The Wine of Angels (26 page)

‘Death’ – Gomer snatched out his cigarette in disgust – ‘by misadventure.’

‘Accident, then. Councillor Powell must be pleased.’

‘Ah. Bloody ole whitewash, Vicar. Bull-Davies, he give evidence of how he couldn’t get no sense out of Edgar all night and how he was a bit worried about the ole feller havin’ charge of a shotgun and how he wishes he’d taken some action when he had the chance. Well, load of ole sheepshit, sure t’be, ‘scuse my language. But you puts a Bull-Davies in the witness box they all thinks it’s bloody gospel. Something botherin’ you, Vicar?’

‘Sorry, I was just looking out for Jane. So you think he really did kill himself deliberately?’

‘Ah ...’ Gomer rubbed at his glasses, as though this would clarify things. ‘Call me a cynic, but it was the way they was all tryin’ to convince the whats-his-name, the judge ...’

‘Coroner.’

‘Aye. The way they was all bangin’ on about Edgar not bein’ his ole self, acting confused-like all day, like. Doc Asprey – wouldn’t trust that young bugger to the end o’ the yard – he says Edgar had a bit o’ trouble comin in the arteries as could give ‘im funny turns. Well, see, I could understand Rod not wantin’ his ole feller buried the wrong side o’ the churchyard—’

‘We don’t actually do that any more, Gomer.’

‘I was speaking metaphysically, Vicar. It’s still the stigma, see. You don’t want a reputation as a suicide family. So you could understand Rod perjurin’ his bollocks off, but Bull-Davies ... Big guns, Vicar. Big guns. Course, the Bulls, they been relyin’ on the Powells for generations.’

‘You think Edgar wasn’t actually confused? I wasn’t really taking much notice.’

‘He weren’t confused in the Ox earlier on, is all I can say. And he weren’t drunk neither, though he’d had a few, all paid for by other folk as usual. Crafty ole bugger, Edgar Powell. I been thinkin’ a lot about this, see – got plenty bloody time to think nowadays, more’s the pity – and I reckon, whether he done isself by accident or deliberate, summat put the wind up Edgar that night. If you gets time to think back on it, Vicar, I’d be interested in your opinion. As an outsider like.’

‘I think I was just trying to keep warm at the time. But perhaps we could discuss it tomorrow over a cup of—’

‘I’m delayin’ you, Vicar.’ Gomer threw up his hands. ‘Gettin’ an ole woman, see. What bloody retirement does for you. Useless bastard of a thing retirement, ’scuse my language

It was only when she was halfway up the vicarage drive that Merrily realized Jane couldn’t possibly be inside. Because she hadn’t yet got a key.

She looked up in despair at the beautiful, old, oak-framed pile, the oldest three-storey house in Ledwardine, and felt it repelling her. The highest, smallest windows seemed remote; even the trees didn’t reach them. The unwindowed oak door looked like the door of some old jail.

She didn’t go in. ‘Jane ...’ She hurried around the side of the house, under a wooden arch and on to the big, square lawn overhung with willow and birch. ‘Jane!’

She walked right round the house. The Volvo was still parked under the trees. She’d had it nicked four times in Liverpool, and she was always ridiculously grateful to see it. Why couldn’t they have stayed in cosy old Liverpool, where you only worried about your car getting nicked?

Jane’s CD case was still on the dash, with its photo of four men in a forest clearing watching a blurred girl-shape, and the words
Hazey Jane.
Merrily smiled. No wonder the kid was infatuated. Tears pricking.

‘Jane!’

Brushing at her eyes, she found her face was glazed with sweat. She ran back to the gate. No schoolkids left on the square now. Just two women with prams and toddlers. It was nearly five o’clock. Oh my
God.

No. Stop. Think.

All right ... She wasn’t on the bus tonight, she probably didn’t catch it this morning. She’d made a point of leaving early. To take a stroll around the village. Well, OK. Merrily hadn’t questioned that; Jane was a curious kid, liked to get to know places. On the other hand, Ledwardine wasn’t a place that took that much getting to know, not when you’d already lived here for several weeks.

