by Phil Rickman
‘Mr Foley, first of all, as a member of The Baker Street League, I’d like to apologize for the way Kennedy treated you over the conference. I was very much looking forward to that.’
‘Yes,’ Ben admitted. ‘Quite a blow.’
‘The membership wasn’t consulted, of course. We’re treated like geriatrics most of the time. I may forget to pay my subscription next year, after this. However... I’ve been speaking to your manager – Mrs Craven? – and I think we may have an alternative proposition to put to you.’
Ben blinked. ‘The League?’
‘Not The League, I’m afraid. Our coffers may not be as deep as The League’s, but I hope we can strike a deal.’ Mrs Pollen placed her folded scarf in the cleft between Ellen Gethin’s alabaster waist and her praying hands. ‘Isn’t she adorable? Isn’t she proud?’
‘She’s got something,’ Antony agreed.
‘Sorry – this is Antony Largo, an old colleague of mine.’ Ben’s expression had sharpened, Jane noticed, at the word proposition. ‘We’ve been discussing some TV possibilities.’
‘So I hear.’ Mrs Pollen wore this soft, knowing smile, and Jane realized that her surprise arrival at the church had to be down to Natalie, the professional hotelier, plotting efficiently behind the reception desk to retrieve a situation which could put her out of a job. People I need to phone. Bookings to make. It had to have been Nat who’d told this woman about Kennedy’s brutal cancellation.
Jane guessed that Ben, too, had worked all this out. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Beth, but with so much happening I’m afraid I’ve rather forgotten...’
‘You haven’t forgotten anything, Mr Foley. Don’t fuss.’
‘Ben.’
‘Ben.’ Her figure might be light and wafery but her voice was low and warm and soothing, like dark coffee. ‘All you really need to remember is that, while I might be a member of The Baker Street League, I have a much more meaningful role with the White Company. And no... you aren’t expected to have heard of them either.’
‘One of Doyle’s books, surely?’ Antony said.
‘It’s an historical novel, of which he was enormously proud, about medieval mercenaries. And I suppose it is rather good. Arthur, as I’m sure you know, considered Holmes to be very much a secondary creation and always hoped to be recognized as a great historical novelist. As far as we’re concerned, though, the White Company was simply a phrase that came through repeatedly to our Mr Hardy, and it stuck. Which gratifies Arthur, although I’m afraid most of us haven’t even read it.’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t either,’ Ben said.
‘Mr Foley...’ Mrs Pollen placed a calming gloved hand on Ben’s arm. ‘That doesn’t matter.’
And the deal was done, more or less, right there in the cold blue Vaughan Chapel, silently witnessed by Ellen and Thomas. the White Company would hold their annual conference – or moot, as Beth Pollen called it – at the Stanner Hall Hotel in the week before Christmas, effectively replacing The Baker Street League’s original booking.
There would be more than twenty of them, including wives and husbands – not as many as The League and unlikely to spend as much on meat and drink, given that over half of them were vegetarians and too much drink was not encouraged, even over the festive season.
Like Ben cared, at this stage of the game – facing the cold-weather heating bills, the burst pipes and the need to keep the fridges stocked for the benefit of a handful of masochists who were into punishing winter walks and cold bedrooms. In the hollow of the night, he must surely have wondered if the Hound itself was out there somewhere, howling to herald the death of the Stanner Hall Hotel.
But now it was all turned around again. They discussed special terms, Ben meeting every suggestion with, ‘Absolutely – talk to Natalie about it.’ Knowing that Nat would organize the very best, most workable terms, leaving Ben to float around being entertaining and Amber to cook.
Antony Largo had been leaning against the wall between the tomb and the stained-glass window, arms folded, listening to the one-sided negotiations behind a foxy little smile which, it seemed to Jane, was fronting a deeper amusement.
‘So, Beth.’ Antony casually uncoiled from the wall. ‘the White Company... is what, exactly?’
Jane saw Ben throw him a look that said: Back off. She guessed that Ben, on the threshold of the bleak season, didn’t give a toss if the White Company was a society of rubber-fetishists, as long as they left a deposit.
