by Phil Rickman
The Fabric of Sin
( Merrily Watkins - 9 )
Phil Rickman
Called in secretly to investigate an allegedly haunted house with royal connections, Merrily Watkins, deliverance consultant for the Diocese of Hereford, is exposed to a real and tangible evil. A hidden valley on the border of England and Wales preserves a longtime feud between two old border families as well as an ancient Templar church with a secret that may be linked to a famous ghost story. On her own and under pressure with the nights drawing in, the hesitant Merrily has never been less sure of her ground. Meanwhile, Merrily’s closest friend, songwriter Lol Robinson, is drawn into the history of his biggest musical influence, the tragic Nick Drake, finding himself troubled by Drake’s eerie autumnal song "The Time of No Reply."
Phil Rickman
The Fabric of Sin
Shapen of clay and kneaded with water
A bedrock of shame and a source of pollution
A cauldron of iniquity and a fabric of sin …
What can I say that hath not been foreknown
Or what disclose that hath not been foretold?
The Essenes: Poems of Initiation
PART ONE
Do I believe in ghosts…? I answer that
I am prepared to consider evidence and
accept it if it satisfies me.
M. R. James. Introduction to his Complete Ghost Stories.
1
Third Hill
Although the countryside around the barn was open and level, three landmark hills were laid out along the horizon. Like ancient and venerated body parts, Merrily thought, the bones of the Border. Holy relics on display in the sunset glow.
Standing at the barn window with Adam Eastgate, she tracked them, right to left, from the southern end of the Black Mountains: the volcanic-looking Sugar Loaf and the ruined profile of The Skirrid which legend said had cracked open when Jesus Christ died on the cross.
Still somehow sacred, these hills. No towns crowded them, nobody messed with them.
At least, not the way someone had with the third and lowest hill, the only one this side of the Welsh border but still maybe a dozen miles away. The third hill had been stabbed under its summit, some kind of radio mast sticking out like a spear from the spine of a fallen warrior, a torn and bloody pennant of cloud flurrying horizontally from its shaft.
‘Oh,’ Merrily said, realizing. ‘Right. They say it’s like another country up there.’
Garway.
The light through the window was this deep, fruity pink, the sun dying somewhere behind the hill with its radio mast, its famously enigmatic church and a farmhouse called the Master House that they were saying was haunted.
Adam Eastgate had been aiming a forefinger like he wanted to stab the hill himself, again and again. Sighing, he let his hand fall.
‘We don’t often make mistakes, Merrily.’
* * *
She’d never actually been to Garway Hill. Nor, before today, to this place either — a tidy cluster of converted farm buildings off a dead-end country lane, maybe three miles outside the city. Pieces of Herefordshire adding up to more than twelve thousand acres were administered from here, on behalf of perhaps the most prestigious landlord in the country, and she hadn’t even heard of it.
All the stuff you ought to know about and didn’t. Sometimes this county could be just a little too discreet. All a bit awkward. Merrily turned away from the window and the hills.
‘Jane and I — my daughter — we keep planning to go over to Garway, check out the Knights Templar church. Somehow never seem to find the time.’
‘Aye, we saw it with the Man, when he came to inspect the farm. Likes a quiet stroll when he can. And, of course, it’s always so quiet there, nobody noticed us even when—’ Adam Eastgate slipping her a cautious glance. ‘Why are you smiling?’
‘You might not have seen a soul, but it’d be all over the hill before he was back in his Land Rover.’ Merrily looked down at the outline plans on the conference table. They were blurred. She rubbed her eyes. ‘He inspects every property you take on? Personally?’
‘Aw, hey, he’s not just a figurehead.’
The brackeny accent digging in — Northumbria. In his dry, soldierly way, Adam Eastgate was affronted. Very protective of the Man, the people working here.
‘Does he know about this particular problem then?’
Eastgate didn’t reply, which could have meant yes or no or not something you’re supposed to ask.
