When Roddy Lodge came up to her, the first thing she noticed was his aftershave. He must have put it on with a paste brush. She almost retched.
‘Nice one, too, en’t you?’ Roddy was examining her, as if she was something that had just been delivered to his door. ‘
The aftershave was so pungent it made her think of Nil Odour, the fluid undertakers used in coffins – the stuff the nurses at the General had kept under the bed of Denzil Joy, whose stench still sometimes soaked through her sleep.
Flash image: the half-cooked corpse of Nevin Parry. She felt faint with nausea.
Can’t be.
Automatically, her mind was erecting a segment of St Patrick’s Breastplate:
‘I’m very sorry about this,’ Merrily said calmly. ‘I’m really sorry, Mr Lodge.’
He had his head on one side, peering down at her. His eyes were aglow. He had a luminous white smile. She sensed a lot of energy there and even some humour. She sensed him wanting to touch her. She didn’t move away. Her coat had come open over her chest. She was expecting him to become aware of her dog collar, then realized she’d taken it off in the van.
She took a breath. ‘Mr Lodge, my name’s Merrily… The Reverend Merrily Watkins. I’m Gomer’s parish priest. I’ve been with him all night, since we first heard about the fire.’ She paused. ‘Mr Lodge, I’m sure you can imagine what kind of effect all this has had on Gomer. His nephew dead, everything destroyed.’
‘Why’s he reckon it was me?’ Roddy Lodge said.
‘Look…’ Her voice felt warm and soothing, full of pulpit- projection. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him. The police… the police said Nev had been drinking heavily, and they think he probably started the fire himself, accidentally.’
She didn’t look at Gomer, but she could feel it setting around him: a shabby concrete overcoat of bafflement and betrayal. She lowered her voice.
‘He’s an old man, Mr Lodge. He’s lost everything. When he wanted me to drive him here, I… I didn’t know anything about this… whatever history there is between you and him. I just assumed this place… that it held some memories for him and Nev, or something. I don’t know what he’s got against you or why it’s come up now, but I’m really sorry.’
‘Turned his mind, is it?’ Roddy said.
‘I’m sure he’ll come through this, with help. I’m just… I mean, I hope you’re not going to go to the police or anything. I promise you I’ll talk to him.’
‘Come and talk to
‘Did you?’
‘Told him ’bout all the things I seen in the night. Spooky!’
‘Sounds… interesting.’
‘Well, then…’ Merrily didn’t move as Roddy pulled out a card and came right up to her. ‘You come and talk to me any time you want. Any time. And anything you want doing, I’m your man. Special rates for the Church, look.’
He inspected her face, as though he was committing it, feature by feature, to memory.
‘Thanks.’ She took the card. ‘I’d like that.’
‘Yeah,’ Roddy said. ‘You would indeed, my darlin’.’
Merrily walked away without once looking back, Gomer following behind like a beaten old dog. She didn’t look at him, either.
She walked along the side of the big yellow digger without glancing at it or breathing in, walked out of the gateway and along the verge of the A49, with the long grass wet and cold around her ankles, sensing that Roddy Lodge was watching them and so not hurrying, not giving in to the urge to run, to the pushing in her chest. She walked around the bend in the road to where the van was almost embedded in the hedgerow. She unlocked the van and opened the door wide, so that Gomer could climb across to the passenger seat, where he sat in silence, sagging, as if all the life-energy had been vacuum-pumped out of him. She got into the van and turned the key in the ignition and for a moment was afraid it wasn’t going to start, but the engine caught on the second turn and she waited until there were no headlights in view before carefully reversing the van out onto the road. She drove for a mile or so in the direction of Ross before pulling off the road into the car park of a darkened pub. She switched off the engine but left the headlights on, illuminating a hanging sign featuring a rabbit or a hare, with a fluffy tail, seen from behind.
Merrily needed light. She needed to see anything coming. She tossed her head back over the peeling vinyl of the driving seat and let the breath out of her mouth, and when it came out it was an enormous sob, her body slumping into shudders.
‘Vicar?’
She held the wheel as if she was never going to let it go. ‘Couldn’t you smell it?’
He didn’t reply. He didn’t understand.
Merrily pulled herself up and found her phone. She couldn’t remember the number of Hereford Police. She’d have to ring 999 and see if they could put her through to anyone in CID.
‘I stum— stumbled, Gomer. Grabbed hold of this tarpaulin in the shovel of the digger, and it came away.’ She switched on the phone and turned to look at him. ‘I know… I know the smell now, you see. From when we found Barbara Buckingham. You remember. No mistaking it ever again, is there?’
Gomer lurched to the edge of his seat. ‘In the
‘Thought I was hallucinating at first. Thought it was the shock… you know, of seeing Nev and… But it wasn’t the same. This one was putrid. State of decay.’
Merrily stabbed 9 three times. Later she would have to call Jane and explain why she might not be home until dawn, or later.
Part Two
9
Phobia
THE WOMAN IN Lol’s bed smiled sleepily. An arm came out, a long, warm forefinger touching his lips as he bent down.
‘Before you say a word,’ she said, ‘I will tell you right now, from the bottom of ma heart, that it was very, very good.’ Looking into his eyes now and slithering up in the rumpled bed like a mermaid breaking surface. ‘And also right. Right for this moment. What I so much needed. OK?’
