by Eva Hudson
She got to her feet, threw Rennie’s books in his backpack, and grabbed the raincoat out of the closet. She was about to leave the room when she stopped, slapping her forehead for her stupidity.
“Duh!”
She turned, slumped down onto the bed and got out her phone. She googled ‘Russian Orthodox’ and ‘Spitalfields’ but didn’t even wait for the results to load before deleting ‘Spitalfields’ and replacing it with ‘Burnham-on-Crouch.’ The first return was for a website dedicated to ‘Father Silouan.’
It was an odd name, but slightly familiar. Silouan, she dimly recalled, was the name of an Orthodox saint. She kept scrolling. Near the bottom of the screen a link caught her eye. ‘Father Silouan has been the hermit at Bench Farm in Essex for over thirteen years…”
She clicked again and blinked several times at the website of a religious community. She felt such an urgency she couldn’t take in what she was staring at, her eyes darting from one bit of the poorly designed web page to another. There was a ‘contact us’ button. Ingrid clicked on it.
The address of Bench Farm was Holymeoak Road, Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex.
Her mouth fell open. Shivers swept over her skin. There was no way that was a coincidence.
“Jen?” she said, forgetting where she was.
Ingrid breathed rapidly. She needed her bike. She had to get to Burnham-on-Crouch quickly. A fire burned beneath her sternum. She had no idea where her motorcycle key was. She wasn’t even sure she’d seen it since the fire.
If she couldn’t use the bike, she needed a car. She dialed the embassy switchboard.
“Can you put me through to the garage, please.”
Ingrid studied the website again to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.
“Vehicle services.”
“This is Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg with the legal attaché program.” Her mouth was dry. “I need a car. Do you have one available?”
“You require a driver, ma’am?”
“No, just the vehicle.”
“For how many passengers?”
“One.”
“Let me check.” He put her on hold and her heart thundered. “We can have a Subaru Outback ready for you in ten minutes.”
“I’ll be right there.”
56
Ingrid had punched Holymeoak Lane into the Subaru’s satnav, but it had come up with ‘destination not recognized.’ When she got to Burnham-on-Crouch, the lights were still on in the Current Bun café, so she went in to ask for directions.
The windows were obscured with condensation, and the air was redolent with freshly ground coffee beans. The place only had two other customers. Cyclists in wet-weather gear poring over a map. The woman with curly hair she’d spoken to on her first visit was behind the counter. They exchanged smiles.
“Hi,” Ingrid said.
“We’ve not got much left,” the woman said. “We close in twenty minutes.”
Ingrid looked at the cakes displayed under glass domes. “In that case, I’ll take a piece of that ginger cake to go.”
The woman lifted a glass dome and tonged a slice of cake into a paper bag. Ingrid checked the time. It was nearly seven o’clock.
“I’m after directions,” Ingrid said. “I’m looking for a place called Bench Farm on Holymeoak Lane, but it’s not in my satnav. Have you heard of it?”
“Well, first off, you’re saying it wrong. It’s Holly-me-oak, and it’s about a mile out of town that way.” She put the paper bag on the counter. “There’s an old-fashioned red phone box and a fingerpost, but there’s no road name.”
“Fingerpost?” There were some Britishisms Ingrid would never get.
“Like one of them road signs that tells you where to go. With the names of villages on it.”
“Thanks. You don’t remember me, do you?”
She tilted her head to one side. “No, sorry, love.”
“I was in here with a colleague about three weeks ago. I work at the US Embassy. In London.”
“Oh, sure, that rings a bell.” She wiped over the counter.
“Not sure if you’d recall, but we showed you some photos of a man we thought had been in here.”
“Yeah, that’s it. You were being right mysterious. Thought we was in an episode of Law and Order.”
Ingrid pulled out her phone and scrolled for the traffic camera images. “I’m searching for an updated photo, but we know now he had a long beard. Like ZZ Top.”
“You’re showing your age.”
Ingrid smiled. She didn’t know who ZZ Top were, but had learned it was a way of describing a man without mentioning ethnicity or religion. “Here you go.” She held out her phone for the woman.
“You didn’t show this to us last time, did you?”
“No, we didn’t have it then.”
“Is that outside here?”
“There’s a camera on the traffic lights.”
“Thought it looked familiar.” She handed the phone back to Ingrid. “So every time I come into work, I’m caught on camera?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“It’s bleeding Big Brother, innit?”
“So you recognize him?”
The woman tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, see him in here now and then. Not often, but with that beard, he kind of sticks in your memory banks somehow.”
“So he’s local?”
She shook her head. “Doubt it. Got an accent. Couldn’t tell you which though cos he doesn’t say much.” She placed the coffee and cake in front of Ingrid. “That’ll be… two pound forty, please.”
Ingrid dug into her pants pocket and pulled out a crumpled fiver. “Cake looks great.”
“We got a French girl who works here. She does the baking. Says she’ll go home after Brexit.”
“Better enjoy it while I can, then.” The woman handed her the change, and Ingrid dropped fifty pence into the tip jar.
