Midwinter of the Spirit

by Phil Rickman

  ‘I think so.’ Tessa nodded. She bit her upper lip, plucked a stray ash-blonde hair from her forehead.

  Merrily put a hand on Tessa’s shoulder, leaned in to look for her eyes. ‘You sure about this?’

  ‘It’s best, isn’t it?’

  ‘All right. Do you want to come in here a minute.’

  The sluice-room as temporary chapel. Merrily faced the girl over the rubbish sacks full of swabs and bandages soaked with bodily fluids and God-knows-what.

  ‘Tessa, I… How old are you?’

  ‘Nineteen.’

  ‘OK, look… I just want to say I’m not too sure about any of this. Whatever Mr Joy’s done in his time, it’s not my job to judge him. We’re just going in to pray with him and try to bring him some peace. To calm down whatever sick yearnings he’s harbouring so that he can end his life in some kind of grace. I mean, probably none of this will be necessary, but when I’ve started, I’ve got rules to follow, so I’d like to… close our eyes a moment. Our Father…’

  She said the Lord’s Prayer softly, Tessa joining in, then placed her hands either side of the girl’s bowed head.

  ‘Jesus… surround her and hold her… safe from the forces of evil.’

  It again entered her head that this was all a crazy, hysterical over-reaction; there were no forces of evil, no Je—

  She kicked out mentally, sent the thought spinning away. She opened the door.

  ‘Come on.’

  * * *

  Denzil Joy’s terrible breathing was through the mouth: liquid, strangulated, the sound of an old-fashioned hot-water geyser filling up. In the side ward, with the door closed, it seemed all around them, underscored by that hum you couldn’t seem to escape in hospital wards, and the throaty chortle of the overhead heating pipes.

  The green oxygen tubes were clipped together behind his head, which was supported by three pillows. There were scabs of mucus where the tubes fitted into his nostrils.

  ‘You want me to do anything?’ Tessa asked.

  ‘Just grab a chair from somewhere.’

  ‘I’d rather stand. Is that OK?’

  ‘However you feel comfortable.’

  Merrily sat in the vinyl-covered chair on which the wretched Mrs Joy was said to have stood. Its seat was sunken in the middle.

  OK. She pushed up a sleeve of her black jumper, reached over in the half-light and took Denzil’s hand, instantly screwing up her eyes because it was undeniably vile, like picking up a cold turd.

  Stop it!

  Sliding her hand away from his fingers with their long yellow nails, and up to his bony wrist, holding it gently, calming her breathing.

  ‘Denzil…’ She cleared her throat. ‘I don’t know if you can hear me. My name’s Merrily. I’m… er, the Vicar of Ledwardine. I’m just doing the rounds – as we vicars do.’

  If he was even half awake, he wouldn’t be aware of what time it was, how unlikely it was that a vicar would be doing the rounds. At all costs she mustn’t alarm him.

  ‘I wanted to say a few prayers with you, if that’s OK.’

  His breathing didn’t alter. His eyes remained three-quarters closed. He seemed unaware of her. She looked down at his thin, furtive face, the spittle bubbling around his mouth. And she pleaded with God to send her some pity. Nobody should die an object of fear and hatred and revulsion.

  ‘He’s very, very weak,’ Tessa murmured in her ear. ‘I don’t know how he’s holding on.’

  Merrily nodded. ‘Almighty God, our Heavenly Father,’ she said softly. ‘We know, all of us, that we’ve done bad things and neglected to do good things we might’ve done.’

  She felt Denzil’s wrist turn under her hand: other than the breathing, the first sign of life. The wrist turned so that the palm was upwards, the position of supplication, as though he was responding, holding out his hand for forgiveness.

  ‘For the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Your Son, we beg You to forgive us, close the book on the past. Calm our souls.’

  She squeezed the hand encouragingly. Outside, Nurse Sandra Protheroe passed the door without looking in.

  ‘We know Your nature is to have mercy, to forgive. We beg You to free Denzil from whatever bonds are binding his spirit.’

  One of Denzil’s fingernails began to move slowly against her palm, like the claw of an injured bird. It felt, actually, quite unpleasant. Suggestive. She wished she’d never spoken to Sandra Protheroe.