She’d arranged to meet someone? A boyfriend? Merrily thought of the overweight youth slurping his cider. Please not.

Cider.

Her mouth tightened. She strode across the square towards Cassidy’s Country Kitchen.

I’ll kill her.

Oh God, please let her be out with that little bitch on some unholy binge.

Lol walked out into the garden. White blossom. Spring. Always the most depressing time of year. All those long, empty summer days ahead. In winter, on your own, you could spend whole hours of dwindling daylight chopping logs to stay warm through the evenings.

Blossom all over the orchard. Even though it began at the bottom of his garden, Lol had hardly ever been in there. It was someone else’s property. It was also unwelcoming, overgrown and gloomy – nothing picturesque about neglected apple trees.

It was Alison who’d really liked this place. Alison who’d said how much she would love it here, watching Lol rebuild himself. Turned to him with that look of longing and then the coy smile, with eyes downcast that always worked for the late Princess of Wales. Turning Lol like the right key in a rusted lock.

Scattered with clusters of tiny flowers the orchard was no longer clawed and sinister. But still eerie, the old, gnarled fingers white-gloved.

He wondered if it would have made a difference if he’d been here with Alison at the wassailing on Twelfth Night. The truth was he hadn’t wanted to go, be among all those strangers. Partly why he’d agreed to go over to Oxford to work on the songs with the fading legend Gary Kennedy. (Lol felt safer with people who were fading.) Thinking Alison would go with him, but she’d said she was sure she had a cold coming on and it was better if she stayed here, kept warm.

There’d been no cold, but she’d kept warm. Perhaps she and Bull-Davies had come back to the cottage afterwards to shower away bits of the old man.

Old man Powell. This made it two suicides, if you included the hanged minister, Wil Williams. At least two. A place to stay out of, if you were that way inclined. He’d been amazed to find himself following Colette Cassidy into the heart of it last Saturday night. He hadn’t had time to think.

But he was thinking now. Thinking hard. Thinking,
You have to do this. You have to keep fighting back.

Against Karl. Dennis behind him now – reluctantly, of course. Dennis was a nice guy. Karl Windling wasn’t. Karl wouldn’t give up. He’d come again to the cottage. And when Karl had finally exhausted his limited powers of persuasion, when he realized there was nothing else to be done, nothing to lose, nothing to gain, he would become destructive. His pride would demand it.

Lol walked on, becoming increasingly depressed. All this blossom, promising apples. The only harvest last year had been logs from dead and dying trees. Last winter, he and Alison had bought a trailer-load of apple logs from the Powells. On the wood-burner, with the doors open, it had perfumed the whole room. No logs like apple logs for perfume; if traditional Christmas cards were scented, this was how they’d smell.

Lol had wanted to make love with Alison on the rug beside the stove at Christmas, but it had never happened.

How she’d changed. How classy she looked in her dark-blue riding gear, very point-to-point. Classy, but not sexy. Too militaristic.

When he turned round, the cottage had vanished into a tangle of white-dusted trees. Soon, he’d reach the so-called Apple Tree Man, where he and Colette had found Jane. It would be today’s test to get that far on his own, to touch the Man’s scabby bark. And then he’d turn and go back.

Clouds had gathered and the sky was nearly white, with holes of wet sunlight and veins like cheese mould. The trees closer packed, their blossom exploding around him, like a flour bomb; whichever way he turned it was the same, and even though there was no breeze, the whiteness seemed to swirl. He felt disoriented, but he wouldn’t stop. A battle against himself. He moved on through the warm, windless snowstorm. When he looked up, the blossom and sky absorbed each other and floated down around him like a crinkling shroud; he didn’t like that, looked down at the ground.

Where he saw, God help him, the girl lying across the path. Apple blossom around her face, like lace.

17

Whiteout

‘O
H, HI
,’ C
OLETTE
Cassidy said without enthusiasm. ‘You want to talk to my father?’

Merrily’s heart plunged. The girl shouldn’t be here. She should be somewhere – anywhere – forbidden. With Jane Watkins.

‘Because he’s out,’ Colette said.

She had a luscious, sulky mouth, which seemed to be all there was under heavy, mid-brown hair. She had in abundance what you could only call Attitude. Merrily saw in Colette a lot of things she’d never seen in Jane. Yet.

