by Phil Rickman
Mrs Leather added:
Hergest Court was, or perhaps still is, haunted by a demon dog, said to have belonged to Black Vaughan and to have accompanied him during his life. It is seen before a death in the Vaughan family. A native of Kington writes: ‘In my young days I knew the people who lived at Hergest Court well, and they used to tell me strange things of the animal. How he inhabited a room at the top of the house, which no one ever ventured to enter; how he was heard there at night, clanking his chain; how at other times he was seen wandering about (minus the chain!) His favourite haunt was a pond, the “watering place” on the high road from Kington. The spot was much dreaded, and if possible avoided, by late travellers. I knew many who said they had seen the black dog of Hergest.’
Right. This was the legend alleged to be the source of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Ben Foley hosted murder weekends at Stanner, appearing as Sherlock Holmes, on the basis — unproven — that Arthur Conan Doyle used to stay there.
This would be Jane helping out with background research.
Of course, despite being a doctor, a man of science, Conan Doyle had been very deeply into spiritualism and psychic matters in general. Merrily recalled reading how he was convinced that the escapologist, Harry Houdini, was using psychic powers to dematerialize, which Houdini denied to the end. Doyle had also championed the Cottingley Fairies photographs — fakes.
Hmm.
Merrily shut the book and arranged it carefully on the bedside table, the way she’d found it. She went back to the bookcase, crouched down and re-inspected the titles, one by one this time. Definitely nothing here suggestive of a new interest in spiritualism.
When you thought about it, the only place Jane could realistically have encountered a medium — the only place, apart from school, she’d been to in weeks, in fact — was Stanner Hall.
Was, or perhaps still is, haunted by a demon dog.
But that was Hergest Court, not Stanner. Stanner wasn’t old enough to be haunted by a demon dog. A ‘demon dog’, anyway, was probably no more than an imprint, or a projection. Nothing demonic about dogs.
Merrily checked out the little room which, due to cash flow, was still only halfway to becoming Jane’s private bathroom. Found herself lifting the lid of the toilet cistern.
Nothing but brownish water. Feeling stupid and treacherous, Merrily replaced the cistern lid. As she left the apartment she looked around the upper landing, full of shadows even in the early afternoon, and a few trailing cobwebs she ought to get around to removing. She cleared her throat.
‘We’re all right, you know. We can manage, Lol and me. And you must have things to get on with, Lucy. A woman like you.’
She went downstairs, shaking her head. Madness. All priests were prey to madness.
And then, on reaching the bottom, she immediately turned and went back up and said a small prayer outside Jane’s door. Paranoia.
That night it all came back, like something she’d eaten, when the kid said, ‘Would it be OK if I spent all next weekend at Stanner? Friday till Sunday?’
Merrily went still, hands in the washing up bowl. She didn’t turn round.
‘Weather doesn’t look too promising, flower.’
‘Well, I can always cadge a lift with Gomer in the truck if it looks bad. The thing is, they really need me — there’s a conference on.’
‘An actual conference.’
‘Don’t be like that. They’re doing their best.’
‘What kind of conference?’
‘Oh… something called the White Company. It’s the title of an historical novel by Conan Doyle so I expect they’re into, like, the non-Holmes side of it. Which sounds boring, but Ben thinks it’s great. Like, anything at all to do with Conan Doyle, he’s up for it. And the money, naturally.’
‘Interesting man,’ Merrily said, ‘Conan Doyle.’
‘Er… yeah.’
‘Progressive thinker. Although he lost a lot of credibility towards the end of his life through his support of spiritualism.’
‘Well, he would wouldn’t he?’
‘Would he?’
‘It was all bollocks.’
‘Ben Foley’s not interested in that side of him, then?’
‘Ben’s got his credibility to think about.’ Jane stood up. ‘Tell you what… just to make sure it’s OK for the weekend, how about I walk down to Gomer’s and ask him if he’ll be around Kington, with Danny. And the truck.’
‘Why don’t you just give him a ring?’
‘I’ve tried. Always leaves his answering machine on at night. Look, if you light the fire, I’ll be back in no time.’
Through the half-open kitchen door, Merrily watched Jane throwing on her fleece and slipping out the front way.
Oh, there was something.
