Midwinter of the Spirit

Lol nodded.

‘I’m closing this shop, by the way,’ Denny said.

‘This afternoon – for the funeral, Viv said.’

‘For good. We close at lunchtime, we don’t open again.’

‘Ever?’

‘I’m shifting the records to the other place tomorrow. And big Viv, too. Extending the shop space into a store-room. If you’re selling hi-fi, it makes sense to have a record department on the premises. This one was never big enough to take all the stock you need to really get the punters in. It was just… Kathy’s shop. I don’t ever want to come here again.’

‘And this flat?’

‘It won’t affect you unless I can’t manage to let the shop on its own, in which case I’ll maybe sell the whole building. Sorry to spring it on you, mate, but nothing’s permanent. You’re not a permanent sort of guy anyway, are you?’

Lol forced a smile.

‘See you at the crem then,’ Denny added. ‘There won’t be a meal or nothing afterwards. Won’t be enough people – plus I’m not into that shit.’

‘Denny,’ Lol said, ‘when you said to Dick, how did he know about the crows, what did you mean?’

‘Leave it.’ Denny opened the door. ‘Like you said, it was nothing, a coincidence. Just the way some things cause you to remember other things. Some memory pops up, and you put it all together wrong.’

‘What memory?’

‘You don’t let go of things, do you, Lol?’

‘Some things won’t let go of me. It’s guilt, probably.’

‘You didn’t like her, did you?’ Denny said.

‘I liked her more towards the end.’

‘You wouldn’t fuck her because you didn’t like her. That’s the truth, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s kind of honourable, I suppose.’

‘No, it isn’t. Tell me about the crows.’

Denny came back in, shut the door. ‘When she was a kid, they used to put her in her pushchair in the farmyard, to watch the chicks and stuff, yeah? And the crows would come. Crows’d come right up to her. They’d land on the yard and come strutting up to the pushchair. Or they’d fly low and sit on the roof, just over the back door. Sit there like vultures when Kathy was there. Only when she was there.’

Lol thrust his hands in the pockets of his jeans and stiffened his shoulders against the shiver he felt. ‘How long did this go on?’

‘Until the old man shot them,’ Denny said.

‘Do you remember Hilary Pyle?’ Barry Ambrose asked her.

‘I don’t think so. Who was she?’

‘He,’ Barry said. ‘It was in some of the papers, certainly the Telegraph, which always seems to splash Church crises. But they didn’t know the whole story. Even I… I didn’t know that was her name until this morning. Where’s she now, the girl you asked about?’

‘She’s at my daughter’s school.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Barry. ‘But then people do sometimes change, don’t they?’

‘If they want to,’ Merrily said, ‘they have to want to. So what happened to this Hilary Pyle?’

‘She did. He was a canon at the Cathedral, forty-five years old, married, with kids. I didn’t know him particularly well, but I assumed he was a sound bloke. Certainly not the kind you’d imagine taking up with a schoolgirl.’

‘Rowenna?’

‘Soldier’s daughter. Wasn’t named in the papers – I think she was underage – in fact I’m sure she was. Fifteen or something. Also there was some question of rape when they first arrested Hilary, so the girl couldn’t be named in the press, but he certainly was.’

‘Now I remember. About two years ago? But he—’

‘Yes. Poor bloke hanged himself in his garage. Leaving a note – rather a long note. Do you remember that? It was read out at the inquest – he’d apparently requested that.’

‘Remind me.’ Merrily felt a stab of foreboding.

‘It was a rather florid piece of writing; he kept quoting bits of Milton. He said the girl was sent by the Devil, and this caused a bit of amusement in the press. Just the sort of thing some clergyman would say to excuse his appalling behaviour. “Sent by the Devil.” She was a pale little thing, they said, but she knew which levers to pull, if you’ll pardon the, er…’

Merrily found she was writing it all down on her sermon pad.

‘You said there was more… other things that didn’t get into the press.’

‘Oh, yes, I’m frankly amazed it didn’t get out. But I suppose the people who knew about it realized what the bad publicity could do. I think it was probably as a result of this that I, of all people, was asked to take on the Deliverance ministry here. They wanted an outsider, someone previously unconnected with the Cathedral. You see, it’s so easy for a panic to spread. Look at Lincoln and the Imp. Look at Westminster. There are always people who’ll look for the dark hand of Satan, aren’t there?’

‘Not us, of course.’

‘Quite.’

‘So what happened?’

‘After Hilary committed suicide, two other canons confessed to the Bishop that they’d also had relations with this girl.’

‘Jesus!’ She hadn’t been expecting that.

‘It was thought there was another one, but he kept very quiet and survived the investigation. Not a police investigation, of course.’

‘Did anybody talk to the girl herself?’

‘Quite frankly, I don’t think anybody in the Cathedral was prepared to go anywhere near the girl. What happened, I believe, was that the Army arranged for her father to be based somewhere else. Hereford, obviously, though no one here knew where they’d gone – nor wanted to. It cast quite a shadow for a while. Perhaps it still does: I know a number of previously stable marriages have gone down the tubes since then. Poor Hilary’s suggestion of something evil had gathered quite a few supporters before the year was out.’

‘Barry, I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘I don’t know what you’re going to tell your daughter, Merrily,’ Barry said, ‘but if she hangs around with Rowenna Napier she might start growing up a little too quickly, if you see what I mean.’

‘I owe you one,’ Merrily said.

Now she was frightened.

41 Take Me

IN SLATER’S, BEHIND Broad Street, Jane had a deep-pan pizza and stayed cool – reminding herself periodically about Dean Wall, the slimeball, on the school bus in the fog, and what he’d said about Rowenna and Danny Gittoes.

Gittoes was Dean’s best friend, and slightly less offensive, but the thought of Rowenna’s small mouth around whatever abomination he kept in his greasy trousers was still pretty distasteful, especially when you knew it could be true.

‘Calm down, kitten.’ Rowenna had a burger with salad, mayonnaise all over it – oh,