The Prayer of the Night Shepherd (MW6)

by Phil Rickman

  Merrily sometimes caught a frightening image of herself in twenty years’ time. It was in sepia: this small, monklike person in the bottom left-hand corner of the huge old vicarage, hunched over the desk. Dark. Chilly. Cramped. Very much alone.

  She saw it quite often these days. Sometimes it was so detailed, and yet so stark, that it was almost like an engraving.

  That night, building a fire of apple logs in the sitting-room inglenook, Jane said, ‘You don’t make fires like this when I’m not here, do you? Like last weekend, for instance.’

  ‘I was busy.’

  ‘I think you probably didn’t come in here even once. I could almost smell the damp.’

  ‘Saturday night, I wrote the sermon. Sunday night, we had the service and then the Prossers came to tell me about Ann-Marie. Wasn’t really worth it afterwards.’

  The paper and the kindling flared yellow. Jane, on the hearthrug in her jeans and an overstretched white sweater, looked like a little girl again. Seventeen now – scary.

  ‘It’s just...’ The kid positioned a small log over a mesh of thorny kindling. ‘I like this job. I like Stanner Hall. You get to meet people – different kinds of people. I just don’t like to think of you all alone here. Like everywhere dark, except the kitchen and the scullery.’

  ‘I’ve got the cat. And, of course—’

  ‘Let’s keep Him out of this,’ Jane snapped. ‘The point is, in under two years I’ll probably be gone, whether it’s university or... whatever. But I might be gone for like... for good. And you’ll be kind of lodged down in that scullery like the last Jelly Baby in the jar, writing your sermons into the empty night.’

  Actually, it was going to bed that was the worst time: putting out the bedside light, knowing that the attic apartment directly above you was empty. Thinking of all the empty rooms and all the people who had been and gone. Jane’s dad, long gone. Jane’s dad – that was how she thought of Sean now, as though Jane was the best thing he’d done in his foreshortened, corrupted life.

  Biting her lip, she stood over Jane and bent and kneaded the kid’s shoulders. ‘Two years is still a long time.’

  ‘I used to think that, but it isn’t.’ Jane looked up at her. ‘You’ll be nearly forty then. Have you even thought about that?’

  ‘Too old for sex?’

  Jane pulled away. ‘Stop it.’

  ‘It was a joke. How are things at the hotel?’

  ‘Don’t change the subject. You’re here in this mausoleum, on your own every weekend, and Lol’s twenty miles away with no real home at all, and he can’t get near half the time because of appearances and the Church and all that hypocritical bollocks. I mean, if you were gay – if you were a lesbian – nobody would—’ Jane broke off, blushing, probably remembering a certain misunderstanding.

  ‘And there’s the question of restarting Lol’s career,’ Merrily said. ‘The album out in March, the chance of a tour...’

  The kid smiled maliciously. ‘And groupies.’

  ‘Do they have groupies any more?’

  ‘Just trying to inflame the situation. Groupies and Lol doesn’t arise.’ Jane looked up again, an apple glow on her face. ‘But you have to do something soon. Face it, most people know about you and him now, anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, but cohabiting in the vicarage might just be a step too far. And I don’t think he’d want that anyway. Now that he’s finding his feet.’

  ‘You’re so... unimpulsive. You piss me off sometimes.’

  ‘It’s what I’m here for,’ Merrily said.

  Later, just before nine, she left Jane in front of the TV and slipped away to the scullery. On the blue blotter on her desk, next to the sermon pad, was a folded copy of the property section of the Hereford Times. Just above the fold, an advert, encircled, said:

  LEDWARDINE

  Church Street – exquisite small, terraced

  house, Grade Two listed, close to the centre

  of this sought-after village.

  It could be the answer. Tomorrow, she’d call the agent. Tonight, she lifted the phone and tapped in the number of Canon Llewellyn Jeavons.

  So he was mad. Maybe she could use some of that.

  4

  The Room Under the Witch’s-Hat Tower

  THE PINES WERE matt black against the blood-orange sky when Jane was walking up the hotel drive. Friday, late afternoon, and here it came again – that shivery anticipation, her senses honed as sharp as the air, as the cold tide of night swept in towards the Border.

