The Fabric of Sin: A Merrily Watkins Mystery Page 4

  ‘No. But I’ve thought about it.’

  ‘We have two in the caravan, now,’ Felix said bitterly. ‘One’s above the bed. Makes you feel a bit queasy when you look up and the moonlight’s full on it.’

  ‘I also like to go to the cathedral in Hereford,’ Fuchsia said. ‘When it’s fairly quiet.’

  Merrily turned to look at Fuchsia, rocking in the narrow rear seat, her hair centre-parted, one hand holding a cream woollen shawl together at her neck, the other steadying the canvas zip-bag on her knees – the Deliverance bag. She’d asked if she could carry it.

  ‘When it’s quiet, Merrily. When there’s nobody to say I don’t belong.’

  ‘Why would you think you don’t belong?’ Merrily said. ‘Nobody has to sign anything.’

  ‘I’m neither one place nor the other. That’s how I feel.’

  ‘I see.’

  Everything had turned around. This was no longer just about an empty house with a presence. Now there was a human dimension, complicating matters in a way the Duchy of Cornwall wouldn’t have anticipated.

  … There are a few advisers I can call on, if necessary. But that’s usually when there are people involved who might have problems – psychological … psychiatric?

  Like an apparently intelligent woman with the manner of a small child – repeatedly clutching your name like a mother’s hand in a bewildering department store.

  ‘I’ve thought of joining the Catholic Church, Merrily, but they haven’t got the old churches any more, and I like the old churches. Especially St Cosmas and St Damien. It’s open all the time. I can go in at night … at dawn, whenever.’

  ‘And what do you do there?’

  ‘Just sit there. It’s a place of healing.’

  ‘How long have you felt you needed healing?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not for me. It’s for my mother.’

  ‘You … won’t remember your mother.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘But you were only a baby, when she …’

  ‘I’m sure I do remember her. Part of her’s in me, isn’t it?’

  ‘Have you … ever tried to find her? Maybe the internet?’

  ‘I did once. There was another Mary Linden. It just got confusing.’

  ‘Would you like me to … include your mother in the prayers?’

  ‘It’s too late, Merrily.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘I just want you to make my aura strong, please,’ Fuchsia said.

  The mist was low and white among the pines around the little sandstone church. There might have been a proper village here once but it barely qualified as a hamlet now. A couple of dwellings sat fairly close, one of them a farm.

  The church of St Cosmas and St Damien had a squat body and a timbered bell-tower, and its churchyard was raised like a cake stand. Supported by the Churches Restoration Trust, it apparently held just one service a year.

  Felix left the truck at the side of the track and locked it. With the sun muffled like a coin in a handkerchief, Merrily, uncloaked and chilly, opened the gate into the churchyard.

  ‘Perhaps we should tell someone we’re here.’

  ‘Nobody ever disturbs me.’ Fuchsia handed her the bag. ‘They probably take one look at me and think I’m a mad person.’

  Shouldering the bag strap, Merrily saw Felix wince.

  ‘Look,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ll stay outside, yeah? Explain to anybody who shows up.’

  ‘You sure?’

  His look confirmed it. Merrily nodded, and Fuchsia drifted ahead of her, like a ghost in the mist, around the church to the arcaded wooden porch.

  Is this safe? After several recent cases of exorcism turning up the jets under something combustible, you were forced to ask.

  But this wasn’t an exorcism; Fuchsia knew enough not to be asking for it. She’d wanted a blessing which was exactly what Merrily, under the circumstances, would have been offering, so no problem. Really, no—

  ‘Fuchsia, before we go in …’

  Fuchsia stopped just inside the porch, the mist hanging in shining strings from the Gothic points of its deep and glassless windows. Merrily caught her up.

  ‘I want to get this right. Is it your feeling you might have brought something with you, out of the house at Garway?’

  Fuchsia stood for a while, moistening her lips with her tongue.

  ‘Something found me.’

  ‘Something which … knew you already, do you think?’

  Fuchsia said nothing. Her eyes gave nothing away.

  Merrily said, ‘When you talked about evil and also a feeling of death …’

  The owl eyes didn’t blink or flicker, the skin around them softly lucent.

  ‘And about something moving … under the dust-sheets?’

  ‘You mean, was I talking about something subliminal?’ Fuchsia said.

  ‘Something under the surface of my own mind? Are you asking if I’m mentally ill, Merrily?’

  Merrily found a smile from somewhere.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m not asking that. Let’s go in.’

  She remembered its intimacy, emphasised by the central pulpit, the two chancels like cattle pens. She remembered the harmonium and the discreet domestic medieval tomb of John and Agnes de la Bere, praying effigies modestly separated by John’s shield.

  Found herself picturing stone images of herself and Lol with his Boswell guitar between them.

  ‘Candles.’ Fuchsia held up a brown paper bag she’d found inside the pulpit. ‘They’re still here.’

