Remains of an Altar

Worcester, Central News, Daily Mail, Hereford Times, Hereford Journal. And a clipped and icy Robert Morrell, school director, Moorfield.

‘Mrs Watkins, perhaps you can call me, ASAP.’

No wonder the bloody kid was out early. Merrily walked into the churchyard. Where, for heaven’s sake, was she going to get a Guardian in Wychehill? She was recognizing the onset of a cold sweat when a seventh message was delivered by a voice like suede and sounding close enough to lick her ear.

‘Mrs Watkins. Khan.’

Quite a long pause, as if Mr Khan was used to people dashing to disable their answering machines and pick up once they knew it was him. And then he said, ‘Call me back, would you?’ A patina of impatience. ‘I’m in my Kidderminster office.’

She plucked half a pencil and a cigarette packet from her shoulder bag and sat down on the steps of the Longworth tomb to write down the number. No hurry to call him back. It was probably going to be a courtesy call, apologizing for bothering him. Any requiem now was likely to be a cosmetic exercise.

She ought to call Morrell. At least he’d be able to tell her what was in the Guardian. On the other hand, if she revealed to Morrell that she didn’t know, what was that going to look like?

Leaning her head into the still-cool shadow of the stovelike tomb Merrily found herself staring up into the grotesque inverted rictus of the Angel of the Agony.

Purgatory. I think we can deal with purgatory right here, Winnie Sparke had said.

How true that was.

It’s as good as over. Directing this thought at the Angel of the Agony. I expect you know all about being burdened with crap.

She’d knocked on Hannah Bradley’s door. No answer. Probably one of her days at the Tourist Office in Ledbury. The mountain bike wasn’t around. If Stella had lied and Loste was delusional, how likely was it that Hannah had told her the truth?

But she’d been so convincing. It had been like a breath of pure air. Who could you trust?

Merrily stared at the writing on the tomb.

‘ALL HOLY ANGELS PRAY FOR HIM

CHOIRS OF THE RIGHTEOUS PRAY FOR HIM.’

So the quarry owner, Joseph Longworth, had seen an invented angel in a blaze of light and built a huge and costly church?

Wondering if Tim Loste’s choir was praying for him, she heard not prayer but laughter and, peering around the tomb, saw two people walking into the church drive.

One of them was Winnie Sparke in her long, pale, flimsy dress. Winnie was laughing, her good and abundant hair thrown back.

Merrily slid down behind the tomb.

The man with Sparke was a very big man. Overweight, but with the height, almost, to carry it. Wide- shouldered, wearing a flannely sort of shirt outside his trousers. His dark hair was long and brushed back, and he had a moustache – not Lord Lucan, not Freddie Mercury, but a wide, black, muscular kind of moustache, like the one on the face on the back of a twenty-pound note.

Jane had washed her face; her eyes were bright but a little wild.

‘I can’t find the printer.’

‘Haven’t got one.’

Lol shut the front door and, for some paranoid reason, barred it. Although Church Street was deserted, there would be eyes at windows. This was Ledwardine.

‘Lol … you’ve got a laptop but no printer?’

‘Just an oversight. I’ll get one sometime.’

‘Jeez.’ Jane stood up. ‘Did you see anybody?’

‘Gomer. The fence guys’ve gone now. Gomer’s not sure what’s happening there either, but he does know a lot of people.’

‘He’s still on our side, though?’

‘Jane, this is Gomer Parry. Anybody rung?’

‘Bloke called Dan. Friend of Prof Levin’s. I said you’d call him back. Then I had to go on-line. You ought to get broadband.’

‘Don’t use it enough. What did you find?’

‘I was going to print it out when you got back, but under the circs I’d better give you the basics.’

Lol sat down on the sofa. Jane had the laptop on the desk, with a curtain half-drawn.

‘Wychehill Church. Dedicated to St Dunstan, who’s one of the patron saints of music. He was Bishop of Glastonbury in the eleventh century, and he played the harp or something. But the church was only dedicated in the 1920s. Built in the Victorian Gothic style by Joseph Longworth, quarry owner, after his conversion which – get this – was said to have followed a visionary experience on the hill.’

‘What kind of visionary experience?’

‘Haven’t been able to find out. This was a boring ecclesiastical website, mainly dates and architectural features. All it says is that Longworth was stricken with remorse at the damage his quarrying had done to what he now realized was “holy ground”. And so he went to Little Malvern Priory and prayed for forgiveness and was subsequently directed to this spot.’

‘By God?’

‘That’s all it says about that. But something must’ve directed him because when he got there he found the remains of what was described as “a single-cell rectangular building” which was thought to be a monk’s cell or a hermit’s sanctuary.’

‘Next to the road?’

‘There wasn’t a road there in those days, just a quarry track, and that was a few hundred yards away, so the road must’ve been put in later, probably after Longworth was dead. So he built his church on top of the foundations of the single-cell rectangular building – you could get away with that kind of thing in those days. It says he built a church big enough to take a full choir and orchestra.’

‘Interesting.’

‘And then he built the rectory and houses for the church warden and the choirmaster. And then other people built houses there, as the Malverns had become fairly sought-after with the spa and everything. So Longworth is actually credited with establishing what is now considered to be Wychehill. Lol – is all this anything to do with that guy getting his throat cut on the Beacon?’

‘Anything’s possible,’ Lol said. ‘It’s a holistic world.’

‘You want me to keep searching?’

‘No, give it a rest. I’ll ring this bloke. Thanks, Jane.’

‘Took my mind off things a bit.’ Jane closed the laptop. ‘Feel like a … fugitive.’

‘We’ll deal with it.’

‘It’s not your problem.’

‘I suppose I’d like to think it was,’ Lol said.

‘Sorry.’ Jane smiled. A strained kind of smile. ‘I’d be honoured to be your problem. Especially if you can restrain Mum.’

Dan turned out to be the choir guy and he lived up near the Frome Valley, which was presumably how he came to know Prof Levin. He also knew…

‘Lol Robinson! I was at your concert at The Courtyard. Amazing. Shit hot. I mean it, man. A comeback in the truest sense.’

‘Well … thank you. That’s very kind.’

‘Best tenor in these parts, me,’ Dan said. ‘But I’d give it all away for a croak if I could write songs like you.