by Andy Jarvis
“Funny you should say that,” said Baz. “Ed was saying the same thing.”
“Well think about it,” said Arden. “It’s almost like the mentality of the German people at the time of the concentration camps. Folk just turned a blind eye, or said they were just following orders. They were mesmerised by a man with hypnotic power. Maybe he was just another Hitler. Perhaps he was on the way to greater and bigger things when he disappeared so suddenly.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but I think we’re getting off the track a bit now. I thought you were only interested in sound scientific research, not digging up someone’s personal skeletons.”
“I am,” said Arden. “And that’s the other reason why I’m here. I can tell you the results of tests on the exhumed body.”
“And?”
“Positive. They’re related – mother and son, but I think we’d guessed that all along. Still it’s good to have it confirmed.”
Baz let out a heavy sigh: “That’s it then. I suppose it’s done now, Reverend John will be able to put the past behind him at last.”
“But which past?” said Arden. “The real one, or the phantom one?”
“But we’re not interested,” I said. “Reverend John deserves some rest and peace after all he’s been through. Why bother about it? After all, look at all the good stuff he does.”
“So what else did he say to you?” asked Arden.
“When?”
“That day in church, when everyone was acting so weird, and you so unceremoniously turfed me out. You saw something, the Fearn Lane witch, Baz called it. Isabel, I believe was her real name. And then the Reverend went all pale and giddy after Baz said that the lady had smiled. What else did he say after I left?”
“Nothing,” said Baz. “He didn’t say anything.”
“It was nothing really important,” I added. “Personal stuff, you know about Reverend John and his family, how his dad absconded after Isabel’s death.”
“Which is a lie,” said Arden.
“Yeah, alright you keep saying,” I said. “But he wasn’t feeling well, you know after me and Baz said we’d seen something, and he was sort of upset with that old woman fainting, and freaking out, and accusing him of stuff. We said we wouldn’t say anything. Besides it wouldn’t be anything that’d help you in your work.”
“Are you sure about that?” said Arden. “Perhaps I haven’t told you enough about my research. The DNA tests are one thing, but I managed to find out a little more about how this child’s body managed to stay intact in the ground for so long.”
“Go on then, what?”
Arden took a sip of his scotch, rotating the glass so the ice clinked the sides as he placed it back on the table. He drew a lighter from his lapel, lit the cigarette and blew a long stream of blue smoke from the corner of his mouth. “It was frozen,” he said.
Baz spluttered into his beer. “You bullshit!”
“I’m a scientist, I don’t make these things up.”
“It can’t be. It’s not possible…how?” I said.
“I don’t know. I really don’t. I have to throw my hands up over this one. All the work done suggests that that was the state of the body as it was in the ground. Every blood and body cell proved signs of rupture due to the expansion of ice crystals. That’s why the body deteriorated so rapidly once it was removed.”
“What about all those soil tests and stuff? They must have shown something.”
“Negative I’m afraid,” said Arden. “Fairly normal English ground underneath. We dug down beyond the clay layers, then we took some core samples below that. Nothing unusual, I admit. That’s why I wanted the Parish Council records, although I really didn’t know what I was expecting to find. I was clutching at straws.”
“But the police forensics must have shown the same thing surely, about it being frozen?”
“Of course they did. That’s why they called me in, they’re totally baffled. None of this has been disclosed publicly of course. You see, the investigation is still ongoing, but certain details are being kept under cover, and not just for the sake of the Reverend’s privacy. But I’ve decided to take a chance coming to see you two, and I would ask of you to keep to yourselves what’s been said so far.”
“I suppose we better,” I said. “Opening our gobs has got us nothing but trouble so far.”
“Good! I knew I could count on you.”
“Okay, but why are you telling us this?”
“Because I’m as flabbergasted as the police,” said Arden. “I want to ask you again about the discovery. What was the ground like at the time? I mean was it hard or cold. Or what?”
“It was cold, yes,” I said. “But not frozen, at least I don’t think. I mean that wouldn’t make sense, would it? And it was hard, but from compaction no doubt, like you’d get from being under six inches of millstone grit for most of a century.”
“And the body? You touched it?”
“He sure did,” said Baz. “Ed practically shook its little hand. You should have seen his face!”
“But it wasn’t frozen?” said Arden.
“No…I don’t know,” I said. “It was all a kind of blur. It was cold. Coldest I’ve ever felt, especially that mist, standing in it while I was digging.”
“Ah yes, the mist,” said Arden, drawing on his fag. “There’s something very curious about that phenomenon. You see, I’ve been looking at some of the dates in the Parish Council records. Nobody appears to have filled in any entries after the time of John Cannon Sr.’s disappearance – his phantom one that is – supposedly when his son, Reverend John, was taken into care, up until seven years later when Reverend John takes over, which is when he supposedly comes out of care and returns to the Parish.”
