MW 12 - The Magus of Hay

by Phil Rickman

  Small clink: the glasses rejoining the pearls on Sophie’s chest. Her primary function was as Bishop’s lay secretary, so the Bishop was always going to come first. Actually, that wasn’t true; with Sophie, the Cathedral came first… although this was possibly a metaphor for something more amorphous at the ancient heart of Hereford.

  ‘Good. Excellent. Thanks.’ Merrily picked up the slice of toast, bit off a small piece. A good day to get out of here. Maybe they could grab some lunch in Hereford, her and Sophie. ‘Erm… anything I need to know about, meanwhile?’

  Sophie would never ring out of pique, just because a meeting had been missed.

  ‘It’ll wait.’

  ‘No…’ Call it intuition. ‘Go on…’

  ‘You’re probably not going to like this, Merrily.’

  Merrily put down the toast.

  ‘It’s Ms Merchant, isn’t it?’

  ‘Must’ve rung very early this morning. Evidently exasperated at getting an answering machine. As if we ought to be operating a twenty-four-hour service.’

  ‘And Ms Nott? Ms Nott is still with her?’

  ‘If I play the message to you now, you might want to consider your options on the way here.’

  Sophie must have had the message already wound back. Ms Merchant’s voice was as low and calm as ever but carried, in Merrily’s head, like a barn owl’s screech.

  ‘Mrs Hill, I’m afraid your young woman didn’t do what I wanted her to do. In essence, Ms Nott is not smiling any more.’

  Merrily sat down.

  ‘I thought this would come.’

  This was how the working day began.

  With a blossoming madness.

  9

  Old habits

  FROM THE DOORWAY, Betty watched Robin sleeping in the chair, sprawled diagonally like some spent warrior, in the only position his wounds would allow. He’d been growing his hair again. She recalled the day he’d found a small tuft of grey, attacked his Lord Madoc tresses in disgust.

  But he was asleep again, that was the main thing. The past two nights he’d lain awake, stricken with back pain and anxiety: oh, this was all a mistake, the shop would fail; in this bleak new age of atheism, paganism was passé.

  If it had been meant, Robin said, they would’ve sold the damn bungalow.

  Yes, that was a bummer. Betty had set herself to cleaning and rearranging and making the bungalow look good for the market and not too scary. Taking down the framed star-charts and the green man, lifting the goddess from her niche behind the door and packing her in straw in a wine box.

  In just under a month, five couples had been to view the place. None of them had stayed long. Yesterday, the estate agent had phoned.

  ‘Mrs Thorogood,’ he’d said, tentatively, ‘if I could suggest… have you thought about perhaps finding somewhere to store your books?’

  Good point. You never thought when you lived with them day to day, but books on pagan magic seldom came with muted covers.

  The supermarket had given her dozens of strong cardboard boxes. They’d spent all morning packing up all the books which would fill the truck maybe ten times before they were all gone.

  But the shop in Back Fold was nearly ready for them, with a new midnight blue ceiling on which Robin had painted a full moon and stars in formation. It was starting to look right.

  Even if didn’t feel right. Why? Why, why, why?

  Betty went quietly into their small bedroom with the mobile, sat on the end of the bed and made her call.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Mr Oliver said. ‘You think I’m hiding something?’

  Betty saw she’d left the bedroom door open a crack and got up to shut it. Thin walls, cheap doors; voices carried in the bungalow. In Robin’s up-and-down state, best not to involve him in this. Not yet, anyway.

  ‘You said you bought the shop as a retirement business but found it too time-consuming.’

  ‘That was…’ Mr Oliver cleared his throat ‘… perhaps an oversimplification.’

  ‘And yet, by all accounts, you weren’t doing much business at all. I’m sorry – just passing on what I’ve heard… from a number of sources.’

  They’d talked to nobody apart from Paramjeet Kapoor, but if you had good reason to believe something was true, it was morally acceptable to pursue it. Morally. Funny how this had become increasingly important to her. In pagan theologies, morals, if they played any part at all, tended to be naive and simplistic.

