Remains of an Altar

‘What are you, Merrily? Some kinda fucking stoolie for the cops? Like I need to waste my time with a police snitch? I don’t think so, lady. I think I told you far too much already, and all you did was you gave it to the cops.’

‘That’s not—’

‘So from now on you can get off of my case, OK?’

‘Look, I’m just trying to—’

‘I’m gonna have a good lawyer I can’t truly afford go see Tim right now, and I don’t wanna hear from you again, so … like when we get him outta there you just stay the hell away from the both of us.’

‘Winnie, if you could just let me—’

‘Goddamn fucking stoolie bitch.’

The phone went down hard.

At the start of mid-morning break, the sixth-form common room was like a call centre, a whole bunch of them switching on their mobiles to, like, maintain the temperature of their love lives.

When Jane switched on hers, just to be sociable, not expecting anything from Eirion this morning, it went directly into its tune. And, not recognising the number, it was like…

‘Jane Watkins?’

‘Erm…’

‘Hi, Jane, this is Jerry Isles from the Guardian. I tried to leave a message on your voicemail yesterday – maybe you didn’t get it?’

‘Oh … did you?’

‘Never mind. Jane, I have to say it all sounds hugely fascinating. I used to be quite into leys a few years ago – we used to stay with friends in Cornwall, where you’re practically tripping over megalithic sites, so I’ve read Watkins, obviously, and this really brought it all back. Are you running the campaign on your own?’

‘Well … you know … me and a few friends, but—’

‘But it was your idea.’

‘Yes, only I’m not sure—’

‘You seem to be wearing school uniform on the picture. How old are you, do you mind?’

‘S—Eighteen.’

‘Good. And your parents know about it?’

‘My mother knows. I don’t have a father any more. She, erm … My mum’s cool with it.’

‘Well … I took the liberty of checking your map with the Ordnance Survey, and the line certainly seems to work. Who did the pictures?’

‘My … boyfriend.’

‘They’re good pix, on the whole. However, I think we’d like to do some of our own. We have a regular freelance photographer in your area, and the picture editor would like to send her along, if that’s all right with you. How about … are you free this afternoon?’

Through the plate-glass window beyond the tabletennis table, Jane could see Morrell in his shirt sleeves jogging across the quad towards the car park.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘I mean this is really good of you, but I’m not sure I want to go through with it now.’

‘Oh? That mean you’re no longer convinced?’

‘Oh, no, it’s true, it’s all true. Even though when I went to see the local councillor, there were all these council officials there, and they were all, like, Oh, it’s all nonsense and Alfred Watkins was a misguided old man. And the councillor was suggesting I was trying to mess up his plans for turning Ledwardine into some kind of town, which would be really crap. And I was warned that I should be careful what I said. I mean, I’m not worried about me that much, but my mum’s the vicar there, you know?’

The line went quiet. If they’d lost it, Jane decided she wasn’t going to call him back, at least not until tonight when she’d had time to think of a way he could maybe do the story but keep her out of it…

‘The vicar,’ Jerry Isles said. ‘No, I didn’t know that.’

Oh hell. Why, in this so-called secular age, were newspapers so fond of vicars?

Jerry said, ‘Tell me again, Jane, what these people from the council said to you … ?’

‘I don’t think I told you the first time, did I?’

‘About the councillor wanting to turn your village into a small town? That’s what I’ve got.’

‘You’re writing this down?’

Morrell jogged back and went into the main building, his car keys swinging from a finger.

Jane began to sweat.

Merrily sat in the scullery, watching the play of morning light on the vicarage lawn, the clusters of yellow wild flowers in the churchyard drystone wall that bordered it. A whole ecosystem, that wall.

What are you, some kinda stoolie for the cops?

Going back over it, she could pinpoint the exact moment when Winnie Sparke’s attitude had altered. It was when Merrily had revealed that she’d been inside Loste’s house. Winnie had been afraid of what Merrily – not the police – might have seen in the house and been able to interpret for Howe.

Which meant there was something she should have spotted in there and hadn’t.

She called Syd Spicer, not expecting him to be in. But he picked up on the second ring.

‘You’ve offended Sparke, Merrily. Easily done.’

‘She told you?’

‘She’s walking round wailing and gnashing her teeth. A woman who likes to be in control. And she can hardly control poor Tim at the moment, can she?’

‘You think he did it, Syd?’

‘I wouldn’t have thought so, but time will tell.’

‘I like an interventionist priest.’

‘Yeah, well, I don’t scale walls with pockets full of smoke bombs any more.’

It was the first reference that he’d made to his past, but this probably wasn’t the time to follow it up.

‘Loste and Winnie, Syd. What’s that actually about? This musical work, this search for Elgar’s source of inspiration. I mean, is there anything you haven’t told me that might relate to that?’

‘Lots, I imagine. I wouldn’t know what was relevant. Equally, I can’t betray a parishioner’s trust. I can point you in a certain direction, which I’ve done, but I can’t pass on what I’ve been told in confidence, can I? Would you? Maybe you would. Maybe you did.’

‘Because I’m a police informer?’

‘When Winnie Sparke takes offence, she doesn’t hold back.’

‘Why is Loste collecting oak trees?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘OK, Joseph Longworth’s vision. That sounds like a modern-day version of one of those old legends often connected to the foundation of churches. A vision indicating where to build.’

‘There are some documents relating to that. It’s in the parish records. Letters. Winnie has copies.’

‘Could I have copies?’

‘No reason why not, I suppose.’

‘Could you send them? Email anything?’

Spicer sighed. Merrily persevered.

‘Do you have any idea what Winnie Sparke might have meant when she talked about a great and beautiful secret?’

‘No,’ he said.

Merrily called the home of the dead girl, Sonia Maloney, in Droitwich. No answer. The Cookman number Syd Spicer had passed on turned out to be a spare line, which meant he hadn’t even tried it.

She came to the third on the list.

‘Who?’ Stella Cobham said.

‘Merrily Watkins. The Deliverance woman?’

‘Oh, yeah. Look, Merrily, I was just on my way out. Perhaps I could call you back.’

‘Won’t keep you a minute, Mrs Cobham. I just wanted – before I make any specific arrangements – to find