The Lamp of the Wicked (57 page)

‘She’ll give it back, you know.’ Jane didn’t want to hear this. ‘The money. She won’t keep it now.’

‘She’ll keep it,’ Jenny said.

‘
No
. Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think you do.’

‘I know
him
, Jane. I know him better than I ever… dreaded I would. I know where he came from. We’d better be getting back, it’s starting to rain again.’

Jane followed her, in a fog of self-dismay vaguely lit by a kind of tentative elation – a rare feeling when she’d been so very wrong about so much. She found she was almost relishing the cold rain on her face, a cleansing… she needed that. She felt – although she wasn’t sure the feeling was going to last – that she needed, in some way, to start again.

At the square, Jenny Box pointed at a long blue and white car parked in the line of vehicles directly opposite the Black Swan. ‘There you are, see, that’s my man. Humphries.’

‘That’s
his
car? But I’ve seen it loads of times…’

Jenny Box said, rather sadly, ‘When he realized who I was, he became most assiduous in his inquiries, perhaps anticipating regular work in the future. Came up with a lot of stuff I hadn’t asked for. Some of which was useful. Told me things about you, for instance.’

‘Me?’ Jane didn’t know whether to feel outraged or flattered.

‘About your dalliance in the various spiritual byways. The man seems like a buffoon, but he’s surprisingly good at what he does. Garrulous. Asks questions without you realizing they’re being asked.’

‘Is he as obvious as his car?’

‘Twice as obvious. He… I wanted to know about Underhowle, all right? When I read about Lodge, and when I heard on the radio news that Merrily was involved, I asked Humphries to find out what he could from his contacts. On an impulse, I paid him to go to Underhowle.’

God, what it must be like to have unlimited money
. ‘Did you tell Mum what you were doing?’

Jenny Box shook her head.

‘I don’t think she’d be too happy about that,’ Jane said, ‘do you?’

‘Well, that’s what I was coming to see her about. Things he uncovered. Things I should’ve known. I’ve been more stupid than I can say. Do you know at all when she’ll be back?’

‘Could be anytime. She’s with Huw Owen. He’s a bit bonkers, to be honest. They could be there all night.’

‘Jane, listen… I hope I’ve convinced you – because I’ve embarrassed the hell out of myself – that I only want to help her.’

‘Well, yeah, but…’ Jane felt awkward. ‘It’s just… the Website? Uriel?’

‘Yes, I sent your mother’s name to be put on the Uriel Website. For people to pray for her. The Uriel Website’s an international site for promoting women’s spirituality, nothing at all sinister. I put her name on the site because it attracts a weight of prayer from all over the world, and that’s what she’s going to need, believe me. It’s a deep-embedded evil she’s confronting, and she needs the angels at her shoulder.’ Jenny Box stood on the edge of the square. The blur was gone. Certainty shimmered around her now. ‘So would you tell her to come and see me, please? Before Friday. Before she buries that man. Believe me, there’re things she very much needs to know.’

‘Sure, but—’

‘I wasn’t kidding before. Whatever kind of lunatic you think I am, I don’t care. This is an awful satanic thing, and it’s close to us all.’ Well, can’t you—?’

‘No, Jane, you’ve pushed me too far as it is. I won’t have this going out second-hand.’

Jane nodded soberly. ‘OK, I’ll… tell her to call you in the morning.’

‘Thank you, Jane.’

‘I’m sorry, OK?’

‘There’s nothing to be sorry about. Goodnight now. God bless you.’

‘Thanks.’ Jane turned away to walk home, past the forecourt by the entrance to the church, and saw the steeple rising from the middle of the ragged apple trees.

And then she turned back and called out, ‘
Did
you see it? Did you really see an angel?’

Jenny Box stopped, her white scarf slipping back. ‘Jane, it doesn’t
matter
what I saw. It was a personal experience. A confirmation. It’s nothing to do with anyone else. I’m not claiming to be Bernadette. I don’t
care
whether anyone believes me.’

‘You don’t understand what I’m asking, do you?’

Jenny came up to her. They were alone in front of the lychgate. Jane felt suddenly forlorn.

Jenny reached out and took both Jane’s hands in her own. Jenny’s hands were cold.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I saw it, Jane. And she was beautiful.’

H
UW CONCLUDED
, ‘
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we pray that this building might be free from all powers of darkness, spirits of evil. Defend from harm, Lord, all who enter and leave through this door…
’

The words dissipated, Merrily thought, like the smoke of a single cigarette. This was Huw going through the motions – never leave a possibly disturbed place unblessed.

