by Sarah Rayne
‘Supposed to be. Built around 650, if you can believe the chronicles.’
‘Wow. The Romans had gone by then, hadn’t they?’ said Amy, delving into her memory. ‘They’d long since conquered the blue and green misty island of all their legends.’ She glanced at him and saw a glint of amusement in his eyes. ‘Listen, it is poetic and it’s far enough back to be really romantic.’
‘I didn’t say it wasn’t romantic or poetic.’
‘If you were lucky, there might be traces of the original structure of St Anselm’s,’ said Amy, thoughtfully. ‘The timbers might be a bit crumbly, but the stonework ought to be still intact.’
Jan said, ‘I’m going out to Priors Bramley tomorrow to take a look. To see if I can find any traces of . . . well, of anything that links St Anselm’s to the Ambrosian tradition. Or that links Priors Bramley to Goldsmith’s Auburn.’ He paused, then said, ‘Would you like to come with me?’
Amy stared at him. ‘Is it safe to go in there now?’ she said. ‘Because if it is I’d absolutely love to. D’you mean it?’
‘Yes. I’ve talked to the local council and they’ve disinfected everywhere until it squeaks, so anyone can go in. Oh, and in case you’re wondering about me, I’m a relatively respectable senior member of Oriel College,’ said Jan. ‘And I don’t normally issue invitations to people I meet in pubs. But you’re studying archaeology and I’m chasing legends so it might be a useful exercise for both of us.’
‘What about the body? The sad historian or whoever he was? Aren’t the police still yomping around looking for clues?’
‘They’re still working there, but I’ve talked to them and explained I’m only here for a short while and I just want to look inside the church. They’re fine with that. The body was in the old lodge house, anyway, which is quite a way from the church. They’ve got the whole of Cadence Manor and the grounds roped off so it’s out of bounds to the public, but the rest of the village is open. I could pick you up somewhere, or meet you out there, if that’s easier.’
Amy did not have a car and although she had open permission to use Gran’s whenever she wanted, she didn’t really want to do so for this. She thought Jan was probably giving her a tactful escape route, but she said, ‘It’d be easier if you gave me a lift. I’m at the library until twelve tomorrow.’
‘I’ll pick you up there at twelve,’ he said. ‘Could I see the photos of the church at the same time? Thanks. And then you can prowl around the ancient stones of St Anselm’s and tell me if they’re Saxon. I dare say you can take photos or sketches as well, which will be useful for your thesis when you take your doctorate.’
‘I wasn’t going to take a doctorate—’
‘Weren’t you? Why not?’
Amy tried to think of an answer to this and could not. She tried not to think Gran would go up in smoke if she heard Amy was going out to Priors Bramley with a tramp she had picked up in a pub. Except that Jan was not a tramp, of course.
Gran did go up in smoke. She had to be told about the Priors Bramley excursion because she expected Amy home for lunch each day after her library session. She was shocked to her toes to hear Amy was going off with a man she had met in the Red Lion.
‘Who is he? What do you know about him? He sounds foreign. You can’t be too careful these days, Amy. There was a girl in the paper only last week—’
‘He’s a quarter Polish. He’s an Oxford don and he lectures at Oriel College. He’s researching St Anselm’s music for a paper,’ said Amy, correctly guessing the mention of Oxford would go a long way to calming Gran’s anxiety.
‘Oh. Oh, well, perhaps . . . But what’s he doing picking up a girl half his age?’
‘I’m not half his age,’ said Amy indignantly. ‘He’s only about, um, thirty-five.’
‘Then he’s quite possibly married,’ said Gran, pouncing on this with triumph.
‘It doesn’t matter if he is,’ said Amy. ‘It’s not a date, for pity’s sake. We’re only going out to Priors Bramley to look at the church.’
‘Is it safe? Are they letting people in?’
‘Jan says so.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought there’d be much to see. It’ll probably be drenched in the disinfectant stuff they’ve been spraying everywhere.’
‘Yes, but it’ll be good field experience for me,’ said Amy. ‘I might even get an essay out of it for next term. I thought I’d ask Gramps if I could borrow his camera.’
