The Lamp of the Wicked

sheep.’ Huw’s voice was as flat as the road ahead. ‘Nobody had ever just stumbled on one of Fred’s bodies. He’d cut them up, then bury them neatly. Efficient butchery, economical disposal.’

‘Thank you, I’ve read about that.’

And Donna had been cut up, but with no great skill. The head… hacked off, the legs broken. The hands, too. One foot mutilated, bones removed. But not Fred’s way, was how the pathologist saw it. Too rough, he figured, therefore too frenzied.’

But after Donna had been in the ground for the best part of two years, Huw said, there was no strong forensic evidence either way – not much more than the pathologist’s feeling that this wasn’t down to Fred.

‘You can bet most of the coppers wanted it to be him, mind. You don’t want more than one of these buggers, do you? Not on the same patch. So whatever investigation there was must’ve been cursory, wi’ over seventy per cent of the team convinced the case was already solved. Always somebody to say, Oh, happen Fred were in a hurry this time, not his usual self… especially under the circumstances.’

‘Circumstances?’ Down the Callow pitch now, and off into the country, reminding her of that night with Gomer, when it all began, experiencing again that feeling of being drawn in.

‘He’d just had a rather difficult year, Merrily. One of his kids had told a schoolfriend about the domestic arrangements at 25 Cromwell Street, and Fred had found himself in Gloucester court facing charges of tampering with a daughter. Three counts of rape, one of buggery. Rose next to him, accused of cruelty and complicity. Police and social services walking all over the beloved home, kids taken into care. So then Fred has to discuss his married life in detail with the coppers – “My wife and I, we leads a very full sex life.” Nudge bloody nudge.’

‘They got off, though, didn’t they?’

‘Aye. So near and yet so far. In the end, the victim wouldn’t give evidence. Nobody would. Nobody wanted to break up the happy home. So they got off, the pair of ’em – embracing in the dock, picture of bloody innocence.’

But the police had been inside number 25, seen all the signs – the sex aids, the pornographic home-videos. And, while the other children were in care, the social workers had heard the ‘family jokes about Heather, who was missing (run off with a lesbian, Fred said), being buried under the patio. It was the beginning of the end. Within nine months they’d arrested him for the murder of Heather, buried more or less where she was said to be buried. Not a very good joke any more.

So did Fred realize the clock was ticking? Was he determined to get a last one in before the bells went off? Or did he just happen to run into Donna in Cheltenham and couldn’t resist?

Or did somebody else kill her?

‘You think Donna might’ve been killed by Roddy Lodge, don’t you? That was what you told Bliss. And it’s no wonder Frannie’s excited. Because if this was down to Lodge, it proves that we’re not just looking at another copycat,’ Merrily said.

‘No.’

‘Because, while it might not have been a perfect match, it was still very close to West’s modus operandi, including the bones. And when poor Donna was buried, two years before the arrest and all the publicity, the only way anyone could possibly have known about West’s modus operandi would have been by actually knowing West.’

‘There we are, then,’ Huw said placidly.

So Huw had come to take over, AGENDA written now in neon capitals between the lines on his forehead. Huw was running a crusade on behalf of the parents of all them dead and missing girls, lying awake night after night wondering precisely what were done to their kids and how many times.

Or just for one parent, one girl.

Or just – God forbid – for his own redemption.

Now Huw wanted to talk to the Reverend Jerome Banks, to whom Roddy Lodge had gone with his haunted- bungalow stories and been turned away. Why? And why had Banks offloaded the funeral so fast? Why had he really done that? Huw wanted answers. Huw Owen, with his wolfhound hair and his slow-burn stare.

Scary.

Before they left, Merrily had gone up to the apartment, with the chip money in one hand – Jane, at seventeen, was becoming what in Liverpool they used to call a latchkey kid. This couldn’t go on.

‘Flower, Huw and I have… someone to see.’

‘Wow,’ Jane said in her most bored tone. ‘Really?’

‘Shouldn’t take long, but—’

‘Yeah, yeah, chips’ll be fine.’

‘Unless you want to come along? We could call somewhere for a meal afterwards.’

Jane had turned down the stereo and stared at Merrily, with that awful twisted little smile. ‘Let me get this right. You’re offering me a night out with a couple of vicars talking shop. Discussing like God’s Work.’ The kid had sighed, shaking her head in slow motion. ‘Merrily, if you only knew how distressingly patronizing that sounded.’

‘You used to be quite interested in… aspects of the job.’

‘Interests change,’ Jane said. ‘Or maybe we get people wrong. Like, for quite a while, I thought my mother had a normal interest in men.’

‘Now what does that mean?’

Jane had shrugged.

They passed a pub on the Ross road called, with an awful irony, The Axe and Cleaver.

‘If there ever is evidence that Lodge killed Donna,’ Merrily said, ‘what could that mean? It would seem to me to suggest there really might have been a group of them.’

‘Aye. The cult that Fred talked about, and everybody thought he were just trying to spread the blame. However, when all’s said and done, if Roddy Lodge killed Donna he didn’t kill Julia. Fred killed Julia.’

‘You mean just the thought of…?’

‘The thought of Fred and Rose and what they’d done to the others. The images of his hands on Donna. Julia was an artist. She couldn’t live with the images.’

‘I’m so sorry, Huw.’

‘Been dreaming about her again, Merrily. Julia and her white portraits of Donna. Keep seeing the white portraits. I’ve got one at home. I don’t think she’s at peace. I don’t think either of them are at peace.’

‘No.’

‘And West’s still killing,’ Huw said. ‘He always has been. You read about his grown-up children attempting suicide. And a man called Terry Crick: in January 1996, he attached a hose to his car exhaust and killed himself with carbon monoxide… couldn’t live with the thought that he might’ve stopped it. They were mates, you see, back in the late sixties – young Terry, bit of a hippy then, and genial young Fred. Do anything for you, Fred. Showed Terry his abortion tools once. Very proud of his abortion tools, was Fred. Loved to tell women that if they ever needed help that way, he was their man. Terry thought it were a joke.’

‘Huw—’

‘Until, years later, when he read about the case and remembered staying with the Wests when they were in a caravan near Cheltenham, hearing Fred and Rose giggling in bed… became convinced he must’ve heard future murders being conceived. Didn’t go to the police until it were too late. Couldn’t go on living with the thought that he might’ve prevented something. People have been dying of guilt, Merrily. I doubt it’d’ve made any difference at all if Terry Crick had told the cops about Fred West waving his abortion tools around. Just having a laugh, Fred would’ve said. Mucky owd tools like that, who’d believe it…? Why’ve you stopped?’

Merrily wrenched up the handbrake and switched off the engine. ‘I was trying to tell you – Banks’s rectory is up that lane on the left, I think. You still want to go?’

‘Of course I still want to go. Be some guilt there, I reckon, don’t you? Let’s go and help Mr Banks get it off his chest.’

They were parked with two wheels on the verge, at the side of the A49, the old Volvo shaded by high bushes still heavy with sodden leaves. Merrily said quietly, ‘One more time – what are you doing here, Huw?’

Never before, in all the hours she’d spent with him, had she felt the quiver of instability that was now so real it was almost shaking the car.