Friends of the Dusk

by Phil Rickman

  ‘Oh God, you can’t mean— You don’t know her.’

  ‘Didn’t know her. Been an illuminating couple of days, Merrily.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘Woman who runs that home dines out on Anthea White stories. And now a Hereford canon as her son-in-law, “Oh, you must know Merrily Watkins, Graeme, comes here now and again. And always to see Miss White.” And then here’s Graeme Spring in person, amiable clergyman, chatting to the residents… with the exception of one, who’s clearly the subject of some of these chats. How long you reckon before Anthea started to smell a whole bag of rats?’

  ‘She worked in Intelligence during the Cold War, so probably not that long.’ Merrily stood at the window, looking out across the grass at the lichen on the churchyard wall, myriad in the sunshine. ‘I think, in her provocative way, she was trying to get me to talk about Innes. Couple of weeks ago. I didn’t know what she was on about. And how the hell do you know all this?’

  ‘Let me go back to the beginning. She called me. She wanted to talk about you.’

  Merrily spun round.

  ‘She called you?’

  ‘Not much she doesn’t know about you, lass. Or me, come to that. Long days to fill in an old folks’ home.’

  ‘Were you in touch with her when I played you Sophie’s recording?’

  ‘Couldn’t say owt. Couldn’t trust you to leave the ole girl alone.’

  ‘To do what, for heaven’s sake?’

  She’d begun to feel surrounded from above, prodded like a specimen on a lab mat.

  ‘Might be pushing it a bit to say she’s fond of you. Then again, happen it wouldn’t. Nowt she could do about Innes, except menace her fellow inmates into silence, but she saw into the dark heart of this Cwmarrow business straight off. Anyroad…’ Huw slipped out of his boots, stretched out his hiking socks to the stove. ‘I drove over to see her. Walked in, dog collar and all.’

  ‘That would’ve got straight back to Innes. Mad bastard from Brecon sniffing around.’

  ‘I do like Anthea. Morally flexible, like everybody who ever worked for the government, but it’s her immortal soul on the line, not mine.’

  Merrily gave up, sat down.

  ‘We talked at length about vampirism,’ Huw said. ‘I hadn’t known about Walter Map and De Nugis Curialium. She did. Had it on the shelf in the original medieval Latin. Could even translate some of it. An eye-opener. Summat there, you know. All folk tales, Merrily, there’s summat there.’

  In the Walter Map story, there was a crucial line, Huw said.

  Jane, of course, was already on to it. Jane had committed it to memory.

  ‘“Peradventure the Lord has given power to the evil angel of that lost soul to move about in the dead corpse.”’

  ‘Lass is right,’ Huw said. ‘That’s the essence of it. Somebody here knew what he were talking about. Might’ve been Map himself, but I do like to think it were Bishop Foliot. Good to think bishops in them days had their fingers on the spiritual pulse rather than the illuminated spreadsheet. You thought about what it means?’

  ‘Looks like possession,’ Jane said. ‘Evil angel – demon?’

  She’d been sitting quietly at the bottom of the table. Huw didn’t seem bothered.

  ‘We reckoned, me and Anthea, that it were more personal than that. “The evil angel of that lost soul.” It’s part of him. It’s a clear pointer to what folk like her call The Second Death.’

  He looked at Merrily who shrugged lightly.

  ‘I’m not going to knock that. I never have.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It argues that when the body dies, the soul continues to inhabit the astral or spiritual body for a short time – hence all those bereavement apparitions seen by the widowed partner or a close relative or friend, of the loved one… simultaneous with or soon after death. In order to cut all its earthly ties, move on, the soul needs to undergo the all-important second death. Leaving the astral body – and the earth – behind. Sometimes, maybe through some obsessive attachment to a place or a person or a memory, it will hang on, causing problems for the living. This generally does tie in with my experience of trying to deal with psychic disturbance.’

  ‘But what if it doesn’t want to move on?’ Huw said. ‘Happen wants to keep its body functioning. For which it needs to appropriate the life energy of others. Sometimes symbolized as life blood.’