‘OK, then.’ Merrily sat down in one of the high-backed chairs, red brocade. ‘What, specifically, are we looking at?’
‘Oh hell, I can’t tell you. Perhaps I wasn’t listening hard enough, y’know?’
‘Or you find it embarrassing?’
‘Not a question of embarrassment, Merrily, I’m just not the man it happened to. If anything did.’
Always the get-out clause.
‘How would you like me to play it, then?’
‘How would you normally play it?’
‘Well …’ Dear God, how long was this going to take? ‘To begin with, we usually try to find out if there’s a back-story. Talk to local people, village historian — there’s always a village historian. Or maybe—’ She clocked his wince. ‘That would be the wrong approach, would it?’
‘Depends if you want it on American TV before the week’s out.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Merrily …’ Tight smile. ‘I’m the land-steward. Deal with builders, architects … and tenants, right? Most of whom … good as gold. But we know if we’re forced to evict somebody who hasn’t parted with the rent for two years, next day’s tabloids we’re half-expecting Prince Puts Family on the Street.’
‘Oh.’
‘You see where we’re going?’
‘Haunted Prince calls in Exorcist?’
Eastgate shuddered. Nice chap, Adam, the Bishop had said. Knows what he wants and how to get it done. But raising this had taken the best part of half an hour and three false starts.
This had been two nights ago, one of those receptions where the Duchy was explaining its ambitious conservation plans to the great and the good of Hereford. The Bishop and the Archdeacon and their wives were having a drink afterwards with Adam Eastgate when the Garway investment had come up. And its complications. You could imagine the Bishop nodding helpfully. We do have a person, you know, looks after this kind of thing.
‘I mean, you’ll’ve read the stuff, same as I have,’ Eastgate said. ‘He only has to venture an off-the-cuff opinion on whatever it is — architecture, alternative medicine, GM foods …’
‘The benefits of talking to plants?’
‘See, there you go! That’s exactly it. How many years ago was that? But do they ever forget?’
Well, no. This was the nation’s last bit of official glitter, a face from commemorative investiture plaques, Royal Wedding mugs on your gran’s dresser. Merrily feeling slightly ashamed that, although she’d known it was most unlikely that the Man would be here today, she was wearing her best coat. Her mother would have agonized, changing tops, changing shoes, inspecting her hair many times in the car mirror, just in case.
‘Who is it safe to talk to, then? Who’s actually living in the house?’
‘Well … nobody. I’m trying to explain, this came from the builder. Canny fella, normally. Or so I thought till he’s ringing us up — Adam, man, I think you’re going to have to find somebody else for this one. I’m going, What?’
Eastgate walked to the darkening window, glanced out briefly, unseeing, turned and came back.
‘We’re good employers, Merrily. In some ways, the best. Never short of tenders and once they’re allocated we don’t get jobs chucked
back at us. Doesn’t happen.’
Merrily nodding. They’d be a fairly significant name on a builder’s CV. But it worked both ways, Eastgate said. This builder had a rare feel for an old property. And the Master House itself …
‘See, normally, we’re not interested in anything less than about two hundred acres, and this is, what, ninety-five? But it’s a forgotten bit of old England, right down there on the very edge of Wales. Not much you find these days completely unrestored, hardly touched in over a century. We get to tease out the past. Plus, I’m thinking craft workshops in the barns, the stables, the granary … a little working community, new economic life. And green. Very green. Woodburners, rainwater tanks, sheep’s-wool insulation …’
‘Oh, he loves all that, doesn’t he?’
‘The Man? It’s his number one, and it influences us all, naturally.’ Eastgate shook his head. ‘I’m going, come on, Felix, what is this really about? You sick? Domestic problems? Adam, he says to us, maybe this is an old place that doesn’t want to be restored. His words. Hostile. That was another. One of his team had a powerful feeling they were not wanted.’
‘He pulled out of the whole project because one person thought he—?’
‘It’s a she, Merrily.’
