by Simon Parke
‘And now he doesn’t,’ said Tamsin.
‘No.’
‘So it’s not all bad news for him.’
Peter felt embarrassed at the remark.
‘And on Friday night there was something called The Feast of Fools?’ he said, picking up a flier from the table, and reading :‘ “At the Feast of Fools, there are no rules”.’
‘A grand publicity stunt apparently,’ said Tamsin. ‘A cry to be noticed.’
‘ “An evening of disguise, role-reversal and excess”,’ continued Peter. ‘Sounds appalling.’ Tamsin looked puzzled.
‘Just where did they get that idea from?’
‘Well, I’m assuming it was based on the medieval festival of the same name. It might explain the clown’s outfit.’
‘Yes, they were all wearing clown outfits, I’m told.’
‘And each hidden behind a mask, no doubt.’
Henry Hall suddenly felt chill and Tamsin saw only dark corridors and small latticed windows, heavy with lead to keep out the light.
‘So what happened here, Uncle?’ she said.
They were suddenly the words of a frightened girl.
‘That’s what we’re going to find out, Tamsin, if we can persuade this ancient space to give up its secrets.’
‘And do you think it will?’
Peter smiled and Tamsin remembered why she’d wanted him alongside her. His arrogance was reassuring.
‘We’ll find some coffee,’ he said, ‘and reflect on our cast of fools - because one of them has been rather clever.’
Twenty Two
A short while later, they sat in the large kitchen with coffee and a tin of soft biscuits. Someone hadn’t put the lid on properly but there were greater crimes to consider.
‘So, how many fools were invited to the feast?’ he asked. Tamsin consulted her notes.
‘Eight in all. The two directors, Frances Pole and Barnabus Hope; the administrator, Bella Amal; four clients of the clinic: Ezekiel St Paul, Kate Karter, Virgil Bannaford and our dear friend Martin Channing - .’
‘The editor Martin Channing?’
‘The very same.’
‘This’ll be interesting.’
‘Won’t it just - the editor of the Sussex Silt for once not inventing the story, but one of its lead characters.’
‘A slippery eel would be sticky in comparison,’ warned Peter.
‘Anyone else?’
‘The clinic cleaner Patience Strong, your favourite, was also there. Surprised a cleaner was invited.’
‘No, that makes sense. The Feast of Fools was all about servants and masters coming together as equals, breaking all social conventions.’
‘Including the right to life.’
Peter looked out the window as the rain continued to fall. It had been the wettest autumn on record.
‘Not good for the rats.’
‘What isn’t?’
‘They don’t like the rain.’
‘Who does?’
‘They seek the dry in times like these. They come inside.’
‘Why are you talking about rats?’
‘It must be the setting.’
Abbot Peter cast a casual eye into the store cupboard.
‘Are you the rat warden or something?’
‘In the sixteenth century, rats ferried the plague-carrying fleas from town to town.’
‘Shall we get back to the humans?’
‘And they’re dealt with by understanding what they most desire: warmth and food.’
‘Rats or humans?’
‘See that outhouse?’
Peter was pointing through the window. He continued:
‘It’s the tradition here, in the winter, to keep it warm and full of bird seed, poisoned.’
‘Why?’
‘The rats can’t get to their own execution quick enough.’
‘Is that true?’
‘Ask the gardener.’
‘No, I can’t be doing with the working classes, not for conversation, anyway.’
It could have been a joke, hard to tell.
The Abbot continued: ‘So why did our rat enter Henry House? They wanted something.’
‘Now you’re getting creepy.’
‘Our little rodent, surreptitious and crafty, crept into Henry House to kill Barnabus Hope. But why? What did they want?’
The question hung for a moment before Tamsin remarked that it was hard to see why anyone would want such a harmless nobody murdered.
‘Revenge? Money?’ she ventured.
‘You’re staying with the traditional.’
‘Or perhaps ambition? That’s all I’d kill for.’
‘Remind me not to stand in your way.’
‘I really don’t see that happening.’ There was a pause.
‘Or silence?’ said Peter. ‘Therapists do know things, often embarrassing things, revealed in the moment and then regretted.’
‘It’s a big coincidence that Barnabus was killed so soon after his first meeting with the four clients.’
‘A coincidence the size of the moon.’ Another pause, and then Peter spoke:
‘Of the 435 males killed in England and Wales last year, 249 knew the main suspect.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Looked it up before we came out.’
‘Never had you down as a criminologist.’
‘I hope, Tamsin, you never have me down as anything. Labelling kills.’
‘Don’t get all pious.’
‘I just don’t want to be trapped in one of your categories.’
‘Then you shouldn’t wear a habit.’ Peter took the hit, adding:
‘But only twenty one were killed by their partners or former partners.’
‘All of which, like most criminology, takes us nowhere very much. Barnabus knew all the clients and he didn’t have a partner - or not a partner that we know of. I still think he was gay.’