  ‘So what Foliot means by the evil angel,’ Jane said, ‘is this man’s own spirit…’

  ‘The etheric double, as it’s sometimes called. Evil because of what it does to hang on. Becomes a predator. Absorbs the energy of the living. Works his way through the village.’

  ‘Summoning people, one by one,’ Jane said. ‘And they like… they just submit to it? When they’re called, they come…?’

  ‘It’s a way of illustrating summat else about what, at some stage, we started calling vampires. All right, it’s exaggerated, this tale of Map’s, and simplified. It’s a medieval chronicle, they didn’t do psychoanalysis. It’s good and evil and nowt in between. He’s a maleficus. A black magician. Well, that’s just words. Happen he’s just a heretic who employs his knowledge selfishly. Could be a rogue monk, anything. But he reckons he’s led a sinful life, and the message he gets from the all-knowing Church is that he’s going to fry in hell for all eternity. He doesn’t want to go. He feeds on his neighbours’ energy to avoid the second death.’

  Jane leaned forward across the table.

  ‘But why do they let him in?’

  ‘He’s dominant, lass. We’ve all known people who can make you do things for them and go on doing things until you become ill. People who, if you spend too much time with them you feel completely drained. Some old people get like that. Emotionally demanding. And children. I want this, I want that. They want everything you’ve got. That’s a kind of vampirism. That’s the summoning.’

  ‘Can’t argue with that,’ Merrily said.

  ‘It’s a workable theory. It’s evil, but – and this is rare in our line of work – it’s a form of evil we can fully understand if we apply ourselves.’

  ‘And we should apply this to Selwyn Kindley-Pryce?’

  ‘Anthea White thinks we can. Old girl got quite excited about it.’

  ‘So why are you – you know – speaking for her? Why aren’t we going to Hardwicke to get this from her direct? I’m saying go to Hardwicke because she won’t come here.’

  ‘She’s not there.’

  ‘She’s always there.’

  ‘She’s at Lyme Farm.’

  ‘Huw!’

  ‘The lad took her. Lol. One of Lyme Farm’s little earners is providing relief stays, anything from a couple of nights to a couple of weeks, so carers can have a holiday. Lol’s dumped his old mum there for a night or two.’

  ‘Oh, you are kidding…’

  ‘Anthea’s idea. She’s paying. I’m bloody glad she didn’t come to me, you can get a weekend in the Ritz for less than Lyme Farm charges. But… you’re a worthy cause, lass. And if it makes you feel better, it’s hardly just about you, is it?’

  ‘Huw, I just…’ Merrily was up and pacing. ‘I really don’t like this at all. I’ve never known Miss White leave The Glades, and I don’t like her being there, with him? OK, he’s demented, but in his case we don’t know what that means, do we?’

  Huw spread his hands.

  ‘I had a dream about him last night,’ Merrily said, collecting a sharp glance from Jane. ‘Twice. Maybe more times. Is that me, or is it him? Or can a memory lodge like some kind of parasite in your subconscious? I don’t know. I’m well out of my depth. Not scared to admit that.’ A new thought froze her. ‘Where’s Lol?’

  ‘He took the owd lass over there and came back. Supposed to collect her tonight.’

  ‘Where’s he now?’

  ‘At his house. Waiting to hear from Lyme Farm about picking her up. Said I’d happen go with him.’

  ‘Huw… what is she doing?’

  ‘Would
you think I were irresponsible if I said I didn’t really know?’

  ‘Actually, yes, I would. She’s an old woman. If we follow your theory all the way, what we have there is a man in the advanced stages of dementia, his mind gone to mush, so that all that’s left in there is… is…’

  ‘The evil angel,’ Jane said.

  65

  Boyfriend

  MID-AFTERNOON, LOL came round. Sheepish, uncertain.

  ‘I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, but… Athena… you don’t, do you? You just don’t.’

  ‘No.’ Merrily pulled him into the kitchen. ‘She’s fascinated and frightened me at the same time, for so long…’

  Taken her a long time to admit this even to herself. And now, for the first time, she was frightened for Miss White. In the way she’d so often been frightened for Jane. A girl and an old woman with no brake pedals. Although even Jane…

  She watched her daughter busying herself with tea and coffee, sandwiches and cake, emergency rations. There’d been a crisis here, something Jane hadn’t wanted to talk about, something she’d dealt with on her own and had come through. There was a new quietness in Jane – Merrily, who knew nothing, feeling obscurely proud of her. The way she was staying on the fringe, only speaking when she thought there was something she could genuinely contribute.

