Phil Rickman - The Fabric of Sin

A lumpy grey mattress of cloud meant that she couldn’t see the village or the church tower or anything much apart from the wind-combed coarse grass on the other side of a barbed-wire fence. Supposed to be going back to check out the Master House, but what was the point?

As Merrily was leaving the church, Teddy Murray had said, We, ah … we have a room for you, Merrily. I’m not sure what you …

I don’t know, to be honest, Teddy. I don’t live that far away, and I can’t really understand why the Bishop feels the need to inflict me on you .

Oh, I think we both know what that’s about. They want you to put the lid on something … firmly. As regards my interpretive role, I suspect Mervyn Neale might have had a hand in it .

The Archdeacon. Been with the Bishop when the issue was raised by Adam Eastgate.

Mervyn and I have known one another for some time. He refers people to us – people looking for an open-air holiday. Not on a percentage basis, I have to add .

Well , she’d said finally, I have a few things to sort out at home, so maybe I could ring you tomorrow .

Pleasant enough guy, but Merrily had been glad to get away. His interpretive role suggested he’d been appointed by the Archdeacon as her native guide. Useful in some ways, but there was a sense of remote control that she didn’t like.

The rain gusted into her face and drummed on the side of her hood. She let it come, shivering, thinking of the wind that had suddenly arisen when Parkins, the academic in the M. R. James story, had blown, experimentally, on the old whistle he’d found in the remains of the Templar preceptory.

Who is this who is coming?

A figure like wind-blown rags pursuing Parkins along the deserted beach. Making its final, most memorable appearance at night in his room at the Globe Inn. Arising under the sheets of the second bed and standing in front of the bedroom door, with its arms outstretched and its intensely horrible face of crumpled linen .

Although the dust sheets were plastic, you got the idea.

Merrily turned back towards the old Volvo, with the wind behind her.

USING THE MOBILE from the scullery – this was insane – she called Sophie at home. Sophie’s husband, Andrew, answered, humph ed a bit. Andrew, the architect and cathedral widower – they even lived in one of the cloisterish streets behind the close.

‘Merrily.’ Sophie had picked up an extension, Andrew humphing again and hanging up. ‘I was half-expecting you to call this afternoon – the Bishop having suggested, in an email from the Palace this morning, that a preliminary written report might be quite useful.’

‘And you thought, odd – he’s never previously particularly requested a report of any kind on anything relating to deliverance.’

‘Correct.’

It was almost dark, the grey-brown sky melding with the churchyard wall outside the scullery window. Still no rain here. Maybe Garway Hill had its own climate.

‘Well, Sophie, it might all be academic now, anyway.’

Merrily put on the desk lamp and explained in some detail about Huw Owen’s M. R. James revelation. Never any discretion problems here; next to Sophie, the grave was Broadcasting House.

‘So the woman made it up?’ Ice particles in Sophie’s voice. ‘The whole thing?’

‘Either that or her perceptions have been conditioned by her reading habits, which seems unlikely.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Presumably you’ll go back and ask her.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘That should be revelatory.’

‘I’m almost looking forward to it, in a rather unChristian way. I’ll try and get over to Monkland tomorrow after the morning worship. With or without a Special Branch tail.’

‘I’m sorry, Merrily – I may have misheard.’

‘You didn’t.’ Merrily looked at the cigarettes on the desk, decided against. ‘Sources close to Gaol Street intimate I’ve been checked out by the security services. Jane, too – the heritage terrorist.’

‘This is purely because of your unsolicited proximity to the business interests of the heir to the throne?’

‘I don’t know, Sophie.’

‘But you’re a minister in the Church of England.’

‘That makes me harmless? Think about it.’

‘The amount of surveillance in this country is becoming quite terrifying.’ A pause. ‘Incidentally, have you had a chance to read Canon Dobbs’s file on the Prince of Wales?’

‘Not really. It’s on the desk here. I’ll try and have a look later.’

‘Well,’ Sophie said, ‘I realize we live in troubled times, but I think this has gone far enough. Leave it with me.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I think I’m going to call the Bishop in London.’

Sophie was probably the only person, outside his immediate family, with the Bishop’s mobile number.

‘I’m not sure that would really—’

‘Will you be in tonight, Merrily?’

‘Yeah, but I don’t want to ruin your night. Or Andrew’s.’

‘Merrily,’ Sophie said with some severity. ‘This is what I do .’

Merrily sighed, pulled over the old black box file and opened it up. Unwrapped a wodge of A4 copier paper, held together by two rubber bands, the top page splashing two headlines.

CHARLES IN HEALTH STORM

TOP DOCS SLAM PRINCE OVER SUPPORT FOR ‘QUACKS ’

Both dated back to the early 1980s when the Prince of Wales, newly married to Diana Spencer, had been appointed President of the British Medical Association, the conservative and seriously cautious organization representing doctors in the UK.

The BMA was not into alternative therapy. In fact, the hatred of the association for practitioners who had not been through the System knew few bounds.

You would have thought these guys might have known better than to appoint, as their figurehead, a man whose famously healthy family had a long history of consulting osteopaths, homeopaths and various spiritual healers.

The first warning came at a dinner for the new President. In his speech, the Prince said how touched he’d been that the BMA should have even considered electing him, adding, You may, for all I know, wish to get rid of me after six months .

The laughter, Merrily thought, must have been hollow. She’d thought she remembered the row, but was now realizing that she couldn’t have fully absorbed it, nor been knowledgeable enough at the time to recognize its significance.

One of the cuttings had an edited transcript of Charles’s speech to the BMA.

It was dynamite, basically.

One of the least attractive traits of various professional bodies is the deeply ingrained suspicion and downright hostility which can exist towards anything unorthodox. I suppose it is inevitable that something which is different should arouse strong feelings on the part of the majority whose conventional wisdom is being challenged.

I suppose, too, that human nature is such that we are frequently prevented from seeing that what is taken for today’s unorthodoxy is probably going to be tomorrow’s convention …

Perhaps we just have to accept it is God’s will that the unorthodox individual is doomed to years of frustration, ridicule and failure in order to act out his role in the scheme of things, until his day arrives and mankind is ready to receive his message … a message which he probably finds hard to explain himself but which he knows comes from a far deeper source than conscious thought …

Merrily lit a cigarette. Amazing to think he’d actually said that to a bunch of doctors.