A Crown of Lights

Robin saw Bain throw her a short, knife-like glance; she didn’t even react. ‘I used several agencies.’ He turned away, like this was an irrelevance. ‘And then, when “Father Ellis” began to make waves on the Welsh border, I came down to take a look for myself. Fell rather in love with the place.’

Bain then talked of how the archaeological excavation was under way at the time, just across the brook from the church; how the immense importance of the site as a place of ancient worship was becoming apparent. ‘One of the archaeologists told me he’d dearly love to know what lay under that church. Circular churchyard, pre-Christian site. I took a walk over there myself, and met some eagle-eyed old boy who told me he’d just bought it.’

‘Major Wilshire,’ Robin said. He couldn’t believe how this was shaping up.

‘Something like that. I didn’t pay too much attention to him, as I was being knocked sideways by the ambience. It was while I was talking to this guy that I had... the vision, I suppose. A moment beyond inspiration, when past and future collided in the present. Boom. I became aware how wonderful and apt it would be if the power of this place could be channelled. If this church was to become a temple again.’

‘Under the very nose of your fundamentalist Christian brother,’ Betty said quietly.

‘In fact’ – Bain raised his voice, irritated – ‘it was rather the other way round. For the first time I was almost grateful to Simon, for bringing me here. Ironic, really. But the church had now been sold, and that was that. I went home to London. You can imagine my reaction when, just a few months later, I learned that St Michael’s Farm and Old Hindwell Church were on the market again.’

‘No,’ Betty said coldly. ‘What exactly was your reaction?’

‘Betty,’ said Max, ‘I really don’t think we should prejudge this.’

Ned said, ‘Simply that I wanted it to be bought by someone sympathetic to the pagan cause.’

Bulbs finally started flashing big time inside Robin’s head.

The actual tomb was bigger than Merrily had expected: perhaps seven feet long, close to three feet wide, more than three feet deep. From outside, with the funeral party of Prossers, Dr Coll and Nick Ellis grouped around it, it had resembled a stone horse trough. Now, under the cream light from the wrought-iron electric lanterns hanging above the head and the foot of the tomb, she could see that it was far more ornate. A complex design of linked crosses had been carved out of the side panels. The lid was not stone, but perhaps as good as: an oak slab four inches thick. The great tomb had been concreted into its stone plinth.

‘All local stone,’ Judith said proudly. ‘From the quarry.’

‘Got that done quickly, didn’t he?’

Judith closed the oak door, so their voices were sharpened by the walls of the mausoleum, which were solid concrete, inches thick. The chamber was about twenty feet square, nothing in it but the tomb, and the two of them, and dead Menna.

Judith said, ‘Mal Walters, the monumental mason, is a long-established client of J.W. Mal worked through the night.’

‘Right.’

Judith Prosser stood by the head of the tomb, disquietingly priest-like in her tubular black quilted coat – not quite cassock-length, but close. Her short, strong hair had been bleached, her pewter-coloured earrings were thin, metal pyramids. She was waiting, behind the shade of a sardonic smile.

‘I thought...’ Merrily put down the airline bag she’d brought from the car. The junior exorcist’s starter kit. ‘I thought I’d keep it simple.’

But should she even be doing it here, rather than in that big room behind the bay window, where the ‘baptism’ had taken place?

Yes, she should. She didn’t want the complication of having to try to restore peace to a room where the atmosphere had apparently been ravaged by another priest. Also, she had been asked by Menna’s next of kin to calm the spirit. No one had invited her to deal with that room, least of all Weal. She didn’t want to go in there, didn’t want to enter his actual house in his absence. She really needed guidance. If she’d predicted this situation might develop, she’d have rung her spiritual adviser, Huw Owen, in advance. But there’d been no time for that.

Judith moved to a double switch on the wall, and the lantern at the head of the tomb went out, leaving Menna’s concrete cell softly lit, like a drawing room.

‘Are you a Christian, Mrs Prosser?’

‘That’s a funny question.’

‘I know you go to church. I know you support Father Ellis. I don’t really know what you believe.’

‘Nor will you ever,’ Judith said tartly. ‘What’s your point? What are you getting at?’

‘Do you believe in the unquiet dead?’

Judith Prosser regarded Merrily across the tomb, her eyes half closed. ‘The dead are always quiet, Mrs Watkins. The dead are dead, and only the weak-minded are afraid of them. They cannot touch us. Nor, I assume...’ She laid a forefinger gently on Menna’s small inscription, ‘... can we touch them.’

‘Meaning Mr Weal.’

‘Mr Weal’s a tragic figure, isn’t it? He wanted what he thought Menna was. He liked it that she was quiet. He liked it that she was polite to her father and did not go with boys. A real, three- dimensional woman was far too complicated for J.W. He wanted, I suppose, a shadow of a woman.’

Oh my God.

Merrily said, ‘You have to tell me this. If not you yourself, then has anyone else seen the... spirit of Menna Weal?’

Judith made a scornful pfft noise. She half turned and began to unbutton her coat. ‘Anyway...’ Sweeping the coat back to place her hands on her hips, turning to face Merrily. ‘Time is getting on. What do you propose to do here, my girl?’

‘Well... I’m going to say some prayers. What I really should be doing – I mean to be halfway sure of this – is holding a Requiem Eucharist. And for that there really ought to be a few of us. Like I said this morning, it would be better if we’d had Mr Weal with us. I mean with us.’

‘And as I said, that would be imposs—’

‘Or even Barbara. If Barbara were here, it—’

Merrily heard her own words rebound from the concrete walls. She lurched away from the tomb, as if it were mined.

Such a vast tomb for one small body.

Judith looked mildly curious. ‘Someone walk over your grave, Mrs Watkins?’

Merrily knew she’d gone pale. ‘Judith...?’

‘Go ahead,’ said Mrs Prosser. ‘We’re quite alone, almost.’

Merrily swallowed. The scarf felt tight around her throat.

‘What do you think J.W. Weal would have done if he’d discovered that Barbara Buckingham had found out about Father Ellis’s exorcism of Menna, performed at his behest?’

Judith’s eyes were not laughing. ‘What on earth am I supposed to say to that?’ She stepped back.

Now they were both looking at the tomb.

‘Oh, I see,’ Judith said.

Merrily said nothing.

‘You mean, after he dumped the car in the Claerwen Reservoir, what, precisely, did he do with the body?’

Merrily said nothing.

‘Does Barbara perhaps lie below her poor sister? Were her remains, in those fine English clothes, already set in concrete when Menna’s coffin was laid to... unrest?’

Merrily bit her lip.

‘Come on, woman! Is that what you meant?’

‘It looks very deep,’ Merrily said. ‘And... as you said, the monumental mason worked all night.’

‘All right!’ Judith’s voice rang with challenge. ‘Then let’s find out, shall we?’

Merrily found she’d backed against the door.

‘Oh, Mrs Watkins, did you think poor J.W. could bring himself to say such a final