The Lamp of the Wicked

somebody, but it…’

‘We have to wait for official confirmation, flower.’

‘I just like knew there’d be something like this. It’s that kind of year – anything that could possibly be bad is always worse. Starting with Minnie… What will you do now?’

‘Come home, I suppose.’

‘Mum…’ Another pause as the wider implications sank in. ‘This is going to screw him up completely, isn’t it? It’s not like he can revive that business on his own, not at his age. But if he doesn’t, he won’t know what to do with himself. He’ll just fade into—’

‘We won’t let that happen,’ Merrily said quickly. ‘Go to bed this time, flower, or you won’t be fit for school.’

‘It’s half-term.’

‘Of course it is.’

‘Holiday time,’ Jane said. ‘What fun.’

Merrily had been holding the phone tight to her ear and didn’t think Gomer had heard any of Jane’s side of the conversation at all. But when she pocketed the mobile and started the van’s engine, he turned to her, green dashboard lights reflected in his glasses. Whatever small amount of light was available, Gomer’s glasses always seemed to reflect it.

‘En’t gonner pack in, vicar. En’t gonner walk away.’

‘Never thought you would.’

‘Gotter put it all back together. Somehow.’

‘Yes.’

‘Kind of memorial would that be for the boy, the business went down the toilet?’

‘We should talk about that.’

‘Put me outer the picture,’ Gomer said. ‘It’s what he wanted.’

‘Who?’

‘Roddy Lodge.’

‘Well, we can talk about that, too.’ Merrily let out the clutch too quickly – the van lurched and the engine stalled. ‘When we’ve got clearer heads. When we’re not so—’

‘You’re bloody well fobbin’ me off, ennit?’

‘No, I’m not, but…’

‘Poor ole bloody Parry! Shock of it turned his mind, done his ole brain in! Won’t face up to the truth: the boy had a drink problem. Comes in out of his bloody head, sets light to the mattress. Always been a liability. Accident waitin’ to happen. That’s what they’re gonner say, ennit?’

‘No.’ Merrily restarted the engine. ‘No, they’re not. Everybody liked Nev. Everybody who knew him.’ Ar. Well, that’s true. That’s dead right. But it weren’t Nev he was after. Me he wanted to get at, see. Poor bloody Nev, he just got in the way.’

‘Gomer—’

‘Can’t back away from this, vicar. Gotter take my piece o’ the blame. I never thought, see. Even after what I yeard in the Swan tonight, I never thought anybody in his right mind would…’ He shook his head. ‘But he en’t, see. That’s the point. En’t in his right mind. I never really reckoned on that.’

It was something about his voice this time. And the realization that he must have been going over this, in a kind of mental mist, all the time she’d been talking at him. Merrily switched off the engine and then the lights, watching the green glow fade from Gomer’s bottle glasses.

She slid a hand under her hair, undid her dog collar, pulled it off and put it on top of the dashboard.

She lit a cigarette.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘Who’s Roddy Lodge?’

6 Demonizing Roddy

GOMER BORROWED MERRILY’S mobile and rang his home number. He wanted her to hear a message on his machine, which, if you didn’t use the skip signal, would relay everything recorded since you last wound back the tape. He sat there for about four minutes with the mobile at his ear before thrusting it back at her.

‘Listen…’

The moon was back in the sky, two of them back in Gomer’s glasses: animation.

Merrily listened.

‘Mr Parry, it’s Lisa Pawson. I’m back in London. Listen, I’m afraid I’ve had Lodge on the phone…’

Private drainage: for serious country-dwellers there was no other kind; you had a septic tank, and when the smell got too bad you had it emptied. For some incoming city types, however, having to take responsibility for your own waste could be a perpetual source of fear. What if it overflowed? What if it all started oozing back up your lavatory, in the middle of a dinner party?

It was the fear of sewage that kept firms like the Birmingham- based Efflapure in business. After meeting Lisa Pawson, Gomer had spent a couple of hours on Sunday evening making inquiries about the firm. Apparently, an Efflapure was an overpriced, overcomplicated, high-maintenance piece of junk that was supposed to turn your liquid waste into something you could safely add to your whisky. It would be smoothly and expensively installed for you by any one of a number of teams of so-called skilled subcontractors all over the country.

Mostly cowboys, Gomer said. Like Roddy Lodge, of down by Ross-on-Wye.

‘… And somehow, he knew you’d been to see me. It was awful. I really think he must be slightly off his head. He insists there’s absolutely nothing wrong with his positioning of the Efflapure and that you and the surveyor are “in it together”, trying to discredit him. Naturally, I don’t believe a word of this… but please will you call me as soon as you return.’

Bleep.

Merrily passed the phone back to Gomer. ‘How on earth did this Lodge know you’d been to see the woman?’

‘Somebody seen the van, sure t’be.’ Gomer put the mobile to his left ear and carried on listening to the sequence of messages. ‘No big surprise. It’s so near the main road, that place. Scores of motors going past, anybody could’ve seen me, even Roddy Lodge ’isself. Anyway, vicar, shouldn’t surprise you how fast word d’get around in this county.’

‘No. I suppose not.’

‘Also, see, there’s a lot o’ folk…’ His voice faded; she saw the moons beginning to shake in his glasses.

‘What’s wrong?’

Gomer handed her the mobile again. He took off his glasses, turned away.

‘… never woulder believed it, Gomer. Wanted one and a half mile of track clearin’, right up to the top of the Garth, and would we do it for two hundred? Bloody hell, I says, there’s at least five days’ work there, Mr Pugh!’

Nev.

‘I says he could argue it out with you, he wanted to. So if you hears from Frankie Pugh, that’s what it’s about, all right?’

Bleep.

Gomer coughed and looked out through the windscreen. Now that the sky had cleared again, you could see the lights of Eardisley village. Merrily put a hand on his arm. He’d become almost his old self, telling her about Efflapure and Roddy Lodge.

Now Mrs Pawson’s angsty voice was back in her ear.

‘… I’m sorry, this is getting ridiculous. He’s just phoned again. This time he says he doesn’t want any trouble and, while he isn’t admitting that it was wrongly positioned, he says he’s now prepared to come and take it away and return our money in full. In fact he… he was absolutely insisting that he should be the one to