‘Are the shoulders straight?’ Bex said, looking from side to side.
‘Yeah.’
The ephod, perhaps, was the most magnificent part of the entire vestment. They had found it, together with most of the other things, in a synagogue at Barnet. In sumptuous purple, blue and scarlet, richly embroidered with gold, it bore, one on each shoulder, two onyx stones graven with the twelve names of the Children of Israel. These Bex had turned upside-down. The matching girdle and embroidered robe he had left unmodified, but the plate on the forehead of the mitre, which had been inscribed with the Hebrew for ‘Holiness to the Lord’, Bex had cut off and replaced with a wooden plaque on whose surface, with a hot poker, he had burned an inverted pentagram. And in the folded linen breastplate he had sewn two cards from the Aquarian Tarot: the Magician, first of the Major Arcana, and, inverted, the Last Judgment, the twentieth.
The complete vestment was kept in its own black rucksack, carefully folded and packed in polythene. Bex wore it only when, as today, he needed to make a specially deep impression on his followers. He had considered using the parish church for this performance, but he had decided that the Long Room was better suited to his purpose. According to Aleister Crowley, Bex had said, occult ceremonial conducted inside a house of God could produce unforeseen effects, and this afternoon, above all, he needed to be in full control. Furthermore, the windows in St Michael’s had no curtains, so the nave, and particularly the altar, could not be effectively candlelit till after dark. Since today was a Sunday, he would also have had to cancel the villagers’ evensong, and he and Danzo were inclined – for practical reasons – not to disrupt their pattern of worship.
Bex had therefore ordered Stolly and Pinch to make ready the Manor House Long Room with many candles and with incense, smoke, purified blade and hepatoscopic silver. He had told Seumas to lay out, on a cloth-covered table in the side chamber, the components of the demonic vestment. Seumas had now retired to the Long Room, joining the others to await the advent of the Master.
Danzo, dressed entirely in black, took up the robe and helped Bex into it. Finally, Danzo placed the mitre on his head.
Without another word, Danzo went through the door to the Long Room.
Six of the disciples were missing. Steve, Carl and Gil had already set out from the top of the escarpment. The bodies of Redmond, Beezer and Terry had been dumped in a barn. The unspoken implication was that they would be buried in the morning, though Danzo knew that, in the end, no one would bother. Indeed, he was glad to see the last of Terry, and the other two were no great loss.
Their deaths had made Danzo think about his own. Death: that was all the future held. In going from place to place the Order would gather more recruits. If its size was to remain within bounds there would have to be continual losses, like Redmond, Beezer and Terry. Danzo might survive all that. But afterwards? What then? There could be no question of life. Life meant boredom, drudgery, despair. Life was the antithesis of Bex: which meant that Bex was death. And since Danzo had devoted himself to Bex, and Bex, in his way, had accepted this devotion, the two would eventually travel together to Acheron.
Danzo wanted nothing more.
He nodded at Coco, who began, slowly, and with the prescribed beat, to strike the makeshift altar with the caduceus.
Pinch, Dave, Stolly, Matt, Seumas, Coco: each disciple wore the torque Bex had given him, made of twisted copper cable, which signified entry to the Order. Each ignorant, shaven-headed youth, cozened, gulled, bamboozled, had turned his expectant, shining eyes to the door through which the Master, decked out in all his finery, now made entrance.
‘Father! Behold your servant! Like unto Manasseh I humble myself before you! Like unto Amon!’
His voice rose, sonorous, to the smoke-wreathed rafters. These were the opening words he used at every ceremony. Danzo knew the formula, had watched it evolving.
Keeping to the rhythm of the caduceus, the disciples began their low chant: ‘Umin, umin, umin.’
Bex raised his arms and began to recite his own perversion of the fourth chapter of St Matthew’s gospel. ‘Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. And when he had fasted forty days and nights he was afterwards hungered. And when the Tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. And Jesus did command, and ate thereof.
