The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

light!’

‘Now, you won’t move, will you, mun?’ the close-up Welshie said. ‘’Cause if we has to come and find you we gonner beat the shit out of you, no arguments.’

‘Where’m I gonner move to?’ Danny just hoping Jeremy had got over his suspicions of the police and was on the phone to them right now. Failing that, it was all down to Gret. This wasn’t normal, not by a mile.

‘He’s comin’ out!’ The younger voice — a shrill excitement there, you could almost hear the adrenalin crackling. Boys with guns — unstable. Danny saw one of them swing round, levelling his rifle at the half-open barn door, going into a crouch.

Behind Danny, back at the house, there was the sound of a door bolt being slammed back.

‘No!’ Jeremy. The boy bursting out of the farmhouse.

From inside the barn, there was a scuffling of straw, maybe the sound of something panting. Then a shadow was rising up in front of Jeremy, and he was going, ‘Errrrrrr,’ like all the breath had been punched out of him.

‘You don’t wanner get hurt, little man.’

‘That’s, that’s my…’ Jeremy, fighting for breath. ‘That’s my dog!’

Danny ran out into the yard. The barn doorway was fully exposed in the bright beam, two yellow bales on end inside. He saw the butt of the rifle go back hard into the crook of the camouflage feller’s shoulder. His own breath came in like ice. One of the Welshies ran over and kicked the barn door wide open and then threw hisself to the side, bawling.

‘Shoot! Shoot! Shoot! Shoot the fucker!’

The gun went off twice, these crisp, tight cracks, Jeremy screaming, ‘Noooo!’

Amid the echoes, Danny heard rapid footsteps and saw something else flitting across the yard through the lamp beam to the barn.

‘Stop her!’ The first Welshie striding out, the lamp snatched up, beam swinging all over the place like a bar of solid light.

And then Jeremy Berrows going, ‘No, Clancy, stop, Christ almighty, no!’

Jesus, it was the girl. Danny found himself moving fast towards the open doorway, aware of the feller with the gun coming up alongside him, his face shiny-white in the light, and Danny thinking Oh God, oh God, oh God, what they done?

A couple of yards from the barn, the gunman pulled ahead of Danny and twisted back, and Danny saw it coming, but he couldn’t do a thing about it. His head seemed to burst apart, and he went down clawing at the frozen shit on the cobbles.

13 Real Personal

Spiritualism: this, essentially, was the problem. Spiritualism was the keyhole in the door to hell, and the Deliverance Ministry tended to take an inflexible line on it, so this was why Jane couldn’t tell Mum about the White Company.

‘Or, er… the camera.’

‘You mean she doesn’t know you’re doing this?’

Eirion disapproved too, naturally. Rigid Welsh Chapel ethic. OK, he didn’t actually go to Chapel, but it had seeped into the whole culture.

‘She trusts me these days, Irene. We’re into a new phase of mutual trust and support. Look, I’ll tell her… at some stage. Meanwhile, don’t be an old woman. Just give me a few, like, really basic hints, OK? Please, Irene.’

‘You don’t deserve it. You’re evil and duplicitous.’

‘Irene. I’ve had a lot of bad stuff happen to me, you know that. No father any more… dragged out to the sticks… adolescent crises… mother in a permanent state of spiritual angst…’

‘You’re not just economical with the truth, you’re parsimonious.’

‘Not with you.’

In fact, she’d told him virtually everything: the church, the Vaughans, the White Company… all the stuff she couldn’t talk about to Mum without risking the most God-awful row, which she, frankly, did not at this moment need.

‘How did Largo put it?’ Eirion asked. ‘What did he actually say?’

‘Well, it… it was after we got back from the church, and I’d been helping Nat with these awful Christmas lights, and Amber’s determined to talk to Ben, so Antony just wanders in and he’s like, “Jane, could I have a wee word?” ’

She told him how she’d made Antony some coffee in the lounge, and he’d said, ‘Sit down a minute, Jane,’ and started asking her questions: what did she think of this and that on TV, what did she have planned for when she left school?

‘I mean, it was dead casual, I thought he was just making conversation. We were getting on pretty well — better than when Ben was around. And like having a laugh about how serious Ben was getting over all this. And then he goes, “Tell me, Jane, have you ever used a decent video camera?” ’

‘And then when you said no…?’

‘I didn’t exactly say no. As such. I mean, suddenly I was getting an incredible feeling of where this might be going. Which was just… wow. So I told him that my boyfriend… I said my boyfriend’s family was connected with television in Wales and I’d been on lots of shoots and, like, helped out… filled in… done a bit of this and that. You know?’

There was a silence. What she’d actually said was ‘my ex-boyfriend,’ wanting to keep whatever might be on the cards to herself, and she felt desperately guilty about that. Despicable. What kind of bitch did that to her guy? OK, he wouldn’t be able to be involved anyway, being out of the country, but it was still… well, not the kind of thing Eirion would ever do to her.

‘It just came out,’ Jane said.

‘You… lied to Antony Largo?’

Jane swallowed, realizing she was sweating.

‘You didn’t mention my name to him, did you?’ Eirion said. ‘Because when this is all over and your name is like something scraped off his trainers after jogging across the dog pound…’

‘Look, it’s no big deal!’ She stared at the silvery little camera, panic rising. ‘He’ll shoot the heavy stuff himself, the seance. He just wants me to keep track of stuff happening day-to-day when he’s not there. Just like point the thing at anything interesting going down around the place and especially at Ben. See, he can’t afford to spend whole days himself around Stanner when he hasn’t flogged the idea to anybody yet — which can take like weeks and weeks — and he needs to keep track of developments and he needs Ben to be in some of the pictures, so… Apparently, they’re always getting people to do it these days. Shoot bits of stuff. There used to be hassles with the unions, but all that’s—’

‘So why don’t you ask Ben for a few hints?’

‘Because…’ Jane shut her eyes. ‘Because Ben’s clearly not happy about me doing it. He’d rather shoot it himself and not be in shot. It’s all so confused. Antony’s idea of this project may not quite tie in with Ben’s. Like, they’re mates, but there’s artistic friction, you know? I think, what Antony’s got in mind, is that if it all crashes, at least it’ll make a funny episode for this Punching the Clock series, about mid-life crises launching new careers.’

‘And these spiritualists — the cranks who think they’re going to raise the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — they’re actually going along with this?’

‘Yeah, they’re cool with it. Maybe they’re hoping for something amazing. Irene, come on, even if nothing happens it could still be totally brilliant stuff.’

Eirion did this bitter sigh. ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this, but the most basic piece of advice I can give you is to use the tripod whenever possible. You’ve got a tripod?’