On cue, the screen behind him was suddenly illuminated and as he signalled to the girl at the light switch, the room dimmed. Here we go, Nina thought. Let’s see what they come up with.
The hum of the projector started and a man’s face filled the screen. Although it was strongly formed hooked nose, deep-set eyes under bushy brows, a thatch of grey hair — the overriding impression was of compassion. In fact, Nina realized, it was disconcertingly like her childhood image of God — a kindly old gentleman who peered down from the sky.
As he began to speak, she concentrated on being professionally impartial. It wasn’t easy. His voice had a soothing, hypnotic quality and he spoke slowly in a soft American accent, seeming to address each one of them individually.
On the face of it, the message was one she’d heard before: man’s wanton disobedience, the despoiling of the planet, the approach of doom. Yet she found herself at some basic level responding to his urgency, moved even alarmed by the threat of imminent catastrophe which he alone could overcome, and his powerful plea to them to join him.
‘And just what is this salvation I’m offering?’ he asked. ‘Be patient, my friends, for it is too overwhelming to be revealed all at one time. We must prepare you gradually, as the Lord prepared me before he revealed his purpose.’
A disappointed ripple went round the room, with which Nina sympathized. They were not, after all, to be handed salvation on a plate.
‘I accept,’ Bellringer was continuing, ‘that some of you might not wish to go further. Perhaps you choose not to believe our message, or, even if you do, prefer to bury your heads and ignore it. So be it. But those of you who want to build a future for yourselves and your children, you, I am confident, will come back again and again. And it is to you that, over the coming weeks, we shall pass on our torch of knowledge.’
The slow, measured voice stopped. For a moment longer the face, trustworthy, reassuring, remained on the screen. Then it was gone, and they were left blinking in the brightness as the lights came on again.
Nina shook herself, aware that she’d been held more deeply than she’d intended by that mesmeric voice. Beside her, Pam whispered, ‘What a wonderful man!’
She nodded. On the dais Adam rose to his feet again.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you’ll want to continue with us along the path to salvation. The next meeting, at the same time on Wednesday, will be much less formal. We’ll split into groups so we can get to know each other and you’ll start to learn something of our amazing plans for survival. Don’t worry about committing yourself; you can withdraw from the programme at any stage you wish. In the meantime, there are some leaflets giving the background to our Movement which will help you prepare for the meeting, so do please take one as you leave.
‘Now,’ he smiled down on his audience — ‘we can all relax. There’s coffee and biscuits at the end of the room, but to close the formal part of the evening I’ll just say thank you for coming, good night, and God bless you.’
The other three on the dais had risen while he was speaking, and as he finished they all stepped down, separating and mingling with the audience. Nina stood up and looked about her. Most people were still in their seats, dazed-looking and seeming unwilling to move, but a few were making their way towards the table where coffee was being dispensed. As a gradual hum of conversation built up, she caught the words ‘charismatic’, ‘inspiring’, ‘incredible’. A few rows behind her the two girls she’d noticed earlier were sitting close together, not speaking. They looked shell-shocked. She wondered again if their mothers knew they were here. The dark one, with her frizzy hair and straight brows, reminded her uncannily of her younger self.
Pam was saying, ‘Will you come back on Wednesday?’
Nina hesitated. ‘If I can,’ she hedged.
‘Me too. I feel so much better than when I arrived. More hopeful, somehow. I think it’s knowing everyone here is my friend.’
‘Yes,’ Nina said inadequately. She smiled and nodded as Pam moved away, glancing back at the girls. She’d go and have a word with them, she decided, try to deflect any undue influence they might have been subjected to.
But people were at last stirring themselves, emerging from their rows and jamming the central aisle in front of her. Before she could reach the girls, two young men who had earlier been handing round drinks slid into the row in front of them and, leaning over the chair-backs, engaged them in conversation.
Damn! Nina thought — just what she’d wanted to forestall. As she drew level one of the boys said something, making them laugh, and, since there was no way she could approach them, she continued her slow progress down the aisle.
As they emerged from it, everyone else turned towards the coffee table where there was now quite a crowd, and she approached the door alone. Daniel, standing there with a handful of leaflets, raised his eyebrows at her.
‘Not staying for coffee, Nina?’
So, despite the dozens of people he’d met, he’d remembered her name. More salesmanship, but again she was warmed by it.
‘I have to go,’ she said awkwardly.
‘You’ll be back on Wednesday, won’t you?’
She smiled noncommittally, took the leaflet he handed her and went out into the cool October night. The skies were clear and scattered with stars. She stood for a moment at the top of the steps, gazing upwards. Just what had happened in there this evening? That something had, she was in no doubt. Perhaps the recorder in her handbag would pinpoint it.
Love, she thought as she walked quickly to the corner and turned towards home. Love, trust, salvation. She frowned, trying to recall the words of Noah Bellringer and of Adam who had introduced him. But all that came to her was love, trust, salvation, and the phrase repeated itself like a litany all the way home.
*
When Nina turned into the gateway her mother was at the window, holding the curtain aside as she peered out. Nina waved, the curtain dropped back into place, and the front door opened as she reached it.
