The Lamp of the Wicked

God, what it must be like to have unlimited money. ‘Did you tell Mum what you were doing?’

Jenny Box shook her head.

‘I don’t think she’d be too happy about that,’ Jane said, ‘do you?’

‘Well, that’s what I was coming to see her about. Things he uncovered. Things I should’ve known. I’ve been more stupid than I can say. Do you know at all when she’ll be back?’

‘Could be anytime. She’s with Huw Owen. He’s a bit bonkers, to be honest. They could be there all night.’

‘Jane, listen… I hope I’ve convinced you – because I’ve embarrassed the hell out of myself – that I only want to help her.’

‘Well, yeah, but…’ Jane felt awkward. ‘It’s just… the Website? Uriel?’

‘Yes, I sent your mother’s name to be put on the Uriel Website. For people to pray for her. The Uriel Website’s an international site for promoting women’s spirituality, nothing at all sinister. I put her name on the site because it attracts a weight of prayer from all over the world, and that’s what she’s going to need, believe me. It’s a deep-embedded evil she’s confronting, and she needs the angels at her shoulder.’ Jenny Box stood on the edge of the square. The blur was gone. Certainty shimmered around her now. ‘So would you tell her to come and see me, please? Before Friday. Before she buries that man. Believe me, there’re things she very much needs to know.’

‘Sure, but—’

‘I wasn’t kidding before. Whatever kind of lunatic you think I am, I don’t care. This is an awful satanic thing, and it’s close to us all.’ Well, can’t you—?’

‘No, Jane, you’ve pushed me too far as it is. I won’t have this going out second-hand.’

Jane nodded soberly. ‘OK, I’ll… tell her to call you in the morning.’

‘Thank you, Jane.’

‘I’m sorry, OK?’

‘There’s nothing to be sorry about. Goodnight now. God bless you.’

‘Thanks.’ Jane turned away to walk home, past the forecourt by the entrance to the church, and saw the steeple rising from the middle of the ragged apple trees.

And then she turned back and called out, ‘Did you see it? Did you really see an angel?’

Jenny Box stopped, her white scarf slipping back. ‘Jane, it doesn’t matter what I saw. It was a personal experience. A confirmation. It’s nothing to do with anyone else. I’m not claiming to be Bernadette. I don’t care whether anyone believes me.’

‘You don’t understand what I’m asking, do you?’

Jenny came up to her. They were alone in front of the lychgate. Jane felt suddenly forlorn.

Jenny reached out and took both Jane’s hands in her own. Jenny’s hands were cold.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I saw it, Jane. And she was beautiful.’

41 A Rainy Night in Underhowle

HUW CONCLUDED, ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we pray that this building might be free from all powers of darkness, spirits of evil. Defend from harm, Lord, all who enter and leave through this door…’

The words dissipated, Merrily thought, like the smoke of a single cigarette. This was Huw going through the motions – never leave a possibly disturbed place unblessed.

Ingrid Sollars put all the hanging bulbs out of their misery before locking the Victorian oak door with one of the keys on a jailer’s ring. She pulled at the iron handle. ‘Sometimes it’s come open in the night.’

‘How do you mean?’ Merrily looked at Ingrid: scratched waxed jacket, practical slacks: a woman who looked like she could shoe horses and change oil filters. ‘How could that happen?’

‘It just has. I’m the one who usually locks it. I don’t make mistakes.’

Huw leaned an elbow on the small window ledge. ‘Still happening?’

‘Not for some months, but I still check.’

‘Rogue energy, happen?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘A church or chapel this size is an amplifier for energy, and when a place has been used for worship, it accumulates. When you take away the prayer, where’s it go? If it’s left derelict, the energy might turn negative. If the worship’s replaced by something antisocial or irreligious, it definitely will.’

Merrily stared at him. Did he actually believe that?

‘A spring-water bottling plant?’ Ingrid Sollars said sceptically.

‘Hmm.’ Huw inclined his head. ‘Would you happen to know who the people are who ran this enterprise, Ingrid?’

‘I do know them,’ Ingrid said guardedly. ‘They’re running a similar operation in the Usk Valley. Is it important?’

‘Think you could get them on the phone tonight?’

‘I could try.’ She opened the modern porch door. Outside it was raining. In the distance, Merrily could still hear a chant of Roddy’s Body OUT. It was irregular now and punctuated with laughter.

‘If you could do that,’ Huw said to Ingrid, ‘happen you could find out the name of the contractor who did the conversion.’

Merrily said, ‘What—?’

‘Meanwhile,’ Huw said, ‘there’s the other thing. Come on, now, Ingrid, you’ve been on the brink of telling us.’

Ingrid sighed. ‘Actually, Mr Owen, I’ve been hoping the person concerned would come over herself. I did ask her.’

‘People get coy sometimes, lass. Who is it?’

Ingrid hesitated. ‘A girl. Schoolgirl.’

‘Parents know?’

‘I think so.’

‘Where’s the problem, then? Not like we’re the police, is it?’

Merrily thought she’d rather face the police than Huw in this mood.

The mother wore a purple fleece top, crushed-velvet trousers, green-tinted hair and a gold nose-stud on a chain.

‘They were just having a bit of fun together,’ she said. ‘You’re only young once, aren’t you?’

You didn’t realize how much things had changed, Merrily thought, until you heard that from a parent. The attitude seemed to be that they were going to do it anyway, so why erect barriers? She thought about Jane and Eirion. Perhaps the most you could ask for was that your kids should wait until the age of consent and that there should then be a degree of emotional commitment.

Merrily wanted to get home. She felt cold and anxious.

Huw was clearly in no hurry. ‘So you found the door open?’ he said to the girl. He and Merrily were sharing a red leather sofa in the front room of number 27 Goodrich Close, where the central heating could have sustained tropical lizards. Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? was on TV; nobody had turned that down either.

‘I didn’t want to go in, right?’ Zoe Franklin said. ‘But Martin had been to the pub, and he was feeling brave.’

Zoe was a serious-minded girl, according to Ingrid Sollars. Doing A-level maths and sciences in Ross. University material. Not an imaginative girl – that was what Merrily thought Ingrid had been trying to convey. Zoe’s long-time boyfriend had been Martin Brinkley, two or three years older, a junior bank