The Lamp of the Wicked (7 page)

It was the fear of sewage that kept firms like the Birmingham- based Efflapure in business. After meeting Lisa Pawson, Gomer had spent a couple of hours on Sunday evening making inquiries about the firm. Apparently, an Efflapure was an overpriced, overcomplicated, high-maintenance piece of junk that was supposed to turn your liquid waste into something you could safely add to your whisky. It would be smoothly and expensively installed for you by any one of a number of teams of so-called skilled subcontractors all over the country.

Mostly cowboys, Gomer said. Like Roddy Lodge, of down by Ross-on-Wye.

‘
… And somehow, he knew you’d been to see me. It was awful. I really think he must be slightly off his head. He insists there’s absolutely nothing wrong with his positioning of the Efflapure and that you and the surveyor are “in it together”, trying to discredit him. Naturally, I don’t believe a word of this… but please will you call me as soon as you return.’

Bleep.

Merrily passed the phone back to Gomer. ‘How on earth did this Lodge know you’d been to see the woman?’

‘Somebody seen the van, sure t’be.’ Gomer put the mobile to his left ear and carried on listening to the sequence of messages. ‘No big surprise. It’s so near the main road, that place. Scores of motors going past, anybody could’ve seen me, even Roddy Lodge ’isself. Anyway, vicar, shouldn’t surprise
you
how fast word d’get around in this county.’

‘No. I suppose not.’

‘Also, see, there’s a lot o’ folk…’ His voice faded; she saw the moons beginning to shake in his glasses.

‘What’s wrong?’

Gomer handed her the mobile again. He took off his glasses, turned away.

‘…
never woulder believed it, Gomer. Wanted one and a half mile of track clearin’, right up to the top of the Garth, and would we do it for two hundred? Bloody hell, I says, there’s at least five days’ work there, Mr Pugh!’

Nev.

‘I says he could argue it out with you, he wanted to. So if you hears from Frankie Pugh, that’s what it’s about, all right?’

Bleep.

Gomer coughed and looked out through the windscreen. Now that the sky had cleared again, you could see the lights of Eardisley village. Merrily put a hand on his arm. He’d become almost his old self, telling her about Efflapure and Roddy Lodge.

Now Mrs Pawson’s angsty voice was back in her ear.

‘… I’m sorry, this is getting ridiculous. He’s just phoned again. This time he says he doesn’t want any trouble and, while he isn’t admitting that it was wrongly positioned, he says he’s now prepared to come and take it away and return our money in full. In fact he… he was absolutely insisting that he should be the one to take it away. I’m sorry, one moment…’

Muted voices: Mrs Pawson in hurried conversation with someone in the room. Then she was back.

‘My husband agrees that no way should that man be allowed back on the premises, so I’m hoping that you’re going to be able to keep to the schedule and remove the… appliance tomorrow, as we arranged. I propose to telephone Lodge and tell him that you’ll be handling everything. If there’s a problem, please call me as soon as you can. Thank you, Mr Parry.’

Bleep.

Merrily lowered the phone. ‘Both these calls were this morning?’

‘Last one ’bout two this afternoon, I reckon,’ Gomer said. ‘No problem about lifting the unit. Me and Nev, we was gonner go over there first thing. But I still wanted to call her back, see. Some’ing puzzling me – why didn’t her take him up on this offer to shift the thing ’isself? Save ’em paying me to do it. Save me trying to flog it for ’em second-hand. Didn’t make no sense.’

‘Unless she wasn’t convinced Lodge
would
give them their money back.’

Gomer shook his head. ‘More’n that.’

‘What did she say when you called her back?’

‘Her wasn’t in. So after tea I gets on the phone to young Darren Booth – that’s the local surveyor called me in in the first place – and Darren… well, you ever met Darren, you’d know he’s terrible loud – rugby club, male-voice choir, that’s Darren. But today, the boy’s gone dead quiet on me. “Gomer,” he says, “my advice is, leave it a while. Let it lie. Likely her’ll change her mind, you know what these Londoners is like.” Now is that funny, or what, vicar?’

‘It’s odd.’

‘Ar. “What kind of ole wallop is this, Darren?” I says. He says, “He en’t right, that’s all.” ’

‘Lodge?’

‘ “En’t stable,” Darren says. “Very protective of his business,” he says. And wouldn’t say n’more. Comes on about how he has a hurgent appointment, rings off. Soon as I puts the phone down, it rings again. Voice goes, “Gomer Parry?” I says, “Ar, that’s me.” Voice says, “We don’t like the” – pardon my French, vicar – “we don’t like the fuckin’ Welsh… we don’t like the fuckin’ Welsh pinchin’ our business. You’re gettin’ a warnin’ tonight. You comes south of Hereford, you’re finished, Gomer Parry, you’re a dead man.” Then the line cuts off.’