‘How did it go?’ Mrs Paxton demanded anxiously, before her daughter was properly in the house. ‘Was it the people you thought? I’ve been that worried I’ve not been able to settle all evening.’
‘Sorry, Mum, but as you see, I’m still in one piece.’ Nina hung her anorak on the hook. ‘Yes, it was them all right. And it was weird, there’s no denying it. I recorded the speeches — would you like to hear them?’
‘I most certainly would. You go through, and I’ll bring the cocoa.’
The little front room was cosy with the fire glowing, the lamp on, and the television flickering silently in the corner. Mrs Paxton came in with the tray and set it on the low table by the fire.
‘I’m ready for this,’ Nina commented, picking up her mug. ‘You’ll be glad to hear I didn’t drink anything while I was there, though I had difficulty making them take no for an answer.’
Her mother’s eyes widened. ‘You’re never saying there was something in the drinks?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nina said slowly. ‘I thought I was just being paranoid, but now I’m not so sure. There could have been some kind of relaxant, to make us more receptive. Quite a few of them looked a bit woozy by the end of the evening.’
Beneath her mother’s concerned exclamation, the words love, trust, salvation still lingered in her mind, though less stridently now she was back in familiar surroundings.
‘Anyway,’ she said firmly, setting down her mug, ‘see what you think.’ She switched on the recorder, and they sat in silence through Adam’s opening speech. Then, as the gentle American voice filled the room, Nina tensed, waiting for the sense of oneness she had experienced in that crowded room.
It did not come. The words that had stirred her before now sounded hollow and empty, mere rhetoric. She was filled with a sense of betrayal, not helped by her mother’s reaction as the recording ended.
‘Well, what’s so special about that, I’d like to know? All that about spoiling the planet — it�
��s what we hear every day. And why get everyone there, build up their expectations, and then not even tell them what he was on about? A con, that’s what I call it. If it had been me, I’d have walked out.’
Nina smiled painfully, doubting that. Had she been there, her mother would have been as spellbound as everyone else, but it was useless trying to explain.
And she’d been right — neither Adam nor Bellringer had used the actual words that had haunted her. So where had they come from? Had there been a subliminal message flashing on the screen, something so swift only the subconscious could register it? Was that what had held them in thrall?
She shuddered involuntarily. It had all seemed so innocuous, and yet …
She’d have a word with the DCI on Monday, she decided. In the meantime she’d try to put it out of her mind and enjoy her weekend.
*
Mattie Hendrix skirted a crowd of drunks on the corner of Gloucester Circus and turned into Station Road. Farther along, it degenerated into one of Shillingham’s least desirable areas, some of the town’s meanest streets lying behind its eastern frontage.
Thankfully, Mattie lived only a short way from the Circus and on the west side of the road, in a one-room flat above the Co-op. It was a good twenty minutes’ walk from the school, slightly less from Victoria Drive. There were buses, of course, but she took them only if it was raining or she happened to be late. Every penny must be saved towards her future — her future, and that of the world.
She turned the key in her front door, letting herself into the tiny linoleum-floored hallway at the bottom of the steep staircase. It had been a shock to see the girls there tonight — she still wasn’t sure how to tackle it. She knew she was expected to spread the word among the pupils at Ashbourne, but that was yet another area in which she had failed. Her faith was deep and vital to her, but she was no evangelist and that was a lack in her.
The stairs ended in the one-room flat. Mattie went to draw the thin curtains, glancing longingly at the black bars of the electric fire. Perhaps if she lit it for just ten minutes, to take the chill off the room, that wouldn’t be too extravagant.
She switched it on and made herself a cup of tea in the curtained alcove she thought of as the kitchen. It had been a good turn-out tonight and Adam had done well. She knew he dreaded the evenings he was in charge.
Should she mention the meeting when she saw the girls on Monday? Would they tell their friends about seeing her there? Not, of course, that it was anything shameful, but the Captain had warned them of the hostility. They must expect when they spoke of their beliefs. As he pointed out, Satan was always ready to mock and revile those who served the Lord.
She removed her coat with a shiver, noticing as she did so that another hole had appeared in her jumper. Something else that must be attended to before she went to bed.
She sat down with her tea at the rickety table and removed a bulky mass of exercise books from her satchel. With these essays to mark, she wouldn’t have time for her gospel tonight — it was nearly eleven already. She’d have to set the alarm an hour early and work on it in the morning.
But what, she agonized, should she do about the girls?
*
When Hannah had gone and the front door was duly locked and bolted, Dilys stood for a moment, feeling the house fold itself peaceably about her. There was silence except for the soft shifting of the sitting-room fire as it subsided into ash.
Hannah was right, she thought, Hassocks was full of character — well worn and comfortable. As the old house settled for the night, Dilys walked slowly up the stairs, her thoughts returning to the guests who would shortly be thrust upon her.
Two spare bedrooms led off the L-shaped landing, each with its own bathroom, and on impulse she opened the door of the larger one where, presumably, the nanny would sleep.
She gave it a swift mental check. Tissues on the dressing-table, clock radio by the bed, plenty of hangers in the wardrobe. This time next week, a stranger would be sleeping here. What would she be like?
