A Demon Summer (32 page)

“If nothing else,” she pleaded, “I need a change from all the orphanage food they serve here.” She said this in the despondent tone of someone who has nothing more to lose. Max first cleared it with both Cotton and with her mother (her father, as was often the case, was nowhere to be found). “Besides, I need to pick up some fags. And some hair product.”

Orphanage food,
thought Max. Like Xanda would know anything of orphanage food, child of privilege that she was.

“You can come on condition you forget about the cigarettes,” he told her.

“I'm quitting! I'm quitting. Honest. Soon.”

“Today would be a good day,” he said. But they set off, Xanda riding shotgun in leopard-print high heels.

The dye in her hair must have been temporary, because today the ends were colored sky blue and had been dipped in bronze sparkles, probably affixed with a shot of hair spray. The effect, Max thought, was strangely charming, like she'd been sprinkled with pixie dust. Perhaps it was a look to be outgrown one day but appealing for now. He wondered that two ultra-conservative types as her parents had managed to produce such a sprite as Xanda, but that was often the way the genetic lottery played itself out.

She was rifling through his CDs in the console between the seats.

“What, no Taylor Swift? Not even? And this—what is this?” She picked up his copy of Trio Medieval's album, which happened to be a gift from Awena, giving it a shake as if mothballs might fall out of the plastic casing.

“That,” he said, “is wonderful. Put it in the player. You'll see.”

She reeled back as if he'd asked her to spray hot sauce in her eyes.

“Oh, all right,” she said at last. “If that's all you've got.”

“It is.”

They drove awhile without speaking, as the downward descent from the top of the hill was best not taken at full speed. He could see why trying to navigate it on a rainy night would be unwise. It was bad enough in daylight.

Max was a great believer in listening to the younger generation. They so often had a perspective that might have escaped him. So: “Now, tell me,” he said to Xanda. “You must have some thoughts about this murder. A theory or two.”

Xanda paused, deep in thought, then shook her head. It was as if this were the first time she'd paused to consider the meaning of the recent events. “I've got nothing. He wasn't anyone's choice for Mr. Congeniality, but I don't see why anyone would kill him. Or anyone, for that matter. There are always better ways to solve a problem.”

“You think he was a problem for someone?”

She adjusted the dial on the CD player, turning up the volume. “Don't know, do I?”

She was a poor dissembler. Max decided not to press it, but he knew she was lying. Protecting her father? Her mother? Or herself?

He asked: “Did you ever see him—oh, I don't know. Doing anything suspicious? Snooping around?”

Actually, it was Xanda he suspected of snooping around. As bored as she was, she had to find something to do. Of course, he suspected all of the guests of the same thing—her father and mother, Paloma Green and Piers Montague.

“He was always skulking about the church,” she told him. “Pretending an interest in the artwork. Once I saw him feeling along the walls.”

“What?”

“Like he was looking for hidden panels or springs.”

“The walls are made of stone and brick. That is most unlikely.”

“He was kind of an idiot, if you ask me. He'd probably read too many boys' adventure stories.”

Once they reached the village of Temple Monkslip, he dropped her off, having already explained that he needed to go his own way for a while. Their understanding had been that she would catch a taxicab back to Monkbury Abbey, or resign herself to finding something to do in the village while Max pursued his inquiries further afield. If all else failed, he had arranged for Mr. or Mrs. Gorey to come and collect their daughter, should she not reappear at the nunnery by six that evening.

Xanda spotted a café that promised American-style burgers and confidently sprinted off on the high heels, turning heads as she went.

Max had parked in front of the public house, the Running Knight and Pilgrim, grateful for the
FREE WI-FI
promised by the sign in its window. The sign reminded him of that old joke—who was Wi-Fi, and who was holding him captive?

Above the entrance, which opened directly onto the street, were three carved panels, each bearing a coat of arms—he recognized the arms of Monkbury Abbey. A further sign near the door identified it as a Grade I listed building dating from the thirteenth century.