‘I don’t suppose he’ll mind. You’d better borrow my rubber boots, though. I wouldn’t trust that stuff they’ve been using. And as well as that you’d better— Is that your grandfather coming in now? My goodness, Derek, you’re late tonight.’
‘Blame the Lord High Executioner,’ said Gramps, dropping his jacket on a chair, and heading for the drinks cabinet. ‘He can’t, for the life of him, remember the words of “I’ve Got a Little List”, at least not in the correct sequence. If we rehearsed it once we rehearsed it six times. Still, it’s a whopping long song, and— Oh, are you going to bed, Ella? I’ll just have a drink. And I might catch the end of Newsnight.’
It was a shame for Gramps, who always came in bright-eyed and happy from his rehearsals, to be greeted by Gran’s indifference. He wanted to talk about his evening, telling little stories about people having tantrums, or the row between the stage manager and the prompter and who had said what to whom, but Gran hardly ever listened. She picked up a magazine, or went out to the kitchen to get tomorrow’s meat out of the freezer or write a note for the milkman, and Gramps was left to watch Newsnight or read the evening paper.
Amy thought it was really sad when married people stopped being interested in each other’s lives. Tonight Gran did not even give an excuse; she simply went up to bed, so, to balance things out, Amy asked about the rehearsal. Gramps brightened up at once – dear old Gramps; it did not take much to cheer him up – and switched off Newsnight to hunt out an old vinyl recording of the D’Oyly Carte company performing The Mikado, with somebody called Leicester Tunks singing the title role. Amy would find it very interesting, he said eagerly. He looked quite young and nice when he got enthusiastic like this, and Amy was pleased for him and managed not to giggle at Mr Tunks’s name. She thought she might tell Gramps about The Deserted Village opera later. He would be interested in that.
They listened to the disc, and Gramps happily explained the plot of The Mikado to Amy, until Gran came down in a dressing gown to ask him to turn the music down because she had a headache and caterwauling opera singers did not help it.
As Jan went up to his room at the Red Lion, he thought no matter how well you knew yourself, you still received a few surprises.
Amy Haywood had been a surprise. Jan had intended the investigation into St Anselm’s and Priors Bramley to be a brief, more or less cursory inspection of the place, after which he would talk to the local choirmaster, if there was one, and maybe the local historian, if such a person existed and could be found. What he had not intended was that he should acquire an assistant in the shape of an enthusiastic archaeology student who had the most extraordinary looks he had ever encountered.
Amy would certainly not be everybody’s idea of conventional good looks, but she was someone you would look at a second time and then a third. Jan had the thought that if you regarded the current stage of human race as being the edited article, Amy Haywood might be considered the director’s cut. Or maybe the diamond hidden inside the rock, only visible to the really discerning eye. Hers was not a face men would be likely to sack cities for, or even want to take to bed – but it was a face men might want to take into their dreams.
Whatever she was, she was a one-off. Sui generis, thought Jan, smiling as he got into bed and turned out the light.
Chapter 16
Jan half expected, the next morning, to regret his uncharacteristically hasty invitation, but as he drove to the library he found he was looking forward to Amy Haywood’s company.
He would not have been surprised to find
she was not there, or that she had left some flimsy excuse, but she was waiting, wearing the jeans and scarlet shirt she had on last evening, with the jeans tucked into the tops of boots. She bounced out of the library and into the car, and although she was small and fine-boned she seemed to fill up the car with enthusiasm. She was not wearing anything as definite as sprayed-on perfume, but there was a faint, pleasing impression of clean hair and clean skin.
She had brought a large tote bag with notebooks and pens and a camera, which she said she was not sure how to work. ‘Oh, and I’ve brought the St Anselm’s photographs, as well. They’re quite old – somebody’s written “June 1930” on the back – so they’re a bit faded, but the detail’s quite good.’ She burrowed in the tote bag.
‘They’re clearer than I expected,’ said Jan, studying the photos.
‘Yes, and d’you see there and there on the front? Those strips of vertical stone – pilasters – are very Saxon. At least I think they are. I’ll have to look it up to be sure. They might be fake, of course. Victorian pastrycook.’
