'Didn't go to that thing. Couldn't face it. Too cold. What did Miss Devenish say?'

' "Never trust the Bulls. Remember poor ... poor ... Wil." Of course.'

'Old gypsy's warning, eh?'

'Never thought about it from that moment to this. I suppose what happened a few minutes later rather ...'

'Woman's insane, of course,' he said. 'Never forget that.'

'Oh?'

'Bonkers. And embittered. Used to write children's books, but nobody'll publish them any more. Roald Dahl, she wasn't.'

Enjoying himself again. Trying to work his way up to another arm around the waist. She'd have to do something, couldn't put up with months, years of this. She could deal with it. Would deal with it. If she could just find Jane.

'Also feels threatened,' Dermot said. 'Mostly by the Cassidys because they want her shop to extend their restaurant. Well, partly that and partly because Caroline feels the Devenish emporium's cheap and tacky and not in keeping with the sophisticated image they're after. Every so often they'll make the old girl an offer. How she can afford to keep refusing is beyond me, because that little shop's doing next to nothing.'

'That's sad.' Merrily moved as far away from him as she could get without falling off the damned step. 'Jane went in there today, she-'

She stopped because she didn't want to explain why Jane had gone to the shop and also because James Bull-Davies had kicked over a litterbin.

'Fuckers!' he roared. 'Bloody fuckers?'

He slipped and went down on one knee.

'Fuckers,' he said in a normal voice. Then laughed, picking himself up.

Evidently unaware of Merrily and Dermot Child, he leaned against the metal lamp-post beside the market cross and peered down Church Street, where the lights of a vehicle had appeared. The litterbin was still rolling along the cobbles.

'Perhaps I should go down and talk to him,' Merrily said. 'This is my job, isn't it?'

'For what my opinion's worth, Vicar, I'd seriously advise against it. He won't be terribly civil, even if he recognizes you, and he won't thank you for it in the morning.'

The vehicle stopped on the square, engine rattling. It was an old and muddy blue Land Rover. Alison Kinnersley jumped down. She wore tight jeans and a black shirt; her blonde hair shone like a brass helmet in the fake gaslight.

'Come on then, my lord.' She stood relaxed, legs apart, on the cobbles, the Land Rover snorting behind her like the stallion she rode around the village. 'Let's go home.'

Bull-Davies didn't move from his lamp-post. 'You whore. Who told you?'

'Powell called.'

'Good old saintly bloody Powell. Thought I saw his head come round the pub door.'

'Let's go home, Squire.'

'Do you demand it?' Bull-Davies grinned savagely. 'D'you demand it, mistress?'

God, Merrily thought, she's got him locked into some pathetic Bronte-esque sex play.

Alison seemed to shrug. Her breasts rather than her shoulders. Merrily felt Dermot Child quiver, and she shuddered and wanted to be almost anywhere else. But she also wanted to find Jane, and if Alison and James didn't take their games home, she was going down there anyway.

'Do it here, hey, my slinky, slinky whore?' Bull-Davies rasped hoarsely. 'Shag ourselves senseless on the bloody cobbles? Give the prissy bastards a show? Dent someone's shiny Merc with your lovely arse?'

'James, you're pretty senseless already,' Alison said coolly. 'You've got ten seconds to get in before I leave you to sleep it off in the gutter.'

'Whore.' Bull-Davies detached himself from the lamppost.

'Get in the truck, James. There's a good boy. We have your reputation to look after.' Alison sounding as if she knew they had an audience, of which James remained oblivious.

'Reputation? Wassat going to be worth when that scented arse-bandit shafts me? You tell me, mistress. You bloody tell me.'

He walked unsteadily towards the Land Rover, mumbling morosely to the cobbles about the little, shirt-lifting, socialist scum, squatting at the bottom of the drive with his odious catamite.

'You sold it, darling,' Alison said wearily, as though they'd gone through all this many times before. 'It isn't yours any more.'

'Man's a piece of shit.'

'Whatever. Do get in, Jamie.'

The Land Rover door was slammed. The chassis groaned, the engine spluttered and gagged and the battered vehicle was reversed, illegally, into the alley leading to Cassidy's Country Kitchen and Ledwardine Lore.

'Well,' Dermot said after a moment. 'I did warn you, didn't I? The way it would go.'

But Merrily wasn't listening; she was already stumbling down the steps.

