by Phil Rickman
‘Put it this way…’ There was a faint smile on his face, but she could tell he was annoyed by her attitude. ‘I’d rate it considerably lower down the scale of antisocial behaviour than marketing drugs in the cloakrooms.’
Morrell was going on holiday with his family tomorrow, which was why the meeting had been arranged for this afternoon, before Merrily would’ve had a chance to talk to Jane. It was clear he would also rather have put it off – probably until next term, when it all might have blown over – but Sophie had enviable ways of dealing with authority figures.
‘However,’ he said, ‘to forestall any accusations of being anti-Christian, I took the liberty of inviting our chairman of governors to sit in. A regular churchgoer, Mrs Watkins.’ He inclined his head to her, patronizing bastard. ‘And, as it happens, a golfing companion of your Bishop’s.’
‘Listen.’ She must have looked pained; like everybody else, he was covering his back. ‘I’m not here to make a big deal out of it, Mr Morrell, I’m just trying to find out what’s happening, who’s involved and if any other kids have been damaged by it.’
‘Damaged?’ A corner of his mouth twisted up; not quite a sneer. ‘Damaged how? Physically? Emotionally? Psychologically?’
She shrugged, reluctant to use a word he would sneer at. Jane despised him for teaching maths, playing electronic Krautrock in his car and joining the older boys for rugby training – his way, the kid reckoned, of getting around the ban on corporal punishment.
Thoughts of Jane made Merrily tense. Maybe she’d still been high from the time-lapse experience, or lack of sleep, but so far she’d managed not to think too hard about the kid’s possible involvement. Now, in this deserted school, with its hostile head teacher, she felt insecure and it seemed altogether less unlikely that Jane had been into some psychic scam.
‘And do you accept the idea of communication with the dead?’ Morrell asked, as heavy footsteps echoed in the corridor outside, like the dead themselves walking in, on cue. Merrily jumped, but Morrell looked relieved. ‘We’re in here, Charlie!’
‘Rob, so sorry I’m—’ The chairman of governors came into the room like someone used to having people wait for him. ‘Oh.’ A leathery face registered unexpected pleasure. ‘I was expecting old Dennis – whatshisname?’
‘This is Mrs Watkins, Charlie. She’s—’
‘I know who she is. She’s the reason Bernie Dunmore spends so much time in Hereford these days instead of walking off some of that weight on the golf course.’ His right hand flashed. ‘Charlie Howe.’
‘Hullo.’ Merrily was letting him squeeze her fingers when she suddenly realized who he was. ‘I think I… may have encountered your daughter.’
‘Yes indeed!’ He beamed. ‘We’re all very proud of Anne.’ His local accent was as mellow as old cider. He wore a light suit and a broad, loose tie. He was in his sixties, had wide shoulders and strong, stiff, white hair in what, in his young days, would have been called a crew-cut.
Charlie Howe: one-time head of Hereford CID, father of its current chief, DCI Annie Howe, the steel angel. Icy blonde with a serious humour deficiency. Merrily searched for family resemblance, could find none at all.
‘She’s done well, Mr Howe.’
‘Youngest head of CID we’ve ever had. She’ll have outranked her old man before she’s finished. Can’t hold you girls down, these days.’ Charlie Howe took a step back to have a proper look at Merrily. ‘My Lord, when I think of your predecessor, old Tommy Dobbs, what a—well, God rest his poor old soul, but what a bloody improvement!’
And she had to smile, not least because this was the kind of sexist remark guaranteed to turn Annie Howe white.
Morrell said, ‘Mrs Watkins believes there’s reason to suspect the school’s become infested with the Powers of Darkness, Charlie.’
Merrily sighed.
They sat at a circular table from which Morrell had discreetly removed a pack of playing cards. ‘You must know,’ he said, ‘that even as the chief executive of this establishment, there isn’t much I can do without knowing the name of either the victim or the instigator.’
