The Prayer of the Night Shepherd mw-6

by Phil Rickman

‘Greta, how’d he sound? What d’he sound like, in hisself?’

  ‘Sounded like he always does, to me. Half-baked. What’s the—?’

  ‘When was this? When’d he ring?’

  ‘Half an hour ago, mabbe. You was busy out there, I didn’t wanner bother you with—’

  ‘Holy shit, Greta…’ The jolt to Danny’s senses kicked him back outside. He shut his eyes and he threw his head back, feeling the fat snowflakes coming down on his upturned face and his beard and his gritted teeth. He snapped back upright. ‘Call him.’ Wiping his eyes hard with the heel of his hand. ‘If he don’t answer, call again. And again.’

  ‘What do I say to him?’

  ‘Talk about the weather, talk about any damn thing.’ Danny stumbled away through the snow to his tractor. ‘But keep him talking.’

  Jane ran upstairs and tossed the camcorder on her bed in fury. Picked up her phone and saw there was a message on the voice-mail: Antony’s number.

  Sod that. She dropped the phone on the bed and sat quietly for a while with the light out, watching the snow drifting past the window, wishing she’d caught the usual bus, gone home to Mum. Someone you could count on to behave like… decently.

  What was worst about this was that Ben didn’t even seem to see anything vaguely wrong in meeting violence with violence. And all to sustain his hugely powerful image.

  She felt sick. She wanted out of here.

  With no enthusiasm, she picked up the phone, keyed in the message.

  ‘Jane. Listen, hen, I have a problem. We’re talking white hell here. Those guys at the Highways Agency, they’re never prepared for cruel and unusual weather, and it looks like they’re about to close the Severn Bridge. I’m doing ma best here, but it may be tomorrow night or later before I can get over there. Looks like it’s down to you, the big one. Don’t worry about it, you screw up it’s no’ the end of the world, we can reconstruct. Just weld the wee thing to your hands and get what you can: lots of Ben, lots of the weirdos, keep in tight, don’t zoom. And don’t be put off; they get used to the lens, the punters and the victims both. Good luck.’

  ‘Sod off,’ Jane said sourly. If they thought she wanted to be part of the artifice, they could both sod off.

  It seemed likely now that they were all in this — the White Company too. Was Alistair Hardy really going to tell the viewers that he couldn’t actually get Conan Doyle on the line? Was he going to tell Ben that Conan Doyle had confirmed to him that the Hound was purely a Devon myth? Not if he had any psychic sense of what Ben was about — Ben, who suddenly was no longer endearingly eccentric, but more than a little unstable.

  Maybe it was simply mid-life crisis, hormonal: Ben well into his fifties now, racing the clock. Ready to hurl the clock to the ground, it seemed, and hack at it with his heel in rage. Ready to damage anybody threatening the now drama.

  Reluctantly, Jane called Antony back. At least he was younger and therefore probably less desperate. When he answered, she could hear a car engine.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t know you were driving.’

  ‘Jane, is that you? Trying to get myself home, here, through the white hell, which has arrived in the soft South, and the novelty’s already wearing thin. Wait a sec, let me pull into the verge.’

  ‘OK. Sorry.’ The cynical languor in his voice had a calming effect on Jane. She waited for the handbrake’s ratchet. ‘Antony, can I talk to you confidentially?’

  ‘Aye, I’ll switch off the recording machine.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Joke. Go on.’

  ‘I’m worried. About things. Well, about Ben.’

  ‘Well, I never.’

  ‘This is serious. You’re his mate, or I wouldn’t tell you — in fact, I didn’t tell you, OK?’

  ‘Jane, this conversation will dissipate in the ether.’

  And so, in the face of his levity, and because there was no one else she could tell, she told Antony the shocking truth about Nathan and what Ben had done to him. Told him in considerable detail.

  And then she told him why Ben had done it.

  ‘Oh boy,’ Antony said.

  She told him how Ben, on another occasion, after screaming at the shooters, had said that where he came from there were real hard bastards.

  ‘Knightsbridge?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Antony!’