22
Whoop, Whoop
‘Comes a time,’ Gomer said, ‘when you gotter decide whether seven grand’s worth gettin’ your face stove in for. Naw, they en’t been back, them Welshies, ’course they en’t.’
Gomer’s kitchen was still like a monument to Minnie, who had died on him: very clean and bright with shiny pots and cake tins, lurid curtains with big red tulips on them and a tea cosy in the shape of a marmalade cat. Nothing added, nothing taken away; maybe a shrine or maybe Gomer just wasn’t interested in kitchens.
‘I did try to phone you a few times.’ Jane took off her fleece. ‘I rang Danny last night, but I got Greta so I had to pretend it was a wrong number. Anything I can do while I’m here?’
Gomer gave her a sharp look. ‘I en’t an ole pensioner yet, girl.’
‘I know that. It’s just that when you’re a weekend maid it’s the way you think.’ She sat down at the kitchen table. ‘It’s a lot of money, Gomer.’
‘Oh hell, aye. Even for Sebbie Three Farms, now. Lost a fair bit five year or so back. Wife divorced him. Had to do a bit o’ jugglin’ to hold on to all his ground.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Sebbie? Standard ole Border gentry. Certain kind seems to thrive yereabouts — talk posh but rough as a sow’s hide underneath. Can’t say I likes the feller, but can’t say I dislikes him as much as some of ’em. En’t figured it out, mind, why he brung in shooters from Off.’
‘Because he didn’t want local people gossiping.’
‘But if he’s got a beast at his flocks, why en’t he out there ’isself? Been around guns all his life. Why en’t Sebbie out there ’isself takin’ a pop? Tea, Janey?’
‘No, thanks, I can’t stay long.’
‘Well, I’m gonner have one.’
Gomer went to put the kettle on. Jane looked at the crack of night between the drawn curtains. For three nights, she’d lain in bed dwelling, with no pleasurable frissons, upon the beast, the participants in the event in the kitchens at Stanner. And sometimes feeling Lucy Devenish watching her from the corner by the bookcase — this solemn, hawk-nosed figure in a poncho, rebuking her for her lies, deceit and despicable selfishness.
‘Gomer…’ She hesitated. Gomer plugged in the kettle and turned and looked at her. ‘The Hound of Hergest,’ she said.
Gomer came and sat down. His smile was sceptical. ‘I won’t say I en’t never yeard of folk supposed to’ve seen him, Janey. But the ole Hound of Hergest — do he kill ewes, this is the question?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Yere’s the situation. Dogs kills sheep. Sheepdogs kills sheep — one o’ your big myths is that stock with their throats ripped out, that’s all down to Mr Fox. Truth is, whole load of lambs gets savaged every year by sheepdogs. Thin line between snappin’ at sheep to round ’em up and picking one off. Point I’m makin’, Janey, if you got a mystery beast preyin’ on ewes, chances are it’s a big sheepdog — mabbe two — that’s got the taste for blood.’
‘So why’s this Sebbie Dacre so scared of going out there himself with a gun?’
‘I say scared?’ Gomer squinted at her.
Also, at night, she’d thought of Nathan. What if h
e’d died? What if he’d died there in Danny’s van, leaving Ben facing a manslaughter charge, at the very least, and Gomer and Danny and her as accessories?
What if he’d died after they’d got him to the hospital? What if he was dead now?
‘I wouldn’t know why Sebbie’s scared,’ Gomer said. ‘Man like Sebbie, he don’t confide to the likes of we. Don’t confide to nobody, that family. He also don’t scare that easy.’
‘They were related to the Chancerys of Stanner, weren’t they?’
‘Who you year that from, Janey?’
‘Woman who’s booking a conference at Stanner. Mrs Pollen.’
‘From Pembridge?’ Gomer nodded. ‘Me and Nev put her a septic tank in once. Husband used to be County Harchivist for Powys.’
‘So Dacre is related to the Chancerys?’
‘Small world, girl, terrible inbred. Sebbie’s ma was Margery Davies, second daughter of Robert and Hattie Davies — Hattie Chancery as was. After Stanner was sold, Margie ’herited most of the ground on the Welsh side and some money, and her married Richard Dacre, who was the son of a farmer on the English side. So, overnight, like, they become the biggest landowners yereabouts. And they had just the one son and that was Sebbie, and a younger daughter. So when Richard died, Sebbie got the main farms and all the ground and a fair bit of cash. And then he bought up Emrys Morgan’s farm across the valley, when Emrys died, and so that’s why they calls him Sebbie Three Farms. See?’