Priors Bramley, when they got to it, was more desolate than Jan had expected. As they left the car on a grass verge and walked towards the cluster of buildings, he experienced a wave of loneliness and a feeling of isolation so strong that he felt as if Priors Bramley’s past reached imploringly out to him. He did not believe in ghosts, but he did believe strong emotions could sometimes linger. God knew what agonies and fears had filled up this small pocket of land years ago. After all, this was a village whose residents had been forced to leave it before it was drenched in some lethal mix of poisons and then left to its own tainted remoteness.
A policeman on duty in the lane sketched a half-salute and seemed pleased at the small interruption to his day.
‘We wanted to take a look at the church,’ said Jan. ‘I was told that would be all right.’ He produced a small card, which he handed to the policeman, who glanced at it briefly, then stood up a bit straighter and said, ‘Quite all right, sir.’
‘Are the police still working at the manor?’ asked Amy.
‘Forensics are just finishing up. They’ve been searching the lodge, and the manor itself as well, of course.’
‘I suppose they’re trying to identify the body,’ said Amy.
‘Some hopes,’ said the policeman. ‘A tramp is most people’s guess. Oh, you’ll mind where you tread, won’t you?’ he added conscientiously. ‘Everywhere’s still sopping wet from the decontamination and it’s a bit muddy and slippery in places. I’m supposed to warn everyone about that.’
‘We’ll be careful,’ said Jan.
‘What on earth does your card say?’ demanded Amy as they walked away. ‘Because it certainly impressed the policeman.’
‘ “Doctor of Ancient Music Studies and Medieval Church History”,’ said Jan and Amy suddenly felt inadequate. Clearly he would be regarding her as one of his students. When he got back to Oxford and the nice wife he undoubtedly had, he would say casually to her, ‘I was latched onto by an eager young archaeology student while I was at Bramley. Durham, I think she’s at. If she’s ever in this area we’ll ask her for a meal.’
And the nice wife would nod and think, aha, another breathless young thing who fell in love with you, and say yes of course they would invite the Durham undergraduate to the house.
At this point Amy reminded herself that she had eschewed men for ever, and that from now on she was dedicating herself to her career and would most likely end up being a dessicated academic with no private life whatsoever and frumpy clothes.
At first it was not particularly disturbing to walk along the village street. The spraying was still drying out and there was a faint drip-drip of moisture from within some of the buildings. The ground was muddy, and despite the warm sunshine the air had a chill. Jan repressed a shiver.
Once Amy pointed to what looked like a faint glint of amber on the ground, like tiny specks of caramelized sugar. ‘And there’s a kind of sickly sulphurous taste in the air,’ she said. ‘Like bitterly cold metal, but with something very unwholesome just underneath.’
‘The Poisoned Village,’ said Jan, half to himself. Then, ‘But it’s more likely the chemicals from the decontamination that we can smell.’
‘It’s sad, though, whatever it is. It’s only fifty years since this village was lived in and there were ordinary people who had lives and friendships. And now it’s like a lost world.’
‘That shouldn’t worry you – you deal in lost worlds.’
‘But this is a world people still remember,’ she said. ‘My grandparents remember it – and Clem Poulter. Even the shop signs are still in place. You can read some of the lettering. That bow-fronted one was a bakery. It’s all spooky, isn’t it?’
‘Ghosts?’ said Jan lightly.
‘Well, not midnight groans and creaking coffins,’ said Amy. ‘And you needn’t laugh, because there are ghosts here, only I think they’re nice ordinary ghosts. All the people who used to shop, and scurry in and out of each other’s houses, and gossip about what Mrs Whatnot at number thirteen was up to with the milkman yesterday. Don’t look so quizzical, I do know it’s centuries since people got up to things with the milkman.’
‘And even longer than that since anyone cared,’ said Jan, irresistibly drawn into the world Amy’s word-pictures were painting, and preferring her cheerful homely ghosts to the lonely dispossessed shades he had sensed earlier.