‘That was him – Lodge?’

‘Held back his number, so I looks him up in the phone book, calls the number and nobody picks up. I reckon he wasn’t calling from home, see – that’s how it seems to me now. I reckon he was on a bloody mobile from down by my bloody depot, figuring out how he was gonner torch it.
You’re gettin’ a warnin’ tonight
– how much clearer you wannit?’

Merrily sighed. ‘If he was on a mobile, it might not be that easy to trace the call. And unless you have it on tape…’

‘Course, I din’t think that much about it – only made me more determined to do the job. Anyway, a bit later, I was gonner go to the parish meeting, thinking you might be in need of a spot of back-up, see, and I’m going across the square when Jumbo Humphries rolls up in his Caddy, says how about a quick one in the Swan, and I’m figuring if anybody know about Lodge it’ll be him, so—’

‘Jumbo?’

‘Humphries. Drives this ole Caddy?’

‘Ah.’ Merrily got out another cigarette. ‘I did notice this big, long American car on the square.’

‘That was him. Bloody ole thing that is, vicar – does about eleven miles a gallon on a long run. You en’t come across Jumbo? Got this place the other side o’ Talgarth – second-hand motors, stock fencing, animal feed, newspapers. And a snack bar. Harrods, they calls it.’

Merrily smiled and thumbed the Zippo, illuminating Gomer’s face. Seeing what might be small tear marks, she lit her cigarette quickly and put out the flame.

‘And also a private investigator,’ Gomer said.

‘You’re kidding.’

Gomer sniffed. ‘En’t that bloody brilliant, tell the truth, but he’s cheap. Checks out stuff for farmers, mostly. Stuff the NFU won’t do for free. Spyin’ on neighbours in feuds… land disputes, stock-thievin’. Goes around with a video camera. Mickey Mouse operation, you ask me, but Jumbo, he thinks he’s bloody Humphrey Bogart.’

‘Hang on, this is the man you were keeping pace with on drinks? You and he each drank four pints in the Swan and then he drove off in this huge, conspicuous American limo?’

‘Charmed life,’ Gomer said. ‘Plus he do weigh over twenty stone. Reckons it don’t affect him the same.’ He paused. ‘Come to think of it, he had a couple of whiskies as well. We had a good ole chat – catchin’ up, you know. And he told me a good bit about Lodge.’

‘Oh,’ Merrily said.

It was after midnight now and she was cold and tired. But Gomer was sounding increasingly focused and rational, and that was good. And if he needed to talk, well, women were good at listening – who said that? Never mind. Merrily smoked and listened.

It had been a rare case for Jumbo Humphries, the one that brought him up against Roddy Lodge. Probably routine for city private eyes, Gomer said, but rare for Jumbo: divorce.

What he’d previously failed to mention about Roddy was the boy’s legendary success with women. Gomer said he’d found this hard to believe: flash bastard, but not much to look at. Anyway, Jumbo Humphries had been retained by a farmer from down near Welsh Newton, who’d employed Roddy for field-drain work and come to regret it big time.

First off: tools, equipment. Things disappearing – a hay-fork, a stainless steel spade – whenever Roddy had been. Which he couldn’t believe at first, this farmer, as he knew the Lodge family: honest, straight, religious – Baptists. Couldn’t believe it was down to Roddy, this petty thieving, so he didn’t say anything.

And then, a couple of weeks after Lodge had finished the job and left, the farmer got word in the pub that his wife, who seemed to have made a lot of extra shopping trips lately, had been seen getting out of a white van in a lay-by where her own car was parked. When the shopping trips continued to increase, the farmer hired Jumbo Humphries to follow the wife.

Merrily found it hard to imagine how a twenty-stone man in a Cadillac was going to operate undercover in the vicinity of sparsely populated Welsh Newton, and this turned out to be a valid point. Although Jumbo Humphries had used one of the Land Rovers from his used-vehicle lot to follow the farmer’s wife one afternoon to a disused quarry, where a man was indeed waiting in a white van, he evidently had, at some stage, been spotted.

‘The van man – this is Lodge, right?’ Gomer said. ‘Jumbo recognizes him soon as he seen the dark glasses. So he parks out of sight – he thinks – on the edge of this quarry, gets out his video camera, starts creeping up on the van, figuring he might film ’em through the back window, get his evidence. Then…’

Gomer got out a roll-up, and Merrily lit it for him, noticing his hands were a long way from steady. He had two good drags before continuing.

