The Fabric of Sin mw-9

by Phil Rickman

  This man who could stand in silence for two hours on the periphery of a party, like a half-formed apparition. Some people had actually seen his possible suicide as part of a life-plan. Others thought he was just plain screwed up and smoking too much dope.

  Maybe, it was often said, a woman might have saved him, if he’d been able to let a woman in. Or a man? Gay men liked to suggest that Nick — who, despite his elegance, his good looks and his profession, never seemed to have had a physical relationship — had been in the closet.

  The most likely answer was that he was too well brought up in the careful, post-war Agatha Christie Fifties, too plain uptight middle English. I can’t really imagine Nick having sex with anyone — a friend, quoted in the latest biography — because he would have to take his clothes off and he was always far too shy.

  This in the Seventies, when Jimmy Hayter, close to the same age as Nick, and actually far more upper-class, had been up to here with peace and lerve and ready to get steeped in the dirty stuff.

  Jimmy Hayter, who was Lord Stourport, who hadn’t spoken to Lol again as Lol stood up, murmured ‘thank you’, nodded and walked away like he was walking on an open blade. Hayter’s body never moving, only his stare coldly following him to the door.

  ‘You’d have encountered people like him, right?’ Lol said. ‘I mean, you were just a little too late — especially with your background — to have been a real hippie.’

  Lol picked up one of the plectrums, tortoiseshell, and then put it back, finding he’d rearranged them into a rough semicircle around the gravestone.

  ‘You came in at the wrong end of the dream. When everybody was waking up into the cold daylight, trying to pull the covers over their heads and it was … all going rancid under there.’

  Those sublime albums bombing, one after the other. No reason for it; they were massive these days, the songs ubiquitous.

  Now he had risen and he was everywhere.

  The last prophesy fulfilled. There was nothing left to say.

  Lol stood up. He had no plectrum to leave. Hadn’t used one in years, just his fingers and his nails on light strings.

  As he walked away, a slow breeze passed through the brittling leaves on the oak tree, like a low sigh, and Lol turned and thought for a moment that a tall figure was shadowed under the tree. Slightly stooped. Raising a languid hand in a brief, shy salute.

  Lol smiled and waved once and ran out of the churchyard, all the way back to where he’d left the Animal at the side of the road in a quiet lane with trees.

  Only it wasn’t there.

  Using the landline, Merrily rang The Centurion in Roman Road.

  A woman said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Gwilym’s in a meeting. Who shall I say called?’

  ‘When will the meeting be over?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know. Can I take a—?’

  ‘I’ll call back,’ Merrily said, the mobile starting to chime at her elbow.

  ‘It’s Adam Eastgate, Merrily. About that call I warned you to expect.’

  ‘It hasn’t happened yet.’

  ‘Well, no. As it turns out, this is it.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I’ve been asked to make the call rather than somebody whose voice you wouldn’t recognize. Bottom line, Merrily, I have to ask you if you ever do any work … privately, like.’

  ‘Privately?’

  ‘You know what I’m saying.’

  ‘Independently of the Diocese?’

  ‘And on a confidential basis.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like the service in the Master House. Paul Gray says he’ll go along with it, though perhaps I’m not the best person to make an approach to Mr Gwilym.’

  ‘You want me to go ahead, despite the Bishop.’

  ‘It’s not seen as a confrontational thing. Just something we feel should take place, and if it’s done quietly there won’t be any of the problems Bernard was afraid of.’

  ‘Who else would be there?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be wise for there to be … anyone else.’

  ‘This is a tough one, Adam.’

  ‘Aye. I can see that.’

  ‘If I did it,’ Merrily said, ‘and it got out … it could get me in a lot of trouble.’

  Because there was a difference here. If she just went ahead with it on her own, it would be merely a small rebellion, out of conscience.

  Where the royals are concerned — the royals and Canterbury — the smallest rumour can cause a seismic shift, and little folks like you can get dropped down the nearest crevice.

