The Fabric of Sin mw-9

by Phil Rickman

  ‘Somebody saying it isn’t?’

  ‘You know I don’t mix in those circles, Francis.’

  ‘Well it isn’t. You tell Merrily it isn’t. Tell her … You’re norra blabber, are you, Laurence?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And still a vested interest in keeping her intact.’

  ‘More vested all the time,’ Lol said.

  ‘We’ve had PM results on Barlow and Fuchsia. I’m not going into details, but the extent of Barlow’s injuries, the level of force, the level of trauma, that doesn’t look like a woman. Not often a woman’s method, either.’

  ‘What … blunt instrument?’

  ‘A bluntie, you see, generally speaking, they don’t. Requires a level of controlled rage. And sustained rage. And where’s the motive here? Where, at the end of the day, is the damn motive?’

  ‘So why did she kill herself?’ Lol said.

  ‘Yeh, well, did she? See, another thing, the effects of a railway engine running over a head are highly effective at concealing whether there might have been an earlier injury rendering the victim incapable enough, or dead enough, to be taken there and laid on the line.’

  ‘Carried there?’

  ‘Already dead, most likely. There’s a lorra shite talked about the accuracy of time-of-death assessment, largely as a result of TV pathologists who say, “Oh, the victim passed away between ten fifteen and ten forty-five.” In real life, they can just about tell you what day it was.’

  ‘You’re saying there could still be somebody out there …?’

  ‘I’m planting the thought. You can add it to the list of reasons why she needs to call me. On the mobile, naturally.’

  Lol sat there, looking out over unlit Wales, wondering how many other crucial calls Merrily might have missed.

  ‘When we first came here, I thought we might walk the hills together. Walk to the pub, gentle strolls home by moonlight. Maybe get a dog. He didn’t want a dog. He didn’t do that kind of walking. His kind of walking, you’re out at dawn, proper hiking boots, and you aren’t back till dark and the worse the weather is the better. Him and the landscape. Walking his way into it. Throwing himself into it. As if he didn’t have much time to learn all there was to learn.’

  ‘God’s own weekend retreat,’ Merrily said.

  They were sitting at the window table in the former dairy. Beverley tossed back her head.

  ‘The vacant vicar. The silly vicar. More tea, vicar? He plays that role so well. God’s own weekend bloody retreat.’

  ‘Balm for the soul.’

  ‘All the clichés.’ Beverley breathed out slowly. ‘Jesus, Merrily, I haven’t really talked to anybody like this in years. It’s like a big stone being rolled off your chest. Does it bother you that I don’t believe in God?’

  ‘Evangelism’s never been my thing. People come to it in their own way. Or not.’

  On impulse, Merrily had left off the dog collar this morning. Pectoral cross over a black sweater. Some people were put off. This one, definitely.

  You often heard clergy wives talking like this, their scepticism deepened by living day-to-day with a so-called Man of God, all his doubts, all his weaknesses and failings.

  ‘Teddy know you don’t believe in God?’

  ‘We’ve never talked about it. He doesn’t care one way or the other. I was a good source of money when he needed some. Big house to sell. Silly me. When I think back, I thought I was playing him, like a fish on a hook.’ Beverley drank some coffee. ‘He was playing me. I didn’t see it. He can be so charming. And needy, in this selfless, stoical, noble way. I bet you saw through it right away. I bet you’ve been mauled by the best.’

  ‘No,’ Merrily said. ‘Actually … no.’

  ‘He didn’t make a move on you?’

  Merrily looked into Mrs Murray’s flushed face. Maybe this was paranoia, after all.

  ‘Silly of me. Of course, he wouldn’t with you. He wants you out of here, done and dusted, quick as possible. When you left the other morning, he laughed. Women in deliverance, he said, that was never going to work.’

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘I watch, you know. I’ve been watching for some time. Thinking why are we here on this bleak bloody hillside? Why do we stay here? We have no real friends, no roots. At least, I don’t.’

  ‘He has?’

