The Fabric of Sin mw-9

by Phil Rickman

  ‘Nobody told you about a baby, then.’

  ‘Not a word. Probably thought I was a spy from Social Services.’

  ‘And you never heard from her again.’

  ‘Nobody did. And then, of course, while I was in Wales, something else happened. The police carried out their famous dawn raid on the Master House, removing quantities of drugs … and the future Lord Stourport.’

  ‘Just Lord Stourport? He carried the can?’

  ‘Couple of others, I think. Nonentities. There were said to be some more people involved in the activities, but not living in. They may have got away minutes before the police broke the door down. A dawn raid tends to be less effective when its targets are habitually not going to bed until dawn.’

  ‘Have you still got the original letter?’

  ‘Somewhere. It was getting worn with repeated, agonized readings, so I retyped it, word for word. Preserving the erratic application of the apostrophe, as you may have noticed.’

  ‘And this is all of it? I mean, is this all she said? No explanation of exactly what happened to her at the Master House.’

  ‘No, it … perhaps she’d explained in a previous letter that went astray. That seems the most likely explanation.’

  ‘Or that she didn’t want to put it in a letter anyone might read. Or that she couldn’t bear to write about it. What’s all this about money? Look at the money your getting.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘The people at the Master House seem to have been paying her. For what?’

  ‘Evidently not merely as a housekeeper.’

  ‘No local gossip about it?’

  ‘Of course there was gossip. Sex, drugs, orgies. But nobody really knew.’

  ‘What about Lord Stourport? What’s happened to him?’

  ‘Became some kind of rock-music promoter, putting on concerts and festivals and making a ridiculous amount of money. Last I heard of him he was languishing at his family seat in Warwickshire — I think he acceded to the title within a few years of coming out of prison. I actually wrote to him once asking if he remembered Mary Roberts. Had quite a polite, civilized reply — under the circumstances he could hardly deny he’d been at the Master House — saying there’d been quite a number of young women at the house over the months and, to his shame, he didn’t really remember their names.’

  ‘That figures.’

  ‘Lying, I don’t doubt, but, darling, what could I do? You know what always haunted me?’

  ‘The thought that Mary might have gone back to the Master House without you?’

  ‘You’re very perceptive.’

  ‘It’s …’ Merrily shrugged ‘… It’s what would’ve haunted me, too. Look, the only thing that occurs to me — if she’s out there, she’s likely to have heard about what happened to Fuchsia. I shouldn’t think it’s made that much impact in the national press, but it’s not a common name, is it, Fuchsia Mary Linden, and if Mary is out there …’

  ‘You mean if she’s still alive.’

  ‘You’re fairly sure that Fuchsia was conceived at the Master House?’

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘So her father could be Lord Stourport himself? The story Felix gave me was that the father had gone to America. But that’s the sort of thing Mary might just say to forestall questions. And you were obviously wondering about Felix himself.’

  ‘I was simply thinking of reasons why the girl might suddenly have wanted to smash in the skull of the man she was living with.’ Mrs Morningwood waved an unlit cigarette. ‘Might she simply have found out, coming here, that Barlow was at the Master House at the same time as her mother? The same time, in fact, as her mother got pregnant?’

  ‘With the worst will in the world, I really don’t think we’re looking at an incestuous relationship.’

  ‘Some strange and complex alliances are formed, Watkins. I merely floated the possibility.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I feel fairly confident about sinking it. If Felix was Fuchsia’s father, why would he tender for the building contract at the Master House in the first place and bring her with him? Wouldn’t a few people have recognized him?’

  ‘Hmm.’ Mrs Morningwood sniffed. ‘Stourport’s people didn’t exactly mix in the community, but I take your point. It would have to be unusually perverse — especially whilst employed by the Duchy of Cornwall.’

  ‘Who were the other girls Lord Stourtport mentioned?’

