Merrily Watkins 03 - A Crown of Lights by Phil Rickman

Author:Phil Rickman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Atlantic Books Ltd.
Published: 2011-10-08T18:30:00+00:00

28

A Humble Vessel

THERE WAS NO doorbell, so she knocked twice, three times. She was about to give up when he answered the door.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Reverend Watkins.’ Registering her only briefly before bending over the threshold, apparently to inspect the candles in the neighbouring windows. ‘Good.’

Meaning the candles, she guessed.

‘I’m sorry to bother you, Mr Ellis...’

‘They told me you’d be dropping in.’ He shrugged. ‘I accept that.’

‘I feel a bit awkward...’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you must do. Do you want to come in?’

She followed him through a shoebox hall which smelled of curry, into a small, square living room which had been turned into an office. There was a steel-framed desk, two matching chairs. A computer displayed red and green standby lights on a separate desk, and there was a portable TV set on a stand with a video recorder underneath.

‘The war room,’ Nicholas Ellis said with no smile.

His accent sounded far more transatlantic than it had during Menna’s funeral service. He wore a light grey clerical shirt, with pectoral cross, and creased grey chinos. His long hair was loosely tied back with a black ribbon. His face was windreddened but without lines, like a mannequin in an old-fashioned tailor’s shop.

He waved her vaguely to one of the metal chairs.

‘Not much time, I’m afraid. I’ll help you all I can, but I really don’t have much time today, as you can imagine. Events kind of caught up on me.’

When he sat down behind his desk, Merrily became aware of the aluminium-framed picture on the wall behind him, over the boarded-up fireplace. It was William Blake’s The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun. Sexually charged, awesomely repulsive. Ellis noticed her looking at it.

‘Revoltingly explicit, isn’t it – shining with evil? I live with it so that when they look in my window they will know I’m not afraid.’

They? The war room?

Merrily sat down, kept her coat on.

‘So...’ he said, as if he was trying hard to summon some interest. ‘You are the, uh... I’m sorry, I did write it down.’

‘Diocesan Deliverance Consultant.’

It had never sounded more ludicrous.

‘And the suffragan Bishop of Ludlow has sent you to support me. Well, here I am’ – he opened his arms – ‘a humble vessel for the Holy Spirit. Have you ever truly experienced the Holy Spirit, Merrily?’

‘In my way.’

‘No, in other words,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t happen in your way, it happens in His way.’

‘Damn,’ Merrily said, prickling. ‘You’re right.’

He looked at her with half a smile on his wide lips. ‘Diocesan... Deliverance... Consultant. I guess you’re like one of those young female MPs... what did they call them... Blair’s Babes? I suppose it was only a matter of time before we had them in the Church.’

‘Like woodworm.’

He didn’t reply. He’d lost the half-smile.

‘Meaning I look vaguely presentable,’ Merrily said, ‘even though I must know bugger all.’

‘And you feel you must throw in the odd swear word to show that the clergy doesn’t have to be stuffy and pious any more.’

‘Gosh,’

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