The Prayer of the Night Shepherd mw-6

by Phil Rickman

  ‘He needs to be great?’

  ‘He needs to… succeed against the odds, I suppose.’ Amber dipped a wooden spoon into the chocolate and tasted it. ‘Anyway, the most important guest this weekend is Dr Kennedy, because he’s the Secretary of The Baker Street League, and we need their conference. They’re not the biggest or the oldest of the Holmes societies, but Ben knows a few members already, and obviously it would help for us to be linked with a group like that.’

  Jane sniffed at the hot chocolate. You could pass out with longing.

  ‘Amber…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you really need this Holmes connection to make the hotel work?’

  Amber blew out her cheeks, the closest she ever came to scowling. Jane knew that Ben had spotted this place in a copy of Country Life at the dentist’s, making an impulse call and discovering that it was still on the market after five months. So there was Ben with what seemed like a decent amount of money to invest in a future out of TV… Ben who didn’t want to go crawling to any more witless tossers who couldn’t see further than cops and hospitals. Who didn’t want to have to watch any more projects crash after months of hassle. Who wanted something he was completely in control of. He kept saying that.

  And here it was, in a beautiful, atmospheric and unspoiled area less than half a day from central London. A structurally sound country house — kind of — with the possibility of twenty bedrooms if you developed outbuildings. A house with a history that, although not extensive, included a literary connection of curious significance to Ben Foley. Surely this was some kind of—

  ‘I mean, I know he said it was an omen…’ Jane said.

  ‘Now he’s finding out that the concept of total independence is a myth, especially with limited funds, and he’s still having to crawl to people like Kennedy. And put on murder weekends, which he claims he does for fun, but which really are all we’ve got. Which isn’t good, is it, Jane?’

  ‘But this Conan Doyle thing…’ Jane looked around the vast kitchen, imagining a grandfatherly figure with a heavy moustache waiting politely for his mug of chocolate. The face she saw was very distinct. It was the face from a blown-up photograph framed above the fireplace in the lounge.

  ‘We don’t actually know if he stayed here regularly — or even once. But rumour and legend have always been enough for Ben. What he doesn’t know he’ll invent. Life’s like television — if it’s on the screen it must have happened. And that’s enough to build a business image around.’

  ‘Maybe he was just afraid you wouldn’t come if you thought he had an agenda.’

  ‘No,’ Amber said sadly, ‘I always go along with things.’ She began to pour the chocolate into a big earthenware jug. ‘I just wish it wasn’t so… Victorian. There’s something cold and… ungiving about Victorian houses. Everything’s bigger than it needs to be. Too many passageways.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Jane said. Ben had shown her the ‘secret passage’ under the stairs, where Lady Hartland, played by Natalie Craven, had waited to die.

  ‘Not so bad in the summer, but now I realize I don’t like the forestry, and those gnarled old rocks. The way they seem to be watching you. Watching everything crumbling around you, while they’ve been here for ever.’

  ‘Mmm,’ Jane said again, in two minds. As a weird person, she really liked Stanner Rocks, naturally. But this seemed like a good opportunity to bring up the thing that had been bothering her a little. ‘Er, while we’re on the subject of everything being bigger than it needs to be, my room certainly is.’

  ‘Sorry, Jane?’

  ‘The tower room — I mean it’s fantastic to have a room that size, but I feel a bit… Like, I’m not used to a room that big, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, we thought—’

  ‘And I keep waking up in the night. Stupid, really. So like, I… just wondered if I could have my old room back.’

  Jane felt deceitful and a bit ashamed. She’d been switched around twice over the past couple of weekends, as the Foleys continued their winter programme of refurbishing the bedrooms one by one. Amber looked at her thoughtfully.

  ‘Just… too big?’

  ‘Stupid, really,’ Jane said.

  ‘Well, if you don’t like that room, Jane—’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t like it—’

  ‘Then you can move your stuff back to the old one tonight if you like.’

  Jane nodded, trying not to show her relief, which was kind of despicable, frankly. ‘Thanks, Amber.’

  Back in the lounge, Ben helped her serve the chocolate. ‘Thanks, sweetheart, you’ve been terrific.’ His hair was wisping out of the Holmes grease-slick, the curls re-forming. He bent down to her ear and whispered, ‘Some of these old guys, seeing a little maid around the place in a starchy uniform, it gives them a delicious little frisson, you know?’