Ingrid Sollars put all the hanging bulbs out of their misery before locking the Victorian oak door with one of the keys on a jailer’s ring. She pulled at the iron handle. ‘Sometimes it’s come open in the night.’

‘How do you mean?’ Merrily looked at Ingrid: scratched waxed jacket, practical slacks: a woman who looked like she could shoe horses and change oil filters. ‘How could that happen?’

‘It just has. I’m the one who usually locks it. I don’t make mistakes.’

Huw leaned an elbow on the small window ledge. ‘Still happening?’

‘Not for some months, but I still check.’

‘Rogue energy, happen?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘A church or chapel this size is an amplifier for energy, and when a place has been used for worship, it accumulates. When you take away the prayer, where’s it go? If it’s left derelict, the energy might turn negative. If the worship’s replaced by something antisocial or irreligious, it
definitely
will.’

Merrily stared at him. Did he actually
believe
that?

‘A spring-water bottling plant?’ Ingrid Sollars said sceptically.

‘Hmm.’ Huw inclined his head. ‘Would you happen to know who the people are who ran this enterprise, Ingrid?’

‘I do know them,’ Ingrid said guardedly. ‘They’re running a similar operation in the Usk Valley. Is it important?’

‘Think you could get them on the phone tonight?’

‘I could try.’ She opened the modern porch door. Outside it was raining. In the distance, Merrily could still hear a chant of
Roddy’s Body OUT
. It was irregular now and punctuated with laughter.

‘If you could do that,’ Huw said to Ingrid, ‘happen you could find out the name of the contractor who did the conversion.’

Merrily said, ‘What—?’

‘Meanwhile,’ Huw said, ‘there’s the other thing. Come on, now, Ingrid, you’ve been on the brink of telling us.’

Ingrid sighed. ‘Actually, Mr Owen, I’ve been hoping the person concerned would come over herself. I did ask her.’

‘People get coy sometimes, lass. Who is it?’

Ingrid hesitated. ‘A girl. Schoolgirl.’

‘Parents know?’

‘I think so.’

‘Where’s the problem, then? Not like we’re the police, is it?’

Merrily thought she’d rather face the police than Huw in this mood.

The mother wore a purple fleece top, crushed-velvet trousers, green-tinted hair and a gold nose-stud on a chain.

‘They were just having a bit of fun together,’ she said. ‘You’re only young once, aren’t you?’

You didn’t realize how much things had changed, Merrily thought, until you heard that from a parent. The attitude seemed to be that they were going to do it anyway, so why erect barriers? She thought about Jane and Eirion. Perhaps the most you could ask for was that your kids should wait until the age of consent and that there should then be a degree of emotional commitment.

Merrily wanted to get home. She felt cold and anxious.

Huw was clearly in no hurry. ‘So you found the door open?’ he said to the girl. He and Merrily were sharing a red leather sofa in the front room of number 27 Goodrich Close, where the central heating could have sustained tropical lizards.
Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?
was on TV; nobody had turned that down either.

‘I didn’t want to go in, right?’ Zoe Franklin said. ‘But Martin had been to the pub, and he was feeling brave.’

Zoe was a serious-minded girl, according to Ingrid Sollars. Doing A-level maths and sciences in Ross. University material. Not an
imaginative
girl – that was what Merrily thought Ingrid had been trying to convey. Zoe’s long-time boyfriend had been Martin Brinkley, two or three years older, a junior bank clerk and a good lad, generally.

‘If they wanted to keep people out, why didn’t they just lock it?’ Mrs Franklin demanded. She’d told them that Zoe’s dad and Zoe’s brother, Curtis, had gone on the Roddy Lodge demo. Pub, more likely, Mrs Franklin said.

Ingrid had said that Zoe’s mother wouldn’t have minded much if Zoe had stuck with Martin Brinkley, got herself pregnant and forgot about all this university rubbish, because that was likely to cost them, wasn’t it? Ingrid said Zoe’s parents were what you would have regarded as typical Underhowle parents. Typical, at least, of the pre-Fergus era.

‘What had you heard about the place, Zoe?’ Huw asked.

‘I thought it was all stupid.’ Zoe wore jeans and a T-shirt and an anxious expression. ‘It’s just one of those stories that goes around the school. It was supposed to be haunted and they said that when the ghost was there the door would be open. So if you tried the door – that’s the old oak door inside the porch – and opened for you, you could go in and…
something
would be waiting there.’

