Friends of the Dusk

by Phil Rickman

  ‘Tristram Greenaway. Thirty-five. Employed by the council. Lived here on his own. There was a girlfriend, but she’s said to have moved out a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Mind your back, Francis.’

  Slim Fiddler was shooting video, trying to frame the whole room. Slim was Chief CSI. They liked to call themselves CSIs now, sounded sexier than SOCO. Before long, the ambitious bastards would be using American TV words like exsanguination and directionality. Bliss edged gratefully away from the action. Slim Fiddler hadn’t lost any weight; there were whole crime-scene teams who took up less room.

  ‘What’s Billy say, Karen?’

  ’¿…lıǝu 'ʇuɐʇsıssɐ sıɥ ʇɟǝl ɥɔıɥʍ 'ǝɯıʇ ǝɯos ʞɹoʍ ɟɟo ǝq oʇ ʎlǝʞıl ˙ƃǝl ɐ ǝʞoɹq puɐ ƃuıɥʇǝɯos ɹo ɥɔuǝɹʇ ɐ oʇuı llǝɟ ʇsıƃoloǝɐɥɔɹɐ ʎʇunoɔ ǝɥʇ ˙ʎɹɐɹodɯǝʇ ʎluo ɥƃnoɥʇ ˙ʇuǝɯʇɹɐdǝp s’ʇsıƃoloǝɐɥɔɹɐ ʎʇunoɔ‘

  ’¿uǝɹɐʞ 'lıɔunoɔ ǝɥʇ ɥʇıʍ qoɾ sıɥ sɐʍ ʇɐɥʍ‘

  ˙ǝʇɐıɹdoɹddɐuı ǝq ʎlʇɔɐxǝ ʇ’uplnoʍ sʇɥƃıl lnɟɹǝʍod ǝɹǝɥʍ uʍoʇ ɟo ʇɹɐd lɐıʇuǝpısǝɹ ǝuo ǝɥʇ uı 'ooʇ 'ǝɹǝɥ ʞɔɐq ƃuıʇɥƃıl ʇǝǝɹʇs dɐɹɔ ˙sɐld ǝɥʇ uo ǝɔuǝɟɟo ǝsnɐɔ oʇ pooƃ ɹǝʌǝu ˙ǝɔuǝɟɟo pǝsnɐɔ ʎǝɥʇ ǝsɐɔ uı 'ǝɔıʇou oʇ ʇou ʎɹʇ plnoʍ sɹnoqɥƃıǝu ǝɥʇ ǝldoǝd ʎq ʇı ɟo ʇsoɯ

  ’˙ǝɹǝɥ punoɹ ƃuıoƃ puɐ ƃuıɯoɔ ɟo ʇol ɐ sʎɐʍlɐ ˙ɹɐɟ os ʇuɐɔıɟıuƃıs ƃuıɥʇou ˙sɹoop-oʇ-ɹoop ǝɥʇ uo llıʇs ǝɹ’ǝʍ‘

  ’¿sɹnoqɥƃıǝu‘

  ’˙ʞǝǝʍ ʇsɐl ǝq oʇ ʎlǝʞılun ˙ʎlqɐqoɹd ˙ʎɐpoʇ ɹǝılɹɐǝ ˙ǝɔɐɹƃ ɹp ʍouʞ noʎ‘

  ’¿ǝɔuıs ƃuol ʍoɥ ˙ʇɐlds‘

  ’…puɐ sɐʍ ʇı ɹǝʌǝoɥʍ uo ʞɔɐq sıɥ pǝuɹnʇ 'pıɐɹɟɐ ǝq oʇ uosɐǝɹ ou ˙uı pǝʇıʌuı puɐ ʍǝuʞ ǝɥ ʎpoqǝɯos ǝq plnoɔ ¿ʎq pǝʞɔɐʇʇɐ ʇǝƃ oʇ ʇɔǝdxǝ ʇ’upıp ǝɥ ʎpoqǝɯos ¿ʞɔɐʇʇɐ ǝsıɹdɹns ɐ sıɥʇ sı ˙spɹɐʍɹǝʇɟɐ dn ƃuıʎpıʇ punoɹ ǝuoƃ s’ǝɥ ssǝlun‘ ˙pıɐs uǝɹɐʞ ’'ǝlƃƃnɹʇs ɐ ɟo suƃıs ou os‘

