Remains of an Altar

hour.’

‘No,’ Lol said. ‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t— Ow!’ Merrily pulled her bare forearm away from the Volvo’s scorching bodywork. ‘Sorry. Don’t come home?’

‘I mean not yet. There’s a TV crew around, and they’ll doorstep you, and you won’t know what to say.’

‘You’re right, I suppose.’ Merrily ran fingers through her hair; her head felt full of swirling fragments. ‘It’s just—’

‘Better to wait until late afternoon, when they’ve all filed their pieces – and without Jane they won’t be able to do much. Most of them might even drop it. It’s not a huge story, after all. And it’s Friday, and … How are things over there?’

‘Well, since you ask, it’s starting to seriously piss me off.’

It was good to unload it all on someone entirely non-judgemental. She told him everything, from Stella Cobham to Winnie Sparke who was all over the place.

‘First she’s doing the New Age paganism bit – springs and water goddesses – and then it’s High Catholic theology and getting lofty about women priests! It gets very hard to listen politely to this crap.’

‘I talked to an interesting guy.’

Lol told her about Prof Levin and a chorister called Dan who, working with Loste, thought he’d broken through to a higher place.

‘That must have been nice for him. What a dismal life of spiritual malnutrition we lead in the Anglican Church.’

‘But at least you never become bitter and cynical.’

‘Sparke…’ Merrily wiped sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘Winnie Sparke virtually accused me of not being equipped to grasp the profundity of it. Not equipped to feel the heat of the sublime!’

‘The bitch,’ Lol said.

‘Time to talk to Syd Spicer. And I mean talk. You’ll look after Jane?’

‘Merrily, you sound like—’

‘And I also need to ring Morrell.’

Morrell. What was it about Morrell? You tried to like these people – as a priest, you tried to like virtually everybody, but…

‘Before you say anything else, Mr Morrell, it’s my fault entirely. I kept her off school. I decided it wasn’t fair to inflict this situation on you, and as it was near the end of term…’

‘But surely,’ Morrell said, ‘you must realize the normal procedure would have been to consult me first. I might well have agreed.’

‘Well, yes, but there wasn’t really time. I mean, there it was, in the paper … and I had an appointment.’

‘You didn’t know it was going to be in the paper?’

‘Well … not this particular day…’

‘But you evidently knew, Mrs Watkins, that she was embarking on this madness—’

‘Madness? What’s so mad about—?’

‘—Under the pretext of an A-level project, and didn’t think to inform me.’

‘According to Jane you already knew.’

‘One thing I most certainly did not know was that she’d taken this unscientific nonsense to the media. But I had warned her that repeatedly playing truant in order to pursue some misguided campaign against the local authority was going to get her into seriously hot—’

He must have heard Merrily catch her breath.

‘Did I surprise you there, Mrs Watkins?’

‘Well, I—’

‘Could it be that you didn’t know about Jane’s recurrent migraine?’

‘Migraine.’

She shut her eyes against the sun. Even with all the windows down it was getting unbearable in here. Migraine?

‘I gather your curious job keeps you away from home quite a lot these days.’ Morrell’s voice was plumped out with satisfaction. ‘But you must know this is not something I can be seen to overlook. Yes, I value my reputation as a liberal, even radical school director, but if I allow students to come and go to pursue their whims I’m undermining my own authority. So I have to tell you that what I’m looking for now is Jane Watkins outside my room on Monday morning, with a full explanation, an abject apology and a readiness to accept whatever retribution I consider necessary.’

‘I see.’

‘And if that isn’t forthcoming, I also have to tell you I don’t expect to see her at all.’

‘You’re talking about suspension?’

‘Oh, I’m talking about a bigger word than that, Mrs Watkins. And also, in line with the usual procedure, I’m talking to the governors about it. I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me, I have another call waiting.’

‘No,’ Merrily said. ‘If you hang up on me now, I’m—’

Jesus, what? She was sweating. He’d have the governors in his pocket.

Dead noise. He might have gone; you could never tell with a mobile. Or he might just want her to think he’d gone.

‘If you hang up on me, Mr Morrell … or take any extreme action against my daughter until I’ve had a chance to sort this out … Heaven’s sake, you’ve got kids dealing drugs, assaulting teachers, here’s one, all she’s doing is making a stand against something in her own village – not even in the school – that she feels is wrong? OK, something that you, as an atheist and an arch-sceptic, probably wouldn’t understand. And, yes, she’s never exactly tactful, and she gets up people’s noses. But if you go to the governors with this – some of whom are bound to be on the bloody council – I’m going straight to the national press, and I’ll make it my business to ensure that everybody knows what a pompous, smug, self-seeking, hypocritical prick you’ve become.’

Merrily cut the line, dropped the mobile on the passenger seat.

She was shaking. Her sweat was turning cold. She fastened her seat belt, fumbling with it, started the car and drove down to the church parking bay. Stared for a moment through the windscreen, past the church entrance to the gables of the Rectory, its windows smoky-black against the sun.

Not many people left to antagonize.

Spicer wasn’t answering the bell and she couldn’t hear it ringing inside the Rectory. Merrily banged on the front door, stepped back, scanned all the windows for movement.

Nothing. She went round the side of the house – like her own rectory, too damned big – and hammered on the back door, then walked away onto the lawn that rose into the forestry, a screen concealing quarrying scars and who knew what else.

So many screens in Wychehill, but the afternoon sun was high and hot and relentless and drove her back into the shade of the open back porch, where she stood beating one last time on the back door. Leaning on the lever- handle in frustration – and the door opened.

It swung back with no creak, and she was looking into a utility room with a Belfast sink, a pair of Wellingtons standing underneath it, a balding Barbour on a peg.

Merrily said, ‘Syd?’

No reply.

‘Syd, are you in?’

She was experiencing an unseemly urge to search the house, find the secret photos in the drawers, uncover Syd Spicer’s hidden history. The door at the end might not be locked, but she was reluctant to approach it. Afraid to? Maybe.

For reasons that she was reluctant to examine, she backed away, closed the porch door and went down the drive to the roadside.

Back in the car she rang Rajab Ali Khan’s office in Kidderminster, returning his call to her answering