Phil Rickman - The Fabric of Sin

‘So you’re going tomorrow, to stay for a few days.’

‘I’m going for half a day, have a look around, talk to a few people locally and then come back to think about it.’

‘The Bishop was insistent,’ Sophie said, ‘that you should have as much time as it takes to get to the bottom of this. I was asked to ring the Reverend Murray in Garway and reserve you a room at the guest house his wife runs. And, no, I don’t understand it either.’

‘Can’t you stall him? Frankly …’ Merrily poured tea ‘… it’s hard to imagine Bernie Dunmore being so far – excuse me – up the Duchy’s bum. Maybe I should talk to him.’

‘He’s in London, I’m afraid, until Tuesday. House of Lords.’

‘Would be, wouldn’t he? Still gives us three days. If you can copy some of this stuff, we’ll present him with a full and careful report which he can safely dangle in front of the Duchy, the Prince of Wales, the Archbishop of— Are you sure he was talking to Canterbury about this?’

‘I’m his confidential secretary, Merrily. Supposed to be.’

‘So what are your personal feelings?’

Sophie was looking down at her desk. Sophie Hill, who worked for the cathedral . There was a pause in the traffic on Broad Street.

‘Mmm.’ Merrily nodded. ‘You’re probably right. The Church has always relied on the silence of its employees. No disruptive questions asked. Knowing your place. As you say.’

Sophie looked up, letting her chained glasses fall to her chest. Merrily avoided her gaze.

‘I think,’ Sophie said very quietly, ‘that a lot would depend on whether the Prince of Wales knows about this.’

‘Oh?’

‘He has, after all, been known to express an interest in such matters.’

‘Such matters?’

‘You know.’

‘Well, he’s talked publicly about spiritual healing, organic farming, relationships with the land … and plants. If that’s what you mean.’

‘I think you’ll find that it goes deeper,’ Sophie said.

Merrily stood up, walked across to the door, opened it and looked down the stone steps.

‘I don’t think they’ve got around to bugging us yet, Sophie. We’re quite alone.’ She closed the door, came back and sat down. ‘What?’

THE STEEPLES OF the two city-centre churches, St Peter’s and All Saints, were far more visible in Hereford than the tower of the cathedral, which was in a corner, backed up against the river, not central.

It didn’t hide, exactly, it just didn’t show off.

It didn’t have secrets, as such , just didn’t go out of its way …

Like Sophie.

‘This relates to your late predecessor,’ Sophie said.

‘Dobbs?’

You could see him standing silently in the corner, face like an eroded cliff face. The man who had refused to be called a Deliverance minister. Who, until his last collapse, in the cathedral itself, had been the Hereford Diocesan Exorcist . Canon Thomas Dobbs, who wouldn’t even open his front door to Merrily but had left a message for her in its letter box, succinctly conveying his thoughts on being replaced by a woman.

The first exorcist was Jesus Christ .

Interesting how rapidly the situation had changed since then. First Merrily, then Siân Callaghan-Clarke, canon of this cathedral, getting herself appointed Deliverance Coordinator, with plans to subtly secularise the service. Hadn’t worked, and now Siân’s ambitions were, allegedly, focused on the impending vacancy for Archdeacon.

‘Sorting through Canon Dobbs’s files after his death,’ Sophie said, ‘I came across a box file of press cuttings – I didn’t bother you with any of this at the time; it seemed hardly relevant and you had enough problems. But he’d accumulated a substantial collection of newspaper and magazine articles about the Prince of Wales.’

‘ Dobbs? ’ Merrily rocked back in her chair. ‘Dobbs collected stories about Prince Charles?’

‘I don’t mean photo spreads from Hello . These all have specific references to the Prince’s spiritual life. For some reason, I filed them away in a storeroom in the cloisters.’

‘Why would Dobbs be especially interested in Charles? I mean, this was presumably before the Duchy got into Herefordshire?’

‘Certainly before they bought the Guy’s Estate from the Prudential.’

‘Is there any possibility that Dobbs knew him personally?’

‘I don’t know. I have no reason to think he did. I mean, he may have … I really don’t know, Merrily, it just brought it back to me, with all this …’

‘Could I have a look at the cuttings?’

‘I’ve brought them up. You can take them with you when you leave.’

That night, Merrily called Huw Owen, who took it all unexpectedly seriously. Listen, he said, you must never trust the buggers. Never. Any of them. Not at this level.

Covering the phone, Merrily reached out a foot and prodded the scullery door shut. Jane, in a black mood, had Joanna Newsom on the stereo in the sitting room: California Gothic, cracked and witchy. Merrily lowered her voice.

‘Who are we talking about – the Duchy of Cornwall or the royals generally?’

‘It’s not so much the royals, lass, as the C of E. The Church and the Monarchy have been an item for nearly half a millennium. But change comes fast these days. Some of our masters, as you know, have become a bit wary about a certain individual.’

‘Let’s not walk all round this. Charles.’

‘Most of it dating back to his famous remark about the Monarchy – when he takes over – becoming Defender of the Faiths, plural . Muslims, Hindus … Catholics? My God. Is this a safe pair of hands for the sacred chalice? It’s backs to the cathedral walls, lass. Knives unsheathed in the deepest cloisters.’

‘I’ve always liked the way you underplay a drama, Huw.’

Trying to psych out if there was even a hint of a smile on his cratered face as he sat by the racing flames in the inglenook of his eyrie in the Brecon Beacons. Smuggled out of his native Wales by his mother as a small child and brought up in Yorkshire, Huw was back in the land of his unknown father, supervising Deliverance courses for C of E clergy in a former Nonconformist chapel burned out by decades of hellfire preaching – the place where it had begun for Merrily, this weird ministry, not quite as long ago as it sometimes seemed.

‘All right, maybe I’m exaggerating,’ Huw said. ‘I’m just warning you to watch your back. 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.’

‘Thanks, Huw. I’ll sleep so much easier tonight.’

‘I’m just telling you.’

‘So …’ Merrily shifted the heavy bakelite phone from one ear to the other. ‘Having established that nobody in ermine or a dog collar is to be trusted, what’s your considered opinion of why Canterbury would need to be kept informed about a house owned by the Duchy of Cornwall that’s alleged to be haunted?’

‘Well, they wouldn’t, would they?’

‘Would they tell the Prince, or would they try to keep it from him in case he became too curious?’

‘I think if he is curious, he’s probably experienced enough now to keep it to himself. Happen what’s more important – like your feller at the Duchy said – is that the press don’t get wind of it. They’d hound the builder and then they’d hound you.’

‘Mmm.’

‘You ask me, this is just Bernie Dunmore covering his own back. Thinking how it might rebound on the Diocese if it all went pear-shaped.’