‘They’d buy all kinds of things we’ve never even heard of from these shops,’ said Amy. ‘There wouldn’t be pizzas or sun-dried tomatoes or pasta, or vacuum packs of meat, would there?’
‘Indeed not. This one was a butcher’s shop, by the look of it,’ said Jan. ‘Scrag end of lamb, and brisket and brawn.’
‘It’s a lovely old place. I’ll get a shot of it, shall I? What was brawn, for pity’s sake? It sounds like a posh way of saying brown, or a make of hairdryer.’
‘Pressed meat made from a pig’s head.’
‘I knew it would be something utterly disgusting,’ said Amy gleefully.
‘Remember that next time you eat sushi or fried squid.’
The tainted smell, once they were further along the street, was not so noticeable, but the occasional amber glint still shone here and there, and the brooding silence pressed down on them. Clumps of vegetation, flattened and pallid, still clung to walls like boneless fingers, scrabbling for life.
‘Is the plantlife all dead?’ said Amy, seeing this. ‘I’m not very good on botany and stuff. Those trees look withered and there’s hardly any grass anywhere. But what I know about plants could be written on a plate of brawn.’
‘I don’t think the trees are actually dead,’ said Jan. ‘But they look a bit sick.’
‘I wonder if that’s because of the stuff they’ve been spraying, or if the Geranos did something peculiar to the plantlife?’
‘You’re getting into John Wyndham’s Triffid territory,’ said Jan, smiling.
‘I’ll remind you of that when the plants start walking towards us,’ Amy laughed.
The road was cracked and uneven, and in places had partially collapsed. Several times Jan reached automatically for Amy’s hand, helping her across a particularly bad bit of ground, and every time he did so he was strongly conscious of the feel of her smooth young skin against his palm.
‘It’s all really eerie, isn’t it?’ said Amy. ‘And you know the eeriest part of all?’
‘The fact that there’s hardly any colour anywhere,’ said Jan. ‘Everything’s grey-green, except for those odd specks of amber.’
‘Yes. Did the Geranos do that to the village? Leach all the colour away.’
‘I should think it’s more likely the decontamination. I’m not very knowledgeable, but I have a feeling they’d use bleach or chlorine. The church is just along here, on the left. We can’t see it from here because the street curves round.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I looked at an old Ordnance Survey map.’
He glanced down at her and smiled. ‘Basic research, Amy.’
As they went on, the colourlessness Amy found so eerie seemed even more noticeable. Here and there were occasional splashes of ordinary brightness – mostly from odds and ends of machinery or litter left by the recent workmen or the police investigation, once or twice from some rogue patch of plantlife – but in the main Priors Bramley was shrouded in misty grey-green shadows, and Amy’s scarlet shirt was the only real note of colour.
‘This looks like the curve in the road,’ said Jan presently. ‘We should see the church at any minute.’
‘Clem said it had dry rot since anyone can remember,’ said Amy. ‘So it’ll probably be almost completely crumbled away.’
But it was not.
Part of the lich-gate had gone, but the frame was still in place and also the small shallow seat. Beyond this was a Saxon cross, black and stark, and behind the church itself were the skeletons of several ancient trees, the massive trunks intact, but the branches withered in the way most of the trees seemed to be. These are cedars, thought Jan. Probably several hundred years old. They’d have had massive spreading branches shading the church, sheltering the graves and keeping everywhere cool and dim.
At his side, Amy said softly, ‘It’s still decaying, isn’t it? Nowhere’s actually dead, but it’s all actively rotting. As if something diseased got into the marrow of the village – into the bricks and timbers and earth – all those years ago.’
But the ancient church of St Anselm, the church that for over a thousand years had clung to the ancient and rare tradition of Ambrosian plainchant, was still intact. Jan and Amy went warily up the path and peered through the low-arched doorway.
‘We meant to go inside, right?’ said Amy.
‘Yes.’
As they went towards the doorway Jan realized his heart was beating fast, which annoyed him. It’s a ruined old church, he thought, that’s all. There won’t be anything inside it. Anything of any value or interest will have rotted away or been looted and there’ll be nothing to find. The music will long have gone.
