The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

about — Ben, who suddenly was no longer endearingly eccentric, but more than a little unstable.

Maybe it was simply mid-life crisis, hormonal: Ben well into his fifties now, racing the clock. Ready to hurl the clock to the ground, it seemed, and hack at it with his heel in rage. Ready to damage anybody threatening the now drama.

Reluctantly, Jane called Antony back. At least he was younger and therefore probably less desperate. When he answered, she could hear a car engine.

‘Sorry, I didn’t know you were driving.’

‘Jane, is that you? Trying to get myself home, here, through the white hell, which has arrived in the soft South, and the novelty’s already wearing thin. Wait a sec, let me pull into the verge.’

‘OK. Sorry.’ The cynical languor in his voice had a calming effect on Jane. She waited for the handbrake’s ratchet. ‘Antony, can I talk to you confidentially?’

‘Aye, I’ll switch off the recording machine.’

‘Huh?’

‘Joke. Go on.’

‘I’m worried. About things. Well, about Ben.’

‘Well, I never.’

‘This is serious. You’re his mate, or I wouldn’t tell you — in fact, I didn’t tell you, OK?’

‘Jane, this conversation will dissipate in the ether.’

And so, in the face of his levity, and because there was no one else she could tell, she told Antony the shocking truth about Nathan and what Ben had done to him. Told him in considerable detail.

And then she told him why Ben had done it.

‘Oh boy,’ Antony said.

She told him how Ben, on another occasion, after screaming at the shooters, had said that where he came from there were real hard bastards.

‘Knightsbridge?’

‘Jesus Christ, Antony!’

‘OK. Joke. Ben’s from Reading and not what you’d call the most salubrious side. As I understand it, his old man was a builder’s labourer, something like that. Well, fine. Not then, though — Ben came into television at a time when a good and educated background, a nice accent, was still very much an advantage, and he gave them what they felt most comfortable with, and now he’s stuck with it. So, yeah, I guess he knows how to handle himself. However, next time he tears someone’s face off, it would be awfully nice to have it on camera. Is the wee Sony in your other hand, as we speak?’

‘Antony, I don’t—’

‘Jane, don’t worry about it. He’s no’ gonnae do anything to spoil the programme, believe it. I know this guy, I promise you.’

What did she expect, common sense? God, were they all the same?

She said, slightly desperately, ‘It’s just… that it’s getting weirder. It’s getting out of hand. Like Hattie Chancery?’

‘Who?’

‘The daughter of the man who built Stanner. She killed her—’

‘Oh yeah, he told me.’

‘But what’s she have to do with Doyle and the Hound of Hergest? She probably wasn’t even born when Doyle was here. It’s just like, Oh, she’s spooky, let’s throw her into the pot. I just think it’s getting out of hand.’

‘So?’

‘Well, that…’ What was she supposed to say to this guy? Antony, I want to believe. I want to believe in the mystical Borderland, and if the Hound’s part of that, I wanted to believe in the Hound. I need this. I don’t want it turned into… artifice.

‘Jane, listen. Don’t worry, it’s gonnae be fine. We can sort all this out later. You’re my number one girl out there, and only one rule. If it’s sexy, shoot it.’

‘Cool,’ Jane said sadly.

After Walton, the forestry came up on both sides of the tractor, this hostile army of giants in new white armour. Danny’s face felt hot with anger and anxiety. He’d even switched off his music — mabbe feel more like playing it on the way back, instead of replaying over and over in his head what Greta had said.

Sounded like he always does. Half-baked. Like he en’t yere.

Danny leaned on the wheel and the tractor battered on into England. Like he’d figured, no Hereford gritters or ploughs had made it this far, and by the time he reached the turning to The Nant, the road looked like it would soon be impassable for ordinary vehicles.

However…

On Jeremy’s ground, the snow was packed tight on either side, and there was a well-cleared channel down the middle, and the tractor rolled sweetly down this long, grey alleyway to the edge of the farmyard.

Dear God.

Danny climbed down from the cab, hissing as the night wrapped its frozen arms around him. He looked around: no lights in the farmhouse, no security lights outside. Power off already? Snow brought the lines down?

Danny hoped it was only the power that was off.

He stood there and looked at The Nant for long seconds, snow accumulating on the vinyl shoulders of his donkey jacket and already inches thick, dense as Christmas-cake icing, on the farmhouse roof.

And then, before he’d realized it, he was bawling out into the white night, like Greta doing the full Janis, ‘Jeremy! Jeremy, where are you, boy? JEREMY!’

When he filled his lungs again, the bitter air stung his throat and he started to cough, doubled up by the gate. He leaned on the gate, tears in his eyes, panting, letting the silence re-form around him as the snow fell, all pretty and pitiless. Come out, Jeremy, please.

But when he pictured Jeremy, the boy wasn’t coming towards him but walking softly away through the cushiony fields, off into the hollows of the deep forestry where there was peace.

Danny raised his head and thought he saw a glow behind one of the windows in the farmhouse. And it was then that it started up.

At first it was like it was coming up from the ground, from some sunken prison cell, down where there was no light and no hope. It was coming up through the snow like tongues of cold fire. It was as old as the hills, as old as the Ridge, and bone-cold, the coldest sound in the world.

28 The Jane Police

So much bigger than asthma now.

This was what Alice said when Merrily rang her, as Lol had known she would, before the night was out.

Alice was a force of nature. If Dexter thought that by finally coming out with the untold story he was going to make her drop it, he’d got her badly wrong. She’d discovered this powerfully mystical aspect of Christianity she’d never imagined existed. And also — as the oldest sister in a dysfunctional family — she saw it as her responsibility to sort everything out.

Even from across the scullery, Lol had heard everything coming out of the phone, Alice’s voice crackling like an old radio. She and Dexter had had a row and Dexter had stomped off in a rage, although he was supposed to come back to do the last two hours in the chip shop — Alice saying he wasn’t having his own way this time, asthma or no asthma, nothing was going to stop the Eucharist. Telling Dexter she’d find Darrin herself, make sure he was there. At the Eucharist.

‘She’s fallen in love with the word,’ Merrily said. ‘Sounds powerful and kind of technical. Prayer’s comforting, but Eucharist suggests big guns.’