‘Only the next bit, eh? In the chancel.’
‘Only, as you say, the, er… next bit. Some of it. Possibly.’ She looked beyond him out of the window, down the street in search of inspiration. ‘What can I say? We’ve all screamed at God, in the night. And I think… I suspect… I know… priests scream louder.’
‘Bit more than a scream, Merrily.’
Could be the hardest shrug she’d ever forced. She heard the phone ringing, the extension in her bedroom two doors away.
‘Get that… please,’ Martin said.
She shook her head. Let the machine pick it up. No more excuses for avoiding this.
‘A priest having a breakdown,’ she said, ‘losing his faith, it’s never pretty, is it? You didn’t make a secret of it. You confessed all to Canon Jeffrey Alexander, the diocesan school-sneak. I’m tempted to think that was entirely deliberate. You sought him out, the way, erm, Christ sought out, erm, Judas Iscariot. Not that I’m…’
‘No more lives left, Merrily. That’s the bottom line.’
‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘The other reason I’m telling you about Ms Merchant and Ms Nott is that, as that card warns, she’s planning to come back.’
‘And not, I imagine, on her own.’
‘And you’ll be here.’
‘Well,’ Martin said. ‘There’s challenging, isn’t it? You want to be involved?’
‘If I happen to be around.’
‘Take them on together, is it?’
‘Won’t feel outnumbered, will she?’
Both of them giggling creepily, like maladjusted kids in front of a juvenile panel.
‘I’ll bring my cases up, then.’ Martin Longbeach opened the bedroom door, then stopped. ‘You know that feeling of being on the brink of madness you get sometimes in this job?’
‘All too well.’
‘I used almost to like that,’ Martin said. ‘Once. Now go and check your answering machine. It’s not going to be for me.’
It was Huw Owen, who’d tried to reach her at Lol’s, left a message on both machines.
‘Two of the trainees had to leave early, so we wound up the course last night. Don’t suppose you can do Capel this morning, by any chance? Around eleven at the little church? Feller I’d like you to meet. All a bit heavier than I’d figured, lass. Let me know, anyroad.’
Couldn’t see why not. She called him back. He wasn’t there. She left a confirming message on his machine.
So. That was it, then. She’d be out of here sooner than she’d figured. By the time she was back from Capel-y-ffin, Martin Longbeach would be the Vicar of Ledwardine.
Loose ends? She switched on the computer to check if there were any files she needed to email to the laptop, noting that the latest bookmarked reference was the most recent website for OSIS – the Order of the Sun in Shadow.
The site was called Dark Orb. She’d scanned it once and found it all so lurid and extreme – a new aeon dawns in a sky of glistening blood – that she’d wondered if it wasn’t all an elaborate joke.
Anyway… not the best night-time reading for a paranoid priest.
She wiped it.
34
Niceties
ACTING-DCI BRENT said, ‘You don’t look well, Francis.’
The Renault Clio was at the bottom end of the car park where the spaces were marked out for coaches. The Clio was old and scratched and forlorn. Bliss felt as close to tears as when his Irish gran died.
‘Long night,’ he said.
He coughed, turning away, looking blankly across the car park to the recycling bins. The sky was mercilessly white. He’d snatched just two hours’ sleep in his car and by the time he was back, this had happened, changing everything.
Hardening it up. No longer the possibility of a night with a boyfriend nobody had known about.
‘Her phone was in the side pocket,’ Brent said. ‘Dowell’s got it. Not revealing much, last I heard. When she’s finished, she can go to Cusop with you. As you seem to know your way around.’
Bliss said nothing.
Iain Brent, PhD. Ph frigging D. Smooth-skinned, light-haired, gym-toned. Five or six years younger than Bliss, probably younger than Annie Howe. Brent thought he was clever, on account of all the certificates saying he was. Pretty soon it would be like the army, highly educated twenty-two-year-olds from some cop-Sandhurst starting out with the rank of inspector. That would be the day he quit.
‘Some issues we’ll need to discuss, Francis,’ Brent said. ‘But not now. We still need to find out exactly where Winterson’s been, who she’s spoken to in the last couple of days. Can’t afford to skimp on the basics.’