A Book of Bones

by John Connolly

  “He doesn’t have money, not like the Colonials have money. He’s not even close. More to the point, there are members of the Colonial who might not appreciate the presence of a senior federal agent on the premises. Some of them are so crooked they need to have their furniture specially made just so they can sit down, yet somehow Ross gets to practice shots in their billiard room and run a tab at their bar. Why? Because it’s their billiard room, their bar, their club. Christ, it’s their country! They make the rules, and Ross is colluding with them by breathing the same air.”

  The restaurant host floated in their direction, looking alarmed, but Parker indicated that everything was okay, even if it wasn’t. Moxie sat back and took a deep breath.

  “I’m advising you,” he said, “as your lawyer, as your friend: tell Ross you’re done. Let him take care of his own dirty work, because it is dirty. He’s dirty.”

  “I can’t,” said Parker. “It’s gone too far for that.”

  Moxie paid the check in cash, and stood to leave.

  “You know the quotation ‘should I wade no more / Returning were as tedious as go o’er’?” he said.

  “It’s from Macbeth. I went to college, Moxie.”

  “You did?” said Moxie, as he shrugged on his coat. “Then maybe you should have paid more attention, because Macbeth was talking about wallowing in blood. And it didn’t end well for him. Sometimes, it pays to turn back.”

  With that, he went to ply his trade at the Superior Court.

  Exit, thought Parker, Moxie.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  Simon Harris, Romana Moon’s ex-boyfriend, looked as though he’d been assembled from the abandoned parts of other human beings, and wore the kind of glasses that usually came free with another pair. His hair wasn’t quite fair enough to be blond, but too red to be seriously considered as anything else. All in all, he screamed geek, which wasn’t entirely unfortunate because, as he admitted to Priestman and Hynes, that was exactly what he was: he lectured in computer science at the University of Sunderland, and worked in game development in Middlesbrough on the side. Still, Priestman thought, with a better haircut, proper glasses, and a little more care for his clothing choices, he might have been considered handsome, in a pale way.

  Harris hadn’t consulted a solicitor. Objectively, Priestman might have regarded this as unwise in his position, but it made life easier for her. According to Hynes, Harris hadn’t spoken a great deal on the journey from the train station, although that didn’t surprise Priestman. Guilty or not, few people felt inclined to chatter while sitting in the back of a police car with two big coppers looming in the front, even if one of them was DS Hynes at his most garrulous.

  Harris’s eyes were very red, and his nose was rubbed raw. He appeared to be in a state of some shock and grief; if he was acting, he was very good. But Priestman had questioned a lot of good actors in her time, none of them working on the stage, and she’d put her share of them behind bars. She could have left the questioning to Hynes and one of the detective constables, but the circumstances of Romana Moon’s death were unusual.

  “I loved her, you know,” said Harris.

  “Then why did you two break up?” asked Hynes.

  “Romana ended it. I didn’t want to.”

  “And why did she end it?”

  “She said it just wasn’t working, that she wanted some time to herself. But to be honest, I think I was just a bit dull for her.”

  “Did Romana say that?”

  “She didn’t have to. I know I’m not the most exciting of blokes, and I haven’t had much luck with women. I’ve only had a few relationships, and none of them lasted as long as Romana.”

  “How long were you two together?” Priestman asked.

  Harris sighed.

  “About four months.”

  “And that’s your longest relationship?” said Hynes. He couldn’t manage to keep the incredulity out of his voice, which Priestman thought was a bit unfair. She gave his shin a sharp tap under the table, and he bit his lip.

  Harris glanced at each of them in turn, and sighed.

  “I was lying when I said that I hadn’t had much luck with women,” he said. “Actually, I haven’t had any luck at all.”