  ‘It won’t get out, Merrily. Nobody wants it to get out.’

  ‘And the idea’s been approved, has it, at the highest level?’

  ‘I referred it up. The suggestion came back.’

  ‘From?’

  ‘Just from higher up.’

  ‘When did they have in mind?’

  ‘Soon as possible. Soon as you can get the people together. What’s the earliest, do you think?’

  ‘I suppose …’ Merrily thought about it, counting days. ‘I suppose the earliest might be the day after tomorrow. That would be … Friday?’

  She looked at the calendar and her gaze caught the sermon pad, propped up now against the computer, open to the list of names: PIERRE MARKHAM … MICKEY SHARPE … SIGGI—?

  ‘That would be Friday the twelfth?’ Adam Eastgate said. ‘I’m writing it down.’

  MAT PHOBE?

  ‘Or Saturday, I suppose,’ Merrily said.

  ‘The thirteenth.’

  It was like one of those damn signposts being erected in the scullery, hammered into the floor in front of the desk.

  MAT PHOBE?

  Something about that name. Not a real name, obviously.

  ‘Think about it and let me know early tomorrow,’ Adam Eastgate said. ‘OK?’

  ‘OK. I will.’ Her stare travelling up and down the names, alighting on—

  SYCHARTH????

  ‘Adam, tell me something.’

  ‘If I can.’

  ‘The threats received by the Duchy—’

  ‘Oh, now—’

  ‘It’ll go no further, I promise. Come on. Someone’s given you the green light to trust me.’

  ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘From Jonathan Long.’

  Which she had, in a way.

  ‘Wales,’ Merrily said. ‘He was talking about Wales.’

  ‘Aw, look, it was rubbish, Merrily. They decided it was all complete rubbish. A joke.’

  ‘What sort of threats were they? Please. It’s important.’

  ‘I have to refer these things up, you know? They have to be looked into. Once we got them translated … the grammar wasn’t even right, apparently. I can’t tell you any more.’

  ‘OK. Thanks.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ Merrily said, going up the list from the bottom as she clicked off.

  CROWLEY.

  DE MOLAY

  MAT PHOBE?

  Printing that last one out again, separating the letters.

  MAT PHOBE

  Then, in slight disbelief, she began to pick out individual letters, writing them down in a different order. Very lightly, so that it was almost a ghost of a word. As if she couldn’t bear to give it more solidity …

  BAPHOMET

  42

  Contex

  Too early to panic.

  It couldn’t happen. Not on a mild autumnal Wednesday afternoon in Tanworth-in-Arden, in Middle England.

  And he must have done this a couple of times before — distinctly remembering leaving his car in a particular place when it was actually somewhere else. It had definitely happened before.

  If never with nearly four thousand pounds’ worth of kit in the back, not including the Boswell guitar which was as close to priceless as anything he’d ever possessed.

  Who was he trying to fool?

  Lo
l stood in the road, in the empty space between two vividly green-gold beech trees. Standing exactly where he remembered parking the truck … and parking it not too confidently, because the Animal was so much longer than his old car.

  But it had been a strange, unpredictable day. He needed to check and double-check before reporting it to the police. Damn, damn, damn.

  The sky was clouding over, the sun hazed like a smear of butter on white bread, and he’d begun numbly retracing his steps to the churchyard, when his mobile played the riff from ‘Heavy Medication Day’.

  When he opened up the phone, a phone number he didn’t recognize appeared in the screen.

  A male voice he didn’t recognize, either.

  ‘Robinson.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Try the pub car park.’

  Lol said, ‘Who’s that?’

  There was no answer.

  Lol said, ‘Listen …’

  There wasn’t going to be an answer; this was the time of no reply. He began to breathe hard, that sense of dislocation again. He turned around, and the pub was directly opposite.

  He didn’t move, realizing he could actually see the truck from here, silver blue, centrally parked. A man in a suit, with a briefcase under one arm, came out of the pub and bleeped open a BMW. Nobody else was about.

