by Phil Rickman
‘No,’ Ben said, ‘I’m afraid we don’t have a generator. There are a couple more of these lamps, and a lot of candles, and I could probably get the gas mantles going.’
‘Anything you can do, sir, would be very much appreciated.’
‘Damn. Now?’
‘Well, I’d hate to be a nuisance...’
‘All right.’ Ben walked across to the door to the hall. ‘Oh – Antony has lights, of course. And batteries.’
‘Not very much left, I’m afraid,’ Antony Largo said. ‘Best conserved, eh?’
Jane laughed cynically.
A power cut was going to cause problems, inevitably. Merrily sat and waited for the hall door to close behind Bliss and Ben Foley. At least it had given her some time to work a few things out, align what she’d just heard with what Jeremy had told her, surprisingly voluble once he’d got going.
‘Sorry, Mrs Pollen,’ she said. ‘I think we were talking about the original builder. I mean, I gather you’d know more about this than anybody, from your husband’s preliminary work. As I understand it, the architect who designed Stanner Hall for his own use had done quite a lot of work for Walter Chancery.’
‘Yes.’ Beth Pollen sat just in shadow, looking down at her hands in her lap.
‘And his name was?’
‘Rhys Vaughan. However—’
‘I know much of this is rumour, but we ought to hear it, don’t you think?’
Beth Pollen sighed.
‘I mean, as far as I can make out, nobody knows for certain whether he was a direct descendant of the Vaughans of Hergest, but he certainly thought so,’ Merrily said.
‘Well, he was a Welsh-speaking Welshman, and the Vaughans were a very important family, descended from the Princes of Brecknock, supporters of a great Welsh cultural tradition, I mean, in the Middle Ages the whole of Kington was actually Welsh-speaking. It must have been important to Rhys that when he built the house it should be on a significant site as close to Hergest as possible. He did originally try to buy Hergest Court, and when he failed he was determined to build something as impressive as Hergest had been in its great days.’
‘And where better than the famous Stanner Rocks?’
‘They weren’t very famous then, Mrs Watkins. The rare plants were only discovered quite recently. But yes, it was an impressive site and he was able to buy a good deal of land. Land wasn’t terribly expensive in those days. It all took a long time because he’d keep running out of money and have to go back to the Midlands and design industrial buildings for people like Walter Chancery.’
‘This would be what interested your husband, who worked for Powys Council.’
‘The great Welsh mansion that never was, yes. Rhys was a very romantic figure. A great patriot. He obviously loved the idea of dominating the border, as he believed his ancestors had.’
‘And working for Walter,’ Merrily said, ‘meant he had quite a lot to do with the much younger Mrs, erm, Chancery.’
‘Oh dear,’ Mrs Pollen said. ‘This is all rumour. Steve absolutely abhorred this kind of gossipy, anecdotal—’
‘It was a bit more than that at the time, though, wasn’t it? According to my information, Hattie Chancery bore very little resemblance to Walter, and the only person who couldn’t see it was Walter himself.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Jane said.
‘The word is that this was more than just a passing dalliance. Bella was seriously in love with Rhys, and when he died she was in a terrible state. Which I suppose poor old Walter put down to her being pregnant.’
‘Mum, where the hell did you get this?’
Merrily raised an eyebrow at Jane and hoped that she could make it out in the lamplight. They’re all Vaughans, Jeremy had said. Hattie and Paula and Margery and Sebbie and Brigid. All Vaughans, with all the Vaughan baggage.
‘So Bella, in her grief, carrying Rhys’s child, desperate for her lover’s vision to become reality, put the arm on Walter to put in a bid for the unfinished folly.’
‘It was almost finished,’ Beth Pollen said. ‘All that Bella had to do was bring one of her interior-designer friends up from London. Cost Walter so much money in the end that I think he had to sell one of his companies to meet the final bills. Which I suppose was the beginning of the end for the Chancery fortune. Seems to be what this place does.’
Merrily looked at Amber Foley, who sat as still as a mannequin, her face a mask of dismay. The darkness beyond the lamp-glow seemed more real, now that everyone knew it was a darkness shrouding the whole mid-Border.
