Remains of an Altar

out if next Sunday would be suitable for you.’

‘I’m sorry. What for?’

‘We were discussing the idea of a Requiem Eucharist for Lincoln Cookman and Sonia Maloney?’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘It seemed to answer everybody’s … you know?’

‘Yeah, well, look. I don’t think we’ll be coming.’

‘But Mrs Cobham, it was your—’

‘Things have changed. Change of plan. Change of future.’ Brittle laugh. ‘We’re putting the barn on the market. I’m just off to the agent’s in Ledbury now, actually.’

‘Just like that?’

‘It was a wrong move. Nothing’s been right since we came here. We’re probably going to America. Paul knows this guy in Naples, Florida. Anyway, all I’m trying to say is … it really doesn’t concern us any more. Look, I’ve got to go, all right?’

Click.

Merrily threw the phone book at the wall.

30 In Their Proper Place

It had been Merrily’s plan to go into her own church before lunch, when it was quietest. Find a cool place in the chancel and lay all this out, the whole Wychehill mess. To ask the question, Is it time to leave this alone, walk away? An in-depth exchange with the Management on this issue was long, long overdue.

So what was she doing in Lol’s bed?

‘Oh hell…’ She gazed into his unshaven face. ‘This is a bit like adultery.’

‘In what way, exactly?’

Lol rolled off her. He looked almost hurt.

‘No, I…’ She trapped one of his legs between hers. ‘I just meant … cheating on the Church. The parish. Sorry. All I need is to offend you, and that’s virtually nobody left still speaking to me.’

He smiled. Maybe he hadn’t looked hurt a moment ago. Maybe she’d conjured that out of her own hurt.

Lol’s bedroom had a three-quarter bed in it. That was all. It was a very small room with no space for a wardrobe. He said he needed to sleep here because it had a view across Church Street to the vicarage – they could see each other’s lights at bedtime. Which was nice. But she’d sometimes wondered if he wasn’t just a little timid about using the bigger bedroom where Lucy Devenish had slept.

Whatever, this room was bare without being stark, a sanctuary, a space out of time. One day, perhaps, she might even get to spend a whole night here.

‘Then, at the same time,’ she said, ‘I get the feeling that I’m neglecting you.’

‘Some feelings you should listen to,’ Lol said. ‘This could be God telling you that you’re neglecting me.’

‘Dangerous to blaspheme in front of a vicar.’ Her fingers paddling over his thigh. ‘Especially when naked.’

He gripped her hand. They laughed, and when they stopped laughing she told him everything. About Winnie Sparke and Tim Loste and their beautiful secret and her own dismal morning.

‘I’m tired. I can’t get a handle on it any more. People’s attitudes change overnight. They want me to do something, then they don’t. They want to talk to me and then … Winnie Sparke, particularly. It was as if she’d picked a fight just to wind up the conversation because I was asking the wrong questions. Like mentioning the blow-up photo of Elgar.’

‘Let me get this right. Who’s seen Elgar, other than Loste?’

‘Stella Cobham. Who no longer wants to have anything to do with it because they’ve suddenly decided to move. Well, nobody just decides overnight to emigrate. Must’ve been very much on the cards when she came to the meeting in the church and poured it all out, thus burning her boats with Preston Devereaux who, according to Spicer, nobody likes to offend because he’s Old Wychehill…’

Lol sat up against the pillow, retrieved his little brass-rimmed glasses from the floorboards, and put them on.

‘But for a couple of things,’ he said, ‘I’d be suggesting that Elgar might be a psychological projection by Tim Loste.’

‘Well, me, too. Although, if we step over the threshold … sometimes, if the personality behind it is strong enough, a psychological projection may be perceptible to a third party.’

‘Musicians can be obsessive.’

‘No kidding.’

‘Um…’ Lol hesitated.

‘What?’

‘Anything I can do about this?’

‘I don’t like to interrupt your work.’

Lol laughed.

‘What it comes down to,’ Merrily said, ‘is the only person I haven’t spoken to, can’t get at and may never get at.’

‘Loste.’

‘Who now seems to be the key to both mysteries, that is, the Elgar thing and the killing on the Beacon, whether he did that or not – and the circumstantial evidence is impressive. But the key to Tim Loste is Winnie Sparke, who isn’t talking. I don’t think she ever planned to say much, and yet she wanted to check me out. Why? I still don’t really know these people or what they’re doing.’

‘There must be other ways in,’ Lol said. ‘For instance … a lot of singers in a choir.’

‘You know any? I don’t.’

‘Not yet. But musicians can be obsessive. Leave this with me.’

‘Thank you, Lol. And thanks for keeping an eye on Jane, which I … I’m not getting anything right, am I? I’m a lousy mother, a lousy girlfriend, an inept exorcist and an incompetent parish priest.’

‘But at least you don’t suffer from low self-esteem,’ Lol said.

They went downstairs and shared half a loaf, a pot of hummus and a box of cress, and Merrily resolved to spend the rest of the day in penance, dusting and polishing the church furniture, finding sick parishioners to visit before…

… A last assault, tomorrow, on Wychehill. Or, more specifically, on Winnie Sparke.

‘And I want to look at Coleman’s Meadow.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Why does Jane think Lyndon Pierce has some secret scheme to expand the village?’

‘Probably because he has. Don’t worry. Gomer’s looking into it.’

‘That’s reassuring.’ Merrily sat on the sofa and smoked half a cigarette. ‘Or maybe not. Pierce used to shoot blue tits, apparently. Nothing he could do for Jane to acquit himself after that. What if Sparke’s right and Loste didn’t kill that guy?’

‘Then Annie Howe will find out for herself. She’s not an incompetent detective, she just doesn’t like you. And your mind’s gone like a TV remote control switching from one channel to another.’

‘Too many channels nowadays,’ Merrily said. ‘That’s the problem.’

The grave was marked by a low wedge of sandstone and overhung by an apple tree from the old orchard over the wall. It was arguably the smallest, least ostentatious memorial in the churchyard.

Jane could have found it blindfolded.

Lucy Devenish.