‘So Dacre is Hattie Chancery’s grandson. And great-grandson of Walter Chance, who built Stanner Hall.’
‘Correct. Hattie, her had two daughters, but Paula, the oldest, got sent away, and Paula was left the Stanner home farm, The Nant, which was leased long-term to Eddie Berrows, Jeremy’s dad, who was Hattie’s farm manager’s son.’
‘So Jeremy’s farm was originally part of the Stanner estate, too.’
‘Not much wasn’t. Now Paula, after what happened with Hattie and Robert, her was brung up by Robert’s sister up in Cheshire. Growed up and married a feller up there and just took the income from the lease. But her died youngish, see, and Richard Dacre, he kept trying to buy The Nant off Paula’s husband, but Paula, her had a soft spot for the Berrows from when her was little, and her husband knew the Berrowses didn’t want the Dacres as their landlords, ’cause the Dacres’d likely have ’em out on their arses first possible opportunity. So he signs another lease with Eddie Berrows — under Richard’s nose, so to speak. And the Dacres was blind bloody furious. So that split the family good and proper. Plus, it explains why Sebbie Dacre got no love for Jeremy.’
‘It’s not short of feuds, is it, this area? You need an up-to-date feud-map just to find your way around.’ Jane was imagining a large-scale plan of the Welsh Border hills, with arteries of hatred linking farms and estates, pockets of old resentment, dotted lines marking tunnels of lingering suspicion.
‘’Course, quite a lot of folk don’t think too highly of Sebbie,’ Gomer said. ‘Do he care? Do he f— No, he don’t, Janey. He don’t care.’
‘So, what happened — I mean I really think I ought to know this, working at Stanner — what exactly happened with Hattie Chancery? Or is that something people don’t talk about?’
‘They don’t talk about it,’ Gomer said, ‘on account there en’t that many folk left round yere remembers it.’
‘What about you?’
‘I was just a boy then. Just a kiddie at the little school.’
‘So you’re saying you don’t remember it either?’
Gomer dug into a pocket of his baggy jeans and slapped his ciggy tin on the kitchen table. ‘’Course I remembers it. All everybody bloody jabbered about for weeks.’
Jane beamed at him. ‘Maybe I will have a cup of tea after all, if that’s all right.’
And she sat quietly and watched Gomer making it. Could tell by the way he was nodding to himself, lips moving, that he was replaying his memories like a videotape, and maybe editing them, too.
While the tea was brewing, Gomer brought down Minnie’s bone-china cups and saucers, and it was touching to watch him laying them out with hands that looked like heavy-duty gardening gloves. Jane waited. If she was going to be of any use to Antony Largo, she needed more background information. This wasn’t simply curiosity, it was need-to-know.
Last night, from the apartment, she’d rung Natalie to ask how things were going, like with Ben. Nat hadn’t been all that forthcoming. ‘He’s all right.’
Jane had pressed on anyway. ‘But is he? That guy thought Ben was going to kill him. He was terrified, he— It’s like… it’s a side of Ben I’ve never seen.’
‘He’s a man,’ Nat had said, offhand. ‘Men can’t be seen to back down. I really don’t think he meant to do that much damage.’
‘Nat, was he—?’
‘It happened very quickly, Jane. I didn’t really see anything.’
‘Well, obviously, that’s what you’d tell the police.’
‘Police?’
‘I mean if the police were involved. If that guy’s injuries—’
‘Jane…’ Nat’s voice had gone low. ‘That really isn’t going to happen. So I think it’s best we all forget about this incident. It was a one-off, and if it gets round… you know what this area’s like. We don’t want Ben to get a reputation. Best if we don’t talk about it any more. All right?’
Nat had sounded nervy. Not herself at all.
And Jane was still hearing, Thick, barbaric yobs. No subtlety… Where I come from, we have real hard bastards.’
Time to investigate Ben’s history. This morning, Jane had got up early, gone down to the scullery, switched on the computer and fed Ben Foley into Google. Hard to remember what life had been like without the Net. Now everybody was a private eye.
