The Haunted Season (36 page)

“And what Destiny heard as ‘duh' was probably
da,
or yes.”

For heaven's sake, thought Essex. “And Max figured this out how?”

“I asked him the very same question.”

Cotton thought back to an earlier conversation with Max: “I know some Russian,” Max had told him. “And there was this dream that lingered in my mind.…” He told Cotton some of the Russian symbolism in his dream—the draft horse, the head with the Tolstoy beard, concluding, “Really, it was obvious, once I thought it through. What cinched it was when Bree told me she saw Chanel in Monkslip-super-Mare, providing her with an alibi for the time of the murder and shoring up her own alibi. Why would she do that—alibi Chanel? I would believe the blameless Elka if she said she saw Bree, but Bree could
not
have seen Chanel. As we now know, Chanel was busy killing Lord B-B at seven.”

Cotton had mumbled something that sounded like “for Chrissake” but said merely, “I thought it was Italian you spoke fluently, Max.”

Max had shrugged modestly. “That, too.”

He'd gone on to explain, “I really don't see how I missed it all so badly. Because Bree's impact was so sexual, I assumed wrongly that she exerted power only in that way. I was wrong. Chanel loved Bree, too, as did many people who should have known better, but of course she loved her in a different way. I think Chanel, a woman of somewhat ordinary beauty, may have been astounded to have created such a perfect beauty, to have brought such physical loveliness into the world. That created a powerful bond, too. A love, of sorts. Perhaps more like a fierce adoration. Whatever. Known for her common sense, Chanel threw all common sense aside when it came to her daughter.” Max had paused and said, “It was a classic case of ‘Physician, heal thyself.'”

Essex was saying now, “And so long as Chanel believes Bree was being abused by her husband … the same way Chanel was abused by her husband, as she claims—this Dirkson fellow…” Essex let the thought drift. Was there a mother alive who wouldn't have tried to intervene? But a saner mother would have found a saner method. Aloud she said, “Right. In killing Lord B-B, Chanel was saving the beautiful daughter she adored. Avenging the wrongs done to her.” She shook her head. “She'll never talk.”

“I can only hope you're wrong. People have a way of talking in prison, though. Too much time on their hands, you know. I'm thinking of putting a policewoman in there to cozy up to her, get her talking.” He looked at her. “How do you feel about working undercover?”

“Are you serious?” Essex, who probably weighed a little over seven stone sopping wet and wearing riot gear, didn't hesitate, for she was fearless. “Yes, of course! I'll get her talking. When can I go in?”

“Think about it awhile.” Even though her street smarts would protect her, Cotton feared he might have spoken too quickly. It would be like sending her into a badger baiting, with her the badger. “Anyway,” he said, to change the subject, “as for all the folks at Totleigh Hall, they've recovered nicely. People with resources like that always do. Bree is enthroned as the new dowager, and all hint of scandal will be washed away by passing years and amassing money and dignity.

“As for Peregrine, he has petitioned to be recognized as an earl in his own right—the rightful earl of Lislelivet. For now, he's still hanging about the village, tootling around on his bicycle, smooth and dapper with a new haircut and clothing, his usual public-school sheen restored.

“By the way, apparently Peregrine was not the only one attempting a disguise. Chanel's child-of-nature, organic getup was her attempt to blend in with the folk of Nether Monkslip. Her real style runs more to heels and false eyelashes. Although right now, of course, she's wearing prison garb.

“Anyway, Peregrine's come down from university or been sent down, whatever version you choose to believe. His sister inherited in his place, you know, and, fortunately for him, she is being magnanimous and wise—at least for the moment.

“The same goes for his grandmother—if it were up to Bree, she would have to fight for her food and shelter, but Rosamund stands as protectress to all, defending against the worst impulses of the old regime. She seems to have taken quite a fancy to the estate manager, by the way. Bill Travis. That certainly will shake things up if she marries him, which I think would be most unwise. However, no one consulted me.”

“These old families,” said Essex. “Like with heirloom tomatoes, you can get some strange and wonderful varieties.”

“You sound like Awena. That's exactly like something she'd say.”

“What about Father Max?” asked Essex slowly, dreading the answer. “How is he?” A sure sign of her distress was the spiky confusion of her multicolored hair, which seemed to stand on end in sympathetic disarray.

“Not good,” replied Cotton. “He's taken some time off to make sure Awena's completely well and back to normal, but I don't think there's enough time in the world…”

“I know. It's unthinkable.” She paused, watching Cotton as he sorted small cubes of carrot into a tic-tac-toe design with the peas. “Do you know, I wouldn't be surprised if Max became a bishop himself one day.”

“I think that's the last thing Max would want. An archdeacon, perhaps—there is no way they won't try to promote him upstairs. They probably think he's wasted in Nether Monkslip.”

A pause. Cotton moved the salt and pepper shakers on the table into perfect alignment on the checkered oilcloth. He did this sort of thing, Essex knew from long acquaintance, only when he was worried.

“The explosion?” she asked him. “Did they ever figure out…”

Cotton looked up from the table and nodded. “The guy had an IED attached to his belt. But he'd removed it and—I told you—left it hidden in that sort of makeshift altar by the face. The idea may have been to blow himself up along with Awena and whoever else was around. But here is the tricky part: The IED was set to a timer, and that timer was attached to an alarm on his mobile.

“He seems to have forgotten the time change—that is what we think happened. His own wristwatch had not ‘fallen back' at two
A.M.
Sunday to become one
A.M
. But the mobile clock reset itself automatically, of course. He never noticed the discrepancy, and when the explosion failed to go off, he just assumed the bomb was a dud and tossed it.”