  ‘I … I’ve no idea. I suppose you didn’t have to be able to change a washer to get a bed at the Master House. You could also be a woman. And probably didn’t have to be all that good-looking either, towards the end, when everyone was perpetually stoned.’

  ‘No idea where Mary got to, between walking out on your mother for the last time and turning up in Tepee City? She must’ve been introduced to the community.’

  ‘I have no idea. Tell me — why do you think Fuchsia did it — killed Barlow?’

  ‘Don’t know. It’s why I’m here. Partly.’

  Roscoe hauled himself up, stretched and wandered over to Merrily, tail waving. She stood up.

  ‘He wants me to go. Would it be his dinner time?’

  ‘You’re very perceptive,’ Mrs Morningwood said.

  ‘I wanted to be a vet when I was a kid. And then discovered about all the pets they had to put down.’ She patted Roscoe, didn’t need to bend. ‘It’s surprising how well behaved he is, isn’t it, when he’s not in a churchyard?’

  ‘Good icebreakers, dogs.’ Mrs Morningwood smiled, disarmingly girlish in the glow from the range. ‘Had to get your attention somehow. I thought — and still do — that you would be my best bet for finding out … not only what happened to Mary, but … other things I can’t quite put my finger on. The girl showing up like that, after all these years …’

  ‘And then you made sure you kept our attention by telling Jane just what she wanted to hear about the mysteries of Garway.’

  ‘It was all true.’

  ‘What — including the gruesome tale of Mrs Newton laid out in her coffin to be pawed by the whole village?’

  ‘That was true … in essence. Garway was almost certainly the last village in Herefordshire to maintain the Watch Night traditions.’

  ‘So which bits did you exaggerate?’

  ‘Well, it … wasn’t the whole village. Just a few neighbours. But I really didn’t like the place and like it even less since Mary disappeared. Whatever you propose to do there, it needs it. What will you do?’

  ‘I was thinking some form of Requiem Eucharist.’

  ‘A Mass?’

  ‘A service for the repose of the dead. Thinking originally of Felix and Fuchsia but, from what you’ve said, we could be looking at something more extensive. Mrs Morningwood, look … thank you for all you’ve done. I do feel better. If a bit tired.’

  Face it: without the reflexology, she’d most likely be on her way home by now, driving slowly, popping aspirins.

  ‘That’s normal, that’s good. You need to come back in a couple of days, have it topped up … and, of course, tell me what you’ve found out. This Requiem Eucharist — would that aim to deal with what one might term evil residue?’

  ‘Evil residue?’

  ‘Those accusations of heresy and idolatry against the Templars — no smoke without fire. We get people here, a handful every year, poking around, taking measurements in the church. Freemasons, some of them, believing themselves to be the inheritors of the Templar legacy. Idiots in robes, sometimes. Think about what might’ve destroyed Mary’s sleep. What they were doing to her. What continued to throw a shadow over her wherever she went.’

  ‘Well …’ Merrily picked up her bag. ‘The Eucharist can be very powerful. I need to go away and think about it.’

  They walked out of the cottage, Roscoe between them, into a greyness of fields, a blackness of woodland. Two windows were lit up at Mrs Morningwood’s end of the terrace, the rest of it dead, like a neon sign in which most of the letters had fused.<
br />
  ‘What are the neighbours like?’

  ‘Absolute worst kind.’ Mrs Morningwood snorted. ‘These are all holiday cottages. We were isolated in Garway at one time, but now it’s getting just like everywhere else — local youngsters priced out by London lawyers and stockbrokers and junior government ministers here for an average of about three weeks a year. Three out of four in a single terrace, all so-called weekend cottages, and the bastards wonder why we have a housing crisis. Answer is, we don’t, we’re simply top-heavy with self-indulgent second-bloody-homers.’

  Merrily stood looking back at the terrace. An empty holiday home conveyed its own distinctive form of dereliction. But then, what right did she have to moralize, her and Jane rattling around in their seven-bedroom vicarage?