  ‘OK. Joke. Ben’s from Reading and not what you’d call the most salubrious side. As I understand it, his old man was a builder’s labourer, something like that. Well, fine. Not then, though — Ben came into television at a time when a good and educated background, a nice accent, was still very much an advantage, and he gave them what they felt most comfortable with, and now he’s stuck with it. So, yeah, I guess he knows how to handle himself. However, next time he tears someone’s face off, it would be awfully nice to have it on camera. Is the wee Sony in your other hand, as we speak?’

  ‘Antony, I don’t—’

  ‘Jane, don’t worry about it. He’s no’ gonnae do anything to spoil the programme, believe it. I know this guy, I promise you.’

  What did she expect, common sense? God, were they all the same?

  She said, slightly desperately, ‘It’s just… that it’s getting weirder. It’s getting out of hand. Like Hattie Chancery?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The daughter of the man who built Stanner. She killed her—’

  ‘Oh yeah, he told me.’

  ‘But what’s she have to do with Doyle and the Hound of Hergest? She probably wasn’t even born when Doyle was here. It’s just like, Oh, she’s spooky, let’s throw her into the pot. I just think it’s getting out of hand.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, that…’ What was she supposed to say to this guy? Antony, I want to believe. I want to believe in the mystical Borderland, and if the Hound’s part of that, I wanted to believe in the Hound. I need this. I don’t want it turned into… artifice.

  ‘Jane, listen. Don’t worry, it’s gonnae be fine. We can sort all this out later. You’re my number one girl out there, and only one rule. If it’s sexy, shoot it.’

  ‘Cool,’ Jane said sadly.

  After Walton, the forestry came up on both sides of the tractor, this hostile army of giants in new white armour. Danny’s face felt hot with anger and anxiety. He’d even switched off his music — mabbe feel more like playing it on the way back, instead of replaying over and over in his head what Greta had said.

  Sounded like he always does. Half-baked. Like he en’t yere.

  Danny leaned on the wheel and the tractor battered on into England. Like he’d figured, no Hereford gritters or ploughs had made it this far, and by the time he reached the turning to The Nant, the road looked like it would soon be impassable for ordinary vehicles.

  However…

  On Jeremy’s ground, the snow was packed tight on either side, and there was a well-cleared channel down the middle, and the tractor rolled sweetly down this long, grey alleyway to the edge of the farmyard.

  Dear God.

  Danny climbed down from the cab, hissing as the night wrapped its frozen arms around him. He looked around: no lights in the farmhouse, no security lights outside. Power off already? Snow brought the lines down?

  Danny hoped it was only the power that was off.

  He stood there and looked at The Nant for long seconds, snow accumulating on the vinyl shoulders of his donkey jacket and already inches thick, dense as Christmas-cake icing, on the farmhouse roof.

  And then, before he’d realized it, he was bawling out into the white night, like Greta doing the full Janis, ‘Jeremy! Jeremy, where are you, boy? JEREMY!’

  When he filled his lungs again, the bitter air stung his throat and he started to cough, doubled up by the gate. He leaned on the gate, tears in his eyes, panting, letting the silence re-form around him as the snow fell, all pretty and pitiless. Come out, Jeremy, please.

  But when he pictured Jeremy, the boy wasn’t coming towards him but walking softly away through the cushion
y fields, off into the hollows of the deep forestry where there was peace.

  Danny raised his head and thought he saw a glow behind one of the windows in the farmhouse. And it was then that it started up.

  At first it was like it was coming up from the ground, from some sunken prison cell, down where there was no light and no hope. It was coming up through the snow like tongues of cold fire. It was as old as the hills, as old as the Ridge, and bone-cold, the coldest sound in the world.

  28

  The Jane Police

  So much bigger than asthma now.

  This was what Alice said when Merrily rang her, as Lol had known she would, before the night was out.

  Alice was a force of nature. If Dexter thought that by finally coming out with the untold story he was going to make her drop it, he’d got her badly wrong. She’d discovered this powerfully mystical aspect of Christianity she’d never imagined existed. And also — as the oldest sister in a dysfunctional family — she saw it as her responsibility to sort everything out.