“Fool” was Essex's brief summary.

“Most of these guys are. It makes them no less dangerous, but they're all fools. So perhaps changing his mind, losing his courage, thinking the thing worthless—whatever—he had unstrapped it from himself and thrown it away. And when it went off…”

Cotton could clearly remember, would remember until the day he died, the sensation of his body being blown back by the force of the explosion, of twisting in the air, and finally coming to a thudding landing in the nave. He'd been knocked senseless for a moment, and when he came to, he was staring straight into a ripped-apart copy of the Book of Common Prayer. The pew had saved him. Him and Eugenia and the wretched Konstantin. Awena, unshielded and nearer the explosion, had caught the worst of it. She'd been knocked completely out, suffering a serious concussion.

But the doctors said she was fine now. Rather, she would soon be fine. Whether she would ever regain that unflappable grace and composure was anyone's guess. Being on the receiving end of rampant and mindless cruelty had a way of changing one's belief in one's fellow man.

“By the way. It's a very odd thing…” Essex began.

“What?”

“Nothing really. I hesitate to bring it up. But that face on the wall? Or the ‘Face,' as some would have it?” Essex made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “I went by St. Edwold's the other day to talk with the sexton. There's been a crush of visitors to the site. ‘Pilgrims,' as he calls them. He's asking us to help with security.”

“Yes? He'll be lucky. We're short-staffed as it is.”

“Yes. Well. It seems to be sort of knitting itself back together.”

“What does?”

“The face. Where Konstantin put a bullet through the center. The damage is shrinking, like a wound or scar healing.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” said Cotton. The whole conversation was starting to irritate him. “The sexton or somebody has been busy with a plaster knife.”

She moved the salt shaker a fraction out of true. “Do you really think so?”

 

EPILOGUE

Max had looked at the wailing bundle thrashing in his arms that day in St. Edwold's and wondered what on earth he would do.

He spent the ensuing months in a constant shuttle between the hospital and home and the vicarage or—when Awena was released at last—working in Owen's nursery, next to their bedroom and sleeping on a cot outside the door, so he and the baby wouldn't disturb her. He could hear her cry out in her sleep, something she'd never done before. That was probably the worst sign, that Awena's impenetrable serenity had been shattered.

But she was alive, and for a long time that was all that mattered.

One way or another, every waking moment was spent praying for Awena. Bargaining with God, at times pleading, at times angry.

For Awena was his alpha and omega. And life without her could not be endured.

The most bizarre thing was the impulse he kept having while she was in the hospital to pick up the phone to talk with her, to share some trivial event from his day. To tell her of Eugenia's newfound celebrity, or to update her on Owen's astonishing progress.

To sit alone without her in the evening was agony. The nights never seemed to end, and only remembering he had to keep his health for Owen's sake helped him catch what hours of sleep he could. More days than not, he greeted the dawn as Nether Monkslip slipped into winter. Her sisters arrived in rotation to help him out—a godsend, all of them. They fed him until he thought he'd burst, plying him with calming teas and root-vegetable soups, which they claimed held the secret to his own recovery. Seeing how completely Awena and Owen were safe in their hands, he began to sleep at last.

He began praying to the face on the wall, sitting in a nearby pew for hours on end, asking for a miracle. Sometimes young Tommy would join him, silently, harnessing all his powers of stillness, extraordinary for a boy not yet five.

Max realized his pleading went against all he'd been taught by his religion, the teaching that he must accept whatever happens, whatever God has sent. One day in the gloaming light, he thought he saw the eyes of the face flash open. It startled but did not frighten him, and he sat for a long while, staring until his own eyes watered, forcing himself not to blink. It was as if this were his new standard, that the laws of physics should be upended in this way, for his benefit. This was his new normal. But he blinked at last and he saw the eyes were closed, as they had always been. As they were.

A visual distortion, merely.

A hallucination brought on by worry, by lack of sleep.

Someone had left behind in the pew a fine leather-bound copy of the psalms. It fell open in his hands to Psalm 85: “Righteousness shall go before him, and peace shall make a pathway for his feet.”

Peace eluded him.

He had often thought he would give anything to see the man who had killed Paul punished. He had got his wish, but what he had nearly lost was Awena.

I can accept anything, he thought, but not that. Never that.

Awena recovered completely; in fact, she healed so quickly that her doctor called it a “miracle.” When he said that to Max, when he used that word, Max had had to bite back the hysterical laughter that threatened to escape him. For how to explain to the man that of course, of
course
it was a miracle?

Wasn't it a given that Awena, the healer, would herself be healed?

Thank God.
He should have known.

Yet in the end, he found he could not accept any of what had happened: how near he had come to losing her. Only Awena could have achieved that quietude and stillness—Awena, who had somehow mastered the art of taking the world as it was, of people as they were. Of accepting everything and not trying to change anything. And despite all the evidence for ill and evil in the world, still seeing the beauty everywhere.

She also long ago had mastered the art of forgiveness, and Max struggled and prayed and found he could not.

It was some weeks later when he picked up the phone and rang his bishop.

And then he rang his old boss at MI5.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

G. M. Malliet
won the Agatha Award for best first novel for
Death of a Cozy Writer,
which was nominated for the Anthony, Dilys, and Macavity, among numerous other crime novel awards. All the books in the Max Tudor series—
Wicked Autumn, A Fatal Winter, Pagan Spring,
and
A Demon Summer
—have been nominated for the Agatha Award. She and her husband live in the mid-Atlantic United States and travel frequently to the UK, the setting for her novels. You can sign up for email updates
here
.