The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

‘Boys’ talk,’ Gomer said. ‘They used to say her liked ’em to be real scared. This was the thing for Hattie. Take the boys to the edge, show ’em who was boss.’

‘Domination? Like, she got off on it?’

‘Mabbe.’

‘So it wasn’t just boys’ talk at all, was it?’ Jane said softly.

Gomer coughed. ‘Mabbe not all of it.’ He started rolling another ciggy, then stopped and shut the tin and looked past Jane into a corner of the kitchen as if he thought Minnie might be there, watching him with disapproval. ‘Afterwards, her’d make ’em bring a rock back for her. A stone. Mabbe the size of half a brick.’

‘What for?’

‘Kept the stones on the mantelpiece. In a line.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘Trophies,’ Gomer said. ‘Every time her had a different feller up the top he’d have to fetch a new rock back. All laid out on the mantelpiece in the big drawing room, all in a line, where poor Robert could see ’em — watch the line of stones gettin’ longer. He wasn’t a well man by then. Chest. Spent a lot o’ time in the lounge in front of the fire. Under this line of stones, gettin’ longer.’

‘What a total bitch.’

‘We had all the gossip from the servants, see — local people. Her used to scream at him that he was weak — a malingerer. He was ill, was what it was, but Hattie din’t wanner know ’bout that. Not her idea of what a countryman should be — a countryman was healthy. When her was out huntin’, he’d go to bed, try to build up his strength, mabbe fall asleep and then her’d come back and find him… rip all the bedclothes off him, leave him shiverin’. Always made her angry, the drink. Some folks gets merry, some— What’s wrong, Janey?’

‘She pulled the bedclothes off him?’

Jane moistened her lips. In her head, a memory of being in the doorway of her first bedroom at Stanner, looking in at all the duvet pulled off, its cover gathered in a heap like a flaccid parachute.

‘If he was still up,’ Gomer said, ‘there’d likely be a fight — a real fight: bruises, split lips. His lips. That was talked about, oh hell, aye. Can’t cover up a split lip, can you? Can’t pass it off as how you fell over the grate.’

‘How could he stand it?’

‘Her house, her money. Where’s he gonner go? Pitiful, Janey.’

‘Yes.’

‘And that was how it come to the end. Night of the day of the hunt. Hattie real fired up, as usual. Her’d ride like the devil, and if they ever come back without a kill… not a happy woman.’

‘You make her sound like…’

‘Ar?’

‘Doesn’t matter, go on.’

‘This night — round about now on the calendar, night of the Middle Marches Hunt Ball… See, Robert, he wouldn’t go to the Hunt Ball, couldn’t get on with these country sports types. Hattie goes alone. Comes back alone around two or three in the mornin’, but whether her was alone between leavin’ the ball and gettin’ back to Stanner, that’s anybody’s guess.’

‘Slag.’

‘Ar. So he’s still up when her gets in, mabbe asleep in the chair. Then, all this noise, shoutin’ and screamin’. Servants yeard it, but they was used to it, see. It was only when it carried on out in the garden — and then it all goes quiet — that a couple of ’em comes out, the servants. Found Robert out in the garden, down near this ole seat where he used to sit and stare out at the hills. They reckoned he’d tried to crawl up onto the seat, but he’d just fallen back, down on the grass. And Hattie — her was just standin’ there, a few yards away, like a marble statue, arms down by her sides. A rock in each hand. From the mantelpiece.’

‘Jesus.’ Jane wondered how much of this Ben had told Amber. How much Ben himself knew. If he knew anything when he was planning his cute little murder-mystery weekend.

‘Then Hattie, her drops the rocks and walks calmly past ’em, up the path and into the house. Servants carries Robert in, lays him out on the long sofa. One of ’em rings for the doctor, though they knows it’s too late. Hattie’s movin’ around upstairs, but nobody’s brave enough to go up there. And then one of ’em notices the desk drawer’s hangin’ open. This is where Robert kept his service revolver, locked away.’

‘Oh hell, Gomer.’

‘No sooner they seen the drawer’s open than it’s too late. Echoes through the whole house like…’

Oh. Oh G—

‘… thunder. Took a while ’fore one of ’em was up to goin’ up them stairs. Ole Leonard, the butler, it was. Had a bit of a job getting the bedroom door open on account of Hattie was on the floor behind it. Big woman, see, like I say.’

Jane heard her own voice saying, ‘Was she dead?’ Like from a distance, like it was someone else speaking, because she didn’t think she could move her lips.

‘Her’d put the end of the ole revolver in her mouth, Janey.’

She wanted to scream aloud. She wanted to leap up and go screaming down the lane. Anything to take her out of her own head, where an explosion had happened in the early hours.

‘Not the nicest way to go,’ Gomer said. ‘But I s’pose it’s what you’d expect, kind of woman her was. No nonsense. You chews on the barrel, en’t nothing gonner go wrong. Hexpedient. How much them kids saw, nobody knows — mabbe it’s what messed Paula up in the head.’

‘She doesn—’ Jane’s lips were rubbery. ‘Doesn’t seem like a woman who would kill herself.’

‘What’s the alternative, Janey? Even if her didn’t get hanged, her’d’ve gone to jail for life. Go to jail? Leave Stanner? Lose it all for a few moments of black madness? Naw, her took the man’s way out — that’s what they used to say. And took Stanner Hall with her. You inherited Stanner, would you wanner live there after that? Not like it was ancestral — two generations? Never was a house again. Commercial premises from then on. Grounds all overgrown. Us kids tellin’ stories of Hattie’s big ghost, gliding through the tangled ole gardens with a rock in each hand.’

Gomer gathered the teacups and the pot on a tray and took them to the sink.

‘Goin’ Whoop, whoop,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Whoop, whoop.’

23 Showdown Time

Danny had awoken in the dark with this sense of something closing around him like a fist. Like during the Foot and Mouth — filthy smoke from distant pyres of flesh and hide, mostly unnecessary, an uninvestigated crime perpetrated by the wankers of Westminster, and all you could do was turn away and weep.

In the end he’d got up, leaving Greta rumbling warmly, happy as an old Rayburn. Half-past three in the morning, and he’d gone downstairs and shoved a block into the stove, putting on his cans and letting in the soaring fury of The Queens of the Stone Age. There were times when only heavy music could blank out the foundry of your thoughts.

Even though he’d resisted rolling a joint, he awoke before seven with a mouth like the deck of a New Age traveller’s bus, and Greta bending over him, lifting off the cans, closing his hands around a mug of tea.

‘You en’t got to, Danny.’

Danny sat up, spilling the tea.

‘Like you said, it en’t really your business,’ Greta said.

‘But…?’

‘But nothing.’

‘But you think I should tell him. Don’t you?’