by Phil Rickman
Behind them, a shout went up.
‘That,’ Frannie Bliss said, ‘is outrageous. They think they’re a bloody law unto themselves, these bastards.’
‘It’s a remote area,’ Mumford said. ‘Always been self-sufficient. Half of them have got their own snowploughs.’
Merrily stood at the bottom of the steps, below the hotel porch, as Bliss followed Mumford down.
‘Who we looking at here, Andy?’
‘I’ll give you three names, boss. Berrows... Thomas... Parry.’
‘Damage?’
‘The van with Dacre’s body in it had a headlamp smashed. That’s the only police property. However—’
Merrily hurried over. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Your little friends,’ Bliss said, ‘decided, for reasons of their own, to reverse all the sterling work done to clear tons of snow from the bottom of the drive, thus allowing us all to return to comparative civilization.’
‘They... put the snow back?’
‘They put it back, Merrily, even better than nature had done it in the first place.’ Bliss’s voice acquired some heat energy. ‘They seem to have created an impacted wall of snow harder than the sides of the fucking Cresta Run. So that the first vehicles, thinking the road was clear, just piled into it.’
‘I think it was Berrows started it,’ Mumford said. ‘He was... in a bit of an emotional state. Especially after the girl came down. Then Thomas and Parry arrived in the tractor with a plough, and it escalated. They can go a bit mental, sometimes, Border people.’
‘Nick them,’ Bliss said grimly.
‘And the other bloke’s talking about legal action,’ Mumford said.
‘Sorry, Andy?’
‘The Scottish bloke.’
‘Scottish bloke.’
‘In the Shogun.’
‘I see.’
In the silence, a little smile landed like an insect at the corner of Bliss’s mouth.
‘The impact seems to have dislocated his shoulder,’ Mumford said.
‘Did you tell him how sorry we were?’
‘No, I thought you’d like to do that yourself, boss. As the SIO.’
‘Yes,’ Bliss said. ‘That would be correct procedure. I’ll come now.’
56
Christmas Eve
KILLING FOR A chip shop. Killing for what Jane had described as a contemporary dynamic.
Small doorways for big evil.
‘Most motives for murder seem ridiculous,’ Merrily said, in front of the parlour fire as the daylight slipped away. ‘But all that tells you is that the reasons – the motives – are usually irrelevant. For most of us, they wouldn’t be motives. We hope.’
You hoped. You hoped you had an immune system, a natural defence – Christianity, whatever – against all the evil in the air around you. You hoped there was no such thing as an evil person, only someone with a weakened immune system.
She’d been to see Alice this afternoon. Alice had come out of hospital. Alice was at her sister’s house in Belmont – Darrin’s family, Roland’s family. A whole male generation wiped out.
Alice couldn’t move her left side much, but she could communicate, just about – verbal soup dribbling from the right side of her mouth. You could get the sense of it, mostly. For instance, the family’s discovery that no doctor had actually treated Dexter Harris for asthma in over ten years. Since the Family GP had become part of history, such things didn’t come out.
How long had Dexter been feigning attacks to get himself out of various situations and responsibilities? Don’t give me no stress.
Mostly, Alice had just wept, a fiery little woman doused by life. There would be a lot of weeping in that house this Christmas. It was what Christmas would become, for them, for the foreseeable future.
She’d promised Alice and the family some healing. From the Sunday-evening service. The, erm, healing service. Well, what could you do? A forum to discuss setting up a spiritual healing group in the diocese had been arranged for mid-January, at the Cathedral. The Bishop himself would chair the meeting. The idea of having Lew Jeavons as guest speaker had been ruled out.
‘I need to ring him,’ she said to Lol. ‘Do I mention the twelve priests? Or do I wait for him to bring it up?’
‘He may not want to explain.’ Lol was sitting on the rug with his back against the sofa, his head against Merrily’s thigh. ‘Some things just... evolve.’
Just before she and Jane had left Stanner, Alistair Hardy had taken Merrily aside. I’m uncomfortable about this, Mrs Watkins, knowing how you feel about people like me. But after what you said when we met on the stairs, about the twelve priests and Black Vaughan...
