To Dream of the Dead

you? You know him. I don’t want to remember him like this. Why should I have to?’

‘Mrs Stooke,’ Howe said. ‘I know how terribly hard this is, but it’s something we have to…’

‘I can’t believe it. I cannot believe how this could happen. How it could be allowed to happen.’

Merrily saw Jane in the doorway. Signalled with her eyes for her to go back into the nave. Couldn’t believe Jane would want to see this. But Jane wasn’t looking at the body, and she didn’t move.

Merrily saw Leonora nod.

The policewoman went over to the table and peeled back the blue plastic. Leonora looked once and jerked back, as if a bolt of electricity was going through her, shut her eyes, nodding hard.

Shuddering. Howe steadying her, guiding her out. The police-woman drew the plastic back over Elliot Stooke’s face. They came back out into the nave, and Merrily closed the vestry door. Some people in the pews glanced over their shoulders, still only halfway through ‘Once in Royal David’s City’.

As quick as that. Bliss followed them into the porch, where Lol was standing, with Eirion, and Merrily finally got to speak to Leonora.

‘Look… you’re not going to want to go back to the barn tonight. Why don’t you stay with Jane and me?’

‘I’m staying at the Swan.’ Leonora looked away, as if Merrily had let her down badly by refusing to identify her husband’s body. ‘I’ll be leaving tomorrow anyway.’

Merrily nodded.

‘And he shouldn’t have been brought here. It’s a fucking gratuitous insult.’ Merrily collecting a hard glance. ‘I suppose that was you.’

Merrily said nothing. Leonora turned her back on her.

‘There’s an underlying sickness in this place,’ she said to Annie Howe. ‘We were both aware of it.’

‘Mrs Stooke, if there’s anything you want to tell me, perhaps we should go somewhere else.’

‘There’s nothing I really want to say to anyone.’ Leonora’s fists tightening inside leather gloves which squeaked. ‘Mrs Watkins invited us tonight to meet some local people, but the local people ignored us and the others — it was like it was calculated to offend, the shit they were coming out with. Elliot just… I don’t suppose he even knew where he was going or cared, as long as it was away from them. All that on top of the religious mania. Said he just wanted some fresh air.’ She looked down at the flags. ‘I should’ve gone with him. Let him down.’

‘All the way,’ Jane murmured.

She was standing with her back to the double doors into the church, pale yellow light in the crack. Merrily looked at her, appalled. Jane had her hands rammed down into the pockets of her parka, held her shoulders rigid.

‘By my reckoning…’ She looked up slowly. ‘And I’m, like, I’m only guessing here… but I reckon that when Mr Stooke was dying in the flood, that would probably be around the time Lensi was in a cubicle in the Ladies’ at the Swan.’ Stared defiantly at Leonora. ‘Shagging Bill Blore.’

65 Off the Wall

They went through the inevitable. The whole lying little bitch routine, Lensi’s face full of twisting shadows, before Merrily was pulling Jane back into the church, steering her into the corner behind the font.

Jane’s face was flushed, and she was panting.

Bliss had followed them, standing with his back to the doors.

‘Yes,’ he was saying almost lightly. ‘That’s it.’

The organ pipes were sounding the exultant opening chords of ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’. The congregation, perhaps excited now, sensing something happening, staying with it. Behind the font, Merrily held Jane by both shoulders.

‘I hope to God you’re—’

‘I was trying to tell you!’

‘Tell me, Jane,’ Bliss said.

‘I was in the toilet at the other end. After I talked to Coops.’

‘After he told you about Blore?’

‘I’ve told Frannie about that,’ Merrily said to Jane. ‘And the significance.’

Bliss had his hands together, like in prayer, the tips of the fingers tentatively tapping together.

‘You are absolutely sure about this, aren’t you, Jane? Because if there’s any doubt at all, you need to tell me now.’

Jane looked at the doors. Bliss went and pulled them open. Merrily heard Lol telling him that Howe had taken Leonora back to the Swan.

‘For a long and meaningful discussion, I hope,’ Bliss said. ‘All right, let’s all go back out where we don’t have to whisper.’

* * *

‘I thought she was sobbing.’ Jane said. ‘At first.’

‘Sobbing,’ Bliss said.

‘It’s… quite a similar sound, when you think about it. See, I’d just been sitting there on the loo. For a long time. Not ready to face anybody, you know? And like the toilets, they’re all refurbished now, padded walls, very plush. They obviously didn’t know I was there, they were at the other end. I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there. I couldn’t identify her voice, but there was, like, no mistaking his. He was going, Better, now? That better? With every… thrust. Like a dad talking to a little girl. Which was so sick. And then she started to, like, giggle, in this slightly hysterical way? I just felt… yuk.’

‘But not yuk enough to walk away, I hope,’ Bliss said.

‘Hung around outside… well, just inside reception, at the end of the passage. And then he came out. He didn’t see me. Just went through to the public bar. And then, a few minutes later, she came out — obviously taken some time to, like, clean herself up? And she did see me. And I go, “Hello, Lensi,” and she just smiles at me, briefly, like to somebody she just vaguely knew, and didn’t say anything, and went through into the passage.’

‘So now she knows,’ Bliss said. ‘She knows you know. Let’s hope Annie’s doing the right thing here.’

‘What’s the right thing?’ Merrily asked him.

‘I don’t really know. I don’t know whether I want her to let this woman go off so she can rush back to Blore, or take her away and talk to her, so I can have Blore to meself. I don’t know if this is something new — Mrs Stooke and Bill Blore — or if they’ve been an item for a while. Any thoughts?’

‘She wanted to come here,’ Merrily said. ‘She wanted to rent that house, and for no obvious reason. Elliot didn’t. He didn’t like it here.’

‘Maybe knowing Blore had his eye on Coleman’s Meadow? That he’d be here? But that would pre-suppose Blore had known about it for quite a while. And that he’d get the contract. Which is interesting in itself. It seem like a happy marriage to you, Merrily?’

‘It seemed like a slightly tense marriage, but I put that down to living with death threats and getting this abusive mail from… God, you see, nobody knew they were here, except for me. And Shirley.’

‘I’ve got people out looking for Shirley,’ Bliss said, ‘as we speak.’

‘And Shirley only knew because Leonora went into the post office and wrote out a cheque for an electricity bill, with the name Stooke on it. Very apologetic about that. Stupid mistake.’

‘Except it wasn’t?’

‘She’s not a stupid woman. And then they — allegedly — get all the hate mail from Shirley’s church. Which