Phil Rickman - The Fabric of Sin

‘I’m with you there. What can we do to stop it?’

‘OK, well, there’s a small lobby inside the council, supported by the heritage guys and the tourist guys, suggesting that if the stones were reerected they’d be the best prehistoric remains in the county and a major tourist attraction.’

‘So potentially better for the local economy than an estate of four-bedroomed houses with double garages.’

‘Means we get coachloads of tourists, but still the lesser of two evils.’

‘So what are you proposing to do?’

‘Nothing.’ Jane’s face had gone blank. ‘Coops says it’s best if I do nothing at present. Don’t give Pierce any ammunition.’

‘And you … you’re going along with that?’

‘Coops is a very persuasive guy. In his quiet way.’

Merrily watched Jane selecting a new dry log for the fire, considering the options in the basket: the ash or the oak, fast burn/slow burn.

‘Don’t suppose Eirion called?’

‘Wouldn’t know,’ Jane said, insouciant. ‘Haven’t had the mobile switched on all day.’

The call came just after ten. Jane was watching Law and Order , the one about sex crimes, Merrily’s eyes closing when the mobile chimed on the arm of the sofa.

‘Sophie rang me,’ the Bishop said. Doleful.

‘Two seconds, Bernie.’

Merrily took the mobile into the kitchen, where the cold air was like a razor. The Aga had swallowed two gallons of oil a day, but it had had its compensations.

‘I suppose a grovelling apology’s due,’ the Bishop said. ‘All I can say is that I kept nothing from you. Not intentionally.’

‘That’s reassuring. Kind of.’

‘And I’m still no wiser, Merrily. Although, yes, I am now inclined to believe that the initial information I was given by Adam Eastgate is … probably incomplete.’

‘ Incomplete . That’s a very elastic word, Bernie.’

‘Whether any concealment of information is down to the Duchy I would personally doubt. I don’t think Adam’s the sort of man to play a double game. However I, ah … Sophie did say she’d felt obliged to tell you that we’d also had a call from, ah …’

‘A private number in Canterbury?’

‘Yes, well, whoever it was from, I was advised that the best way of dealing with this might be simply to allow my Deliverance consultant to devote herself to uncovering what there is be uncovered. Without the usual constraints on her time.’

It was Canterbury who wanted the investigation?

‘So – let’s just clarify this, Bernie – there is more to it than a decidedly iffy haunting.’

‘I’m assuming there is. I honestly do not know.’

‘But someone in Canterbury does.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Bernie, we’re not somehow … indirectly working for the security services, are we?’

‘Good God, Merrily …’

‘All right. Suppose I was to conclude that the ghost story was a fabrication.’

‘You can do that?’

‘It’s a possibility.’

‘Then please do it,’ the Bishop said. ‘Soonest.’

Afterwards, she felt exhausted, but couldn’t settle. With the half-eight Eucharist tomorrow, she ought to be in bed, but …

She made two mugs of hot chocolate, took one to Jane in the parlour then came back, sat down in the scullery and reopened the phone. Rang Felix Barlow and asked if it would be OK to come and speak to Fuchsia tomorrow.

‘I know it’s late, Felix, but I need to fit it into my fairly rigid Sunday schedule. I’m sorry.’

‘Hang on, would you?’

Felix didn’t sound happy. Merrily heard him moving back into his tin home, and thought there were raised voices. She drank some chocolate, lit a cigarette, still unsure of what to make of this. It wasn’t unprecedented, but – if you excluded council tenants desperate to be rehoused – it was rare for anyone to invent a ghost story. Rarer still for anyone to transpose a relatively well known fictional story into a real situation.

After just over a minute, Felix returned and told Merrily that Fuchsia didn’t want to talk to her.

‘No offence to you, Mrs Watkins. She gets like this. Maybe leave it a few days?’

‘A few days ?’

‘We’ll get back to you, all right?’

‘No. I’m afraid it’s not all right. I’m under a certain pressure to get this sorted one way or—’

‘ You ’re under pressure …’ She heard the clangs of him hurriedly clambering down the caravan steps into the night, then his voice, upclose and frayed. ‘Tell the Duchy we won’t be touching that job now under any circumstances, all right?’

‘But that—’

‘Yeah, I know this is me burning my boats with them for ever, and that’s some kind of madness, and I’m going to regret it for a long time, but that’s the size of it.’

He was panting.

‘Has something happened, Felix?’

‘We’ve told you everything we can. Why do you need us any more?’

‘Because …’ Merrily really didn’t want to say any of this to him, she needed to put it directly to Fuchsia, but it was late and she was overtired, and … ‘… because I’m not sure you have told me everything.’

‘I have to go now.’

‘Where is she?’

‘In the … bathroom. Doing her hair. She got soaked.’

‘Tell me one thing. Has anyone else been to talk to her about that house? Or to you?’

‘Why would they?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You think Fuchsia’s holding something back, is it, Mrs Watkins? Or do you think she’s lying?’

‘I think we need to discuss it again, that’s all.’

‘ You think she’s lying, Mrs Watkins? ’

Oh God, why had she made this call? Why hadn’t she thought about it first? Or maybe prayed for advice, sat in silence and listened to the voice inside.

‘How’s she been, Felix, since the blessing?’

Through the scullery’s open doorway, the kitchen clock ticked off the seconds of silence in the phone.

‘I think she’s been back,’ Felix said.

‘Back?’

‘To Garway. To the Master House. I had to go and collect some timber for the barn, and when I got home she wasn’t here. Gone off in the van. When she got back it was dark. She said she’d been shopping in Hereford. Which is something she never does on a Saturday. Hates crowds.’

‘How do you know she went back to the house?’

‘Because we still got a key to the place. When I said I’d take it back to the Duchy, Adam said no hurry. Likely still thinking we might go back to the job one day.’

‘And the key was missing?’

‘It’s back now. And, no, she won’t talk about it.’

‘All right,’ Merrily said. ‘How about I come over now?’

‘ No! ’

‘I think it might help.’

‘It might help you, it wouldn’t help me. If she won’t let me go back to the bloody place because it’s so evil, why did she go there again? You explain that?’

‘I can’t. I wish I’d known. I was in Garway this afternoon, too.’

‘At the house?’

‘No. I was at the church. I didn’t go to the house.’

‘Why not?’

Good question. Because I’d decided I was being misused, under-informed, short-changed. Because I was pissed off. Because it was raining .

‘If I’d known she was there, I would have, obviously.’ Christ, what a mess. ‘Felix, can you ask her to ring me? Can you tell her it’s very important?’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll try and get her to call you.’

‘Any time. Doesn’t matter how late.’

‘Yes.’

On which basis, Merrily took the mobile to bed and kept waking up in the night, thinking she was hearing its electronic chimes.