  ˙sɐld ǝɥʇ uo pǝɥsɐɯs ʇoƃ sɐɹǝɯɐɔ ˙ǝɹǝɥ punoɹ ʌʇɔɔ ɟo ʎɐʍ ǝɥʇ uı ɥɔnɯ ʇou

  ˙ʇuɐɹɹɐʍ ƃuıpuɐʇsʇno uɐ ɯoɹɟ ǝɔɐɟ ɹnoʎ ǝzıuƃoɔǝɹ ʇɥƃıɯ ɯǝɥʇ ɟo ǝuo puɐ sɐld ǝɥʇ uo sdoɔ oʇ ǝsolɔ ooʇ ʇǝƃ ˙sɹǝʞooluo ʎuɐɯ ʇou ˙sǝɥsnq pǝʇunʇs ǝɥʇ uı punoɹɐ ƃuıʞod ǝɹǝʍ sɯɹoɟıun ǝǝɹɥʇ ˙pǝɹ oʇ pǝƃuɐɥɔ slɐuƃıs ǝɥʇ sɐ pǝɥƃıs ɔıɟɟɐɹʇ punoq-ʎʇıɔ ǝɹǝɥʍ pɐoɹ uıɐɯ ǝɥʇ ɯoɹɟ sʇɐlɟ ǝɥʇ ƃuıʇɐɹɐdǝs ssɐɹƃ ɟo dıɹʇs ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ pǝʞool ǝɥ ˙ʎlʍols ǝɥʇɐǝɹq oʇ ƃuıʇɹɐʇs 'ʇno ɹǝɥ ƃuıʍolloɟ ssılq

  ’˙plnoʍ ǝɥ uoʞɔǝɹ ı‘

  ’˙ǝƃunƃ puɐ poolq uı pǝɹǝʌoɔ ǝq p’ǝɥ‘

  ’˙ǝɹǝɥʇ uı ʇı pǝssoʇ ǝʌ’plnoɔ ˙pɐoɹ ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ 'ǝɹǝɥʇ uʍop ʎluo s’ɹǝʌıɹ ǝɥʇ 'ǝǝs‘ ˙uǝɹɐʞ 'noʎ ʞuɐɥʇ 'ƃuıʍolloɟ ssılq 'ɹoop ʇuoɹɟ ǝɥʇ ɥƃnoɹɥʇ ʇno pǝʞlɐʍ uǝɹɐʞ ’…ʇı pǝssoʇ puɐ pɐoɹ ǝɥʇ ssoɹɔɐ pǝʞlɐʍ 'ƃɐq ɐ uı ʇı ʇnd ʎlqɐqoɹd‘

  ’¿uodɐǝʍ ǝɥʇ ɟo uƃıs ou‘ ˙sʇnƃ sıɥ uo ʞɹoʍ ʇɐ ɥɔuǝʇs ǝɥʇ 'ǝɹǝɥ ɟo ʇno ʇǝƃ oʇ ƃuıpǝǝu ˙pıɐs ssılq ’¿sʍouʞ oɥʍ‘

  ’˙ǝƃɐɹ ǝlqɐlloɹʇuoɔun ǝʞıl ǝɹoɯ ˙ǝɹǝɥ ʎlddɐ ʎlpɹɐɥ plnoʍ ʇɐɥʇ ʇnq‘ ˙pıɐs uǝɹɐʞ ’'ʎʇıʇuǝpı ǝɹnɔsqo oʇ ǝuop s’ʇɐɥʇ ƃuıɥʇ ɟo ʇɹos‘

  ˙ʎɹǝƃɐʌɐs uɐɥʇ ǝɹoɯ sɐʍ sıɥʇ ˙pǝʍollɐʍs 'ʎɐʍɐ pǝuɹnʇ ssılq ¿ʇǝƃƃnu uǝʞɔıɥɔ ɐ ǝʞıl pǝʞool 'ʇıq ʇɐɥʇ sɐʍ ʇɐɥʍ 'poƃ

  ’˙ɥǝʎ 'ɥǝʎ‘

  ’—ɥʇǝǝʇ ǝɥʇ puɐ 'pǝddıɹ ɥʇnoɯ puɐ ǝsou ǝɥʇ puɐ 'ʇno pǝsıɹd uǝǝq ʇsoɯlɐ s’ǝʎǝ ʇɥƃıɹ ǝɥʇ ʎɐʍ ǝɥʇ ǝǝs‘ ˙pıɐs ɹǝlppıɟ ɯıls ’'pǝuǝdɹɐɥs uǝʌǝ ɹo‘

