The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

blasting away behind them, blue lights going. He’s gorra do something. Decides the best thing is to get off the big road, dump the car and run like buggery. Sees this turning up ahead, on the other side, into this narrow little country lane, bus shelter on the corner. Decides to go for it. Just like that. No indication. Big lorry coming towards them, but Dexter reckons he’s got plenty of time. An experienced motorist now — driven all of six miles on his own.

Stupid little gobshite spins the wheel, sends the Fiesta whizzing across the road. Amazingly, he doesn’t turn it over, but it’s well out of control, as you’d expect, and naturally he’s missing the turning, heading straight for the hedge. Now even at this point, if he’d left well alone, the car would just’ve gone through the hedge into the field where, as long as it avoided trees, it’d just be a cuts-and-bruises job.

Unfortunately, Dexter panics, stands on the brakes and the Fiesta stalls on the kerb, directly in the path of the oncoming lorry. Haulage vehicle. Melvyn doesn’t recall the exact tonnage, which is rare for Melvyn, but the driver was a Mr Evans, from Newport, carrying steel, and afterwards Mr Evans gives up his job, telling the coroner that he’ll never drive a lorry again as long as he lives.

‘The lorry had collided with the rear half of the Fiesta,’ Merrily said, ‘flattening it into the bus shelter, which collapsed. Both front doors sprang open, so Dexter and Darrin both walked away. Darrin had a broken arm, Dexter was mildly concussed. Roland, however…’

Think of the forgotten sardine in the tin, Bliss had said brutally, after the tin’s been trodden on.

‘His parents were told it was instantaneous,’ Merrily said, ‘meaning he didn’t suffer. Which, as far as physical pain goes, may be true but disregards the state of helpless terror he’d have been in for several minutes before the crash.’

‘Yes,’ Jeavons said softly.

‘Probably the last thing Dexter would’ve heard before the impact was the final screams of his nine-year-old cousin. How much of the carnage he saw in the back of the car, we don’t know.’

‘What happen to Dexter?’

‘Not much. First offence. Appeared in court as a juvenile and therefore wasn’t named. Pleaded guilty to charges related to taking and driving away and causing death by dangerous driving. No previous convictions. Said very little in court apart from to apologize and burst into tears. The view of the court seems to have been that having to live with this for the rest of his life was a bigger punishment than anything the justice system could inflict.’

‘Not always a good decision,’ Jeavons said. ‘Incarceration puts a time limit on it. Life goes on.’

‘Certainly split the family. There was an awful scene at the funeral — Roland’s mother screaming that Dexter was a murderer who should be in jail. Maybe forgetting that Darrin was the instigator, the one who’d learned how to break into cars. But Darrin couldn’t drive, so it was Dexter who killed Roland.’

‘His grandma mention any of this?’

‘His auntie. Alice. Not a word, but it probably explains why Dexter’s never been near a church since. His parents apparently felt compelled to move to the other side of Hereford, and he went to a different school.’

‘Certainly explain why he freaks when you ask him what happens in his head when he’s having an attack,’ Jeavons said. ‘He have any counselling at the time?’

‘Not as common then as it is now, was it? Especially not for offenders.’

‘And he’s working in a garage now.’

‘Tyre depot. But still working with cars, yes. Hasn’t committed any criminal offences since, according to my friend. As far as health goes, he might always have been prone to respiratory problems, but the serious asthma attacks seem to have started within a year of the incident. So…’ Merrily closed the pad, stared at the flat, pastel mosaic of the Paul Klee print. ‘Can I help him?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think I know what you might suggest. While the thought of it leaves me feeling exhausted already, the logic of it’s almost too perfect.’

‘Yes,’ Jeavons said.

‘Would you do it?’

‘What? Say it.’

‘The healing of the living and the healing of the dead. A formal Requiem Eucharist to bring peace to the soul of a nine-year-old boy who died seventeen years ago. And to his cousin, who has it all stored up inside him like some old video nasty that keeps replaying itself in his head… until it constricts his lungs.’

‘Textbook,’ Jeavons said. ‘Unless maybe they already had a Requiem?’

‘They didn’t. I tracked down the minister who conducted the funeral. It was at Hereford Crematorium, they weren’t practising Christians and it didn’t take long. That’s how I found out about the row during the service. Which didn’t end there. When Dexter’s dad bought a new car it was vandalized — tyres ripped, bodywork scored. Their house was also broken into twice — damage rather than theft. They suspected Darrin.’

Not without reason. Bliss had said Darrin had burgled his way through half the houses in south Hereford. The family blamed Dexter for Darrin turning bad.

‘A few months ago, according to my colleague, Darrin’s mother encountered Dexter’s mother in the car park at Safeway… spat in her face.’

‘The healing capabilities of time are often overrated,’ Jeavons said.

‘So there’s a good deal more to heal here than a case of asthma.’

‘You think she wanted you to find out about all this, the aunt?’

‘I don’t know.’ Merrily lit a cigarette. ‘Alice seems to be the eldest sister. She and her husband opened a chip shop in Ledwardine about twenty years ago. He died a while back. She must be well into her seventies now but still works there part-time. And does most of the cleaning in the church. And her niece in Solihull recently went on an Alpha course, which seems to have inspired Alice to come to one of our Sunday evenings.’

Felt the Holy Spirit was in her heart like a big white bird, and you could feel its wings fluttering. As if this big bird was trying to escape from her breast and fill the whole world with love and healing.

‘You got yourself an enormously interesting case, Merrilee,’ Lew Jeavons said. ‘Why you trying to avoid it?’

‘Am I?’

‘Reach out! Embrace!’

He laughed hugely, the bastard.

The White Company: cool name, but…

Well, come on, what did you expect?

Jane stood by the stairs with Ben, watching them bunched in the hall under the blown bulb, and thinking that at least they blended with the decor. Of the three of them, Elizabeth Pollen was the most animated. There was a youngish guy with limp hair and Harry Potter glasses who had, like, anorak stamped across his shallow forehead, and if he didn’t have spots it was only because the Clearasil was working this week.

Which meant that Alistair Hardy, the medium, the main man, had to be the heavy-set sixtyish person with pewtery hair and an intermittent scowl and a briefcase. A man clearly aware of his professional standing, like a small-town bank manager. It was laughable.

‘Right,’ Ben said. ‘If we’re all in agreement, I’d like to record some of Alistair’s testing of the individual rooms. Antony Largo would have been here himself, but he’s tied up on another project at the present. And so —’

And then, what Ben did, he plucked the Sony 150 out of Jane’s hands, just blatantly lifted it.

‘—I’ll have to shoot this myself.’ Moving away with the camcorder, he tossed her a brief, faintly rueful smile over his shoulder. ‘Jane, you might like to watch how I do this. Give you a few basic ideas.’

Son of a bitch!

Jane was boiling with embarrassment. She thought she could see the Harry Potter guy smirking. She turned to look for Amber, but Amber had gone, maybe to barricade the kitchen. Natalie appeared in the lounge doorway, met Jane’s eyes and shrugged, sympathetic but helpless.