by Phil Rickman
‘So the chances are your mother knows this woman?’
‘She was carrying a lantern — with a candle in it. Well, there’s a few shops in town now selling tat like that. You think, some crank, don’t you?’
‘We’ll certainly ask Phyllis about her,’ the Bishop said. ‘Perhaps clear it up.’
‘Meanwhile,’ Merrily said. ‘Can we…’ She squirmed a little. ‘Can we talk about Marion now?’
* * *
The ‘Dear Marion’ postcard. She talked about that.
‘When we go over there, I’ll ask Mrs Mumford if I can show it to you.’
‘Needs to be photocopied, I think, Merrily,’ the Bishop said.
‘Good idea.’
‘Then Andrew has to decide if the police should see it. Meanwhile, let me… let me get this right — this is a postcard, with a photograph of the castle on the front, written by Robbie Walsh to someone he actually addresses as… as Marion.’
‘Someone he imagines he’s walking with in the castle grounds, holding hands. And there’s a drawing of what appears to be a spectral female figure. Pleading with her to come to him. “I’ll be waiting,” he says.’
‘I see.’ Bernie Dunmore was silent for a moment. He seemed agitated. ‘What are your conclusions about that?’
‘The psychological one first?’
‘Please.’
‘Shy, solitary kid, fascinated by medieval history, besotted with Ludlow…’
‘You’re thinking fantasy-girlfriend,’ the Bishop said.
‘I don’t know. Is she fantasy-girlfriend material?’
He sighed. ‘All right… look… I do, as it happens, know something about this story. Goes back to the twelfth century. Or, in my case, about thirty-five years, to when I was a young curate. Here, as it happens.’
‘I didn’t know you were a curate in Ludlow.’
‘Not something I’ve ever emphasized on my CV. A bishop is expected to have been around. Unfortunately, once I’d lived here I didn’t want to end up anywhere else. Moved on, drifted quietly back. I’ve been, ah, fortunate.’
‘You jammy sod, Bernie.’
‘Yes, that’s another way of putting it. So… I happened to be a young curate at St Laurence’s when a chap called Peter Underwood — doyen of British ghost-hunters, though I didn’t know it at the time — was researching a book called, if I remember rightly, A Gazetteer of British Ghosts. It has quite an extensive entry on Ludlow — most of which, as it happens, is taken up by the story of Marion de la Bruyère. Marion of the Heath.’
She was usually described as ‘a lady of the castle’, Bernie said.
Which could have meant anything — possibly she was a lady-in-waiting, if there were such creatures in the reigns of King Stephen and his successor, Henry II.
Turbulent times. Less than a century after the Norman conquest, and the ownership of the new and highly strategic Ludlow Castle was in dispute. Stephen had put the fortress in the charge of a Breton knight, Joce de Dinan — arguably the source of the name Dinham, for the community under the castle’s perimeter wall, to the south-west. But the powerful baronial de Lacy family thought it should be theirs, and it was the conflict between Joce and the de Lacys that led to a young knight called Arnold de Lisle, a de Lacy man, being taken prisoner.
‘While not exactly established history, it’s certainly well-documented in a medieval epic known as The Romance of Fulk FitzWarrin,’ Bernie said. ‘Seems that Marion de la Bruyère — described by one source as “a guileless damsel” — had fallen in love with the prisoner, Arnold, and helped him escape from the castle either down a rope or knotted sheets.’
And then — her fatal mistake — Marion had arranged to let Arnold back into the castle, on a later occasion, by means of a rope ladder.
‘While the two of them are otherwise engaged in Marion’s bedchamber, a large number of armed men from the de Lacy camp come swarming up the ladder to capture the castle. Now we know that happened — de Lacy did get the castle. Appears to have slaughtered a lot of people and set fire to property in the streets of Ludlow that night to make it clear that he was now running the show. In fact, some of the killing and the burning would have happened exactly where we’re parked now.’
‘Thanks for that, Bernie.’
