The knocking on the door had Lol rolling on to his side on the rug, where he’d been reading Traherne’s Centuries. Bringing his knees up, like an embryo in the womb – he was aware of that and ashamed, but he didn’t move all the same.
But what about his breathing? If you put your ear right up to the thinly curtained glass you’d surely be able to hear the ragged, terrified pumping of Lol’s lungs. He tried to slow his breathing; it nearly threw him into a coughing fit. He choked weakly.
At least you couldn’t see much through the curtains. He’d been outside and tested it out, creeping like a burglar through his tangled front garden. All you could see was the glow of the lamp, and that was OK, because people often left lamps on when they were out, for security. So he could be out, could be down the pub drinking with his mates. Except that if you knew Lol, you’d know he wouldn’t have any mates and was too shy to go in a pub on his own… full of people he didn’t know… but they all knew who he was. People laughing.
Thump. Rattle. Batter.
He didn’t move. Reciting Traherne in his head. You never enjoy the world aright till you so love the beauty of enjoying it that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it…
If he let Karl in…
Karl would have a bottle with him, maybe two, and they’d still be drinking when the sun came up on a new and ominous day.
… and so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of men in despising it, that you had rather suffer the flames of Hell than willingly be guilty of their error. There is so much blindness and ingratitude and damned folly…
Batter, batter batter. Almost frantic. Someone losing it.
Karl wouldn’t do that. Not at this stage. Karl stoked his rages slowly, with finesse. Karl laid detonators, timed his explosions.
Not Karl? A cautious relief began to seep like warm oil into Lol’s clenched-up muscles.
‘Lol! For Christ’s sake!’ A woman’s voice, and batter, batter, crash.
He stood up shakily, shuffling into his sandals. In the hall, he switched on the bulkhead light on the outside wall before he opened the front door and Ethel the cat streaked in between his legs as though she’d absorbed some of the agitation radiating from…
… Colette Cassidy.
‘For fuck’s sake…’ Colette’s face was full of fury and reminded him of Alison. Except Colette was fifteen years old and she was on her own, in a skimpy white frock, and it was late at night. ‘What were you bloody doing, Lol?’
‘Sorry. I fell asleep on the rug. Is there something wrong?’
She stared at him in despair, a bit like the way Alison used to stare at him. Disappointed that he was all there was. He found that look, under the circumstances, almost comforting, but he didn’t want her here at night. He had to get rid of her.
‘You’ve got to help me,’ Colette said, and it was an instruction, not a plea. ‘She’s going on about little lights in the tree.’
Within five minutes, Merrily was back downstairs, edging into the lounge bar, peering over heads and into every corner. The low-beamed room was mellow with buttery lamplight and soft laughter. Well-dressed, well-off couples relaxing after dinner, not many locals.
Except, of course, for Dermot Child, on his own on a stool at the bar, accepting what must be his second Scotch from the morose manager, Roland, and brightening visibly when he spotted Merrily. She went right up to him, wasn’t going to tell the entire room.
‘Dermot, you haven’t seen Jane?’
‘Is she supposed to be here?’
‘Certainly not. She’s supposed to be in our suite, watching TV.’
‘Perhaps she’s just popped out for a walk.’
Merrily shook her head. ‘We have this agreement that she never goes out alone at night without I know precisely where and when.’
‘But this is Ledwardine, Merrily.’
‘That’s a pretty stupid thing to say. Didn’t a teenage girl go missing from Kingsland last year? Oh, look, I’m sorry, I’m just getting…’
‘No, no.’ Dermot put down his glass. ‘You’re right, of course. No one can be too careful these days. Let’s go and find her.’
‘Sorry. Hysterical mother. It’s just that she knows I have to get to bed at a reasonable time on a Saturday night. She’s rarely intentionally thoughtless, if you see what-’
‘ We’ll find her.’ He took her left hand in both of his, pressed it. ‘Hold on to that malt for me, would you, Roland?’
‘I’ll be closing in twenty minutes, Mr Child.’