Max knew that in those days English villages were often closely tied to their monasteries—that in fact, the dissolution had been the ruin of many a village that depended for its economic livelihood on the jobs created by the sisters and brothers. Domestic servants, tradesmen and craftsmen, attorneys, doctors, masons, and bricklayers—when the monasteries fell, the jobs went with them. Abbeys often had acted as landlords to entire villages, a lucrative and generally mutually beneficial situation. Particularly if an abbey attracted pilgrims to view its relics, those pilgrims needed lodging, food, and all the rest of it. As a system it had worked well, although it had greatly enriched the monasteries, leading to greed, leading to envy, and leading to all the rest of it. Their success—and in some cases, their arrogance—had led to their downfall.

Temple Monkslip undoubtedly had grown out of such a symbiotic relationship with Monkbury Abbey. From the looks of the Running Knight and Pilgrim, things had quieted down a lot in the intervening centuries. Max had the place nearly to himself.

Today the pub's landlord was working the bar. He had not been there when Max had taken his pub meal. The publican was a large, fleshy man with a high forehead and the sort of patchy red beard that made Max's fingers itch for a razor, as he suspected it covered up—or tried to—quite a nice face. As the man stretched out his right arm to serve Max a pint, Max could read the inscription tattooed along its length: “Stand Fast, Craig Elachie!”

“Thank you, Mr. Grant,” he said.

“You recognize the motto?” the man said, pleased. He stuck out his hand, saying, “It's just plain Grant. Rufus Grant, at your service.”

Max asked him for directions to Nashbury Feathers.

“Oh, you'll be wanting to talk with the grieving widow, is that it? Do you know, Lord Lislelivet was standing just where you are now, not that long ago. Chatting up some local blokes for information about the nunnery. They worked there, you see.”

Max hazarded a guess. “Repairwork?”

“Precisely. Plumbing and masonry and such like. They were grousing because they and their pals had been promised a big job working on the new guesthouse for the sisters, you see. And then all that had ground to a halt. No money, the nuns said. No one really believed them. Monkbury Abbey's always had money; since the dawn of time they've had money.”

“I see. And Lord Lislelivet wanted to know more about this?” Max was having a difficult time picturing Lord Lislelivet rolling up his sleeves and tossing back a few brews with “the lads.” But then he realized, that was precisely the nature of a born politician. And that is exactly how Lord Lislelivet would have gone about collecting information.

Lord Lislelivet's claim of being driven to visit the nuns in a burst of religious conversion was looking even less likely than before.

The publican hesitated, looked thoughtful, and finally said, “It wasn't a casual conversation they were having. It was more intense, you know?”

“Like Lord Lislelivet was demanding answers to specific questions? Sort of grilling them, do you think?”

Rufus turned and replaced the glass he had been polishing on the shelf behind him. Max thought he knew the problem: it was bad business to badmouth the local lord and the local nunnery, when so much of the health of the village depended on both. But throwing caution to the wind, Rufus allowed, “He was. He wanted to know the layout of the place. He was asking about diagrams and plans and suchlike. And he said something like, ‘I've looked high and low, I tell you. There's nothing there.' Then they saw that I could plainly hear the conversation and took themselves elsewhere.”

Max ordered a pint from Grant, then took himself off to a corner where he couldn't be overheard and where he wouldn't be a nuisance to other patrons as he chatted on the mobile. As he went, he noticed several people sitting in that prayerful posture, heads bent, that meant they were reading the screens of their mobiles. As he powered up, he saw with gratitude that he had automatically joined the Running Knight and Pilgrim network and that he had a steady three bars to work with.

Awena answered on the second ring. They exchanged rapturous greetings, interrupting each other with questions about the other's health and well-being and generally reveling in the sound of one another's voices, nearly heedless of what was actually said. Max felt it as a balm to the soul to hear the lilting notes of her speech.

“I've been following the news from here,” said Awena. “You may not be surprised to learn the BBC has shown an avid interest. As have all the other news outlets.”