“He’s probably one of the monks. Or one of the pilgrims. It’s hard to tell them apart.”
“Monks?”
“Oh, I thought you knew. When you asked about Bench Farm. It’s a monastery. Or at least that’s what we call it in the village.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “I don’t think it’s a proper religion.”
Ingrid wasn’t about to explain Russian Orthodoxy’s place in Christianity. “And you say pilgrims visit this monastery?”
“Yeah, I think there’s meant to be some holy man up there. Probably just a man behind a curtain, if you get my drift.”
Ingrid knew enough about the Orthodox church to know pilgrims always took gifts.
“I know you’re closing, but can I still buy groceries?”
“Knock yourself out.”
Ingrid surveyed the shelves constructed to look like farmers’ crates, of unwaxed citrus fruit, misshapen root vegetables and homemade jams. She selected a liter bottle of olive oil from Greece and took it to the counter.
“That all?”
“Yes.”
“Eleven ninety-five, please.”
Ingrid found her bank card and swiped the terminal. “Thank you. So, Bench Farm? About a mile that way?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Just look out for the phone box. And turn immediately left.”
“Thank you.” She grabbed the door handle.
“If he comes in again, you want me to pass on a message?”
“That’s very kind, but I’ll hopefully find him tonight.”
Ingrid walked back to the embassy’s Subaru, pulling up the hood of Rennie’s rain jacket to shield her from the biting breeze. She needed to add a beanie and gloves to her shopping list. It didn’t take long to find Holymeoak Lane, and she crawled along the narrow single-track road, looking for Bench Farm. The road was enclosed by woodland, creating a feeling of seclusion. Or isolation.
Raindrops fell on the windshield. The first lever she tried turned on the indicators. The second started a slow swipe that smeared her vision. She leaned forward, hoping for a sign she was
in the right place. Something in the road startled her. She slammed on the brakes just in time to see the hind legs of a fox disappear into the undergrowth. She checked the rearview mirror. It was completely black. No streetlights. No headlights. She felt very alone.
After a couple of hundred yards, she came to an open five-bar gate. On the gatepost was a modest plaque. She slowed to read it and made out the word ‘Bench.’ She turned onto a rutted mud track. Tire tracks stretched out through a wet field of grass. Over a ridge were the faint lights of a building a few hundred yards away.
The rain got heavier. She switched up the wiper blades and peered through the gloom. It was so dark she couldn’t make out the shape of the monastery, so she just kept heading towards the lights, frequently slowing to navigate the pitted path.
She came to a collection of buildings made up of a stable block, a barn and a small cottage. It didn’t fit her definition of a monastery, but she parked up next to the stables, where a carriage light illuminated a gravel parking lot. She killed the engine and listened. The only noise was the rain on the metal roof.
She reached for the olive oil, opened the driver’s door and stepped out into the night.
57
Ingrid stood under the carriage light and knocked on the stable door. No answer. The rain was making her hands slippery and she risked dropping the olive oil.
There was a light on in an upstairs window of the cottage. Her footfalls crunched into the gravel as she plowed her way over the driveway toward it. From her new vantage point she spotted an enormous satellite dish behind the barn. The sort you might need if you were searching for extraterrestrial life. She rapped hard on the cottage door.
Hearing something, she turned quickly and saw a man with an umbrella running toward the stables. He was even less suitably dressed than her in chinos, loafers and a pullover.
“Hello,” she said.
Either he didn’t hear her over the rain or he ignored her.
“Zdravstvujtye?” she repeated in Russian.
He let himself into the stable block and disappeared inside. She ran after him as the rain rivered over her jacket. Water was already seeping in through the seams.
She knocked again. “Hello?”
She knocked louder.
The door opened. “Hi,” she said.
“Who are you?” He spoke brusquely with a heavy Russian accent.
“I am looking for the hermit,” Ingrid said in Russian. “I am looking for Father Silouan.”
He cast a disapproving eye over her, seemingly oblivious to the fact she was getting soaked. “Where have you come from?”
She could do without the inquisition. “London.”
“You are in the wrong place.” He nodded in the direction of the cottage.
“I knocked there.” Behind him, the stables had strip lighting and colored lines on the floor like a basketball court. She spied two banks of empty desks. “There was no answer.”
“No, beyond. You must go further.” He closed the door on her.
Dripping wet, Ingrid bleeped the key to unlock the Subaru and climbed back in. Almost immediately the windows fogged with condensation. The rain jacket, compressed against the seat, squeezed water into her sweatshirt. She wiped her wet hair from her face.
She drove round the cottage and continued along the track. The man she had spoken to—trim, thirties, horn-rimmed spectacles—didn’t seem to think it weird a woman clutching a bottle of olive oil would appear in the dark asking after a hermit. She also noted he hadn’t said ‘you must come in out of the rain.’ He had not wanted to be, or expected to be, disturbed.
After half a mile, Ingrid made out what looked like giant golf balls cut in half in one of the fields. Geodesic domes. Were they greenhouses or shelters? She counted nine, but in daylight maybe she’d be able to see more.