Through the dirty wool of exhaust in the diesel-stinking air, she could see them bringing Jane along Church Street.

11.

Pious Cow.

'AND IT'S A really terrifying situation to be in. I mean, you know, what on earth do we do? How can we ordinary, fallible human beings even contemplate making a decision which we know is going whichever way we turn to offend somebody?'

Pause. Merrily took a step back from the edge of the pulpit. She felt awful. The light sizzled harshly in the stained-glass windows, yellows and reds glaring out, florid and sickly. Something they never told you at college: you needed to be fit for this job.

'What's the first thing we usually do? We panic, of course. We just want to run away. That's always the first instinct, isn't it? Why me? What have I done to get landed with this one?'

You always asked them questions. You were conversational about it. Just having a chat. OK, I'm up here, you're down there, but we're all in the same boat really. Sometimes, you found yourself hoping one of them would stand up, join in, help you out a bit. Yeah, I take your point, Vicar, but the way I see it ... God knew, she could use some help from the punters: maybe she should hold a parish referendum: Wil Williams Yes or No?

Coward's way out. She swallowed. Her mouth felt like a sandpit. It was a warm, sunny, good-to-be-alive morning. She felt cold in her stomach. She hadn't eaten, hardly slept.

'But you know, in your heart of hearts, that running away isn't the answer to anything ... ever. Sooner or later you're going to have to face up to it.'

Pitching her voice at the rafters; she knew what they meant about the warm acoustic. She'd never needed it more.

Packed house, of course. Well, it would be, wouldn't it? Sod's Law. They were all here this morning. The twenty or so regulars, including Councillor Garrod Powell and his son Lloyd, both of them sober, dark-suited, expressionless, deeply local. Plus the occasionals a resentful-looking Gomer Parry with his comfortable wife, Minnie. And Miss Lucy Devenish, who, according to Ted, would often walk out if the hymns were tuneless or the sermon insufficiently compelling.

Also the very occasionals, like Terrence and Caroline Cassidy ('Sunday's such a busy day, now lunches and dinners, which effectively rules out both services, but we do often pop in during the week for a few minutes of quiet time').

In addition, the never-seen-here-befores: Richard Coffey in a light brown velvet suit, with his wafery friend Stefan Alder, flop-haired and sulky-eyed, in jeans.

And the totally unexpected-under-the-circumstances: James Bull-Davies, frozen-faced and solitary in the old family pew. Well. Merrily leaned over the pulpit, hands clasped. This one's for you ... Jamie.

'So what do you do? The pressure's building up. You're starting to feel a bit beleaguered.'

Two messages had been on the answering machine she'd fixed up in the room; must have come in while she was out there trying to locate Jane. Terrence Cassidy: 'Perhaps we could arrange a small chat, Merrily. Would you call me?' Councillor Garrod Powell: 'A word or two might be in order, Vicar, if you can spare the time. I'll be in church as usual tomorrow.'

Bull-Davies wasn't looking at her. He had his arms folded and his legs stretched out as far as they would go in the confining space between pews. He faced the door which led to the belfry. Just about the last place he'd want to go if the inside of his head was in the condition it deserved to be after last night.

'Rule One: don't give in to pressure. Rule Two: collect all the information you can get, listen to all the arguments, seek out independent people who might have an opinion or a point of view you hadn't thought about. Try to step back and see it from a different angle.'

Dermot Child, thankfully, was out of view from the pulpit. He'd be smiling to himself on the organ-stool, half-concealed from the congregation, the only one of them who knew just how little time she must have had to put this one together.

'And then ...' Merrily said. 'Well, you know what I'm going to say next, don't you? You're thinking what else can she say, in her position?'

She focused on Miss Devenish, who fearlessly met her eyes.

'Because of what I am, I'm going to tell you there's only one place you can go for help. But I'm also saying it because, to me, it makes perfect sense. You could take your dilemma to the United Nations, the House of Lords, the European Court of Human Rights, wherever ... and all you'd wind up with is a whole stack of reports and lists of precedents and Green Papers and White Papers. Bumph, in other words. Take you a couple of months to wade through it, and you'd be no wiser at all, just a whole lot more confused. And the decision would still be yours.'

Miss Devenish smiled, the old witch doctor's face crinkling, the side of the mouth tilting wryly up to the eagle nose.

