He was certainly trying hard, though. Like, no way had he 'just happened to be passing' Jane's school at chucking-out time. He'd obviously slipped away early from the Cathedral School in Hereford through some kind of upper-sixth privilege and raced his ancient heap nine or ten miles to Moorfield High before the buses got in. Claiming he'd had to deliver an aunt's birthday present, and Ledwardine was on his way home. Total bullshit.

And the journey to Ledwardine... Eirion had really spun that out. Having to go slow, he said, because he didn't want the hole in his exhaust to get any bigger. In the end, the bus would've been quicker.

But then, as Jane was climbing out of his car outside the vicarage, he'd mumbled, 'Maybe I could call you sometime?'

Which, OK, Jane Austen could have scripted better.

'Yeah, OK,' she'd said, cool, understated. Managing to control the burgeoning grin until she'd made it almost to the side door of the vicarage and Eirion was driving away on his manky silencer.

The phone went again. Mum? Had to be. Jane grabbed at it.

'Ledwardine Vicarage, how may we help you? If you wish to book a wedding, press three. To pledge a ten-thousand-pound donation to the steeple fund, press six.'

'Is that the Reverend Watkins?'

Woman's voice, and not local. Not Sophie at the office. And not Mum being smart. Uh-oh.

'I'm afraid she's not available right now,' Jane said. 'I'm sorry.'

'When will she be available?'

The woman sounding a touch querulous, but nothing threatening: there was this deadly MOR computer music in the background, plus non-ecclesiastical office noise. Ten to one, some time-wasting double-glazing crap, or maybe the Church Times looking for next week's Page Three Clerical Temptress for dirty old canons to pin up in their vestries.

'I should try her secretary at the Bishpal tomorrow,' Jane said.

'I'm sorry?'

'The Bishop's Palace, in Hereford. If you ask for Sophie Hill...'

Most of the time it was a question of protecting Mum from herself. If you were a male vicar you could safely do lofty and remote part of the tradition. But an uncooperative female priest was considered a snotty bitch.

'Look.' A bit ratty now. 'It is important.'

'Also important she doesn't die of some stress-related condition. I mean, like, important for me. Don't imagine you'd have to go off and live with your right-wing grandmother in Cheltenham. Who are you, anyway?'

Could almost hear the woman counting one... two... three... through gritted teeth.

'My name's Tania Beauman, from the Livenight television programme in Birmingham.'

Oh, hey! 'Seriously?'

'Seriously,' Tania Beauman said grimly.

Jane was, like, horribly impressed. Jane had seen Livenight four times. Livenight was such total crap and below the intelligence threshold of a cockroach, but compulsive viewing, oh yeah.

'Livenight?' Jane said.

'Correct.'

'Where you have the wife in the middle and the husband on one side and the toyboy lover on the other, and about three minutes to midnight one finally gets stirred up enough to call the other one a motherfucker, and then fights are breaking out in the audience, and the presenter looks really shocked although you know he's secretly delighted because it'll all be in the Sun again. That Livenight?'

'Yes,' Tania said tightly.

'You want her on the programme?'

'Yes, and as it involves next week's programme we don't have an awful lot of time to play with. Is she in?'

'No, but I'm Merrily Watkins's personal assistant, and I have to warn you she doesn't like to talk about the other stuff. Which is what this is about, right? The Rev. Spooky Watkins, from Deliverance?'

Tania didn't reply.

'I could do it, of course, if the money was OK. I know all her secrets. I'd be very good, and controversial. I'll call anyone a motherfucker.'

'Thank you very much,' Tania said drily. 'We will bear you in mind, when you turn twelve.'

'I'm sixteen!'

'Just tell her I called. Have a good night.'

Jane grinned. That was all Eirion's fault. Making her feel cool.

In the silence of the scullery, the phone went again.

'Jane?'

'Mum. Hey, guess wh-'

'Listen, flower,' Mum said, 'I've got bad news.'

3.

Loved Like That 'SO, LIKE... HOW long will you be?'

'I just don't know, flower. We came here in Gomer's Land Rover. It was all a bit of a rush.'

'She was never ill, was she?' Jane said. 'Like really never.' The kid's voice was suddenly high and hoarse. 'You can't count on anything, can you? Not even you.'

Merrily sighed. Everybody thought she could pull strings. Gomer and Minnie's bungalow had become like the kid's second home in the village, Minnie the closest she'd ever had to an adopted granny.

'Flower, I'll have to go. I'm on the pay phone in the corridor, and I've no more change. As soon as I get to know something...'

'She's not even all that old. I mean, sixty-something... what's that? Nobody these days-'

Jane broke off. Remembering, perhaps, how young her own father had been when his life was sliced off on the motorway that night. But that was different. His girlfriend was in the car, too, and the hand of fate was involved there, in Jane's view.

