A Crown of Lights

hell, he had to say it. It was staring them right in the face.

‘Bets... it’s down to us, now, isn’t it? To, like, finish the job. It puts us hard against Ellis, but... like, is this fate, or what?’

He was tingling with excitement. This was their clear future.

At the sink, Betty put down the glass, turned both taps on full. She was staring into the water running out of the taps. ‘I doubt this is as simple as you imagine.’

‘Or maybe it just is. Maybe it’s also fate that the local people weren’t so attached to the church the way it was that they wanted to fight to save it.’

‘It was in a poor state, anyway. It was going to cost a fortune in repairs. That’s what the Pottinger woman said.’

‘And maybe Ellis was right about something coming to the surface. Bad news for him... but not for us, babes.’

‘Oh, don’t be so bloody simplistic! Just for a moment stop trying to make everything fit into your dream scenario.’

‘Well, sure... OK.’ He felt hurt. ‘I mean let’s talk this thing through.’

‘I have to go out. I have to go and see Mrs Wilshire.’

‘Again? What the fuck is this?’

‘It’s not your problem.’

‘Oh really?’ Hell, this needed saying, this was long overdue. ‘Well what is my problem is why you always have to find excuses to get out of here. Like going in the car. Why don’t you ever even go into the village? The place we live next to? Why don’t you get to know the people here? People like Judith Prosser next door. OK, Gareth might be a dumb bastard, but she’s OK, not what I imagined. Maybe we were wrong to start condemning the local people as total redneck bigots, purely on your flawed fucking childhood memories.’

Betty didn’t flare up. She just stared hard at him for a couple of seconds, and he stared back.

And then she said, ‘I never said that. I’m sure there are some decent, liberal, perceptive, outward-looking people down there.’ She went to the table, picked up a piece of white notepaper, pushed it at him. ‘Like, for instance, the person who sent that.’

18 Cold, Earthly, Rational...

THE GOTHIC LETTER D was still on the office door, but hanging loose now, at an angle. D for Deliverance – Bishop Hunter’s idea.

As had been the Reverend Watkins becoming Deliverance Consultant.

She stood on the stone stairs, in front of the closed door, and decided, after all, to go back home. Her head ached. What the hell was she doing here? As she turned to creep back down the stairs, the office door opened.

‘I thought it was!’

Merrily stopped, and slowly and sheepishly turned around again.

‘I thought it was your car.’ Sophie was expensively casual in a blue and white Alpine sweater. ‘What on earth are you doing here? Nobody would have expected you to come in today.’

She’d spoken briefly to Sophie on the phone, asking her to put the bishop in the picture.

‘Merrily, you look—’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘Starved.’ Sophie stood aside for her.

Merrily slung Jane’s duffel coat on the back of her chair, and slumped into it. ‘If I hadn’t come in today, I might never have come in again.’

Sophie frowned and began making tea. Through the gatehouse window, above Broad Street, the late morning sun flickered unstably in and out between hard clouds. The air outside had felt as though it was full of razor blades. The weather forecast had said there might be snow showers tonight – which was better than fog.

‘The bishop tried to ring you.’ Sophie laid out two cups and saucers. ‘He said if I spoke to you to tell you there was no need to phone back.’

‘Ever.’

‘Don’t be silly, Merrily. On reflection, I’m glad you did come in. Are you listening to me?’

‘I’m listening.’

‘You cannot drive to Worcester.’

‘I’ll be perfectly—’

‘You will not. I shall drive you. Leave your car here. I don’t want an argument about this, do you understand?’

‘Well, I can take a bit of a rest this afternoon. They’re not releasing her until after five.’

‘She should stay there another night,’ Sophie said stiffly. ‘Concussion’s unpredictable.’

‘I think, on the whole, I can probably do without her discharging herself and stalking the streets of Worcester at midnight.’

‘I should have thought that she’d be sufficiently penitent not to dare to—’

‘Sophie’ – Merrily cradled her face in cupped hands, looked up sorrowfully – ‘this is Jane we’re talking about.’

‘If she were my daughter...’

‘Don’t give yourself nightmares.’ Merrily dropped her hands, trying not to cry from exhaustion, anxiety, confusion and a terror which seemed to be lodged deep inside her, which every so often would pulse, hot-wiring her entire nervous system.

‘Delayed shock, Merrily.’

‘If you tell me I need trauma counselling, I’ll put this computer through the window.’

Sophie brought over a chair, sat down opposite Merrily.

‘Tell me then.’

The sun had put itself away again. Sophie added two sugars into Merrily’s tea and switched on the answering machine.

Sophie? Sophie in her incredibly expensive Alpine sweater. Sophie who served the cathedral and all it represented. Yeah, why not?

‘When you really contemplate the nature of this job,’ Merrily said, ‘you can start to think you’re more than half mad. When the line between reality and whatever else there is... is no longer distinct. When it’s no longer even a line.’

And when you swerve around a crashed lorry in the fog, and there’s a figure staggering in the road that you just know you’re going to hit, and in the last second, while you’re throwing yourself around the wheel, you see her face.

‘I’m starting actually to understand the Church’s conservatism on the supernatural. Shut the door and bar it. Block the gap at the bottom with a thick mat. Let no chink of unnatural light seep in, because a chink’s as good as a... whatever you call a big blast of light that renders you blind.’

‘As in Paul on the road to Damascus?’ Sophie said.

‘Not exactly. Paul was... sure.’

‘You are tired.’

‘I mean, I’m sure... I’m just not quite sure what I’m sure of. It’s only by being dull and conservative that the Church remains relatively intact. Bricks and mortar and Songs of Praise. Leave the weird stuff to Deliverance. It’s a dirty job, and they’ve never been totally convinced someone has to do it.’

‘I did watch the Livenight programme,’ Sophie said. ‘I didn’t really see how else