  The Border. It was right here. She could actually be standing on it now. The hotel was in England, but the rocks it was named after were in Wales. And here, where the track divided, was where it all coalesced in a burst of sunset.

  Letting her school case and her overnight bag slip to the ground, Jane stopped at the fork. The independent working woman, on the Border.

  Two witches’-hat towers were prodding up between the ragged pines. Stanner Hall was Victorian Gothic, therefore more lavishly Gothic than the original. And from this distance, at least, it looked like it belonged here, if only as a piece of skyline, on the Border. And the Border, like all borders, was more than just a political division; it was about magic and transformation, a zone out of time where things normally unseen might, for tiny, bright moments, become visible.

  Some part of Jane felt this to be true and responded to it. Christianity would be like, Turn away from the dark... shun the numinous... take no pleasure in the nearness of other spheres. Which was why Jane reckoned that she was always going to be a pagan at the core. OK, maybe she’d mellowed a little towards Mum’s faith, but it didn’t go far enough. It had no sense of place. This was the holy land.

  Looking up the left-hand stony track that led to the top of the mysterious Stanner Rocks, she stood for a moment, feeling the night beating in like heavy, downy wings. Then she picked up her bags and took the right-hand path between the gateposts of Stanner Hall, these sculpted stone buttresses against the trespassing woods. Most of a foxhound was preserved on the top of the left-hand post, its muzzle pointing rigidly at the sky as if it was about to begin howling. On the right-hand post only the paws remained. Nothing here was completely intact. The sign at the bottom still said STANNER HALL HOTE

  Are we talking about The Hound of the Baskervilles? Voices from last Sunday. Rather disappointed that none of this came up during the weekend.

  ‘... That, ah, probably deserves more than a single weekend.’

  Can of worms... can of worms...

  Well, she’d read The Hound of the Baskervilles years ago when she was quite young. Hadn’t liked it much, always managed to avoid the films on TV. At school, when she’d raised the issue, Clancy had said, ‘Yeah, I think there’s some local connection,’ but she didn’t seem interested.

  Tonight, Jane and Clancy had come off the school bus at the usual junction, at the end of the Kington bypass, but Clancy had gone off down the Gladestry road, to the farm. Clancy said her mum was coming down heavy on the subject of homework – like, it had to be done on Friday night or the kid didn’t get out on Saturday. Changing schools so often, she’d fallen behind, and this was her last chance to pull back. So Jane had been seeing more of Clancy’s mum than Clancy and now, when she lugged her bags into the courtyard of Stanner Hall, here was Natalie, leaning against the open kitchen door, massaging a mug of coffee.

  ‘Hi, Jane.’

  This warm, pithy voice travelling easily across the darkening yard. It was a voice that Jane imagined blokes finding very sexy. Nat, too. She was quite tall and supple, with high pointy breasts inside her black jumper. She had dense, shaggy hair, the colour of dark tobacco, and she was... well, very beautiful, in this enviably careless way.

  ‘Clan has gone home, Jane?’

  ‘She was certainly heading that way.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Nat said doubtfully.

  Clancy had shown up for the first time at the beginning of this term. She was only about a year younger than Jane, but actually two year
s behind her at school – which, not surprisingly, had left her isolated, with no real friends. Jane, who knew what it was like being the new kid, had realized that Clancy’s situation must be a whole lot worse, having to take lessons with little children. She’d gone out of her way to talk to Clancy at lunchtimes, and they’d become mates, kind of. Which was what had led, indirectly, to the offer of regular weekend work at the hotel where Clancy’s mother was receptionist, barmaid and the person who made this joint seem halfway professional.

  Nursing her mug for warmth, Natalie came out into the yard, smiling in a bruised kind of way and raising her eyes to the purpling sky.

  ‘Like the Fall of fucking Troy in there today, Jane.’

  The earthy talk was one of Nat’s contradictions. Treated her own daughter like a kid and was old-fashioned about stuff like bedtimes and homework and pubs, but she’d address Jane like a real mate, a colleague. Nat had clearly been around, and not only in hotels and restaurants.