‘You drink it then.’ Dermot was on his feet. ‘Come along, Merrily.’ Steering her into the oak-panelled passageway. ‘Now, have you checked the residents’ lounge?’
‘And the public bar. And the snooker room. She’s definitely not in the building.’
‘Can’t be far away. Not into badger-spotting or anything like that, I take it.’ Hustling her out into the porch.
‘Nor bats, nor owls. I don’t think..
Down in the square, a couple got into a Range Rover and four youths played drunken football with a beer can on the cobbles. Dermot said, ‘She have a boyfriend?’
‘No one since we came here. Been a couple in the past. Nothing too intense. As far as you can ever tell.’
‘Must be a difficult age.’
‘Every age is a difficult age.’
‘Including yours? Sorry!’ Dermot clapped a hand to his head. ‘I’m sorry, Merrily. And please believe me, I didn’t mean to pry earlier. We just want you to be happy here. We know how lucky we are to have you. Old Alf… I mean, he’d just been going through the motions for years. Just being there. Church is like the Royal Family. Needs more to survive these days than just being there. Needs motion.’
‘Motion?’ From the double-doorway of the porch, Merrily was scouring the square. Please, Jane… ‘Don’t know about motion. Sometimes I think I’m struggling just to stay upright.’
‘You’re doing fine,’ Dermot Child whispered. ‘You have absolutely nothing to worry about.’
And she felt his arm around her waist.
‘We’ll keep you on your feet,’ he said.
She didn’t speak. She didn’t freeze. She was the vicar. He was the organist.
He was the best organist in the county, the presumptuous little bastard. She contemplated moving towards him, looking deep into his eyes. Then bringing up her right knee and turning his balls to paste.
Instead, she said, ‘Who’s that, Dermot?’ And walked steadily out on to the steps.
Dermot followed her but didn’t touch her again. ‘Wouldn’t you know it?’ he said.
James Bull-Davies walked out of Church Street on to the square. He walked almost delicately, like a wading bird, long legs rigid, neck extended.
‘Been in the Ox,’ Dermot said. ‘Drinks socially in the Swan, but when he’s serious about it, he’ll go to the Ox. He’ll stand at a corner of the bar, by himself, and hell sink one after another, cheapest whisky they’ve got, until his eyes glaze. Happens two or three times a year. He isn’t an alcoholic. Just needs to do it sometimes, to keep going.’
‘Keep going?’
‘He hates it here,’ Dermot murmured out of the side of his mouth. ‘Haven’t you realized that? Hates what he is. Or what he feels he has to be. Would’ve stayed in the army, the old man hadn’t keeled over. Probably be a brigadier by now, but like poor bloody Prince Charles, he’s got to keep going.’
Bull-Davies was in the centre of the square, looking over the parked cars, peering at each one individually, like a crazed traffic warden.
‘Coffey’s play brought this on?’ Merrily wished James would just go away; whatever his problems were, they weren’t as immediate as hers.
Dermot lowered his voice. ‘I don’t know many details of the Williams affair – mostly pure legend, anyway, I’d guess. But I’d be very surprised if, among that long-ago lynch mob at the vicarage, there wasn’t a Bull or a Davies.’
Oh God. Merrily stiffened. Remember poor…
‘Never trust the Bulls,’ she whispered.
‘Who says that?’
‘Miss Devenish. On the night of the… wassailing. Just after she had that row with the Cassidys.’
‘Didn’t go to that thing. Couldn’t face it. Too cold. What did Miss Devenish say?’
‘ “Never trust the Bulls. Remember poor… poor… Wil.” Of course.’
‘Old gypsy’s warning, eh?’
‘Never thought about it from that moment to this. I suppose what happened a few minutes later rather…’
‘Woman’s insane, of course,’ he said. ‘Never forget that.’
‘Oh?’
‘Bonkers. And embittered. Used to write children’s books, but nobody’ll publish them any more. Roald Dahl, she wasn’t.’
Enjoying himself again. Trying to work his way up to another arm around the waist. She’d have to do something, couldn’t put up with months, years of this. She could deal with it. Would deal with it. If she could just find Jane.