'So why not put it all on Him. That's what He's there for. The best advice it's possible to get. And absolutely free. Go into a quiet place ... the middle of a field, your bathroom or come in here, if you like. Sit down, you don't have to kneel, or you can walk about if you want to. However you feel relaxed. But put that question. Tell Him it's urgent. Tell Him you'd like an answer as quickly as possible.'

Merrily gathered her props together: Bible, Prayer Book, clipboard, felt-tip pen.

'And I'm prepared to guarantee,' she said crisply, 'that you'll get one.'

Outside, when it was all over, nobody mentioned the sermon. To most of them it would have been routine stuff. But, during the ritual shaking of hands by the porch, there were discreet approaches from those who ought to know what it was about.

Councillor Garrod Powell mumbled, 'Got my message, did you, Vicar?'

James Bull-Davies coughed. 'Need to talk, Mrs Watkins. Problem is, never know where to find you.'

Caroline Cassidy, dark-suited and pearled, turned imploring eyes on Merrily, took both her hands, whispered, 'I'm so, so sorry about what happened last night. Girls of that age ... We must talk this over, as parents. Soon.'

Merrily put them all off. Explaining that it would be a bit chaotic this week because they were moving, at last, into the vicarage. So if whatever it was could possibly wait, she'd be delighted to offer them coffee there once she had a table to put the cups on.

Buying time.

But not from Miss Devenish, thoughtful enough to make sure she was the last to emerge from the church. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat and her summer poncho, Aztec zigzags.

'So what are you doing this afternoon?' Merrily murmured.

'Go for a walk, shall we, Mrs Watkins?'

'Whatever suits you.'

'Two stiles on the edge of the churchyard, yes? Not the orchard one, the other one. Three o'clock?'

'Fine,' Merrily said. It would give her a couple of hours for that long, meaningful mother-daughter discussion.

'Oh, and don't bring the child, will you?' Miss Devenish said. From behind her, Richard Coffey honoured Merrily with a distant smile and a minimal nod.

Jane looked up.

'I was just a bit tired.'

'You bloody well deserve it. And the headache. And the nausea.'

Jane rose abruptly from the corner of the bed, staring angrily out of the window at the sun-splashed square.

'Did I say I had a headache? Did I say I felt sick?'

'You threw up enough last night. I could smell it.'

'That's not fair.'

'Jane,' Merrily said, 'do me the courtesy of not trying to bluff it out.'

It wasn't meant to be like this. Returning from morning service, Merrily had made a point of changing out of her cassock, dispensing with the collar, putting on jeans. It was going to be one-to-one. Mother and daughter. Friends, even. The long, meaningful chat dealing frankly with important, practical subjects.

Like (i) cider. A few facts: it was unexpectedly cheap, went down very easily but was also usually over seven per cent proof, which was approximately twice the alcohol content of beer. Bottom line: cider gets you pissed before you know it.

And like (ii) Colette Cassidy: a difficult, spoiled girl, with a weak father and a neurotic mother. Appeared sophisticated probably been wearing make-up since the age often but it was all superficial. According to Ted, who had a friend who taught at the Hereford Cathedral School, Colette's worldliness was not balanced by any great intellect.

So the message to Jane, who only yesterday had loftily professed herself more mature than her contemporaries at the high school, was: don't think you can learn anything from Colette Cassidy. Be your own woman.

And don't get pissed again.

She'd left Jane to sleep through the morning undisturbed, asking Roland, the manager, to hold off the chambermaid until tomorrow because the poor kid was ill. No, nothing to worry about, just a mild stomach upset.

And what should have been a shattering hangover.

So where was the damned hangover?

Christ, she needed Jane to feel bloody awful for the whole of Sunday. It was part of the lesson: you got drunk, you went through hell next day, you were chastened. Time-honoured pattern.

The great, wonderful pang of anger and relief last night, when she'd discovered what had happened. When Jane had appeared in Church Street, supported by Miss Devenish and a smallish, long-haired guy she hadn't seen before, with the guilty party, Colette Cassidy, trailing sullenly behind. All right, it wasn't convenient, it had lost Merrily most of a night's sleep, but it was one of those things which had to happen one day. God her first time with excess alcohol had been much worse; it had involved boys, and she'd been lucky not to ...

Anyway. Calm yourself, woman. People react differently, that's all.

She turned back to the bed. 'What about some lunch?'