‘Then the Tempter took him up into the holy city, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple. And said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, he shall give his angels charge concerning thee. And Jesus did cast himself down, and was whole.’
‘Umin, umin, umin.’
Bex raised his arms higher. His voice was like the heavily fragrant smoke, like the uncertain light of the candles on their stands, pervasive, mysterious, shadowing the chant, weaving with it. Despite his knowledge, despite his scepticism, Danzo again felt himself becoming mesmerised, borne aloft, along with all the others.
‘And the Tempter took him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed him the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. And said unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. And Jesus knelt before him, and weeping said, Thou art my father.’
‘Umin, umin, umin.’
Danzo responded: ‘Thou art my father!’
‘Then the Devil leaveth him, and, behold, demons came and ministered unto him. Asmodeus set up over his head his accusation, written: This is Jesus the King of the Jews. And from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’
All the disciples responded: ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’
‘And Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up his ghost.’
‘Umin, umin, umin.’
‘And was hurled down.’
‘Umin, umin, umin.’
‘Into the furthest pit of hell.’
‘Umin, umin, umin.’
‘Glory be to Satan!’
‘Glory!’
‘Father, we stand before you! Like unto Saul, at the gates of the witch of Endor, do we stand before you! Behold these your suppliants! Mecascheph, indeoni, ithoberon, menachesch! In your name, O Azazel, we crave guidance! In your name, O Abaddon! Come forth in me!’
Bex stretched his arms yet higher. ‘Through my urim and thummin, through these next my heart I crave you, O Father! Through my urim and thummin, through these next my heart, O Ahriman! Begetter of the Antichrist, come you forth in me!’
He clapped his hands and dropped his head, to signify that he had been possessed. The chant ceased and Danzo, standing by the altar, snatched away the sheet covering the old woman’s naked body. In accordance with Bex’s instructions, she had been laid along the trestle table, face up, her arms folded across her flaccid breasts, right hand on the left.
When next he spoke, Bex’s voice sounded thick and strange. ‘Give me the blade.’
Danzo watched in fascination as Bex deftly cut her open and set about removing the liver.
‘Umin, na umin na. Hereto my hand worketh wondrous art.’
‘Umin, umin, umin na.’
‘Bring silver,’ Bex said, and Coco, hesitantly moving forward with a large and highly polished salver, caught the organ as it slipped from the bloodied fingers of the Master.
∗ ∗ ∗
At last Helen began to resolve the events of the day. She understood that her beloved father, like her husband, was dead. His body had been wrapped in one of the rugs from the dining hall and conveyed elsewhere. Dragged along the corridor, no doubt, back towards the cellar, where, as far as the rest of the village was concerned, he would probably remain alive for as long as necessary.
Just as she had been made to watch Martin’s end, so had she witnessed the death of her father. She had actually seen Bex pull the trigger.
In the moment of firing, Bex had lost
control. Helen knew very well what he so feared. An angel of the Lord, St Michael himself. That was exactly how Muriel had described him, the being who had given her the gun.
Muriel dead, too.
That someone so gentle could be treated thus, that someone so dedicated to others could be so comprehensively let down by her community, that someone so devout could be abandoned by God in her moment of need: all this might have been enough to cause what remained of Helen’s faith to crumble.
But then …
She looked again at the soapstone bonze, his face becoming ever more indistinct. She was lying on her bed, locked in her room, the velvet curtains drawn. Cradling the little man in her hands, she closed her fingers and, clutching him to her breast, concealed him entirely from view.
A matter of minutes before her father’s death, Bex had told her to get rid of Muriel’s garments. Even had he not, Helen would have volunteered, just as she had wanted to help lay out the body. That had been denied her, but not the disposal of the clothes, which had meant that Helen’s hand, and no one else’s, had delved into the coat pocket to find the bonze.
There could not be two such pieces in existence. The bonze had been Martin’s mascot. She was certain it had been in his jacket when he had been thrown into the water and left to drift away. Somehow, like the gun, it had come into Muriel’s possession.