‘Anyway, when she finds out what’s happening, Marion — full of remorse and fury at his betrayal — snatches Arnold’s sword and kills him with it. And then — not seeing, presumably, much of a future for herself — she throws herself from a high window in the Hanging Tower.’
Merrily said, ‘But that—’
‘No, it’s not where Robbie fell. It’s a tower at the rear of the castle, facing the river. And the present Hanging Tower doesn’t seem to have been built until two centuries after these alleged events took place.’
‘But Marion…?’
‘Yes. Marion. There’s certainly quite an extensive section in Underwood’s book relating to her activities, post-mortem. It, ah, it was said that people could hear her final screams for many years, but the more recent stories relate to a sort of heavy breathing — supposedly as she psyched herself up either to dispatch Arnold or herself. Underwood told me he’d talked to a local man who’d heard it several times and researched it pretty thoroughly, disproving to his own satisfaction the theory that the noise was caused by a nest of young owls. Not possible in January, apparently.’
‘Nothing seen?’ Merrily said.
‘Ah… there was talk of a… a white lady. Nothing on record.’
‘But it seems likely that Robbie Walsh would have heard the stories.’
‘Best-known ghost story in Ludlow, Merrily. And there’s no shortage of competition in this town. There’s a chap now who conducts ghost-walks at least twice a week in the season. Marion, I’d guess, would be his star attraction.’
‘From what little I know about medieval history,’ Merrily said, ‘an unattached female, in those days, wouldn’t be far into her teens.’
Bernie coughed. ‘If at all.’
‘Robbie would have known that. He wandered the town alone. He might well have fantasized a relationship — maybe, at that age, no more than a rather romantic friendship — with a girl from the past, rather than a supernatural entity. The guileless damsel. The kind you rarely encounter today.’
Merrily thought about Jane, who wouldn’t have fitted the description ‘guileless’ since turning eight.
‘And written to her?’ Bernie said.
‘Gives a kind of substance to the fantasy. Makes her seem more real to him.’
‘Pleading with her to meet him? Saying he’ll be waiting?’
Merrily shrugged.
‘If that’s your psychological explanation,’ the Bishop said, ‘I’m not sure I want to hear the other one.’
‘I haven’t fully worked out the other one yet.’
They were silent for a few moments. A bunch of kids were whooping and kicking a lager can in the square. Merrily wound her window up.
‘Andy, isn’t it likely, given what Bernie says, that your mother would have heard the story of Marion?’
Mumford grunted. ‘I hadn’t. But then I en’t from yere.’
‘Could she be subconsciously associating it with Robbie’s death, is what I’m wondering. She’s seen his drawing. She’s probably read the letter, even if she’s forgotten about it. And in her confused state of mind…’
Out on the square, one of the boys who’d been kicking the can, shouted out, for no obvious reason, ‘Fuckin’ shiiiiiite!’ Merrily thought of the cries — somewhere on the tape-loop — of slaughtered citizens, hacked to death by de Lacy’s men, while the broken body of Marion de la Bruyère still lay at the foot of the tower.
‘And also, Andy, given that the card suggests a depth of unhappiness at home, doesn’t this open up another possibility?’
‘You’re saying suicide.’
‘In which case’ — Merrily looked over her shoulder at the shadowy Mumford — ‘would you really
want to take it any further?’
‘Wrong tower,’ Mumford said stubbornly. ‘You heard what Osman said: boy knew that castle like the back of his hand. He wants to kill himself the way this girl did, why would he jump off the wrong tower?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Tell you what,’ Mumford said. ‘If you wanner stick with this ghost stuff, mabbe I’ll check out the real woman. The living woman. The one he was seen with. Mother and son.’
‘Mrs Pepper.’
‘If her name turns out to be Marion, what we gonner be looking at then?’
‘Look, it’s getting late,’ the Bishop said. ‘Perhaps we should go and do what we came for — see how we can comfort your mother. Perhaps hear what Phyllis has to say. And then… little prayer-circle, do you think, Merrily? Proper blessing of the house? How’s your father, Andrew?’
‘He’s all right.’