He’d counted them, he said. This was just after the incident with the girl during the Eucharist, before Merrily had initiated the baptism. He’d counted all twelve.
And what were they wearing? Merrily had asked, legitimately sceptical. Kind of... monk’s robes? All carrying candles?
Yes, Hardy said, they did have a candle each. But none of them wore monks’ robes. And two of them were black, and one was a woman.
Just thought she might like to know.
Lol had told her that Jeavons had felt bad about the way the Dexter thing was turning out. Asking Lol to ring him as soon as he could find out what time the Stanner Eucharist had been arranged for. He hadn’t said a word to Lol about his international database of over three hundred healing and deliverance priests.
After being given the approximate time, he’d asked for the location. And a map reference.
Hardy said he’d noticed that Merrily’s aura had appeared brighter and more vivid. As the dark essence of Hattie Chancery hazed into something palely grey.
Probably still there, though, Hardy said. There’s probably more to do. You’d know about that.
Aftercare required.
Before lunch, Bliss had rung. DNA tests on Antony Largo’s clothing had proved inconclusive. Maybe he’d managed to dump some. This was not, Bliss said, going to be easy. Antony Largo was not in custody, and he had the worst kind of lawyer. The Crown Prosecution Service, as usual, was demonstrating symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.
However, Strathclyde Police had been helpful. Largo had formerly been known as Anthony McKinnon. Born in the fairly sedate seaside resort of – wait for it – Largs, north of Glasgow, McKinnon, aged sixteen, had been one of several juveniles questioned in connection with the alleged gang rape of a prostitute, who had eventually decided that she didn’t want to appear in court. It wasn’t much, Bliss said, but it was a start.
Brigid Parsons had made a full statement at Hereford and had been released without charge. It was a delicate situation, and its satisfactory resolution depended on Bliss nailing Largo. Bliss wouldn’t give up.
Meanwhile, Natalie Craven and her daughter had returned to The Nant. Former DCI Ellie Maylord had been consulted and would be travelling down. Bliss thought it would be a good idea if she and Merrily met. Merrily agreed.
Aftercare needed.
But Dexter Harris, Bliss said, had been more or less textbook. A black bin-liner had been found in a roadside litter-bin, inside it a claw hammer coated with blood and hair. By this time, Dexter’s truck had been forensically examined. Truck/ hammer/ Darrin/Dexter. A formality. Lol’s part in the final act had not been made public, but he wasn’t looking forward to the inquest.
Lol’s theory about Roland? Well, that was never going to be proved one way or the other. Lol was convinced that when Dexter had made Darrin take the car that night, it had been his intention that Roland wasn’t coming back. Everything that Dexter had laid on Darrin – the brutality, the cruelty – was probably down to Dexter. All that and more.
Howe, it seemed, had been unconcerned. It was all academic now. Forensic psychology would say that Dexter was formula-psychopathic – the lies, the cunning, the remorseless cruelty. Merrily recalled a report that suggested over one per cent of the population was, to some extent, psychopathic. Most psychos didn�
��t kill. Most killers didn’t make a habit of it.
‘The thing is,’ Lol said now, ‘Dexter was... let’s be honest, he was dull. An extremely dull person. Unbelievably self-righteous, limited intellect, all that. But as a killer, he was imaginative. He was instinctive... creative. He had flair.’
‘Christ, Lol!’
‘Like, when he decided I needed to be killed he had it all worked out in no time. Disappearance... some landfill site. My DNA all over Alice. He walks in and finds Alice has had a stroke, he acts on it, he uses the whole situation, including the weather conditions, just like he did with Darrin – I mean, both of those could have worked. And he’d have held out against interrogation because he’d have resented it. The cops would have been in the wrong. He wasn’t a criminal. He was a working man with a clean record... well, since the age of twelve, and you couldn’t hold that against him.’
‘But some of his family did.’
‘And he resented it. His family had treated him badly. Whatever happened to any of them, they deserved it.’
‘What’s the betting that the damage inflicted on Dexter’s family’s property by Darrin was not in fact done by Darrin at all?’