They sat quietly, the moment interrupted by clickety shoes and then a girlish figure at the door, coy and simpering.
‘Just wondering who was in here,’ she said.
‘And you are?’
Twenty Three
‘Bella Amal, the Mind Gains administrator,’ she says, by way of introduction as she takes a few steps further inside the kitchen.
‘Ah.’
‘Well, Director of Administration to be precise.’
‘You obviously like a title.’
‘Oh it isn’t me, it’s Frances.’
‘She likes a title?’
‘I don’t mind what I am, it’s not why I do it.’
‘And why do you do it?’ asks Peter. Bella is a little caught out.
‘Oh, I just believe in it. Really believe in everything Mind Gains stands for.’
Peter nods appreciatively.
‘Have you ever been in therapy yourself?’ asks Tamsin.
‘Me?’ Bella is embarrassed and giggly. ‘No, I’m not crazy!’
‘So why do you believe in it?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well if you’ve never experienced it yourself, how do you know it’s so good?’
‘I don’t know - I just do, I suppose. I mean, it’s got to be good, hasn’t it?’
‘Having never tried it, I’m as ignorant as you, Bella.’ Embarrassment.
‘So Frances likes a title?’ says Peter, offering Bella a path out of the hole.
‘She likes things to appear professional, yes, and “Director of Administration” looks better on the website than “Administrator”, I suppose.’
‘And don’t tell me,’ says Tamsin, ‘you have your own business card?’
‘Thought you might.’ Tamsin rolls her eyes in a dismissive sneer.
‘Would you like to see it?’ asks Bella, unaware of the scorn.
‘No, that won’t be necessary - now or ever.’
The only business cards Tamsin came across were those handed out by failed coppers who’d found a second career in police training. Only the desperate or the bent handed you a card with the invitation to ‘stay in touch’.
‘As I say, everything must look professional for Frances,’ says Bella. ‘Well, you have to these days.’
Peter: ‘But though you organised the Feast of Fools, you weren’t there yourself?’
‘No, I wasn’t.’
‘Odd.’
‘I can explain.’
‘I’m sure you will. But we’re sitting here now because while seven fools were alive at the beginning of the evening, only six finished it in the same state.’
‘Yes.’
‘That wasn’t part of your planning, I presume?’
‘Hardly!’
She giggles again.
‘And tell me, Bella - who was the Lord of Misrule?’
‘The Lord of Misrule?’
It was as though she’d never heard the phrase before.
‘The one who had all the power on Friday night - that must have been part of the planning, surely?’
‘Oh no, not at all!’ Slightly hysterical.
‘You mean there was no Lord?’ persists Peter.
‘Well, I suppose there was, but it was all done by lots on the night.’
‘Oh I see. So there was definitely a Lord.’
‘There was - I mean, there was meant to be, yes, it’s what Frances wanted - but I had no part in it.’
‘So the Lord of Misrule was a random appointment.’
‘That’s how Frances wished it to be.’
Peter continues: ‘Which may mean that no one actually knows who the Lord was.’
‘It might I suppose. I wouldn’t know.’
‘As you keep saying,’ says Tamsin.
People who keep saying things are always lying.
‘I mean, if the disguises were good enough, it might,’ says Peter.
‘If they were, yes.’
‘And I’m told they were very good.’
Bella: ‘Why do you ask about the Lord of Misrule?’
Tamsin is wondering the same thing.
‘Because if we find the Lord of Misrule,’ he says, ‘we’ll probably have found our murderer, Bella.’
Bella looks to be in a state of some shock.
Twenty Four
It was the thirty-ninth day of the 40 day vigil, and Hafiz sat staring at the tombstone of Baba Kuhi.
The scene was not glorious, with dry wood, stones and excrement his only companions in this wasteland... apart from the black-beaked ravens who hopped and strutted impatiently. They were companions in a way - but those intent on your death can hardly be called friends.
Here in the circle of death he’d remained, unshaven, unwashed and increasingly unhinged. Sometimes he rang the changes. Sometimes he walked the circle, round and round, one way one day, the other way the next day, shouting at the sky and then singing to the stars and then doing neither. And sometimes he was in the court in Isfahan, where people spoke of such feasts, he’d heard them, such exquisite culinary excess, great rice dishes, elaborate sherbet cordials, opulent casseroles, succulent meat dishes and extravagant sweets of sugared delight. Sometimes he visited the Isfahan court as many as twice, three times, four times a day. It was hard to say ‘no’ to the meat and cordial, though for now, on this thirty-ninth day, he rocked back and forth, sitting but rocking, moving his hands in strange ways, twisting his arms, wrenching his shoulders, straining every sinew to remain conscious, to fend off sleep and stay awake, to fulfil the challenge and gain the promise, the gift of his heart’s desire.
His mother had brought bread and water until he told her to desist.
He could see the pain the visits caused her... and an eight mile round-trip was hardly right for an older woman or for one so doggedly concerned for the girl to whom he was engaged.