‘Then just as he comes around the side o’ the van… bloody thing starts up, see. Spins round, comes after Jumbo – big empty space this is, the ole quarry yard – and Jumbo’s running for his bloody life. Van’s coming straight at him, near takes his foot off, and Jumbo, he stumbles and drops the camera. Van runs over it. Four hundred quids’ worth of camera!’

‘Occupational hazard, I suppose, for private eyes,’ Merrily said.

‘Not round these parts it en’t. But there was more to come, see. Lodge knowed Jumbo. Everybody does. He knowed where to find him, where he goes, where he drinks. That night, Jumbo comes out the pub at Llyswen, just on closing time, finds all four of the Caddy’s tyres slashed. Had to call a taxi to get home, come back with a low-loader next day to pick up the ole Caddy.’ He looked at Merrily expectantly. ‘See?’

‘Well… Gomer, it’s one thing running over a camera and slashing four tyres. I mean, it’s
bad
… But a major arson attack on a competitor’s yard involving… loss of life…’

‘Vicar, you yeard what that woman said on the phone. And Darren. And “You’re gettin’ a warnin’ tonight”.’

‘How did Jumbo know that it really was Lodge who slashed his tyres? Could’ve been pure coincidence, couldn’t it?’

Gomer snorted. ‘Put it together, vicar. Darren says he en’t stable. Somebody tells Lodge Gomer Parry Plant Hire’s been on his patch, Lodge goes straight round there and leans on Darren. Then he’s on the phone trying to put the frighteners on Mrs Pawson, only she’s in London…’

‘Didn’t Jumbo take it any further?’

‘Vicar, we en’t talkin’ about bloody Peter Marlowe yere. No, he didn’t take it no further. He backed off. What he says to me, he says, “Mess with Lodge, Gomer, you en’t dealin’ with a normal human being n’more.” ’

‘In what way?’

‘Mental, vicar. Lost it, blown it. Works on his own all night sometimes – been witnessed. Fires from the bloody hip when he feels threatened. And he en’t scared what he does. Feels he’s… nobody can touch him.’

‘Invulnerable.’

Ar. Met that type a few times.’

Gomer
, you
are that type
, Merrily thought dismally.

‘ “You’re pushin’ seventy, Gomer,” Jumbo says, “and Roddy Lodge en’t even forty. Don’t be a bloody hero.” ’

‘That was tonight?’

‘In the Swan.’

‘Look…’ Merrily sensed his absolute certainty and turned to face him, an arm around the wheel. ‘I accept that the guy’s erratic, possibly a little unhinged. I realize you were right to tell the police, and I think you should tell them again tomorrow.
I
’ll tell them.’ She turned the key in the ignition. ‘Tomorrow, though. Let’s just… go home now.’

She let out the clutch and the van lurched into the empty road. Gomer was silent for a while. Merrily considered the possibility that, in his state of desolation, he was simply demonizing Roddy Lodge. What little evidence there was still pointed at poor Nev.

‘He knows they en’t there, see,’ Gomer said after a couple of minutes. ‘These Pawsons. Knows they en’t there ’cept weekends. Plus, he likely knowed we was coming to take out this Efflapure come the morning. Her said her was gonner tell him, right?’

‘Sorry… what are you getting at?’

‘Suppose he was plannin’ to go for that tank ’isself, meantime?’

‘Gomer, for… Why would he do that?’

‘Keep his good name, ennit? Small county, vicar. Man like that couldn’t live with folk knowin’ Gomer Parry Plant Hire had come and took away his fancy tank on account he’d put it in the wrong place and it weren’t needed anyway. Plus, also – I just figured this – we’d have one to look at, then, wouldn’t we? We’d all know what a piece of ole junk it was. Suppose he was makin’ sure we couldn’t do that job at all, by torchin’ the shed, destroyin’ the gear? Listen, I en’t sayin’ he knowed Nev was in there. I en’t sayin’ that… yet.’

‘Gomer, I know this has been a… an unimaginably awful thing to happen, but is that even vaguely—?’

‘Meanwhile he comes for the Efflapure ’isself under cover of dark, just to be sure. Knowing he got the place to ’isself…’

‘Is that entirely rational?’

‘He en’t a rational man, vicar. If he’s done the job tonight, if he’s been and took the Efflapure, that’s evidence.’

‘Possibly. If the Pawsons stick to their story.’

‘Don’t matter if they don’t, vicar, we got it on tape on the machine.’

‘Yes. I suppose you have.’ Merrily drove slowly into Eardisley, the first village on the black-and-white tourist trail which ended up eventually in Ledwardine. At night – all dark oak, whitewash and shadows – the village shed centuries and the car-dealer’s showroom right in the centre looked surreal.