‘Oh.’
The sun had gone, leaving a raspberry hue on the room, but you could still make out the shapes of the fields and the fuzz of hedgerows on the side of Garway Hill.
‘I’m going to leave it in your hands, all right?’ Eastgate gathered up the plans into a black cardboard folder. ‘You take these, they’re only copies. See what he’s putting in jeopardy.’
‘The bottom line being you’d like him back on the job ASAP.’
‘Only if he’s normal. Look, if you want to ask a few questions locally, go ahead. We’ve nothing to hide. Bought in good faith, and what we have in mind is going to be good for the community. I’d just say exercise a bit more discretion than usual.’
Merrily nodded.
‘My watchword, Adam.’
She had a headache.
They walked into the forecourt, deeply shadowed now. Not quite six, and everyone seemed to have gone home. Maybe Adam Eastgate had timed their meeting for the tail-end of the working day so he wouldn’t have to explain any of this to the staff.
All the leaves were still on the trees and it was still warm — too warm. A long, flooded summer and the planet in the condemned cell. At least the nights were drawing in now, the tindery musk of autumn on the air as Eastgate walked with Merrily to the old Volvo. It had been nicked last summer — in the dark, obviously — and then swiftly abandoned, presumably after they’d heard the engine.
‘So — just to get this right — what exactly will you do at the house, Merrily, to, ah …?’
‘Depends what it is.’
‘You work on your own?’
‘I … like to think not.’ She smiled wearily; he didn’t get it. ‘OK, there are a few advisers I can call on, if necessary. Usually when there are people involved who might have particular problems — psychological … psychiatric? When you’re looking at an empty … that is, a house not lived in, as such …’
Oh, the way you shaped and trimmed your glossary of terms when addressing ingrained scepticism. Adam Eastgate cleared his throat.
‘Only I didn’t think you’d be so …’
‘Small? Female?’
‘I was going to say, matter-of-fact about it.’
Meaning, like it’s real.
‘I don’t do it all the time. There’s also a parish — weddings, funerals, rows with the churchwardens.’
‘I suppose medieval was the word I was groping for.’
‘I’m medieval?’ She looked up at him through the fast-thickening air. ‘You’re working for an institution dating back, if I’ve got this right, to thirteen—?’
‘Thirty-seven. Duchy was created by Edward III, to provide an income for his son, the Prince of Wales. The king’s father having been the first to hold the title.’
‘Well … the first Englishman.’
‘And by that you mean … what, exactly, Merrily?’
‘Well, they …’ Flinching at the sharpness of Eastgate’s glance. ‘They had their own, didn’t they? The Welsh. For a long time.’
And even after the princes of Wales had become English there was Owain Glyndwr, in the fifteenth century, still trying to get it back. But maybe mentioning this would not be very tactful.
‘Not my subject, Welsh history. Thank God.’ Eastgate straightened up. ‘Anyway, you’ll keep us up to speed, I hope.’
‘Obviously tell you what I can. Without, you know … breaking any confidences that might arise.’
Not that this was likely. It didn’t seem to be any more than what Huw Owen would call a volatile or a delinquent: the wonky fuse box, the dripping tap — Deliverance-lite.
Merrily unlocked the car.
‘It’s an empty house. If anything’s happening, nobody has to live with it day-to-day. So we’re looking at … probably, prayers, a room-by-room blessing. Or, if a particular and persistent personality is identified, maybe a Requiem Eucharist involving the people most closely involved, present and — where possible — past. Nine times out of ten, this is enough to restore a kind of calm. Adam, why’s it called the Master House?’
‘If anybody was able to explain that,’ Eastgate said, ‘they didn’t want to. Maybe the main house when there were subsidiary farms. Or the local schoolmaster used to live there?’
‘Mmm.’
She had a last look at the hill, where isolated white lights had appeared, its big sisters, the Skirrid and the Sugarloaf fading, uninhabited, into the dried-blood sky.