  Lol approached the Animal slowly, walking all around it from a distance, until he was sure there was nobody sitting in it. Clutching his keys, very much afraid that he wasn’t going to need them. Not to open the driver’s door, anyway.

  Nor, as it turned out, the roll-top that Gomer and Danny Thomas had fitted onto the box, now bunched up at the end like an accordion.

  There was a gap at the tailgate where the lock had been prised. When Lol pushed it, it jammed halfway, but that was enough for him to read the message.

  YOU WON’T BE NEEDING THIS ANY MORE.

  TRUST ME

  The lettering was black and ragged. It had been wire-burned into the lightly polished face of the Boswell guitar which lay in its rigid velvet-lined case, like a child’s body in an open coffin. The hinged top of the case had been bent back, snapped strings writhing in the air where the Boswell’s neck had been broken.

  On the square, the shadow of the medieval market hall had lengthened over the grey Lexus. In other circumstances, you could almost start to worry about what might have happened to the driver.

  It was nearly four p.m., and Merrily realized she hadn’t eaten today, at all — not good — but still wasn’t hungry. In her mind, the candle was burning between the horns of the hermaphrodite goat and would not go out.

  ‘This is the fourth time you been out yere, vicar.’

  She spun round, and the candle flame seemed to waver.

  ‘Some’ing on your mind, I reckon,’ Gomer Parry said. ‘Not that I been spying — just doing a bit o’ tidying round the churchyard, collecting the ole windfalls, kind o’ thing.’

  ‘Sorry, Gomer, I’m …’

  ‘You en’t bin around these past two days, vicar.’

  ‘No. I meant to tell you … it was all done in a bit of a rush.’

  She’d thought perhaps he was slowing down, pottering around the village more, leaving the big digger jobs to Danny, but he looked bright enough, his bottle glasses full of light, his white hair projecting like the bristles on a yard brush, ciggy tin poking out of the top pocket of his old tweed jacket.

  ‘No problem — I seen Janey and her explained. I’d come out a time or two, see if I could spot you. Thing is, vicar … you got a minute?’

  Gomer took her arm and nodded towards the market hall, and they moved between two oak pillars. Whatever it was, she didn’t really have time for it, but this was Gomer Parry.

  ‘Thing is, vicar, last time we was talking I wasn’t exac’ly straight with you.’

  That had to be a first; this man was embarrassingly straight.

  ‘I’m sorry, been a bit preoccupied. What are we talking about here, Gomer?’

  ‘You asked me about a partic’lar woman.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And I was kinder talking all round the subject, if you recalls.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t really—’

  ‘Which was wrong. Things between us, that en’t how it’s ever been.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What I should’ve said, see, was there’s stuff I could tell you — tell you — that shouldn’t ever be repeated to nobody. On account of there’s some things what, on the surface, is a bit … your job, you’d most likely have to say sinful.’

  ‘Not really one of my words, but never mind …’

  ‘But it en’t. Not really. Not in the … how can I put this …? Not in the circumstances in which these things is being looked at, kind o’ thing.’

  ‘Not in the context of a particular situation?’

  ‘Contex! That’s the word, vicar. In this yere contex, sin is …’

  ‘Relative?’

  ‘Exac’ly.’

  ‘And the context is?’

  ‘Garway, vicar. Garway is its own contex. There’s Hereford and there’s Wales … and there’s Garway. And Garway’s its own contex.’

  ‘Gomer, I just want to say … you don’t have to tell me everything. I mean, I’m not—’

  ‘I knows that, vicar.’

  ‘However, as it happens, a situation has arisen where the more I know about the particular woman you were referring to, the more I might actually be able to help her.’

  ‘That a fact?’

  ‘So, frankly, any dirt you have on Mrs Morningwood, I’m up for it, basically.’

  Gomer nodded, plucked the ciggy tin from his pocket.

  ‘This qualify as a public place, vicar, under the law?’

