by Phil Rickman
‘Out of here, lass,’ he said mildly. ‘Don’t come back, eh?’
28
Crone with a Toad
LOL SAW THAT Dick Lyden had become aware of deep waters and was now backing into the paddling area. Dick poured Glenmorangie for Lol and himself. He still looked shaken: not terribly upset exactly, more like unnerved. Almost certainly this was the first time a client of his had taken her own life.
An unexpected minefield then, psychotherapy.
Dick sat down behind his desk lamp, some art-deco thing with a cold blue shade. It created distance.
‘And the police, Lol… the police are saying what?’
‘Keeping the lid on it. No crime, no guilty parties. Probably doing their best to disregard the bizarre bits.’
Dick had finally got through on the phone, demanding Lol should come round at once. Needing to know, for his peace of mind and his professional security, everything that had happened and how it might rebound on him.
This was no longer jolly old Dick revelling in his newfound status as analyst, delightedly knitting strands of experience together into some stupid woolly jumper.
Lol said, ‘As I understand it, they don’t particularly want to know if it’s the same sword, basically.’
‘That’s quite understandable. A suicide is not a murder. This… this wrist-cutting is still not uncommon, I gather, in an age of subtler methods. Not a difficult way to go. More distressing, perhaps, for whoever finds the body. And the weapon? An important symbol for Moon, no doubt, under the regrettable circumstances, but irrelevant as far as the police are concerned. But what the hell was Denny doing sitting on this information? Would I have supported her plan to move into that place if I’d known her father had done it in that actual same… When’s the inquest?’
Meaning: Will I be called? What am I going to say?
‘Going to be opened tomorrow, but that’s just so Denny can give formal identification of the body and they can release her for burial. It’ll then be adjourned for weeks – maybe months – while they put the medical evidence together.’
‘They haven’t been to see me yet.’
‘Maybe you don’t matter, Dick,’ Lol said coldly.
He’d hate to think that Dick was counting on the inquest being economical with the facts, so there’d be more unpublicized material available for his own psychological paper on Moon’s case. He’d really hate to think that.
But the inquest was going to get it all wrong, wasn’t it?
Just that Lol couldn’t see through to the truth either.
‘Look… ahm…’ Dick leaned back, well behind his blue lamp. ‘Lol, I don’t want you to blame yourself for this. You tried to get close to her and it didn’t work out. Perhaps that was a mistake, but we’ll never know. We must accept we’ll never know, and… and… and let it go.’
A subtle restructuring of history here: like it had been Lol’s sole decision to try to get close to Moon, with Dick’s tentative, guarded approval.
‘Well,’ Dick stood up, ‘thanks for coming over. Ahm… this won’t affect the boy’s recording, will it? Denny… well, obviously something creative to occupy his mind.’
Tuneless Little Twats with Fender Strats.
‘I’m sure it’s exactly what he needs,’ said Lol.
‘Good man,’ Dick said. ‘The boy, you see… the boy’s been very difficult and uncommunicative, and when he does communicate, it’s with an unpleasant teenage sneer. Goes out every night now, pushing it as far as he can get. When he’s not with his band, he’s with some girl. Some girl’s got her hooks into him, so I would rather he was with the band in Denny’s studio. At least until after Sunday.’
‘Why Sunday?’
‘His enthronement as Boy Bishop in the Cathedral, during evensong. By the actual Bishop, and before a packed Cathedral. Just let’s get that over with.’
‘You still think he might back out, right?’
‘Not if the little shit knows what’s good for him,’ Dick said through his teeth. Then he laughed at his own venom. ‘Look, Lol, Moon was ill – more ill than any of us knew. Delusional. Shouldn’t have been on her own there. We’re all to blame for that – Denny, you, ah… me, and the Health Service. All I’m saying… the police are right. Let’s not overcomplicate things, or see things that might not be there. That’s how myths are created.’
‘Right,’ Lol said. A small fury ignited inside him.
‘Good man.’ Dick clapped him on the shoulder.
