by C. J. Tudor
Rushton keeps the service short and sweet. Soon, the congregation starts to file out. Rushton stands at the chapel entrance, shaking hands and making small talk. I hang back, not wanting to intrude. A few people ask how I’m settling in. Others remark how nice it is to have a fresh face at the church. Some markedly ignore me. That’s fine too. Finally, the last fluffy white head totters past and I breathe a sigh of relief. First public display over. Rushton pulls out his car keys.
“Right, got to get to Warblers Green by eleven thirty, so I’ll catch you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Parish meeting. Nine a.m., here at the chapel. Just to run through all the boring administrative stuff.”
“Oh, of course.”
I must have forgotten. Or maybe no one mentioned it. The whole relocation has been so swift, almost suspiciously so, like Durkin couldn’t wait to get rid of me.
“Maybe we can catch up less formally at some point too, over a coffee or, better still, a pint?” Rushton continues.
“Sounds good.”
“Excellent. I’ve got your number. I’ll WhatsApp you.”
He grabs my hand again and pumps it vigorously. “I’m sure you’ll fit in here very well.”
I smile. “I already feel at home.”
He trots down to his bright yellow Fiat. I wave him off and walk back into the chapel. Aaron has collected the prayer books and disappeared back into the office. I’m not quite sure what Aaron’s skill sets are, but silently disappearing and reappearing have got to be up there.
I stand there for a moment, just taking in the chapel. There’s always a feeling once the congregation have left, like a slow exhalation of breath before a well-deserved rest. The presence of all those souls leaves an echo behind.
Except the chapel isn’t empty. Not quite. There’s a figure sitting in a pew at the front. I thought everyone had gone and wonder why Aaron hasn’t moved them on. Not that God has a kicking-out time, but very few churches can afford to leave their doors open all day. In the inner city this would be an invitation for drunks, drug addicts and prostitutes. Here, I imagine it’s more likely to be foxes, bats and rabbits.
I walk slowly down the aisle toward the figure. Barely more than a shadow in the dim light.
“Excuse me?”
The figure doesn’t turn. It’s small, no more than a child, but no one would forget to take their child home with them, would they?
“Are you okay?”
The figure still doesn’t turn. And now I realize that I can smell something. Faint but unmistakable. Smoke. Burning.
“Reverend?”
I jump and spin around, squinting against the bright shaft of sunlight from the door. Aaron stands behind me. Again.
“Je—Could you stop doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Sorry. Never mind. Who’s the child?”
“What child?”
“The—” I turn to point out the figure in the front pew.
I blink. The pew is empty, except for a black coat slung over the back, left behind by one of the parishioners. The hood is sticking up and, in the dim lighting, if you squinted, you might just mistake it for a person.
Aaron does something odd with his lips. It takes me a moment to realize that he is smiling.
“I believe that’s Mrs. Hartman’s coat. She’s always forgetting it. I’ll drop it off to her later.”
He walks over, picks the coat up and slings it over his arm. I feel my cheeks start to color.
“Right. Thanks. Sorry. It looked just like…” I trail off. I’m sounding stupid. I need to regain some authority. “Why don’t I drop the coat off to Mrs. Hartman?”
He frowns. “Well, she lives all the way down Peabody Lane, out near Harper’s Farm.”
My ears prick up. I hold out my hand. “That’s no problem at all.”
Joan Hartman lives in a quaint whitewashed cottage down a narrow country track just wide enough to fit a car. Luckily, the only traffic I meet coming the other way is a family of pheasants who glare at the car with bright orange eyes before waddling off into the undergrowth.
“Wings. God gave you wings!” I mutter.
I pull up outside the cottage and climb out of my car, clutching Joan’s coat. The door is around the side. I push open the gate and walk along a path fringed by lupins and hollyhocks. Usually, with elderly parishioners, it takes at least three hefty knocks to summon them to the door. To my surprise, I’ve only just raised my hand when the door swings open.
Joan Hartman squints up at me through eyes cloudy with cataracts; five foot nothing, with a dusting of floury-white hair, wearing a purple dress and leaning heavily on a cane.
“Hello,” I say, thinking I’ll probably need to refresh her memory. “I’m—”
“I know,” she says. “I hoped you’d come.”
She turns and trots back into the cottage.
That seems to be my invitation to enter. I follow her, pulling the door shut behind me.
It’s dark and welcomingly cool inside. The windows are small and leaded, the walls thick stone. The front door leads straight into a kitchen that’s so low-beamed my head brushes the warped wood. There are quarry tiles on the floor, an old range and a perfunctory cat sleeping in a tattered basket.
Joan shuffles through the kitchen and down a step into the living room. This is also low-beamed, and long, stretching the entire width of the back of the house, with French doors leading out to the garden. A huge bookcase takes up all of one wall, its shelves packed tightly with battered spines. The only other furniture is a sagging sofa and a high-backed chair skirting a large coffee table. A bottle of sherry stands on the coffee table with two glasses. Two.
I hoped you’d come.