  ‘As there’s no actual market on at the moment, I don’t really know.’ Merrily pulled out the Silk Cut and the lighter, an old rage pulsing through her at the attempted management of people’s lives, the negation of God-given free will. ‘But who gives a shit? Go on …’

  ‘This person. I think I tole you this person helps farmers, kind o’ thing.’

  ‘With tax problems and DEFRA forms.’

  ‘DEFRA, that’s a war, them bastards, vicar, but that en’t really the issue in hand. And it en’t only farmers. And it en’t hexclusively Garway. Like, for instance, you met my ole friend Jumbo Humphries, Talgarth?’

  Merrily recalled a man the size of a double pillar box who ran a garage and animal-feed operation up towards Brecon while doubling as a private inquiry agent.

  ‘Now Jumbo, when his wife walked out — and this is confidential, vicar …’

  ‘Goes without saying.’

  ‘Jumbo was lonely, you know what I’m sayin’? Not that he di’n’t have no offers. But the kinder women making the offers, they had an eye to the business, which is worth a quid or two. What I mean is, not Jumbo. They wasn’t looking at Jumbo, not even in the dark, and he knowed it.’

  ‘It’s sad, Gomer.’ Merrily lit his roll-up, stepping back as a bus pulled in with a hiss of brakes. ‘But it happens.’

  ‘So this person … over at Garway … this person we been discussing … It was this person got Jumbo through a bad patch. Fixed him up. With his Michelle.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ She looked at Gomer, his glasses opaque. She was thinking, Not a Thai-bride situation. ‘Do I see?’

  ‘No,’ Gomer said. ‘Likely not.’

  First Siân, then Robbie Williams.

  Getting home half an hour earlier than usual, Jane was as unhappy and confused as when she’d left this morning. Life in flux, nobody you could count on.

  Siân — it had been encouraging, in a way. All that about holding Mum in high esteem, treating Shirley’s crap with the level of respect it deserved. It had seemed encouraging. But it could be a screen, couldn’t it? You couldn’t trust people in the Church because the Church was in flux, too, a time of rapid change, everybody grabbing what they could.

  That was the trouble with the present. It was always in
motion and, if you let yourself get dragged in, you could be pulled to pieces.

  The past was different. You could get a feel for the past.

  Jane looked around at the black and white village settling in for the dusk, the first lights kindling way back inside the Black Swan. The sense of an ancient heart. You could stand here, on these cobbles, at dawn and dusk particularly, and feel part of something at the deepest level.

  This was most apparent when she was in Coleman’s Meadow, on the prehistoric trackway to the top of Cole Hill. In the meadow where Gomer’s JCB had — as if this was meant — uncovered the first stone. Eight to ten feet long. Awesome.

  Finding the stones, fighting for the stones, had grounded her in a way she hadn’t thought possible. But now she was expected to break it. The System said she must go away next year to college, develop around herself a new kind of life. With all the bureaucracy involved, it was even likely she wouldn’t be here when — if — the old stones were raised again.

  Ancient signposts to a mystical communion with the planet.

  As above, so below.

  She’d wanted to talk about this with Robbie Williams again. Discuss what she’d gathered from the internet as a result of his suggestion about the real identity of the Garway Green Man: If that is Baphomet, is he guarding the altar? Or is he drawing attention away from it?

  History had been the last period before lunch, and she’d hung round as Robbie packed his notes into his briefcase, but he’d looked up with a faintly worried expression in his eyes.

  ‘Ah … Jane. In a bit of a hurry today, unfortunately …’

  ‘This is just a quick question, Mr Williams. It’s basically about what happened to the Templar tradition after the Order was dissolved. I’ve been reading about Eliphas Levi and Baphomet, and he was French. What I was really interested in was what happened here.’

  ‘Jane …’ Robbie had come to his feet, buttoning his jacket over his beer gut. ‘I need to make something clear. While one can only applaud your interest in the fringe issues of history, this is not part of the syllabus.’

  ‘I never thought it was,’ Jane said. ‘It’s far too interesting.’