by Rachel Green
“She panicked, that’s all.” Purvis risked a glance up at his immediate boss. The last thing he needed was to be re-assigned to some God-forsaken hole. Birmingham say, or Coventry. “She ducked down behind the font and scooted out through the vestry.”
“What’s this I hear about the police breaking down your doors?”
Purvis shrugged. “Someone told them I had a burglar. It was a malicious call.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” The bishop sat down and wrapped a meaty hand around his coffee cup. Purvis recalled he’d been the Inter-Seminary boxing champion four years running. “You don’t catch Reverend Dodgson getting calls like that.”
“With respect, your eminence, Reverend Dodgson rarely stirs from his bed except to teach his Religious Education class at the girl’s school. The only way you can tell he’s giving a sermon is because he’s upright.”
“He doesn’t get malicious phone calls though, does he?” The bishop wagged his finger at Purvis. “However, I won’t keep you any longer. I heard that one of your flock suffered organ failure yesterday.” He referred to his diary. “A Mrs. Lowry?”
“Thank you Bishop.” Purvis stood and bent to kiss the bishop’s ring. “I do need to get back.”
“Remember. I want no more complaints about your ward, Purvis.”
“I’ll bear that in mind, your Grace.” Purvis closed the door to the study and wiped a hand across his brow. He had no clue who was feeding the information to the bishop, but for the first time he was glad Betty Lowry had bashed the organ keys so hard at every service. The cost of a new bellows was worth every penny if it got him out from under His Grace’s bad graces.
* * * *
The train journey back was uneventful but for the thirty minute wait at Oxford. He spent the time enjoying the sunshine on a bench tucked out of the wind, nursing a coffee which he subsequently gave to a woman looking after a child. The boy, whom Purvis guessed to be about five, stared at him for several minutes after he’d sat down again, finally plucking up the courage to come over.
“’’Ere Mister.” The boy’s accent was Midlands-thick. Sticky toffee with a core of Sheffield steel. “What you wearin’ a dress for?”
Reverend Mackenzie leaned forward and ran his finger and thumb over his closed eyelids. Tempted as he was to snap at the lad, he counted to five and reminded himself his stress was from the bishop, not from a young boy. He made an effort to smile. “It’s called a cassock,” he said. “It’s a sort of uniform. It shows that I’ve devoted my life to serving God.”
“My da says God don’t exist,” said the boy. “My da says that God’s a tosser ‘cause he took my mam away too soon.”
“He can’t say both things, surely?” Purvis really didn’t want to debate the point, especially not with someone with a line of mucus swinging from one nostril. “He either believes in God or he doesn’t.” He glanced across at the woman who must be the child’s stepmother or guardian. She at least had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Come away, Connor.” She beckoned to the lad, holding her coffee in one hand and a biscuit in the other. “Leave the gentleman alone.”
Purvis nodded his thanks and, spotting the train approaching, stood to move closer to the platform. Behind him he could hear the woman gather her bags together and scold the child about his runny nose. He made certain to sit in a different carriage on the way back to Laverstone.
Meinwen met him at the station. It wasn’t that they were friends, nor were they enemies as such, though his faith denied that hers existed. They held each other in mutual disregard although they would concede, if pressed, that the other had made some valid points in their endless debates.
He didn’t even manage a greeting before she launched into him. “What were you doing, keeping that girl out until all hours?” she said. “Did you know she was fresh out of a convent? Anything could have happened to her.”
“I presume you mean Valerie,” said Purvis, clutching his worn briefcase to his chest as if it would ward him from her faithless gods. “She needed a job and I got her one. I thought it would suit her, actually, being on the evening shift. A gentler way to integrate into society, I thought.”
“You should have got her an office job,” said Meinwen. “She came in stinking of meat last night. Not exactly my idea of a relaxing atmosphere.”
“What?” Purvis stopped and looked at her his brow creased in puzzlement. His face cleared. “Oh! You’re vegetarian. I forgot.”
“You did. Congratulations on the screwing up of the energies in my home. It’s not that I object to her eating meat but dealing with such large amounts, I might as well keep wolves in the garden.”
“Ha! That’d tick off the Catholics.” Purvis chuckled to himself all the way through the ticket barrier. “What do you expect me to do? It was a surprise to me when she told me where she was staying. I’d have her at my place but the bishop would have seven fits.”
“Not if she was a housekeeper,” said Meinwen. “That would be proper, wouldn’t it?”
“The church couldn’t afford it.” Purvis reached the station’s outer doors and paused, to catch sight of Saint Jude’s tower through the trees. It always made him smile to see it. “I couldn’t afford it either,” he said.
“What if it was sponsored,” said Meinwen. “If I can get you a sponsor will you consider it?”
“My dear lady,” said Purvis. “If you can get me a sponsor I’d consider anything. Is there any chance you could arrange for my front door to be fixed while you’re at it? Or the church organ?”
Meinwen laughed. “Valerie told me what had happened. Best you get on to the Victims of Crime support scheme.”
“I’m on the committee,” said Purvis glumly. “There’s no recourse to public funds when it’s the police that did the damage, and I’m hardly in a position to claim otherwise.”