‘Probably showing less than he’s feeling if he’s the Reg I remember, but I’ll persuade him to join us. All right, Andrew, how about you drive down and prepare the ground? Merrily and I should perhaps… discuss tactics.’
‘Thank you,’ Mumford said. ‘Aye, I’ll go and talk to them. Thanks.’
He had to put his shoulder to the rear offside door, which jammed most times. When he’d gone, the Bishop turned to Merrily, his arms folded, his legs stretched out into the well.
‘So what’s all this really about?’ he said mildly.
She asked if she could have a cigarette, so they got out and walked down towards the centre of the town. There was a greenish sheen on roofs and a glare in window-glass as a near-full moon came up like stage lighting, sharpening the medieval gables and creaming the appropriately buttery stonework of the Buttercross with its neo-classical portico and its clock tower.
Eras overlapping like double exposures on a film.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Bernie Dunmore said. ‘I warned you last summer, before that trouble at the hop kiln nearly backfired on you. I said that, when dealing with matters that can never be verified, you needed to cover your back. Had to get some support around you.’
‘It just wasn’t as easy as you thought. The people I was hoping to get are not… joiners.’
‘Yes, well, unfortunately, in the Church of England the joiners are usually the ones trying to further a political agenda. I don’t know Siân Callaghan-Clarke very well, and I’m sure the hint of dominatrix I sometimes see in her eyes is pure illusion—’
‘Bernie, I never wanted a cosy life.’
‘—Whereas Saltash is someone I have had dealings with over the years, and the man has an ego the size of a Hereford bull’s balls, to put it bluntly. And, incredibly for a psychiatrist, he doesn’t appear to listen. So you have my sympathy there, Merrily. However…’
This was difficult. If Merrily wasn’t careful, the Bishop was going to think she’d generated this whole situation to bend his ear on the subject of control-freak Deliverance advisers, brought him out here to get him on her side.
‘Bernie, if you’re thinking—’
He lifted a hand. ‘We do share a secretary. Sophie gets e-mails from Callaghan-Clarke. Endlessly, it seems. Questioning this, questioning that, usually about the way we conduct Deliverance.’
‘She hasn’t complained to me.’
‘Hasn’t complained to me, either. Sophie doesn’t complain. Just hasn’t concealed the computer traffic. I mean, obviously, as soon as interest in using Saltash was expressed from the Dean’s office, of all places, I suspected we’d have problems, if only because I knew he’d rather like to repossess your office for general Cathedral admin.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘You knew he was hardly a Deliverance, ah, groupie, Merrily.’
She followed him across the narrow medieval street into the wide street that glided gracefully down to the Georgian era and the river.
‘How close is the Dean to Saltash?’
‘Not sure, Merrily, but I have the feeling he was once chaplain at a mental hospital somewhere. Oh, they’re going to try and tie your hands, between them, that’s not in doubt. As to Siân — whether it’s personal ambition on her part, or she’s firing someone else’s bullets, I wouldn’t know. But remember, whatever they try to make you do, you’re still the only officially trained Deliverance minister in this diocese.’
‘She’s certainly doing her best to discredit the man who trained me.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about old Huw — been there before, loves it. And you don’t have to do what you’re told. In fact, resisting the rationalists is probably an important part of your role. Tightrope, obviously, I’m not denying that, but then the whole job’s a tightrope.’ He pushed his hands into the pockets of his golfing jacket, watching his plodding feet in the moonlight. ‘Of course, you’ll never prove Saltash wrong, because to do that you’d virtually have to prove the existence of ghosts, wouldn’t you?’
‘Hadn’t thought of it quite like that,’ she lied.
‘I…’ He stopped under the awning outside the ancient and cavernous De Grey’s restaurant. ‘There’s something I didn’t tell you, Merrily.’
‘Oh?’
‘When the Underwood ghost book was published, I… All right, I was a curate, but I was still a young chap, played rugby, had some mates, and we used to go drinking on a Friday night. Not to excess, in my case, obviously, but we enjoyed ourselves. And I happened to have a copy of the book, and we… I mean, you know what young chaps are like…’
‘Do I?’
