‘I can give you a list of people to talk to, so you can make up your own mind.’ Syd Spicer crossed to the Rayburn. ‘You want some toast? Or I can do full English. I’m fairly capable.’

‘I can see that. Tea’ll be fine, thanks.’

He brought two white mugs to the table, and then sugar and milk.

‘Point is, Mrs Watkins, country areas-’

‘Merrily, do you think?’

‘Yeah, OK. Country areas, Merrily, are superstitious, just like they’ve always been – you know this. Where are you based, North Herefordshire?’

‘Ledwardine. ’Bout an hour from here.’

He nodded. ‘Only nowadays the superstition comes from a different direction. The locals might be less credulous than their grandparents were, but your city-bred incomers always include the kind of people who’re living in the sticks because they want to get back to a primitive belief system. They’re the ones who organize the wassailing and stuff at Christmas, dangle charms off their porches.’

‘Everything except go to church,’ Merrily said. ‘But if you have an accident black spot, they’ll be the first to suggest the area might be haunted?’

Spicer shook his head sadly.

‘I’ve got three parishes and the others are a healthy mix of locals and new blood. In Upper Wychehill, a real local person is somebody who’s been here twenty-five years. It didn’t really exist until the 1920s, when the church was built – gesture of apology by the owner of one of the quarry firms mutilating the Malverns.’

‘He must have been very sorry.’

‘Yeah, big, innit? Especially in the middle of a few farms and not much else, as it was then. The bloke saw it as a concert hall as well, however – strictly religious, of course. Same time, he had this house built for the minister, and a sum of money donated to the Church, to pay him – long exhausted, of course but, by then, more housing had gone up and it was a legit parish.’