‘Dexter.’ Lol nodded. ‘Makes sense. Dexter seems to have created a whole new image for Darrin within the family. Alice swallowed it, anyway. Maybe she didn’t see much of Darrin.’
‘But Roland’s death – accidental? Engineered? How good a driver was Dexter?’ Merrily remembered Bliss’s re -construction.
Unfortunately, Dexter panics, stands on the brakes and the Fiesta stalls on the kerb, directly in the path of the oncoming lorry.
‘Try not to think too hard about it,’ Lol said.
‘Where does it come from, then?’ Merrily said. ‘What was feeding his imagination?’
‘Your guess may be better than mine.’
She slid down to the rug, next to him. Although the snow was almost gone, he hadn’t left Ledwardine since Dexter’s death. She hadn’t yet asked him what the estate agent had told him before the office had closed for Christmas, an hour or so ago.
‘I kept wanting to confess to Annie Howe.’ Lol looked at her, his glasses faintly misted. ‘Maybe it’s something about her that withers your resolve. But then I hadn’t got much resolve anyway.’
‘Much more than you used to have, sunshine.’
‘I mean, I did it. I killed him.’
‘Why do people keep throwing false confessions at me? You didn’t touch him.’
‘Which makes it worse. Like hiring a hit man.’
‘You didn’t hire the beam.’
‘Every time I walked under it, I instinctively ducked,’ Lol said, ‘although I knew I could walk under it upright, with three or four inches to spare.’
He’d followed Gomer’s advice, told Howe that Dexter was coming after him and he just ran upstairs. In fact, Lol had sat on the stairs and insulted Dexter, building up Dexter’s fury to the point where...
‘But if he’d suspected there might have been a low beam there,’ Merrily said, ‘he’d have bent his head, and then he’d have...’
‘Taken me apart.’
‘And you didn’t know the beam was going to kill him.’
‘Well, that’s the point. I didn’t care.’
‘Lol, look at me,’ Merrily said. ‘With Alice lying there, I wouldn’t have cared.’
Prayer and cleansing in the inner hall. Some savage scrubbing of the floor. She’d offered to conduct Dexter’s funeral at Hereford Crematorium, but the Bishop didn’t think it was wise under the circumstances.
‘I wonder where he got his inhalers.’
‘I think he or Darrin would know people who did chemists’ shops. Not that Dexter would personally associate with that kind of low life...’
In the village – this made him feel even more uncomfortable – people smiled at Lol now. ’Ow’re you, Mr Robinson?
Scary.
‘Do you think I should ask Jeavons over for Christmas lunch? I know it’s a bit late, now, and with Eirion coming over...’
‘Lew’s going to his mother-in-law’s.’
She looked at him suspiciously. ‘You’ve become very friendly with Jeavons...’
‘I don’t understand it either. Normally I don’t get on with priests at all.’
‘All right,’ Merrily said, ‘what did the estate agent say?’
She knew the agents had been trying to get hold of him because Prof Levin had called to pass on the message.
‘It’s not necessarily good news,’ Lol said. ‘The people who were buying the house called yesterday to pull out. The husband said he was very annoyed that nobody had told them. He’s a lawyer in London. He said there’d been a precedent and someone had received a considerable out-of-court settlement as a result of a similar failure to disclose a problem of this nature.’
‘Huh?’
‘They have a five-year-old son, and he was playing about upstairs and he came down in tears and said he wanted them to have their own house. Said the same thing the next time they came. They got it out of him that he kept meeting an old woman on the landing. In a cloak.’
Merrily sat up.
‘The wife went into Jim Prosser’s shop and asked him a few meaningful questions. The agent said Jim told them about Lucy, the poncho. He said she was well known as a witch.’
‘Jim said that?’
She thought, ’Ow’re you, Mr Robinson?
‘The agent said normally this sort of thing didn’t put people off any more. Kind of added to the charm of a house. She said, “Of course, I know you were a friend of the late Miss Devenish.” ’
‘Meaning it wouldn’t bother you...’