  Tessa was standing beside the door with her hands behind her back. She managed a rather wounded smile.

  ‘We ask You this,’ Merrily said, ‘in the name of our saviour Jesus Christ.’ She felt slightly sick and closed her eyes.

  At once, the light scratching of Denzil’s nail on her palm picked up momentum, acquired a rhythm. A small highpitched wheeze was detectable under his rasping, snuffling breath, and the sweet sour stench was back – suddenly and rapidly unravelling from him like a soiled string, seeming to spiral through the thin, stale air directly into Merrily’s nose and coil there.

  Cat faeces and gangrene.

  Oh God! She felt clammy and nauseous but also starved, like she had flu coming on.

  I’ll tell you what that is, Reverend. It’s the smell of evil.

  It’s not evil. It’s sickness. It’s disgusting, but it’s not evil.

  Still, she tightened her lips against it, fighting the compulsion to snatch her hand away. She must not, she must let it lie there, mustn’t react. It’s my job, it’s my job, it’s what I do, it’s—

  She could almost hear it now. Scritch-scratch – the tiniest movement of a curling nail on the end of a yellow finger. Suspecting that in the mind of Denzil Joy this was not a mere finger.

  He can enter you without moving an inch, that man.

  Slide away, squirm away, get out of here.

  Scritch-scratch, as though he was teasing away layers of skin in the centre of her palm to get his finger under the flesh. But that was imagination. His strength, his lifeforce, was so depleted this was the most he could manage: scritch-scratch. Poor guy – reach out to the humanity in him. Poor guy, poor guy, poor guy, poor guy…

  She was aware of him taking in a long, long shuddering breath. Tessa moving towards the bed.

  The breath was not released. There was an awesome cliffedge of silence. The scratching stopped.

  ‘This is it,’ Tessa said quietly. So much composure in the kid. ‘He’s Cheyne-Stoking, no question this time.’

  In the breathless silence, Merrily would swear she could feel the heat of him, slithering from his mind to her mind, while his finger lay still in her hand like a small cigar.

  It seemed much darker and colder in here now – as though, in its hunger for life-energy, the shrivelled body in the bed was absorbing all the electricity, all the light, all the heat in the room.

  ‘In fact I think he’s gone,’ Tessa said.

  Darkness. Cold. Stillness. And the sinuous, putrid smell. Gently, Merrily attempted to slip her hand out of his.

  And then it seized her.

  Grip like a monkey-wrench.

  Like a train from a tunnel, his breath came out and in the same moment his fingers pushed up between hers and tightened; a low, sniggering laugh seemed to singe the air between them.

  And Merrily felt something slide between her legs.

  Knowing in a second that she’d felt no such thing, that it was all imagination, conditioning. But it was too late: the cold wriggled fiercely into her groin, jetted into her stomach like an iced enema. She’d already torn her hand away, throwing herself back with so much force that she slipped from the chair to the shiny grey floor and slid back against the second bed, hearing herself squealing,

  ‘I bind unto myself the Name,

  ‘The strong Name of the Trin—’

  And, hearing Tessa screaming shrilly, she cried out helplessly.

  ‘Begone!’

  Not knowing who or what she meant.

  There was a wrenching, snapping sound; she saw the gre
en tubes writhing in the air like electric snakes, torn from Denzil’s nostrils as suddenly, in a single, violent ratchet movement, he sat up in his bed.

  Tessa shrieking, ‘Noooooooooooo!’ and falling back against the door, stumbling out when it was flung open by Eileen Cullen – who just stood there with Denzil Joy’s upright, stiffened, shadowed shape between her and Merrily.

  12

  Soiled

  SHE DISCOVERED SHE was in the corridor outside. And that she was half sobbing and half laughing, but it wasn’t real laughing. On the other side of a film of tears, a small flame was approaching.

  ‘It’s not allowed, is it?’ Was that her voice, that mad cackle?

  ‘The hell it isn’t,’ said Cullen, lighting Merrily’s cigarette and then one for herself.

  They sat on the bench outside the ward. It was no longer quiet in there.