  She heard Mr Oliver drawing a long breath.

  ‘Mrs Thorogood, these people, booksellers… they’re not what you think they’re going to be – not what I expected, certainly. And the worst kind of gossips. This town’s full of gossip. My wife hasn’t been well, that’s why we’ve had to keep closing the shop for days at a time.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Betty said. ‘You couldn’t find anyone else to work there part time?’

  ‘You can’t just have someone on a string. They want something solid, need to know which days they’re working.’

  ‘You see, we didn’t ask to look at your books – business accounts, I mean, anything like that, because our business would be different. But what I—’

  ‘You’d have learned nothing meaningful. All shops are going through a difficult time.’

  ‘I was also told…’ Another guess ‘… that the shop had changed hands quite a lot in quite a short period.’

  ‘That’s not uncommon in Hay. Never has been. Not everyone adapts easily. It isn’t London and it isn’t Oxford.’

  He’d sounded as if he’d hoped it would be. Even Robin wasn’t that naive.

  ‘And presumably you’re only offering the shop for rent because you’ve tried to sell it?’

  ‘Anyone in the town would have told you – and I expect they did – that it was for sale for several months.’

  ‘You said – which I thought was very honest – that nobody else had wanted to actually live there.’

  ‘That’s not exactly what I said, Mrs Thorogood.’

  ‘Is it possible that these premises have… a reputation?’

  ‘Goodness, what have those people—? It’s an old building, it’s not in the best of condition. And it can get cold in the winter. That’s why we’re not overcharging. If there are any underlying problems with the plumbing or the electrics that I’m not aware of, you may be sure they’ll be put right as soon as I’m notified.’

  ‘That’s not really what I meant. Are you aware of anything that happened there in the past, which might have cast—?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Something that…’ Careful now. ‘Something which might be thought to have left… an atmosphere?’

  It could be a smell. Mothballs might bring on an image of an old woman moving around, counting the dresses in the wardrobe, a sense of sadness, regret, missed opportunities. Most people could do this if they spared the time, and the more they did it the stronger the sensations would be, the more vivid the images.

  ‘Mrs Thorogood, if you’re asking what I think you’re asking, I’ve heard that some poor chap once hanged himself in Back Fold, but not on my premises. That’s the only unnatural death I’ve heard of here.’

  ‘Who was there before you?’

  ‘It was an antique shop… well, more of a junk shop. Already empty when the agent took us to view. I thought that in turning it into a bookshop again I was doing something to reinforce the foundations of Hay.’

  ‘Why had it closed?’

  ‘Why do any of them close? I was told they needed bigger premises. Mrs Thorogood, I’d be most displeased if any unfounded rumours were to spread. And just to be absolutely clear, when I said no unnatural death, I meant people. More or less the whole of Back Fold had a single purpose at one time. Slaughter.’

  Betty said nothing.

  ‘Of animals,’ Mr Oliver said.

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Until comparatively recently, I believe. Seems to have gone back many years. Centuries. It would have been the castle
abattoir. Right below the walls, so there’d always be fresh meat close to hand in the event of a siege or insurrection.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s it,’ Betty said. ‘We’re vegetarian.’

  She watched Robin shifting uncomfortably in his sleep. There was a time when he’d slept like a dog slept, growling delightedly in pursuit of rabbits and squirrels.

  She sat down on the sofa opposite his chair in a modern living room which, when they’d moved in, had had an atmosphere of anger and bitterness. If the middle-aged couple who’d sold them the bungalow weren’t divorced by now, Betty would be quite surprised.

  Not that she’d ever tried to find out. She’d consulted some people and certain books and got down to softening the place. Making sure she and Robin hadn’t slept in the so-called master bedroom, which had become his studio, a place where he could safely fight with himself.