Beth Pollen gave him a candid look. ‘I think you’ve already guessed, Mr Largo.’
‘But you could humour me.’
‘Well... the society was officially formed in 1980 – the fiftieth anniversary of Arthur’s passing.’
‘Arthur’s passing. Ah Beth, you’re dropping wee clues the whole time.’
‘Well, of course I am.’
Ben said, ‘Antony, would you please—’
‘No, no...’ Mrs Pollen lifted a hand. ‘It was originally called The Windlesham Society, after Arthur’s much-loved last home in Sussex. It wasn’t terribly well supported in the early days, and many of the members were rather elderly and found it increasingly difficult to get to meetings. After a few years, it faded virtually out of existence. And then, about six years ago, Alistair Hardy, of whom you might have heard...? A fellow Scot?’
‘Big country, Beth,’ Antony said.
‘I’m sorry. We do tend to think that because someone’s eminent in our particular field he must be a household name. Alistair’s a very well-known trance-medium from Edinburgh. His spirit guide, at the time, was Dr Joseph Bell, who, if you recall—’
‘Doyle’s tutor at Edinburgh University medical school. Impressed young Arthur with his incredible deductive skills, thus becoming the prototype for Holmes himself. Arguably a useful guy to have as your spirit guide.’
Ben whispered, ‘You’re spiritualists?’
Jane had to laugh.
Mrs Pollen said, ‘Approximately six years ago, Dr Bell communicated to Alistair Hardy that a friend and former student of his was most anxious to find an enlightened audience because he didn’t feel his work here was complete.’
‘Now, I wonder who that would be,’ Antony said.
Beth Pollen merely raised an eyebrow at him. ‘In the last years of his life, Arthur’s beliefs were derided. But let’s not forget that when it was introduced in the West in Victorian times, spiritism was considered a science and had enormous credibility. When Arthur first applied to join the Society for Psychical Research, in 1893, its president-elect was Arthur Balfour, who would later become Prime Minister.’
‘Did I know that?’ Antony wondered. ‘I don’t believe I did.’
‘New technology was rampant. If we could pull voices from the air into a radio set, capture images on film, how long before we would all be seeing and talking to the dead?’ Mrs Pollen made a wry face. ‘By the twenties, we had commercial aircraft, phones, cinema, but spiritism wasn’t felt to have come up with the goods, so it was considered a crank fad. Everyone’s idea of a medium was Madame Arcati from Noel Coward. So it’s quite reasonable to suppose that Arthur was biding his time.’
Jane thought, And she seemed such a balanced woman.
‘The way you always refer to him as Arthur,’ Antony said, ‘suggests...’
‘An affection. He’s our patron, after all.’
‘You’re all spiritualists?’
‘We’re all spiritists, but we’re not all mediums, if that’s what you’re asking – I’m not. Essentially, we’re a group of people committed to furthering the work which occupied a good twenty years of a fine man’s life.’
‘He was – how should I put this? – a somewhat credulous man,’ Antony said, avoiding Ben’s agitated gaze.
‘Not as credulous as his critics would have us believe, Mr Largo. He fought two elections. He campaigned on behalf of the wrongly convicted. He was a passionate, liberal-minded man who constantly questioned his own beliefs and fought again
st injustice the whole of his adult life. His only flaw – if that’s how you want to regard it – was a desire to offer hope.’
Nobody spoke for a few seconds. Mrs Pollen turned away and spread her scarf over Ellen Gethin’s face, as if she wanted to protect her from cold scepticism.
‘Aye, OK, I’ll buy that, Beth.’ Antony leaned back against the wall. ‘I’m just no’ gonnae ask, if you don’t mind, under what circumstances Conan Doyle became your patron.’
The short drive back to Stanner started in silence, Antony lounging against the passenger door of the MG, chewing his lip and watching Ben drive with one hand on the wheel and his hair flowing behind him. Ben’s expression was so bland that Jane knew there had to be frantic action behind it. Which was understandable because, like, Jesus...
Coming up to the bypass Antony said, unsmiling, ‘My friend, if this is a set-up, I think it would be wise if you were to tell me right... now.’