“I don’t see anything unusual in that,” I said. “John Cannon Sr. had the books hidden from the police, and I guess he must have been reluctant to get them out again in case they were found. Then I think he must have handed them over to Reverend John before he fled, either that or Reverend John found them at some later date.”
“Fled when?” said Arden. “When the Reverend was ten, or when he was seventeen? He didn’t fly anywhere and Reverend John wasn’t taken into care. They were both here in this Parish seven years after Reverend John says that his father ran off. What’s he hiding?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” I said. “Either way Reverend John wouldn’t have been responsible enough for filling them in until he was older anyway. I think he took over after his pilgrimage in the third world.”
“He’s old,” said Baz. “Maybe he’s just got his ages wrong. Maybe he did go into care for a while. I mean he was still a kid at sixteen or seventeen, right? Anyway, what’s it got to do with mist?”
“I said I’ve been looking at dates in the records,” continued Arden. “And I’ve been comparing them to meteorological records of the same time. There were some very interesting weather conditions around about the same time as these two deaths. Besides the snow there was one other condition that was very prevalent.”
“What was that?” asked Baz.
“Freezing fog.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m not sure what you’re driving at.”
Arden leaned forward, placing both hands on the table and looking around to both sides as though checking no one was listening. “I’m not sure what it means,” he whispered. “But it seems weird, a very strange sort of coincidence. There was freezing fog about on the very day Isabel’s body was found. She was frozen solid, according to records. And the child’s body was frozen solid also.” Arden leaned further forward. “It’s almost as if she’d brought some of her past with her.”
“How do you mean?” whispered Baz, looking around suspiciously and looking very suspicious in doing so.
“I mean the mist in the church,” said Arden. “It’s like she’d caused it, or brought some of the weather from her past with her into the present.”
“Now stop this,” I interrupted. “This is
just too daft. Ghosts are one thing, but what are you trying to say? That there’s such a thing as teleportation of weather conditions? Come off it will you, where did you get such a notion?”
Arden leaned back and took a small sip of his drink. “I didn’t get the notion at all, it was suggested to me.”
“Who by?” asked Baz.
“The very same person I was trying to tell you about last time I saw you in the church.”
“Oh, not the e-mail contact,” I said. “I mean, how many of those have you had? The worlds full of cranks and weirdos you know.”
“Yes, and I’ve had a fair share of them, I can tell you, but this chap’s different. There’s something about him that’s very uncanny. It’s like he already knows about us and knows what’s happening here. He’s told me things he couldn’t possibly have guessed at.”
“What sort of things?” said Baz.
“Well, he says he knows that the child’s body was intact, even though that information wasn’t disclosed in the Trust’s newsletter.”
“But he could have guessed that, couldn’t he?” I suggested.
“Possibly,” said Arden. “But it would be a wild shot in the dark considering that we did disclose that the estimated date of burial was about seventy years ago. Even a crank would normally assume that the body was all but gone.”
I drummed my fingers on the table top trying to think of a rational explanation. Baz fingered and flipped a beer mat, presumably also deep in thought.
“Okay,” said Baz, after a minute, “but it could still be a guess, right?”
“Wrong,” said Arden. “He couldn’t possibly have guessed. You see, he knew something else.”
“Like what?” I said.
“Like the body being frozen. He knew it was frozen.”
Me and Baz lapsed into a long silence, so many thoughts trying to fly around my brain at once. In the end all I could think of saying was, “So who is this person? I mean what is he supposed to be?”
“He describes himself as a religious person,” said Arden, almost, it sounded, with some misgiving in his voice. “He’s a psychic, at least that’s my description.”
“And are you going to go along with this? Are you going to see him?”
“Quite possibly. I’ve been doing some background checks on him, and so far everything seems to be positive. In the meantime I would like to ask you again…what happened?”
“When?” said Baz.
Arden let out a sigh. “You know what I’m talking about. Something happened that day in church. Something appeared. I’m assuming it was an image of Isabel Rankin. But what happened after I left? Reverend John must have had some explanation of things.”
“But we told you,” I said. “Anyway, why is it so important what Reverend John says? It was mostly personal stuff, like we said.”
“Because, while I’m doing these background checks on this internet chap I need to know certain things; things I can cross reference with what he says.”
“What sort of things?” said Baz.
“Not only has this chap guessed at the body being frozen, but he’s also suggested other things, other predictions. I want to know if he’s accurate or not. He said there would be an apparition, even before that day in church. He said that someone or some persons within the church hold the key to this mystery. He also said that person is not wholly forward with the truth in the matter. So who is that person?”
“Couldn’t this internet psychic tell you that?” I said. “I mean if he’s so good at predicting.”
“He’s told me enough to convince me of his sincerity,” said Arden. “Now, how about you two? If there’s anything you can add it could be very helpful.”
Arden looked down briefly searching his lapel for another cig. Baz started to open his mouth then shut it quickly before either words came out or Arden noticed that he was about to say something. A swift kick in the ankle under the table can do wonders in a tricky situation.