  Merrily had told them – why not? – what she’d learned from Bliss and also Caroline Goddard, which led to speculation from Huw about the grooming of young girls for sex, how that related to vampirism.

  ‘Oh aye, they’ll come looking for it. They’ll come looking for this Geraint, the young lad, and they’ll get middle-aged men, and old men. And they’ll let it happen, just like those thousands of kids in Yorkshire. The element of domination mingled with the allure of a forbidden world. I’d like to think if I were still up north I’d’ve spotted it, but happen I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Aisha,’ Merrily said. ‘This worries me a lot.’

  She was aware of Jane wanting to say something and yet not wanting to. Jane who had only encountered Aisha on the Internet. But even that was closer than Merrily had managed, the way the Maliks had kept her out of sight.

  Lol said, ‘Huw, I keep wondering if we ought to go up there now – Lyme Farm. Just to be ready.’

  ‘How long’s she booked in, lad?’

  ‘Till tonight.’

  ‘We should wait. It’s only half an hour or so.’

  ‘Did I tell you about the camera?’

  ‘Camera?’

  ‘She asked for a camera, to take with her. A video camera. I borrowed one from Prof Levin. Took this old handbag to Prof and he fitted it with this tiny little camera she could operate from a pressure point.’

  ‘Once a spook?’

  ‘She seemed to know exactly what she was doing. I was just the driver.’

  ‘We’ll wait for the call, eh?’ Huw said.

  ‘I need to make one, too.’

  Merrily got up and went through to the scullery.

  One more try.

  ‘We’ll be leaving, Mirrily.’ Casey Kellow had picked up on the second ring. ‘Maybe somebody’ll take the house for peanuts, or maybe we just sell the land. Doesn’t matter, does it? Some things you just can’t win. Some places are not meant to be lived in. You can’t take on history.’

  They’re bloody mad, Hector Pryce had said, people who get obsessed with the past. The past is worthless, messes you up.

  The Kellows were in hell. They’d come to the house to collect some things, and then they were going back to Worcester, to stay in a hotel. Adam’s funeral – Muslims did it quickly, but there had to be a post-mortem. They didn’t know what the schedule was. It was all a nightmare.

  ‘How’s Nadya?’

  ‘Very stoical. Very quiet. Keeping away. Staying with her in-laws. We went over there. It was difficult. Strained, tearful. Nothing any of us could say. But at least Aisha’s safe now.’

  Was she? If you followed this madness all the way, you might wonder why Adam had died and Aisha had not. You might wonder what lived in her.

  ‘Casey, what happened when they took Aisha away?’

  ‘Why did I know you were gonna ask that? The paramedics had to sedate her to get her into the ambulance. She was hysterical. She was… crazy. Maybe it had just come home to her about her dad.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Or maybe something more complex.

  ‘The paramedics were great, saying no problem, they’d seen all this before. I don’t think they had.’

  ‘Casey… please tell me this. It can only help, I promise you. Why did they keep her hidden, the Maliks? Why wasn’t I ever allowed to see her?’

  Loud silence in the phone.

  ‘We thought it was a boyfriend, OK? We thought she was going out to meet a boyfriend. Maybe some boy… man… with a car, who’d be waiting for her out there, when she slipped away. She did that. She’d slip away.’

  ‘Adam told me.’

  ‘When we talked about it – and we didn’t talk about it much, because her mother refused to – I’d say, why don’t you follow her? I think Adam tried to. Wasn’t easy. She had all this dark clothing. If you asked where she was going – well, you know what girls can be like at that age. You asked once, you didn’t ask again. Even Nadya was a little scared of her. Sometimes her face… it was… too old for her. Like the face of a mature woman who’d… been round the block, you hear what I’m saying?’

  ‘Didn’t anybody at her school…?’

  ‘Mirrily, she wasn’t like that at school! Even here, not all the time. Sometimes. That’s why Nadya didn’t want you to see her. Because she knew what you’d think, someone in your job.’

