Remains of an Altar

beat his head against it.

* * *

In the end, Merrily had agreed to go out and move the car out of the yard into a space suggested by Spicer behind one of the barns. She’d just had to get out of there.

She took the opportunity to try again to get through to Lol: voicemail. Jane: voicemail. Gomer: endless ringing in an empty bungalow. And now it was late, getting on for eleven, surely. She didn’t try Bliss again.

As she stood in the yard, breathing in the soft, sweet summer air, a different countryside lay revealed. The moon was high now, and white and hard, less of a security lamp than a hunting tool. Owl sounds flickered through the woodland, a screen for shadowy slaughter. Owls hunting, talons out. Jets of blood and small lives taken, big lives too, and God looking diplomatically away, supervising the sunrise in another hemisphere.

Merrily felt numb, isolated. Cored by outrage and horror. Also, starved of light, starved of knowledge. A spectator who didn’t even understand the game.

When she went back, the atmosphere in the cellar was tight with a stripped-down harshness. Syd Spicer’s sleeves were rolled up.

The Reverend S. D. Spicer. Try to imagine him celebrating communion, visiting the sick, organizing a donkey for the church nativity play.

‘The gullet,’ he was saying, nodding. ‘Yeah, that makes sense. I should’ve thought of that.’

Syd and Hugo were sitting on upturned crates. Hugo looked up when Merrily came in, then looked away. Merrily noticed a new bruise just below his left eye. But, more than that, he looked emotionally beaten, dulled by defeat. He sniffed occasionally, his eyes watering, his thin face bony in the purply fluorescence. Resentment there, and self-pity. The sullen ugliness of corrupted youth.

She looked at Syd, at his still, small eyes.

The gullet.

‘Hugo is on his gap year, Merrily,’ Syd said. ‘He was going to spend it with the West Malvern Hunt, but of course the ban put a stop to that. They’re not even doing drag hunts, Hugo?’

‘What’s the point of that?’ Hugo said. ‘It’s a joke.’

‘A lot of disappointment in your family, then.’

Hugo snorted.

‘And a lot of rage,’ Syd said. ‘To understand this, you need to understand the rage, the way it ferments. The ingredients. Remember when the MP for Worcester was in the forefront of the campaign for a total ban? Must’ve seemed like a betrayal from within.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Betrayal upon betrayal. The hunting ban was just the final insult. Years before that they’d killed your grandfather, turned your dad’s life around. The government. The EC. The way the farmers in every other European country seemed to ignore the new rules, but Britain’s farmers got away with nothing. And then the great plagues: Mad Cow Disease and the ban on exports. Foot and Mouth. When the countryside smelled of smoke and burning flesh.’

‘It’ll never be the same,’ Hugo said. ‘We built this country. We made it what it was, and now they’ve giving it all away to the scum. Eating their cheap foreign meat from supermarkets owned by foreigners.’

‘And the one law they pass that isn’t crawling up the Euro-arse, it’s a ban on hunting. They’ll be coming for your guns soon. Land of hope and glory. Mother of the free.’

‘Joke.’

Syd said, ‘You know, sometimes – thinking back to the Regiment – it was hard to work out who you were fighting for. Had to come down to values in the end. You start thinking you’re doing it for Blair and Brown, it don’t work at all. Luckily, we still got Her Maj.’ Syd smiled. ‘Obviously it’s worse for an old family. Came with the Conquest, the Devereauxs? 1066?’

‘Bit later.’

‘Good long time, though. Longer than the Windsors. A long and glorious history going down the pan.’

‘We’re not the only ones.’

‘No, I appreciate that,’ Syd said. ‘Difficult times in Old England. Tell me about Wicklow.’

‘Came to my father for a job.’

‘Did he? Cheeky.’

‘It was a bit like … close to blackmail. Thought he was clever, but he didn’t know anything really. Thought he was hard and we were middle-class and soft. They don’t know what hard is.’

‘The city boys?’

‘Strip off all the bling and boasting, take their guns away, they’re weak. Thick as shit. It’s why they always get caught. You don’t need scum like that.’

‘And was I right?’ Syd said. ‘You waited for him in the cave.’

‘No, he was using the cave. Dealing out of there. Thought that was smart. We waited for him to come out of the cave. We were in the trees then the rocks behind the cave.’

‘You and Louis.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Bang. Pro job.’

‘Then Louis sent the text to Khan.’

‘Text? What was that for?’

Hugo shut his mouth. Syd put his head on one side, looking sorrowful, his fingers flexing slightly. It was enough.

‘Louis had these lines about Druid sacrifice from an Elgar CD,’ Hugo said. ‘We put it in the text to Khan from Wicklow’s phone. Louis said it was like a warning of what he was taking on.’

‘Old England showing its teeth,’ Syd said. ‘How dare these lowlifes pollute the Malverns with their noxious substances. And the Elgar – that would also be why the police pulled Tim? Neat. Double whammy.’

‘Dad didn’t think so. He didn’t think it was cool doing him on the stone, either. He’s like, You don’t get flash. You don’t get cocky. And if it looks a bit intelligent the police can narrow it down right away. But Louis’d done it by then. And it did work. Nearly.’

‘But then someone else figured it out. Someone your ole man really did underestimate for a while.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Your dad know what you did to her tonight?’

Hugo stared at the stone flags.

‘Does now.’

‘He was here when you came back?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Mad?’

‘Pretty pissed off.’ Hugo’s head jerked forward. ‘He’d’ve wanted it done, though. He said he—’

‘Pissed off that you couldn’t handle it? Or that Louis made you go with him?’

‘Mainly…’ Hugo found a sickly smile. ‘Mainly, he was mad that Loste wasn’t in the Gullet.’

Merrily said, ‘The gullet?’

Syd ignored her. ‘So where’s he now, your old man? And Louis.’

‘Out there. He—’

‘Finishing the job?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know.’

Syd tilted his head, put his hands on his knees as if he was about to get up. Terror bloomed in Hugo’s eyes. Merrily went cold.

‘I don’t know. Please!’ Hugo rolled off his crate onto the flags, putting his hands up. ‘Honest to God!’

Syd stood up.