  ‘Unexpected guests?’ Jane looked over at the car park and saw Jeremy’s old Daihatsu 4×4, which Nat must be using, and Ben’s MG, and that was all.

  ‘If only,’ Nat said.

  The letter was crinkly and discoloured, and some of the print had smudged. Amber flattened it out on the baronial island unit, slid it across to Jane and switched on the halogen spotlights.

  ‘I had to dry it on the stove. Ben threw it in the sink on his way out.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jane looked at the letter but didn’t pick it up. ‘It’s OK to...?’

  ‘Please do,’ Amber said. ‘Otherwise you’ll spend the rest of the night wondering why he’s drinking too much and smashing things. Anyway, you’re one of us now.’

  Jane felt a grateful blush coming on. She picked up the letter. It was printed on what she guessed to be very expensive, fine-quality vellum, and it was brief and kind of shocking.

  The Baker Street League

  Dear Foley,

  As expected, the management committee of The League has confirmed my decision in regard to its annual conference and the Stanner Hall Hotel.

  I was mildly diverted to hear of your intention to develop the link between the hotel, Doyle and The Hound. However, as the majority of my members firmly reject this theory, they did not feel it would be appropriate to associate the name of The League with your establishment.

  Sincerely,

  pp Dr N.P. Kennedy,

  Hon. Secretary.

  Jane let the letter fall to the island unit. ‘PP? And it’s not even signed by anybody. That’s like... deliberately insulting, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, it’s... probably just careless.’ Amber’s doll-like face was squashed-in with strain, her hair pushed back over her high forehead.

  ‘Amber, the bastard blatantly led Ben to think you were going to get the conference. I heard him.’

  Natalie pushed the letter away with a forefinger. ‘He was hardly going to say that to Ben’s face, was he?’

  ‘Yeah, but he...’ Jane felt personally hurt, remembering the way that Ben had forced himself to smarm the guy. That’s terrific, Neil.

  ‘Perhaps Kennedy had pressures we don’t know about,’ Amber said. ‘There’s nothing we can do, anyway.’

  ‘You did say Ben knew other members of this outfit, though, didn’t you? Maybe he can find out what the real reason is.’

  ‘That probably is the real reason, Jane. They don’t believe the story. They think we’re pulling some scam.’

  Jane sat down on a wooden stool. ‘I don’t really understand what that’s about – The Hound of the Baskervilles. When I read the book, it was set in Devon.’

  ‘Dartmoor.’ Amber leaned over her corner of the island, elbows on a double oven glove with burn marks on it.

  ‘The Grimpen Mire.’ Jane shuddered. In the book, a wild pony had been sucked to its death in the bog; she’d hated reading that. She’d probably been about twelve. She’d hated what happened to the hound, too. She might have wept at the time. And, anyway, it was all a con. You were led to believe it was going to be supernatural, and it wasn’t. ‘So like, is there some suggestion that Conan Doyle wrote it here?’

  Amber shook her head. ‘Not exactly. The story hangs on the legend of a ghostly hound which is a sign of death for the Baskerville family. So, OK, there was a Baskerville family in this area. Long-established, wealthy... They had a castle or something at Eardisley, which is only about six miles up the road. And there’s a pub called the Baskerville Arms over at Clyro, which is just over the other side of Brilley Mountain.’

  ‘And did they have a ghostly hound?’

  ‘No, but the Vaughan family did. They lived at Hergest Court, which is only a mile or so away from here, across the valley. There was a hound that was supposed to mean death for someone in the family if it was seen. And it has been seen. Apparently. Over the years.’

  ‘To this day?’

  Amber shrugged. ‘There are no Vaughans left now. Anyway, Conan Doyle is supposed to have been related to either the Baskervilles or the Vaughans – maybe both, I don’t remember – and it’s believed that he stayed here, in this house, to research the story. Or he heard it while he was staying here. Or something.’

  Jane was impressed. If this was true it was well worth all Ben’s efforts. ‘But why would Conan Doyle switch the story to Devon?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Amber said. ‘As Kennedy says in his letter, a lot of Holmes enthusiasts reject the Welsh Border theory entirely, because there’s also a Devon legend that fits. Maybe Doyle liked the name Baskerville enough to want to use it but didn’t want to implicate the actual family, so he set the novel somewhere where there aren’t any obvious Baskervilles.’