  ‘We told them Tessa had seen a mouse, but patients, especially old fellers – it’s like spooking the horses in a stable, you know? We’ll give them half an hour to get themselves back to sleep before we get somebody up here to take him out.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Eileen.’ Merrily blew her nose. ‘This is ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s that, all right. How the devil he found the strength to sit up like that is beyond me. He was a husk, so he was. Nothing left. What the hell did you do?’

  ‘Do?’ She crushed the wet tissue into her palm – the palm of the scritch-scratch. ‘God knows.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘How would I know? I was completely out of my depth. No real idea what I was supposed to be doing. This is a bloody mug’s game, Eileen. A charade, maybe. Play-acting?’

  My bit was play-acting; his was real.

  ‘Hey, I didn’t hear that. This is your profession.’ Cullen put a hand on her knee. ‘We’ll go into my office for a cuppa, soon as I get Protheroe to do the necessary.’

  ‘The necessary?’

  ‘Lay the poor bastard out. We’re none of us scared of dead bodies, are we? Not even this one, although… you didn’t see his face, did you?’

  Merrily shook her head. ‘I was on the floor by then. Could only see the back of his head and those tubes flying out of his nose when he… rose up.’

  She shuddered. The snapping of the tubes; she could still hear it.

  ‘That’s lucky. You’ll maybe get some sleep tonight.’ Eileen Cullen dragged on her cigarette. ‘Jesus, he was frightened. I thought at first it was me he was looking at. But he’s staring over my shoulder, out of the door into thin air. Nobody there. Nobody I could see. And the look on his face: like somebody was coming for him, you know? Like the person he feared most in all the world was standing in that doorway, waiting to… Oh, Jesus, the things you see in this job, you could go out of your mind if you hadn’t so much to bloody do.’

  ‘Waiting to take him away,’ Merrily said drably. ‘Whatever it was was waiting to take him away.’

  ‘It’s the chemicals is all it is. The chemicals in the brain. Some people that close to the end, the chemicals ease the way, you know?’

  ‘The angels on the threshold.’ Merrily blew her nose again into the sodden tissue.

  ‘Or the Devil. Whatever cocktail of volatile chemicals was sloshing round in that man’s head, they must’ve shown him the Devil and all his works.’

  ‘Which means I failed.’

  ‘Natural justice, Merrily.’

  ‘That’s not the way it’s supposed to work.’ There was a question she needed to ask, a really obvious question. What was it? She couldn’t think.

  ‘Come and have that cuppa.’

  ‘Thanks, but I need to get home. I’ve got my daughter.’

  ‘You want someone to drive you? I think you’re in shock, you know.’

  ‘God no, I’ll be fine. Maybe I should come back later and… cleanse the place?’

  ‘What, with all the patients awake?’ Cullen stood up. ‘You in there flashing the big cross and doing the mumbo-jumbo? Forget it. Mop and bucket’ll see it right. It’s over.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘What do you want me to say? I’m a non-believer. Was all chemicals, Merrily, maybe a few of yours as well, don’t you think? You go sleep it off. We’ll tell the Bishop or who you like that you did a terrific job.’

  The Bishop?

  ‘I’d rather you said I’d never even been.’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Tell them I didn’t answer the phone when you rang.’

  ‘Get yourself some rest. Call me at home sometime. I’ve written the number on your ciggy packet.’ Sister Cullen squeezed her shoulder. ‘Thank you, Merrily. You did OK, I reckon.’

  ‘For a Bible-basher?’

  The Bishop?

  Had the Bishop set her up for it?

  This was the question she’d meant to ask. She remembered that as she was leaving the building, pulling on her coat. Who exactly had told them to contact her? Who had advised them that Merrily Watkins was Deliverance-trained and available for work?

  Had to be him. He was dangerous. Michael Hunter – Bishop Cool – was a dangerous man to have organizing your career.

  There was light in the sky and a cold wind. What the hell time was it? Where had she left the car all those hours ago when all she’d had to think about was Dobbs? She hurried down the drive and into the deserted street full of fresh cold air from the hills.

  It was the cold inside that scared her. She stood and shivered by the entrance to the shambling jumble of a hospital where the body of Denzil Joy lay cooling.

