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.
    Merrily was halfway to her feet when James Bull-Davies flicked her a warning with a slight turn of his head and a discreet one-handed wiping motion. She sat down, a tightness in her chest.
    ‘You may also,’ James said, ‘wish to examine the situation from the tourism angle – for better or worse, a vital part of our economy. Herefordshire has comparatively few Neolithic monuments, none of them, it might be argued, as potentially spectacular as this one. We could expect a substantial number of visitors.’
    ‘But what kind, sir? What
kind
?’
    The drawly voice again, from somewhere in the middle of the hall.
    ‘Mr Savitch,’ James said.
    Ward Savitch. Entrepreneur who’d bought up the old Kibble farm on the Dilwyn road, a mile out of the village. Turning it into a pleasure park for city slickers – paintballing weekends and corporate pheasant shoots. Jane wanted him dead.
    ‘I think,’ Savitch said, ‘that we all know the kind of tourism such places attract, and it’s the kind more likely to steal the milk off your step.’
    Merrily watched Lol shaking his bowed head, profoundly glad that Jane had seen sense and stayed away.
    ‘Pseudo-Druids,’ Savitch said. ‘Witches in robes, or . . . not in robes. Or not in anything. That the kind of tourism you had in mind, Colonel?’
    Nervous laughter, James lifting his hands for quiet.
    ‘Obviously, I’m being facetious,’ Savitch said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I believe we can embrace the future
and
still hold on to the past. And in Ledwardine we’ve already got some of the finest period buildings in the county. That’s the kind of heritage we should be looking to conserve, not some lumps of rock.’
    ‘And the evil they bring yere,’ Shirley West muttered. ‘I
know
this.’
    James Bull-Davies looked tired. ‘Anyone else?’
    ‘I haven’t
quite
finished,’ Savitch said. ‘Let’s not pretend, any of us, that we wouldn’t appreciate the improved facilities that would come with growth – supermarket, restaurants . . .’
    ‘Places for the nouveau riche to unwind in the evening,’ Lol whispered, ‘when they’ve finished blasting a few hundred tame birds out of the hedge.’
    ‘And, I believe, a fully equipped leisure-centre,’ Savitch said.
    There was an explosion of hard rain on the big windows. The strip lights stuttered.
    Lol said. ‘He’s got to be a plant.’
    As all the lights came up and the first few people began to leave, collecting umbrellas from the rail by the main door, Merrily saw the man in the three-piece suit.
    A
young
man in a three-piece suit. One of the first out. Black umbrella.
    ‘Nobody here with a Coleman’s Meadow Preservation Society placard,’ Lol was saying. ‘No
Save the Stones
sweatshirts.’
    ‘Perhaps that’s no bad thing,’ Merrily said. ‘Some of them might well have pentacles tattooed on their foreheads. Lol, you see that guy who just went out?’
    ‘Bloke helping Alice Meek?’
    ‘No, on his own. Suit with a waistcoat.
You
once saw Jonathan Long, didn’t you?’
    ‘Don’t think so.’
    ‘No.’ She thought about it. ‘Maybe you didn’t. He came to the vic, just once, with Frannie Bliss.’
    ‘A cop?’
    ‘Doesn’t matter. Probably wasn’t him at all.’
    Although it
was
.
    ‘Um . . .’ Lol looked at her closely. ‘You
did
have something to eat before you came out?’
    ‘I . . . Yes, I did. Swear to God.’
    Merrily stood up, shook out her coat. Yes, she was trying to get regular meals. Yes, she was trying to pull herself together, not get run down again, cut down on the cigs, have reflexology every couple of weeks from, God help her, Mrs Morningwood of Garway Hill. Yes, yes, yes.
    ‘Ah, vicar . . .’ James Bull-Davies was stooping between her and Lol, like some long-billed wading bird. ‘Wasn’t really the time, seemed to me, for clerical intervention. West woman’s unlikely to attract much support for Pierce. Unhinged, basically.’
    ‘In which case, you don’t think it’s worth