Merrily hadn’t felt empowered to name Amy, had revealed only that it involved a girl with a dead mother. She didn’t think Morrell would be able to narrow it down, especially with no staff to consult.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘You asked how the child had been damaged. What you had here was a well-behaved, considerate, hardworking, honest and possibly slightly dull kid who’s turned into someone who is secretive, remote, resentful… and seems to have rejected God while embracing what some people like to call the spirit world. In effect, it seems the dead mother’s become her private support mechanism, to the exclusion of… anyone else.’
‘The way children sometimes find an imaginary friend,’ Morrell said smoothly. ‘To fill a gap in their lonely lives.’
Merrily shook her head. ‘Not really.’
Charlie Howe leaned back on an elbow. ‘Can you believe this young girl might actually be in contact with her mother, Merrily?’
‘I could believe it. But I think it’s more likely to be a contact with… something else.’
‘Like what?’ Morrell’s chair jerked back with a squeak that amplified his outrage.
‘Poor Rob,’ said Charlie Howe, ‘this en’t your world at all, is it?’
Merrily said, ‘When a group of people get together, in a circle – like we are now – with a particular objective in mind, then perhaps that focus of group consciousness could result in – well, it could be like a radio picking up signals. Or maybe like a computer network, and one of the group goes home with a virus attached.’
‘That’s based on science, is it?’ said Robert Morrell.
Merrily shrugged. ‘I’m just telling you it can have harmful effects.’
‘You’re talking about possession?’ said Charlie Howe.
Merrily wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s not my favourite word.’
Morrell said, ‘Mrs Watkins… when I was teaching in Bristol, I used to pass, every day, on my way to work, a former warehouse that sported a large sign proclaiming it to be a Spiritualist Church. A church. Like your own, but less grand. And presumably some of the members of this church had children or grandchildren attending local schools, where the teaching staff were obliged to respect all the various forms of religion, whether Islam or Sikhism or Hinduism or… Voodoo, for all I know.’
‘We’re not talking about religion, Mr Morrell, we’re talking about a bunch of kids hunched up in a cloakroom with an upturned glass and a set of Scrabble letters!’
‘And frankly, as I’ve made clear, Mrs Watkins, I’d have to find something like that a good deal less disturbing than if they were trading their pocket money for pills and then, when the pocket money ran out, clobbering some elderly lady for her pension.’
‘Whoa!’ Charlie Howe put up his hands. ‘Let’s get this into proportion, shall we, folks? I was a copper for nigh on forty years. Sure, I know what drugs can do and I know what some kids’ll do to keep supplied. But I also know, Rob, what… what religion can do. Well, not religion, so much as… well, I don’t know what you’d call it. But I think I know what Merrily’s warning us about, and in my experience it can sometimes lead to offences a sight worse than mugging.’
Morrell’s lips clamped shut. He looked affronted.
‘For instance,’ Charlie Howe said, ‘some years back, I was on the fringe of a very big murder hunt – one that I’m sure we all know about – where the murderer, when he was finally nicked, insisted he’d been told by “voices” to kill a particular kind of woman.’
‘Charlie, that’s—’
‘Give me an hour or two and I could find you a dozen or more other cases in the past ten years where killings, serious assaults and God knows what else, with someone acting entirely out of character, have been put down to—’
‘But Charlie, this is—’
‘This is a juvenile. Certainly. But aren’t youngsters more prone to this kin
d of thing than adults because their imaginations are that much bigger? I’m going to use the word “delusion”, Merrily, for Robert’s sake. And, anyway, we all know that a delusion can be just as real to the person involved. Now if this child’s become antisocial and starts taking advice from what she reckons is her dead mother, then who knows what her so-called mother’s going to advise her to do next? No, I’d be the last to dismiss this kind of problem out of hand.’
Merrily felt like filling the silence with applause. Morrell spread his hands on the table, looked down between them for a moment.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘but what do you suggest we do about it now? The summer holidays have just started. The students are no longer under my jurisdiction. Chances are that, by September, there’ll be some new fad.’
‘The truth of it is,’ Merrily said apologetically, ‘this was supposed to be an informal inquiry.’
‘Nothing formal about me, my dear,’ said Charlie Howe.
