Midwinter of the Spirit (16 page)

‘Yes.’ Lol had been half expecting this. ‘She is.’

‘So what’s the problem?’ Dick started ticking off plus-factors on his fingers. ‘You’re both on your own.
I’m
her actual therapist, not you, so no ethical barriers. Do find her attractive, don’t you?’

‘She’s beautiful.’

‘But you think she doesn’t fancy you – that it? Oh, I think she does, old son. I think she does.’

Lol felt awkward. ‘Maybe we wouldn’t be too good for each other. You don’t get to laugh much around Moon.’

‘Not a terrific sense of humour, no,’ Dick conceded.

‘Like, you want to make her happy, but you don’t somehow think she’d be happy being happy.’

And that was it really: you couldn’t help feeling that life with Moon was destined to end in a suicide pact.

‘Lol,’ Dick said, ‘I realize you’re a sensitive soul, but you don’t particularly need to think about psychology when you’re shagging someone, do you?’

‘Yuk,’ Jane said. ‘I mean…
yuk
!’

‘Quite.’

‘I mean, it’s awful, it’s tragic, and everything. But it’s also… really inconsiderate. I really think you should’ve walked out. Like, how were you to know these nurses weren’t lying? Nobody should have to make a decision like that, with the old guy’s clock running down the whole time.’

‘It wasn’t an actual exorcism. It wasn’t much at all, in the end.’

‘Sounds like that’s what the older nurse wanted, though. An exorcism.’

‘Possibly.’ The parts Merrily hadn’t mentioned included the scratching finger and other sensations. The subjective aspects.

‘Face it.’ Jane poured the tea. ‘It’s a crap deal, Mum. They send you in armed with a handful of half-assed prayers and platitudes which are supposed to cover all eventualities. You’re holding a duff hand from the start.’

‘Well, not—’

‘It’s like with these evangelical maniacs, where you like go along and you’re looking a bit off-colour and in about three minutes flat they’ve discovered you’re possessed by seventeen different demons and the next thing you’re rolling around on the floor throwing up. You could really
damage
people.’

‘It’s a bit more disciplined than that but, yeah, I know what you mean. It
is
a minefield.’

‘And it’s just useless
liturgy
. Like, with all respect, what real actual practical training have you had? It’s not like you’ve even done any meditation or yoga or anything. I mean… theological college? Does that even equal, say, two weeks at a respectable ashram?’

‘I think it possibly does,’ Merrily said, but wondering.

‘But you’re not really spiritually developed, are you? Not like Buddhist monks and Indian gurus and guys like that. Like, you can’t – I don’t know – leave your body or anything. You’ve just read the books. And yet they want you to mess with people’s souls.’

‘It’s supposed to be God who does the actual messing. That is, we don’t believe we have any special powers. We kind of signpost the way for the Holy Spirit.’

‘You ever ask yourself, if the Holy Spirit is so ubi… all-overthe-place and on the ball, why does it
need
a signpost?’

‘We have to invite the Holy Spirit in, you know?’

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s one of the rules. Deep theology, flower.’

‘Bollocks,’ Jane murmured. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t let Hunter get away with this.’

Merrily paused with the mug at her mouth. ‘He’s the guv’nor.’

‘He’s a tosser.’

‘But I
will
call him. I’ll have a bath and a rest and then I’ll call him.’

‘Maybe Rowenna could get some of the SAS cross-country guys to elbow the flash git into a deep ditch,’ Jane mused. ‘Muddy his fetching purple tracksuit.’

The rain was battering the barn windows, and Lol was sure there was an element of sleet to it now. But Dick was all sunshine, like his row with the boy James had never happened.

‘Well, this is super.’ Clasping his herbal tea to his chest. ‘This is quite magnificent.’

And it was. The little barn was transformed. All the boxes had disappeared, everything put away, everything tidy. A bright coal-fire on the simple, stone hearth. Fragments of black pottery arranged on a small shelf. On the wall alongside the steps to the bedroom loft was a detailed pen-and-ink plan of, presumably, the Dinedor Iron Age community – round huts with stone bases and conical thatched roofs. Moon had made mysterious marks on it: dots and symbols – archaeologist stuff.

Ideal Homes
show barn?

‘You were right and we were wrong,’ Dick told Moon. But he was smiling at Lol and the smile said:
I was right and you were wrong
.

