A Crown of Lights

Gomer sniffed and turned away, and led her through an uncared-for copse, where some of the trees were dead and branches brought down by the gales had been left where they’d fallen.

‘Prosser’s ground, all of this – inherited from the ole fellers. But he don’t do nothin’ with it n’more. Muster been glad when the harchaeologists come – likely got compensation for lettin’ ’em dig up ground the dull bugger’d forgotten he owned.’

‘Why’s he never done anything with it?’

‘That’s why,’ Gomer said, as they came out of the copse.

And there, on a perfect promontory, a natural shelf above the brook, on the opposite bank, was the former parish church of St Michael, Old Hindwell.

‘Gomer...’ Merrily was transfixed. ‘It’s... beautiful.’

The nave had been torn open to the elements but the tower seemed intact. A bar of light in the sky made the stones shimmer brown and grey and pink between patches of moss and lichen.

‘It’s the kind of church townsfolk dream of going to on a Sunday. I mean, what must it be like on a summer evening, with its reflection in the water? How could they let it go?’

Gomer grunted, rolling a ciggy. ‘Reverend Penney, ennit? I tole you. Went off ’is trolley.’

‘Went off his trolley how, exactly?’ She remembered that Bernie Dunmore had made a brief allusion last night to the rector at the time actually suggesting that Old Hindwell Church should be decommissioned.

Now, with a certain relish, Gomer told her what the Reverend Terence Penney, rector of this parish, had done with all that ancient and much-polished church furniture on an October day in the mid-1960s.

‘Wow.’ She stared into the water, imagining it foaming around the flotsam of the minister’s madness. ‘Why?’

‘Drugs,’ Gomer said. ‘There was talk of drugs.’

‘Where is he now?’

Gomer shrugged.

She gazed, appalled, at the ruin. ‘I bet we can find out. When we get back to the car, I’ll call Sophie. Sophie knows everybody in a dog collar who isn’t a dog.’

They went back through the dismal, dying copse.

‘Not many folks walks this path n’more,’ Gomer said, ‘’cept a few tourists. Place gets a bad reputation. Then this feller fell off the tower, killed ’isself.’

Merrily stopped. ‘When?’

‘Year or so back? Bloke called Wilshire, army man, lived New Radnor way. Falls off a ladder checkin’ the stonework on the ole tower. That’s how come these Thorogoods got it cheap, I reckon.’

‘I see.’

At the car, despite the extensive view, the mobile phone signal was poor and she had to shout at Sophie, whose voice kept breaking up into hiss and crackle, shouting out the name Penney.

Gomer said, ‘You wanner go talk to the witches, vicar?’

‘Dare we?’ She thought about it. ‘Yeah, why not.’

But when they drove back to the farm gate, there was a TV crew videotaping a thirtyish couple with a ‘Christ is the Light’ placard. You could tell by their outward bound-type clothing that they were not local. Merrily found herself thinking that some people just didn’t have enough to do with their lives.

She was confused. She didn’t know this place at all. It was like one of those complicated watches that did all sorts of different things, and you had to get the back off before you could see how the cogs were connected. Problem was, she didn’t even know where to apply the screwdriver to prise off the back.

‘Black Lion?’ Gomer suggested. ‘I’ll buy you a pint and a sandwich, vicar.’

At the Black Lion there were no visible candles – no lights at all, in fact.

Merrily saw Gomer glance at his wrist, before remembering he’d buried his watch. ‘About a quarter to two,’ she said.

Gomer frowned. ‘What’s the silly bugger playin’ at, shuttin’ of a lunchtime with all these TV fellers in town?’

Merrily followed him up a short alley into a yard full of dustbins and beer crates. There was a door with a small frosted-glass window and Gomer tapped on it. Kept on tapping until a face blurred up behind the frosted glass, looking like the scrubbed-over face of one of the suspects in a police documentary. ‘We’re closed!’

‘Don’t give me that ole wallop, Greg, boy. Open this bloody door!’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Gomer Parry Plant Hire.’ Sounding like he was planning to take a bulldozer to the side of the pub if he couldn’t gain normal access.

Bolts were thrown.

The licensee was probably not much older than Merrily, but his eyes were bagged, his mouth pinched, his shirt collar frayed. He’d shaved, but not well. Gomer regarded him without sympathy.

‘Bloody hell, Greg, we only wants a pot o’ tea and a sandwich.’

The man hesitated. ‘All right... Just don’t make a big fing about it.’

They followed him through a storeroom and an expensive, fitted kitchen with a tomato-red double-oven Aga, and the sound of extractor fans.

‘Busy night, boy?’

‘Yeah.’ But he didn’t sound happy about it. ‘Go frew there, to the lounge bar. I won’t put no lights on.’

‘Long’s we can see what we’re eatin’.’

The lounge bar, grey-lit through more frosted glass, looked to have been only half renovated, as if the money had run out: new brass light fittings on walls too thinly emulsioned. Also a vague smell of damp.

‘I can make you coffee, but not tea,’ Greg said without explanation.

‘We’ll take it.’ Gomer pulled out bar stools for Merrily and himself.

Greg threw out the dregs of a smile. ‘Hope this is your daughter, Gomer?’

‘En’t got no daughter,’ Gomer said gruffly. ‘This is the vicar of our church.’ As Greg’s smile vanished, Gomer sat down, leaned both elbows on the bar top. ‘Who made you close the pub, then, boy?’

‘The wife.’

‘And who made her close it?’

‘Look,’ Greg said, ‘I’m not saying you’re a nosy git, but this is your second visit inside a few days, asking more questions than that geezer from the Mail. What are you, Radnorshire correspondent for Saga magazine?’

Merrily was quietly zipping up her coat. It was freezing in there. ‘Well, Mr...’

‘Starkey.’

‘Mr Starkey, the nosy git’s me. I’m with the Hereford Diocese.’

Greg’s eyes slitted. ‘Wassat mean?’

‘It means... Well, it means I’m interested, among other things, in what the Reverend Ellis is getting up to – you know?’ Greg snorted; Merrily unwound her scarf to let him see the dog collar. ‘This seems to be one of the few places without a candle in the window.’

Greg pushed fingers through his receding hairline. He looked as if there wasn’t much more he could take.

‘You wanna know what he’s getting up to? Like apart from destroying marriages?’

‘No, let’s include that.’ Merrily sat down.

Greg said there’d been a full house last night.

‘First time in ages. Folks I ain’t never seen before. Not big drinkers, but we got frew a lot of Cokes and shandies and if you know anyfing about the licensing trade you’ll know that’s where the big profit margins lie, so I got no complaints there.’

‘Thievin’ bugger,’ Gomer said. ‘So what brought this increase in trade, boy?’

‘Wife went to church, Gomer. That funeral. Mrs Weal. Never come back for a good while after you’d left. I