Fabric of Sin (6 page)

‘Not heard of them. Should I have?’

‘Very long-established. And rather affluent now, with business interests here in the city. They seem to have had financial difficulties in the early 1900s and had to sell the Master House, with a large package of land, to a family called Newton, who settled there for about fifty years. Finally moving out of the house itself in – we think – the late 1960s.’

‘Why did
they
move out?’

‘Nothing of interest to you. Upkeep, heating costs. They had no historical attachment to the Master House. Bought another farm nearby, with a more modern house. The Master House was later rented out to various people at various times. A riding stables, a commune of self-sufficiency fanatics in the 1970s.’

‘And it’s these Newtons who sold it to the Duchy?’

‘The Grays now. An eldest daughter married into a family called Gray. They seem to have sold it to the Duchy with about ninety acres. Feeling the pinch, I gather. Had a very bad time during the Foot and Mouth in 2001, rather losing heart. When are you going?’

‘Not decided yet. Possibly tomorrow. I’d hoped to persuade Felix and Fuchsia to come with me – doesn’t make a lot of sense going alone. I can do a house-blessing and prayers, but who’s going to say if it’s achieved anything, with nobody living or working there to report back?’

‘So you’re going tomorrow, to stay for a few days.’

‘I’m going for half a day, have a look around, talk to a few people locally and then come back to think about it.’

‘The Bishop was insistent,’ Sophie said, ‘that you should have as much time as it takes to get to the bottom of this. I was asked to ring the Reverend Murray in Garway and reserve you a room at the guest house his wife runs. And, no, I don’t understand it either.’

‘Can’t you stall him? Frankly …’ Merrily poured tea ‘… it’s hard to imagine Bernie Dunmore being so far – excuse me – up the Duchy’s bum. Maybe I should talk to him.’

‘He’s in London, I’m afraid, until Tuesday. House of Lords.’

‘Would be, wouldn’t he? Still gives us three days. If you can copy some of this stuff, we’ll present him with a full and careful report which he can safely dangle in front of the Duchy, the Prince of Wales, the Archbishop of— Are you
sure
he was talking to Canterbury about this?’

‘I’m his confidential secretary, Merrily. Supposed to be.’

‘So what are your personal feelings?’

Sophie was looking down at her desk. Sophie Hill, who
worked for the cathedral
. There was a pause in the traffic on Broad Street.

‘Mmm.’ Merrily nodded. ‘You’re probably right. The Church has always relied on the silence of its employees. No disruptive questions asked. Knowing your place. As you say.’

Sophie looked up, letting her chained glasses fall to her chest. Merrily avoided her gaze.

‘I think,’ Sophie said very quietly, ‘that a lot would depend on whether the Prince of Wales knows about this.’

‘Oh?’

‘He has, after all, been known to express an interest in such matters.’

‘Such matters?’

‘You know.’

‘Well, he’s talked publicly about spiritual healing, organic farming, relationships with the land … and plants. If that’s what you mean.’

‘I think you’ll find that it goes deeper,’ Sophie said.

Merrily stood up, walked across to the door, opened it and looked down the stone steps.

‘I don’t think they’ve got around to bugging us yet, Sophie. We’re quite alone.’ She closed the door, came back and sat down. ‘What?’

T
HE STEEPLES OF
the two city-centre churches, St Peter’s and All Saints, were far more visible in Hereford than the tower of the cathedral, which was in a corner, backed up against the river, not central.

It didn’t hide, exactly, it just didn’t show off.

It didn’t have secrets,
as such
, just didn’t go out of its way …

Like Sophie.

‘This relates to your late predecessor,’ Sophie said.

‘Dobbs?’

You could see him standing silently in the corner, face like an eroded cliff face. The man who had refused to be called a Deliverance minister. Who, until his last collapse, in the cathedral itself, had been the
Hereford Diocesan Exorcist
. Canon Thomas Dobbs, who wouldn’t even open his front door to Merrily but had left a message for her in its letter box, succinctly conveying his thoughts on being replaced by a woman.

The first exorcist was Jesus Christ
.

Interesting how rapidly the situation had changed since then. First Merrily, then Siân Callaghan-Clarke, canon of this cathedral, getting herself appointed Deliverance Coordinator, with plans to subtly secularise the service. Hadn’t worked, and now Siân’s ambitions were, allegedly, focused on the impending vacancy for Archdeacon.