‘People do enquire, Shams.’
He knew what ‘enquiring’ meant. It meant people telling her that Shams-Ud-Din, her son, was mad, irresponsible, immoral or all of the above.
‘It’s Hafiz now.’
‘What is?’
‘My name.’
‘Hafiz?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve just decided to change your name?’
‘I haven’t just decided.’
‘The name you’ve had all your life suddenly is not your name?’ She spoke as one who’d swallowed a fly.
‘If anybody asks,’ he added.
‘If anybody asks?’
They might, thought Hafiz, they might quite easily ask; but apparently not from where his mother stood:
‘People who have known you since you were a child, are unlikely to ask your name, Shams.’
‘From here on, Hafiz.’
‘The family name is not good enough?’
What was he to say to that? You grow out of clothing, you grow out of toys, you grow out of people, so why not also grow out of a name?
‘You will understand if you are always Shams to me.’ Hafiz nodded, and then said with solemnity:
‘And I will understand if you stop visiting.’ His mother took appropriate offence.
‘It is a strain for you,’ he explained.
‘And a strain for you?’ she countered.
Hafiz had not been going to mention that - better for the strain to be hers.
‘I will be home soon enough,’ he’d said, which was true in its way, though in another way, he would never be home again. And he’d watched her go, a stooped but determined frame, taking an age to disappear in the dusty expanse. And while he sensed something ending, he felt no great grief and no great loss, perhaps that would come another time, they did say - or he’d heard it said - that we feel things when we are able, rather than when they occur.
And there was always Muhammed Attar, who also brought supplies, a melon or two dried figs... his perfume would have been a waste in this place. But he came only by night. He said he had a shop to run by day, but Hafiz suspected he liked the cover of darkness, being a man with one eye constantly over his shoulder.
He appeared for the last time at sunset on the thirty-ninth day. He sat quietly for an hour, said that the stars looked kind tonight, sat silent for a further hour and then left. So really, why had he come?
And then the occurrence - or the happening - which shaped his life from there on: but how to speak of it? Well, it’s best not to speak of these things, or perhaps tell one person but no more... more than that and you begin to lie or invent, you elaborate a little to ensure reaction, this is what Hafiz thought and so he told only Muhammed Attar. And what did he tell? He told of the moment, on the thirty-ninth day of the vigil, when the Angel Gabriel appeared to him, which is not something easily dropped into conversation:
‘I bought a new camel today. And you?’
‘I met the angel Gabriel.’
‘And tomorrow I’ll hear back from the shoe mender. He told me not to give up hope on my sandals.’
‘The angel gave me my three greatest desires.’
‘I’ve only had them a year. But you can’t tell with sandals these days.’ But the angel did appear to Hafiz, a fire-figure of orange and red, purple and gold, distinctive in the beige surrounds of night fall. He was certain it was Gabriel, though the two of them had never met before. Hafiz had been otherwise engaged in his life, memorizing the Koran, studying the great poets, wasting time at school, avoiding the judgements of his mother
and making bread deliveries. So when had there been time to meet an angel? But he knew without doubt it was he, for whom else could it be in this place, at this time and holding such a cup? Yes, the fire-figure held a silver cup and offered it to the parched lips of Hafiz.
‘The water of immortality’ said Gabriel and Hafiz drank thirstily.
‘Thank you,’ he said, wiping his mouth and wondering what immortality he had just drunk.
The angel then placed a quill in his hand, his touch burning without disfigurement.
‘The gift of poetry’, said Gabriel. ‘Your pen shall pour light into lives that are dark.’
‘I have learned from the best.’
It’s best to be humble with angels, thought Hafiz, especially as they’re made of fire. Humility at all times, they’ll think better of you.
And then the pause which felt long, nearly eternal: it was, after all, the third promise he had come for. Immortality and poetry were fine, to be received with due gratitude, but these were not why he had come.
‘There was a third promise, I believe’ said Hafiz, both hesitant and insistent.
‘And what was that?’ asked Gabriel.
It was a slightly weak voice for an angel of flames. Had he imagined fire speaking, which he hadn’t, but if he had, he might have imagined something more impressive.
‘It concerned my heart’s desire.’
‘And what is your heart’s desire, Hafiz?’
And this is when everything went hopelessly wrong - or wonderfully right; to his dying day, he’d never quite decided. But something changed beneath the inky sky and shimmering stars as he gazed on the angel figure before him - and he did gaze, for here was a figure of such extraordinary wonder that, for a moment, he forgot even the beauty of Shakh-e Nabat. Yes, impossible! But it happened. And the thought occurred to him:
‘If an Angel of God is so wondrous, then how much more wondrous must God Himself be?’
‘I want God!’ declared Hafiz in his filthy madness.
The fire-figure bowed as if something was settled and then spoke:
‘Return to Shiraz and go the house of Muhammed Attar. He will teach you and you will learn from him.’
‘Muhammed Attar?’