The results had been disappointing. All she’d found were references to the various TV series Ben had been involved with, no personal stuff at all. It had been mildly amusing to discover a Web site for The Missing Casebook, his series about what had really happened to Sherlock Holmes post-Reichenbach. It had become a very small cult, the Web site set up by a hard core of fans furious that it hadn’t run to a second series. But the site didn’t seem to have been updated for a while.
Jane also looked up Antony Largo. Most of the references were to his documentary Women of the Midnight. The words most often applied to Antony were committed and tenacious. To understand what drove women to kill without mercy, without pity, inverting their need to nurture, he was said to have spent weeks in Holloway prison and had corresponded with Myra Hindley, the moors murderess. After Women of the Midnight, Antony never seemed to have been out of work, but he didn’t seem to have done anything since that had been quite as massively acclaimed.
It was becoming clear that Ben had known exactly what he was doing — connecting with old triumphs — when he’d introduced Antony to Hattie Chancery.
‘Hattie Chancery,’ Gomer said, lighting up. ‘Her was as big as a cow. Her could skin a rabbit with her teeth. Her could ride all day and drink strong men under the table.’
‘Really?’
‘Prob’ly not, but it’s what we was told as kids. “Eat up your sprouts, boy, else Hattie Chancery’ll come for you in the night and put you under her arm and take you away.” You woke up in the night, bit of a creak, it’d be Hattie Chancery on the stairs.’
‘This was while she was still alive?’
‘Sure t’be.’ Gomer nodded. ‘Master of the Middle Marches, see, for years. The hunt, Janey. Used to year ’em galloping up Woolmer’s pitch of a Saturday, hounds yowlin’ away, but the loudest of all’d be Hattie Chancery. Like a whoop, whoop in the air, urgin’ on the fellers. Hattie Chancery: whoop, whoop.’
Gomer leaned back in his chair, into the smoke from his ciggy and the clouds of his childhood.
‘Was that unusual,’ Jane asked him, ‘having a female hunt master in those days?’
‘Was round yere. But Hattie, her was a dynamite horse-woman, and had this au
thority about her. Big woman, see. Weighed a fair bit, in later years. Drank beer. Pints. Big thirst on her.’
Jane knew girls at school who drank pints, but that was more about sexual politics than big thirst.
‘You still gets huntswomen like that now, mind,’ Gomer said. ‘Loud. I remember folks used to jump in the ditch if they yeard Hattie’s car comin’ round the bend from the pub at Gladestry. That was a fact — into the bloody ditch, no messin’, and they’d year her laughing like a maniac as her come beltin’ past, well tanked-up, all the windows down. No big drink-driving thing in them days, see. Least, not for the likes of Hattie Chancery.’
Jane was surprised that Gomer could remember so far back, but she supposed you did when you got older; it was just the more recent events that became a haze.
‘What about the husband?’
‘Robert? Kept well out of it, Janey. Never hunted. Couldn’t ride, for one thing — they reckoned he had an injury from the Great War, but I also yeard it said he had a bit of a distaste for all that. For blood. Bad time, they reckoned, in France, and he come back a changed man: quiet, thoughtful, never talked about what he’d seen. Son of a doctor in Kington, Robert was. Good-lookin’ feller, caught Hattie’s eye, and that was that. Her was young, eighteen or so, when her married Robert. Hattie’s ole man had died by then, and so Robert come to Stanner. Hattie wouldn’t never leave Stanner. Brought Robert back like a bride. That’s what they used to say. Like a bride.’
Jane sipped her tea, forming this picture of Robert as some kind of poetic Wilfred Owen type, sickened by the horrors of the trenches. Maybe even a Lol type.
‘Serious mismatch,’ Gomer said. ‘Went wrong early, got worse.’
‘You ever see him?’
‘Mostly, he stayed round the house and the grounds, but I seen him once or twice. Every now and seldom he’d go for a walk on his own, along Hergest Ridge, with a knapsack. And I was with my ole man this day — I’d be about seven — and we seen Mr Robert, and he give me an apple. And I remember my ole man watching him walk off, head down into the wind, and the ole man sayin’, “Poor bugger.” Always remember that. Poor bugger.’