‘Ma’am, I think you ought to—’
‘Don’t say
anything else
. Get out of here. Talk to the people we discussed and give me a report. You know what I’m looking for.’ And, as he was leaving, she’d told him explicitly where he stood, looking down at the papers on her desk, making the odd note, delivering the message as a partly absent afterthought.
‘If anybody can get you out of this,’ Annie Howe had said, ‘it will probably have to be me.’
She hadn’t looked up. No need to.
Bliss laid his head on the steering wheel, forehead against the fuzzy tiger-striped cover the kids had bought him last Father’s Day. Remembering the hollow quiet in the incident room, half-full by then, when he went back that way, looking for Karen Dowell.
Aware also that, having been briefed by Howe and sent out on his own by nine a.m., he’d effectively been excluded from Morning Assembly and was in no position to complain.
Lol ran downstairs and flung open the front door. The rain washed Merrily inside. Lol was exasperated.
‘You’ve got a
key
. . .’
Why did she never seem to use her key, like she might be some kind of intrusion into his space?
‘Yeah, I know.’ Slipping out of her coat, hanging it over the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, where Lucy Devenish used to hang her poncho. ‘I forgot it. I just . . . walked out. Needed to talk to somebody.’
‘Somebody?’
‘Sorry.’ She put her arms around him. ‘This is ridiculous.’
‘What is?’
‘This.’
Merrily went back to her coat, pulled a brown paper bag from a pocket, handed it to him. Lol shook out the paperback book,
recognised it at once, from hoardings in London and the sides of bus shelters.
It was the hole that did it. It wasn’t a black hole, just grey. A grey hole in a shiny, silver-blue sky, and when you opened the cover it exposed not a title page but a blank page, all grey, at the bottom of which it said:
nothing . . . what did you expect?
‘I don’t get it,’ Lol said. ‘You
bought
this?’
‘Just now.’
‘You bought Mathew Stooke’s best-selling guide to living—’ he read from the back cover ‘—
a balanced, guiltless life without the pointless tedium of God
. . .?’
‘Begrudging every penny,’ Merrily said. ‘But I suppose we ought to support our neighbours.’
T
HE WOOD-BURNING
stove wasn’t very big, but was more than enough for this room. One of the newer ones with glass that didn’t fog, two reddening logs melting into one another, the whole chamber flushed pink and orange, a beacon in the greyness of the day.
Sinking into the sofa under the giant Mars Bar beam, legs extended into the heat, Merrily almost fell asleep. Damn it,
so
much cosier here than the big, draughty vicarage.
Marry me, Lol. Take me away
.
She blinked, shocked at herself, sat up. Lol was coming in from the kitchen with mugs of tea. She put out a hand, looked up into the eyes behind his round brass-rimmed glasses.
‘Where am I? How did I get here?’
‘I don’t know.’ He bent, kissed her hand before placing a mug in it. ‘But you’re rather attractive, so hang around if you want.’
‘Yeah, OK.’
She sipped her tea. Lol had been working. Scrawled lyrics on paper upon paper on the desk under the window, his acoustic guitar leaning next to it. This was the Takamine, plugged into the old wooden-cased Guild amplifier that looked like a big valve radio set from the 1950s or something, its red power light aglow.
This was where the Boswell used to sit. Lol never mentioned the Boswell. She hoped she was doing the right thing; it was going to be an awful lot of money, more than she’d ever spent on anything – even a car, come to think of it.
‘Does anybody else know this Stooke’s living here?’
Lol was leaning over the back of the sofa, arms either side of her, his mug of tea in one hand. Merrily shook her head.
‘I’m guessing not. He’s here under a false name, anyway.’
‘He’s not exactly inconspicuous, is he?’
Lol opened
The Hole in the Sky
to the inside back cover: full-page photo of a man with shoulder-hugging black, curly hair, a full dark beard.
‘And I believe he weighs in at about eighteen stone,’ Merrily said.
‘Who told you that?’
‘Got it off the Internet. I couldn’t actually get back to sleep after Jane broke the news. Sitting in front of the computer at half past two, frantically Googling Mathew Stooke.’
‘Of course that might not even be him,’ Lol said. ‘Maybe they borrowed the reserve bass-player from Iron Maiden.’