It was thawing at last. Clouds crowded the moon as Lol crossed the main road towards the refashioned ruins of the city wall.
This CD would be his last work for Dick Lyden. He hadn’t been to his psychology night-class for over a fortnight.
The city wall glistened in the moonlight.
So the version of Moon’s death which the inquest would establish would be untrue. The verdict – unless the post-mortem threw up something unexpected – would be a straightforward Suicide While the Balance of Mind was Disturbed. And no blindingly obvious warnings from the coroner afterwards; there was nothing anyone else would learn from this.
And when you left her at the door on Saturday evening, how would you describe Miss Moon’s state of mind?
Kind of… intense. She was researching a book. About her family. I had the impression she couldn’t wait to get back to it.
It was true. When he’d left her, there was no indication at all that she might—
If you were the police, Denny had said, would you want a hint of anything paranormal?
Why had Denny said that? It was the first time he’d ever mentioned the paranormal in connection with Moon, or indeed any connection at all. But how well did he really know Denny? Only well enough to know now that Denny had been putting up a front to conceal unvoiced fears. Perhaps if he’d told Denny, rather than Dick, about the crow and about Moon seeing her father…
Oh, hell!
Lol stood on the medieval bridge, gazing over the parapet into the Wye, numbed by a quiet panic. He didn’t know what to do, which street to go down. Directionless. Working with Dick, while it hadn’t felt exactly right, at least had been a new rope to hold on to.
Very soon he would reach the main road again, having walked in a complete circle. He felt like some aimless vagrant – or worse, closer to the truth, a mental patient returned to the care of the community. He turned abruptly, moved back up Bridge Street, past the off-licence and Peter Bell’s Typewriter Shop, the snow on the pavement reduced to slivers of slush.
Two young women walked out of a darkened doorway about five yards ahead of him and he saw, by an all-night-lighted shopfront, that one of them was Jane Watkins. Perhaps she noticed him; she turned sharply away and hurried on, slightly ahead of her companion.
The doorway belonged to Pod’s, a healthfood café. He’d been in there just once: it was dark and primitive and woody, with secondhand tables and rickety chairs – people who opened healthfood restaurants were into recycling and no frills. On the whitewashed walls, in thin black frames, he remembered, were reproductions of drawings by Mervyn Peake: twisted figures, spindly figures, bulbous figures, in gloomy landscapes. Lol recalled eating a soya-sausage roll under one showing a crone with a toad. He hadn’t stayed long.
When she got in, she put out some food for Ethel and went up to the bathroom, which was still like a 1950s public lavatory, with black and white tiles and a shower the size of an iron streetlamp. She sat on the lavatory, head in hands, her stomach churning. She heard Jane’s key turn in the door, but it was quite a while before Merrily could go down.
‘You’re ill,’ Jane said. Looking up from the omelette mix in the pan. The sight of the yellow slop made Merrily want to throw up.
She shivered damply inside her dressing-gown. ‘I’m sorry, flower, I can’t eat… anything. I’m really sorry.’
‘I’d better stay off school tomorrow and look after you,’ Jane said promptly, ‘if you’re no better by then.’
‘No, thank y
ou… I mean, certainly not.’
‘How long have you been in?’
‘Not long.’ Merrily leaned against the Aga rail next to her daughter.
‘How did it go?’
‘All right, I think.’
‘Did you feel ill then?’
‘Yes. In fact, I… couldn’t do it. But Huw was there. Huw did it.’
Jane sniffed, her eyes narrowing. ‘You’ve been drinking.’
‘Hey, what is this? I called into a pub for something to settle my stomach.’
Everybody trying not to stare at the cloaked figure with the bottom of her cassock showing: the first female whisky-priest in the diocese.
‘Hmm,’ Jane said, ‘why don’t you go to bed? I’ll bring you a drink up.’
‘Thanks, flower.’ She thought she might be about to cry.
Again.
She took up a hot-water bottle, dumped her cassock and surplice in the wash-bin, lay between the sheets and sweated.
She’d been here before: a panic-attack at her own installation service at Ledwardine Church. And hallucinations…
But what kind of sick, warped mind conjures up the filth of Denzil Joy?