‘I was hoping somebody might have some idea about what was going on – like if there were certain kids known to be particularly fascinated by the occult… maybe encouraging or even pressurizing other kids into getting involved. Teachers usually have their noses to the ground.’
‘Tell me,’ said Morrell, ‘have you asked your daughter about this?’
‘She’s… away on holiday.’
‘You see, I’m afraid I really can’t help you. I don’t know anything about any ouija-board sessions. They could very well be happening outside school hours, outside the campus. If you want to give me this girl’s name, we can probably arrange some counselling for her next term.’
‘Or,’ said Charlie Howe, ‘why don’t you ask Merrily to come and give a talk to the sixth-formers? We still have religious education, don’t we?’
‘Social and cultural studies. I’d have to discuss it with my team.’
Merrily pushed back her chair. ‘Well… thanks for listening to me. Although I suspect I’ve wasted your time.’
‘Absolutely not.’ Charlie Howe placed a hand over hers. ‘Emphatically not. Anything that’s affecting the lives of our young people, we want to know about it.’
‘Of course,’ Morrell said.
* * *
The car park had a view of playing fields and the distant Black Mountains. Moorfield High, serving scattered villages in north and central Herefordshire, was half a mile from the nearest one and not a church steeple in sight – which wouldn’t displease Morrell, Merrily thought.
Watching the head driving away, the chairman shook his head.
‘It’s his one blind spot, Merrily. He’s a good headmaster in most respects. Knows about discipline. Doesn’t let the little beggars run wild. But he’s an unbeliever. Don’t mind me calling you Merrily, do you, Reverend? I feel I know you, after talking to Bernie.’
‘Whatever’s he been saying?’
‘He just gets anxious about you, poor old devil.’
‘Ah, but he handles anxiety very well,’ said Merrily. ‘It’s part of being a bishop.’
‘You’re not wrong.’ He patted her shoulder, then consulted his watch. ‘Half-four. Fancy nipping over to Weobley for a coffee?’
‘I’d like to, Mr Howe, but I’ve got to… talk to someone.’
‘Charlie. If I can’t be Chief Super any more, I’ll just be Charlie. Least you didn’t call me Councillor Howe.’ He looked sad for a moment, as though his useful life had ended when he retired from the police, which it clearly hadn’t.
‘You’re Chairman of the Education Committee now, aren’t you?’
‘Vice-chairman.’ He put his head on one side, winked at her. ‘As yet. Tell you what, why don’t you come and talk to one of our sub-committees? Tell the beggars a few things they didn’t know.’
‘You think they’d want that?’
‘They never know what they want these days. Think they know what goes on, but they bloody well don’t. I know you’ve got a pretty thankless job. Got to deal with some weird customers.’
‘You’d know all about that.’
‘What, thankless jobs?’
‘I meant weird—’
‘Oh, aye,’ Charlie said. ‘Getting more thankless all the time, policing. I don’t know how they keep going, today’s coppers, with all the restrictions and the human-rights legislation – known criminals laughing at you from behind their slippery lawyers.’
He gazed across the fields towards Wales, sucking air through his teeth. A pillow of cloud lay over the Black Mountains.
‘Your daughter seems to be coping,’ Merrily said.
‘You reckon?’ He looked up at the sky for a moment, as if deciding whether it would be disloyal to take this any further. Then he turned to her. ‘I’ll tell you, Merrily, it was the shock of my life when Anne joined the force. Never told me, you know. Never said a word. Leaves university with a very respectable law degree, moves away, next thing there she is on the doorstep in her uniform.’
‘Not for very long, I imagine.’
‘Oh no. Fast-track, now. Doing undercover work while she was still a PC, out of uniform altogether within a couple of years. Detective Sergeant at twenty-five.’
‘Chief Constable material, then.’
‘Aye,’ Charlie said. His eyes narrowed shrewdly. ‘Don’t get on too well with her, do you?’
‘She tell you that?’
‘No need. When it comes to religion, Anne stands shoulder to shoulder with Brother Morrell. Always been her blind spot.’