‘It wouldn’t have bothered these people either except that the kid suffers from...’ Lol hesitated. ‘He’s got asthma.’
‘I don’t like this,’ Merrily said.
‘I knew you wouldn’t. I asked for some time to think about it.’
‘If I told Huw Owen about this, he’d say it was some kind of occult trap.’
‘He’s away, though.’
‘Yes.’
‘You want to consult Jeavons?’
She looked at him in his Gomer Parry sweatshirt, his spare pair of glasses, a bruise around his left eye.
She leaned her head back against the sofa.
‘Nothing’s bloody simple in this job, is it?’
Early evening, she had a phone call from Beth Pollen, calling from the Stanner Hall Hotel where she and Jane were helping out. Jane said the atmosphere there was definitely better, although that might be psychological. Amber, she said, was usually cheerful; Ben was quiet and contemplative.
‘I went to Stanner Rocks this afternoon,’ Beth Pollen said. ‘Martin Booth, who’s in charge of the botanical survey, took a group of us up there – the first since the police removed their tapes and things. The naturalists were jolly worried about damage done to the site by all that activity. Have you heard of the Early Star of Bethlehem?’
‘Is that the unique...?’
‘The plant that’s unique, in this country, to Stanner Rocks. It’s just flowered.’
‘Oh.’
‘Despite the name, this doesn’t normally happen until February. Personally, I’m taking it as a sign of something. Jane thought you’d want to know. She wanted to bring you a sprig, but they wouldn’t let her touch it.’
Merrily smiled. ‘I should think not. Erm, have you spoken to Alistair Hardy?’
‘At length.’
‘Right. Well, about the twelve priests...’
‘I’m sorry?’ Mrs Pollen said.
‘Oh. Well.’ Merrily watched Lol playing with Ethel the cat. His sweatshirt had ridden up. An area above his waist was still purple and black. ‘Well, I hope you have a good Christmas,’ she said.
Afterword
ALLOWING THE PARANORMAL limited access to a mystery novel is a perilous business. All I can say is, I’ve lived not far from all of this for a long time, and there are some aspects of
it that nobody in the area even tries to explain away.
The central theme was founded on fully-documented (as well as some original) research. Some years ago, there was a programme I wrote and presented and which Penny Arnold produced for BBC Radio called The Return of the Hound, investigating the origins of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous novel. The quotes between the text, from people with experience of the so-called Hound of Hergest (and, of course, the bull in the church), are taken from that programme. It would be hard to doubt the sincerity behind any of these interviewees, so thanks to all of them, and also to Susan and Ken Reeves of Kington Museum, historians Bob Jenkins and Alan Lloyd, Alun Lenny and Roy Palmer, author of Herefordshire Folklore (Logaston Press) the very worthy successor to Mrs Leather’s classic, The Folklore of Herefordshire. Incidentally, I’ve heard other intriguing stories relating to the Hergest mystery from people unwilling to be quoted, and you get the feeling that the spirit of Sebbie Dacre may also still be abroad in the Kington area.
However, the legend of Black Vaughan doesn’t always add up and leaves much to be unravelled. It would have been easy enough to add or alter a few details to make it more fiction friendly, but I didn’t like to touch it.
In the late 1980s, there was amused press speculation about the return of the Hound of the Baskervilles, when a mystery predator was said to be at large in the area of Clyro, in Radnorshire, where the Baskerville family had a country house and where the village pub is called the Baskerville Arms. Nothing was ever caught. The recent Beast of Llangadog also had its curious aspects.
You can see the remarkable double tomb of Thomas and Ellen in the Vaughan Chapel at Kington Church, and you can also see Hergest Court from the road, although it’s not open to the public. You may have difficulty finding Stanner Hall (or any trace of the Chancery family) although the Rocks are very apparent from the bypass. Thanks to Fred Slater, author of The Nature of Central Wales, and Andrew Ferguson, custodian of Stanner Rocks. Seriously, don’t go up there without permission; the ascent can be dangerous and some unique plant life is at risk. Besides, it’s more intriguing from a distance, and you can spot the body parts.
