The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

The computer was booting up, this row of icons extending along the bottom of the screen, Lol realizing that he didn’t know what any of them meant: another religion he didn’t understand.

‘So where’s Darrin now?’

‘Well, he was in prison. One way or another, Alice will find him. Which is not what Dexter wants. But Dexter’s clearly still scared of Darrin. Whereas Alice is scared of nobody.’

A face with a heavy moustache was on the screen, the expression solemn and dignified but the eyes bright with just the possibility of madness.

Illuminating Merrily’s other problem.

‘If the White Company are simply harmless, misguided, terribly British eccentrics’ — she was standing next to the computer, holding her pectoral cross between her fingers — ‘then why didn’t Jane tell me about them?’

‘Because she knows you’d have to disapprove,’ Lol said. ‘And she’d be embarrassed if she had to say, “I’m sorry I can’t work this weekend because my mum doesn’t want me exposed to evil forces.” ’

‘You think I’m overreacting.’

‘She’s grown up quite a lot in the past year. I mean… have you actually had experience of a medium letting evil into the world, or is this received wisdom?’

‘In as much as it’s received from the same source we get all our—’ Merrily sank into the chair, hair mussed. ‘It’s all received wisdom, isn’t it? It’s why they call us The Church. And if she’s grown up that much, why did you feel you had to tell me about Lucy?’

He looked up at her from the rug. ‘Because, in the Jane Police, I’m just a junior officer.’

She laughed. There was something that might have been a tear stain like a birthmark alongside her nose. He wanted to go over and lick it off.

‘I’m trying not to get screwed up or sanctimonious about this,’ Merrily said. ‘There are even one or two Deliverance ministers who actually work with mediums and don’t seem to have come to any—’

‘Look, you won’t rest till you find out what they’re doing. Why don’t you ask them?’

‘What do I do — send them a spirit message?’

‘Or even go back to the homepage and click on Contacts.’

‘Oh.’ She flipped back a page. ‘Contact Us.’

To apply for membership or to obtain any of our leaflets, contact Matthew Hawksley on [email protected]

Merrily clicked on it. An e-mail option came up. ‘Should I?’

‘What’s your own e-mail address? No reference to Deliverance in it?’

‘Are you kidding? Jane uses it. It just says Watkins.’

‘Why don’t you say you’re a Conan Doyle enthusiast and you’ve heard there’s a conference at Stanner Hall this weekend. And is it still on, despite the weather? Mention the cwn annwn — that’ll sound knowledgeable.’

‘OK.’ Merrily began typing.

Good evening, Mr Hawksley,

Word has reached me of your gathering at the Stanner Hall Hotel, near Kington, in Herefordshire, this weekend. As a Conan Doyle enthusiast living not far away, I should be most interested to learn more details. In fact, given the weather conditions, will the conference still be taking place? As my own researches into the links between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Hound of Hergest, the cwn annwn, etc. have shown, this is a fascinating area of inquiry. If you could supply me with more details ASAP, I would be most grateful.

Yours sincerely,

M. Watkins.

‘Perfect,’ Lol said.

‘What if they are at Stanner, and one of them shows this to Jane?’

‘They’re unlikely to make the connection,’ Lol said. ‘But if they do, you’ll get a call from Jane. And she’ll have to tell you all about it, in a lot of detail, and there won’t be a mystery any more, and we can get out of this cell and go and light a fire and watch the snow build a big white wall between us and the world.’

Merrily put on a wry smile that didn’t quite work.

Jane was pacing the shabby lobby with the camera hanging from her shoulder like a school bag — the camera and all it represented a burden now; it had come to this. Time to talk seriously to Nat — soon as she got back.

When the porch door slammed, it wasn’t Nat but Matthew, the Harry Potter clone, carrying a laptop in a leather case. Just for the sake of it, Jane brought up the Sony 150 and shot him by the side of the Christmas tree in front of the reception desk.

Matthew half turned and stuck his tongue out. Behind him, the white lights on the tree were unevenly spread, and it looked spindly and skeletal, like a frosted pylon. Ben had brought the tree in himself last weekend, probably nicked it out of the forestry. Jane didn’t approve of young trees hacked off above the roots and brought indoors to die slowly, so that by Twelfth Night — Happy New Year — you had a stiffened corpse. She lowered the camera, nodding at the laptop.

‘You get e-mails from the Other Side on that?’

Matthew inspected her through his black-framed glasses. ‘I realize you’re much too cool to be mixed up with spiritists and channellers, and I suppose I was much the same at your age.’

‘What changed?’ To Jane, adulthood seemed an arid place tonight.

‘You don’t want to know. Stick to your filming.’

‘No, I do,’ Jane said.

Matthew stared into her eyes, and she stared back and realized he could be as old as Mum. Glasses with big frames sometimes made people look a lot younger, like with beards and double chins.

‘For what it’s worth,’ he said, ‘what changed me was losing a mate. Beth’s husband, Steve Pollen, who was my boss at Powys Council. In the Archive department. Steve died very unexpectedly.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘Only, it didn’t stop him coming into work. You’d find something interesting — say, some missing estate records — and you’d say automatically, “Here, look at this, Steve,” and then you’d think, Hang on, he’s dead, and then you’d realize you’d just caught a glimpse of him at the files. People who die without some degree of foreknowledge often don’t realize they’ve passed.’

Two of the lights on the tree had gone out. Jane thought of Ledwardine, remembered the dead branches she’d collected in the orchard and brought into the vicarage to be sprayed silver and gold for Christmas, she and Mum planning to decorate them this weekend. She felt a stab of loneliness.

‘Actually, I think I saw a woman once. Like, when she was dead? I didn’t know she was dead until later, so it wasn’t scary. I mean I was pretty sure I saw her, but… you know?’

Matthew nodded. ‘Most of the spirits we see are complete strangers, so we don’t realize they’re not there. It’s only when we spot someone in a situation where nobody could possibly be at a particular time, like in a deserted theatre or a church that’s been locked up, that we think, Uh-oh…’

Jane frowned; this conversation was getting too pally.

‘Don’t get me wrong, I still think spiritualism’s naff. It’s a big issue, life after death, but you see these mediums working an audience, and all they ever get is like, “Remember your dad’s blue suit in the wardrobe — well, it’s OK to send it to the Oxfam shop.” ’

Matthew looked exasperated at last. ‘People who are bereaved don’t want a lecture on metaphysics, they just want some evidence of survival — some small thing that sounds trivial and naff to an intellectual like you, but is conclusive proof that someone they thought had gone for ever is still around.’

So now she was just young and heartless.