Remains of an Altar

‘You really know your stuff, don’t you? Glad we met. But you know, I don’t think I’m even supposed to talk about this.’

‘Tim, is it possible that Elgar – in later years, perhaps by talking to Blackwood – did know about the supposed significance of Whiteleafed Oak?’

‘Winnie thought he must have been at least instinctively aware of— Why am I here? Do you know? I don’t remember. I don’t—’ Tim began to tremble like he’d been hot-wired, his engine coming alive. ‘What am I doing? Can you help me?’

Lol bit his lip, hands pressing into his knees.

‘God?’

Tim’s eyes filled with panic.

‘Ed,’ he said. ‘Where’s Ed? Can’t do it without Ed.’

56

Tennis Courts

No choice. Merrily had to go with Spicer.

And she was close to frantic.

‘It’ll take twenty minutes. Please.’

They were getting into Spicer’s Golf outside the rectory. His car, he could call the shots.

‘Merrily, if there was one thing I learned in my former life it’s that preparation and intelligence are invariably more important than skill, technique and courage, all that stuff from the comics. There’s something I need to know before we go anywhere. Something I need to check before we pick up your Mr Robinson. It won’t take long, and it won’t wait.’

‘Are you going to phone the police, then, or shall I?’

‘I told you, it’s in hand. I made a call while you were screaming at poor Winnie. Thought you needed to get that out of your system.’

‘Good of you.’

‘I’ve a trusted friend who’ll contact the right person in the police and explain it fully. Otherwise it could get messy. And another thing you need to know. Tim Loste didn’t kill Winnie. You got that? He didn’t kill Wicklow and he didn’t kill Winnie.’

She stared at him, his face flecked with the colours of the dashlights.

‘On what basis can you possibly—?’

‘Oh, and I didn’t either, in case you were considering that possibility. This is not what you thought. There is evil here. On an almost unimaginable scale. And we do need to collect your friend at some point. Right now, though, there are things I need to know that could save us all some grief.’

‘Grief?’

‘I blew it, Merrily. I left things too late. If it’s anybody’s fault, what’s happened to Winnie, it’s mine. Should have got them out of that church a week ago. Should never have let them in.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Nor me, yet. Not fully.’

Spicer turned left.

‘This is the road to—’

‘Old Wychehill Farm.’ He put on the headlights. ‘Now listen to me. We’re going to be quite open about this. If Preston’s here, it’s best you stay in the car, and I’ll run some parish business past him. It’ll be unconvincing but it doesn’t matter a lot at this stage. I don’t think he’ll be here, but I need to be sure.’

Spicer drove carefully into the valley, on full beams, and pulled up conspicuously in the centre of the courtyard, gravel spurting.

There were lights in the big house and a couple of wrought-iron lanterns twinkling romantically among the stone holiday units. But the outbuildings themselves were in complete darkness and there were no other cars around. No signs of holidaymakers in residence. The Victorian turret, the pines and the monkey puzzles were stage-set silhouettes against the pale, powdery night.

The idyllic effect spoiled only by the figure, naked from the waist up, legs braced, the shotgun levelled at the windscreen of the Golf.

‘You fucking stop there!’

Spicer kept the engine running.

‘Best if you don’t get out just yet, Merrily.’

‘You really think…’ Merrily was sinking slowly down the passenger seat ‘… I’m going to get out?’

‘Get fucking back! I’ll take your fucking head off!’ Spicer lowered his window.

‘Hugo?’

‘One more step I’ll blow your fucking windows out!’

The twelve-bore vibrating, shards of moonlight on the twin barrels.

‘Kid’s a bag of nerves,’ Spicer murmured. ‘Something took him over the edge.’ Shouting out of his side window. ‘Syd Spicer, son. Come for your old man.’

‘You’re fucking lying!’

‘Been a bad night, ain’t it, Hugo? Don’t make it worse. I’m coming out. All right? I’m gonner walk under the lamp, to your left, so you can see it’s me. Promise you I won’t come any closer. Just under the lamp, yeah, so you can ID me?’

‘You keep back…’

A jerk of the shotgun.

‘No worries.’ Spicer got out of the car, walked across to a wrought-iron lamp projecting from one of the buildings. ‘Now. See?’

‘Who’s that with you?’

‘That’s Mrs Watkins. The lady vicar? You’re making her nervous, Hugo.’

Finally recognizing Spicer, Preston Devereaux’s younger son lowered the gun just fractionally. Through the car window Merrily could smell fumes like a smouldering bonfire or an incinerator.

‘Sorry to scare you, son,’ Spicer said.

‘I wasn’t—’

‘Nah, nah, you got good reason to be wary, way things’ve been lately. Louis with you?’

‘He’s with Dad. They’re meeting a guy about … installing tennis courts.’

Tennis courts?

‘Tennis courts, eh? Smart move.’ Spicer walked up to the boy. ‘Be having an eighteen-hole golf course next.’

‘Yeah. Look, I’ll tell them you—’

Spicer’s back blurred across the windscreen. Merrily didn’t see how it happened, but it happened in near- silence, and when Spicer stepped aside he was holding the shotgun and Hugo Devereaux was writhing on the lamplit gravel.

She gasped, sat up, springing open the car door and rolling out to find Spicer breaking the shotgun, taking out both cartridges, putting them one by one in his pocket.

He looked down at the boy. ‘God have mercy on you, son.’

But she saw that he’d taken off his dog collar.

What followed was surreal and desperately chilling. Reality distanced, like she was watching down the wrong end of a telescope. The mind’s way of handling an experience that was both alien and vividly shocking.

They’d followed Hugo Devereaux into the house and Spicer, still wearing his black gloves, was opening doors and cupboards like a burglar. Seemed to know his way around as well as if he had the layout in his head.

Kicking open the door of the Beacon Room with its long window, the British Camp like a high altar, hard under the haloed moon. Syd stopping to listen in the churchy stillness.

‘Cellars, Hugo?’

‘By the back stairs.’

‘Keys?’