Martin had never been able to embrace Christian orthodoxy. His beliefs had been his own. For fear of expulsion he had had to keep them hidden from everyone but his wife. Sometimes in church Helen would see that, during the sermon, he had secretly taken the soapstone from his pocket. Like her own soul, it had become polished by his touch.
Martin had not been opposed to Christianity. It was just that it could not encompass the breadth of his world. There was much in the New Testament he had agreed with. ‘That’s good Zen,’ he had once told her, speaking of the Sermon on the Mount.
What had happened to his body?
Surely no one could have found it. No one lived downstream. How, then, had the soapstone made its way into Muriel’s pocket? Who had given her the gun? Who had been up on the rise with that rifle?
The absurd thought had already occurred to Helen that Martin had risen from the dead. She now went back to it. Was it so absurd? Was not the whole of her faith anchored in the Resurrection? If Christ, why not Martin; why should her prayers not have been heard?
She knew why. Because Jesus said, ‘But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.’
In her prayers she had called for vengeance, the kind that Martin would never have countenanced. Whatever the provocation, he would never have fired on another human being.
Muriel should not have done so, either. Had she followed her Saviour’s teachings, had she not allowed herself to be blinded by anger, she and Helen’s father would still be alive.
Martin had believed in the transmigration of souls. Reincarnation was quite different from resurrection. If he came back on his terms, if he came back at all, it would be as somebody else. He would not rise from his sepulchre bent on revenge. Besides, ten days had now elapsed, not three. So why hadn’t he been here a week ago?
O Heavenly Father, was she losing her reason? Even to be thinking these thoughts was a form of blasphemy. A pistol, a rifle, the bonze: these were solid, material objects. No angel, but some real person, must have found the bonze and given it to Muriel. The same who had given her the pistol and been up on the rise with the rifle.
From what Bex had said, from his mere existence, Helen now knew that there must be communities elsewhere. That’s where the man had come from.
She sat up and dried her eyes with the palms of her hands. Bex had ordered her to keep the curtains drawn. She fumbled for the matches and, raising its glass chimney, lit the bedside lamp. As soon as she reseated the chimney, the flame evenly encircled the wick: she adjusted the wheel so that the light burned as strongly as possible without making smoke. She rose to her feet, wondering where in the room to hide the bonze.
Behind her, on the wallpaper above the bedhead, a faint outline showed where, on that first night, Bex had removed the crucifix.
∗ ∗ ∗
After the ceremony Bex helped himself to some cold chicken-breast in the Manor House kitchen and, though he already felt high, opened a bottle of wine. He was pleased with the way things had gone. A lie was always more convincing if it merely twisted the truth. He had informed the assembly that, yes, it really had been St Michael up there on the escarpment. God had finally been moved to act. The showdown was coming. Colossal forces were at work. Even the power of the Covenant was being put to the test. That was why, in the case of Redmond, Terry and Beezer, the mighty armour of Satanic invulnerability had proved ineffective.
In Muriel’s body had resided the secret of her last hours, her meeting with the angel. Bex had thought of improving the spectacle with a display of necrophilia. Gil would have done it: he’d fuck anything, but he was elsewhere. So Bex had settled for the next best thing.
The cold chicken helped to mask the taste of Muriel’s liver. Together with everyone else, Bex had eaten some of it raw. He smiled and took another bite of chicken. That batty old woman had given him the key. It was her brain they should have eaten, nicely cooked by years of religion.
The excitement of the ceremony, the dressing up, the sensation of daring to venture further, had left him wanting something more. He recognised the symptoms of old. There was only one way to find relief.
From the long cupboard over the peninsular counter he took down two glasses and, in the gloom, proceeded along the corridor to the staircase.
