The Lamp of the Wicked Read Online Free

killed Dad on the M5 had been a drastic kind of reprieve from a marriage gone bad, it was time to dump the guilt for ever.
    It had to
be
guilt, didn’t it? Mum had always been good at guilt, on any level. During the summer, Lol had written this song, ‘The Cure of Souls’, about the problem women priests might have loving God while also loving a man.
    Which was only a problem if you believed that God
was
a man. If you believed that God was anything.
    And if this thing – this
faith
in something unknowable, unprovable and very possibly bollocks – was likely to screw it up for Mum and Lol, there was no way Jane could live with that… like, even if she had to stand out here in the square and publicly burn Bibles on the cobbles.
    The violence of the thought disturbed her a little. Pulling her beret down over her headphones, she switched on the Super Furries’
Rings Around the World
to blow it all away, crossing now into Church Street, with its lamplit black and white façades, moving under the dimly lit windows of the former Cassidys’ Country Kitchen. At least the Cassidys had tried to serve traditional local produce, whereas now the place was charging an arm and a leg for two bits of squidge cradled in a red lettuce leaf. Gourmets were said to travel from three counties to eat here, but local people only ever came once – probably calling at the chippy on the way home.
    This was typical of the way the village was going. With another overpriced antique shop and poor Lucy Devenish’s old Ledwardine Lore turned into some rip-off, designer-trivia emporium pretentiously called Ledwardine Fine Art, it was close to becoming unbearably chic, with coachloads of French and Japanese tourists, like in the Cotswolds.
    At least the chippy was still in business. Jane slipped into Old Barn Lane, where its single window gleamed grease-yellow in the drizzle. This year, autumn had come down hard and fast, like some dank, grey roller blind. No Indian summer, no golden October days, and too late for all that now.
    She bought cod and chips, twice. She and Mum didn’t eat meat at all any more, but occasionally relapsed into eating fish. After all, Jesus had eaten fish, hadn’t he? Jesus, in the right mood, would double your catch. Jane stepped down from the shop doorway, holding the chip package away from her fleece.
    ‘Jane – tell your mother not to be late tonight, won’t you?’ Uncle Ted Clowes stood there, merging with the greyness, bulky and stupidly sinister in his wide-brimmed Mafia hat. Until his retirement, Uncle Ted had been a solicitor, and you still couldn’t trust the old bastard. He didn’t like Mum being Deliverance consultant because it regularly took her out of the parish, out from under his thumb – which was probably the only truly worthwhile aspect of the whole crazy Deliverance thing.
    Jane looked up. ‘What’s the problem… Ted?’ In the light from the steamy window, his wide face looked like ridged sandstone; he hated it when she talked to him like an equal. She grinned. ‘
Not
… the great Commercialization-of-the-House- of-God storm?’
    It’s a contentious issue,’ Ted said heavily, ‘and it needs to be resolved before it starts to split the village. Your mother knows that.’
    Meaning he didn’t want it dividing the ever-diminishing percentage of villagers who actually went to church. Not much of an issue at all, then. Jane converted the grin into a sweet and sympathetic smile. ‘I’ll get her bulletproof vest out of the airing cupboard.’
    ‘One day, Jane,’ said Uncle Ted, ‘you’ll learn to take some things seriously.’
    ‘And the day
after
that, they’ll bury me.’ Jane refixed the headset. ‘Better split or the chips’ll be cold.’
    Get a life, Ted.
    She walked back through the village, its windows like Christmas lanterns. So far this year, it had been featured in three national-newspaper holiday supplements. Among the cars parked on the square – and taking up enough space