‘Which brings us to the seance,’ Merrily said. ‘I’m calling it a seance, because I think the Black Vaughan exorcism thing was probably a cover story, possibly for Walter’s benefit. Would that be close?’
‘It’s all conjecture, isn’t it?’ Beth Pollen said.
‘Is it OK if I go on?’
Beth Pollen spread her hands. Of course... this was the part she would have identified with, as a woman who’d lost a much-loved husband, a soulmate.
‘If we assume that Bella read the Vaughan legend, what would have stood out?’
‘The baby,’ Jane whispered.
‘And she now had one of her own. A little Vaughan. A genuine heir to all this – the whole huge tradition. A tiny descendant of the Princes of Brecknock. And she could never admit it. I don’t know anything about Walter Chancery, but taking over the house built by your tame architect is one thing... living in your wife’s lover’s mansion with his child... very different.’
‘This is totally mind-boggling,’ Jane said.
‘And may not be true,’ Beth Pollen said, rather desperately now.
‘But she was a serious follower of the big new fashion for spiritualism.’ Merrily took a long breath, wishing it carried nicotine. ‘I think when she read about the baby, she conceived the idea of somehow – and we can’t know the details – of somehow presenting the child, Hattie, to her heritage. And more specifically, to her father. The medium...’
‘Wouldn’t the medium have given it away, Mrs Watkins? If her father had spoken through Erasmus Cookson?’
‘No.’ Jane was on her feet. ‘Because Cookson was from London. Bella had him brought in. He just had to have been a mate, someone she could trust not to pass on anything indiscreet until afterwards.’
‘But the priests...’
‘Window dressing, I suspect,’ Merrily said. ‘This is a woman who was secretly bereaved, desperate for psychic contact with her lover. Suppose she’d planned, at some stage, to leave Walter for Rhys Vaughan? Perhaps he’d told her that when the house was finished... I don’t know. We can’t know.’ She glanced at Alistair Hardy. ‘And where Conan Doyle comes in, I’ve no idea at all.’
Beth Pollen sighed. ‘We might as well try and finish the story. My researches suggest that it was Walter who invited Conan Doyle. I think... I think it was probably true that Doyle, a man with a strong sense of what was right and wrong, would have been appalled to find a baby brought into something like this. And I suppose that, being the man he was, he wouldn’t be able to rest until he’d found out what was behind it. Perhaps Bella begged him to keep quiet, and so...’
‘That was why he switched The Hound to Devon?’ Jane said.
‘Impossible to say, isn’t it? It could have been something fairly shocking that happened at the seance.’
‘The baby starts croaking in Welsh?’ Jane smiled malevolently.
‘I suppose we were all hoping something might be confirmed this weekend,’ Beth said.
Alistair Hardy was sitting upright, like Dr Bell, with his arms folded. ‘You didn’t tell me any of this, Beth.’
‘No,’ Beth said, almost distantly, and Merrily guessed that this had been a test for him. That Beth’s commitment to spiritualism was less unquestioning than her colleagues in the White Company had supposed. That Alistair Hardy had perhaps conveyed messages from her husband that she wanted to believe and yet...
Poor woman. If Hardy, as Dr Bell, Conan Doyle or
even himself, had been able to reflect any aspect of a story which was unsupported by anything in print, his stature would have been confirmed, at least in Beth Pollen’s estimation. As it was, he remained iffy.
‘That’s all I know,’ Merrily said.
Beth Pollen said, ‘Perhaps it’s best if we leave it there.’
‘Is that what you want?’
‘No. We can’t, can we? There’s a woman behind that door over there who’s either a totally evil human being or a human being to whom evil was... bequeathed. We can’t alter what happens to her, but we can try to stop it here.’
Merrily nodded.
‘Hattie was unbaptized,’ Beth said. ‘I’m sure there’s a psychiatrist or a geneticist somewhere who can put it into terminology that wouldn’t cause anyone any embarrassment, but it seems likely that that night she acquired what we poor country folk can only describe as The Curse of the Vaughans.’
Merrily looked across the room at Jeremy Berrows, who knew.
‘Why don’t we see what Arthur Conan Doyle had to say? Go back to the Baskerville curse. Who invited evil into Baskerville Hall?’