Dear God.
Franny Bliss and his colleague had watched her hobble to the car, perhaps waiting to see her safely back to the church of St Cosmas and St Damien, but she hadn’t returned. Out of here, lass.
It was all over. Finished.
Jane brought her hot chocolate.
‘There’s a drop of brandy in it.’
‘You’ll have me at the Betty Ford Clinic, flower.’
Jane smiled wanly.
‘Where did you go tonight?’
‘Just… you know… to see a couple of friends.’
‘They could come here sometime. Lots of room.’
‘Yeah,’ Jane said. ‘Maybe sometime.’
Merrily sank back into the sweat-damp pillow and slithered into a feverish sleep. At times she heard bleeps and voices – which might have been on the answering machine or in her hot, fogged head – like satanic static.
Just before midnight, the bedside phone bleeped.
‘Huw?’ she said feverishly.
‘You were asleep, Merrily?’
‘Yes. Hello, Eileen.’
‘Your man’s back,’ Cullen said, ‘with his candles and his bottles.’
‘Oh.’
‘I said I’d call you.’
She clawed for consciousness. ‘It’s not… visiting time, is it?’
‘Jesus, you must have been sound asleep. Being as Mr Dobbs is in a side ward, any time is visiting time, within reason. This is not exactly within my idea of reason, but the visitor’s a very plausible feller. Whatever the hell kind of weirdness he’s getting up to in there, I have to say I quite took to him.’
‘You… talked to him?’
‘He was very apologetic. Said he’d have come earlier but he had some urgent business to see to… Are you still there, Merrily?’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Oh… late fifties. Longish, straggly grey hair. He had a bobble-hat and he was in this auld blue airman’s coat. Talked like… who’s that feller? Alan Bennett? But a real auld hippy, you know?’
‘Yes.’
‘He’s still in there, doing his stuff around Mr Dobbs with his candles. Probably be gone by the time you get here. I could try to keep him talking, if you like…’
‘No,’ Merrily said bleakly, ‘it’s all right now, Eileen. I don’t think I want to see him.’
29
Fog
AT FIRST IT felt like the start of a cold: that filthy, metallic tainting of the back of the throat. And then she was fully awake – knowing what it was, panting in terror.
He’s here!
Rolling out of bed, breath coming in sobs, rolling over and scrambling on to her knees, she began to mutter the Breastplate, groping on the carpet for her pectoral cross.
‘… by invocation of the same
‘The Three in One and One in Three.
‘Of whom all nature hath creation.
‘Eternal Father, Spirit, Word…’
And she fell back against the bottom of the bed, gulping air.
Gone? Perhaps.
After a while she sat up, before reaching instinctively for the cigarettes and lighter, pulling herself to her feet, into the old woollen dressing-gown and out of the cold, uncosy bedroom.
She ached. The light from the landing window was the colour of damp concrete. The garden below looked like her head felt: choked with fog. She stood swaying at the top of the stairs, dizzy, thought she would fall, and hugged the newel post on the landing, the cigarette dangling from her mouth. Repeatedly scraping her thumb against the Zippo, but the light wouldn’t come. Sweating and shaking with panic and betrayal.
‘Mum?’
What?
‘Mum!’
The kid stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking frightened.
Merrily heard a single letter dropping through the box. The postman.
Normality.
She began to cough. No such thing.
Because there was no light, as such, penetrating Capuchin Lane, Lol overslept and awoke to the leaden grind of a harmonium from the shop below, a deep and doomy female voice.
Nico. Mournful, sinister old Nico songs from the seventies. Unshaven, Lol made it down to the shop, past Moon’s lonely mountain-bike, and found Viv, the new manager: a sloppyhippy granny, old friend of Denny’s.
‘Do you like Nico, Lol?’
‘Sometimes,’ Lol said.
‘I love her,’ Viv said. ‘I know she’s not to everybody’s taste. But it’s Moon’s funeral on Friday: a mourning time.’
