‘Oh, I doubt I’d have the personal strength for that, Bernie.’
‘Didn’t matter with Dobbs, because half the Hereford clergy didn’t even know what he actually did. He could go his own way. All his pressures were… inner ones.’
‘Yes.’
She noticed that a few of the little green apples had either fallen or been plucked from the orchard trees and now lay forlornly on new-mown grass that was already showing signs of sun-scorching. She wondered if there was some sinister piece of local folklore about premature windfalls.
‘Anyway,’ the Bishop said, ‘I’ll want you to email me that list by tomorrow night.’
‘I will, I will.’
‘And start helping yourself to a bit of ordinary life, Merrily. Before it gets eaten away.’
THREE
Soiled PlaceIt was like some illicit members’ club for which she’d accidentally given the secret sign. One foot over the threshold, and she was pulled in and Layla Riddock had closed the door behind them. Then she heard a lock turn and Layla was pulling the key out of the door, sliding it into her skirt pocket.
What?
The two candles on the workbench made shadows rise and turned the metal handles of the oldest lawnmower into twin cobra-heads. One of the flames was reflected, magnified and distorted, in the bevelled side of a glass. It looked like one of the water glasses from the dining hall, upturned in the centre of the bench-top.
‘Welcome,’ Layla Riddock said.
If Candida Butler looked mature, Layla looked somehow old, as in seasoned, as in tainted, as in kind of corrupt — or maybe you just thought that because of what you knew about her and all the guys she’d had. Like, actual guys, not boys.
But there were no guys in here today, not even Steve the beer-gutted groundsman.
‘Take a seat, then.’ Layla pulled out some kind of oil drum, tapped on the top of it with her nails.