'Er ...' Merrily reached for her bag. 'Anybody mind if I have a cigarette?'

Before Colette pushed her out of the pub door, Jane glanced over her shoulder and saw the slug Dean Wall and his mates frantically gulping down their lagers.

'Shit,' Colette said. 'Move, you silly cow. Listen. When we get outside, we go right. Got that?'

Jane's legs felt like somebody else's legs.

'Jane ... You listening to me? I'm not dragging you up the street, past all the houses. Those low-lifes'll be trailing after us, making smart remarks, and it'll be all round the village before breakfast, and you'll never get out at night again.'

'Legless.'

'What?'

'Leg ...' All the times she'd heard the term and never once thought about what it really meant, and now she knew.'... less. I'm leglesh!'

It was suddenly the funniest expression she'd ever heard.

'Jesus wept,' said Colette.

The spring night air was lovely and warm. Softly lit by a wrought-iron lamp over the pub entrance and overlooked by crooked black and white gable-ends, the cobbled alley was intimate and story-book romantic. Ledwardine by night: wonderful. Jane stood there, gazing up at the stars, feeling suddenly, amazingly, more absolutely at home than she'd felt anywhere they'd ever lived and that was a lot of places. Another lantern hung across the entrance of the alleyway, orangey, alluring, and she glided towards it.

'Not that way. Right.' Colette tugging her back across the cobbles. 'Follow your nose.'

Meaning the horrible, acidy pong from the public toilets at the end of the alleyway. The proximity of the dirty-brick toilet-block spoiled the idyll, and the smell killed the atmosphere stone dead. Obstinately, Jane turned her back on it.

'Why can't we go-?'

'Shut up!' Colette's hand came down over Jane's mouth with a slap. 'They're coming out.'

Jane was shocked into silence. She swallowed, feeling unsteady inside. Colette took the hand away from her mouth and used it to haul her past the cracked gents sign, up some steps, on which Jane stumbled, and then it was soft underfoot and suddenly really dark.

'The old bowling green, all right?' Colette said. 'We cut across here, over to the footpath, round by the churchyard, out of the church close and we're back on the square.'

'Ingeniush,' Jane said thickly. She looked up. The sky was brilliant, the stars huge and blotchy like Van Gogh stars. Actually, everything was bigger and blotchier.

'All right?' Cocky voice from just a few yards behind them. 'Need any help, do we, ladies?'

'Shit.' Colette pulled Jane across the grass. 'Duck.' Branches grazing her head. 'Not a word.' Colette tugged her down behind the trees. She fell back into the grass, lovely and soft at first. Closed her eyes and everything turned into a big, waltzing fairground ride, which wasn't so pleasant, so she opened her eyes and sat up, feeling kind of damp and clammy and wishing she was in bed in the Black Swan.

'You all right, girls?'

'Danny Gittoes,' Colette hissed into her ear. 'If he knew where we were he wouldn't keep shouting.'

'He's not so bad.' Jane recalled a lanky, slow-moving character who played the trombone in the school orchestra.

'Keep your bloody voice down. Not so bad sober. Not so bad on his own. Bunch of them at closing time, you don't get involved. Bad news. I got caught once, never again.'

'Thought you were a woman of the world.'

'You do it on your terms, Jane. Not theirs. Never theirs. Besides, if Gittoes was mine, you'd get Wall. Up against the back of the toilets. Fancy that, do you?'

'Yuk.'

'Right. So shut up. Come on, on your feet. There's a path. We get to the churchyard we're all right.'

'You wanner come to a party, girls?' Danny Gittoes called out, further away now.

Colette sniffed. 'Very small party, I reckon. Hold on to my arm, Jane, this bit's muddy.'

Danny Gittoes bawled out, 'Bring your mother, you wanner.'

The ground was harder underfoot; they'd found the path. Danny Gittoes was lumbering about, a good twenty-five yards behind.

'Give 'er some holy communion, I would. Any day o' the bloody week.'

'I rest my case,' Colette murmured. 'Scumbag?'

'Scumbag. Least he's on his own.'

'Yeah, but that worries me a bit.'

Jane felt cold now. She was glad to see the big, black hulk of the church thrusting through the trees and bushes like a liner on a dark ocean, stars drifting around the steeple. Another hundred yards and they'd be out on the square and the only problem then would be slipping quietly into the Black Swan and looking like she'd just been for a meditative stroll. Best thing, before going up to the suite, would be to pop into the downstairs Ladies', slap some cold water on her face. Although the chances were Mum would be too stressed up over tomorrow's sermon to notice much.

'Wow.' Jane leaned into the rough stones of the church wall. She felt like they'd walked miles. 'I think I got cider a bit wrong.' When she closed her eyes it felt like she was falling through the wall. 'Jesus.'

'Yeah, well, we all have to learn.' Colette patted her shoulder. 'Come on, Janey.'

'Sorry.' Jane blinked a few times and straightened up. 'I ... you know ... I just ...'

Becoming aware that Colette's hand hadn't left her shoulder. In fact it had gone into a grip.

'Shit,' Colette said. Jane turned quickly; the sudden motion made her queasy.

'Evening, girls.'

He was leaning up against the wooden lych-gate. Dean Wall. The sheep-shagger.

'Very clever,' Colette said in a bored voice. 'Do they call that a pincer movement?'

'Told 'em about the party.' Danny Gittoes came up behind. 'At the club.'

'What you on about?' Dean said. 'Oh. Right. The ole after-hours social club.'

The only good light was pooled around one lamp on the corner of the close, where it met the square. She saw two other boys skirting the light. There was nobody else about, no cars. The olde worlde, time-warped magic of Ledwardine late at night.

The two other boys slouched into the close to join Danny and Dean, the four of them forming a rough circle around Colette and Jane. God. Big boys. Men, really. In the same way that Colette was a woman.