‘That’s three days away.’ He didn’t know whether Moon had ever even liked Nico; it was not unlikely.
‘I thought I’d play it for an hour every morning, to show that we’re in mourning,’ Viv promised. ‘There’s a letter for you, from London.’
Lol opened it over his toast in the corner café. Ironically it promised money – money, as usual, for nothing. The revered Norma Waterson wanted to use one of his songs on her next solo album. It was ‘The Baker’s Lament’, the one about the death of traditional village life.
He was depressed. By James Lyden’s rules, he should have been dead now for at least ten years. On the other hand, unless folk singers were exempt, Norma Waterson should have been dead for over twenty-five. He stared through the café window into the fog. There was nothing in the day ahead for him. It had come to this.
Whereas Moon, so excited by her research, so driven… had just simply ended it.
He could not believe that what she’d discovered had led her to the conclusion that the only way of repairing the broken link with her ancestors was by joining them.
He’d heard nothing more from Merrily.
Lol finished his toast, walked back to the shop. A customer was coming out, and Lol heard that endless dirge again through the open door. It sounded – because Nico was also dead – like an accusation from beyond the grave, a bony finger pointing.
Sophie was saying into the phone, ‘Have they double-checked? Yes, of course, I’m sorry. But it seems so…’
Merrily pulled off her coat, tossed it over the back of her chair, slumped down into it. She was going to miss Sophie, and even the office with D on the door – almost a second home now, with none of the complications of the first.
Sophie put down the phone, tucking a strand of white hair behind one ear. ‘It’s bizarre, Merrily, quite bizarre. That was George Curtiss. The Dean’s absolutely furious. You know the Cantilupe tomb was due to be reassembled this week, in time for the Boy Bishop ceremony on Sunday? But, would you believe, there’s a piece missing.’
‘A piece?’
‘One of the side panels. You know the side-panels with the figures of knights? Knights Templar, someone suggested.’
‘I know.’ She remembered the knights, blurred by age, their faces disfigured.
‘Well, one had broken away from the panel. Maybe through age or stone-fatigue. It was due to be repaired, but now it’s vanished!’
‘Someone pinched a slab of stone?’
‘So it seems. When the masons were sorting out all the segments it just wasn’t there. It’s not huge – about a foot wide, eighteen inches deep – though heavy obviously.’
‘Not easily shoved in your shopping bag,’ Merrily said. ‘But safely locked up behind that partition, surely?’
‘That’s the point.’ Sophie looked worried. ‘About the only time its removal could have happened was when we were all fussing over Canon Dobbs, after his stroke.’
‘They suspect one of us?’ Maybe, she thought insanely, I could resign under suspicion of stealing a chunk of Cantilupe. It would be easier, less complicated.
‘This Dean will suspect anyone connected with the Bishop,’ Sophie said with rare malice. ‘He’s already calling for a full inquiry. No, I don’t for a minute think they suspect one of us. They just think we might have been more… I don’t know… observant.’
‘Who’d want to nick a single medieval knight not in terrific condition? And what for – a bird-table?’
‘Don’t joke about it in front of the Dean, whatever you do.’
‘I never seem to meet the Dean,’ Merrily said.
‘Personally I never joke in front of the Dean.’ The Bishop had appeared in the doorway. The Bishop at his hunkiest, with the possibly-Armani jacket over a denim shirt and jeans. The only purple now was a handkerchief carelessly tucked into his breast pocket. ‘Good morning, Sophie. Merrily, how did it go last night? Nothing over the top, one trusts. Restraint is our new watchword.’
She said, ‘You haven’t heard?’
‘What should I have heard?’
‘Mick, look…’ She came slowly to her feet. ‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Oh yes,’ Sophie said quickly, ‘the blessing at Stretford. I gather you weren’t very well, Merrily.’
‘Who told—?’
‘She really shouldn’t have turned out, Michael,’ Sophie said. ‘You can see how terribly pale she is.’
‘Merrily?’ The Bishop moved into the office, turned his famous blue eyes on her. ‘Lord, yes, you don’t look well at all.’