  I was raped. Like icy letters in the sky. He raped me.

  She felt greasy, slimy, soiled, used. He’d made his smell go into her, had scratched himself an entrance hole. And then he’d died, he’d gone away, but he’d left his filthy essence inside her. She needed a long shower, needed to pray. Needed to think. Because this would not, could not have happened to a male priest, a male exorcist.

  I need exorcizing.

  Violently she zipped up her fading waxed coat and strode away into the pre-dawn murk. She would find a church that was open or, failing that, would go to her own church in Ledwardine. She couldn’t take the pitiful, disgusting dregs of Denzil home to Jane. She would have to go into a church and pray for his soul. Pray for it to be taken away somewhere and stripped and cleaned.

  She saw that the old blue Volvo had been very badly parked, even for three in the morning: standing half on the grass near the little gardens where the footpath went up and then down to the Wye. Another six inches and she’d have backed into a sign saying: NO PARKING. KEEP ENTRANCE CLEAR. She fumbled out her keys.

  ‘Excuse me, madam.’

  He’d blundered out of the bushes, a big heavy guy in some kind of rally anorak, luminous stripe down one arm. ‘Is this your car?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Police. How long has the car been here, please?’

  All she needed.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, I was in a hurry and I thought it’d be OK.’

  ‘When did you park it?’

  ‘About three, I suppose.’

  ‘To go to the hospital?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’

  ‘Look,’ Merrily said, exasperated, ‘it could’ve been parked a whole lot better, I agree. I’m very sorry. Give me a ticket or whatever. I’m a bit knackered, OK?’

  ‘It isn’t about parking, miss. Would you mind telling me your name, please?’

  ‘After I see your ID.’ Merrily unlocked the Volvo. If he took any time producing his warrant card, she was out of here. You didn’t trust big guys in the semi-dark – not these days.

  ‘It’s all right, Peter. It’s her.’ A woman in a long white raincoat emerged from the river path. ‘Ms Watkins, Person of the Cloth. I’ll deal with this.’

  The big man nodded, trudged back up the footpath.

  Merrily sighed. ‘DI Howe.’

  ‘Acting DCI, actually.’

  ‘The old fast track’s mov
ed up a gear, has it?’ Weariness loosening Merrily’s reserve. ‘Let me guess, I’ve walked into some kind of stake-out. Colombian drugs barons are bringing a consignment up the Wye?’

  Annie Howe didn’t laugh. It occurred to Merrily that she had yet ever to hear Annie Howe laugh. Her short, ashen hair gleamed dully like a helmet in the early light.

  ‘You priests work long hours. Sick parishioner?’

  ‘Dead,’ Merrily said. ‘Just now.’

  ‘Obviously a night for it, Ms Watkins.’

  ‘For what?’

  Annie Howe came to stand next to her, glancing into the Volvo. She was maybe five years younger than Merrily – a smooth, efficient, over-educated CID person, both feet on the escalator. During the police hunt in Ledwardine earlier this year, Jane had remarked that Howe reminded her of a Nazi dentist. You could tell where the kid was coming from.

  ‘We’ve pulled a body out of the Wye, Ms Watkins. Just down there, not far from Victoria Bridge.’

  ‘Oh God. Just?’

  ‘Couple of hours ago.’

  She remembered hearing the siren from the sluice-room window. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We’re not sure yet. But it didn’t appear to have been in the water an awfully long time, so we’re rather keen to talk to anyone who might have seen something’ – Howe smiled thinly – ‘or heard a solitary splash, perhaps.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘You arrived about three, I hear that right?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Nobody about at all?’

  ‘Not that I can recall.’

  ‘You ever been down to the river this way?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘It’s quite pretty,’ Howe said. ‘Come and see.’

  Merrily sighed and followed her past some flowerless beds and a bench to a little parapet. Below them was a narrow suspension bridge, grey girders across the dark, misty river. A glimmering of pale plastic tape, and two policemen.

  Howe said, ‘It’s just that if there’s a particular parking place most convenient for the river, then your car’s in it. We thought it might be the dead man’s at first. Quite a disappointment really, when your name came up as the owner.’