‘And what had people seen?’

‘Nothing, really. They just said you could feel it watching you.’

‘What did
you
feel?’

‘Martin, I’ll bet!’ Mrs Franklin said and rocked with laughter.

‘You wanner make us a cup of tea, Mam?’ Zoe said patiently.

‘I’m here as your responsible adult!’

‘Jesus,’ Zoe said, ‘that was when the police had Curtis in. This is the Church, for Christ’s sake! Please?’

Mrs Franklin stalked out and Zoe grabbed the remote and switched off the TV.

‘They wanted to sue the Development Committee because I had bruises. They thought they could make some money out of it. That’s why I didn’t say anything, except to Mrs Sollars. They didn’t believe the other stuff, anyway. Thought I was making it up. My parents can’t believe anybody actually tells the truth. Like, I
was
going to come and see you tonight, but I didn’t want any of
them
to know.’

‘The protesters?’ Merrily could stand the heat no longer and shrugged off her coat.

‘It’s all stupid,’ Zoe said. ‘It’s Mr and Mrs Lodge who are going to suffer. What’ve they ever done to anybody?’

It had been raining, and Zoe didn’t fancy going on the back of Martin’s motorbike in that kind of weather, thanks very much, and while they were thinking about what to do they’d gone into the chapel porch to shelter for a bit, and Martin had grinned and said, ‘I wonder if it’s open tonight.’

It was one of those myths that took hold: modern folklore, almost always passed on by children. Martin Brinkley had heard it from his younger brother, who said he’d heard it from a boy who’d gone in with his girlfriend and she’d been so frightened she’d
let him do it
.

Zoe had said ‘Don’t be stupid’ and ‘Let’s go’ and things like it that, but Martin had already had a pint in the pub with his mates and he was, you know, a bit skittish. He’d tried the door and… would you believe it? Hey!

Martin had gone in.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Zoe had shouted from the porch.

Silence. Martin hadn’t come out.

‘Don’t be so
bloody
stupid!’ Zoe had cried.

And had taken a step inside – and,
bang
, the door had slammed behind her, and Zoe had screamed and Martin’s arms had come around her:
Don’t be scared, I’m here
. And she’d had to laugh, and then they’d started kissing and, you know…

Well, the door
was
open, look, and it wasn’t as if there was anything they could damage in there; the place was already gutted. But it was dry and cleaner than Zoe would have expected, and it wasn’t that cold and where else was there to go on a rainy night in Underhowle? So they’d fetched a rug from the box on Martin’s bike. Though, actually, the truth was that Zoe hadn’t liked it in there from the first, but what could she say without looking like a wimp?

‘Why exactly didn’t you like it, lass?’

‘It was… as if the walls had eyes, you know? As if they were bulging inwards to make sure they didn’t miss anything. You could, like, feel it, even though you couldn’t see much, just the light in the windows. Now I know that sounds stupid, but at one point, because I was so convinced someone was watching us, I made Martin put all the lights on, even though people might see them from outside.’

‘If it was me, I’d’ve been
hoping
people would see,’ Merrily said.

‘Yeah.’ Zoe smiled gratefully. ‘Actually, it was worse, somehow, with the lights on, because of all the shadows which made it seem like the walls really
were
swelling.’ She moved her hands in and out, like an accordionist. ‘You felt there was something there –
inside
there, with us – that
wanted
the lights on. So it could see us. So we put them out again.’

You didn’t actually see anything, though?’ Merrily asked.

‘No.’

‘What about the temperature? Did you feel it was especially cold? Colder in some areas than others, say?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know, really, it was all cold. I didn’t want to stop there
at all
, but Martin’s putting his arms round me, and he’d rolled up these dust sheets, which were fairly clean, and… Oh, I don’t have to talk about this stuff, do I?’

‘Of course not. We’d just like to know when anything happened that you… weren’t expecting.’

‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t let him go any further, anyway. I said no, that’s it, I’ve had enough, this is stupid, and I got up to go. I remember getting up, and then…’ Zoe closed her eyes for a moment and, in the botanical-garden heat, Merrily actually saw goose bumps appear on the girl’s arms. ‘I was just thrown back, really roughly. Back on to the dust sheets – that’s when I got the bruises, yeah? And I wasn’t afraid then, so much as – you know – startled and angry. I’m like, Geddoff, you dull bugger!’