The girl leaned inside the doorway of Cassidy’s Country Kitchen, arms folded, long denim legs straight. It was a wide doorway, built into what had evidently been the bay of a barn. Colette hardly barred the way, but there was a certain type of customer her presence would deter. And probably another type it would attract.

‘Colette, where’s Jane?’

Colette shrugged. ‘I should know?’

‘I hoped you would, yeah.’

‘Well, I don’t,’ Colette said. ‘Sorry.’

Through the flower transfers on the high, glass doors, Merrily saw Caroline Cassidy scurrying across the delicatessen. Caroline spotted her and changed direction.

‘You’re sure?’ Merrily said.

‘I wouldn’t lie to
you,
Vicar,’ Colette gave her a Nutra-sweet smile as Caroline came out. Tipping a glance at her mother that said, At least, not like I lie to
her.

‘Merrily!’ Caroline wore a kind of milkmaid dress with gingham sleeves; only true townies dressed like this. ‘We’ve been dying for you to come ...’

‘Hello, Caroline.’

‘... but I said to Terrence, for God’s sake don’t pressure the girl, she’s far too much on her plate to worry about our little festival.’

Throwing her all into a smile of sympathy and true compassion. Right now, it almost helped.

‘I was just asking your daughter if she’d seen Jane.’

Caroline’s face hardened. ‘Colette?’

‘No, I haven’t.’ Colette levered herself upright. ‘I really haven’t, OK? I mean, like, what
is
this, for Christ’s sake? Just because we went out
once
and got a tiny bit pissed, everybody thinks we’re on some kind of permanent pub crawl. I saw Jane for a few minutes last night and I haven’t seen her since, OK?’

‘Colette, two coffees. Go.’ Caroline pushed her daughter through the doors, turned back to Merrily. ‘Is there a problem here? When did you last see her?’

‘This morning. When she left for school.’

‘Oh, yes, she goes to that ... comprehensive. Isn’t there a special bus?’

‘She wasn’t on it.’

Caroline shook her head with a jingle of earrings. ‘Teenage girls are so utterly thoughtless. She’s probably stayed behind to play tennis or something.’

‘You think so?’ For a moment, Merrily clutched at it. Caroline Cassidy was perhaps twelve years older, she had a very difficult daughter; this must have taught her something. She took Merrily by an arm.

‘Come and have that coffee. You’ve been very lucky with Jane if this is the first time she’s done this to you. Look, why don’t you ring the school from here? There’s always someone around these places for hours.’

‘No, it ...’ It came down on Merrily that, according to the cider-swigging youth, Jane hadn’t even taken the bus this morning. How long, she wondered despairingly, were you supposed to wait before you called the police?

Caroline Cassidy propelled her inside, sat her at one of three empty tables in the deli, went back to the door and turned over the laminated closed sign.

‘You know, teenagers, much more than children, have a problem moving to a new place.’

‘She’s done it several times,’ Merrily said. ‘OK, she was unhappy about it at first, but lately she’s been fine. More or less.’

‘Is there anyone she knows, locally, apart from Colette?’

‘Nobody ...’ She thought of this man, Lol. She’d been remiss; she ought to have checked him out. ‘Nobody special. Look, I’m sorry, I’m probably worrying about nothing, but didn’t a girl go missing from Kingsland or somewhere a few months ago: Petra ...?’

‘Good, I think. Petra Good. But that was back in the winter. Look, Merrily—’

‘And they haven’t found her, have they?’

‘My dear, you won’t find many parts of the country where there isn’t a girl missing. That doesn’t mean— Colette, isn’t that coffee ready yet?’

Merrily said, ‘Do you know Lol Robinson?’

Caroline sniffed. ‘Works for
her,
sometimes. Miss Devenish. Odd little man. Alison Kinnersley, James Bull-Davies’s ... partner ... she used to live with Robinson. They bought the Timlins’ cottage in Blackberry Lane – old couple, he died, she went into a home. Hadn’t been there more than a few months and Alison’d taken up with James. One suspects there could be a drug problem.’