‘Hugo,’ Jane said. ‘A wild, profane and godless man, in the seventeenth century, at the time of the Civil War. Hugo promises to “render his body and soul to the Powers of Evil” if he can catch up with the wench. No real parallel there, Beth.’
‘Oh, I’ve tried jolly hard to come up with one. The nearest I can get is Ellen Gethin. I often wonder if Ellen didn’t offer herself to the Powers of Evil if she was granted the opportunity – and the physical strength – to avenge her brother.’
‘But did she?’ Merrily wondered. ‘I mean, did she? That’s a very familiar story. I bet you’ll find slightly different versions all over the country.’
‘Well, yes, and Ellen does seem generally to have been a good and faithful woman, who mourned for her husband, buried his headless body, never married again. Nonetheless, what we’re looking at, surely, is a curse, a genetic disposition, what you will, following a female line. Hattie killed her husband, Paula killed herself and... Natalie...’
‘Natalie may also have been involved in the death of her cousin,’ Merrily said. ‘We can speculate for ever about where it came from, but three generations that we know of...’
‘So. What do we do, Mrs Watkins?’
The big question. Alice: We needs it now, more than ever – the big white bird.
Ancestral healing. The healing of the dead.
Dexter: Should never’ve gone round askin’ questions, rakin’ it all up.
Jeavons: It’s how we develop within ourselves – by suffering through our failure and trying again and suffering some more. We suffer, Merrilee.
The globe of the table lamp was shining like a full moon. Merrily walked over to it.
‘We can only apply actual exorcism to something demonic and believed to be... not of human origin. Perhaps that’s why, in the old story, Vaughan describes himself as a devil. Makes it legit. Hattie Chancery, however... I mean, she might not have been a terribly nice person for part of her life, but...’
The TV producer, Antony Largo – egalitarian denims, wide and sceptical smile – said from behind his camera, ‘This sounds like what my old man would’ve described as namby-pamby liberalism.’
‘No... basic Christianity.’
‘Oh, right.’
‘However, I don’t want to underplay it. What I had in mind was to wait until first light and then hold a Requiem Eucharist, for Hattie Chancery. For anyone who isn’t conversant with this, it’s basically a funeral service, with Holy Communion. And the aim, essentially, is to bring peace to Hattie and bring Jesus Christ into this place.’
Antony Largo smiled at Amber. ‘Story of your life here. Never get the ones who pay for the rooms.’
Merrily sighed. ‘Just a guess, Mr Largo... you’re not a Christian, right?’
‘Astute of you to notice, Mrs Watkins.’
‘And honest of you to admit it—’
‘Oh, I’m actually quite proud of it.’
‘—Because it kind of rules you out.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Largo frowned. ‘Rules me out?’
‘And, in fact, anyone else who isn’t a Christian. We can’t afford to take this lightly. It’s not like the Chancerys’ exorcism, with fake priests. Has to be the real thing or it’s not worth doing.’
‘The real thing?’
‘Normally, with a history like this, I wouldn’t even attempt it without back-up... maybe two other priests. There at least has to be what you might call a solid front. No weak links in the room. Anybody else unhappy about commitment? Mrs Foley?’
‘Well...’ Amber looked uncertain. ‘Ben and I had our marriage blessed in church. I was christened, I was even confirmed at fourteen.’
‘Fine. As the owners of this place, it would be good to have you both here, but you do need to think about where you stand, whether you have faith that this is going to make a difference.’
‘I’d agree with that,’ Antony Largo said. ‘I’d say you need to think very hard indeed about where you stand. For my part, after driving all this way through the white hell, I’m no’ being fucked about any further by the only organization with ratings falling faster than anything on the box. Either I’m in the whole way or I’m outta here.’
‘That’s up to you, Antony,’ Amber said quietly.
‘Well...’ Merrily went back to her chair. ‘We’ve got an hour or two to think about it. I was thinking maybe six-thirty, for seven a.m.? So that, by the time we finish, the sun’s up. Whether we can see it or not.’
50
Free Coward
THERE WAS A white linen cloth over his face.