Above the fireplace was a gilt-framed photograph of a smiling man leaning against a Land Rover. The man’s smile was Moon’s smile.

‘We thought you’d be a bit, ah, cut off up here,’ Dick said. ‘A bit lonely? But this is your place, Moon. What are you going to do?’

‘Well, I’m going back to work in the shop.’ Moon wore the long grey dress, freshly washed; without mud on the hem it looked like a hostess dress. Her very long hair was in a loose, lush plait. ‘For a while, anyway.’

‘Playing it day by day.’

‘I’m not an alcoholic, Dick.’

She didn’t smile. She hadn’t looked at Lol. He felt he’d betrayed her.

‘What I
meant
, Moon,’ Dick said, ‘is that you clearly no longer feel the need to hurry – rush from one experience to another. You’ve been away, you’ve been through all kinds of changes, and now you’ve returned to repossess your past.
Your
past,
your
place, firm ground – it must feel wonderful.’

Moon said nothing. Dick took this as agreement, and nodded enthusiastically. It was the conclusion he wanted, the neat outcome of a very singular case. He had her all packaged up in his head: at least an article for
Psychology Today
or whatever he subscribed to. Moon was getting better. Moon was taking responsibility for herself.

So why, to Lol, had she never seemed more of an enigma? What had caused her suddenly to launch into this place like a team of industrial cleaners? As if she’d known they were coming. Or someone else? Determined that the barn should project the image of a balanced, settled academic individual.

It was a façade; it had to be.

And the picture of her smiling father disturbed him. If Dick had noticed it, he didn’t comment. Lol looked closely at the photograph. When it was taken, Moon’s father would have been about Denny’s age – early to mid forties. He looked more like Moon than Denny did, the same smile and the same deepsunk, glittering eyes. Something black and gnarled lay on the mantelpiece below the picture. Lol bent to examine it.

‘Don’t touch that!’ Moon almost ran across the room, eased herself between Lol and the fireplace.

Lol stepped back. ‘I’m sorry…’

‘It’s very delicate.’

‘What is it?’

‘I found it. It was only about ten yards from the barn. Someone had started digging out a pond some time ago and never finished it, and there was a heap of soil where the ground was turned over, and it was actually projecting – sticking out.’

She moved aside to let them see, now they realized they mustn’t touch. It was knobbled and corroded, about ten inches long.

‘Anyone else, if they didn’t know about these things, they’d think it was just an old tractor part or something. I mean, nothing much has ever been found up here. A trench was once cut from the ramparts to the centre of the camp, and nothing much was found there except lots of black pottery and an axe-head.’

‘It’s a dagger,’ Lol decided.

‘A sword. Confirmation for me that this farm – not so much the house, but the
farm
– has been here since the Iron Age. It was waiting for me to find it. You see, now?’

‘Fate,’ Lol said hollowly.

‘Oh no,’ Moon said. ‘Far less random than fate.’

‘What’s that mean?’

Moon shook her head. He thought she smiled.

‘You could take it to a museum, have it cleaned up by experts.’

Moon was horrified. ‘Nobody’s going to touch it but me. I don’t want the flow blocked by anyone else’s vibrations.’

‘Good for you, Moon,’ said Dick. ‘Look, we must have a good long chat.’

‘Yes, but not today,’ Moon said. ‘My landlords are coming over for lunch. Tim and Anna Purefoy? From the farm?’

‘Ah.’ Dick nodded. ‘Excellent. Getting to know the neighbours.’

‘I’m meeting all the people who live around the hill – for my book. If I’m going to trace how the community’s changed over two millennia, I have to examine its components. Quite a few of the newcomers here are very interested too. They’re going to help me.’

‘Terrific.’ Dick looked like he wanted to pat her on the head. ‘Can’t wait to read it.’

Later, when Dick went to have fun reversing the Mitsubishi out of the morass in front of the barn where someone had once started to dig a pond, Moon came to stand next to Lol in the doorway.

‘Don’t bring him here again.’

‘He’ll hear you.’

‘I don’t care if he does. I don’t want him here. He’s an idiot. Denny only employed him to get the court off our backs.’

‘
Your
back, Moon.’

‘He’s an idiot.’

‘He means well.’

