It had once looked down on the later Roman military town of Magnis, long gone. Now, as you followed the winding track, you could see down below, when the trees were bare, a spread of low buildings, vaster than it looked from the road. A quiet, self- contained community, with intersecting roads and parked trucks.
The third and most modern Credenhill, to which the elite warriors of the British Army returned, some of them seared and scorched and riven by demons. Applauded from afar, but not allowed to talk about it.
Except to people like Syd Spicer.
Merrily slowed when the gates of the camp appeared on her left. Two police cars were parked alongside one of the buildings, armed guards at the entrance. None of this, to Merrily’s knowledge, outside of routine. The army housing was across the road. She followed Fiona’s Jazz into the estate, which was like any other housing estate except somehow quieter. Parking behind the Jazz outside an end house next to a wooded field, she guessed their arrival would already have been clocked by somebody, somewhere.
All the hundreds of times she’d driven past. Never actually stopped here before. You didn’t. You just didn’t.
Memories of the Frank Collins book were with her now. Frank, a Christian in the SAS, bothered by the old question of God and warfare. In the end, he’d justified it simply to himself: soldiers killed to prevent innocent people dying. The Regiment as knights, trained to deal with evil. Frank had been raised among tough kids in working-class Newcastle, breaking the law like the others. She guessed he’d been a good priest.
Merrily came out of the old Volvo with a ridiculous caution, as if she might be in someone’s cross hairs. For no obvious reason, she pulled the collar of her woollen coat across her dog collar and buttoned it.
It was all very quiet. She looked around and saw nothing moving on the estate, no curtains twitching. No wind. A sky like tarnished brass.
Further along the main road was the turning to Credenhill Church, raised up on the right. Strange connection, coming here direct from the chantry where Thomas Traherne’s vision burned in stained glass. This was a tiny parish in his day, averaging about two baptisms a year, but it would be wrong to think he wouldn’t recognize the place now. He’d know the fortified hill at once and the vista across the Wye Valley to the Black Mountains. On the Welsh border, the big things didn’t change.
He might wonder, though, about the metal frames for poly-tunnels which she could see in the distance to the south, might even find a kind of beauty in their skeletal caterpillar symmetry. Traherne could find beauty in most things.
Did Syd ever go to Traherne’s church?
She felt uneasy. She was on army ground. Had no doubts where Syd’s loyalties would lie. While Merrily was locking the Volvo, Fiona was already walking towards the front door, between bare brown bushes, and then she stopped. Glanced over her shoulder towards Merrily, who moved towards her.
Fiona nodded at the white door. It was half open.
‘Oh,’ Merrily said. ‘He’s back, then.’
No sooner were the words out than she knew how wrong she was.
Fiona didn’t move as they were surrounded. It happened very quickly, as if this was a surprise party, but all the guests were men, and none of them expressed a greeting. After what seemed a long time, one of them turned to Merrily.
‘Mrs Spicer?’
She saw an older man, standing between the brown bushes, shaking his head.
‘I’m sorry,’ the first man said, and the older man approached Fiona, quite slowly.
‘Mrs Spicer, we met once before, briefly. My name’s William.’
He wasn’t in uniform. None of them were. Fiona nodded.
‘Yes, I remember.’
William was solidly built and had a full grey moustache. He wore walking boots.
He said, ‘Should we go inside?’
‘No,’ Fiona said. ‘I’d rather not.’
Her face had gone grey, like fresh plaster. Merrily took in three other men, one of whom she recognized: stubble and broken veins. Not military. It was Terry Stagg, detective sergeant.
William said, ‘Who is this woman, please?’
Fiona half-turned, as if she’d forgotten Merrily was there.
‘She’s a friend of Sam’s. In the Church. A priest.’ She stood before William, her head tilted up to stare him in the eyes. ‘You’d better tell me.’
‘Mrs Spicer, I think-’
‘Where’s my husband?’
‘Mrs Spicer,’ William said, ‘I’m afraid I have some… distressing news. I… very bad news.’
It was Merrily who nearly cried out. Fiona’s lips were tight. She still hadn’t moved, yet she seemed far away from here, as if replaying a scene which had occurred in her midnight thoughts so many times that emotions could be dispensed with.
25
Jane used to know kids who loved messing with dead things, but she’d never been one of them, so she’d been dreading this all day.
At this stage of your school career, if you didn’t have any particular classes, you had the choice of coming home, to work on revision. Yeah, right.
When she got off the bus, there was no sign of the Volvo outside the vicarage, so she went directly round the back to the garden shed. At least there’d been no blood on the path this morning.
Not yet four p.m., the sun still high, but weak. The shed was just a lean-to against the highest part of the wall. Wasn’t kept locked and it had been the only place she could think of last night.
Needed some help with this, really. Even Mum who, as a kid, had wanted to be a vet and knew a bit about injured pets and livestock. Mum would have an idea how the bird had died.
Could hardly take it to Mum, though, who knew nothing about the earlier incident with Cornel and the beer. Tangled web. Jane began to part the garden tools, remembering pushing the sack behind them. She threw the door wide, pulled out the spade and the hoe and the rake and the hedge loppers, tossing them onto the lawn behind her, but…
Oh, God, no…
This could only be Mum. Now she’d have to explain everything, which would lead to a chain of explanations, and that would get Lol in bother, too, for not disclosing what had happened on the night of the storm. She was in deep trouble and hadn’t even dealt with the no-university situation yet.
Jane closed the shed door, walked away to the end of the garden, leaned against the churchyard wall, staring over at the old graves. Considering the worst options: could Cornel have pinched it back? Would he have gone to that kind of trouble?
He couldn’t have seen her last night, could he? Couldn’t, surely, have been in a fit state after the kicking he’d had and throwing up in Barry’s yard. Last night, Jane had awoken twice, with the gritty ghosts of dead flies in her mouth and shuddery memories of the quick, efficient way in which Cornel had been damaged, that almost feminine cry of pain. Big, tall Cornel, breast-fed for months and months. Cornel, the winner who could do anything he wanted because the bank was paying. Cornel had been very afraid, had done as he’d been told, had taken the sack away. Except he’d been told to bury it and he’d only buried it in the bin on the square.
But what about the other guy? Who had just disappeared. Who hadn’t seemed like the kind of guy who would just disappear.
Oh Christ. The very worst option: what if he ’d seen her?
Jane began to sweat. Went over the whole garden, frantic now, looking behind all the apple trees, into the long grass under the church wall, leaning over the wall to see into the churchyard. Why the hell had she taken it? What was it supposed to prove?