  ‘I don’t do frissons,’ Jane said primly, and Ben laughed and went to play Holmes again for two elderly ladies, the kind that it was nice to think still existed outside of old Agatha Christie films. A few of the people here were regulars at murder weekends all over the country. There was a network of them now.

  The Major came over for his chocolate. ‘Terribly sorry, my dear, but I’ve been assuming you were Ben’s daughter.’

  ‘Just paid help… Major.’ It felt — this was stupid — a little weird talking to a guy who’d just been exposed as having beaten a woman’s brains out. It was surprising how the scenario crawled into some area of your mind and lodged there. Maybe something to do with the house. She shook herself. The maid’s headband fell off, and she caught it and laughed. ‘Are you really a major?’

  He pushed his tongue into a cheek. He was stocky, sixtyish, and his tufty white moustache looked genuine. ‘Frank Sampson, AVAD.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Arrow Valley Amateur Dramatics.’

  Jane grinned. ‘Had me fooled. Not like this area isn’t full of retired soldiers.’

  ‘Except the real ones tend to be ex-Regiment. Younger. Fitter. Not how you imagine them any more.’ Frank Sampson nodded towards Ben. ‘Fun, though, working with a pro. I’d like to see them make the place work. I remember the first time it was a hotel.’

  ‘Bad?’

  ‘Well, that was back in the sixties, when walking holidays were for the hard-up, so I suppose it was more of a hostel. After that, an old folks’ home, then some sort of specialist language school, then an old folks’ home again. Not for long, though. Elderly people hate to be dumped this far out. They want life around them, not dripping trees.’

  ‘So what was it when Conan Doyle stayed here?’

  Frank Sampson shrugged. ‘Just a house, presumably. Quite a new one then, obviously. That’s a bone of contention, isn’t it? That’s a can of worms, Clancy.’

  Jane smiled. ‘I’m Jane. Clancy’s gone home.’

  ‘Sorry!’ He covered his mouth. ‘Can’t seem to get anything right tonight. Can’t even get away with murder. Don’t suppose there’s any more of this incredible chocolate, is there? Not getting paid for this, but I’m buggered if I’m passing up the side benefits.’

  The last of the logs collapsed in the grate behind them. Jane brought the earthenware jug and topped up Frank’s mug. ‘How do you mean, can of worms?’

  ‘Weeeeell, you know — did he spend time here or didn’t he? I don’t know. I don’t know anyone who does.’

  ‘Why would anybody think he did, then?’

  The fake major blinked. ‘Well, that—’

  ‘Friends!’ Ben was in the middle of the room, clapping his hands together for attention. His Edwardian jacket was undone and his hair was flowing back from his shining dome. ‘In case I don’t see any of you in the morning, just want to say a big thanks. Thanks for being our guinea pigs.’

  ‘Great fun,’ one of the Agatha Christie ladies said. ‘Hope there’ll be more.’

  ‘Well, ah… we’ve certainly learned some things.’ Ben sank his hands into his jacket pockets, opening the co
at out like wings, the way kids did. ‘For instance, quite a few people have said that they’d rather it had started on Friday evening, through Saturday, because they really needed to leave today, to get to work tomorrow. Sorry about that. As you can no doubt guess, we’re pretty much amateurs at the hotel game. But’ — he raised a forefinger — ‘we learn fast. Ah…’

  He paused and looked across at the portrait over the fireplace, the blue-tinted blow-up photo of the kind-looking man with neat hair and a weighty moustache and eyes which seemed to be focused, with a glint of mild wonder, on something in the middle distance.

  ‘I know there’s still some controversy about whether Sir Arthur spent time here,’ Ben said. ‘But I feel he did. Sometimes, when I walk through these rooms late at night or early in the morning, I like to feel he’s perhaps… Well, we all know what an ardent spiritualist he was, so let’s not get into that. I just feel there are mysteries about Sir Arthur which might be solved here. I don’t know why I say that, I just… sorry… babbling.’ Ben wiped the air. ‘Apologies.’

  ‘No, go on,’ a woman said. Not one of the Agathas; this one was elegant, middle-aged, with long near-white hair and half-glasses, and Jane thought she’d come on her own. ‘Are we talking about The Hound of the Baskervilles? Because I was rather disappointed that none of this came up during the weekend.’

