The Lamp of the Wicked (74 page)

I leaned heavily on three books on the West Case:
An Evil Love
by Geoffrey Wansell,
Happy Like Murderers
by Gordon Burn and
She Must Have Known
by Brian Masters. Also Paul Britton’s
The Jigsaw Man
. The more bizarre effects of electricity and the hot-spot phenomenon are discussed in Albert Budden’s
Allergies and Aliens
. You can find out about Ariconium in Brian Cave’s
The Countryside Around Weston and Lea (The Roman town of Ariconium and its district)
, which may be out of print now but was published by The Forest Bookshop, Coleford, where I got mine second-hand.

Frankly, this was not exactly an easy book to write, and I relied throughout on the judgment and penetrating editorial skills of my wife Carol, who spent many weeks disentangling it and pulling me back from the brink of excess. The songs from Lol Robinson’s Courtyard gig can be found on the CD,
Songs from Lucy’s Cottage
, obtainable through the website www.philrickman.co.uk. The background and locations for
The Lamp of the Wicked
are explored in
Merrily’s Border
by Phil Rickman, with pictures by John Mason, published by – Logaston Press.

One day the whole truth may come out. But I’m not holding my breath.

www.corvus-books.co.uk

• Cover
  
• Title Page
  
• Copyright
  
• Dedication
  
• October 1995
  
• Part One
  
• 1. Foul Water
  
• 2. Pressure
  
• 3. Something Ancient Being Lost
  
• 4. A Good Name
  
• 5. Denial of the Obvious
  
• 6. Demonizing Roddy
  
• 7. Legs Off Spiders
  
• 8. Nil Odour
  
• Part Two
  
• 9. Phobia
  
• 10. Caffeine
  
• 11. Just How Funny It Gets
  
• 12. Dark Lady
  
• 13. The Tower
  
• 14. Recognizing Madness
  
• Part Three
  
• 15. Holes
  
• 16. The Glory
  
• 17. Expecting Confession
  
• 18. Up
  
• 19. On Angels
  
• 20. Stadium Rock
  
• Part Four
  
• 21. Icon
  
• 22. Aura of Old Hippy
  
• 23. Nothing But the Night
  
• 24. On the Sofa in Roddy’s Bar
  
• 25. The Plague Cross
  
• 26. Black Sheep Kind of Thing
  
• 27. Lamp
  
• 28. Bloody Angels
  
• 29. Seeing Marilyn
  
• 30. Light and Sparks
  
• 31. Good Worker
  
• Part Five
  
• 32. Ariconium
  
• 33. Empty Heart
  
• 34. EH
  
• 35. Sackcloth
  
• 36. Dying of Guilt
  
• 37. Long Old Nights
  
• 38. Bit Player in a Fantasy
  
• 39. Good at Men
  
• 40. Big Shoes
  
• 41. A Rainy Night in Underhowle
  
• 42. Vampires
  
• Part Six
  
• 43. Fun Palace
  
• 44. Void
  
• 45. Execution
  
• 46. Mephisto’s Blues
  
• 47. Requiem
  
• 48. The Make-over
  
• 49. Apocryphal
  
• 50. Fuse Your Dreams
  
• 51. Sacrificial
  
• Epilogue
  
• Closing Credits
  
• Back Mater