  ‘He’s found something. It’s like he owns the place, now. Comes in from his walk, it’s like he’s had sex. Actually …’ Short, bleak laugh ‘… I’m sure he has, sometimes.’

  ‘Beverley …?’

  ‘Sometimes we get lone women staying here. Of a certain age — divorced, bereaved — here to come to terms with something. And he’ll take them out for a walk. Talk to them in his vicarly fashion. Balm for the soul. They’ll go out for walks together. Balm for the soul, balm for the body. He ministers to them.’

  ‘You really think that? Where would he take them?’

  ‘In the grass, in the woods. I don’t know where he takes them. It’s therapy, isn’t it?’

  ‘So when … when you talked about going with him if he ever went to get treatment from Mrs Morningwood—’

  ‘Very sexy woman, isn’t she, for her age? Not like me.’

  ‘Beverley, you’re—’

  ‘Goes through periods when he hardly looks at me. Hardly seems to know I’m there. We even have separate bedrooms when there are no guests. Oh certainly, if it helps you get a better night’s sleep, Bevvie …’

  Beverley looked away, out of the window. Almost dark now.

  ‘Other times — phases — he becomes almost frighteningly demanding. Rough. Animal. Well, I was quite flattered at first. This gentle, diffident clergyman. As if it was me bringing something out. I’ve never been very … you know. Men found me passably attractive, but not …’

  A wind was rising, leaves blown against the glass.

  ‘And then, you see … at some point …’ Beverley swallowed too much coffee, choked, slapped her chest hard. ‘Don’t know how it took me so long to notice. Me with my genteel, suburban … At some point, after we’d been here a while, it became obvious that at … at those times … it wasn’t anything to do with me. Wasn’t me at all. Sometimes, I’d see his eyes above me in the moonlight. His wild, enchanting blue eyes. Wide open. And somewhere else.’

  Merrily looked into Beverley’s eyes and saw loneliness.

  Thinking back to Beverley begging her not to involve Teddy in whatever she was planning for the Master House. Not taking it in as well as she might have, self-pity taking over instead.

  She’d been ill that night, and desperately tired. Missing the whole point. It wasn’t Teddy who was overstressed, vulnerable …

  His workload was becoming ridiculous, poor man. Four large parishes in Gloucestershire, and the phone never seemed to stop ringing.

  Didn’t tally with the man she’d first met in the shadow of Garway Church who’d said he’d never been a particularly pastoral sort of chap. You could get away with a lot in the Church, ignore things. Especially if you were a man. Men were seldom doormats.

  ‘Beverley … when you said he was playing you like a fish …’

  ‘Seems all too clear to me now. Although I don’t want to believe it. The implications of it are more disturbing than I can bear to think about for long. I lie in my bedroom and I stare at the ceiling, and I think, you’re wrong … you have to be wrong. It’s all too … elaborate. Machiavellian.’

  The final straw … a wave of absolutely awful vandalism … desecration. Gravestones pushed over, defaced, strange symbols chiselled into them. And one night someone broke in and actually defecated in the church, which was horrible, horrible, horrible …

  Merrily had begun warming her hands on her coffee cup, the implications forming like a numbness on her skin.

  57

  The Turning

  Half a mile or so out of Garway village, Jane slowed right down: roadside cottage lights up ahead, a row of them curtained by a tingly kind of mist. Thi
s place was called The Turning, Mrs Morningwood said. She was winding down her window, annoyed.

  ‘Rather thought it would still be fully light when we arrived, but you’re a more careful driver than I expected, Jane.’

  ‘A lot of people have accidents in their first year on the road.’ Jane held the Volvo on the footbrake at The Turning, flattening the clutch. ‘You still want me to go down here, or what?’

  ‘Don’t think I said anything about going down here, did I?’

  ‘Well, seeing you nicked the key to the Master House from the rack at home, I just thought …’ Jane turned to her. ‘Like, was it something I said? About the green man or the Baphomet behind the inglenook? You have an idea what that’s about?’

  ‘I would have liked to see it,’ Mrs Morningwood admitted. ‘I’m not too sure about going now, though.’

