The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

well. I mean, I never know when it’s my imagination. I’m sorry, Amber.’

‘Of course, I didn’t actually know at the time that it was Hattie Chancery’s room,’ Amber said.

Jane flung a glance into the well of the hall, where the staircase twisted out of sight. There were certain phrases you could feel like fingers up your spine — what Ben would call a frisson — and this was one: Hattie Chancery’s Room. The possessive. Present-tense. Oh God.

‘The Chancerys were the family who built this place, right?’

‘I think their name was originally Chance, but they altered it to sound more distinguished. Incomers from the Black Country. Industrial wealth, delusions of grandeur. Most of the big Victorian homes in this area seem to have been built by rich Midlanders, who wanted their own castles. The names are usually a giveaway. Big houses around here tend to be called “court”, from the Welsh. But they called this Stanner Hall to —’

‘Yeah, right. So Hattie Chancery was the one who killed her husband?’

‘So you knew.’

‘Not then.’

‘Because Ben only told me about this yesterday. He’d known for some time, but…’ Amber’s voice was brittle. ‘He thought the little woman might be frightened.’

‘But it wasn’t in that room, was it?’

‘Not the murder. That was in the grounds, I think. It isn’t talked about much. Probably overshadowed by the War at the time, and she was mentally ill, apparently.’

‘A madwoman?’

‘No, Jane, I think we’d all prefer mentally ill.’

‘So, like, what did people see in the room?’

‘Oh… one man said he saw the shape of a woman against the window and smelt— Look I’m not going into this now, all right?’

‘But that’s the reason you’re unhappy about the White Company, right?’

‘I just don’t think this is a happy place. But then, I’m only a cook.’

‘What did he smell, this guy?’

‘Alcohol… beer, I think.’

‘You thought maybe Mum could do something about this?’

‘Jane, look, it was just a knee-jerk thing. I was angry, all right?’

‘She’d just warn you not to let the White Company in. And you’d go along with that, but Ben—’

‘Shhh!’

Amber was looking over Jane’s shoulder. Jane turned and saw the lounge door opening, and Ben gliding out, his hair sheened back, his slim, black Edwardian jacket hanging loose. His Holmes kit. He’d worn part of the Holmes kit to welcome the White Company. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?

‘Amber, where’s—? Jane!’ Ben looked fit, she thought, and energized, and showed no particular surprise that she was here on a Monday, only satisfaction that she was. ‘Jane, you wouldn’t by any chance have brought along that little Handycam Largo gave you to humiliate me?’

‘Well, actually—’

‘In which case, fetch it, darling.’ Ben clapped his hands. ‘Fetch it at once. We’ve got Alistair here, the medium, and we’re testing various rooms to work out which is the best place to try and contact, ah…’

‘And where are you proposing to go next?’ Amber said.

‘Amber, it’s a positive thing,’ Ben said casually.

‘Oh no,’ Amber said.

‘Amber—’

‘Understand this, Ben.’ Something passed swiftly, like the shadow of a small bird, across Amber’s white doll’s face. ‘Those people will not go into my fucking kitchen.’

‘Maybe I could just describe these events to you without any comment,’ Merrily said. ‘And then perhaps you could just tell me what you think.’ Her ear was aching from phone use.

‘So formal,’ Canon Jeavons said.

‘I’ve been talking to a cop. It’s all forms and recorded interviews with them, now. All about covering yourself, and isn’t the Church going the same way?’

‘Oh happy day,’ Jeavons said. ‘All right, go ahead, Merrilee. Lay it on me.’

Inside her head the chorus started up.

Forgive me, this guy sounds like a nutter.
My advice, for what it’s worth, is to avoid this man and all he stands for.
If anyone’s on the edge of a crisis, Jeavons has been known to tip them over.

There was no harm in listening to what he had to say. The fact was, if she’d never met Jeavons she wouldn’t have dug into Dexter’s history, and she wouldn’t have uncovered what might be the underlying cause of his condition.

‘It’s about three boys from the Belmont area of Hereford.’ The brief, bleak notes in the sermon book lay in the lamplight pooled next to the Bible. ‘Two of them are brothers — Darrin and Roland Hook, aged thirteen and nine. Dexter Harris is their cousin. This is seventeen years ago, and he’s twelve.’

Seventeen years ago. The year Jane was born. The year she quit university and married Sean. They said she could come back and get her degree, but she’d had a feeling at the time that this wouldn’t happen. Law: it had never felt right — why on earth was she reading law? Parental pressure, at the time, and the influence of Uncle Ted, family solicitor. It’s a good degree to have, Merrily. Whatever you decide to do with your life, it will always be there for you.

Wasted years.

‘Belmont’s an expanding suburb south of the city, close to open country. Less so now, since they built the all-night Tesco and the drive-in McDonald’s and hundreds more houses and the Barnfield Trading estate, but you get the idea. You keep going and you’re on the open road down to Abergavenny.’

She was seeing it as she talked: this widened country lane above the Golden Valley, which always seemed so aptly named on summer evenings with harvested fields aglow as if lit from underneath.

This had all happened on a warm evening in August, approaching dusk. The three kids were exploring a half- finished building site, where some of the houses were already lived in. Darrin had a plan.

Gorra wire coat-hanger down his pants, Bliss had told her. So it wasn’t an impulse thing, and he chose well, just like a pro: new house with high fences. People have gone out, leaving their second car in the drive. A gift.

Darrin had learned the techniques from a boy at school — how to force the window and then apply the coat-hanger to the pop-up locks. Then the hot-wire bit. The only drawback was that Darrin didn’t know how to drive.

Which was where Dexter came in. ‘Taller than the others,’ Merrily told Jeavons. ‘An unusually big boy for twelve, so he could reach the pedals, no problem. Dozens of drivers must have seen this Fiesta weaving about, but there weren’t many mobile phones in those days, so it was a while before the police got on to them. Not that you could miss them by now, because it was getting dark and Dexter hadn’t thought about lights.’

‘Already I’m sensing no happy ending,’ Jeavons said.

‘The police picked up the trail on the hill down to Allensmore, when they were picking up speed. Dexter subsequently told the police that he’d been afraid to brake. He was once on his bike and went over the handlebars, and he had the idea that if he did it now he and Darrin would go through the windscreen — certainly a possibility as neither had a seat belt on. By now the police are behind them, siren going. Not too close — volatile situation, car full of kids.’

Dexter’s well hyped-up now, Frannie Bliss said, the traffic lads