“So you’re going along with the supernatural explanation of things then?” I said.
“At the moment I can’t see any other rationale,” said Arden, lighting up the cig. “I’m as embarrassed as anyone would be by having to resort to such an investigation, but I did tell you once before that there are some things in this trade that happen that just don’t have rational explanations. If I proceed in this direction it will be a first time the Trust has acted upon such evidence, and the first time we’ve ever had to call in a psychic investigator. I’ll let you know if I do go ahead, but keep it to yourselves for the time being, however.”
Arden grilled us further about that day in church, but we never disclosed all the details; no more than about Reverend John’s father absconding, and absolutely nothing about the weird after effects from the Window-without-Adam.
I didn’t want to tell him about that. It was as if I wanted that to myself, to remain my own. When I look back on it, I think at the time I was kind of possessed by it, not in the spirit sense, but in a real, very physical way, almost like a drug. The light had given me a buzz, a real lift and feelings of joy. Everything seemed alright as I stood in it. The whole world seemed at peace. And I felt strangely happy to be back.
It may have been that Isabel was never a practising witch at all. Arden had pointed out that according to the Parish Council records she had, after all asked for a Christian burial for her child; not a likely request for a pagan.
The Trust wrote up an article about it in their magazine and website. It concluded, or rather assumed that Isabel had placed the corpse into the ground during the installation of the original heating system. Most likely she had sneaked into the church one evening while the stones were upturned, digging and placing the child into the consecrated ground she had pleaded for from John Cannon Sr., then crept away to die a lonely and agonising death. At a time when everyone else was freezing their balls off, the church was installing a then state-of-the-art heating system.
According to Arden, the police refused to believe that the corpse was that old, at first. They reluctantly released the body on DNA evidence. Despite the intactness of the body, it was proven to be dated at least seventy years, as was the body of Isabel, which had decomposed normally. They were mother and child that had died at the same time. On top of that, the floor of St. Mark’s had, according to records, been left undisturbed since the original heating system was installed. The child’s body couldn’t have been put there any later.
13.
“Smart?” asked Baz.
“Smart!” I said.
“Really smart?”
“You look really dapper!”
“Dapper?” said Baz, raising his eyebrows. “That’s a big gay word, right? You’re trying to trick me, calling me gay without me knowing by using one of your clever book words, right?”
“It doesn’t mean gay,” I said straightening his tie. “It means extra smart, really neat and tidy, fit for a dog’s dinner.”
We looked at ourselves side by side in the wardrobe mirror in my room. We were prepared for church this time, no borrowing ties from the landlord. The real thing, black tie and suits hired out for the day from a top occasions agent.
“Cool!” said Baz, turning left then right, then posing with an invisible gun, James Bond style. “Talk about the Men in Black!”
Reverend John’s service wasn’t the real kick-ass affair we’d listened to that Sunday when Isabel had appeared. He spoke softly about the miscarriage of justice all those years before, the mercy of God to those that see their way onto the true path having once been corrupted and hence repented, and the justice that would prevail in the afterlife. He never mentioned his father by name, but made several references to those that were corrupted by the words of the devil, the devil inherent within the hearts of men and the living embodiment of evil that once walked amongst us in our fair town.
Mrs. Cass and several others of the elderly members from the gathering got up and spoke of their memories of the time, asking for
giveness for their ancestors, but again never once mentioning Reverend John Sr. by name.
Me and Baz felt honoured. We’d both been asked to bear the coffins. I took a front corner of Isabel’s, along with the landlord of the Bell and two stout looking farmhands. What remained of Isabel was so light I could probably have managed myself if it wasn’t for the awkward shape of the coffin.
Baz and Reverend John followed on behind carrying the tiny casket of the child as Thomas the altar boy followed sadly after. We walked the two out to a freshly dug grave given pride of place in the church grounds.
The boy, now named Christian in respect of his mother’s dying wish, was laid aside Isabel and the service that she had so wanted had been performed.
A Hammer Film production crew couldn’t have planned the day better, the morning drizzle turning into a steady rain that pattered onto black umbrellas. None of the villagers grumbled about the use of St. Mark’s ground, and most turned out in force – along with a few reporters that Reverend John was so eager to avoid.
Me and Baz threw handfuls of soil onto the coffins as did Arden and Silas. Reverend John threw the last with the prayer about earth to earth and dust to dust. Then he said a few words of his own, almost silently and tearfully asking for the safe passage into Paradise for the souls of mother and child.
We turned to walk away as Reverend John wiped a tear from his eye that left a muddy streak down his cheek. The crowd dispersed slowly and from its midst a familiar figure trotted up behind Reverend John as he made his way through the headstones.
“Reverend! Reverend!” called Harvey as he caught us up. “Would you care to say a few words? How do you feel now that the legend of Isabel’s child has been resolved?”