  ‘Would you go if I wasn’t with you?’

  ‘Possibly. However … Look, Jane, don’t hang around, there’s a vehicle behind you. Keep going.’

  ‘Right. OK.’

  Jane thought, Sod it, turned left into the downhill lane that led to the church, Mrs Morningwood sighing down her nose and mumbling something about thanking God she’d never had a child.

  ‘You want me to pull in by the church, so we can can follow the footpaths, like we did on—?’

  ‘No, that would take for ever. There’s a track a few hundred yards further on that leads to within a stone’s throw of the place. Broken white gateposts. Bit rough, but you should be all right, if you go carefully. You have a torch anywhere?’

  ‘It’s behind the seat at the back. Ah!’

  ‘Jane, for—!’

  A rabbit had appeared up ahead in the dipped headlights, Jane slamming the brakes on, Roscoe falling into the well between the seats, and there was a tortured scream. Not Roscoe, not the rabbit … this was somebody’s brakes right behind them.

  The Volvo stalled.

  Oh no. It had to happen, didn’t it? This was where the guy in whatever vehicle had nearly rear-ended them would come leaping down, total road-rage situation, bawling her out.

  ‘It’s all right.’ Mrs Morningwood looking over a shoulder. ‘He hasn’t hit us. And he isn’t getting out. Just carry on.’

  Jane turned the key and the engine coughed and …

  ‘Oh sh—’

  … Died.

  ‘Try again.’

  Mrs Morningwood still looking over her shoulder and her voice was lower and toneless, like with tension, like she was controlling something.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  No sound from the vehicle behind. Looked like a Land Rover. No blasts on the horn, just its headlights on full beam so you couldn’t look in the rear-view mirror and keep your sight.

  ‘Try again.’

  The engine fired. Jane went carefully into first gear, let out the clutch, crawled away, looking for the entrance to the track.

  ‘Keep driving, Jane.’

  ‘I thought you said—’

  ‘Go! Keep on. I’ll direct you.’

  ‘But the track—’

  ‘Forget the bloody track.’

  ‘OK … whatever.’

  Jane speeded up, put the headlights on full beam, the hedge springing up all white like a mesh of tangled bones.

  ‘OK, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Carry on to the bottom,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Then go right.’

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  When they reached the bottom of the road there were no headlights in the mirror.

  ‘Was that somebody you know?’

  ‘We’ll go to my house,’ Mrs Morningwood said.

  It was like there was a ritual maze all around Garway Hill, marked out in lanes worn into the landscape over centuries. The rule was: high hedges low ground, low hedges or barbed wire meant that you were climbing. But it was impossible to tell one way or the other at nightfall in the mist. How many years did you have to live here before you knew where the hell you were?

  ‘Left,’ Mrs Morningwood said.

  ‘Here?’

  ‘This, Jane, is where I live.’

  ‘We just did a complete circuit? I thought we’d be halfway to Monmouth by now.’

  ‘Stop here. Anywhere.’

  The mist had thinned quite a bit. Jane saw a row of low houses without lights. They looked unnatural, all the windows black.

  When they got out of the Volvo, Mrs Morningwood put up a hand and laughed.

  ‘Wind from the White Rocks.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Blown a tunnel through the mist.’

  That made sense?

  Mrs Morningwood went to the front door but didn’t open it, just shook the handle.

  ‘Now we’ll go round the back.’

  They followed Roscoe along the path at the side of the house. You could see the hulks of chicken sheds to the side, and a fence.

  ‘Where do you grow the herbs, Mrs Morningwood?’

  ‘Garden at the back, where the chickens can’t get in. Pick quite a lot from the wild. Keep your voice down.’

  They came to a glassed-in porch, and Mrs Morningwood squeezed past Jane and went inside, picking up a torch. The beam showed that the back door inside the porch was already open, Roscoe surging through the gap as Jane said something stupid.

  ‘Do you, like, usually keep it open?’

  ‘He’s been in.’

