A Crown of Lights

farewell to his beloved? What other reason would a man like him have for going to all this trouble?’ She pointed.

From back here, Merrily didn’t even have to bend down to see that the tomb’s handsome oakwood lid was hinged.

‘It’s very heavy, all the same,’ Judith said. ‘You may have to help me.’

Merrily remembered, when she was a little kid, being towed along by her mother to make the arrangements for her gran’s funeral, and how the undertaker’s inner door had been left open. Merrily’s mother thinking she was too young to understand. But not too young to absorb the smell of formaldehyde from the embalming room.

She’d been four years old, the formaldehyde alternating with the equally piercing tang of furniture polish, making her afraid to go to sleep that night, and she didn’t know why. There was only this grim, opaque fear, the sense of a deep, unpleasant mystery.

Which returned when Judith threw back the solid oak lid of the tomb. Judith hadn’t needed help with it after all. She looked down into the tomb and smiled.

The dead are always quiet, Mrs Watkins. The dead are dead, and only the weak-minded are afraid of them.

But Merrily who, since ordination, had seen any number of laid-out bodies was afraid. The same grim opaque fear, and she didn’t know why.

What would be the point, anyway? Judith had only done this for effect, to put herself in control from the start. And if the body of Barbara Buckingham was in there too, it would be in the base, set in concrete, never to be discovered, certainly not in J.W. Weal’s lifetime.

Menna, though – Menna was readily accessible. It was clear that Judith was not now looking down on merely a coffin lid.

‘Close it, please,’ Merrily said.

‘How do you know it isn’t Barbara? Come on, see for yourself.’

‘This is intrusion,’ Merrily said.

‘It was always intrusion, Mrs Watkins.’

‘Then close the lid and I’ll say some prayers and we’ll go.’

‘If I close the lid,’ Judith said, ‘she won’t be able to hear you, will she?’

The whole mausoleum stank of embalming fluid. Merrily needed air, a fortifying cigarette. She went back to the door.

‘Don’t open it, you silly girl. The light!’ Judith let go of the lid and it hung for a moment and then fell against the stone side of the tomb with a shuddering crash, leaving the interior fully exposed. The single lantern, over the foot of the tomb, swung slightly, and Merrily saw a quiver of parchment-coloured lace from inside.

‘Come over yere, Mrs Watkins,’ Judith said.

‘This is wrong.’ Merrily’s hand went to the centre of her breast where, under her coat, under her jumper, the pectoral cross lay. Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me...

‘Come and see how peaceful she looks. It’ll make you feel better. Then we’ll say goodnight to her. Come yere.’

... Christ before me. Merrily walked into the centre of the mausoleum. If necessary, she’d close the lid herself.

‘You silly girl.’ Judith reached out suddenly and grabbed her by the arm, pulled her close. ‘Don’t be afraid. I’ll look after you.’

I don’t think so. As the formaldehyde seared the back of Merrily’s throat, the lantern swung again at the sudden movement and shot spears of light and shadow from Menna’s swaddled feet to Menna’s exposed face.

See how peaceful she looks.

No.

That night in the hospital, with the freshly applied water on her brow, Menna had appeared simply and calmly dead. The body hadn’t, from a distance, seemed much different during her funeral. Now, embalmed, only days later, her face was pinched and rigid, her mouth downturned, lips slightly parted to reveal the teeth... and that particularly, Merrily thought in revulsion, was surely not the work of the embalmer.

She recoiled slightly. Judith’s arm was around her, gently squeezing.

‘Thank you,’ Merrily said. ‘Now I know it isn’t Barbara.’

‘You’re trembling.’ Merrily felt Judith’s breath on her face.

‘Don’t,’ she said mildly.

Things you oughta know, Marianne had said. And earlier: That Judy. She took you outside, din’t she? I was glad when she did that.

‘It’s been hard for you, Merrily, hasn’t it?’ Judith said, quite tenderly. ‘All the pressures. All the things you didn’t understand.’

‘I’m getting there.’ Marianne had been in shock. Marianne needed help. Marianne, who sometimes preyed on men, had herself become vulnerable, pitiable, accessible.

‘Yes, I believe you are,’ Judith said tonelessly.

52 Beast is Come

JANE WATCHED, EATEN up with dread, as the multitude assembled where two lanes in the village converged. The uniformed chief inspector in charge tried to organize some kind of roll-call, but it wasn’t going to be easy. Only two people known to be missing, and one of them was Mum.

Once the fire brigade was in – four machines, two Welsh, two English – the police had sealed off Old Hindwell. Firefighters with breathing apparatus tried to get into the village hall but were eventually ordered out for their own safety. Jane was there when the order was given, and that was when she began to sob.

When – soon after the brigade got there – the porch’s wooden roof had collapsed, lighting up the night and several Sitka spruce, many people fell down on their knees and prayed to the violent, orange sky. Jane was frantic and clung to Eirion, by the side of the police Transit in the filthy, choking air. She didn’t remember when Eirion had appeared, or where he’d appeared from. Sophie was here too, now, and many local people had come out of their homes.

And Gomer... Gomer was a deeply reluctant hero. The media kept wanting to talk to him. They wanted to hear him describe how he’d spotted the flames and gone round to the rear entrance and opened it up and guided 350 Christians to safety. Gomer kept saying, ‘Later, boys, all right?’ But later he was muttering, Bugger off, as the firefighters went on blasting thousands of gallons into the roaring hall.

And still they hadn’t found Mum.

Jane, by now hyperactive with fear, had dragged Eirion into the middle of the milling people, and she kept shouting through her tears, ‘Small, dark woman in a tatty duffel coat, anybody? Anybody! ’

But nobody had seen her. Nobody.

Though a number elected to pray for her.

Not nearly as many, however, as were praying for Father Ellis, last seen, apparently, stepping from the stage to sing with the crowd. Nobody, at that time, had been aware of the fire in the porch because of the fire doors, and nobody had heard it because of the glorious exultation of the Holy Spirit amplified through their hearts and lungs.

Nobody had known a thing, in fact, until a skinny little man with wild white hair and thick glasses had appeared at the bottom of the hall and had begun bawling at them to bloody well shut up and follow him. By then the fire doors were surrounded by flame and the air was turning brown and the tongues were torn with coughing.