So why did Jane feel like a little girl? Wanting to be up in the big, safe hotel suite, warm in the glow from two bedside lamps, Mum bent over her sermon pad.

Another figure walked over from the square. 'What's all this, then?'

It was Lloyd Powell, the councillor's son. He was a few years older than the others, a working farmer. Lloyd was good-looking, drove a white American truck and was considered intensely cool by some of the girls at school, possibly because he was always so aloof.

'What you got yere, Dean?'

'No problem, Lloyd.'

'You girls all right? This lot bothering you?' Like his old man, Lloyd was an old-fashioned gentleman. Pretty boring, in some ways.

Colette said lazily, 'Like he said, no problem.' Jane, who was starting to feel sick, was annoyed with her. Lloyd Powell could've stopped this, let them get home.

'You sure?' Lloyd said.

'Yeah,' said Colette. 'The day I can't handle hairballs like this is the day I enter a fucking closed order.'

Lloyd shrugged and strolled back to the market place. Jane suspected there were going to be times when she wished Colette's sass-quotient was not so far off the local scale.

Still, she did her best to sound cool.

'So like where's the After-hours Social Club?'

Colette Cassidy sighed. Dean Wall grinned. He really was huge and had big muscles. You saw him heaving around great sacks of potatoes and stuff at his father's farm shop on the edge of the village.

'I think he means the church porch,' Colette said.

9.

A Night in Suicide Orchard.

'POOR MERRILY.' Like a white, woolly terrier, Dermot Child followed her into the lobby of the village hall. 'Can I walk you back to the Swan?'

Merrily unhooked her coat from the peg. 'You can walk with me. If you're going that way.'

'Well ... yes.' Child held open the metal door for her. 'I thought I'd have a nightcap.'

Merrily locked up the hall. Double lock, big key. She had quite a bunch of these things in her bag; the vicar seemed to be responsible for the security of half the public buildings in the village. Maybe she could use a minder.

But not Mr Child. Oh no. He'd nearly become Dermot, but he was Child again now. Quite blatantly fancied her, but was not necessarily on her side. Bad combination.

'Rod and Terry cleared off pretty rapidly, Vicar.' Wry smile as they crossed the car park.

True enough. Rod Powell heading for the Ox, round the corner, Cassidy striding rapidly up towards the lights of the square and his restaurant, to regale Caroline with the juicy details of their dilemma.

'A lot to talk about, I suppose,' Merrily said.

'Oh yes.' Dermot Child fairly bounced along, his springy, white hair flopping. One of those volatile characters who thrives on discord, was energized by controversy. Fun to have around, but you wouldn't trust him to the end of the street.

'All right.' Plunging her hands down the pockets of her new but even cheaper fake Barbour. 'What did you mean, poor Merrily?'

'Well ...' He gazed up the dark street, into the future. 'Going to get the blame, aren't you?'

'For what?'

'For whatever you decide. Yes or no to a witch trial in the church. You'll be either the trendy, radical priest who cares nothing for local sensibilities or just another reactionary who doesn't want to muddy the waters or offend the nobs. Either way, your congregation suffers. Must be hell, being a vicar.'

'Hang on. What makes you all so sure it's going to be me who makes the decision?'

'Oh, really!' Dermot Child stopped, leaned back against the railings of a white, Georgian village house, base of Kent Asprey, the jogging doc. 'You were there when they decided)'

'I don't understand.'

'Well, Bull-Davies buggered off for reasons which will soon become very apparent. Then Rod Powell advised you to examine your conscience. And finally the appalling Cassidy told you very politely and sympathetically that he rather thought it was going to be your decision. How firm d'you want it? They've all officially copped out! Tossed the hot potato into your lap and run like hell. When it makes the papers which it surely will it'll be Vicar Bans Top Writer!

'And if I don't? If I don't block it?'

'Then you'll get I don't know Vicar Backs Poof Playwright Against Local Protests ... Well, not that, obviously, but you get the idea.'

'I see,' Merrily said. 'You're saying that, whatever happens, I'm stuffed.'

'Burden of village life, my dear. This was some suburban parish in London or Birmingham, you'd have a small flurry of controversy and then it would all be forgotten. Here ... Well, don't be fooled by appearances. All right, post-modern ... state of the art ... the New Countryside of rich commuters, hi-tech home business people, oak beams and the Internet ...'

He motioned to a half-lit shop window. MARCHES MEDIA: Fax, photocopying, computer supplies.

'Illusion. Surface glitter, Merrily. And only the surface changes. Underneath, the structure's as rigid as an old iron bedframe.'

'You seem to like it here, all the same.' She knew he'd been a music teacher at some London college, had links with a small record label specializing in modern choral works. Suspected he'd left at least one ex-wife somewhere.

'I know my way around, Vicar. May not sound like it, but I'm a local boy. We go back three generations. Not many, compared to your Powells and your Bull-Davieses, but it'll do. Born here, and I suppose I'll die here, sooner or later. As for that big, sloppy lump of life in the middle, skipping round London, Paris, Milan ... that was just time spent finding out that, in the end, it's really better the hell you know ...'

'Hell?'

He didn't respond. There were eight or nine cars parked on the square, clustered under a black-stemmed electrified gas lamp. The cars included two BMWs, a Jaguar and a Range Rover. People dining at Cassidy's or the Black Swan. The village centre, also quietly lit by uncurtained windows and the stars, looked, if not exactly smug, quite settled in its prosperity.

'When d'you move into the vicarage, Merrily?'

'Could be next week.'

'Terrific. Mind you ... big old place.'

They could see, on the edge of the church close, the end gable of the vicarage and its chimneys, rising above most of the others.

'I think I'd rather have a bungalow,' Merrily said.