  ‘I can’t get my bearings up here.’ Eyes adjusting now, she looked away, along the limited horizon, hills concealed by the woods. ‘Where’s the church?’

  ‘The church — this church — is always closer than you think,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Go carefully, Watkins.’

  32

  Hysterical Frenzy

  ‘… for agreeing to meet me, Canon.’

  A woman.

  ‘My pleasure. That’s what I’m here for.’

  ‘You see, it’s difficult—’

  ‘And let me say that, although I’m only here for a few days and you don’t really know me at all, you can safely tell me anything you would have told Merrily.’

  Safely. Jane glared at Tom Bull. Oh yeah.

  ‘Mrs Clarke—’

  ‘Look, it’s all right.’

  ‘No … this is about Merrily, you see.’

  Jane stood up quickly, her back to the wooden screen.

  ‘I think we’d better sit down,’ Siân said firmly, and Jane, well out of sight, automatically sat down again, before realizing.

  ‘I’ve agonized about this, you see,’ the woman was saying, really intense. ‘When I heard that a very senior minister had taken over for a few days, I knew what I had to do. I said to myself, you’re not going to get a better opportunity than this, are you? In fact, to be honest, I thought … well, I thought this was a sign from God.’

  ‘I see,’ Siân said.

  Oh sure. Like she’d believe in signs from God. Jane stood tensed against the wooden screen, airline bag at her feet, hands clenched into fists, pushing at the pockets of her parka, listening to it all coming out, this senseless stream of totally unfounded bollocks. No sublety at all, no restraint, no … no basic intelligence.

  ‘… I know people were beginning to have their doubts when she reduced the number of hymns at the morning worship from three to two. Hymns are traditional, aren’t they? Songs of praise we all know. And the church I went to before, there was always an evensong.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Siân said, ‘I’m afraid quite a few parishes have had to dispense with it, mainly due to falling congregations, especially in the winter. Many people really don’t like leaving their firesides and, indeed, in some places, simply don’t feel safe any more going out after dark. Especially the elderly.’

  ‘But replacing it with this so-called service of meditation?’

  ‘It seems to be rather popular.’

  ‘But it’s not Christian, is it, Canon Clarke? It’s eastern religion, that’s what it is. Sitting there in a circle with candles, men and women, dressed in … in casual clothing, so-called opening themselves up …’

  ‘Well, you know, there is a fairly well-established tradition of Christian medi—’

  ‘Not in the Bible!’

  ‘Well that depends on how you— However—’

  Siân, you had to give her some credit, was doing her best, but you could hear the woman’s voice rising higher, when she wasn’t getting the reactions she’d obviously expected, the accusations getting wilder, crazier. Jane getting madder.

  ‘… And I think what offends many of us is the way she makes no attempt to conceal her private life, which is not … Well, she has a boyfriend, see, and there’s no doubt — no doubt at all — that they’re sleeping together out of wedlock. A priest! What kind of example is that setting to young people?’

  Jane fought for control. All the time and energy she’d spent bringing Mum and Lol together, and this small-minded—

  ‘At least, she’s one of the women he’s sleeping with. He’s a so-called musician, see, a rock musician of some kind, and we all know the level of their morality.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Shirley, I’m not sure I understand precisely what you’re saying here.’

  Shirley?

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you, Canon. My brother overheard some young women talking in the Black Swan. They were drunk, as so many of these young women are today, and one of them said she … well, there are words I will not use in church, or anywhere else, but she seemed very much to be implying to her friends that she’d had sexual congress with this man.’

  Jane froze up, Thomas Bull smiling at her, and she wanted to kick his smug face in. The despicable, small-time viciousness of this village. Anyone who really knew Lol. But they didn’t want to, did they? They just watched from behind their curtains and muttered and fantasized.

  She wanted to storm out there, snatch this bitch out of her pew, point out that people like her were the reason the Church was dying on its Celtic foundations, losing what was left of its real spirituality. Haul her to the door and throw her out.