‘Sorting through Canon Dobbs’s files after his death,’ Sophie said, ‘I came across a box file of press cuttings – I didn’t bother you with any of this at the time; it seemed hardly relevant and you had enough problems. But he’d accumulated a substantial collection of newspaper and magazine articles about the Prince of Wales.’

‘
Dobbs?
’ Merrily rocked back in her chair. ‘Dobbs collected stories about Prince Charles?’

‘I don’t mean photo spreads from
Hello
. These all have specific references to the Prince’s spiritual life. For some reason, I filed them away in a storeroom in the cloisters.’

‘Why would Dobbs be especially interested in Charles? I mean, this was presumably before the Duchy got into Herefordshire?’

‘Certainly before they bought the Guy’s Estate from the Prudential.’

‘Is there any possibility that Dobbs knew him personally?’

‘I don’t know. I have no reason to think he did. I mean, he
may
have … I really don’t know, Merrily, it just brought it back to me, with all this …’

‘Could I have a look at the cuttings?’

‘I’ve brought them up. You can take them with you when you leave.’

That night, Merrily called Huw Owen, who took it all unexpectedly seriously. Listen, he said, you must never trust the buggers. Never. Any of them. Not at this level.

Covering the phone, Merrily reached out a foot and prodded the scullery door shut. Jane, in a black mood, had Joanna Newsom on the stereo in the sitting room: California Gothic, cracked and witchy. Merrily lowered her voice.

‘Who are we talking about – the Duchy of Cornwall or the royals generally?’

‘It’s not so much the royals, lass, as the C of E. The Church and the Monarchy have been an item for nearly half a millennium. But change comes fast these days. Some of our masters, as you know, have become a bit wary about a certain individual.’

‘Let’s not walk all round this. Charles.’

‘Most of it dating back to his famous remark about the Monarchy – when
he
takes over – becoming Defender of the Faiths,
plural
. Muslims, Hindus …
Catholics?
My God. Is this a safe pair of hands for the sacred chalice? It’s backs to the cathedral walls, lass. Knives unsheathed in the deepest cloisters.’

‘I’ve always liked the way you underplay a drama, Huw.’

Trying to psych out if there was even a hint of a smile on his cratered face as he sat by the racing flames in the inglenook of his eyrie in the Brecon Beacons. Smuggled out of his native Wales by his mother as a small child and brought up in Yorkshire, Huw was back in the land of his unknown father, supervising Deliverance courses for C of E clergy in a former Nonconformist chapel burned out by decades of hellfire preaching – the place where it had begun for Merrily, this weird ministry, not quite as long ago as it sometimes seemed.

‘All right, maybe I’m exaggerating,’ Huw said. ‘I’m just warning you to watch your back. Where the royals are concerned – the royals and Canterbury – the smallest rumour can cause a seismic shift, and little folks like you can get dropped down the nearest crevice.’

‘Thanks, Huw. I’ll sleep so much easier tonight.’

‘I’m just telling you.’

‘So …’ Merrily shifted the heavy bakelite phone from one ear to the other. ‘Having established that nobody in ermine or a dog collar is to be trusted, what’s your considered opinion of why Canterbury would need to be kept informed about a house owned by the Duchy of Cornwall that’s alleged to be haunted?’

‘Well, they wouldn’t, would they?’

‘Would they tell the Prince, or would they try to keep it from him in case he became too curious?’

‘I think if he
is
curious, he’s probably experienced enough now to keep it to himself. Happen what’s more important – like your feller at the Duchy said – is that the press don’t get wind of it. They’d hound the builder and then they’d hound you.’

‘Mmm.’

‘You ask me, this is just Bernie Dunmore covering his own back. Thinking how it might rebound on the Diocese if it all went pear-shaped.’

And it did go pear-shaped sometimes, no denying that. An inexact science, deliverance. Well, not a science at all, obviously …

‘Everybody lives in fear nowadays,’ Huw said. ‘Way things are going, deliverance itself could be C of E history in a year or two.’

‘And what would
you
do, Huw, if we all got the elbow?’

