The Lamp of the Wicked

The Lamp of the Wicked Read Free Page A

Book: The Lamp of the Wicked Read Free
Author: Phil Rickman
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths
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of the trees, but Mrs Pawson jumped and looked behind her like it could be something a deal bigger than that. Now she was actually clutching his arm, the umbrella all over the place.
    ‘Mr Parry, how soon could you do it?’
    ‘You sure you don’t wanner talk this over with your husband?’
    ‘How
soon
?’
    ‘Well, you won’t be yere, will you, ‘less it’s a weekend?’
    ‘It doesn’t matter whether we’re here or not. Could you do it tomorrow?’
    ‘
Tomorrow?
’ Gomer was more than doubtful. ‘I’d have to put it to Nev – my nephew, my partner in the business…’
    ‘Look,’ Mrs Pawson said, teeth gritted, shivering seriously now, ‘I just want it out of the way. We’re new to the area and we made a mistake. It was a mistake and we’re paying for it. I want it out and I don’t want…
him
doing it, do you understand?’
    Likely this was when Gomer should have spotted something. The look on her face: this kind of… well,
fear
, really. No getting round that.
    The up-and-down of it was that he was sorry for this London woman, alone in her farmhouse with no farm attached, husband likely bored with it already. Smart-looking, educated woman washed up here, marooned in the flat fields with the traffic blasting past.
    After what happened, he’d often think what else he might have said, how else he could’ve handled it – like stalling a while, taking advice, checking Roddy out a bit more. But what was to check out? What else was there to know about an operator, a wide boy, a conman, a ducker and diver, a bit of a poser?
    ‘
Please
,’ Mrs Pawson said.
    Gomer wished he knew what else was bothering her but he figured she was never going to tell him. He nodded. ‘All right, then.’ What else could he say? ‘Tuesday. What about Tuesday?’
    It didn’t feel right, even then.

2
Pressure
    S OMETIMES, YOU JUST wanted to shake her. You wanted to get her into a corner and scream,
Why don’t you just get on with it? You are a mature woman, you are unmarried. Like, being a priest is supposed to condition your hormonal responses or something? It’s the only life you’ve
got,
for Christ’s sake… whatever else you might think.
    Jane was leaning forward, across the kitchen table, making no secret about trying to listen.
    It was getting dark now in the big, beamed kitchen and Mum was partly in shadow, standing in the corner by the door, taking the call on the cordless. She looked very small but quite ghostly in her grey alb. Her expression hadn’t changed. Normally, when she picked up the phone and found out who was on the line, she’d
react
– like smile in relief, look curious, or maybe grimace. Like, she’d instinctively make a face if it was, say, the Bishop or – worse – Uncle Ted. The fact that there was no reaction at all this time meant that she was working seriously hard at concealing something she didn’t want Jane to know about. Most of the time, Mum was an open book – and it wasn’t by Proust or Joyce or anybody difficult.
    So it was Jane who made the face. Like, was this ridiculous, or what?
    ‘OK. Fine, let’s leave it at that,’ Mum said, and stubbed out the line. She put the cordless on the dresser and stood looking at it for a fraction too long before turning back to look into the room. In the lamplight her face was soft and in the long linen alb she looked, for a moment, like a little girl waiting to go to bed. Just needed the teddy.
    ‘Cold call?’ Jane raised both eyebrows. ‘Emma from Everest? Stacey from Staybright?’
    Mum came back to the table. She
did
look tired. Well, it had to be getting her down, this bobbing and weaving, covering her tracks.
‘You don’t have to do this, you know, Mum. Not with me.’
    ‘What?’
Now
an expression: wariness.
    ‘I’m on your side. I
like
Lol. I mean, in other circumstances – like not involving my ageing parent – the twenty-something age gap between him and me would be as nothing. But, you know… if
I
can’t have

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