  ’˙pǝsn llǝʍ sɐʍ puǝ ʍɐlɔ ǝɥʇ 'ɹǝɯɯɐɥ ʍɐlɔ ɐ sɐʍ ʇı ɟı‘

  ’˙uǝɹɐʞ 'ʇıʞlooʇ ’uıƃƃıɹɟ ɐ ɥʇıʍ uı ǝɯoɔ ɐuuoƃ ʇou s’ɹǝllıʞ‘

  ’˙ǝslǝ ƃuıɥʇǝɯos pɐɥ ǝɥ ssǝlun ˙ʇɐɥʇ ɟo ʇsoɯ pıp ʇɐɥʇ ʍɐlɔ ǝɥʇ sɐʍ ʇı puɐ 'looʇ ɹɐlıɯıs ǝɯos ɹo ɹǝɯɯɐɥ ʍɐlɔ ɐ ʇɐ ƃuıʞool ǝq plnoɔ ǝʍ os ˙ǝɹǝɥ ƃuıddıɹ ɟo ʇol ˙ʇuǝɯnɹʇsuı ʇunlq ɐ ʇsnɾ uɐɥʇ ǝɹoɯ s’ʇɐɥʇ puɐ 'sʞuıɥʇ ǝɔɐɹƃ ɹp 'spɹɐʍɹǝʇɟɐ ǝuop ʎlqɐqoɹd ˙ɟɟnʇs ʎssǝɯ ǝɥʇ ɟo ǝsnɐɔǝq ʇunlq ʇɐɥʇ ʇou ʇnq ˙ɹǝɯɯɐɥ ɐ ǝʞıl ƃuıɥʇǝɯos ˙ƃuɐq 'ƃuɐq 'ƃuɐq ˙pɐǝɥ ǝɥʇ oʇ sʍolq ˙pǝllıʞ sɐʍ ǝɥ ʍoɥ s’ʇɐɥʇ 'ʇuǝɯnɹʇsuı ʇunlq ʎlsnoıʌqo 'llǝʍ‘

  ‘Cooper. Ran into him the other night.’

  ‘Tristram Greenaway seems to have been a freelance archaeologist – i.e. jobless – who’d been taken on for a few months to help Cooper until the boss comes back.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Woman in the flat above. Greenaway talked about it. We haven’t talked to Cooper yet. Vaynor’s still trying to track him down.’

  Neil Cooper. The lad who had his skull nicked.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll have a word,’ Bliss said, thoughtful. ‘When he surfaces.’

  Maybe this wasn’t as simple as the address would lead you to expect.

  ‘Tell you one thing,’ Karen said. ‘Some murders you can be dispassionate. Or, some of them, you feel nearly as sorry for the killer as the victim. But this killer… even I don’t feel safe with him out here.’

  ‘Or her?’

  ‘No way.’ Karen fiercely shaking her head. ‘Not even a human being any more, Frannie, he’s just… lost it.’

  17

  Get over it

  SINCE LOL WAS last home for any length of time, the council had cut back on public lighting. New shadows had grown like night foliage. The narrow street between Lucy’s old house, where he lived, and the vicarage seemed, in the hours of darkness, like a deep river. Small lights blinked on the other side, on an island between the trees.

  Always something to be crossed. Ledwardine, which always looked peaceful, was a cluster of small worlds in torment, the vicarage its unresting conscience.

  Like a deep river… island in the trees… worlds in torment…

  Lol spun away from the window. Bloody hell, there were days when it seemed like his whole existence had been reduced to scraps of material for possible lyrics. When all he was was something that served songs.

  As distinct from Merrily Watkins, who served people and also something else that could seem as distant, amorphous and unapproachable as a cold sun.

  She’d phoned earlier to see if it was OK if she came over.

  Like she had to ask. For God’s sake, she had her own key to the house that used to be Lucy’s house. He’d had it made for her. She used it when he was away, to come in and check everything was OK, do a little dusting, pick up his mail from behind the door to see if there was anything crucial. But when he was at home, she almost never used that key; she’d always knock when all he wanted was for her to let herself in, any time of the day or night, be presumptuous, feel free. It wasn’t as if the whole village didn’t know. It wasn’t like anybody in Ledwardine sat in judgement or even cared.

  He bent to the wood-stove in the ingle. It hadn’t been active for most of the four months he’d been away – relearning how to make a living wage out of music, a summer of small-venue and pub gigs across Britain, indoor busking for people who carried on drinking and talking. Funny how you learned not to mind this as long as the songs were out there and the pennies kept dropping into the hat, so to speak.

  And then the unexpected. The warming of the distant sun. One of those half-heard songs had sneaked off quietly on its own, done some business, and was sitting waiting for him when he got back.

  The song was smoking a fat cigar.

  In the stove, the new flames were pale and vaporous, th
e kindling wouldn’t catch. He wondered if the house’s last owner was annoyed with him for spending too much time away, neglecting things, leaving her alone here and dead.