The wiper blades flicked over the windshield and their incessant squeak needled her. She drove on until a much larger building came into view. Gothic and turreted, it could be mistaken for a baddie’s castle in a Disney movie. Ingrid shivered with the wet.
Several cars were lined up outside, and most of the ground-floor windows were dim with candlelight. Three large stone steps led up to a grand door. She parked and ran up the steps. A large brass button was inscribed with the word bell. She pressed it and waited.
The door creaked open a crack. Ingrid couldn’t work out if the figure who answered was male or female. “Hello?” The voice was also gender indeterminate.
“Good evening,” Ingrid said, again in Russian. “Is this the place to see Father Silouan?”
“Nobody sees the Father.”
Ingrid was getting creeped out. Her instincts told her to run, but she couldn’t leave without answers. “I, um, I have brought an offering.” She held out the olive oil. An Orthodox pilgrim should never arrive empty-handed. “It isn’t much, but I have come to… to honor my father.”
The door opened slightly wider. The figure was tall, with dark hair and pale skin. Ingrid half expected to see bats flying around over their shoulder. She needed to keep talking. She had to get inside despite the burning desire to get away.
“I come for my father,” she said. She didn’t have a clue where her words were coming from. She was plucking them out of the air. “He asked me to pay my respects. Before he died.”
The figure regarded Ingrid with confusion.
“Please,” she said, “may I speak with the hermit?”
Something moved at the corner of her vision, and Ingrid turned sharply. She held her breath, scanning the forecourt. But there was no one there. Perhaps it was just a leaf in the wind that had scared her.
Footsteps. From inside. Words she could not decipher. The door was pulled wider.
“Can I help you?” A red-faced man. Forties, balding. Something unsavory about him.
Ingrid repeated the lie about her father.
“And this is your offering?” He motioned toward the bottle.
“Yes. Is this wrong?”
“This is 2016,” he said. “We accept card payments now.”
“Ah.” Ingrid’s mouth was suddenly dry. Her bank card was still in her pocket, wasn’t it? She reached inside the damp pouch and felt the rectangle of plastic. “I, I would be happy to make a donation.”
He turned to the person who had opened the door. “Please tell the primate we have a guest.”
They nodded and scurried away. The man turned to Ingrid. “Please come in.”
Ingrid glanced over her shoulder and caught sight of the embassy car. With any luck it would have a tracker on it. If anything happened to her, they would know where to look. It was only then she spotted the other cars parked outside included a Bentley and a Maserati.
Piety obviously pays well these days.
She smiled at the man and stepped nervously over the threshold.
58
The house smelled of stewing meat. The air was moist. She followed the red-faced man down a dimly lit hallway lined with paintings picked up from goodwill stores. He jangled a bunch of keys and unlocked a door.
“Please,” he said in English, “come in.”
He turned on a lamp, revealing a small office with a single old oak desk and gray municipal file cabinets covered in the gluey remains of stickers. The shelves were a haphazard skyline of toppling box files and jaunty ring binders. There was no window.
“Do you get many pilgrims?” Ingrid asked, wiping rain off her face.
He pulled out a chair and opened a drawer. “One or two every month.” He looked up at her. “Will you be staying?”
“Ah.” If Bench Farm was a route to finding Rybkin, then she should stay, shouldn’t she? “I hadn’t realized you offered accommodation.”
“It’s shared rooms.” His smile disgusted her.
“I had not planned to stay,” she found herself saying, “but I would like to find out more about your work here. I think my father would like to know that I stayed.”
Shivering with the
cold, Ingrid placed the olive oil on the table. It made her feel foolish. Her experience and knowledge of Russian orthodoxy told her a modest gift is both expected and welcomed, but she suspected the monastery at Bench Farm was only very loosely affiliated with the church.
“We can provide you with toiletries,” he said, “for a fee.”
Maybe there would be somewhere she could wash and dry her clothes. Right now a towel and a hairdryer would be sufficient.
“What size donation were you considering?” The man’s face was getting redder. He produced a card payment machine from under the desk.
“What is normal?” she asked.
“It is whatever you can afford,” he said. His tone was insincere.
Ten pounds? Fifty? A hundred? She wasn’t sure how much was in her account. She had arrived in a brand-new Subaru Outback. They might expect she had money. She handed over her card. “I should be happy to make a donation of one hundred pounds.”
He took the card, but instead of swiping it into the machine, he photographed both sides of it. “Where are you from?” he asked.
Chills licked her body. “From London. What are you doing with my card?”
“Originally?”
“Oh, my accent. I am from the States. Why are you photographing my card?”
“But you speak Russian?”
“My, um, family is Russian.”
He looked at the name on her card. Skyberg wasn’t exactly common in Moscow. Dubious, he handed it back to her. “Our machine is not working at the moment. I will input your donation when the system is working again.”
Ingrid didn’t like the arrangement—a card payment would mean her location was traceable—but she trusted herself to handle whatever situation she found herself in. Right now, she needed to play nice. “I never asked your name.”
“I am Viktor.”
“And I am Ingrid.” She slipped the card back into her damp pocket.