Ben didn’t look at Antony. Jane had the impression he’d been expecting this.
‘We go back, pal.’ The open cuff of Antony’s denim jacket rolled back along a muscular forearm and his forefinger came up like a knife. ‘But not far enough that I wouldnae—’
He grabbed at the dash as Ben spun the MG into the side of the road, then up onto the grass, hitting the brakes hard and tossing Jane all over the small back seat.
‘Sorry about that, Jane.’ Ben took both hands from the wheel and half turned, as if offering his heart to Antony’s blade. ‘Look, I’ll say this once. Until half an hour ago all the White Company meant to me was a Boys’ Own adventure story that I had no particular wish to read.’
‘You’ll forgive me,’ Antony said, ‘for thinking it was all a wee bit lucky from your point of view.’
‘It was quite awesomely serendipitous, but I’m telling you I knew nothing about it.’
This is Natalie, Jane thought, sliding back into the narrow rear seat, saying nothing, holding down her excitement. Nat arranged for all this to be unveiled in front of Antony, and whatever you’re paying her it isn’t enough.
‘You wanted a contemporary dynamic,’ Ben said. ‘Now you’ve got one... and some.’
‘And you think they’d play ball? All the way?’
‘You came bloody close to asking her, matey. I was nearly soiling myself with anxiety.’
‘I’m no’ quite that stupid,’ Antony said. ‘I realize that to appear too eager at this stage would not be the thing.’
‘No.’ Ben leaned back into his bucket seat. ‘Even I couldn’t have dreamed up a woman with both a personal axe to grind against Neil Kennedy and a desire to prove – if only because she happens to live in this area – that The Hound begins on the Border. And to set it up for us like— I mean, you can see it, can’t you? To think I was originally going to offer you, as a frame, the tired old Baker Street League debating the origins of The Hound. Jesus.’
‘When all you needed,’ Antony said, ‘was for someone to... ask Arthur.’
‘It’s what they do, Antony. It’s what they bloody well do.’
‘So we’re looking at this Alistair Hardy, who has the temerity to claim Dr Joseph Bell as his spirit guide?’
‘Seems like it.’
‘At Stanner.’
‘You heard what I heard.’ Ben slid the gearstick into second and drove back onto the bypass.
‘And you think they’d let us shoot it? All of it? Like, they’re no’ gonnae give us any of this privacy’s crucial to the success of the operation kind of bullshit?’
‘Are you kidding? Listen. Some months after Doyle’s death in 1930, more than five thousand people attended a memorial seance at the Royal Albert Hall, during which a chair was left empty for him – how private was that?’
‘And did he, um, manifest?’
‘They had a well-known medium called Estelle Roberts. And Doyle’s widow Jean was on the stage. Great formal occasion, everyone in evening dress. A sign on the empty chair simply read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Lady Jean was seated next to it – though she admitted she didn’t expect to turn round and see him.’
‘Shucks.’
‘However, Estelle Roberts began the proceedings by describing several spirits present in the hall, and their identities were confirmed by members of the audience.’
‘Plants, Benjamin.’ Antony sniffed. ‘Mediums work with more plants than Alan bloody Titchmarsh.’
‘Antony, I’m not making a case for the veracity of it, I’m simply applauding the clever building of dramatic tension. Sure, a few dozen people were unconvinced, and some of them just walked out – to the evident dismay of Mrs Roberts, who started complaining that she couldn’t work under these conditions. Then somebody started playing the organ to drown out the, ah, sounds of dissent. And then, just when it looked as if it might all be falling apart, the medium suddenly shouted out’ – Ben raising his voice against the buffeting air – ‘He is here!’
They rounded a bend in the bypass, and the wooded face of Stanner Rocks was up ahead, with those knobs of stone projecting like crumbling body parts.
‘And there was old Arthur in the chair,’ Antony said, ‘placidly smoking his pipe.’
‘Well, the medium claimed to have seen him. She described him as being in full evening dress, and striding with his old vigour across the stage to take his reserved seat.’
‘Always keep ’em waiting.’