  Even from across the scullery, Lol had heard everything coming out of the phone, Alice’s voice crackling like an old radio. She and Dexter had had a row and Dexter had stomped off in a rage, although he was supposed to come back to do the last two hours in the chip shop — Alice saying he wasn’t having his own way this time, asthma or no asthma, nothing was going to stop the Eucharist. Telling Dexter she’d find Darrin herself, make sure he was there. At the Eucharist.

  ‘She’s fallen in love with the word,’ Merrily said. ‘Sounds powerful and kind of technical. Prayer’s comforting, but Eucharist suggests big guns.’

  The computer was booting up, this row of icons extending along the bottom of the screen, Lol realizing that he didn’t know what any of them meant: another religion he didn’t understand.

  ‘So where’s Darrin now?’

  ‘Well, he was in prison. One way or another, Alice will find him. Which is not what Dexter wants. But Dexter’s clearly still scared of Darrin. Whereas Alice is scared of nobody.’

  A face with a heavy moustache was on the screen, the expression solemn and dignified but the eyes bright with just the possibility of madness.

  Illuminating Merrily’s other problem.

  ‘If the White Company are simply harmless, misguided, terribly British eccentrics’ — she was standing next to the computer, holding her pectoral cross between her fingers — ‘then why didn’t Jane tell me about them?’

  ‘Because she knows you’d have to disapprove,’ Lol said. ‘And she’d be embarrassed if she had to say, “I’m sorry I can’t work this weekend because my mum doesn’t want me exposed to evil forces.” ’

  ‘You think I’m overreacting.’

  ‘She’s grown up quite a lot in the past year. I mean… have you actually had experience of a medium letting evil into the world, or is this received wisdom?’

  ‘In as much as it’s received from the same source we get all our—’ Merrily sank into the chair, hair mussed. ‘It’s all received wisdom, isn’t it? It’s why they call us The Church. And if she’s grown up that much, why did you feel you had to tell me about Lucy?’

  He looked up at her from the rug. ‘Because, in the Jane Police, I’m just a junior officer.’

  She laughed. There was something that might have been a tear stain like a birthmark alongside her nose. He wanted to go over and lick it off.

  ‘I’m trying not to get screwed up or sanctimonious about this,’ Merrily said. ‘There are even one or two Deliverance ministers who actually work with mediums and don’t seem to have come to any—’

  ‘Look, you won’t rest till you find out what they’re doing. Why don’t you ask them?’

  ‘What do I do — send them a spirit message?’

  ‘Or even go back to the homepage and click on Contacts.’

  ‘Oh.’ She flipped back a page. ‘Contact Us.’

  To apply for membership or to obtain any of our leaflets, contact Matthew Hawksley on otherside@asc.com

  Merrily clicked on it. An e-mail option came up. ‘Should I?’

  ‘What’s your own e-mail address? No reference to Deliverance in it?’

  ‘Are you kidding? Jane uses it. It just says Watkins.’

  ‘Why don’t you say you’re a Conan Doyle enthusiast and you’ve heard there’s a conference at Stanner Hall this weekend. And is it still on, despite the weather? Mention the cwn annwn — that’ll sound knowledgeable.’

  ‘OK.’ Merrily began typing.

  Good evening, Mr Hawksley,

  Word has reached me of your gathering at the Stanner Hall Hotel, near Kington, in Herefordshire, this weekend. As a Conan Doyle enthusiast living not far away, I should be most interested to learn more details. In fact, given the weather conditions, will the conference still be taking place? As my own researches into the links between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Hound of Hergest, the cwn annwn, etc. have shown, this is a fascinating area of inquiry. If you could supply me with more details ASAP, I would be most grateful.

  Yours sincerely,

  M. Watkins.

  ‘Perfect,’ Lol said.

  ‘What if they are at Stanner, and one of them shows this to Jane?’

  ‘They’re unlikely to make the connection,’ Lol said. ‘But if they do, you’ll get a call from Jane. And she’ll have to tell you all about it, in a lot of detail, and there won’t be a mystery any more, and we can get out of this cell and go and light a fire and watch the snow build a big white wall between us and the world.’