  ‘And the smoking. It’s not nice, is it? There’s no excuse any more, all the help that’s available. It’s a sign of weakness. I’ve seen her smoking in the churchyard, with the gravedigger. It’s a public place. I could have them arrested.’

  Jane let her face fall into her hands.

  ‘… And you do know, I suppose, that she’s supporting these people who want to reinstate a pagan temple?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Siân said. ‘A pagan temple?’

  ‘In the field where they were going to build a housing estate? Starter homes for our young people.’

  Executive homes, you ignorant …

  ‘Nobody can tell me that those stones were not buried for a good reason.’

  ‘Oh, the stones,’ Siân said. ‘I see.’

  ‘You would expect our parish priest to oppose that on principle.’

  No reply from Siân. She must surely have realized by now the level of insanity she was dealing with here.

  ‘And if it wasn’t for the daughter …’

  ‘Jane?’

  ‘The daughter — well, that explains a lot.’

  ‘You’ve rather left me behind here, Shirley.’

  Shirley.

  Shirley West. Mum had talked about this woman a few times, Jane only half-listening because this had been Mum as doormat: feeling obliged to help someone whose attentions had become kind of smothering. Just another vicar-hugger, Jane had figured. And all the time, behind Mum’s back …

  ‘Put it this way,’ Shirley West said. ‘How often do we see the daughter in church?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’

  ‘Never!’

  Jane had to hold on to the screen to prevent herself from walking out there and going, Not quite never.

  ‘Believe me, Canon Clarke, she’s had a terrible time with that girl. Hated the idea of her mother becoming ordained and has just … gone out of her way to make her life a misery. Impossible to control, absolutely no respect … and this is not gossip, Canon, I’ve had this from a respected public figure. This girl and that old man who digs the graves and smokes, they were very nearly arrested for vandalizing the buildingsite in Coleman’s Meadow, did you know that? She was in a kind of hysterical frenzy.’

  ‘Shirley, I …’ Siân paused. ‘Regrettable as all this might be, I’m afraid you’d probably find similar situations in the homes of over half the clergy in this diocese. Most teenagers go through a period of rebellion against their parents’ values. The only consolation being that if children are left to make up their own minds, without being pressurized, they will
often find their own way into what we still like to think of as the fold.’

  ‘But is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry …’

  ‘Is it a rebellion? Because Merrily is involved with the other business, isn’t she? Ghosts and the demonic.’

  ‘You mean deliverance.’

  ‘Which is to do with the occult. I’ve been in the vicarage, Canon Clarke, I’ve seen the occult books on the shelves.’

  ‘Well, she’s had to study all that, Shirley. She’s had to go into areas of study that many people would find distasteful.’

  ‘But does she?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Does she find it distasteful? I’ve talked to people about this. I have many Christian friends all over the country. My information is that this is a job that’s always been done by men before. She was probably the first woman exorcist in the country, that’s my information. And she’s also the first that I — or any of my friends in the church — have known to introduce this so-called meditation. This opening up of a congregation to unseen presences.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find it’s that uncommon nowadays. As for deliverance being a male preserve, just a few years ago, the whole ministry—’

  ‘I think we have to look at all these things together — the interest in exorcism … the meditation … the pagan temple … and the near-Satanism practised by the daughter. And see what it adds up to. I think it adds up to a terrible danger.’

  The silence was so absolute that Jane could hear her own breathing. Jesus, this was not a joke.

  She made eye contact with Tom Bull, his bearded face openly malign. Jane thought of the green man and Baphomet, anger giving way to a kind of fear of the unknown. Fear for Mum, out there on the unknown border, Lol gigging somewhere miles away. Their little nucleus fragmented, and she was alone here, in this supposedly sacred place, this sanctuary, watching the poison dripping into the chalice.

  Shirley West said, ‘I think before Merrily goes around encouraging people to open themselves up, she needs to take a good look inside her own family. Don’t you?’