The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

‘Unless it turns out he had a heart attack on his way down, yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘It doesn’t matter why. He’s dead, I killed him. End of story. I’m not looking for absolution. Harold Shipman’s banged up for killing about three hundred of his patients, but nobody knows why he did it.’

‘That’s because he hasn’t even admitted doing it.’

‘He’s a doctor. Those bastards never admit killing anybody even by accident.’

‘Was this an accident?’ Merrily asked.

‘Hey, listen, I’ve already been more cooperative than Dr Shipman. And I was also more selective. And I didn’t want to talk about this to you, I wanted to talk about Clancy. Can I have another of those?’

‘Help yourself.’

‘Ta.’ Brigid picked up the Zippo from the coffee table and lit her own cigarette this time, leaning back with it. ‘Merrily — that’s a very old-fashioned vicar sort of name, isn’t it? Most women clergy seem to have these monosyllabic dykenames.’

‘I’m not.’

‘I know you’re not. You’re with this songwriter guy who was mentally ill and isn’t sure where he stands.’

‘He wasn’t mentally ill. He got sucked into the system. Would it have mattered if I’d been gay?’

‘Don’t look at me like that. I was inside for ten years, hormones squirting out everywhere. Yeah, maybe a little. She’s had enough situations to adjust to.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Clancy. How much time do we have?’

‘I don’t know. I think the head of Hereford CID wants you taken over there for questioning. She may get impatient. She may send a snowplough.’

‘She?’

‘She wouldn’t want you talking to me. I think this is the only chance we’ll get.’

‘Female authority figures — like I need another one. OK, Merrily.’ Brigid gazed steadily through the smoke. ‘Here’s the situation: I don’t belong to any church, and I’m not sure what I believe. I’ve never seen the ghost of my appalling grandmother, and I’ve never felt her looking over my shoulder. Not, I should say, for want of trying. I’d love it if we could meet. Earlier tonight — Jane’ll tell you — I mean, earlier tonight there I was lying up in her room, surrounded by creepy old photos of the bitch. The biggest one, I had to clean the glass and I did that by spitting in her face, over and over again. And then I lay there under her smeary picture, looking at both of us in the dressing- table mirror. Anything happen? Did it hell. No lights, no images, no sudden drops in temperature. Bitch.’

‘Why did you want to see her?’

Brigid ignored the question. ‘Last week — you’ve probably had this from Jane — Ben and I got into a confrontation with one of the shooters Sebastian hired, and he made some contemptuous remark about Jeremy. Blue light.’

She looked at Merrily for a reaction.

‘You attacked him.’

‘Ben was very gallant. He said at least people might stop calling him a poof now. He said he could understand it after the guy nearly shot Clancy at The Nant. Yeah, I… The guy wasn’t expecting it, of course, and I think the first blow must’ve smashed his nose. What I didn’t realize until Ben was pulling me away was that I had a rock in my hand. A jagged piece of what had been dressed stone, about the size of half a brick. I don’t remember picking it up — I suppose it must have been a reflex thing when Ben and I first saw him coming towards us, and we didn’t know if he was armed. And you still don’t seem surprised.’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Feel free to be shocked. It still shocks me, when I allow myself to think about it. Which isn’t too often, because I have to be at least halfway normal for Clancy. Naturally, I’m not unaware that this happened in roughly the place where my grandmother smashed the skull of my grandfather. But I stress that I did not feel anything. I didn’t feel her with me. You know?’

‘Does this sort of thing happen often? I mean, is it something you have to… control?’

‘I don’t think control comes into it. I’m not even an aggressive person. I mean, truly I’m not. When I was inside, nine times out of ten — no, hell, more than that — if someone had a go at me, I’d deal with it, and not in any extreme way, you know? Only on a couple of occasions in nearly ten years was there anything… And that’s being banged-up, and being banged-up can be… trying.’

‘What about the… thing that got you in there?’

Merrily recoiled. It was like two little steel shutters had come down over Brigid’s eyes.

‘I’d heard you didn’t talk about it.’

‘What’s the point? You want some whingeing psychobabble? Psychiatrists and therapists… every so often, one would have a go at me. Sod that. I don’t make excuses, I don’t feel self-pity, and I don’t permit myself to feel pity for… them. I did my time, I deserved it, that’s it.’

It sounded like a litany, one she’d intoned many times.

‘And I’m not mentally ill like my mother, and I’m not a drunk like my gran.’

‘Your mother was—?’

‘My mother, at the age of seven, tried to kill her sister. She was rescued from a psychiatric hospital by my father. Not long after I was born, she slashed her wrists in the bath. Let’s not talk about it. I’m not mad.’

What? ‘You’re probably too sane,’ Merrily said. ‘It’s what’s scary.’

‘One of a number of things, actually.’

‘You came here as owner of The Nant?’

‘Done some homework, then. I’ve got a dossier on you, too. No, a lawyer and an accountant see to all that. I came because something had already happened. Well, two things. One, like I said, because Clancy stuck a Biro in a kid’s eye. Two, because my dad was dead, but before he died he told me what he should’ve told me years before. Told me about Hattie and what happened at the big house we used to look at through the pines, Jeremy and me, when I was a kid on holiday.’

‘Did your mother know about Hattie?’

‘She’d cancelled Hattie from her history at an early age, but Hattie came through — or something did. My mother was diagnosed as schizophrenic. My dad was a male nurse who thought he could handle that.’

‘And you really didn’t know until—?’

‘My dad didn’t know until he brought me up here to look at The Nant, and Eddie Berrows told him.’

Merrily said, ‘Clancy… the pen… was that the only time?’

‘I hope so. Look, I said the shrinks never got anywhere with me, and that’s true, but there was one guy. He was the chaplain at my last place — the open prison. He was ex-Army, and he went back into the Army as a chaplain a year or so later. He was very posh, but a bit of a rough diamond, and we… got on, you know? Mates, kind of. The last year, I’d go out for weekends and stay at his place, with his wife and kids. It was a laugh. He wasn’t holier-than-thou, and he had his problems. And he’d keep saying to me, “You need a better priest than me.” ’

‘What did he mean by—?’ Smoke from under the green log belched into the room like dragon’s breath and made Merrily cough.

‘What he meant was a Deliverance priest, and he tried to explain what that meant, but I was like, “Sod off, Chas; what am I, demonic?” He… we still stayed in touch after I came out, and he must’ve been in contact with Ellie Maylord because he rang me a couple of nights after she did, about the biro incident. I’d spoken to my dad by then, and I told Chas about Hattie, and I said — even though I hadn’t really made a decision at that stage — that I was thinking about coming back here to suss all that out, and he went a bit quiet. Well, what did he think, I was gonna be like my mother, run away, pretend it never happened? Even she finally realized that was futile. The next night he’s on the phone again: “I’m going to give you the name of someone who can help you.” I was still managing this hotel in Shropshire, and he faxed me some stuff over, and it said, The Rev. Merrily Watkins, Ledwardine. He said he knew you and he’d have a word with you if I wanted. I said, Forget it, no way, stay the hell out of it.’

‘What’s his name?’