‘Mrs Roberts said Arthur gave her a message for Lady Jean, which she promptly passed on. Unfortunately it was drowned out by a dramatic fanfare from the organist and nobody in the audience – don’t, Antony, do not say a word – nobody in the audience heard it. But Jean maintained for the rest of her life that she was utterly convinced by its content that the message had come from her husband. Make of that what you will.’
‘Doesn’t matter, does it?’ Antony said as they slowed for the hotel drive. ‘Doesnae matter at all.’
‘Not a toss.’
They glanced at one another and they both smiled.
‘Well, I think I’m coming, Ben,’ Antony said. ‘I think I’m nearly there, pal.’
‘Not in front of Jane, Antony.’ Ben pushed the MG between the grey gateposts topped by damaged hounds. ‘Wait till you get to your room.’
And they both started laughing, big mates again, schoolboys. His room? Was this some in-joke? She was not unaware that Ben had never mentioned the room where Antony had slept or asked him if he’d experienced anything – at least not in her hearing.
Jane leaned back against the hard rear seat and wondered why she wasn’t joining in. Ben glanced very briefly back at her and then at Antony, and she knew that look from a long time ago. It was like, pas devant les enfants. She looked quickly away from them, up through the strobing of light and pines to the turreted profile of Baskerville Hall.
‘And then I’ll tell you the rest,’ Ben murmured to Antony. ‘And that’ll really bring you off. Pal.’
10
Serious Requiem
‘YOU SOUND LIKE you badly need to talk,’ Sophie Hill had said when Merrily phoned.
Jeavons was right, she was an open book.
The lights were on in the gatehouse when she drove under it. Alongside, the sandstone Cathedral was crouching like a big ginger cat in the rusting remains of some late sunshine. In the office, Sophie had the kettle on. Most Saturday afternoons she’d go into the gatehouse office to sweep up the remains of the week.
‘What was he like?’
‘Bewildering.’ Merrily sat down at the desk by the window. ‘Enigmatic. Worryingly perceptive.’
‘You liked him?’
‘He has... charm.’ She gazed through the window into Broad Street, where the street lights were coming on, along with chains of coloured bulbs newly hung across the road, although Christmas was still no more than a threat.
Sophie poured boiling water into the white teapot. ‘I did some research. So far this year, six ministers in the diocese have made inquiries about the possibility of hold
ing healing services. I spoke to three of them. One said, “I think we should be seen to be doing something.” Another stressed he wanted nothing to do with Deliverance.’
‘Figures.’ Merrily’s attempt to set up a Deliverance Advisory Group was still in the tray marked ongoing. Some of them quite obviously didn’t want to know because she was a woman. A month ago, after consulting her over the phone about certain technicalities, one rector had gone off and set up his own small group – all male – to deal with an alleged presence at a village shop. They’d never told her what had happened.
‘Another one,’ Sophie said, ‘volunteered to be involved in any healing initiative if there was someone else to lead it. And as long as it wasn’t – and I quote – “anyone like Jeavons”. Sometimes one has to acknowledge that the clergy, as a profession, can be rather dispiriting.’
Sophie wore her mauve twinset. Her hair was white. In a dog collar she would cut a reassuring figure, but it would never happen; Sophie knew too much about the Church.
Merrily got out her cigarettes. ‘There were some things I hadn’t realized about Jeavons. It came out when he told me about the death of his wife, and why he couldn’t heal her... and yet might have, if he’d known then what he knows now.’
Sophie turned off the main ceiling lights, switched on the desk lamp and set the teapot down between Merrily and herself.
‘Go on.’
They actually went upstairs together, Ben and Antony – up the red carpet that Ben had bought instead of rewiring or a damp-proof course. Jane thought they looked like two kids who’d found a porn cache.
She found Natalie putting up Christmas lights in the cocktail bar, a room not yet fully Victorianized. It had pale green walls and colonial cane tables and fake oak beams across the ceiling, supporting nothing.
‘So how long have you known about Mrs Pollen?’ Jane said.
Nat was standing on the bar itself, arranging the lights between steel hooks projecting from the oak beam over it. ‘Why are these bastards not coming on?’