Max groaned. If it was news in Nether Monkslip it was news everywhere. He had passed a broadcast van with its large satellite dish on top on the way out to the village. Too much to hope it hadn't been heading for Monkbury Abbey. At least the abbess could confine them to peering up from the bottom of the mountain to the abbey walls. It was private property, and she would be within her rights to bar them from the place. An enterprising reporter would set up shop here at the Running Knight and Pilgrim and see what news could be uncovered or invented in the face of the nuns' silence.

“I think the situation can be contained, media-wise. But it would help very much to wrap this up quickly—help it to go away. What we don't want is a lingering mystery. Speaking of which: you are not going to believe this, but I want you to look up something for me in Frank's book.”

“
Wherefore Nether Monkslip
?” she asked, her voice betraying her astonishment. “Is there something in particular you're looking for? Please don't make me read the whole thing again.”

“I would not be so cruel.”

“All the Holy Grail and King Arthur legend—he makes it sound so crackpot,” said Awena. “I don't think it is, at all. There is always some truth in a legend that just won't die.”

“Doesn't he speculate that the grail was made of gold and fantastically valuable? Set with rubies and emeralds?”

“He said the value was in the eye of the beholder. That I do remember.”

“That may be so, but I think this current gold rush to the abbey is down to him.”

“But he also says—I think—that it could be a holy relic. That it became an object of veneration that drew people by the hundreds.”

“Right,” said Max. “That is how many monasteries became wealthy.”

“But he also says whatever it was disappeared. And then along came the Reformation, and that was the end of the pilgrimages to Monkbury Abbey.”

“You seem to remember quite a lot of it.”

“Frank brought the book in its various stages of creation to the Writers' Square meetings at The Onlie Begetter bookshop. I was forced to listen to it. Over and over and over. I came to believe it
is
possible to die of boredom.”

Max asked a few further questions about Frank Cuthbert's book, which had inspired the more rampant speculation about Monkbury Abbey, ending with, “I was thinking I should get hold of another copy of the thing from him. Actually read it this time.”

“Oh!” she said. “Frank is on rather a grand book tour in the U.S. He's been sent there by his publisher.”

Max sighed. “Of course; I'd forgotten. Our famous author is difficult to reach these days.”

“Yes. Lucie says he was awfully excited. Where exactly is Des Moines?”

“It's in Iowa.”

“Lucie says Frank has been Skype-ing into book clubs and libraries.”

“Is that anything like parachuting?”

“He would if he could figure out a way, I'm sure. I hear he's working on a sequel now.”

Max couldn't stop the sharp intake of breath. No.
No!
What more was there to be said on the subject?

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

“At least,” he said slowly, “it solves the problem of what to buy people for Christmas next year.”

“I thought you liked your relatives.”

“I do, I do. Actually, my mother claims to love Frank's stuff. Her book club read him.” Max thought a moment. “I guess I could call him, but I'm not sure what precisely I want to ask him. I don't suppose you could put his book in the mail to me, could you? Use one of the express services?”

“Of course I will … if you think it will help.” Awena sounded doubtful. Max didn't blame her.

“Monkbury Abbey and Temple Monkslip are mentioned in his book, am I right?”

“From what I can recall,” she said. “Along with Glastonbury, of course. Not in any coherent way, though.”

“Yes, Frank's style is his very own. His last performance at the St. Edworld's Night of Prayer and Poetry will not soon be forgotten.”

“Nor forgiven by Miss Pitchford.”

“Please. Yes. Don't remind me.” Max felt Frank's “Ode on the Birth of a Hedgehog,” complete with video footage, might stay with him forever.

“So, tell me,” said Awena. “How is convent life?”

“Like being surrounded at all times by wise and highly competent women. Not all that different from living in Nether Monkslip, actually.”

She laughed. “That makes me think of the old joke about the Three Wise Women following the star to Bethlehem. They didn't get lost on the way, because they stopped at an oasis to ask for directions. They brought appropriate gifts, like casseroles. They cleaned the stable and fed the animals. And they also brought peace on earth.”