  * * *

  ON THE NIGHT ROMANA Moon was killed, Harris had attended the launch of a history of graphic novels at Forbidden Planet in Newcastle, after which he and a friend named Chris Cushing went for drinks at the Bigg Market, the city’s main drag for boozing and carousing. Harris claimed to have lost track of the time, and stayed out so late that he missed the last train back to the apartment he shared with two others in Middlesbrough, so he ended up dossing on Cushing’s couch. He had just got home that morning when he received a call from Romana’s sister to say a body had been found, believed to be Romana’s. Shortly after, he was contacted by Northumbria Police in the form of DS Hynes, and agreed to be interviewed at the force’s headquarters in Wallsend.

  “What does your friend Chris do?” asked Priestman.

  “He’s an artist,” said Harris. “He draws graphic novels.”

  “What kind?”

  “Dark fantasy. He hasn’t had anything published yet, but it’s only a matter of time. He’s very good.”

  “What’s he doing while he’s waiting to be published?”

  “He’s on benefits.”

  “Which means he’s a government artist,” said Hynes. “He draws the dole.”

  But Harris didn’t smile, and Hynes suddenly looked embarrassed. It happened sometimes, Priestman knew, in rooms and situations like this. For a moment, you forgot the dead.

  Despite Harris’s apparent alibi, Priestman wasn’t entirely ruling him out just yet. The launch had concluded shortly after 8:30 p.m., and Newcastle was less than an hour’s drive from the Hexhamshire Moors. It wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that Harris—with Cushing to assist him, and provide an alibi—could have killed Romana Moon in the timeframe the ME had tentatively suggested. But as the questioning went on, it became clear that in the course of the evening Harris had talked to others who were at the launch, and later he and Cushing had stopped at a late-night takeaway for some soakage before returning to Cushing’s parents’ house. There was still a window of opportunity, but it was growing increasingly narrow. Harris was also willing to allow access to his iPhone, on which Google Maps was enabled, thereby providing a route guide to everywhere he’d been on the night in question—everywhere he’d been for the past month, in fact. Again, he could have left the phone with someone in Newcastle before leaving to kill Moon: Cushing, perhaps, if Harris went to Hexhamshire alone. They’d talk to Cushing later, Priestman decided, as well as any of the other named individuals with whom Harris had spoken at the Bigg Market, see what—

  But then Harris came out with the clincher, and Priestman thought, We should have asked him at the start. We really should have asked.

  Because Simon Harris couldn’t drive.

  And neither could Chris Cushing.

  * * *

  “CAN YOU THINK OF anyone who might have wanted to hurt Romana?” said Priestman.

  “No,” said Harris.

  “Anyone she might have argued with?”

  “Only me, when we broke up, and that wasn’t even really an argument.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I wasn’t angry. I was just sad.”

  And Simon Harris started to cry.

  4

  The thing from the churchyard

  that was found with its hand missing

  in the excavation

  undertook on the north side

  called

  several times

  wanted converse

  about your assumptions…

  —Bill Griffiths, “Decorating & Insurance Factors”

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  The town of Deerhurst lies near the eastern bank of the Severn, and takes its name from the Old English words dēor, a wild animal, probably a deer, and hyrst, meaning a w
ooded hill. Like large parts of Gloucestershire, it is situated on land once granted by royal decree to the Catholic Church—nominally, at least, because land given by the king was exempt from taxes, and the local aristocracy were not above utilizing ecclesiastical connections to protect their wealth.

  The area around Deerhurst had always been marshy, which meant it was prone to flooding, an issue that persists to this day. But in some ways, the challenges brought by the waters were Deerhurst’s salvation. The threat of floods protected the village from exploitation, restricting its growth and development, and consequently Deerhurst retains a sense of isolation, even in the twenty-first century. A single road leads into the community, through low fields bordered by hedgerows, and visible in the distance as one draws near is the tower of a church. This is the Priory Church of St. Mary the Virgin, the earliest parts of which date from the year AD 700.