Joan eases herself down into the high-backed chair. I stand awkwardly, still clutching the coat.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but you left this at the church.”
“Thank you, dear. Just pop it down anywhere. Would you mind pouring me a sherry? Help yourself to one too.”
“That’s very kind, but I’m driving.”
I pour Joan a large sherry and hand it to her.
“Sit,” she says, gesturing at the sagging sofa.
I look at the squishy velour. I’m pretty sure, if I sit, I may never get up again. Still, I lower myself down, knees shooting up to my chin.
Joan sips her sherry. “So, how are you finding it here?”
“Oh. Fine. Everyone has been very welcoming.”
“You came from Nottingham?”
“That’s right.”
“Must be quite a change?”
The cataracts can’t dull the inquisitiveness in her eyes. I change my mind about the sherry. I lean forward—with some difficulty—and pour a small measure.
“I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”
“Did they tell you about Reverend Fletcher?”
“Yes. It’s very sad.”
“He was a friend of mine.”
“Then I’m sorry for your loss.”
She nods. “How do you like the chapel?”
I hesitate. “It’s very different from my previous church.”
“It has a lot of history.”
“Most old churches do.”
“You’ve heard of the Sussex Martyrs?”
“I’ve read about them.”
Undeterred, she continues: “Six Protestant martyrs, men and women, were rounded up and burned at the stake. Two young girls—Abigail and Maggie—took refuge in the chapel. But someone betrayed them. They were caught and tortured, before being killed, right outside.”
“That is some history.”
“Have you seen the twig dolls by the memorial?”
“Yes. People make them to commemorate the martyrs.”
&nb
sp; Her eyes gleam. “Not quite. The story goes that the ghosts of Abigail and Maggie haunt the chapel, appearing to those in trouble. If you see the burning girls, something bad will befall you. That’s why the villagers originally made the dolls. They believed they could ward off the girls’ vengeful spirits.”
I shift uncomfortably in the squishy seat. It’s making the small of my back sweat.
“Well, every church needs a good ghost story.”
“You don’t believe in ghosts?”
I remember the figure I thought I saw. The smell of burning.
Just a coat. Just my imagination.
I shake my head firmly. “No. And I’ve spent a lot of time in graveyards.”
Another low chuckle. “Reverend Fletcher was fascinated by the story. He started to research the history of the village. That’s how he became interested in the other girls.”
“Other girls?”
“The ones who went missing.”
“I’m sorry?” I stare at her, a little thrown by the barrage of questions and sudden changes in conversational direction.
“Merry and Joy,” she continues. “Fifteen years old. Best friends. Disappeared without a trace, thirty years ago. The police decided they ran away. Others weren’t so sure, but they were never found, so nothing could be proved.”
Sweat is trickling down to my backside. “I don’t seem to remember the case.”
She cocks her head to one side, like a bird. “Well, you would have been young yourself. And there wasn’t twenty-four-hour news like there is now, no social media.” She smiles sadly. “People forget.”
“But not you?”
“No. In fact, I’m probably one of the last who does remember. Joy’s mother, Doreen, suffers from dementia. And Merry’s mother and brother left the village. Almost a year to the day after Merry disappeared. Just went. Didn’t take a thing with them.”
“Well, grief can make people do strange things.”
I put down my sherry glass. It’s empty. Time to make my excuses.
“Thank you so much for the drink, Joan, but I should really get back for my daughter.”
I start to extract myself from the sofa.
“Don’t you want to know about Reverend Fletcher?”
“Maybe another—”
“He thought he knew what had happened to Merry and Joy.”
I freeze, half bent over. “Really? What?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. But whatever it was, it troubled him deeply.”
“You think that’s why he committed suicide?”
“No.” Her milky eyes glint and I understand two things—Joan did not leave her coat in the chapel by mistake. And I am in more trouble than I thought.
“I think that’s why he was killed.”
Flo loads new film into her camera. The weight of the heavy Nikon feels reassuring in her hands. Like a shield. She’ll need a new darkroom here. Mum mentioned there was a cellar, or maybe the outhouse around the back of the cottage. She’ll check them both out later.
In their old house, the darkroom had been her refuge. Flo always felt calm and content when she was developing her photos. It was her space, even more so than her bedroom, which Mum would still enter sometimes with only the briefest of bloody knocks.
Her mum knew never to enter the darkroom without permission in case she ruined Flo’s photos. The “Do Not Enter” sign slung on the door actually seemed to mean something. Sometimes, when Flo wanted to be alone, she would just stick the sign on the door and sit in the darkness, not developing. Just taking time.
She’s never told her mum this. There are plenty of things she hasn’t told her mum, like the time she smoked weed at Craig Heron’s house or the time she got wasted and let Leon finger her in the bathroom at a party, which hadn’t been much fun, in all honesty (for either of them) but at least meant they could both boast about it and not feel like total virgins. Flo is pretty sure Leon is gay, but she’s been happy to go along with it until he is ready to come out.