‘I’d retire, lass. Take the pension, rent a little shack at the rough end of Sennybridge, with a back yard and a bog, and carry on with the job. No bureaucracy, no politics, no farcical PC synods. Just me and the naked cross.’

‘Talking of which … Canon Dobbs.’

‘Old bugger’s dead.’

‘Sophie’s given me a collection of news cuttings he kept about the Prince of Wales and the Church and other connections. Why would Dobbs keep a royal scrapbook?’

‘Traditionalist of the first order, Dobbs. Happen
he
’d started to notice the lad spreading his favours. I wouldn’t worry about it. Concentrate on covering your own arse.’

‘And your specific advice, as my spiritual director, would be …?’

‘Keep all your cards on the table, face up.’

Merrily shook out a Silk Cut.

‘Explain?’

‘Stage one: find the former owners of this hovel and see what kind of
recent
history it’s got. Forget the White Lady and the Phantom Stagecoach. The home movies you can do without.’

Home movies
: Huw’s latest euphemism for place-memories and trapped events that repeated themselves.

‘And then … if it’s just what the girl claims she saw and there’s nowt blindingly obvious from the last few years, Stage Two would be to set up a low-key house-blessing for a specific date. Being careful, mind, to invite the local incumbent.’

‘There isn’t one. A retired guy’s holding the fort.’

‘He’ll do. Also, you want at least one member of the family – the folks who flogged the place off to the Duchy, plus, if possible, someone from the family as owned it before. For many generations, you said?’

‘So I’m told.’

‘That would help, then. And finally – this is important – you must formally request the presence of an official of the Duchy of Cornwall. The higher up the better.’

‘Wow.’ Merrily sat back, lit her cigarette. ‘Smart.’

‘That way, you’ve acquitted yourself in full view, and they’re all involved – all implicated.’

‘Flawless.’

It wouldn’t be, of course. It was never that easy.

‘And what do you do after that?’ Huw said.

‘I don’t know. What do I do after that, boss?’

‘You bugger off out of it just as fast as your cute little legs will carry you.’

‘What about the woman? Fuchsia. Aftercare?’

‘Oh, aye.’

There was a lengthy, meditative silence. She imagined him staring down at his peeling slippers, their rubber soles smoking on the edge of the hearth.

‘You do need to separate it,’ he said eventually. ‘If there’s nowt particularly to support it at the house, you most likely
are
looking at a different problem. You said she was orphaned?’

‘Abandoned. She’s certainly had personal problems. Maybe the house brought something to a head?’

‘Possible. How was the blessing?’

‘Curious. There wasn’t the normal sense of relief afterwards. In fact, she looked up, as if something might have followed us into the church. Said something like,
is something coming?
Something like that. And laughed. I mean, it’s always a problem, isn’t it? You can never be quite sure when somebody’s winding you up.’

‘Happen include her in your prayers when you do the cleansing. Something moving around under the carpet, was that what you said?’

‘Dust sheets. I suppose a shrink would be talking about demons in her past that she’s covered up. Perhaps she just has a Gothic imagination: the wriggling under the sheets, the face of crumpled linen. She’s also obviously read a fair amount about healing and deliverance, because she knew exactly what she—’

‘Hang on … Gimme that again, lass.’

‘What?’

‘Crumpled linen. A
face
of crumpled linen?’

‘That’s the image Fuchsia claims she saw when she turned around
from the wall she was plastering. Poetic, in its macabre way. Although this would’ve been crumpled plastic.’

‘Aye. Very literary,’ Huw said. ‘But, then, not surprising, really. It’s a quote.’

‘What?’

‘M. R. James. Author of classic ghost stories in the 1900s?’

‘Yeah, I know who M. R. James is.’

‘I can even tell you which story it comes from. “Whistle”.’

‘What are you—?’

‘“Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” is the one about the university professor haunted by a malevolent entity which … I’d get hold of a copy if I were you, without too much delay.’

‘You’re saying …’

There’d been a book of James’s stories amongst Fuchsia’s collection in the caravan. Orange-coloured spine on the shelf by the wood stove.
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
.

‘All right, lass?’

‘Let me get this totally right. You’re telling me it’s an actual phrase taken from one of M. R. James’s ghost stories?’

Merrily dropped her cigarette in the ashtray and flopped forward, both hands around the old black phone.