Suddenly, unaccountably, Dilys shivered, and as she retreated to the landing, remembered her mother’s macabre phrase, ‘Someone walked over my grave.’
For heaven’s sake, she thought as she reached her own room. She’d be reading the teacups next! Her trouble, as she’d admitted to Hannah, was that she was altogether too self-absorbed. Well, one way or another, the next three weeks should shake her up a bit. With which glum reflection she began to prepare for bed.
Chapter 3
She was going to be late, Christina thought anxiously, easing the car out of the Heathrow sliproad on to the M4. The shuttle flight had been delayed and it had taken longer than usual to get out of the long-term car park. Which meant she wouldn’t have time to call at the office before her lunch appointment.
Stephie would be back at school now; too bad this trip had coincided with her exeat, but it wasn’t every day one had the chance to meet the head of an American hotel chain — one who, moreover, though in the UK only for the weekend, had specifically requested a meeting. And it seemed to have gone well; she must put Belinda straight on to working out the quotations. If they could get in with Bryant Hotels, she thought jubilantly, they would be made.
Her lunch appointment could also be fruitful. She’d not yet met Mr Derringer, who lived in the south of the county. He was staying at the King’s Head for a few days on business, which was where they were meeting. The hotel had just reopened after a year’s closure for refurbishment, which, according to the Broadshire News, had incorporated more en suite facilities and a leisure complex in the basement. A pity she couldn’t have landed that contract, Christina thought ruefully. Still, it would be interesting to see what they’d made of it.
And here at last was the Shillingham junction. She turned thankfully off the motorway and twenty minutes later was in the hotel car park.
As soon as she pushed her way through the swing doors she was disorientated. Gone was the solid, old-fashioned ambience which had been the hotel’s hallmark, the heavy chairs and thick velvet curtains. Instead, there were pale wood panels, glass doors showing a transformed lounge, and an overall luminescence far removed from the pervading gloom she was used to.
The chief surprise, though, was that on this Monday lunch-time the foyer was thronged with people. How, she thought despairingly, was she going to find her client in this crowd? ‘In the bar,’ she’d suggested unthinkingly. Now, she wasn’t even sure where it was.
Fighting her way through the throng, she was grateful to see arrows indicating the direction of bar and restaurant, and a board at the foot of the stairs explained at least part of the activity: two separate conferences were in progress, and no doubt both had disgorged their delegates for the lunch break.
The bar, too, had metamorphosed, shedding its twenties-style chrome and glass-topped tables for an opulence of rich wood, deep sofas, and waist-high fretted divisions offering an illusion of privacy. On a stand in the middle of the room was a magnificent bronze of a horse: Copper Coin, no doubt, the chestnut which had won the Broadminster Cup for three successive seasons.
The professional part of Christina longed to study the decor in detail; ideas could be gleaned from an imaginative overhaul like this. Unfortunately, though, it would have to wait, and she raked the room for a man alone, one who was no doubt by this time becoming restive.
At once she spotted a likely candidate, seated in one of the low-backed alcoves. There was a briefcase at his feet, and even as she registered him, he glanced with obvious impatience at his watch. In fact, she thought apprehensively, everything about him indicated that he was on edge, from his frequent glances towards the door to the staccato tapping of his cigarette against the glass ashtray in front of him. She’d obviously have to turn on maximum charm to make up for her lateness.
Making her way towards him, she saw that he was younger than she’d imagined from their phone calls — rather attractive, in fact, if he’d only relax — with dark springin
g hair and a slight cleft in his chin.
‘Mr Derringer?’ she said, holding out her hand.
He looked up in surprise, then rose, taking her hand as he returned her smile. ‘Unfortunately, no!’ he said.
‘Oh!’ Christina stared at him, momentarily nonplussed. ‘I do beg your pardon. I’m meeting someone I don’t know, and I assumed —’
‘Please don’t worry — it’s my pleasure. I’m expecting someone too. Why don’t you join me and we can wait together? Can I get you a drink?’
‘Oh no, really, I must look for —’
‘Nonsense. I need another anyway. What’ll it be?’
But no sooner had he reached the bar than a voice behind her said hesitantly, ‘Mrs French? I thought I overheard — I’m Robert Derringer.’
She felt a spurt of disappointment, accepting that lunch with the man she’d approached would have been more enjoyable. Derringer was in his fifties, bald, bespectacled, and — a frequent occurrence — several inches shorter than herself. Still, it was a business rather than social engagement and he could put a very worthwhile contract in her hands if she landed him successfully.
Having made her apologies to the other man — fortunately before he’d paid for her drink — she set herself to do so. It was some ten minutes later that, from the corner of her eye, she saw him leaving the room with a man and woman. By the time she and Derringer reached the restaurant, she’d forgotten all about him.
*
Detective Chief Inspector David Webb added seasoning to the pan on the stove, stirred it, and tasted the contents. Satisfied, he turned from the cooker, glanced at Hannah who was perched on the kitchen table, and said without preamble, ‘Ever heard of the Revvies?’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘As in motorbikes?’
He grinned. ‘No, as in members of the Church of the Final Revelation.’
The Gospel Makers Page 3