  Merrily put on a wry smile that didn’t quite work.

  Jane was pacing the shabby lobby with the camera hanging from her shoulder like a school bag — the camera and all it represented a burden now; it had come to this. Time to talk seriously to Nat — soon as she got back.

  When the porch door slammed, it wasn’t Nat but Matthew, the Harry Potter clone, carrying a laptop in a leather case. Just for the sake of it, Jane brought up the Sony 150 and shot him by the side of the Christmas tree in front of the reception desk.

  Matthew half turned and stuck his tongue out. Behind him, the white lights on the tree were unevenly spread, and it looked spindly and skeletal, like a frosted pylon. Ben had brought the tree in himself last weekend, probably nicked it out of the forestry. Jane didn’t approve of young trees hacked off above the roots and brought indoors to die slowly, so that by Twelfth Night — Happy New Year — you had a stiffened corpse. She lowered the camera, nodding at the laptop.

  ‘You get e-mails from the Other Side on that?’

  Matthew inspected her through his black-framed glasses. ‘I realize you’re much too cool to be mixed up with spiritists and channellers, and I suppose I was much the same at your age.’

  ‘What changed?’ To Jane, adulthood seemed an arid place tonight.

  ‘You don’t want to know. Stick to your filming.’

  ‘No, I do,’ Jane said.

  Matthew stared into her eyes, and she stared back and realized he could be as old as Mum. Glasses with big frames sometimes made people look a lot younger, like with beards and double chins.

  ‘For what it’s worth,’ he said, ‘what changed me was losing a mate. Beth’s husband, Steve Pollen, who was my boss at Powys Council. In the Archive department. Steve died very unexpectedly.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Only, it didn’t stop him coming into work. You’d find something interesting — say, some missing estate records — and you’d say automatically, “Here, look at this, Steve,” and then you’d think, Hang on, he’s dead, and then you’d realize you’d just caught a glimpse of him at the files. People who die without some degree of foreknowledge often don’t realize they’ve passed.’

  Two of the lights on the tree had gone out. Jane thought of Ledwardine, remembered the dead branches she’d collected in the orchard and brought into the vicarage to be sprayed silver and gold for Christmas, she and Mum planning to decorate them this weekend. She felt a stab of loneliness.

>   ‘Actually, I think I saw a woman once. Like, when she was dead? I didn’t know she was dead until later, so it wasn’t scary. I mean I was pretty sure I saw her, but… you know?’

  Matthew nodded. ‘Most of the spirits we see are complete strangers, so we don’t realize they’re not there. It’s only when we spot someone in a situation where nobody could possibly be at a particular time, like in a deserted theatre or a church that’s been locked up, that we think, Uh-oh…’

  Jane frowned; this conversation was getting too pally.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, I still think spiritualism’s naff. It’s a big issue, life after death, but you see these mediums working an audience, and all they ever get is like, “Remember your dad’s blue suit in the wardrobe — well, it’s OK to send it to the Oxfam shop.” ’

  Matthew looked exasperated at last. ‘People who are bereaved don’t want a lecture on metaphysics, they just want some evidence of survival — some small thing that sounds trivial and naff to an intellectual like you, but is conclusive proof that someone they thought had gone for ever is still around.’

  So now she was just young and heartless.

  ‘Does he… still come into the office?’

  ‘Steve? No, he’s gone on now. We decided, Beth and I, that we ought to try and help him. Which is how we got into the network. You help them to accept their state. They hang around people they used to know and get confused. But if it’s explained to them, they’ll just turn around and see the light — literally. And they’ll see people — usually their relatives who’ve already passed — waiting to welcome them. Which is wonderful. And you’ve got that look again.’

  The guy was clearly sincere. ‘Just seems too easy.’

  ‘It’s not easy, but it’s normal. What was interesting in this case, however, on a more basic level, was that when Steve died he was putting together a file of newly discovered records relating to Hergest and Stanner, and I was able to finish the work for him, with Beth. Which was how I learned about the Windlesham group and the White Company. Sometimes you’re led to things.’

  Jane said, ‘You found out about Walter Chancery and everything — from these records?’