'Minnie's strong. She'll fight it,' Merrily said.

'She isn't going to win, though, is she? I can tell by your voice. Where's Gomer?'

'Gone back in, to be with her.'

'How's he taking it?'

'Well, you know Gomer. You wouldn't want him prowling around in your sickroom.'

Gomer, in retirement, groomed the churchyard, cleared the ditches, looked out for Merrily when Uncle Ted was doing devious, senior-churchwarden things behind her back. And dreamed of the old days the great, rampaging days of Gomer Parry Plant Hire.

'He'll just smash the place up or something, if they let her die,' Jane concurred bleakly.

Meaning she herself would like to smash something up, possibly the church.

How many hours had they been here? Hospitals engendered their own time zones. Merrily hung up the phone and turned back into the ill-lit passage, teeming now: visiting hours. Once, she'd had a dream of purgatory, and it was like a big hospital, a brightly lit Brueghel kind of hospital, with all the punters helpless in operation gowns, and the staff scurrying around, feeding a central cauldron steaming with fear.

'Merrily?'

From a trio of nurses, one detached herself and came across.

'Eileen? I thought you were over at the other place.'

'You get moved around. We'll all end up in one place, anyway, if they ever finish building it, and won't that be a fockin' treat?' Eileen Cullen put out a forefinger, lifted Merrily's hair from her shoulder. 'You're not wearing your collar, Reverend. You finally dump the Auld Feller, or what?'

'We're still together,' Merrily said. 'And it's still hot.'

'Jesus, that's disgusting.'

'Actually, I had to leave home in a hurry.' Merrily spotted Gomer coming out of the ward, biting on an unlit cigarette, for comfort. 'I came with a friend. His wife's had a serious heart attack unexpected. You won't say anything cynical, will you?'

'What's his name?' Sister Cullen was crop-haired and angular and claimed to have left Ulster to escape from 'bloody religion'.

'Gomer. Gomer Parry.'

'Well then, Mr Parry,' Cullen said briskly as Gomer came up, blinking dazedly behind his bottle glasses, 'you look to me to be in need of a cuppa with a drop of something in there to take away the taste of machine tea, am I right?' She beckoned one of the nurses over. 'Kirsty, would you take Mr Parry to my office and make him a special tea? Stuff's in my desk, bottom drawer.'

Gomer glanced at Merrily. She moved to follow him, but Cullen put out a restraining hand. 'Not for you, Reverend. You've got your God to keep your spirits up. Spare me a minute?'

'A minute?'

'Pity you're out of the uniform... still, it's the inherent holiness that counts. All it is, we've got a poor feller in a state of some distress, and it'll take more than special tea to cope with him, you know what I'm saying.'

Merrily frowned, thinking, inevitably, of the first time she'd met Eileen Cullen, across town at Hereford General, which used to be a lunatic asylum and for one night had seemed in danger of reverting back.

'Ah no,' said Cullen, 'you only get one of those in a lifetime. This isn't even a patient. More like your man, Gomer, here with the wife. And I don't know what side of the fence he's on, but I'd say he's very much a religious feller and would benefit from spiritual support.'

'For an atheist, you've got a lot of faith in priests.'

'No, I've got faith in women priests, which is not much at all to do with them being priests.'

'What would you have done if I hadn't been here?'

Cullen put her hands on her narrow hips. 'Well, y'are here, love, so where's the point in debating that one?'

The corridor had cracked walls and dim economy lighting.

'I'd be truly happy about leaving this dump behind,' Cullen said, 'if I didn't feel sure the bloody suits were building us a whole new nightmare.'

'What's his name, this bloke?'

'Mr Weal.'

'First name?'

'We don't know. He's not a man who's particularly forthcoming.'

'Terrific. He seen Paul Hutton?' The hospital chaplain.

'Maybe.' Cullen shrugged. 'I don't know. But you're on the spot and he isn't. What I thought was... you could perhaps say a prayer or two. He's Welsh, by the way.'

'What's that got to do with the price of eggs?'

'Well, he might be Chapel or something. They've got their own ways. You'll need to play it by ear on that.'

'You mean in case he refuses to speak to me in English?'

'Not Welsh like that. He's from Radnorshire. About half a mile over the border, if that.'

'Gosh. Almost normal, then.'

'Hmm.' Cullen smiled. Merrily followed her into a better lit area with compact, four-bed wards on either side, mainly elderly women in them. A small boy shuffled in a doorway, looking bored and aggressively crunching crisps.

'So what's the matter with Mrs Weal?'

'Stroke.'

'Bad one?'

'You might say that. Oh, and when you've said a wee prayer with him you could take him for a coffee.'

'Eileen-'

'It's surely the Christian thing to do,' Cullen said lightly.