  ‘Lucy,’ he murmured, kneeling on the rug, messing with the vents, ‘this will be OK, won’t it?’

  He’d really thought it was finally going to be OK. Couldn’t wait to share the news with Merrily, who’d sat there in the Swan last night, looking glittery and lovely…

  … and out of it. Preoccupied. The distant sun receding.

  Behind the glass of the cast-iron stove, the kindling flared, all at once, almost explosively. At the same time, he heard quick but clunky footsteps on the cobbles at the end of Church Street.

  Clogs. The clogs she wore in the house? Clack, clack on the stone flags in the kitchen, but never before clack, clack across the street.

  He didn’t wait for the knock. When he opened the door she was standing there like a waif in the dark, and he was sensing something on the other side of tears.

  *

  There’d been a big picture of this new Bishop in the Hereford Times. Large guy, fit-looking, solid and beaming. You’d have to say he looked honest, upfront, approachable.

  Lol was firing the wood-stove hard. Inevitably, he was thinking of the last but one Hereford bishop, smooth, handsome Mick Hunter, who had also been approachable and fit – went running in a purple tracksuit. Please, not again, not another one.

  ‘God, no,’ Merrily said from the sofa. ‘Nothing at all like Hunter. Twenty years married. Six kids.’

  ‘Six? Jane know?’

  The stove glass was rattling, bright orange radiance in the room. He’d switched off the lamps, for intimacy. Possibly.

  Merrily salvaged a smile. She was wearing jeans and an old grey cardigan. No dog collar, no cross. Lol was calmer now. Now that he knew, more or less, what this was about. Where it was coming from and that it didn’t seem to be connected with Khan, the dealer. Only the Church.

  Only. Yeah, right. He wanted to say it was OK, she didn’t need to take any of this crap. That things had changed, they could go away… somewhere… anywhere they wanted. And they could. Anything seemed possible now.

  … except neither of them wanted to. Certainly not him, after spending most of the summer fantasizing Ledwardine sunsets, Ledwardine dawns, his own bed, Merrily in it.

  ‘OK.’ He moved over to sit at her feet. ‘Why is he doing this?’

  Why is this big, beaming bastard pissing on my picnic?

  Merrily leaned forward, the stovelight in her eyes hinting at an anger which had to be better than the fog of mute desperation she’d brought in.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She flopped down, her arms draped loosely over Lol’s shoulders. ‘This is really not what I’d planned. Neither tonight nor last night. Last thing I wanted was to be sitting here talking about bloody theology. I wanted you to tell me… whatever it is.’

  He looked up into her eyes.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What you were going to tell me last night,’ she said. ‘Over the dinner we didn’t have?’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘What you probably didn’t want to say in front of Jane?’

  ‘It wasn’t that. I can say almost anything in front of Jane. I just thought you should… Anyway, it’ll wait.’ Lol crawled away to the hearth to slip the vent, lower the flames. Wood-stoves were like women. ‘What else did Huw say?’

  She told him instead how the Bishop had avoided her in the office. What Sophie had said later on the phone about the relieving of her burden. Lol looked up at her, shocked.

  ‘What does he want?’

  ‘He’s a modernizer. Represents a movement inside the Church that… I don’t know what he wants. Just what he clearly doesn’t want.’

  She told him the story of a woman called Ann Evans, who believed she was being menaced by her father’s spirit and was advised by Innes to see a psychiatrist.

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘No. Nor did she go back to the Church. Any church. Just carried on helping farmers with their accounts and then moved in with one for a while, but Huw doesn’t think it worked out. He talked to her on the phone as well, but she wouldn’t see him.’

  ‘Huw talk to Innes about it?’

  ‘Yes, well, he would, wouldn’t he? Innes shrugged it off. Needed to pull herself together. Be strong in the Lord. If she can’t deal with her own psychological phantoms, she isn’t fit to be ordained. No room for neurotics in the pulpit.’

  ‘So, in other words, he shafted her entire—’

  ‘See, I didn’t want to think that!’ Merrily throwing up her arms. ‘All the times I’ve been warned about people only to find they’ve been bad-mouthed by someone with an axe to grind. I mean, even Huw… even Huw’s not a saint. He has an ego, kind of.’

  ‘Has Innes done that to anyone else?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Her arms flopped. ‘Presumably. He wasn’t a deliverance minister for long. I think he just wanted to find out about the more primitive aspects of the Church, maybe with a view to… I don’t know. Huw sent me a link to several articles Innes wrote that you can find on the Net. One supporting the removal of references to the devil in the baptism service. Can’t have primitive superstition inflicted on babies. The Devil is a medieval term beyond which we’ve progressed. He likes that word “medieval”. Or rather doesn’t like it.’

