Remains of an Altar

No wonder Syd Spicer was familiar with the Brecon Beacons.

‘Been out about eight years,’ Mrs Aird said. ‘But there’s something that doesn’t leave them, if you ask me.’

‘Mmm.’

Probably right. And they often didn’t leave the area. After many years based in Hereford, learning to become the most efficient killers in or out of uniform, they formed connections with the people and the land. Married local girls. Surprisingly – or maybe not – Spicer wouldn’t have been the first of them to become a priest.

‘Imagine the stress she must’ve been through,’ Mrs Aird said. ‘Never sure where in the world he was at any time, but knowing it was always going to be somewhere terribly dangerous.’

Merrily nodded. The SAS had probably the worst matrimonial record outside Hollywood. Breakfast with the wife, late supper in a cave in Afghanistan. Then retirement, still hyper, and they couldn’t settle down. The wives had to be very special to survive all that. Long periods alone, counting the Regiment graves in St Martin’s churchyard.

‘Sometimes…’ Mrs Aird leaned forward again ‘… Fiona came to talk to me on her own. She said he’d always promised her that when he came out of the Army they’d go back down south – bright lights and no sheep, she used to say. But then I suppose he found his faith. I don’t know where a man like that finds it.’

‘Oh … sometimes it’s just lying there, in your path, like an old coat, and before you know what you’re doing you’ve picked it up, tried it on and it seems to fit.’

‘That’s nice,’ Mrs Aird said. ‘I suppose.’

‘How did Mrs Spicer react to that?’

‘Oh, she stuck by him.’

Merrily smiled. Like Spicer had come out as a transsexual.

‘At least she knew where he was. He was a curate in Hereford, at first, and she didn’t mind that, thinking they’d move south as soon as he won his spurs, so to speak. They’d bought themselves a little house near his in- laws down in Reading, and they’d spend holidays there. But then he was offered Wychehill and the surrounding parishes – a bit closer to London, but it turned out to be the worst of both worlds. And the girl, Emily, she hated every minute she had to spend here. Off with her friends to nightclubs, every chance she got. And that, of course, led to boys and … the other thing. You know?’

‘No … what?’

‘That’s what…’ Mrs Aird leaned further forward as if the place was bugged. ‘That’s what broke up their marriage. The stress of dealing with the girl.’ She paused.

‘Drugs.’

‘Syd’s daughter?’

‘It’s everywhere, my dear. Young people can’t seem to face normal life any more, can they? Mr Spicer’s daughter … even Mr Devereaux’s elder son, when he gave up his job with the hunt. Went clean off the rails when it was banned, and they say he went on drugs. Luckily, he came round. But Mr Spicer’s daughter ended up in rehab.’

‘Oh.’

‘So you can imagine what it was like for them when the Royal Oak changed hands.’

‘Sorry?’

‘And that’s very much part of it, if you ask me. The evil.’

‘Evil … ?’

‘Ingrid said you weren’t the kind to dismiss it like so many of the modern clergy do.’

Mrs Aird looked out of her wall-to-wall picture window across the valley with its pastures and orchards.

‘Expect I’ll have to go, soon. You wouldn’t believe how often the houses change hands up here. It’s like Mr Walford says – he’s disabled but a very intelligent man, we do crosswords together – and he often says, This is what I always wanted, a place up here, and then when you get it you suddenly wake up one day and realize you’re too old for it. This is not a place to be old, Mrs Watkins, though I’ll miss my sunsets.’

Merrily looked around the room, everything modern and convenient and sparkling in the sunshine.

‘The Royal Oak,’ she said. ‘Is that a pub?’

‘Pub?’ Mrs Aird said. ‘It’s the gateway to hell. I don’t even want to talk about that, if you don’t mind. I’ve had all the locks changed and I shut myself away at weekends, go to bed with my mobile phone in case they cut the wires. And unfortunately it’s not something you can do anything about.’

‘Is there anything I can do for you while I’m here?’

‘No, I’m quite self-sufficient really. I’ve been a widow nearly twenty years, and I can cope with most things.’

‘Everybody needs help,’ Merrily said.

Mrs Aird looked down into her lap for a moment; when she looked up she seemed, in some way, younger, her expression more focused.

‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Mrs Watkins, you seem a nice girl. But you don’t look very much like my idea of a … you know.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry.’ Merrily looked down at her sweatshirt. ‘The Rector asked me to … I don’t think he wanted to draw attention to me being here.’

‘No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Ingrid says you know what you’re doing. It’s just that I don’t have many friends in Wychehill, and this girl … that’s what worries me most.’

And there might be another one, Syd Spicer had said, which is … a bit weird. Joyce Aird can tell you. They won’t talk to me about it.

‘She’s a single mother, Mrs Watkins. She’s on her own in that house. And she’s had the worst of it. She’s … this is why something needs to be done.’

‘I’m a single mother, too. I have a daughter of seventeen.’

‘You can’t be old enough for…’ Mrs Aird’s eyes lost their focus. ‘Oh, you lose touch at my age. Everybody under fifty looks like a child.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Hannah.’

‘She lives in Wychehill?’

‘Thinks she’s possessed,’ Mrs Aird said. ‘It’s not good, is it?’

7 The Dead of Ledwardine

Lol let Jane into his terraced cottage in Church Street. In the living room, the sunlight jetted through the window-hung crystals – Jane’s house-warming present – making quivering rainbow balls on the walls and the face of the Boswell guitar. Making the guitar seem to vibrate with possibilities which would vanish like the rainbow balls as soon as he picked it up.

‘Well, go on.’ Jane planting herself next to the writing desk. ‘Ring them.’

‘I don’t know the—’

‘I have it here. Copied it from the notice.’

Jane consulted her right wrist, read out the row of numbers biroed on it. She was left-handed. Sinistral. Therefore dangerously unpredictable. How was he supposed to handle this? Encourage her to go ahead with what seemed like a valid protest? Or, bearing in mind Merrily’s situation in the village, do what he could to talk her out of it?

‘And the code, of course, is 01432,’ Jane said.

Lol rang the council’s planning department, Jane drumming her fingers on the desk the whole time. What he eventually learned, from a guy called Charles, was in no way likely to wind her down.