‘Also feels threatened,’ Dermot said. ‘Mostly by the Cassidys because they want her shop to extend their restaurant. Well, partly that and partly because Caroline feels the Devenish emporium’s cheap and tacky and not in keeping with the sophisticated image they’re after. Every so often they’ll make the old girl an offer. How she can afford to keep refusing is beyond me, because that little shop’s doing next to nothing.’
‘That’s sad.’ Merrily moved as far away from him as she could get without falling off the damned step. ‘Jane went in there today, she-’
She stopped because she didn’t want to explain why Jane had gone to the shop and also because James Bull-Davies had kicked over a litterbin.
‘Fuckers!’ he roared. ‘Bloody fuckers?’
He slipped and went down on one knee.
‘Fuckers,’ he said in a normal voice. Then laughed, picking himself up.
Evidently unaware of Merrily and Dermot Child, he leaned against the metal lamp-post beside the market cross and peered down Church Street, where the lights of a vehicle had appeared. The litterbin was still rolling along the cobbles.
‘Perhaps I should go down and talk to him,’ Merrily said. ‘This is my job, isn’t it?’
‘For what my opinion’s worth, Vicar, I’d seriously advise against it. He won’t be terribly civil, even if he recognizes you, and he won’t thank you for it in the morning.’
The vehicle stopped on the square, engine rattling. It was an old and muddy blue Land Rover. Alison Kinnersley jumped down. She wore tight jeans and a black shirt; her blonde hair shone like a brass helmet in the fake gaslight.
‘Come on then, my lord.’ She stood relaxed, legs apart, on the cobbles, the Land Rover snorting behind her like the stallion she rode around the village. ‘Let’s go home.’
Bull-Davies didn’t move from his lamp-post. ‘You whore. Who told you?’
‘Powell called.’
‘Good old saintly bloody Powell. Thought I saw his head come round the pub door.’
‘Let’s go home, Squire.’
‘Do you demand it?’ Bull-Davies grinned savagely. ‘D’you demand it, mistress?’
God, Merrily thought, she’s got him locked into some pathetic Bronte-esque sex play.
Alison seemed to shrug. Her breasts rather than her shoulders. Merrily felt Dermot Child quiver, and she shuddered and wanted to be almost anywhere else. But she also wanted to find Jane, and if Alison and James didn’t take their games home, she was going down there anyway.
‘Do it here, hey, my slinky, slinky whore?’ Bull-Davies rasped hoarsely. ‘Shag ourselves senseless on the bloody cobbles? Give the prissy bastards a show? Dent someone’s shiny Merc with your lovely arse?’
‘James, you’re pretty senseless already,’ Alison said coolly. ‘You’ve got ten seconds to get in before I leave you to sleep it off in the gutter.’
‘Whore.’ Bull-Davies detached himself from the lamppost.
‘Get in the truck, James. There’s a good boy. We have your reputation to look after.’ Alison sounding as if she knew they had an audience, of which James remained oblivious.
‘Reputation? Wassat going to be worth when that scented arse-bandit shafts me? You tell me, mistress. You bloody tell me.’
He walked unsteadily towards the Land Rover, mumbling morosely to the cobbles about the little, shirt-lifting, socialist scum, squatting at the bottom of the drive with his odious catamite.
‘You sold it, darling,’ Alison said wearily, as though they’d gone through all this many times before. ‘It isn’t yours any more.’
‘Man’s a piece of shit.’
‘Whatever. Do get in, Jamie.’
The Land Rover door was slammed. The chassis groaned, the engine spluttered and gagged and the battered vehicle was reversed, illegally, into the alley leading to Cassidy’s Country Kitchen and Ledwardine Lore.
‘Well,’ Dermot said after a moment. ‘I did warn you, didn’t I? The way it would go.’
But Merrily wasn’t listening; she was already stumbling down the steps.
Through the dirty wool of exhaust in the diesel-stinking air, she could see them bringing Jane along Church Street.