‘We’re in the pub one night, half a dozen of us, discussing this business of the heavy breathing in the tower — giving it somewhat salacious overtones, I’m afraid. I said it was all a load of rubbish, probably dreamed up to attract more visitors to the castle. Someone said, how can you say that, all the nonsense you’ve got to swallow and regurgitate every Sunday? Anyway, the upshot, there was a bet… ten quid.’
‘Lot of money back then, I’d guess.’
‘Curates were paid even worse in those days, and I was engaged at the time, so, yes, ten pounds… well worth having. There were five of them, and they threw in a couple of quid each. One of them, you see, knew a way into the castle at night, over one of the walls, Dinham end, and then… anyway…’
‘You didn’t…’
‘If it had been for a whole night, I definitely wouldn’t have, but it was quite a warm evening — warmer than tonight — and we agreed on two hours. I had to swear on the Bible that I wouldn’t sneak out. The deal was two hours, absolutely on my own in the Hanging Tower, and if I was still there when they came to get me, around half past midnight, the money was all mine.’
‘You astound me, Bernard.’
‘Wasn’t going to tell you in front of Mumford, that’s for sure. Anyway, we all went in together first. I’d never been in the Hanging Tower before. You have to go across the Inner Bailey — there’s a wonderful Norman chapel in the middle, dedicated to St Mary Magdalene — and then into a sort of great hall, which is rather eerie because it has these sculpted stone faces on the walls. One of my friends had a torch and he kept lighting up the faces, making woo-woo sort of noises. All pretty juvenile.’
They were walking downhill now, towards the old town gate, where the roadway still passed under an arch with lighted rooms over it.
‘The so-called Hanging Tower protrudes from the rear of the castle — must have been two or three storeys high originally, but there’s no roof now, so you can just see the windows in recesses, one above the other, and then the sky. Small rooms now — six of us filled the space, but when the others had gone… most unpleasant.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t have done it.’
‘It was a boy thing, as they say. Castle’s a very different place at night, hadn’t realized that — all that nice, mellow, honey stone. But when you’re absolutely on your own inside an enormous walled ruin, it’s… black. Smells… the thought of rats. And cold as hell in there, a clammy damp in the air. I spent the firs
t hour at the window — least I thought it was an hour, probably ten minutes — looking out at the few visible lights. Night mist coming off the river, and I couldn’t see the ground, or the sky, and it felt… I gather it’s commonplace if you’re on a high building and suffering from vertigo to want to… you know…’
‘You wanted to jump?’
They were alone on the street, no cars for a few moments, and Bernie’s voice was resonating as though in a small church as they passed under the short tunnel which had once been Broad Gate.
‘Probably couldn’t squeeze through now, but I could have then. Didn’t like it, anyway, so I had to move back into the dark. In the end I found myself hunched up in a corner, in near-total darkness, which was like being entombed, and I… at some point I became aware of an unhappiness. Almost a physical thing, rather like when you feel the beginnings of a sore throat and it’s no more than an unpleasant taste. Have you ever tried to pray and you couldn’t?’
‘Not sure.’ Merrily lit another cigarette. ‘Been times I’m ashamed of when I just couldn’t do it because it seemed worthless… useless. Slippage of faith.’
‘No, we’ve all been there. This was an actual physical inability to pray when I very much wanted to. The way an asthmatic can’t find breath. Here I was, a fairly recently ordained minister of the Church, and I… could not pray.’
‘That would be scary.’
‘Panic. The unthinkable. The feeling that it just didn’t work here, that God had been excluded from this place. I remember — it seems laughable now— No, actually, none of that night seems remotely laughable — I remember thinking of the ten quid at stake, and how despicable that had been. How what was happening to me was a direct result of that. That what I’d done — taking that bet — had been almost evil. I… when you asked me earlier tonight if I did the National Lottery, no, I don’t. I’ve avoided anything approximating to a bet ever since.’
Merrily stopped on the wide pavement, under the first street lamp beyond what had been the town boundary, the road sloping to the River Teme at Ludford Bridge.
‘What happened?’