  But down a laneway that runs past St. Mary the Virgin, and through a set of floodgates, stands an odder structure, by name and nature: Odda’s Chapel, discovered in the nineteenth century by the Reverend George Butterworth, the vicar of Deerhurst. The chapel had been concealed for centuries under the plasterwork of an adjacent farmhouse, as though hiding from the modern world.

  Odda’s Chapel dates from the eleventh century, and is not as grand as St. Mary’s. Its yard is accessed via a small iron gate, and a larger opening in its walls permits entry to the chapel itself. The interior is largely bare: cold stone, with evidence of what might have been a second floor beneath the roof, now long gone, and wooden supports for the ceiling. It is simple, and quiet.

  Marcus Godwin knew Odda’s Chapel better than most, just as he was familiar with every nook of the nearby St. Mary’s. He had lived in Deerhurst all his life, although he was no village recluse. He regularly haunted the British Library in London, and the Ashmolean in Oxford, particularly since his retirement a decade earlier, and the death of his wife shortly after. His pamphlets on Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman Deerhurst were available for purchase from the unattended rack in St. Mary’s (Price £3. Be Honest. And remember: God Is Watching), and he had also written monographs on the famous windows at the similarly named St. Mary’s in Fairford, some thirty miles to the southeast. He was a regular contributor to, and attendee at, local history events throughout Gloucestershire, and was always willing to travel farther afield if asked, although such invitations were rarer than he might have wished.

  And yes, there were those who claimed he was just an old bore, and wondered what could possibly be left to say about these ancient buildings—or, perhaps, how much more they should have to hear about them from men like Marcus Godwin—but most regarded his as a gentle madness. He claimed to be descended from Earl Godwin, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman of considerable repute, although if this were true, Marcus’s branch of the family had fallen on hard times, since his father and grandfather had both worked for the water company down at Frampton Cotterell, and Marcus himself had been a surveyor for the council. Not that these were jobs of which to be ashamed, mind, but they weren’t the stuff of royalty.

  Marcus was one of a number of villagers who kept an eye on St. Mary the Virgin and Odda’s Chapel, because you never knew what mischief visitors might get up to. St. Mary’s possessed a famous Saxon baptismal font, ornate in its decoration, and some folks got a bit enthusiastic with their rubbing, although there was less of that now than there used to be. For the most part, they just took pictures with their phones, only to forget about them as soon as they left, at least until it came time to delete them in order to free up space for more photographs they’d never look at, taken of things they otherwise wouldn’t remember seeing. Marcus had a mobile phone, but it didn’t have a camera or Twitter or any of that nonsense. It only made and accepted calls, like a telephone should.

  Now, as the afternoon drew to a close, Marcus was sitting on a folding chair by the wall of Odda’s Chapel, his back to the stone, and his face toward St. Mary’s. He could hear the lowing of cattle, and smell their spoor on the wind. Few visitors had ventured to the town that day. Threatened showers had yet to arrive, but the skies remained gray and cloudy, filtering the sunlight. Marcus didn’t mind. He liked this time of day, when evening began its slow amble toward night. The village, hardly busy at the best of times, seemed to fall into quietude. He could hear the soft sounds of the world. If he lay on the ground, he might even be able to discern the beating of its heart. On the other hand, he probably wouldn’t have been able to get up again, or not without help. He wasn’t as nimble as he used to be.

  On his lap lay a hardback copy of Richard Marks’s Stained Glass in England During the Middle Ages. Marcus had purchased it with the intention of updating his own earlier work on the Fairford windows, perhaps with illustrations. His printer would give him a good deal on 500 copies, and with luck he might even cover his costs from sales to visitors before he died.