  ‘They did that, didn’t they. Dropped the devil from baptism.’

  ‘He was surfing a tide. Riding the zeitgeist. The Devil had to go. Well, I’m not some kind of throwback, I hope, but I was unhappy about that. Were you here then, I can’t remember?’

  ‘I was still on tour. You talked about it on the phone. I probably didn’t realize the significance.’

  ‘It’s the fact that a baptism is also an exorcism. The old services reject the Devil and the deceit and corruption of evil. Now all we do is we “turn away from sin”. Hey, kids, let’s just look the other bloody way. Don’t worry your little heads about all that crap.’

  ‘Oh.’ Hadn’t seen her like this in a while. ‘So this is symbolic of how Innes feels about exorcism.’

  ‘We assume.’

  ‘And can he… if he wants to, can he actually wind it down, in his diocese? Or even…’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Somebody has to do it until they actually persuade some wimpy synod to abolish the whole thing.’

  ‘But that…’ Lol took a long breath. ‘… that means not necessarily you, right? He might want someone who thinks the Devil should be pensioned off.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Can he do that? Fire you?’

  She leaned back with her hands behind her head.

  ‘Firing a vicar is not easy. Even with good reason. An exorcist, however… See, I’m not licenced to be an exorcist. Nobody is. There’s nothing on paper. I’m doing a job for the Bishop.’

  ‘What’s that mean?’

  ‘Means that if you’re not officially there, then…’ Snap of the fingers. ‘Gone. Like that. Whenever he wants. He can replace me tomorrow, if he wants, with someone who thinks people convinced they’ve seen images of the dead are in need of Prozac.’

  ‘Shit,’ Lol said. ‘After everything you’ve been through?’

  ‘I’ve made mistakes, a whole pile of mistakes.’

  ‘Sure, but— How else do you get experience?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Without making mistakes.’

  He stared down at the rag rug. Merrily’s extra job, what Jane had called the Night Job… he hadn’t known her all that well when she’d first accepted it but he knew it wasn’t something she’d welcomed. He remembered that first winter, shock upon shock. Merrily, who knew nothing compared with what she knew now, having repeatedly to find the demarcation line between the rational and psychological and the stuff that even the clergy didn’t have to accept.

  Baptism of ice.

  ‘Everything you’ve learned, all the knowledge you’ve acquired,’ Lol said. ‘If h
e sacks you as his exorcist, he’ll just be throwing all that away.’

  ‘Lol, you’re not getting it, are you?’

  ‘That’s what he wants?’

  ‘Bin it.’ Merrily sagged into the sofa. ‘Anachronistic crap. Turn away. Turn the page.’

  Lol sat on the hearth next to the stove.

  ‘I’ve never seen you look so gutted.’

  The walls were furnace orange, stabbed by shadows, like a naive, picture-book hell. He’d wanted to ask her if she knew what was wrong with Jane, but he could hardly do that now.

  ‘I’m not very good company tonight,’ Merrily said. ‘I’ll get over it.’

  Part Two

  If we want to gauge aright the mind of the community… we must turn to the oral traditions, the institutions and practices of the peasant and the labourer. These are things the law barely recognizes. The Church frowns on them, ignores them or tolerates them as she tolerates Dissenters – with scorn and dislike, because she must. Yet they survive…

  E. Sidney Hartland.

  Introduction to Ella Mary’s Leather’s

  The Folklore of Herefordshire, 1912

  18

  A war

  SHE LEFT THE Freelander on bare ground at the dead end where a barbed-wire fence restrained the forestry. The temperature had dropped in the night, and the morning was raw. Had to happen sometime. She dragged out her Barbour for the first time this autumn but left the airline bag in the well behind the driving seat.

  Now where? Merrily stepped away from the car and looked around. The sky was bright but clouded. The air smelled of smoke. Crows were jeering from somewhere. To her left, a wooden footbridge crossed a brook before a steepening path wound up to where the ruins were partly caged by trees. Someone else’s tyre tracks curved away to the right, vanishing behind a thorn hedge, and she followed them up to the sign, less visible by day than it had been in the headlights: Cwmarrow Court.

  A short way up the track was a pair of gates – old wood faded to grey, Gothic loops overhung by thorn and holly trees – and a wooden mailbox hanging from a post like one of those gibbets from which dead crows used to be hung. As she walked over, pulling on her coat, a man in blue overalls and a stained wide-brimmed hat came through a gap between the trees.