Remains of an Altar

‘This murky business?’ He laughed, a yelp of delight. ‘This world of gangland rivalry and territorial wars? Mrs Watkins, you have such a … a darkly romanticized view of the nightclub scene.’

‘I tend to watch a lot of trash TV. To unwind from the pressures of the job.’

Raji Khan came around the desk.

‘I shall tell you why, rather than how – despite coming down from Cambridge with a moderately acceptable second – I got into this business. I came into it, Mrs Watkins, because I absolutely love it. I love it to death … the music, the atmosphere, the milieu … have loved it since escaping from my dormitory at fourteen, with a friend, to attend my very first rave on a hillside in Wiltshire. Electrifying. Pure, ecstatic, naked vibration. You leave everything behind … your mind, your body, your— I’m sorry, was that your generation – acid house, drum-’n’-bass – or did you miss out? Do you know what I’m talking about? Or are you persuaded, like Mr Holliday and his cohorts, that we are demonic?’

‘Well, I…’

‘I am a Sufi,’ Raji Khan said. ‘Music is a sacred form to me. I tell people that Inn Ya Face has been transformed from a common drinking den into a temple of sound.’

‘Yes.’

Two wires connecting in Merrily’s head with an almost audible fizz.

‘Have I said something, Mrs Watkins?’

‘Mmm, I think you have. Have you got something on tonight?’

‘Of course. It’s Friday. We have an old friend of mine, the good Dr Samedi.’

‘From Kidderminster? Jeff?’

Khan looked startled.

‘He was hired for a party in our village, a couple of years ago. With his voodoo hip-hop show. He still doing that? Not so famous then, of course.’

‘My, my,’ Raji Khan said.

He escorted her to the car park. Roman Wicklow’s family had gone. Two white vans were arriving.

‘Well,’ Khan said, ‘I’m not sure whether I shall be able to attend your requiem. But I do hope that you can help to stop the carnage.’

40 Netherworld

All Jane wanted was to leave, go running back to the vicarage, bar the doors and spend the night slapping tin after tin of white paint on the Mondrian walls. But Lol said that leaving now would only make it worse, like they actually did have something to hide, so she just kept walking round and round the little front parlour like a caged tiger – hamster, more like – ending up face-down on the sofa, beating the cushions in blind despair at a world where the scum always came out on top.

And at the bottom of it all, like a cold stone in her gut, was the knowledge that this was all so totally her fault. This half-arsed venture had been cursed from the start, and the curse was spreading and, of all the people she never in her life wanted to harm, of all the people who didn’t deserve it…

Lol was always tethered to his past, that was the problem. He’d stretch it just so far and then something would send it snapping back, old rope twisting itself into a new noose.

After the disgusting Pierce had gone, Lol had sat at the desk assuring her that this was really not a problem, and the kind of people who’d believe someone like Lyndon were the kind who were not worth worrying about.

But he must be worried, terribly worried about the damage Pierce could do, with a word here and a word there, scattered like rat poison over all the places he went in his capacity as a democratically elected member of the Herefordshire Council. Democratically elected, Lol said, because nobody could be bothered to stand against him.

Lol’s personal history, however, would always stand against him.

She’d been called Tracy … Cooke? Jane had known all about this for a couple of years now. Anyway, her name was Tracy and she’d been aged about fifteen at the time.

Lol would have been only eighteen or so himself when he was set up by the bass player in his band who’d wanted Tracy’s mate and had got them all, Lol included, hopelessly drunk … and then had decided he was having both girls and had crept into Lol’s hotel room and virtually raped Tracy while Lol was sleeping it off. Slipping away and leaving Lol – who knew nothing about it, hadn’t even had sex with the girl – to face the police investigation that would crush his career, turn his loopy, born-again Christian parents against him and tip him down the chute into what he’d called in a song the medicated netherworld of psychiatric so-called care.

Taken years to drag himself out of the System and, while he wasn’t exactly on that register, he must still have a record for a distant sex offence. An offence that never was, but which explained everything about Lol: all the caution, the timidity, the fear of facing an audience which he’d seemed finally to be leaving behind.

Did Lyndon Pierce know about this, or was it just a lucky stab? Villages were such evil places.

At least she wasn’t under-age, just the bloody vicar’s bloody daughter, so, even if anyone believed it, the worst they could say…

Oh God, God, God…

Harsh colours collided behind Jane’s eyelids, a small universe exploding.

When she eventually opened her eyes, she saw that Lol was looking surprisingly calm – a danger sign, surely? Sitting there at the desk in his black T-shirt with the alien motif, his little round glasses on his nose, fine slivers of grey in his hair, and the phone at his ear, and he was going, ‘Yes, thank you … Look, I wonder if it’s possible to speak to Mrs Pole.’

Jane scrambled to her feet. ‘Lol?’

Lol was saying, ‘Margaret Pole, yes … Oh … Oh no. I didn’t know. I’m so … I’m really very sorry…’

Jane didn’t know what was happening. She wanted to snatch the phone out of his hand and start shaking him.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Just a friend of the family. I came to visit her once, a few years ago. I’ve, um, been abroad. It’s just that I’m not far from Hardwicke, and I was thinking … I had some flowers and chocolates and … Well, never mind. Sorry you’ve been…’

Lol’s face tightening in concentration. Jane felt almost panicked now. Why was he trying to reach a woman who was evidently dead? What if something had gone wrong in his head? Or hers.

‘Unless…’ Lol said. ‘Look, she had a friend there, I remember, we got on very well. Miss White. Athena White. I expect she’s dead, too, by now.’

Lol listened. When he put the phone down, he was looking kind of excited.

‘She’s still there, Jane. When I said I expect she’s dead, too, the woman said, No, I’m afraid not.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Miss White. Athena White is still a resident at The Glades Residential Home at Hardwicke.’

‘So?’

‘Maybe you never met her. I don’t suppose Merrily would have gone out of her way to introduce you. Not then, anyway. Jane, will you do something for me?’

‘I’ll do bloody anything, Lol, if you’ll just tell me what’s happening?’

‘If I give Gomer a call, will you go down to his place and stay there until Merrily gets back?’

‘Why?’

‘Because, under the circumstances, I don’t want you on your own. And if we’re seen driving out of here together – and we will be seen…’

‘Where are you going? This is not funny, Lol – we’ve got to warn Mum about Pierce.’

‘I’m just following up something that Gomer told me. Won’t take long. I’m going to try and find out about