‘You’re not wrong,’ said Charlie. ‘Talk about Spartan. Not what most of them were expecting. Neither’s Huw. Awfully downmarket, isn’t he? Clive’s quite insulted – expected someone solemn and erudite like his old classics master at Eton.’

‘What about you?’

‘After fifteen years with the military? No problem at all for me. Funny chap, though, old Huw. Been through the mill, you can tell that. Wears the scar tissue like a badge.’ Charlie dug his hands into his jacket pockets. ‘I think Huw’s here to show us where we stand as of now.’

‘Which is?’

He nodded at the closed door. ‘Out in the cold – lunatic fringe. Half the clergy quite openly don’t believe in God as we know Him any more, and here we all are, spooking each other with talk of breathers and hitchhikers and insomniacs.’

Not for the first time since her arrival, Merrily shivered. ‘What exactly is a hitchhiker, Charlie?’

‘What’s it sound like to you?’

‘Something that wants a free ride?’

‘All the way to hell, presumably,’ said Charlie.

‘Mustn’t overdramatize,’ Merrily reminded him as the door opened and Huw stood there, unkempt, his dog-collar yellowing at the rim.

‘Putting the telly on now,’ Huw said hesitantly. ‘If that’s all right?’

Merrily said cheerfully, ‘I didn’t notice anything at all in the lavatory, Huw.’

Huw nodded.

There was a clear dent in the woman’s forehead. Also a halfknitted V-shaped scab over her left eye, the bruised one.

Merrily had seen several women in this condition before, although not recently. And not under these circumstances, obviously. Mostly in the hostel in Liverpool, when she was a curate.

‘This was what done it.’ The woman was holding out a green pottery ashtray. An old-fashioned pub ashtray like a dog bowl. ‘See? Chipped all down the side. Not from when it hit me, like. When it fell on the floor afterwards.’