you could have handled it. Without coming over as a... crank.’
‘Or a bigot. Both of which are probably better than a drowning wimp.’ Merrily drank her tea, both hands around the cup, like someone pulled out of the sea and wrapped in a blanket. ‘You spend an interminable hour making a fool of yourself on TV, you walk out thinking all religion’s a joke. You’re unhappy and ashamed and cynical all at the same time. You get in your car, you drive maybe not quite as carefully as you ought to, given the ubiquitous fog warnings and the fact that your husband just happened to have died horrifically on this same stretch of motorway. You drive into a fog bank. You become aware of two dull specks of red that you think must be a hundred yards away and which turn out to be this bloody great crashed lorry dead in your path. You spin the wheel in panic. You become aware of a figure dragging another figure across the road in front of you. The second figure stares full into your headlights, and you see... you see the face of your daughter who you know for a fact is at home in bed fifty-odd miles away. Your daughter’s face... blank, white, expressionless. Like the face of a corpse.’
Sophie shuddered. ‘It must have been... I can’t imagine what that must have been like.’
‘Like... Nemesis,’ Merrily said. ‘You know what I was thinking about in the few minutes before? I was thinking about this woman who believes she’s seeing her sister’s ghost. I was just deciding she really didn’t have a psychiatric problem— Oh
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I told her I’d go with her to her sister’s funeral. It’s this afternoon. It’s in about two hours. Or less.’
‘Oh, Merrily, nobody could possibly expect—’
‘I’ve got to.’
‘You’ve had no
‘Oh, I’ve had... had an hour on the sofa. Fed the cat, grabbed a slice of toast, rung Worcester Infirmary twice to make sure Jane’s not... worse. No, look, I’ve got to go, because...’
‘Then you must lie down for a while first. I’ll find somewhere in the palace. Look at you – you’re trembling. Are you saying this pile-up actually happened in the same area where your husband was killed?’
‘Well, that was on the other side, the northbound lanes. He was... I suppose he was on my mind, when...’
When she’d walked into that studio? Was Sean stalking her then? Was he already deep-harboured in her head when she’d entered the TV building? Having driven along the same stretch of the M5, under the very same bridge against which his car had balled on impact and bounced in its final firedance, while he and Karen were torn and roasted.
Couldn’t tell Sophie any of that. Couldn’t tell her about the eloquent pagan, Ned Bain, sitting there with his lazy, knowing Sean-like eyes, and even his legs crossed a la Sean.
‘And, you think... what you think is that this can’t be happening. And if it can’t be happening then it’s a hallucination. And you
‘But only you would think that. Only someone in your—’
‘Only someone in my weird, cranky job.’
‘But you didn’t hit her,’ Sophie said intensely. ‘Did you? You did not hit Jane.’
‘No. There was no impact. I didn’t hit anyone. But still a complete nightmare – I mean dreamlike. You haven’t physically driven into your daughter, therefore it must be a premonition: a vision of
‘But it wasn’t, was it?’
‘I could see Sean in her face... that little bump in the nose, the twist of the lips. I could see Sean in her, like I’d never seen him there before.’
‘Juxtaposition of ideas,’ Sophie said, ‘or something.’
‘I swerved, violently. Stopped the car and got out, terrified out of my mind. Only to discover...’ Sophie reached across the desk, squeezed Merrily’s cold right hand. ‘... that this really was Jane. The actual Jane, being pulled away by a terrified Eirion after being very nearly killed when this speeding low-loader smashed into the back of his car. She was pale and expressionless not because she was dead, but because she was semi-concussed. This is the mind-blowing perversity of it, that there is
‘You’re afraid that you’ve stopped looking for simple rational explanations? Is that what you mean?’
‘Maybe.’
‘How many people were killed?’ Sophie asked. ‘In the end.’
‘Three. And one critical in hospital. I think about four slightly hurt, including Jane. There were about six cars involved, and a couple of lorries. Seemed like the parameds and the fire brigade were on the scene before I was out of my car. There was one poor woman...’
Merrily shook her head, blinked away the unbelievably horrific image of a torn-off arm on the central reservation.
‘You were very lucky, both of you. And the boy?’
‘Eirion. His car was a write-off.’
‘He’s not injured, that’s all that matters.’
‘Some whiplash. They kept him in for the night, too, but I think his father picked him up this morning. Or his father’s chauffeur. I talked to his stepmother on the phone. Eirion seems to be blaming himself for what happened.
‘So, altogether...’
‘What I keep coming back to is, suppose I’d arrived one second earlier? Suppose I’d killed her? In one of those one-in-a-billion freak family tragedies? What would I have done with the rest of my life? What would any of it be worth?’
‘But you didn’t. Someone didn’t want to lose you – and didn’t want you forever damaged either.’
Merrily leaned back, shook out a cigarette. ‘You ever thought of getting ordained, Sophie?’
‘God forbid.’ Sophie stood up. ‘Put that thing away and get your coat.’
‘It’s Jane’s coat. What for?’
‘Jane’s coat, then. I’m going to drive you to this funeral. You can perhaps sleep on the way. If we leave now, we might even stop for a sandwich.’
‘Sophie, it’s Saturday. You can’t... You have things to do.’
‘Oh,’ Sophie said, ‘I think Hereford United can manage without me for one week.’
Merrily blinked. Sophie unhooked a long, sheepskin coat and a woollen scarf from the door. It did rather look like the sort of outfit you would wear to a football match in January. Bizarre?
‘This is above and beyond, Soph.’ Merrily got unsteadily to her feet.
‘I should be grateful if you didn’t smoke in my car,’ Sophie said.
19
Abracadabra
THE MAIN ROAD from Old Hindwell to New Radnor passed through the hamlet of Llanfihangel nant Melan. The church of St Michael was right next to the road and, although it didn’t actually look very old, there were indications of a circle of ancient yew trees, which suggested it had been rebuilt.
Although there were a number of other cars nearby, Betty stopped the Subaru. She was in no mood to talk to Mrs Wilshire or anybody else right now. She would check out the atmosphere of the church. It might even calm her down.
She was still furious with Robin. If he’d been accosted the other night by the drunken wife of Greg Starkey, feeling him up in the street, why hadn’t he told Betty when he arrived home? Old Hindwell wasn’t exactly known for