“What about your house insurance? Won’t that cover it?”
“The building is covered by the church’s insurance, which means I’d have to get the bishop to sign the paperwork. He’s looking for any excuse to be rid of me.”
“Sucks to be you.” Meinwen patted his arm. “I’ll see what I can do to get sponsorship for Valerie to get out of that job. You look for a loophole in the church regulations that allow you to employ a spinster of the parish.”
“A spinster?” Purvis looked momentarily confused. “Yes, I suppose she is. Very well, I’ll let you know how I get on. Thanks for taking her in, by the way. I know we don’t often see eye to eye about things but it was a good Christian act you did.”
“No, Reverend, it was a good humanitarian one.” Meinwen looked at her watch. “Time I went, though. I was supposed to have opened the shop ten minutes ago.”
“As you wish. I’ll be in touch.” Purvis watched her go. It was almost a relief to be in Meinwen’s company rather than Valerie’s. He didn’t fancy the Welsh woman at all. He headed into the Royal Park as a short cut to Saint Jude’s. The church was at the north end of the High Street, on a diagonal, if you looked at a map of the town, from the station. He could either follow Meinwen into town then turn right or cut across the park and left. He invariably chose the latter, the better to spend the journey in quiet contemplation of God.
Part of the way across the park stood a group of statues on plinths. They had been there, with the exception of one, for as long as he could remember although he had a document from the Village Historical Society about the opening of the Royal Victoria Park in eighteen-ninty-three and there was no mention of the statues in that or any other documents pertaining to the village and its royal park.
“Madam?” he approached an elderly lady with a shopping trolley by hurrying a few paces to catch up. She looked a little startled, but relaxed when she saw his dog collar.
“What is it Father?” she said. “You’v
e not come to see me into the next world, have you?”
“Certainly not yet, though I’d be happy to assist in getting your spiritual affairs in order.” He smiled, bowed and offered her his arm. Taken aback by such gentlemanly conduct, she accepted. “I’d like to ask you, if I may, about the statue of the angel there.” He pointed across at the group where a granite tableau of an angel fighting a dragon rose from the path. “Do you know where it came from?”
“Hasn’t it always been there?” she asked.
“Not at all.” Purvis directed her attention to the other statues, each depicting an important person of the town in years gone by. “Those have been here longer,” he said. “They show signs of weathering and there are clumps of moss clinging to the plinths. The angel and the serpent is new.”
“Them’s the old mayors,” said the woman, pointing with her stick at the weathered statues. They were on the town hall originally. They were put here in nineteen-forty-six when the town hall was torn down. Jerry had put a bomb in it, see, it wasn’t safe no more. Shame really. It had a big glass roof like the one at Paddington. I remember my mam showing it to me when I was a little girl.”
“And it was bombed, was it? What a stroke of bad luck.”
“Not really. All that iron and glass. It must have looked like a giant bull’s-eye from up there. I’m surprised they only put the one through it.”
“Perhaps they missed with the rest,” said Purvis. “I hear the barns got away lightly too.”
“The barns?” Her face creased as she worked out what he meant. “Oh you,” she said, batting his arm with her hand.
“You’ve no idea about the angel though?”
“Last summer that was.” The voice belonged to an old man smoking a pipe. “Raphael fighting the dragon.”
“Where did it come from?” Purvis asked. “There’s no plaque for it.”
He thanked the woman with a pat on her hand and released her. She dashed off, thankful to survive without a sermon.
“Nobody knows.” The old man took a puff and pointed with the stem of his pipe. “It was an anonymous donation made overnight. One day you could walk the path, the next…” He mimed running into granite. “Of course, the council came and tried to shift it. You can’t have anonymous donations to the park statuary.”
“Why not?”
“It’d pave the way for all sorts of rubbish,” said the man. “Modern art and what-not. Great pieces of steel painted up to look like rusted tarts. Bricks in straight lines.”
“Like in a wall?”
“No.” The old man huffed. “You know what I mean. Bricks in the Tate and all that.”
“That was years ago,” said Purvis. “I was still in seminary school.”
“Never-the-less.”
“So what happened with the statue?”
“The council came along and put the path round it,” said the man. “If you can’t shift it, landscape it.”
“Why couldn’t they shift it? It must be portable to have appeared overnight”
The old man shrugged. “You tell me,” he said. “For all I know it’s a real angel, frozen to the spot.”
Chapter Fifteen
Felicia finished her coffee and rinsed the mug in the sink. If anyone had told her, two years ago, she would be getting up at six in the morning to go for a run in the woods before work, she’d have told them they were bonkers.
That was before she’d had hot, rampant sex with Jenna, though. She didn’t know it at the time but Jenna had passed her genetic problem on to Felicia. Lycanthropy.
It had seemed stupid once, the idea that a man or woman could turn into a wolf at will. Contracting the virus had turned Felicia’s life around, cured her eyesight and brought her the friends and companionship she’d never found in her mortal life.
With a glance at the clock she stepped outside onto the terrace, where Jasfoup was feeding Gillian’s semi-feral Mau cats some fresh trout. He looked up as the French door from the Green Room opened.