  She’d looked in there this morning while he was taking a shower and found about a dozen photos of Hay taped to the walls, the basis for some watercolour sketches on a side table. All the pictures had been taken from Back Fold, mostly from low angles, looking up at the castle and the crinkly red chimneys of the Jacobean mansion which the medieval building had nurtured like a big cuckoo chick.

  Robin did most of his work on a trestle table, but now the table had been removed, the trestles used to accommodate the sound part of a broken oak floorboard Robin had found in a reclamation yard. He’d sawn off the splintered end and gone to work with a plane on the surface, until it was ready for the black paint. Now it was a sign, waiting to be varnished. A sign that looked as if it had been a sign forever.

  Thorogood Pagan Books.

  She wondered if there’d be enough light for a studio. Pictures not as good as Robin’s best were on sale for hundreds, even thousands in Hay, drawing on an international market, tourists who’d fallen in love with the booktown, who wanted a piece of Hay on their wall. Why not an alluring Thorogood nocturne, woolly lights against softening stone? She could see Robin’s paintings eventually stealing window-space from the books.

  A foothold to something better. As long as there were some books… enough to keep him in the system.

  Robin’s eyelids jittered like moths’ wings, his eyes opened.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Betty said. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’

  * * *

  Later, when Robin went back to work on his sign, Betty took the laptop into the bedroom and Googled antique dealers in Hay. Began emailing them, one by one, asking if they were the people who used to have a shop in Back Fold.

  As the sun went down behind the pink-brick estate, she opened the oak chest in the corner, where the goddess lay in her box, along with the Green Man and the tarot cards, the remains of her crown of lights head-dress and a box of candles.

  She found a bent green candle, the size of a courgette, set it down in a tray in the window, and concentrated.

  Old habits…

  10

  A better place

  THE CITY OF Hereford seemed to be dying, the way a venerable tree died, from the centre outwards – long-established businesses left to rot while councillors turned away to nurture their doomed, peripheral shopping mall, hand-feeding it with taxpayers’ money badly-needed elsewhere.

  Most people were saying that, but nothing came to save the city.

  Still, it was one of the few English cities where, in the absence of high-rise offices and flats, the oldest buildings were still dominant. The spired All Saints Church, on the corner where Broad Street met High Town, was probably packing in more worshippers these days, Merrily was thinking, than at any time in its history.

  Except that they were coming to worship lunch. Half the church was a restaurant now, part self-service and not expensive enough to deter vicars. She’d followed Sophie to the upstairs gallery overlooking the business end where a ghost was said to play the organ.

  Something authentically medieval about having lunch in a still-active town centre church. Merrie Englande. If you looked up from your table, you could see a little carved wooden man with his legs in the air, flashing his bits from the ceiling frieze.

  ‘She rang again,’ Sophie said.

  ‘What, since this morning? It’s been nearly a month. She hasn’t even returned my calls.’

  ‘She’s probably not entirely rational, but she is clearly distressed.’

  A man at the next table was telling his woman companion that Hereford needed to take its lead from towns like Ludlow and Hay-on-Wye and attract more tourism and high-quality independent retailers with whom the Internet could not compete. Sophie unwound her silver silk scarf.

  ‘The point of contention is Ms Merchant’s continued insistence that she didn’t ask you to get rid of her partner.’

  ‘I wouldn’t use those words, would I?’

  ‘I told her I presumed you’d offer prayers aimed at guiding Ms Norris to a better place. But it seems clear that Ms Merchant’s idea of a better place is… her bedroom.’

  Merrily poured sparkling water into two glasses.

  ‘I thought it was sentiment, grief – entirely understandable. I offered to help her move the second bed into another room. Which was very much the wrong thing to say.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Sophie said, ‘one can understand why immediately disposing of her partner’s bed might make her feel in some way disloyal. And yet the very presence of the bed might, on first waking, with one’s senses a little befuddled…’

  ‘You come out of a dream, your mind’s holding an image. It’s projected into an empty bed. She really wasn’t open to that kind of explanation. As for keeping that chair in the bedroom…’

  ‘The very symbol of a secretary. I’m not sure I particularly like what that implies.’

