‘Background? Background could not be more respectable. Parents are both professional classical musicians. He was a music teacher at private schools, ending up at Malvern College. Played rugby for a local team. How respectable do you want?
‘This project of his,’ Merrily said. ‘The oratorio or whatever…’
‘OK.’
‘He was working on that when you met him? Or was that your idea?’
‘What’s that matter?’
‘We didn’t go into this yesterday, but when he saw what he… when he saw the figure he identified as Elgar, on his bike… I’m just thinking of the big picture in the hallway… Very much a presence in the house, you’ll agree.’
‘He’s a presence in Tim’s life.’
‘And obviously a presence, on some level, in Wychehill.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘It’s just that this seems to be the image of Elgar that Tim’s… carrying around with him. And it corresponds with the… with the apparition that people – Tim included – appear to have been seeing.’
‘What’s that have to do with getting him out of gaol?’
‘And you’re a writer, specializing in books on mysticism, psychic studies, healing… the occult? You said you were helping him with meditation exercises. To deal with his drinking and… maybe to reach Elgar’s level of creative inspiration. A man whose previous output, I understand, has been… fairly ordinary. So he’s living with Elgar’s music, images of Elgar, in a place steeped in Elgar. He’s immersing himself on a very intense level…’
‘You don’t even wanna get him out, do you? All you want is to cover your own ass with the cops for whatever reason-’
‘This has nothing to do with the cops.’ Merrily felt a headache coming on. ‘But if you want to deal with that first… oak trees? Acorns? Little oaks in pots, the sapling that’s going to be bigger than his house?’
‘A symbol.’
‘Of what?’
‘A symbol from the natural world that he could use for meditation. He was drinking too much, I was trying to use meditation to give him a focus. And also to make him more… receptive. Why are you asking me this stuff?’
‘Because the police are linking oaks to Druidism and Druidism to blood sacrifice and… you know?’
‘ Oh, Jesus God…’ Winnie’s voice was suddenly perforated with panic. ‘This is shit! This is so wrong.’
‘Is it?’
‘What?’
‘I mean, why is it wrong? Elgar wrote Caractacus about Herefordshire Beacon. Full of Druidism and magic and prophecy and people’s throats being cut on sacrificial stones.’
There was a gap before Winnie’s voice came back, the fissures hardening up.
‘What are you, Merrily? Some kinda fucking stoolie for the cops? Like I need to waste my time with a police snitch? I don’t think so, lady. I think I told you far too much already, and all you did was you gave it to the cops.’
‘That’s not-’
‘So from now on you can get off of my case, OK?’
‘Look, I’m just trying to-’
‘I’m gonna have a good lawyer I can’t truly afford go see Tim right now, and I don’t wanna hear from you again, so… like when we get him outta there you just stay the hell away from the both of us.’
‘Winnie, if you could just let me-’
‘Goddamn fucking stoolie bitch.’
The phone went down hard.
At the start of mid-morning break, the sixth-form common room was like a call centre, a whole bunch of them switching on their mobiles to, like, maintain the temperature of their love lives.
When Jane switched on hers, just to be sociable, not expecting anything from Eirion this morning, it went directly into its tune. And, not recognising the number, it was like…
‘Jane Watkins?’
‘Erm…’
‘Hi, Jane, this is Jerry Isles from the Guardian. I tried to leave a message on your voicemail yesterday – maybe you didn’t get it?’
‘Oh… did you?’
‘Never mind. Jane, I have to say it all sounds hugely fascinating. I used to be quite into leys a few years ago – we used to stay with friends in Cornwall, where you’re practically tripping over megalithic sites, so I’ve read Watkins, obviously, and this really brought it all back. Are you running the campaign on your own?’
‘Well… you know… me and a few friends, but-’
‘But it was your idea.’
‘Yes, only I’m not sure-’
‘You seem to be wearing school uniform on the picture. How old are you, do you mind?’
‘S-Eighteen.’
‘Good. And your parents know about it?’
‘My mother knows. I don’t have a father any more. She, erm… My mum’s cool with it.’
‘Well… I took the liberty of checking your map with the Ordnance Survey, and the line certainly seems to work. Who did the pictures?’
‘My… boyfriend.’
‘They’re good pix, on the whole. However, I think we’d like to do some of our own. We have a regular freelance photographer in your area, and the picture editor would like to send her along, if that’s all right with you. How about… are you free this afternoon?’
Through the plate-glass window beyond the tabletennis table, Jane could see Morrell in his shirt sleeves jogging across the quad towards the car park.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I mean this is really good of you, but I’m not sure I want to go through with it now.’
‘Oh? That mean you’re no longer convinced?’
‘Oh, no, it’s true, it’s all true. Even though when I went to see the local councillor, there were all these council officials there, and they were all, like, Oh, it’s all nonsense and Alfred Watkins was a misguided old man. And the councillor was suggesting I was trying to mess up his plans for turning Ledwardine into some kind of town, which would be really crap. And I was warned that I should be careful what I said. I mean, I’m not worried about me that much, but my mum’s the vicar there, you know?’
The line went quiet. If they’d lost it, Jane decided she wasn’t going to call him back, at least not until tonight when she’d had time to think of a way he could maybe do the story but keep her out of it…
‘The vicar,’ Jerry Isles said. ‘No, I didn’t know that.’
Oh hell. Why, in this so-called secular age, were newspapers so fond of vicars?
Jerry said, ‘Tell me again, Jane, what these people from the council said to you…?’
‘I don’t think I told you the first time, did I?’
‘About the councillor wanting to turn your village into a small town? That’s what I’ve got.’
‘You’re writing this down?’
Morrell jogged back and went into the main building, his car keys swinging from a finger.
Jane began to sweat.
Merrily sat in the scullery, watching the play of morning light on the vicarage lawn, the clusters of yellow wild flowers in the churchyard drystone wall that bordered it. A whole ecosystem, that wall.
What are you, some kinda stoolie for the cops?
Going back over it, she could pinpoint the exact moment when Winnie Sparke’s attitude had altered. It was when Merrily had revealed that she’d been inside Loste’s house. Winnie had been afraid of what Merrily – not the police – might have seen in the house and been able to interpret for Howe.
Which meant there was something she should have spotted in there and hadn’t.
She called Syd Spicer, not expecting him to be in. But he picked up on the second ring.
‘You’ve offended Sparke, Merrily. Easily done.’