Adam Eastgate said, ‘Ever get scared yourself, Merrily?’
‘Me?’
Merrily laughed, an unconvincing hollow sound in the stillness. An early owl picked it up, or seemed to, and flew with it as she got into the car.
2
Lament
‘Then he was back on the phone,’ Merrily told Lol in the pub. ‘Soon as I got in. Barely had time to put the kettle on.’
‘The Duchy guy?’
‘No, the Bishop. Must’ve rung several times already. I don’t think I’ve ever known him this jumpy. I just … I don’t get it.’
She took a drink. Serious decadence: a house-white spritzer in the Black Swan — oak beams, low lights — with one’s paramour. How long had it been before she’d felt able to do this comfortably? Six months? A year?
Seemed stupid now; nobody glanced at them twice — although this was probably because almost nobody knew them. Thursday night, and most of the drinkers in the lounge bar were from outside the village, having drifted in for dinner. Some probably responding to the dispiriting Daily Telegraph travel feature identifying Ledwardine as the black-and-white, timber-ribbed heart of the New Cotswolds.
Like, when did that happen? Couple of years ago, the village was still on the rim of the wilderness. Now there was talk of the Black Swan chasing a Michelin star.
‘The Cotswolds are coming.’ Merrily listened to the brittle laughter at the bar. ‘Ominous. Like a melting ice cap. Rural warming. Feels suddenly claustrophobic, or is that just me?’
Final confirmation of the county’s new economic status: the major investment in Herefordshire by the old Cotswolds’ most distinguished resident.
Charles Windsor, Highgrove.
‘Does he know about this?’ Lol said.
‘Well, that’s what I asked. Didn’t get an answer.’
‘He’d probably be fascinated. Has his other-worldly side.’
‘Only, he keeps quieter about it these days.’ Merrily looked around, making sure nobody could overhear them in their corner, well back from the bar. ‘Since the tabloids labelled him as a loony who talks to plants. Maybe they’ve been advised not to tell him, just get it quietly disposed of. As for the Bishop …’
‘You can see his problem. This is the guy next in line for head of the Church of Eng
land.’
‘That didn’t escape me. I suppose it’s as good a reason as any to play it by the book.’
No reason, however, for the Bishop to go adding extra, entirely gratuitous chapters. Full attention, I think, Merrily. We’ll need to get you a locum for at least a week. Move you over there.
And she’d gone, ‘What?’
Like … what? Sounding like Jane, probably.
‘Lol, I don’t want to go and stay in Garway for a week. I just … I don’t see the point.’
‘In which case …’ Orange sparks from the electric candles on the walls were agitating in Lol’s glasses ‘… why not just tell the Bishop to, you know, piss off?’
‘Because he’s a friend. Because I owe him. Because …’
Merrily shook her head, helpless. Lol leaned back. He was looking good, actually. Old denim jacket over a Baker’s Lament T-shirt, which he wore like a medal but always keeping the motif at least partly covered up, as if he could still only half-believe what was finally happening to him. He put down his lager, thoughtful.
‘Suppose I come with you.’
‘You’re touring.’
‘It’s only three gigs next week, just the one night away. I could reschedule … or cancel.’
‘That is not a word we use, Lol. You give anybody the slightest reason to think you’re slipping back …’
A year ago, the thought of three gigs — three solo gigs — would have given him palpitations, night sweats.
Lol looked into his glass, obviously knowing she was right, and Merrily watched him across the oak table, through this haze of love and pride blurred by fatigue. Very happy for him, if concerned that he might just be feeling he didn’t deserve it. Ominously, when she’d gone over to the cottage to drag him out to the pub, she’d heard the voice of his long-dead muse, Nick Drake, from the stereo. Worst of all, it was ‘Black-Eyed Dog’, Nick’s voice pitched high in bleak and terminal despair. Lol had turned it off before he opened the door, Merrily staring at him in alarm but finding no despair in his eyes, just this sense of puzzlement.