She doesn’t keep this stuff secret because her mum is a vicar. She keeps it secret because she’s a mum and, however much Flo loves her and however close they are, there are some things you just can’t share with your mum.
The vicar stuff is just a job. Same as any job, in Flo’s book. Like being a social worker or a doctor. Mum talks to people about their problems. She organizes youth groups and school fetes and coffee mornings and goes to meetings with people she doesn’t really like. The only difference is that she wears a different type of uniform.
But then, everyone wears uniforms, Flo thinks. Even in school, and despite the official uniform, the type of bag you carry, your jacket or shoes define who you are. Rich or poor. Cool or uncool.
Flo is glad she has always been an outlier (that’s what her friend Kayleigh christened them). One of the kids who doesn’t belong to any particular group. Not popular but not really picked on either. Mostly, just invisible.
Of course, she’s had some shit because of her mum’s job, but she usually just shrugged it off and the bullies soon got bored. The best defense against bullies is to make yourself uninteresting.
But then there had been the little girl. Ruby. Mum and the church had been splashed all over the papers. That’s when things had taken a turn for the worse. There had been graffiti on their front door, the windows in the church were smashed and someone even came to the house, calling Mum really vile names.
Flo never told her mum about the names she had been called at school or the messages she had received on Snapchat. She didn’t want to worry her more. So, Flo keeps her secrets. She’s pretty sure Mum keeps hers too.
As Flo has gotten older, she’s noticed stuff. Like how Mum never talks about her family. She’s always said Flo’s grandparents are dead. But there are no photos of them. Nor any of Mum when she was younger. And Mum doesn’t have any social media accounts. Not even Facebook.
“Real friends are more important than virtual followers,” she always says. “One good friend is worth a dozen hangers-on.”
Flo gets that. She’s not one for measuring her life in likes on Insta. She’s always been happier on the outside, looking in. Perhaps another reason why she likes photography. But sometimes, she can’t help wondering if there’s something else. Something Mum is hiding from her. Or hiding from. Occasionally, Flo has thought about asking, prodding a little. But there’s never been a right time. And now, with the move and everything, it’s definitely not the right time.
Film loaded, Flo slings the camera around her neck and saunters out of the house. She gazes around the graveyard. The uneven headstones run almost up to their front door, which is pretty cool. The church in Nottingham didn’t have a graveyard. It was bang in the center of the city, surrounded by narrow terraced streets, with just a tiny area of grass outside, usually covered in dog shit and used needles; the occasional drunk sleeping it off on the church’s doorstep.
The chapel is more traditional, except it isn’t. It’s not like the ones on TV, at least not British TV. It looks like something out of a painting. What was that one with the old woman and a man holding a pitchfork? She can’t remember. But that’s what it looks like, anyway. And it’s a dump, no argument. But it’s also kind of spooky and weird. It should make for some good photos, she thinks, especially in black and white. If she tints them, she can make it look really Gothic.
She wanders between the headstones, the overgrown grass brushing her legs. Most are so old the inscriptions have worn away. But there are a few where she can just make out the names and dates. People had short lives back then. So much hardship and disease. Most were lucky to hit their forties.
She snaps a few of the inscriptions. Then she walks around to the back of the chapel. The land slopes up here and there are more graves, some a little newer and better kept, but the grass is still overgrown, thick with dan
delions and buttercups. She takes a few shots of the back of the chapel. The sun is high, and the building is mostly coming out in silhouette.
She wipes an arm across her forehead. The last two weeks have been humid and close. She didn’t sleep well last night. She misses her old room; it might have been a bit damp, but it had been big, and she’d got it how she liked it with posters of her favorite bands, films and TV shows on the walls.
Her room here is small and stuffy. The tiny window sticks halfway, hardly letting in any air. Worst of all, it has a sloping roof, which she keeps forgetting and bashing her head on. Still, as her mum is fond of saying: “It is what it is.”
And what it is, she thinks, is shit.
She swishes her way back through the long grass down to the rear of the cottage. The outhouse is a ramshackle brick building tacked on to the kitchen, probably once an outside toilet. Mum said she thought it had electricity but, looking at it now, Flo is doubtful. She pushes open the rotting wooden door. The smell of urine assaults her nostrils, swiftly followed by a shout of:
“Shit!”
She blinks in the gloom. A lanky figure is hastily doing up his fly. Their eyes meet. He turns and tries to shove past her. But years of self-defense classes (which her mum insisted she take from the age of seven) have taught Flo to react quickly. And not to bother with the fancy stuff. She grabs his shoulders, knees him in the crotch and shoves him hard.
He hits the ground outside and rolls over, clutching his groin.
“Owww. My balls.”
Flo folds her arms and stares down at him.
“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing, pissing in our outhouse?”
I leave Miss Marple sipping her sherry, feeling even more out of sorts than when I set out this morning.
Of course it’s nonsense. Just the meanderings of a mind with too much time to fill. I enjoy Midsomer Murders as much as anyone but, in reality, people do not go around knocking off village vicars because “they know too much.”