  Except that he had started to reconsider the idea of returning to the book, just as he had begun to reexamine his attitude toward the church and its windows. He had noticed a change in the atmosphere of St. Mary’s, Fairford, during recent visits, one to which he was struggling to attribute a cause. Initially he thought it might have been a consequence of a deterioration in his own mental health. He had always suffered from a low-level melancholia that occasionally burgeoned into full-blown depression, and recently he’d sensed the black dog nipping at his heels. He wondered if his mood might be influencing his perception of his surroundings, because when last he visited St. Mary’s it had seemed—well, darker was the only word he could find, as though the sun’s radiance was struggling to be admitted through the church’s windows, and through certain panes in particular.

  He had first noticed it with the twelve small demons above Windows 25 and 26: the Persecutors’ windows, as they were known, since they depicted the scourges of the Church. He thought their colors less vibrant than before, but the closer he looked, the more it seemed it was only the backgrounds that had grown fainter, making the images themselves appear more pronounced. A trick of the light, he had first assumed, yet upon subsequent visits, and at varying hours of the day, the impression remained. He had commented on it to one of the women who sometimes looked after the sale of books and souvenirs. She had joined him and remarked that, yes, perhaps from a certain angle they seemed a bit different, but she was no expert, and it might be that the windows just needed a good clean.

  “Of course,” he replied. “That must be it.”

  But if that was the case, why should the demons be manifesting themselves more vividly?

  “Or it might be the time of year,” she added. “It’s been funny old weather, all dull and overcast. It’s enough to drive a soul to the bottle.”

  This was certainly true, Marcus thought, and yet…

  The Persecutors’ windows lay on the north side of the church, but there was a difference in tone also to the church’s great glory: the West Window, depicting the Last Judgment. The reds of the fires of Hell now burned brighter, and their colors, previously limited to the two lower right panes and a portion of a third, gave the impression of bleeding more deeply into the surrounding work. No sunlight, however peculiar, could have the same effect on both north- and west-facing windows.

  Marcus had gone outside, doing his best to examine the exterior of the glass from ground level, but it bore no particular blemish that might have explained the effect, no smudges or discoloration from pollution or windblown dirt and leaves. It was most curious, but when he raised the subject with others, including the vicar, they appeared less troubled by it than he, which was when he began to doubt the state of his psychological—indeed, physical—health, and began to read up on spots on the vision, strokes, and cancers of the brain.

  But he also returned to his books, his little library of volumes on Gloucestershire history, its churches, and the creators of their windows—or one set of windows in particular, those at Fairford. The idea of revising his old pamphlet became an excuse for more esoter
ic researches, and all the time he found sleep harder to come by, and would lie awake at night and remember his wife, and think how lovely it would be to join her at last. He could go to his local GP, explain to him about his difficulties sleeping, and receive a prescription for some tablets that would solve the problem.

  “Solve all your problems, if you took enough of them.”

  The voice came to him when dark was deepest. Sometimes it sounded like his father, and at others his late wife, except that neither of them had ever used words like this voice used. Neither of them had ever called him such names—“you sad old shit, you nasty, nosey old fucker”—or warned him of what happened to frail men with too much time on their hands, too many hours to spend haunting churches, looking at windows, imagining shadows where there were none, when they should be minding their own business, reflecting on their uselessness, the burden they had become to themselves and others.

  “Look at all those pills. Look at that length of rope. Look at that knife. Look at that shotgun. Take a sniff of that gas. Lovely gas…”

  Depression, illness: Could these be the cause of what he had seen, of these fantasies of self-destruction? Perhaps, but there was something more.

  He had always felt a sense of peace in the church at Fairford, just as he did at St. Mary’s in Deerhurst. (Odda’s Chapel was different. Although it was younger than either of those churches, it felt older, and its history was obscure, more open to conjecture.) Yet since he had begun to notice, or imagine, the changes to the Fairford panes, he had detected a growing ambivalence in himself, not only toward the windows but toward the interior of the church itself.

  He could identify the moment when it had become most pronounced. It was about a week earlier, and he had stopped in Fairford shortly before the church was due to close for the day. Once again, he ended up moving between the windows, lost in contemplation of their colors.