  Jane thought of the stone hounds on the Stanner Hall gateposts. ‘Did the Baskervilles have anything to do with this house?’

  ‘Not that we know of. It was built by a family called Chancery. It must have been fairly new at the time the book came out in 1902. But it was built to look historic, so maybe it gave Conan Doyle an idea of what he wanted. I mean, it certainly looks more like the Baskerville Hall he describes in the book than Hergest Court does. Just a farmhouse now.’

  ‘Honey, it’s how novelists work,’ Natalie said. ‘You take a bit of this, bit of that, and muddle it all up so that there are no comebacks.’

  Jane recalled something else. ‘A woman brought it up at the murder weekend. She wanted Ben to talk about it, but he hinted he was saving it.’

  ‘Well, of course he was,’ Amber said. ‘He was saving it for the annual conference of The Baker Street League. The plan was that Ben would get The League to endorse the evidence that this place is quite possibly the real Baskerville Hall, and then we’d start publicizing it. And, at the same time, Antony—’

  There was a loud clink and a muted splash. Natalie had tossed a soup ladle into one of the sinks. She stood with her hands on her narrow hips, annoyed.

  ‘It’s all my fault. If I’d bothered to check out Kennedy on the Net before Ben had invited him, we’d all have realized that, as he was born in bloody Tavistock, he might not have been an ardent supporter of the theory that The Hound had sod-all to do with Devon.’

  ‘How much does all this matter?’ Jane asked.

  ‘You can’t do all his thinking for him, Nat,’ Amber said. ‘He gets an idea and he’s off. Doesn’t do his homework. He didn’t even know Kennedy had scotched the Herefordshire theory in at least two of his own books.’ She turned to Jane. ‘Dartmoor gets a lot of Hound-related tourism – Americans, Japanese. It’s like King Arthur in Cornwall: they don’t exactly want to share it.’

  Jane gazed around the vast kitchen. The high windows were full of pine tops and dark purple dusk. It wasn’t very warm in here.

  ‘What will you do now?’

  Amber shrugged. ‘Ben’s still desperately trying to get hold of Antony, to put him off for a couple of weeks while he rethinks everything. He won’t give up. He can’t. We’ve very little money left, and if we sell up now we sell at a loss.
’

  ‘Who’s Antony?’

  ‘What?’ Amber closed her eyes, opened them and blinked a few times, shaking her head despairingly. ‘Sorry. Sorry, Jane, I thought you knew about that. Antony Largo. Old mate of Ben’s from Beeb days. Independent producer, documentaries. There’s a series that his outfit’s putting together for Channel Four, called Punching the Clock, about successful people hitting hard times and having to make a new start in mid-life. So Antony approaches Ben, and Ben tells him to stuff it – I mean, he refuses to think of himself as being in mid-life, for a start. It’s always the beginning for Ben.’

  Jane smiled. It was one of the aspects of Ben she most approved of.

  ‘But it started him thinking,’ Amber said, ‘and he told Antony about his plans to pinch a piece of the Sherlock Holmes tourist trade, and now he’s half-sold him on the idea of a separate documentary on all of that. Which would have launched the whole thing nationally – brought us a lot of publicity for the hotel and some sort of fee, presumably.’

  ‘Also,’ Nat said, ‘the crew would have to stay somewhere, so that would tide us over the lean period before Christmas.’

  Amber looked doubtful. ‘Crews aren’t what they used to be. It’s usually one person with a Handycam from Boots. And they’d have been doing most of their filming during the conference of The Baker Street League, when we’d be full up anyway. But that... obviously doesn’t apply any more. We’re stuffed.’

  She picked up the double oven glove and slid her hands into it and covered her eyes. Jane wasn’t sure if this was a comic gesture or concealment of actual tears. She imagined Ben telling Amber about the idyllic country-house hotel he’d found for them: open log fires, big, warm, traditional kitchen where she could work her magic. Cosy and romantic. Amber not realizing then that Ben’s idea of romance was a howling in the night and a fiery hound on the moors.