‘Lol, If you come here again as Dick’s assistant, I won’t tell you anything in future. I don’t need people around me I can’t trust.’

The slanting rain plucked at the mud.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lol said. ‘Do you want me to come back?’

She looked at him, smiling almost coyly. ‘Only as yourself.’

As Merrily rolled gratefully into bed, the phone rang.

‘Unplug it!’ Jane screeched from the landing. ‘Unplug it
now
! I’ll get it downstairs.’

‘Hello,’ Merrily said. ‘Ledwardine Vicarage.’

‘Merrily? It’s Sophie at the Bishop’s office. Michael asked me to ring. We wondered if you’d be popping into town today and, if so, could you call in?’

‘Well, I wasn’t planning…’ On the one hand, she very much needed to talk to the Bishop; on the other, not in this state. ‘Bit tied up this morning.’

‘Oh. Well, this afternoon there’ll be nobody here. Better make it tomorrow, I suppose. It’s just a little job – in connection with the Deliverance side of things.’

‘Oh?’

‘I don’t imagine it’s terribly urgent.’

‘Good. Sophie, do all the Deliverance cases come through your office?’

‘Well, it’s intended that they should. I’m afraid Canon Dobbs was less organized.’

‘What about the problem last night at the General Hospital?’

‘At the hospital?
Was
there a problem?’

‘So it didn’t come through the office?’

‘It didn’t come through
me
.’

‘If you weren’t there, would the Bishop have handled it himself?’

‘They wouldn’t normally get through to the Bishop. Anyway he wasn’t here last night. He was at his parents’ home in the Forest of Dean. They thought his father had suffered another heart attack but it was a false alarm, I’m glad to say.’

‘Oh,’ Merrily said, ‘good.’

‘Did you have to go to the hospital, then, Merrily?’

‘Yes, I did.’ She gripped the phone tightly. If Hunter had been away, then who had directed the hospital to approach her? Who set her up for Denzil Joy’s grisly farewell party?

‘Merrily, are you all right?’

‘Yes, I… This other job – can you tell me what that is?’

‘I’m not sure I should over the phone.’

‘You don’t need to mention names.’

‘Well, it’s… a haunting. At a home for the elderly. Near Dorstone, out towards the Welsh border.’

‘And where did
that
come from? Who told you about it?’

‘It came from the new vicar of Dorstone, I believe. Michael had asked me to keep him informed of any reports of this nature, and when I mentioned it to him he said he’d like you to… take a crack at it, as he put it. He…’ She hesitated. ‘What he went on to say, if I’m not speaking out of turn, is that it would be a test of how committed you were.’

‘Committed?’

‘Frankly, he feels you’re rather stalling. He’d expected a firm answer by now. When we spoke on the phone, he asked if I’d heard from you.’

‘I see. So if I sidestep this haunting, or suggest the Vicar of Dorstone handles it himself, he’ll take that as a no.’

‘I may be wrong about that.’

Sophie was never wrong. Merrily felt she could almost see the hand of fate, grey-gloved in the half-light of the bedroom.

From the landing, Jane called out, ‘For Christ’s sake, Mum!’

In Merrily’s head, the demonic Denzil Joy sat up in bed for the last time, tubes flying out of his nose in twin puffs of snot. Huw Owen’s voice echoed over the Brecon Beacons.
Might as well just paint a great big bullseye between your tits
.

And
, she thought,
it was Dobbs, wasn’t it? It was bloody Dobbs – it has to be. Dobbs set me up
.

She felt light-headed with fatigue. She knew that later, when she awoke again, she was going to be very angry, but now the rage was still misty and distant.

So were the words she spoke, so faintly that she wasn’t sure she hadn’t merely thought them. ‘I’ll come in tomorrow then, Sophie. Ten? Ten-thirty?’

She didn’t hear the reply, wasn’t even aware of hanging up the phone.

There were no dreams, thank God.

14

The First Exorcist

S
HE STOPPED AT
the top of the gatehouse stairs, rubbing circulation back into her hands. It seemed to have become winter overnight. The waxed jacket felt as flimsy as a bin-liner. No good, she’d have to get herself a proper coat when she had time.

When she saw the office door, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or turn around and creep quietly away.

The white panels were adorned by a single, black gothic letter. Above it, a simple, black cross.