  ‘Ah, well.’ Ben looked put-out. ‘That deserves more than a single weekend. Can’t divulge all our secrets in one burst, darling.’

  An Agatha chuckled. ‘Didn’t want to waste it on the likes of us, eh?’

  Ben did this camp simper, not denying it. Jane looked at Frank Sampson, the erstwhile murderer. ‘Can of worms,’ Frank murmured.

  Later, in the lobby, with its shabby flock wallpaper and Victorian-looking wall lamps, Jane heard Ben talking to the thin man with bristly white hair. Seemed this guy Kennedy was one of those who would have preferred to leave this morning. He was leaving now, with his bottle of champagne for solving the murder.

  ‘So we’ll be hearing from you,’ Ben said. ‘About your conference?’ He was carefully standing with his back to one of the places where the panelling had been poorly patched with stained plywood. Unfortunately, just above his head, an area of unpapered plaster was dark with damp, and he might as well have been pointing at it.

  ‘Well, I…’ Dr Kennedy hefted his canvas overnight bag. His voice was nasal and tinny, not a lot like Steve Martin. ‘I do need to talk to my colleagues on the committee. I’ll confirm my decision in writing by the end of the week.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Ben said. ‘That’s marvellous, Neil.’ Not exactly rubbing his hands, but aglow with satisfaction as he followed Dr Kennedy to the main door. Jane moved ahead of them and held it open for Kennedy to pull his bag through after him. Ben and Jane stood under the big brass lamp in the conservatory-porch, its long Gothic windows streaming with rain, watching him run for his car.

  ‘Game’s afoot, Jane,’ Ben said.

  ‘Sorry?’ Oh yeah, Holmes-speak.

  ‘The game is finally afoot.’ Now he really was rubbing his hands, maybe just being deliberately theatrical.

  The piece of carpet that they were standing on was soaked through. Jane hoped Dr Kennedy hadn’t walked into one of the pond-size puddles on the terrace or stumbled on the eroded steps down to the car park. There was no sign of him now, anyway. Beyond the car park you could see nothing but darkness, and all you could hear was the rain in the pines.

  And then a shot.

  Ben was standing in the doorway, and his head twisted sharply as if he’d been hit and was about to go down. It was that close. A blast, loud enough to blow a hole in the rain. Jane found that she’d backed away against one of the glass panels. She was momentarily frozen, half expecting Ben to fall, but he straightened up and breathed in hard.

  ‘Right.’ In the golden light of the brass lamp, his eyes were bright with rage. ‘That’s it. That’s fucking it.’ He stepped out into the rain and splashed across to the low stone wall at the edge of the terrace.

  ‘Ben?’

  Jane followed him out, feeling her frilly headband falling off behind her. The car park was on a slope, bordered by pines and, through their tiered trunks, Jane thought she saw a blurry light moving. A car door slammed, an engine started up, and then the much brighter lights of Dr Kennedy’s car shone into her eyes, and she couldn’t see anything else.

  This was the country. Shots happened. It was supposed to be illegal to let off a shotgun at night, and in weather like this it was seriously crazy. But it happened. It certainly happened here. Jane went tense, remembering last night.

  ‘Bastards!’ Ben climbed up on the wall, Dr Kennedy’s car passing below him, the rain thudding on the shoulders of his Edwardian jacket. His fists were clenched, his long face shining with fury. ‘Scumbags! Don’t think I don’t know who you are. I told… I warned you, not on my land! This time you’re fucking dog meat!’

  Nobody replied. Ben stood for a moment longer, with his head bowed, his back to the Hall, with its mock-mullion windows and its witch’s-hat towers. Then he slammed his right fist into his left hand and came down from the wall. His hair was slicked flat to his head again, like Sherlock Holmes’s hair. He walked back towards the door, taking hold of Jane’s arm.

  ‘When do you ever hear of one being revoked?’

  ‘What?’ Jane had been dredging her headband from a puddle.