The Manor House was much to his liking. In some ways it would be a pity to set fire to it, as he had already resolved to do. He had found a book in the library detailing its history. The earliest known part was the crypt in which Davies had been confined. It was dated about 1250. Its stones had been laid at the height of the Middle Ages, that time of cathedrals and monasteries, coffins and worms. The Crusades had been yet in progress; the authority of the Pope had been at its height. No one seemed to know exactly what the crypt had been used for. Perhaps bodies had been stored there, a hundred years later, during the Black Death.
Bex liked all the old wood, the panelling, the low ceilings. The builders who had restored the house during 1523-6 had also worked on Hampton Court. The floors downstairs were of stone; above, like the stairs themselves, they now creaked with almost every step. Disembodied groans and lame footfalls, said to be those of Henry VIII, had sometimes been heard on the stairs and along the gallery approaching the bedroom where Catherine Howard had repeatedly betrayed him with Thomas Culpeper.
Helen’s room was further along the same gallery. Bex took the key from his pocket and opened the door.
The rattle of the lock seemed to have caught her in some guilty act. Standing between the end of the bed and the big oak dresser, she had hurriedly composed herself to be seen.
‘Hello again,’ Bex said, looking beyond her, at the dresser. He set the wine glasses and bottle on the bedside table, next to the lamp. ‘What have you just hidden?’
‘Hidden?’
‘Something in the dresser, I should say.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Bex opened the top drawer. Her agitation grew. ‘You’re not a very good liar,’ he told her. ‘You should leave it to the experts.’ He took a few moments to examine her face. ‘You may as well tell me what and where it is. If you make me search for it, I shall be displeased.’
‘I haven’t hidden anything.’
‘A gun, perhaps,’ he said, unable to keep the edge from his voice. He took the Glock from his pocket. ‘Like this one.’
‘No.’
‘Tell me.’
Resignedly, she reached past him, into the back of the drawer. He suspiciously grabbed her hand; she withdrew. Among the silk scarves, Bex felt something small and hard. A greenish fig
urine.
‘What’s this?’
‘It belonged to Martin.’
There was a chance that the figurine had lain there for weeks, that she had just made it into a decoy to distract him from the object she had really concealed: but no. Watching her eyes, Bex knew she was speaking the truth. He was good at sniffing out falsehood.
‘How did you come by it?’
‘It was in Muriel’s jacket.’
‘And how did she come by it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Was Martin in the habit of carrying it on his person?’
‘No.’
‘Now, now. You can tell your Uncle Bex.’
She said nothing.
Bex moved to the lamplight, held the figurine close to the glass. It looked oriental. The features of the little face were unmistakably Japanese, but vaguely Indian, also. Bex was reminded of depictions of Bodhidharma, the monk who was said to have carried Zen to China and Japan.
‘Was your husband a closet Buddhist?’
‘He was a Buddhist. Yes.’
Bex stood upright. Watching Helen’s reactions, he placed the figurine on the table and smashed it with the butt of the pistol, leaving a heap, greenish white, of fragments and dust.
‘So much for Buddhism.’ He smiled. ‘Come here.’
She shook her head, her eyes fixed on him in horror.
‘I won’t tell you again.’
At gunpoint, he made her drink a glass of wine. He drank one too.
It gave him, now, an intense and special pleasure to force her to remove first his clothes and then her own. In the lamplight he did not regard her body as particularly desirable. She was by no means amply formed but, having spent last night with Seumas, he found her breasts and hips overly abundant, a superfluity of flesh. The dark, shadowy vacancy between her thighs resolved itself into the essence of the feminine. Women are creatures to which things get done.
Physically, although she was not bad-looking, she held no particular interest for him today. It was, rather, the circumstances that excited him: the knowledge that he had, this afternoon, cut down her father before her very eyes; that she was completely helpless, because he had already murdered her husband, again in her presence; and that her grief and horror were copiously admixed with an amalgam of memory in which all the sordid acts he had made her endure were at once confused and disgustingly fresh in her mind. Such was her mental strength, however, that she had still not reached rock-bottom. She was still managing to resist. It was this that inflamed him.
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