He lay as if he’d fallen backwards down the stairs. Very narrow and secret-looking, these stairs, Danny thought, specially by lamplight, like the steps was creeping quietly up into the bones of the building.
There was this fat black oak beam across, like a great wedge holding the walls apart. This was likely where a small door had once hung to conceal the stairs, keep the cold out. Very old house, see, Ledwardine Vicarage, and this part didn’t look to have changed much since little Tudor fellers, size of Gomer Parry, was busying up and down the steps.
Must’ve had its share of dead bodies over the centuries, and mabbe this was the way they was brought out.
Not like this, mind. God almighty, but Danny felt sick.
This one, it was like he’d been flung back by a sudden angry blast of wind, his head near enough back in the kitchen, his arms thrown out, his hands reaching the walls on either side, with scabs of dried blood on the fingers of the left one.
There was blood, too, underneath the linen towel over his face – blood and other moisture that had sucked the thin cloth around his head, so that you could see the rough form of his features. Like the mould for a death mask, Danny thought, holding the lambing lamp with both hands, realizing that he was doing this because he was shaking.
Dear God, you could only take so much of this in one night.
He was already backing off into the kitchen when he saw Gomer bending down to peel away the cloth from the dead man’s face.
‘No!’ Danny jerking the lamp away in horror, him and the bloke in the darkness of the kitchen shouting out together.
Gomer straightened up, shrugging his shoulders.
‘Police en’t gonner want you to touch nothin’, see.’ Danny felt like he was chewing cardboard.
‘And you don’t want to see that, anyway,’ Lol Robinson said. ‘Take my word for it, Gomer.’
Gomer sloped back into the kitchen, feeling for his ciggy tin.
‘Can we shut that door now?’ Lol Robinson said.
When they were both in the kitchen, he closed the door firmly on the back stairs and the body, and then he led them into another room where the first things Danny saw were the amber eyes of a black cat lying on a desk, washing itself by candlelight.
‘I’ll... make some tea, soon as the kettl
e boils on the stove,’ Lol Robinson said.
‘That’d be good.’ Danny had a proper look at him for the first time, taking in the glasses with one lens missing, the thin track of blood from the edge of an eye to the point of the chin. Thinking this Robinson was five or six inches shorter than the late Dexter Harris, mabbe three, four stone lighter. Thinking, how? How?
When they’d walked in, Lol Robinson had been shut away in here, on the phone to the doc, checking how this poor woman was, this Alice. Seemed no ambulance could get through on the roads and the air ambulance wasn’t allowed to land at night, snow or no snow. So the doc and the community nurse had taken this Alice to the little clinic at the surgery.
The police hadn’t got through yet, but they was on their way.
‘Them ole beams,’ Gomer said, thoughtful. ‘Harder than steel girders. Older the oak, harder it gets. Walked into one once – just walking, mind, normal pace – next thing, I’m flat out, din’t know what day it was.’ He looked at Lol Robinson. ‘That be it?’
‘He... came in like a mad bull,’ Lol said. ‘Roaring. Pitch black in there, of course. When it happened... not a sound I’m ever going to forget. You know?’
Oh hell. Danny winced. Of course. Jesus.
‘Bugger me,’ he said. ‘Muster near took his head off.’
‘Something like that.’ Lol was holding himself real funny, like there was some physical injury you couldn’t see.
‘He was comin’ for you,’ Gomer said.
Lol nodding. And but for this power cut, Danny thought... Hell, this was the only feller he ever met with reason to be grateful to the power company supplying Herefordshire.
‘Right, listen now, boy.’ Gomer lit a ciggy. ‘Piece of advice yere. I reckon what happened, you was runnin’ away from this feller.’
‘Well, that—’
‘No, listen! Any suggestion of you deliberately goin’ this way in the dark, on account of you knowin’ ’bout the beam, while he en’t been this way before... Know what I’m sayin’?’
Lol smiled faintly, shaking his head.
‘Ah... now! Don’t you bloody look at me like that, boy! You gets some clever buggers in the cops nowadays – university degrees, New Labour. Feller breaks into your house nowadays, you gotter make him a pot o’ tea, order him a minicab. Bottom line: better to be a free coward than a hero behind bars.’