  ‘The door’s been forced?’

  ‘Spare key in one of the chicken houses,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Nobody would know that, unless they’d been watching me for quite some time. He’s telling me he could come back any time. Whenever he likes.’

  She went in briskly, but breathing hard, flicking switches, rooms springing out at Jane as the lights came on. She looked at Mrs Morningwood, her cracked Barbour and her cracked face, and knew that, for her, this wasn’t like coming home any more.

  ‘This is where you were attacked, isn’t it? This is where it happened. That’s why Mum brought you—’

  ‘Yes, Jane.’

  ‘Was it someone you know?’

  ‘Didn’t then.’

  Jane looked down at Roscoe who was prowling, sniffing in corners, his tail well down.

  ‘And he’s been back,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Bastard’s been back. Wants me to know.’

  They were in the kitchen. There were some jars on a dresser. They had screw tops. The tops had been taken off and laid next to the jars. Mrs Morningwood stood and looked at the jars but didn’t touch them. Jane felt a stirring of fear.

  ‘He’s not—?’

  ‘He’s not here now. Dog would know. Besides …’

  ‘I thought you had people looking after the house.’

  ‘Dawn and dusk. See to the chickens.’

  ‘What … what are you going to do?’

  ‘Going to get all the rest of the herbs in the house, all the preparations, put them all in a bag, take them away and get rid of them, bottles, everything.’

  ‘You think they’ve been tampered with?’

  Mrs Morningwood turned, took Jane by both arms, looked into her eyes.

  ‘Go home, Jane.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Shouldn’t’ve done this. Big mistake. Get in your car, go home. Give your mother my apologies. Drive carefully.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Got my Jeep.’

  ‘But I can’t—’

  ‘Go.’

  ‘Mrs Morningwood, what’s going on here?’

  ‘Be careful at the entrance to the track. Visibility’s not good at the best of times.’

  ‘You’re coming back, though? To Ledwardine?’

  Mrs Morningwood didn’t reply, following Jane along the path to the Volvo, wet mist shivering in the lights from the house, and Jane knew she ought to ask her to give back the key to the Master House.

  ‘Tell you what?’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Take the dog.’

  She opened one of the rear side doors, pointing. Ros
coe looked at her and growled.

  ‘In,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘You too, Jane.’

  Jane got in and started the engine, watching Mrs Morningwood walk back to the house, not turning around, stumbling once. Jane thought that Roscoe had whimpered, realizing a moment later that the small noise of distress had been in her own throat. She took in a deep breath, started the car, drove to the entrance of the track, just out of sight of the house and stopped, keeping the engine running.

  Up ahead, the mist had closed in again, pale and shiny in the headlights like the doors of a big fridge.

  Jane got out the mobile to call Mum, because there really was no alternative now to a confession. But there was no signal.

  58

  Excellent in Fields

  Beverley went to answer the door, and Merrily stared into the dregs in the coffee cup, and there was no question of disbelief. For a proportion of priests, being a good and altruistic person was always going to be the price you had to pay to maintain the buzz.

  Merrily remembering, as usual, the first time she’d felt it: period of personal crisis, stumbling into a tiny, unexpected Celtic church, watching the light on the walls, the blue and the gold and the lamplit path. A safety in stone, but also transcendence. The path opening up from there.

  But there were different paths and different kinds of light.

  Staring into the brown dregs, thinking about the Roman Catholic priest, Alphonse Louis Constant, who had made friends with a teenage girl and become Eliphas Levi, conjurer of spirits, fan of Baphomet … while still, if she was remembering this correctly, stressing the importance of God in magic and the magic in God.

  And the spark of it that some of them fed and nurtured within themselves. Gnostic fire. The growing of the god inside.

  She felt Teddy Murray at her shoulder under the gaze of Garway Church. I suppose, seen from above, it does look rather as though its neck has been broken. Like a chicken’s.

  When Beverley came back into the dairy, Lol was with her, looking worried, saying to Beverley, whom he’d never met before, ‘The Turning? What would she mean by The Turning?’