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘Three left. And a stub. Sometimes I light them on one of the altars.’

  ‘You have a preference?’

  ‘The left-hand one. Because it’s furthest from the door.’

  ‘All right. Shall we make it just the one candle?’

  ‘Oh – I haven’t brought matches.’

  ‘I’ve got a lighter.’

  They didn’t use the candlesticks provided, instead placing the candle stub in a tin tray, and Merrily lit it, praying within herself for assistance. They sat side by side, facing the altar from benches just inside the rood screen, Fuchsia in white, Merrily black-cassocked. It was less cold than she’d expected.

  ‘You OK, Fuchsia?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You know what I’m asking?’

  ‘There’s nothing here now. There never is, in here. It’s a holy site. A healing place.’

  Merrily nodded, stood up.

  ‘Shall I kneel down, Merrily? Before the altar?’

  ‘OK.’

  It didn’t take long. Hands-on, very gentle.

  ‘Father, I ask you now to cleanse and make new all things within the heart and soul of Fuchsia. To restore her to new life and a new relationship with you. To … make her welcome.’

  The lids were down over the owl-eyes. Wings of white light opening up in the window over the altar.

  There was a small rustling from behind them, in the left-hand nave. Churches were full of small sounds. Merrily didn’t look towards it, but was suddenly thinking of dust sheets wriggling and rippling like something malevolent under the skin, and it—

  It needed more. Something – a vibration in the solar-plexus – telling her that.

  She left Fuchsia kneeling there, the white dress tucked under her knees, the shawl hanging loose over her shoulders, keeping her in view as she moved quickly back to the bench and her bag, feeling for the smoothness of glass and bringing out the most Roman Catholic item in there.

  The oil. Olive oil, extra-virgin, blessed by the Bishop, in a brown screw-top vial.

  Fuchsia’s forehead shone. Merrily bent and, with a forefinger, inscribed on it a cross, in oil.

  ‘And if you could open your hands …’

  On the left palm, another cross.

  ‘Oil of wholeness and healing …’

  And then the right, Fuchsia drawing a slow breath, eyelids fluttering.

  ‘Watch over her, in the nam
e of all the angels and saints in heaven. Keep guard over her soul day and night.’

  All very solemn and slightly surreal. Merrily shivering slightly as Fuchsia’s eyes opened and she was looking back through the chancel screen towards the harmonium and the doorway.

  ‘Who is this?’ Fuchsia whispered. ‘Who is this who’s coming?’

  And laughed as lightly as her harsh child’s voice could manage.

  6

  Stonewall

  THE LOOK ON Sophie’s face was beyond outrage, bordering on disbelief. Down in Broad Street, air brakes gasped.

  Bishops came and bishops went, Hereford Cathedral remained.

  And Sophie.

  She sank down at her desk, almost fading into it like a ghost. Merrily shut the window of the gatehouse office, usually a refuge under the cathedral’s calming façade, where the Bishop’s lay secretary applied cold cream for the soul.

  Today, the air up here was tainted with dismay, Sophie’s snowy hair disarranged. Merrily had phoned her before leaving for Monkland, outlining the brief, and this was when Sophie had gone over to the Bishop’s Palace to elicit some hard facts from Bernie Dunmore. And been unaccountably, shockingly, stonewalled.

  Merrily sat down opposite her, with her back to the window.

  ‘That doesn’t happen, Sophie.’

  ‘It certainly never has before. I actually thought at one stage that he wasn’t going to tell me about any of it.’

  All the time Merrily had been telling her about Fuchsia and Felix, Sophie had been rearranging the correspondence on her desk, lifting up the pile and stacking it like a pack of cards that she was about to shuffle. Finding things to do with her hands as if she was trying to stop them shaking.

  Autumn at last: twinset time, but no real need for that extra scarf. The idea of Sophie feeling the cold was disturbing to Merrily; she stood up again as the kettle came to the boil.

  ‘I’ll make it.’

  ‘I should perhaps take one sugar,’ Sophie said calmly.

  ‘Jesus.’ Merrily pulled down the teapot and mugs. ‘So … all in all, there’s probably more to this than either of us knows.’

  ‘You know rather more than I do.’

  ‘Until last night, I didn’t even know how heavily the Duchy was into the county.’

  ‘I’ve made a point of finding out.’ Sophie put on her chained glasses to consult a computer printout. ‘The serious involvement with Herefordshire happened fairly rapidly. According to the Duchy of Cornwall’s website, major investment here began with scattered segments of the once-vast estate, around Hereford and Ross, owned in the seventeenth century by Thomas Guy. Of Guy’s Hospital fame.’

  ‘I should know about this, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Held more recently, of course, by the footwear magnate Sir Charlie Clore. And then, after his death, by Prudential Assurance, who sold it to the Duchy in, I think, 2000. This probably means there’s now more Duchy investment in this county than anywhere outside of Cornwall itself.’