  ‘Shotgun licence. When do you ever hear of anyone’s shotgun licence being revoked for misuse of firearms, Jane? Never. Because all the bloody magistrates are farmers, like this guy Dacre, and they all stand together. Bastards. I said I didn’t want them on my land, disturbing my guests, killing my wildlife. I said no.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  Ben steered Jane back into the porch. ‘Some kind of gun club. Think they can safely ignore me because I’ll be gone soon, like all the others. When it all goes down, when we’re declared bankrupt. It’s what this area does, you see, Jane. Ruins you eventually. Nothing creative ever thrives, because it’s a wilderness, a hunting ground. That’s what it’s always been, it’s the way they like it. But they don’t know me, Jane.’

  ‘They go out shooting in these conditions?’ She hadn’t heard about his row with the gun club.

  ‘I think they just saw the lights, the cars. It’s a gesture — you don’t interfere with us, we’ll leave you alone. They think I’m soft. Effete. Some arty bastard from London, here today, gone…’ Ben pushed his fingers through his wet hair, wiping his shoes on the sodden carpet. ‘They don’t bother me, why should they? Half of them aren’t even locals. Yobs, Jane. Thick, barbaric yobs. No subtlety.’ He suddenly flashed a big grin. ‘Where I come from, we have real hard bastards.’

  ‘Where’s that, exactly?’

  ‘Oh… the city. Country people think they’re tough because they can pull lambs out of ewes and have to walk further for the bus. Because they can shoot things and watch foxes get torn to bits without feeling pity. Is that tough, Jane? Is that what you’d call tough?’

  Jane wrinkled her nose. ‘I think hunting’s totally psychotic, and a waste of time and money. But then, so do a lot of country people, on the quiet.’

  ‘Do they?’ Ben was either surprised or disappointed.

  ‘Nobody really likes having their land churned up and their cats killed, like, by mistake. Most of them keep it to themselves, because hunt people can turn nasty when they’re threatened. And country people don’t like confrontation.’

  Ben did, though. Ben was into drama. And although he didn’t seem to be aggressive in a violent way, you got the idea that he actually needed to feel a lot of people were against him — needed this to fire him up, maintain his energy level. Needs to succeed against the odds, Amber had said.

  Which, when you thought about it, made him a dangerous sort of person to be living here on the Border. Like actually on the actual Border. Jane had theories about the Border and what it meant, what it really was. This excited her most
of the time, but now her cheap maid’s outfit was blotting up the wet, and she was clammy-cold and starting to shiver and actually wish she was in her apartment back at the vicarage — how wimpish was that?

  ‘You’re a smart girl,’ Ben said. ‘I’m awfully glad we’ve got you here. Amber’s a hugely talented woman and very… very decent. But she needs support. And because we can only afford part-time staff, you and Natalie, you’re…’

  He didn’t finish. He smiled and turned away, opening the main door for Jane, who noticed the rain coming into the glass porch through the gaps in the putty.

  ‘They were very close last night,’ Jane said.

  ‘Who were?’

  ‘The gun club. There was one shot… sounded like it was just outside the window.’

  ‘Really,’ Ben said.

  3

  What Consultants Are For

  On Thursday morning in the church, the Holy Ghost was waiting.

  Alice Meek, from the chip shop in Old Barn Lane, was doing the flowers on the altar. Dusty pillars of white light were dropping from the upper windows and Alice’s voice was carrying like a crow’s across the chancel.

  ‘My niece, the one in Solihull, she did one of them Alpha courses at her church, did I tell you? After the decree nisi come through, this was — big gap in her life, usual story.’ Alice was smoothing out the altar cloth, replacing the candlesticks. ‘This Alpha, she reckoned it d’creep up on you somehow. It don’t seem like much at first, but near the end of it she felt the Holy Spirit was in her heart like a big white bird, and you could feel its wings fluttering. That’s what she said, vicar. As if this big bird was trying to escape from her breast and’ — Alice spread her arms wide — ‘fill the whole world with love and healing.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ Merrily went on dusting the choir stalls, wondering where this was going. It was the first time she’d encountered Alice since the Prossers had told her about Ann-Marie.

  ‘But we prevents it happening, see.’ Alice came back to the chancel steps for the pewter vase that she’d filled with flowers. ‘We don’t let it out. It’s the way we are. We’re all scared to open up, so we keeps him in his cage, the poor old Holy Spirit. I never quite got that before, see.’ She scuttled back and set the pewter vase on the altar. ‘Nothing like freesias, is there? You en’t thought of having one of them Alpha courses yere, Vicar?’