‘To disguise his identity in the wake of all the threats to his life?’ Merrily shut the book. One of the reviews on the back said,
In the current climate, Stooke must be seen as almost insanely brave
. ‘You see, that’s completely wrong for a start,’ Merrily said. ‘In the current climate, Stooke’s right in the vanguard. The current climate is aggressively secular.’
‘It means Islam, doesn’t it? The fact that Christians hate him . . . with all respect, no big problem. Not in this country, anyway. But when you offend the Muslims . . .’
‘To my knowledge, they haven’t stuck a fatwa on a writer since Rushdie. And fundamentalist Islam . . . terrorism – that’s the main
reason
for the growth of the secular state. Secularism’s become a kind of refuge. A political safe haven.’ Merrily put the book on an arm of the sofa. ‘That’s what’s so depressing about it. Nobody’ll admit it, but it’s all about fear.’
‘God gets a government health warning?’
‘That’s next.’ Merrily sank back wearily into the sofa. ‘Still, at least this resolves one issue.’
Reminding Lol about the guy in the three-piece suit she’d spotted after the parish meeting. Jonathan Long. Special Branch. Telling him what she’d learned – or hadn’t learned – from Bliss.
‘So it
is
political,’ Lol said. ‘Or it’d be the ordinary cops. It’s national security.’
‘All these guys get death-threats. The publishers are probably disappointed if they
don’t
get death threats.’
‘So this Long would’ve been organising some protection for him?’
‘Possibly. I don’t know. It doesn’t entirely make sense. I mean, he’s not exactly in deep cover if Jane’s rumbled him inside a day. And why here, Lol? What’s he doing
here
? And why – this is the real issue – why’s his wife cosying up to my daughter?’
‘Well, if she’s a journalist . . .’ Lol finished his tea, put the mug on the floor. ‘They’re living on the edge of Coleman’s Meadow. Coleman’s Meadow’s a story. Or it will be.’
‘What do you think I should do about it?’
Lol lay back, stretching his legs towards the stove.
‘Out him, maybe?’
‘Does that really sound like the kind of thing I’d do?’
‘Or you could go round, see if he’s interested in attending church.’
‘I did think of that, yes.’
‘Merrily . . .’ Lol turned to her. ‘Have you
read
what he thinks about the clergy?’
‘It was a joke. But no, I haven’t read anything he’s written. But I will have by tonight.’
She stared into the stove, where two logs were making a molten Gothic arch, like the gateway to hell.
All the picturesque backwaters in all the world
. . .
In the silence, Lol said, ‘Did I tell you they want me to tour America?’
Merrily sat up, hard.
Of course he hadn’t told her. He knew he hadn’t told her.
‘Who?’
‘Guy called Jeff Caldwell. A promoter I met at the BBC. Prof Levin knows him.’
‘And?’
‘Prof says he’s on the level.’
‘Well . . .’ Ice sliding into Merrily’s stomach. ‘That’s fantastic, Lol. That’s . . . you know . . . Erm, when?’
‘I don’t know. Early next year. Someone backed out. It’s colleges, mainly, but . . .’
‘Well . . . congratulations. You . . . you’ve made it.’
‘You think?’ Lol sat down next to her. ‘People who’ve done it say it’s all motel rooms and . . . other motel rooms.’
‘Exciting. Wish I was coming.’
The rain was heavier now, the slow, sinister beat of individual drops on the glass giving way to a gusting, shuffling rhythm like a whole drum kit out there.
‘Well . . .’ Lol said. ‘I
had
wondered about that. If there’d be any possibility?’
‘Of what?’
‘Going to America. I mean you.’
‘Me? Who’d pay?’
‘Me.’
‘No, that’s not—How long for?’
‘Five weeks, apparently.’
Merrily said nothing. They both knew how impossible that would be for her, for too many reasons to list. Inside the stove the gates of hell had collapsed in an orange starburst.
‘OK, I’ll ring the guy this afternoon,’ Lol said. ‘I mean, it’s not really what I—’
‘Lol.’
‘What?’
‘You have to do it.’
‘I like it here too much,’ Lol said. ‘And it’s too late.’
‘No!
Listen
. It was like when you didn’t want to play in front of an audience. When you thought you were incapable of doing it. And then you were forced to. And you didn’t look back, and now you’re so much more comfortable with yourself. You . . . function better.’
‘Um, thanks. But I don’t think it
is
that important. What’s more important . . . is what happens on Christmas Eve. At the Swan.’