  ‘I’m not sure whether it’s just morbid or, as you say, a bit sinister. What does she expect from me now? She tell you that?’

  ‘Not in a way that was comprehensible to me.’

  ‘When she said Ms Nott was not smiling any more, did you get the idea that was more a reflection of the way she was feeling? Or that the image had gone?’

  ‘She wouldn’t be drawn. And it wasn’t my business to do that.’

  ‘How well do you know her, Sophie? She said they both came to services at the Cathedral.’

  ‘Didn’t really know either of them, but I remember them, vaguely. Tall woman, quite formally dressed, and a smaller woman. Younger, I think. Quite plain. Demure – although that might be with hindsight.’

  ‘Boss and secretary.’

  ‘You might think that.’

  ‘You see, at first, I had the impression that what Sylvia Merchant wanted from me was simply reassurance that what was happening to her was quite normal. That she wasn’t deluded. I told her how commonplace it was. That there was nothing to worry about. And then it all slowly became… abnormal. She started asking questions about me that went beyond the usual pleasantries. She knew about what we do. She’d gone into it. But clearly what we do… wasn’t what she wanted.’

  ‘I’m assuming,’ Sophie said, as lunch arrived, ‘that, in normal circumstances, this would have begun and ended with prayer.’ She looked up at the waitress. ‘Splendid. Thank you.’

  Merrily waited until they were alone again, apart from the wooden flasher in the ceiling.

  ‘Far too early to suggest anything like a Requiem Eucharist. Which, under the circs, would not have been exactly welcomed.’

  ‘So, did your response… differ in any way from the normal?’

  Something here she wasn’t being told. Merrily looked for Sophie’s eyes but they were lowered over her feta cheese salad.

  ‘I may have formed the impression that, rather than arranging a delicate parting of the ways, I was being asked to bless a… oh God… a continuing relationship? She was saying Alys Nott was with us in that room. The dent in the pillow. The chair which, shortly after I’d stood up, creaked, as if someone else had sat down…’

  �
��Eerie.’

  ‘I need to see her again, don’t I?’

  ‘I think not, Merrily.’ Sophie still didn’t look up. ‘The Bishop happened to be there when I was dealing with the call and asked me what it was about. His opinion was that this was something in which, ah… in which it was better that Deliverance should not be involved.’

  ‘Bernie said that? Better for whom?’

  ‘Better for you, certainly. Better for Ms Merchant, in the long term. And – presumably – better for poor Ms Nott. So I’m afraid I had to call Ms Merchant back and tell her that I’d forgotten you were on holiday. And that another priest would come to see her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Didn’t have a choice in the matter.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Likely to be George Curtiss.’

  Cathedral canon. Large, bearded, well known for diplomatic skills.

  Bloody hell.

  ‘Merrily…’ Sophie was looking up at last, cutlery abandoned. ‘… your role, surely, is primarily as an adviser on the paranormal. In most cases an adviser to the clergy.’

  ‘But once I’m involved—’

  ‘Once it becomes clear it’s a mental health issue, some form of delusional grief, it might require an entirely different approach. Let it go, Merrily. You need a holiday. You need to spend time with Jane.’

  ‘What exactly did Sylvia Merchant say to panic Bernie? Because I can’t imagine, from what you’ve told me so far…’

  Sophie’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘We’ll talk about it back at the gatehouse.’

  11

  Without comfort

  MISTAKE. THE GATEHOUSE office was Sophie’s domain. Sophie’s eyrie at the top of a narrow staircase, overlooking Broad Street and the Cathedral Green.

  ‘So… Laurence,’ Sophie said. ‘Did he go, in the end?’

  Merrily looked out of the window, an irritable rain bubbling the glass, smudging the people crossing the Green with their heads down into the weather.

  ‘Yes. He went. I think he wanted me to say don’t do it.’