“You up for a run?” he asked.
“Aren’t I always?” Felicia slipped off the dressing gown, revealing a body already in the state of transformation. If Jasfoup had been hoping for a flash of nipple he was disappointed, since all eight were already covered in a fine layer of hair. The cats, catching a hint of her scent, scarpered as she completed the transformation.
Felicia looked up at the taller figure, baring her teeth before she bounded away to the east, their customary place to walk in the morning.
Jasfoup watched her go, a piece of trout still in his hand. “Who’s taking who for a walk,” he said aloud, tossing the fish to where the cats could get it when they returned. He set off at a measured pace, following the brush of her tracks across the dew-wet grass and hoping it wasn’t dulling the shine on his shoes.
He caught up with her inside the tree line where she was devouring a rabbit. Felicia let out a growl followed by a thump of her tail on the damp undergrowth.
“I thought you ate last night?” Jasfoup said, shaking his head. “Can’t you leave anything alone? I’m surprised there’s any livestock at all between here and Oxford as you and Gillian must eat a good proportion of it.”
Felicia got up, leaving the untouched head, back feet and entrails and headed toward the sound of the river Lavers. Over the bridge from where they were and a left turn would bring them to a pool the waterfall emptied into. The bank was shallow there and she could wash off the blood.
Jasfoup stood on the bank while she frolicked in the shallows. The roar of the water cascading into the pool was exhilarating, though he was amused to catch sight of a brown package being tossed about in the undertow.
“What’s that?” he called pointing, though he had to repeat himself three times and fetch a stick to throw to catch Felicia’s attention.
“Fetch!” he said when she eventually looked in his direction. She followed his gaze and paddled out, grabbing with her teeth and paddling back. She struggled out of the water, shook and padded over, dropping it at his feet.
“Not the stick,” he said, pointing back out into the water. “Look. There’s a package or something, caught in the eddy from the waterfall.”
He watched as Felicia jumped back in and retrieved the mysterious object. It was one thing to be a gentleman but quite another to get his suit wet. “What have you found?” he asked.
Felicia climbed out again, shook off the worst of the water and sneezed as she transformed back into human form (albeit covered in fur), holding up a hand to signal that another sneeze was on its way, preventing her speech and looking slightly pleased at the effect it had on her body when it arrived.
“A padded envelope,” she said, peering inside, “containing a very soggy five hundred pounds and a photograph.” She passed it up to Jasfoup, whose curiosity had won over his reluctance to approach the wet girl.
“I’ve seen her a the animal sanctuary. Pennie Black.”
“Is it?” Felicia took back the photograph and frowned. “It’s Winston’s new girlfriend.”
“Is it? Well I never…” Jasfoup stared over her shoulder at the image of a young woman, caught as she came out of a doorway. “I thought he was gay.”
“Hoping for a leg-over, were you?” Felicia didn’t even sound surprised. “I could have told you he wasn’t gay. He’s quite the ladies’ man about town.”
“Oh.” Jasfoup tried not to look disappointed. “Why hadn’t I heard about it? I’ve never seen him with anyone but his sister.”
“The reason he has such a reputation with the ladies,” said Felicia, finally twisting her head to look at him, “is that he’s very discreet.”
“Oh,” Jasfoup said again. He made a move with his hand to his forehead, as if he were physically tearing out the thought and throwing it away. “Did you say five hundred pounds? Tha
t’s mine. Finders keepers.”
“What do you mean, yours?” said Felicia. “I didn’t see you jumping into the pond to fetch it out.”
“Of course not. Why have a dog and bark yourself?” Jasfoup grinned and plucked the damp stack of bills out of her hand. “Why would anyone stick five hundred quid and a photograph in a jiffy bag?”
“It’s a contract,” said Felicia. “I saw this on an old film with an ex-soldier in it. He made his living as a hit man and his handler sent him a jiffy bag of money and a photograph of his target.”
“And this being England, the contract is for a paltry five hundred? I don’t think so.” Jasfoup picked up the jiffy bag and examined it. “There’s no address on it.”
“No. Just your fingerprints, now.” Felicia rolled her eyes as she stood up. “Look,” she said. “We’re not going to solve this mystery here, are we? The bag obviously came down the waterfall, so it could have been dropped anywhere.”
“That’s true.” Jasfoup handed her the wet envelope to carry. “But it’s most likely to have been dropped in Ridge Lane.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the only bridge north of the waterfall within fifteen miles.”
“Good point.” Felicia trotted back toward the manor. “Come on, then. We can drive up there and look for clues.”
“Clues to what?” Jasfoup stumped after her. “It’s not enough money to be a hit. It’s more likely to be ‘ransack her house and warn her off’ money.
Felicia stopped. “How would you know something like that?”
Jasfoup shrugged. “Because I saw Jim Hunt giving it to another bloke last night.”
“Jim Hunt?” Felicia growled softly. “You mean Latitia’s fiancé? What’s he got against Winston’s new shag-piece?”
“Less than Winston?” Jasfoup shrugged. “How should I know? I’ll have a bit of a dig into her history, shall I?”