  ‘Royal Herefordshire?’

  ‘The showpiece being the very impressive Harewood Park. Which, of course, one can’t miss because it’s right next to the A49.’

  ‘Why here? I mean, why Herefordshire?’

  ‘Beautiful. Unspoiled. Perhaps the Prince wants to help keep it that way. He’s famously keen on Green issues. Seems likely to ensure that the land will be treated sympathetically, with an eye to heritage, conservation and organic farming.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Nothing overtly sinister, Merrily. Nothing for, say, Jane to rail against. Which is why I can’t understand—’

  Sophie, cathedral person, confirmed royalist, closed her lips and turned her head, ostensibly fixing a clip in her hair.

  ‘Nothing about Garway on the Duchy website.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Do you know Garway, Sophie?’

  ‘Haven’t been over there for many years. Not since our hiking days.’

  ‘Hiking days?’ Merrily blinked. ‘Bobcap … knapsack … flask of soup. You?’

  ‘I’m not in the mood, Merrily.’

  Merrily sighed. ‘Maybe you could tell me what you remember?’

  ‘I remember the church. Small and rather strange.’

  ‘Built by the mysterious Knights Templar.’

  ‘In fact, one of the best-preserved examples of Templar architecture in the country. Especially since the London church was badly damaged in the Blitz. And there’s a medieval columbarium nearby, said to be absolutely the finest of its kind anywhere.’

  ‘Columb—?’

  ‘Dovecote. The Templars kept doves and pigeons as a food supply. The whole area had, I suppose, a sense of isolation – self-isolation, in a way – that I wouldn’t imagine has gone away. Not an area, I should have thought, that anyone visits without a particular reason. I printed out some general background material for you, Merrily. After the Bishop dropped what crumbs of information he deemed it necessary for me to have.’

  OK, time to deal with this. Sophie hadn’t seemed so screwed-up since Siân Callaghan-Clarke’s attempt to turn Deliverance into a branch of social services. Merrily dumped two tea bags into the pot and brought the kettle back to the boil.

  ‘What exactly did he say when you first mentioned it?’

  ‘It’s not so much a question of what he did or didn’t say said as of what he did next. Which was to telephone Canterbury.’ Sophie scowled. ‘On his private line.’

  ‘How do you know he did that?’

  ‘About twenty minutes later, someone returned his call on this line.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Suffice to say, the voice was instantly recognizable.’

  ‘Not—? Aaah!’ Pouring boiling water into the pot, Merrily had scorched the back of a hand in the steam. ‘Shit. Sorry.’ What was the matter with her?

  ‘Some issue of Church politics here,’ Sophie said. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘It isn’t obvious to me.’ Merrily held her reddening hand under the cold-water tap. ‘All I can see is a conflict of loyalty over a woman who could well be emotionally disturbed.’

  ‘You think the girl’s delusional?’

  ‘Don’t know enough to say one way or the other. She has a complicated history. Seems to be looking for a kind of stability she’s never had. Likes old churches and ceremony. You might’ve seen her in the cathedral. Big eyes. Doesn’t smile.’

  ‘And what were you able to do to help her?’

  ‘Protective blessing. In church. With oil, which seemed appropriate.’

  ‘You don’t look entirely convinced.’

  Who is this who’s coming? Outside, she hadn’t even remembered saying it. Merrily dried her hand on the towel.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on her. Meanwhile, check out the house at Garway. Actually, I’ve got some stuff here …’

  She came back to the desk and brought out the folder that Adam Eastgate had given her, with the plans and a photo of what looked like a traditional Welsh longhouse, stone-built, one end extending into the barn or cowshed.

  ‘We haven’t had any reports about this house before, have we, Sophie? Nothing on the database? Even peripheral?’

  ‘Nothing. I checked the files and correspondence going back to Canon Dobbs’s time and earlier. You haven’t been there yet?’

  Merrily shook her head. She’d driven directly over to Hereford after picking up the Volvo in Monkland. Sophie brought out more printout.

  ‘I looked up the Master House on the Listed Buildings database. It’s given as fourteenth century, but they usually play safe so it could be earlier.’

  ‘If it dates back to the Templar occupancy of Garway, which is what Felix Barlow reckons, that would be thirteenth century … maybe very early fourteenth. I think the order was scrapped around then, wasn’t it?’

  ‘The order was officially – and rather brutally – dissolved in 1307. In France, anyway. This was less than two centuries after it was formed. The Templars would have survived a litt
le longer in Britain, but not in any organized way.’

  ‘And would they have been connected, in any way, with the Master House, given that head Templars were called Masters?’

  ‘Possibly. In peacetime, they seem to have behaved like any other monastic community – farming the land, employing local people. As the house is still part of a farm, I phoned an acquaintance in the local NFU office. It seems to have belonged for quite some time – many generations – to the Gwilym family, whose land straddles the Welsh border.’

  ‘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.’