turned on James like a cornered cat.

‘Tell her, you bloody fool. Why don’t you just tell her everything you know? This has nothing to do with honour or tradition.’

‘If that were true ...’ He leaned back against his Land Rover and breathed in through his teeth. ‘If that were true, my darling mistress, this would not be a problem.’

‘The problem is,’ Merrily said, ‘that I think we’re talking about a tradition that’s far from honourable.’

‘You’re very clever, Mrs Watkins.’

‘No I’m not. I’ve not been very clever at all. I’ve got people killed.’

‘If you’re talking about Coffey—’

‘You didn’t kill Coffey, did you, James?’ It just came out.

‘What?’ James’s jaw fell open like a padlock. He blinked. ‘Good Lord. You saw Alder in there. Fellow as good as confessed. Didn’t say a word in denial, took it’ – he grunted – ‘took it like a man.’

‘He’s an actor,’ Merrily said. ‘His great performance was dying on its feet. I wondered if he was just grabbing the chance of getting out on a moment of high drama.’

‘Look. Mrs Watkins ... Mrs Watkins, no. I did not kill Coffey. Found the man and went to the police, cooperated fully. Even let them take my fingerprints. No. Did not kill Coffey. May have wanted to, but that’s not my way. Couldn’t. All right?’

‘Tell her, then,’ Alison said. ‘Tell her that the Bulls don’t kill. Tell her who—’

‘Stop. Please. All right. According to his own account, Thomas Bull got very drunk one night. Opened his heart to the only man he felt he could still trust. His bailiff, gamekeeper, head groom, land steward, his ...’

Merrily, shuddering, had a vision of big brown hands around a small, white throat.

‘His Powell,’ she said.

‘Now do you see?’ James bellowed. ‘Now do you bloody well see?’

‘The ... this Powell ... killed her.’ Merrily felt breathless, felt the sudden closeness of the woman who was Wil. ‘Strangled her.’

‘Robert Powell, his name. He was trying to help Tom Bull, and he did a terrible thing.’

‘Even more terrible,’ Alison said, ‘because he’d have soon realized he was killing a woman. It’s not so easy to strangle a man.’

‘He didn’t just strangle her,’ Merrily said. ‘He raped her first. He raped the minister. He went to kill a priest, and—’

‘Don’t make it worse, woman!’

‘But it is worse, James. It got worse. Because it didn’t stop. From then on, the Powells had a hold on the Bulls, and maybe it strengthened over the centuries because of the things the Powells would do without compunction. Things it wouldn’t have been proper or seemly or honourable ... Who killed Patricia Young?’

Bull-Davies reeled. ‘I don’t know that! Gord’s sake, don’t know anything. Don’t know if the damned woman was killed. I was a boy then, probably still away at school, nobody would have told me. I don’t know anything. Just inherited all this shit, been trying to keep the damned toilet lid down ever since.’

Merrily looked at Alison.

Alison gave a tiny nod, her face flushed with anticipation.

‘Who do you think killed her?’ Merrily said.

‘Do you never give up? Presumably the father of her child, whoever ...’ James swallowed. ‘Whoever that was. Certainly not my poor bloody father who for the last twenty years of his life was impotent through illness and drink and got his only pleasure from ...’

James clenched his teeth.

‘... watching.’

Alison gasped.

‘Watching who, James?’ Merrily’s voice was very faint.

He wouldn’t answer. He hardly needed to. An engine roared suddenly and the side of the Land Rover was blasted by headlights.

‘Vicar!’

‘Gomer?’

Merrily saw, with a spasm of panic, that he was alone behind the wheel of his jeep.

‘Where’s Jane?’

‘You en’t seen her?’

‘Oh Christ!’

Gomer reached over and threw open the passenger door.

‘Get in, Vicar.’

54 Way to Blue

LOL STUMBLED OUT into the road before he knew it, the tarmac unrolling to either side, a fence opposite with a ploughed field rising steeply behind it, pink moon on pink soil, to a bristle of trees.

No vehicles, no lights, no sign of Gomer.

He felt confused and upset, didn’t know how much time had passed, swinging the torch from tree to tree, tensely shining it under bushes and briars. Once, he’d lit up a rag and nearly thrown up with dread.

There was no pavement; he’d have to stand in the hedge if a vehicle came past. He stared down at his feet on the tarmac and found himself praying that Jane was alive and back at the vicarage, then stopped, scared it might do more harm than good, as if he was tapping into Merrily’s line to a God he wasn’t sure of and Jane often mocked. Omens and portents seemed to have soaked up all his spirituality. Pink moons and black-eyed dogs. Please, Jane.

He looked up then and saw her.

She was standing in the middle of the pink, ploughed field. She didn’t smile at him or come running towards him. She didn’t seem to notice him at all. She was standing very still, although a wind he couldn’t feel lifted her dark hair.

And then there was only the field and the distant trees with buildings behind, under the hardening moon, and Lol knew the curse, by way of Robert Johnson and Nick Drake, was reaching for him.

Merrily was struggling not to give way. She asked Gomer if he’d tried the vicarage. Had he been upstairs? Had he called out? Had he called out to the third storey?

Gomer told her no way was Jane in the vicarage, but Lol had spotted two cider bottles missing from a case in Lucy’s kitchen.

Merrily let out a long, serrated breath. ‘I know Lucy’s dead, I know she was your friend. But I wish to God Jane had never known her.’

‘Lol’s in the orchard now, searchin’. She’s there, he’ll find her.’