  ‘Not necessarily, we—’

  ‘And Nadya thought that was insane because Nadya’s an atheist masquerading as a Muslim.’

  ‘What about Adam?’

  ‘He talked to shrinks he knew. Imaginary boyfriend, they said. She had pictures from the Foxy Rowlestone fan club, of this guy from the books. Photos. Some model. She’ll grow out of it, they said. She’ll meet a real boy, and it’ll all be history. Platitudes. Adam was afraid it was gonna turn out to be something midical – that’s how Adam thought – reasonably, because she was complaining of hidaches, refusing to go to school. He’d arranged for some tests at the hospital. Yesterday. She was refusing to go. There were… scenes. Her dad… she… it was awful, distrissing… she rakes his face with her nails as they’re getting her into the car. Nadya slams the door, he drives away. You know the rest. I think if he’d got her out of the valley, it would’ve been… I don’t know. I don’t know…’

  Casey was sobbing hard. Merrily thought to say stuff about the usefulness of prayer at a time like this and couldn’t.

  ‘Casey, can you—?’

  ‘I can’t do anything!’

  And then she was gone, and Lol was in the scullery doorway.

  ‘Miss White’s been on the phone to Huw. We’re leaving now.’

  66

  Hereford Gothic

  ‘WE’VE LOVED HAVING Mrs Robinson,’ Donna said. ‘She’s made us laugh so much.’

  Athena White was sitting in a window seat across from the reception area, kittenish in mohair, gazing placidly into the dusk with her handbag on her knees.

  Lol went over. Athena reached up and patted his face.

  ‘Darling boy.’

  They’d come in Huw’s Land Rover, driving into a short and savage November sunset, streaks of it still winding like molten wire over the horizon of low Welsh border hills.

  ‘I’ve made so many friends,’ Athena said. ‘In such a short time. I’d quite like to say goodbye to some of them. Would that be in order, dear?’

  ‘Of course,’ Donna said, her eyebrows almost joining when she saw Merrily. ‘Mrs Watkins? Here again.’

  ‘Friend of the family,’ Merrily said. ‘Would it be OK if I…?’

  ‘I guess. But I’m not awfully sure that Mr Kindley-Pryce…’

  ‘I don’t intend to bo
ther him today.’

  ‘Well, I’m not—’

  ‘Come, Watkins,’ Athena said.

  There were muted lights in the passageways; in the big windows a dark orange sky, an afterglow on the fields on the Herefordshire side. Merrily, the airline bag over a shoulder, Huw and Lol, carrying his laptop, followed Athena White into a side passage and through a modern Gothic door into a plain little chapel with a couple of dozen wooden chairs either side of an aisle at the top of which was an altar covered with a green cloth with gilt edges.

  Athena relieved Lol of the laptop.

  ‘Robinson, would you mind awfully standing outside? If anyone wants to come in, tell them there’s a… body in here in a coffin or something. They hate to be reminded they’re in the departure lounge. No… let’s leave the lights out, shall we?’

  Huw moved away from the switches and shut the door, leaving Lol on the other side of it. Athena put down her bag on the altar, reached inside and pulled out the camera, about the size of Merrily’s old Zippo lighter, a lead with a USB plug and her glasses.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, Watkins. Most of the old biddies at The Glades are techno-savvy these days, even if they waste their hours on social trivia. This…’ She bent over Lol’s laptop. ‘… is all rather simplistic compared with the devices one was called upon to operate in my youth, however… I’d be grateful if one of you could help me find the right socket for this.’

  She stepped away, but not before Merrily had noticed that her fingers had been fumbling because her hand was shaking. No wonder she hadn’t wanted the lights on.

  When the camera was connected, Athena let the laptop boot up on the altar then pulled out a chair, set it in the aisle and sat on it, arranging her skirt.

  ‘Take your seats. Don’t… don’t worry, you won’t be viewing his death. Although it would not, in all honesty, worry me in the slightest.’

  ‘Anthea—’

  ‘Do sit down, Owen. Watkins, would you mind awfully… operating the thing for me. It seems to be a… Mac. Or something. I’m more used to Windows.’