‘Let me get this right,’ Barry said. ‘The rock ’n’ roll farmer and a man well into his seventies…’
‘Why they think there’s a cockfight on and this Mostyn’s on his way to it, I don’t know. I suggested that when he stopped, they should just drive past and then call me back. Don’t go up any tracks.’
‘Good advice, Laurence.’
‘But then, this is Gomer,’ Lol said. ‘Like there aren’t enough problems with Jane missing.’
Cornel had his back to Jane now, fiddling with something. She heard the familiar repeat clicking of a stubborn cigarette lighter.
‘He wasn’t my mate after all,’ Cornel said.
He stepped away from the altar, where two curling flames were sending shadows coiling over the walls and up to the curved ceiling.
Two small bowl-shaped lamps – like twin miniature men’s urinals – were sitting on the edge of the altar
Jane backed away. There was still dust in the air,
‘Cosy, eh?’
‘You took my phone.’
‘In this world, girlie, you have to take what you want. Kenny taught me that. Kenny, my mate. Take it when you want it, where you want it. That’s what Kenny said, my mate. Taking pictures of me holding up the dead cock in the ring. My mate. Where do you think those pictures ended up?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know.’ Cornel’s face was fingered by shadows. ‘Well, you know I’m not sure about that. You know what I think? I think I haven’t actually got any mates.’ He threw something to the concrete. A bundle of something soft. ‘Least of all you, girlie. You were never my mate. You’re a slippery, duplicitous little slag.’
‘Look, I don’t know what you’re-’ Jane steadied her voice. ‘I’m not your mate, but I’ve got nothing… If you just give me the torch and the phone, I can take some pictures, and then, like, if you just give me a day or so to expose the cockfight situ-’
‘You stupidlittlefuckingbitch!’ A bright sprinkle of spit in the thin lamplight as his body arched at her. ‘There was never any cockfighting here! Never! You got that?’
73
He’d done it all. Cut the wire, smashed the CCTV camera. He’d been here before. Well, of course he had.
There was a horrible smell from the lamps. Like rancid, molten butcher’s-shop fat. Cornel was leaning against the altar, the lump hammer still in his hand, the rucksack at his feet.
‘Thing is, girlie – and I’ve thought about this a lot – the night you humiliated me in the pub, I do believe that’s when it all started going wrong. Me standing there with my trousers soaked, as if I’d pissed myself. And all my mates laughing. You started it. You could’ve walked away anytime, and you didn’t. Well in the frame for a shag. Who put you up to it, girlie? Which of my mates?’
‘Nobody. Swear to God. I was just fishing for information – about what happens at The Court.’
‘Bull shit. Kids your age, it’s just clothes and clubbing and baby booze. And the teen-witch bit in your case, though I’d’ve thought-’
‘I have never been a bloody teen-’
‘And your boyfriend, the big-time journalist. You think I didn’t ask people if you had a boyfriend? Yeah, yeah, she knocks around with some fat Welsh student.’
‘He knows a lot of journalists, and he’s not-’
‘Oh, shut up.’
‘No, I’m sorry.’ Jane moved back into the lamplight. Not having this. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. You’re-’
‘ Shuddup! ’
Jane flinched a little but didn’t move.
‘If it’s not cockfighting,’ she said, ‘what is it?’
‘Took my money, and they hung me out to dry.’
‘Who?’
‘One of the other guys was washing in the Gents’ and he had his sleeves rolled up. I thought it was a tattoo. He’d been branded. Branded like a bull, and it was still fresh and livid. The pain of that, and he didn’t… he didn’t care. Pain works. It’s a man thing.’
His teeth were gritted again. Jane recalled how, at the back of the Swan, the man with the ashy voice had told Cornel, It’s about manhood.
‘This is some kind of temple, right?’
‘I thought you knew all about it. But you don’t know shit, do you?’
‘Don’t know much about Roman stuff.’
‘Holy of holies. Just smashed the holy of holies, and it’s not over yet.’
‘ Why? ’
‘Made it to raven, and then it stopped.’
‘Huh?’
‘Took me out to the top of a hill. Had to spend the night on the top, naked. All night. Alone, but I knew they were watching, so I couldn’t creep off. No food all day. They gave me something to drink so I stopped feeling the cold, and then I’m seeing things, fucking terrifying, but when the sun comes up… God… Next night, we go out lamping hares. It was spectacular. I’m wearing like…’ Cornel cupped his hands around his face, like a funnel. ‘The raven? Then ate raw meat, fresh-killed.’
His body was vibrating again. He was grinding his teeth. Then his jaw fell to his chest.
‘And that was it. Covered truck still comes maybe twice a week, close to midnight. There might be fifteen guys on the course, but only two or three will go. And I’m, like, when’s it my turn? Why not me? Was that it? There’s higher degrees, another six. But it stops. It fucking stops.’
Oh God, it was about frustration.
It all came out. They wouldn’t let him move up to the next grade. They took his money, but they wouldn’t let him move on. He’d kept on at Kenny Mostyn who he’d thought was his mate – what did he have to do, what did they want? He’d gone around the countryside, demonstrating how hard he was, shooting at people’s pets, following Kenny one night, to a cockfight. Thinking back, Kenny must’ve been really pissed off when he turned up, but he congratulated him on his initiative, bought him drinks, helped him place his bets. Of course he lost, making a fool of himself, got into the car legless but made it back, trying to persuade Barry to cook the poor bird. He’d become half-mad with frustration, he really didn’t understand and, oh for God’s sake, Jane didn’t either.
‘Twenty-six.’ Cornel’s big jaw thrusting out, his face all sheeny. ‘Twenty fucking six, with a mortgage half the size of the national debt, a car that cost fifty K, not half paid for. I’m fucked!’
He laid the hammer on the altar. Bent down to the rucksack and pulled something out. Like a folded jacket or something, Jane couldn’t see.
‘Got the push, girlie, did I tell you? Necessary rationalization. Had a message to ring my boss. He wasn’t even apologetic. Difficult times, old boy, difficult times. Then off to his villa in Tuscany, the bloated fucking toad.’
Jane watched a fist rebunching out of the same hand that had held hers, knuckles shining with grease.
‘They shafted me. Mostyn. And Savitch and all the public-school cunts who were egging me on to give you one.’ Cornel reached down and tugged on something. ‘I followed the truck. Hired the van, so nobody would know it was me. Easy to follow people on these roads. And then I came back. Hey, but you know what was weird? Got in last night. Being really, really careful. And the police came. The actual police. I’m crouching there behind the altar, they flash their torches around very quickly and then bugger off. I creep up to the door, and they’ve nicked some other bloke. Couldn’t believe it. I felt-’ Cornel punched his left palm with his right fist. ‘Magic!’
When he started to laugh, it was like a yelping. He snapped on the torch and shone the beam at the ground, where he’d thrown down the bundle.
‘Strikes me you’re the first woman ever to come in here.’ His livery lips wet. ‘Or you will be.’
Kicking the bundle on the ground, and Jane watched the sleeping bag slowly unroll.
‘Sacrilege.’ Cornel’s shadow was a momentary black bloom on the curved roof. ‘Think of it like that. We’re gonna have ourselves some sacrilege, girlie.’
Jane’s recoil knocked one of the lamps off the altar, hot fat splashing up as it went out, and she bit her top lip so hard she felt the blood come.