She sat looking at him, saying nothing.
Christmas Eve . . . she’d made a point of not trying to influence him one way or another. He had a few friends – good friends – in Ledwardine, but she wasn’t sure if he had fans. A gig at the Black Swan could be a triumph; it could also be a disaster, especially on Christmas Eve. And he didn’t need it. He’d done Jools Holland, he’d been asked to do America. He’d seen Michael Stipe singing along with ‘The Baker’s Lament’. If he passed on the Swan, what was lost?
‘I’ve . . . said OK.’
‘Oh.’
‘Pushed it to the wire and then rang Barry and . . . he’s having posters done.’
‘What, erm . . . what decided it?’
‘Well, it . . .’ Lol looked uncomfortable. ‘I suppose it was Lucy.’
‘Oh God. Not you as well.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Talking to Lucy. Like Jane?’
‘Not quite,’ Lol said. ‘It was strange.’
Merrily said nothing; anything to do with Lucy Devenish usually was. Lol managing to acquire Lucy’s house – this house,
his
house now, for God’s sake – had meant, for him, a responsibility. The need to keep Lucy’s spirit sweet.
‘The lines of a song came to me. I’ve got a bunch of songs now – I’ve been putting them together for the second album.’
‘The risky second album.’
He rarely played his songs to her – and never, she suspected, to anyone else – until he thought they were as good as he could make them, and even then they were usually on tape.
‘Same theme as “Baker’s”,’ Lol said. ‘Rural change, rural decay. And other stuff with relevance to what’s happening here. I’ve also adapted three of Traherne’s poems.’
‘That’s a brilliant idea. Was it hard?’
‘Not as hard as I thought it would be. And then I was just sitting around, playing with ideas when these lines kind of came out of nowhere.’
He didn’t sing them, only spoke them in a whisper.
‘
Miss Devenish . . . Would ever wish it so
. . .’
There was silence. Almost immediately, Merrily heard the words again, in her head.
‘God, Lol. Lucy in a song? You’re actually writing a song about Lucy Devenish?’
The only song he’d ever written, specifically naming a real person, was ‘Heavy Medication Day’, the one about Dr Gascoigne, the psychiatrist big on sedation, who’d caused him problems in the psychiatric hospital. And look at the trouble
that
had caused.
‘It’s halfway there,’ Lol said.
‘You’ve got a song about Lucy Devenish, and you’re planning to play it for the first time at the Black Swan, in front of people who knew her?’
‘No, the first time, I’m going to play it here, in her house. And if I feel she doesn’t like it . . .’
‘You know she’ll like it,’ Merrily sighed. ‘Because, however it turns out, you’ll think she gave it to you.’
A chiming, tiny but strident, came out of the hall. Merrily jumped. It was her mobile, in a pocket of the waxed coat hanging where Lucy used to drape her poncho.
‘Won’t you?’ she said.
‘You’d better get that.’
She stood up and went out into the tiny hall. The rain was a muffled roar, like a big audience, as she fumbled out the phone.
‘Reverend.’
‘Oh.’
‘Where are you?’ Bliss said.
‘Does it matter? Where are
you
?’
‘I’m in the car. Outside your vicarage.’
‘Ah.’
‘I need to talk to you.’
Merrily went back into the living room, where Lol sat, looking down at his hands clasped together below his knees.
He looked up and smiled, but she sensed a thick wedge of anxiety behind it.
She bent and hugged him, the phone still at her ear.
‘I’ll come over,’ she said to Bliss.
T
HERE WAS A
crack in the cast-iron guttering over Lol’s front door, and a cold stream of water sluiced into Merrily’s hair as she stumbled into the street, pulling on her coat. All down Church Street she saw gutters spouting and drains gulping vainly at the muscular coils of water pumping between the cobbles.
Bliss had seen her, his Honda pulling into the kerb, headlights on, the passenger door already swinging open. She grabbed it, slotting herself in, and he was off like a getaway driver.
‘God’s sake—’
‘Remarkable,’ Bliss said. ‘Don’t think I’ve ever known a woman get dressed that quick. I do hope Robinson appreciates what he’s got.’
‘What do you want, Frannie?’
‘Long term, a whole new life would be nice.’ He drove down Church Street towards the river bridge, waited there for a van to come across. ‘Meanwhile, have a listen to this.’