The Smile of a Ghost by Phil Rickman

stuff.’
    ‘Not in the context in which they’d run the story. It’d have to be from my side… the arrest, the loony bin. My Years of Hell. Now finding happiness at last, with a good woman in every sense, and letting it all come out in the music.’
    ‘God.’ Merrily shuddered. ‘Let me think about this.’
    When she left, she went by the back door, reaching Church Street via the alley. Keeping to the shadows until she was approaching the square, where security lamps lit the front of the Black Swan and only two cars were still parked.
    What was coming back was what Huw Owen had said.
    Had your picture in the paper once too often.
    He was right, of course. Deliverance was the Church’s secret service. Essentially low-level. Publicity was seldom helpful. No room at all for the cult of personality.
    Maybe the Deliverance group/panel/circle/whatever was a good thing. Good for her. Prevent her becoming proprietorial. A question of sharing, Martin Longbeach had said.
    Always painful lessons to be learned about yourself, your attitude.
    So why was she deciding, as she padded quietly across the cobbled street to the vicarage, that she would not ring Nigel Saltash about tomorrow’s appointment with Mumford’s mother?

5
     
Saturday Sun
     
    N IGEL S ALTASH CAME to pick Merrily up at ten.
    Jane spotted him from the landing window on her way down from her apartment in the attic, calling down the stairs.
    ‘He’s got one of those cool little BMW sports cars.’
    Merrily widened her eyes. ‘Like… gosh.’
    ‘He’s getting out. He’s wearing jeans and a cream sports jacket that could be Armani. He looks a smooth old bastard, Mum.’
    Merrily said nothing, stepping into her shoes at the bottom of the stairs, sliding her slippers under the hallstand. She was still feeling resentful, manipulated. What Saltash had done was phone Andy Mumford himself last night, saying he’d tried to call Merrily but she was out. Finding out the time of this morning’s proposed visit to Mumford’s mother and then leaving a message on Merrily’s machine suggesting he pick her up: no point in a convoy.
    ‘So how badly do you think he fancies you?’ Jane said.
    ‘He’s seventy-one, flower.’
    ‘The new dangerous age. They’re getting in as much sex as they can before it’s too late. Apparently, at that age they can only hold an erection for five minutes max, and it’s counting down all the time, did you know that?’
    ‘Oh, Jane…’
    ‘And, listen, you’ve got to stop calling me “flower”. You’ve been calling me “flower” since I was seven.’
    ‘I’ll try.’ Merrily pulled her coat from the peg. ‘What are you doing today?’
    ‘In the absence of his girlfriend, I’ll probably help Lol finish painting Lucy’s living room.’
    ‘I don’t think so.’
    Jane peered down at her, hands on hips. ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘The guy from Q magazine’s coming to interview him. Teenage girl walks in, the guy remembers Lol’s history.’
    ‘Oh, that is…’ Jane bounded downstairs. ‘That is like totally ridiculous. It was twenty years ago. He was a kid. And he was fitted up, and if the guy from Q ’s done his research he’ll know that.’
    ‘No smoke, flower. Just stay away until he’s gone, OK?’
    ‘Hah!’ Jane stopped, with an arm wrapped around the black oak post sunk between the flags like a tree stump at the foot of the stairs. ‘Now I understand. If the journalist sees me, Lol will have to explain whose daughter I am. And we can’t have that coming out, can we?’
    Merrily sighed. ‘It’s a music magazine. They wouldn’t be interested anyway.’
    ‘Yeah, but doesn’t the same firm publish Heat ?’
    ‘Jane, please? Humour me?’
    Feet crunched the gravel outside and the front door was rapped. Merrily unbolted the door, telling herself that some Deliverance teams worked like this all the time, in tandem with a bloody shrink.
    At the Eight till Late, now the only worthwhile shop in Ledwardine, a