‘Hasn’t held her back. Not even in a cathedral city.’
‘No.’ Charlie Howe stood with his legs apart, his back to the horizon. He must have cut an intimidating figure as a detective, framed in the doorway of the interview room. ‘Not as a copper, no.’
Merrily, who’d had two encounters with Charlie’s daughter, didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t sure she could have got on with Annie Howe if the woman had been Mary Magdalene with a warrant card.
Charlie took out his car keys and tossed them from one hand to the other. ‘Didn’t tell Brother Morrell everything, did you?’
‘I doubt it would have helped. What do you think?’
‘Oh no, you’re quite right, it wouldn’t’ve helped at all. But you wouldn’t have brought him out here in the school holidays if there wasn’t something about this issue that had you particularly worried – now, would you?’
Merrily met his eyes: they were deep-sunk but glittery, playing with her.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t really like this kind of thing. New Age stuff I can put up with – a bit of fortune-telling, astrology, meditation. Trying to contact the dead, that’s unhealthy. Let them go, I say.’
‘And where do the dead go, young Merrily? Heaven? Hell? Purgatory?’
‘Leominster, Charlie. Everybody knows that.’
He grinned. ‘Well, you have a think about talking to my subcommittee. I’ll give you a call in a week or two.’
She stood by the old Volvo and watched him drive away in his dusty Jaguar. She thought she liked him but she wasn’t sure if she could trust him – he was a councillor.
Back in the vicarage, she paused under the picture in the hall: a good-quality print of Holman-Hunt’s The Light of the World. It had been a gift from Uncle Ted, who knew nothing of the lamplit path, and showed Jesus Christ at his most sorrowfully benign. A middle-aged Jesus, laden with experience of humanity at its most depressing.
What am I learning from this? she asked him. Because it seems to me I’m just muddling around, getting up everybody’s noses and not helping a soul.
Summer had never been her favourite season. People expected it to be a time of pleasure: new feathers, cares dropping away like rags. But too often the old feathers refused to fall, and the rags still clung, clammy with sweat.
Inside the house, tiredness came down on Merrily like a tarpaulin. She checked the answering machine – nothing pressing, no Jane – drank half a glass of water and fell asleep on the big old sofa in the d
rawing room, with Ethel the cat on her stomach.
And dreamed she was back in the church.
It was evening. The sandstone walls were sunset-vivid and the apple glowed hot and red in the hand of Eve in the huge west-facing stained-glass window, and Merrily was standing in a column of lurid crimson light and she could hear her own thoughts as she prayed.
Oh God, please tell me. Is Jane involved in the summoning of the dead? Please tell me. Heads for yes. Tails for no.
Her thumb flicked against old copper; it hurt. The coin rose up sluggishly into the dense air, rose no more than three or four inches and she had to jump back to avoid catching it as it fell. She didn’t see it fall but she saw it land because it appeared dimly on the flags, rolling onto one of the flat tombstones in the floor at the top of the nave, into the gaping, time-ravaged mouth of the skull at its centre.
She peered down, couldn’t make out whether it was heads or tails. She bent over double and the shadows deepened. She went down on her knees and all she could see was a void.
She started to weep in frustration and found she was scrabbling in her bag, buried in the shadows beside the sofa, like a great catafalque in the dreary brown light.
‘Yes…’
‘Mum…?’
‘Jane!’ She struggled to sit up, clutching the mobile phone to an ear.
‘You OK?’
‘I… yeah. Of course I’m OK.’
‘Good.’ Jane’s voice was as light and hollow as bamboo.
‘Are you OK?’ Merrily sat on the edge of the sofa, hunched up. The room was dim and felt stagnant. The dull day, deprived of any summer glory, was refusing to go gently and seemed to be sucking out the last of the light like a vacuum pump. The feeling she had was that Jane was not OK.
15
From Hell
JANE LAY ON Eirion’s single bed, watching the last of the light in the sky over the sea. All kinds of emotions were pressing down on her – guilt, regret, some bitterness. But mainly she was furious, and not only at herself.
