To Dream of the Dead

stood by an oak pillar, looking towards the water. ‘Ken Williams, who owns that strip west of the village hall, agreed for Parry to go on his land with the digger, build up the bank. Might save the bottom end of the riverside estate.’

‘Save it? You mean—?’

‘Well, not yet. Water’s a foot deep in some gardens, though. So probably only a matter of time.’

The impact of the continuing rain made the bottom of Church Street look like a choppy sea.

‘So if it keeps on raining…?’

James leaned forward, hands linked behind his back, his face long.

‘Then we’re probably looking at evacuation.’

Merrily looked up in alarm from under the rain-heavy hood of her cape.

‘Do people know that?’

‘Tentatively suggested to a few families on the estate that they should think about moving valued items of furniture upstairs. Naturally, they’re resistant to the idea. As if Christmas confers some sort of immunity, as if nature can’t wreak havoc because it’s Christmas. Gord! Like the blessed river’s going to wait till they’ve finished stuffing their faces.’

‘What can I do? We have spare bedrooms at the vicarage.’

‘Hell, Merrily, don’t go broadcasting that. We’ll be suggesting people find relatives they can stay with, outside the village.’

‘Leave the village?’

‘Don’t like saying it, and some of them don’t like hearing it from the likes of me, but what’s the alternative? Council’s got problems all over the county, some worse than this. Question of priorities. Planning bods’re going to get some stick when this is over about allowing new housing on the flood plain, but that’s happening everywhere.’

‘But what can we do now? What can I do?’

‘Do? Do nothing. Save your accommodation for emergencies, any people left homeless in the night. Meanwhile, go about life as normal, hope the rain stops, level goes down.’

‘And pray.’

‘Only try not to do it in the street.’ James puffed out his lips. ‘Be expedient to lock that bloody woman in a cellar somewhere until all this is over.’

‘Shirley West?’

Not a subject she’d raised with anyone before, but it was probably necessary now.

‘Much wailing and wringing of hands whenever she can find an audience. Beginning of the end, sort of thing. Great flood come to wash away our sins. Or more specifically, Merrily, your sins. Not the best time, I’d have to say, to have unleashed that particular sermon.’

‘It needed saying, James.’

‘No, it didn’t.’ James shaking his head as if in pain. ‘Nobody cares, Merrily. Nobody gives a fig about the spirituality or otherwise of whichever bloody savages erected the damn stones in Coleman’s Meadow. Nobody apart from you… and her. Truth is, possibly because of your other… hat, you’re dwelling on issues beyond normal people’s need-to-know. I’m sorry, but that’s how it looked to me.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No. No, you’re right. I overreacted. It’s ridiculous. One woman out of a whole village. But she does worry me. Couple of months ago never out of church, full of this slightly suspect humility, but humility none the less, and now…’

‘Hmph.’

‘What?’

‘Ah.’ James shuffled his feet on the cobbles. ‘Alison was in Leominster yesterday. Found the place littered with flyers for this Church of the Holy Light?’

‘Church of the Lord of the Light. Shirley’s other church.’

‘That’s the crew. Born-again johnnies. Gather in a former warehouse on the industrial estate. Odd set of buggers. Members forbidden to use the health food shop. Beyond me. However, something you should know, if you don’t already… seems to be an offshoot of that revivalist thing that mushroomed in the Radnor Valley, couple of years ago.’

‘Ellis?’ Merrily spun away from the oak pillar, her hood falling away. ‘Nick Ellis is back?’

‘Gord, no. Calm down. I said an offshoot. Can’t see that fellow showing his face around here again, ever. Well, actually, you can… there are pictures of him in his white robes plastered all over the town.’

‘I’ve not been in Leominster for a couple of weeks. God, James…’

Father Ellis. The hysteria, the speaking-in-tongues, the internal ministry for women possessed by the demon of lust. All the charges that ought to have been hung on Ellis, including sexual assault, criminal damage, and he’d got away with it.

‘Lord of the Light — he was part of a charismatic Anglican fringe movement called Sea of Light. Became too extreme for them. Last I heard he was in America.’

Merrily felt damp inside, with apprehension. Remembered there’d been a lot of rain when Ellis was dominating his congregation in the hill village of Old Hindwell.

‘I was fully prepared to testify, James, but nobody else was willing to, and the Crown Prosecution Service threw it out. As they do.’

‘Well… something of a martyr now, apparently. Hounded out of his own country.’

‘A martyr? The bastard got off without a… wasn’t even charged. And this is after I actually made a statement saying I’d seen him insert a crucifix into—’

‘Yes, quite.’ James backed off, palms raised. ‘All I’m saying, if there are lunatics going around claiming Ellis was falsely accused, pointing fingers in your direction, might well explain the change in West’s attitude towards you.’

‘Might, yes. Thank you.’

The last explanation of Shirley West had come from Sian Callaghan-Clarke, standing in while Merrily was away for a few days. Sian discovering that Shirley had become committed to a rigid form of self-cleansing after learning that her husband — now ex — had been a distant cousin of the Herefordshire-born mass-murderer Fred West. Hanging on to the name, in penance.

‘James, if they’re in contact with Ellis himself…?’

‘Internet.’

‘Mmm. Makes it all too easy.’

‘Especially if the chap wants to keep the lid on his whereabouts.’ James sniffed. ‘Never liked fanatics who set up churches in sheds. Seen soldiers turn from perfectly serviceable fighting chaps to Bible-punching lunatics after one week’s leave.’

Merrily fell silent, thinking of the website, Thelordofthelight.com. How she’d said to Lol, in all innocence, Maybe coming in from America.

‘Watch your back, vicar, that’s all I’m saying. This climate-change business… sometimes think even people’s brains are getting overheated. Avoid her. Anyway, need to be orf. Rain’s not going to stop anytime soon.’

‘Avoiding her could be… a bit difficult.’ Merrily slipped between the oak pillars, pulling her hood back up. ‘Better make a run for it.’

40 Moral Void

Back in the vicarage, Merrily went directly through to the scullery, hanging her soaking cape behind the door