“The Lord knows,” Turnbull said, casting a reproving eye up to heaven. “It’s to do with bats. They’re concerned for them. For their survival as a species, I mean. I honestly don’t think they have much regard for your individual little furry pip-squeaker. The ladies are conducting a location study to establish existing and evaluate future habitation requirements of the order Chiroptera,” he recited. “We—that is to say, mankind—are destroying their habitat, apparently. We’re building over their territory, displacing God’s creatures to house people: farm workers and the like, who, it’s found, have been living in squalor unrelieved since the Middle Ages. Men who risked their lives in battle against the Hun to ensure our safety are now thought worthy by a guilt-stricken government of a decent roof over their heads and running water in their houses. Old barns and suchlike agricultural buildings where the bats nest . . . I say, do they nest?”

“I believe they roost, vicar.”

“Thank you . . . are being torn down and swept from the face of the earth. We are witnessing, indeed are responsible for, the disappearance from our countryside of the cosy, unhygienic, flea-infested, dung-filled niches these wretched creatures have heretofore, by the grace of God, inhabited.”

“Amen,” said Redfyre incautiously. He suspected that the vicar had not sufficiently worked on his thesis and hoped it would be a little more polished and more carefully slanted when it was presented as his thought for the day on Sunday. “I’m no fan of mankind, either, Reverend. Or the bats,” he added hurriedly, hoping he’d covered all bases and catered for all shades of opinion. “But I can’t say I’ve seen many signs of them flying about the graveyard. Perhaps, like police inspectors, they keep unsociable hours? Now, the magpies! I wouldn’t mind at all losing a few of those infernal birds! The graveyard’s infested with them. Noisy blighters! At least the bats are silent. Tell me, vicar—do you have bats in your, er, roof space?”

“Bat droppings have been found on the rear pews on the southern side of the church. It’s thought they are nesting in the rafters, finding access through a hole in the roof, which the ladies are, as we speak, attempting to locate.”

“Sounds expensive,” Redfyre said, believing he’d guessed the true reason for the vicar’s long face. “Roofs, holes in . . . that costs money these days. If you can even find the blokes to do it, that is.”

“No. You misunderstand. They are hoping to find the hole so that they may enlarge it and facilitate ingress for the pipistrelles. The congregation, Lady Laetitia tells me (and she is a member, so feels free to speak for them), will expect it. As Christians, we must all shuffle over a bit and concede some space to Brother Bat.”