The Wine of Angels

But they were on borrowed time and Jane wasn’t unhappy about that because she needed to get back and find out about Lol. Lol who’d come over very weird when she’d taken him up the back stairs and he’d found himself in her room. Backing off, shaking his head, saying this was a mistake. His agitation picked up by Ethel, the cat, squirming out of his arms and disappearing into the bowels of the vicarage.

Lol was in trouble. He couldn’t go home because Karl was in there and Lol, for reasons Jane still couldn’t quite put together, was scared of Karl. And was also – for reasons even more obscure – scared of her. He’d seemed relieved to pack her off to the party, to hide out there alone in the part of the house where Mum was banned. He wouldn’t be there when she got home, he said. He’d wait until Ethel reappeared and then he’d go. She’d left him her secret key to lock the small back door behind him; he’d leave it, he said, with Lucy.

But what if Karl was still in the cottage when he got back? Where would Lol go then?

One idea had occurred to Jane. Maybe she could get a few of the guys from the party – rugby-player types – to go over to Lol’s place and force that bastard out of there. But the state they were in now, how could you even explain to them what was needed? By the time they made it to Blackberry Lane they’d have forgotten why they were going.

Chaos. Nothing more unstable than well-brought-up kids on the loose in some place they and their parents weren’t known.

The music stopped.

The silence was deafening. Beyond the hollow roaring in her ears, Jane heard the sound of car engines.

‘OK.’ Colette’s voice over the loud hailer. ‘Listen up. It’s probably the filth, yeah? We’re moving on. Don’t worry, no cars required. Follow me ... or Janey. Where’s Janey? She knows.’

It wasn’t the police. The car that turned on to the edge of the square was a Volvo like Mum’s, only about ten years younger. Both front doors opened at once.

The Cassidys.

‘Janey,’ Colette called out. ‘OK?’ And then the loud hailer was silent.

Jane didn’t move. What was Colette saying to her? She knows. What? She slipped back under the market cross as Terrence Cassidy appeared on the cobbles, panting. ‘Colette! Where are you? Please—’ and was almost pulled off his feet by the stampede from the square.

‘Colette!’

Mrs Cassidy was less circumspect. ‘The unutterable little bitch. I knew something like this would—’

‘Colette,’ Terrence implored. ‘Where are you. Why are you doing this to us?’

‘It’s ‘cause you’re such a wanker, mate,’ Dean Wall confided chattily over his shoulder and cackled and followed the others.

The music had resumed, from the top of Church Street, booming off into the churchyard. Jane’s shoulder brushed against a poster tacked to one of the pillars of the market cross, bold black and yellow lettering inside a big red apple, LEDWARDINE SUMMER FESTIVAL: OFFICIAL OPENING, SATURDAY, MAY 23. MARKET SQUARE 2.00 p.m. BE THERE!

‘Bloody hell!’

Jane found Dr Samedi next to her, the loud hailer dangling limply from his hand. Back in Midlands mode.

‘Can y’ believe it? She’s buggered off with my flamin’ box. Bloody rich kids. I hate bloody rich kids, I do. Gimme ghetto any day of the week.’

‘Sorry, Jeff. She’s hard to stop when she gets going.’

‘That don’t help me, does it?’

And suddenly, Jane knew where Colette was taking them.

‘Oh no.’ She looked around for help, but the Cassidys had rushed into their restaurant, presumably to assess the damage and take it out on Barry. Even the locals were melting away – wherever the mob was heading, it was at least out of their earshot, away from their backyards, so what did they care?

‘Thing is,’ Dr Samedi was moaning, ‘I don’t know if my insurance covers this.’

Jane saw a tall figure strolling towards the churchyard.

‘Lloyd!’

Lloyd Powell turned and waited for her under the fake gaslight, Jane found herself clutching at his sleeve.

‘You’ve got to stop them.’

‘I think we’ll wait for the police, don’t you, Miss Watkins?’

‘No!’ You could never tell with people like Lloyd whether they called you Miss out of politeness or because they were laughing at you. ‘They’re going to the orchard. You can stop them. It’s your land. You can go in there and turn them out.’

‘On my own?’

He was laughing at her. Everybody knew the Powells didn’t really care about their orchard.

But they should. They should.

‘Please. It’s not safe. It’s not respectful. You’ve got to get them out. Please, Lloyd.’

‘Hey.’ He put his big, rugged hands on her shoulders, peered at her from under his Paul Weller fringe. ‘Don’t get into a state about this. They’re just daft kids.’

‘Please.’ She was crying now.

‘All right,’ Lloyd said. ‘I’ll go and see what I can do.’ He smiled wryly, hunching his shoulders. ‘You wanner come?’

‘Oh no,’ Jane said. ‘I couldn’t.’

She stood on the edge of the cobbles, hopelessly confused, awfully apprehensive for reasons she couldn’t explain.

26 The Mondrian Walls

‘BLEEDING FROM THE mouth,’ Merrily said.

Lol Robinson held Ethel on the kitchen table. ‘That means internal injuries?’

He looked shattered. They’d found the little black cat cowering into the side of the Aga.

‘Who did this?’

He didn’t reply, which meant he knew. In the hall Merrily found an old quilted body-warmer she’d kept for gardening.

‘You know what to do with this?’

‘I’ve never actually had a cat before.’

‘You wrap her up tight, so there’s just her head sticking out. So there’s plenty between you and the claws?’

‘Er ... right’

‘Never mind. Just grab her by the scruff and don’t let go. No ... You have to be firm, Lol.’

‘I’m not really a firm person,’ Lol said.

Merrily rolled up the sleeves of her sweater. She opened out the jacket, swept it swiftly around the cat. She tucked the ends around Ethel’s claws.

‘Anybody I might know? Anybody whose soiled soul I should be praying for?’

‘Any spare prayers,’ he said quietly, ‘I would hang on to them.’

‘No prayers are wasted.’ Handing him a bundle with a small black head sticking out. ‘Hold her very tightly. God, these lights are crap.’

He glanced up at her.

‘Yeah, I know, some people would call that taking the Lord’s name in vain.’ Trying to prise the jaws apart.