Phil Rickman - The Fabric of Sin

‘If they stayed in contact, Sophie, that doesn’t totally add up. Dobbs’s attitude to spirituality, while not exactly fundamentalist, was certainly tightly focused.’

‘Merrily, you only encountered him at the very end. We’re talking about the 1930s, when he was a boy, and Laurens van der Post a young man. They may not subsequently have followed the same spiritual paths, but in their questing years … Anyway, they were exchanging letters almost until van der Post’s death.’

‘You know this for a fact?’

‘I confirmed it about an hour ago, with Mrs Edna Rees. You remember her?’

‘Yes, I do.’

Dobbs’s housekeeper in Gwynne Street who had once told Merrily he hardly spoke to her. A cloistered existence in his later years.

‘She sometimes, in his absence, managed to clean his office,’ Sophie said. ‘And she remembers the letters.’

Merrily recalled Mrs Rees. Stolid West Herefordshire countrywoman. Shrewd.

OK, crafty.

‘She read these letters?’

‘As Canon Dobbs was apparently shutting her out – unnecessarily, she felt – I would guess she saw it as justified. How far she understood them is another matter. The parts that stuck in her mind, inevitably, were the references to the late Princess Diana.’

‘By Dobbs ?’

‘It’s been widely reported, since, that Sir Laurens was not entirely in favour of that marriage. Once describing the poor child as, I recall, a pinhead .’

‘Sharing his opinions with Dobbs? Elderly men conspiring against Diana?’

‘So it seemed to Mrs Rees.’

‘A big Diana fan, I’d guess.’

‘Until then, she hadn’t really known who Laurens van der Post was.’

‘When was this?’

‘Early nineties, I would guess. Mrs Rees made it her business to find out about him – afterwards, of course. And although she insists she never discussed the correspondence with anyone from that day to this, I think she was rather glad to have finally unloaded it all on … someone.’

Someone who worked for the cathedral . And who – humiliatingly excluded, for the first time, from the Bishop’s confidence – would be bitterly identifying with Mrs Rees’s dilemma.

‘Well,’ Merrily said, ‘it’s certainly fascinating from an historical perspective, but—’

‘There’s more. Mrs Rees believes something was entrusted by Sir Laurens to Canon Dobbs – information, perhaps even a package of some kind. Canon Dobbs never actually accused her of reading his mail, but a locksmith arrived one day to change the locks on his study door, and this time Mrs Rees never found the keys.’

‘Any idea what it was?’

‘There was one significant reference in the last letter she saw from Sir Laurens. He … believed he was under surveillance.’

‘Well, that would figure. Anybody that close to the heir to the throne, the security services would be bound to check him out.’

‘Yes, I suppose.’

‘I don’t know what to say about this, Sophie. It’s intriguing, but unlikely to have any bearing on what I’m supposed to be dealing with. It’s all getting too crowded for me. I just want to strip it down to the basics, get the right people in one room, hold a suitable service. I’m just a small-time cleric in the sticks – let’s not get too ambitious.’

‘Oh,’ Sophie said.

‘What?’

‘The Bishop’s here.’

‘With you now?’

‘Standing in my porch. I can see him through the window.’

‘He usually show up this time of night?’

‘No. I’m going to have to go and let him in.’

‘Of course you are.’

Jane said everything was absolutely fine which, if you knew Jane at all, meant that everything was very much not fine.

‘Can you talk? I mean, is Siân there?’

‘She’s not far away.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing I can’t handle.’

‘Jane, I don’t want you handling anything .’

‘Mum, have you seen the Baphomet again? I mean, have you been back to that house?’

‘Don’t change the subject. Do I need to come back to deal with anything?’

‘Of course not. Don’t even think about it.’

‘If you need any advice,’ Merrily said, ‘you go to Lol, OK?’

‘Sure. When he’s here. Listen, if you’re going to, like, cleanse that place, it’s going to be a problem, isn’t it?’

‘What is?’

‘The Baphomet. You’ll be taking it on. Some kind of power symbol that maybe goes back to Celtic times? The Baphomet is also a representation of the great god Pan – nature at its most merciless and ferocious. I’d be a bit careful.’

‘You watch too many weird DVDs, Jane.’

‘Yeah, well, even practising Satanists have to relax sometimes,’ Jane said. ‘Goodnight, Mum. Sleep well.’

THE SLEEP, AS Mrs Morningwood had predicted, had been deep, and there were no clinging dreams. The muted chimes of the phone awoke Merrily. She rolled out of bed, the mobile clutched, like some throbbing fledgling, in her hand. Dislodging the bedside table, the lamp wobbling, her watch falling, and then the Bishop saying, very clearly, ‘Merrily, I’m going to ask you to wind this up.’

She sank down to the floor.

‘Give me a moment, Bernie.’

On hands and knees, patting the carpet for her watch. The window was flushed with pink and orange. What the hell time was it?

‘I’m sorry if you’re not yet up and about,’ Bernie Dunmore said, ‘but I wanted to catch you before you went anywhere. After all, you didn’t even tell me you were doing this.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Didn’t tell me that you were going to stay at Garway Hill.’ His voice distant, abnormally formal. ‘In fact, my information—’

‘I couldn’t. You weren’t there.’

‘—My understanding of the situation was that you’d found some obvious discrepancies in this pitiful woman’s story which had rendered further inquiries unnecessary. You told me yourself last Saturday that you could prove fabrication.’

‘That’s not … I’m afraid that’s not true, not any more. And as for not knowing I was coming here …’ On her feet now, couldn’t believe this. ‘You wanted me to come and stay at Garway. Remember? Full attention? Need to get you a locum? ’

‘I may have overreacted,’ the Bishop said.

‘That was what I thought at the time, but it’s a bit, you know … it’s a bit late now.’

‘Late?’

‘Two people died?’

She walked barefooted to the window, the valley rising into view then plunging into a mist that was opaque, like set honey. She was wide awake now, and she didn’t understand.

‘Merrily, let’s be sensible about this.’

‘I’m trying—’

‘I do know about the deaths. I also know of no one, apart, it seems, from yourself, who is connecting them, in any way, with these alleged disturbances at Garway.’

‘Bernie—’

‘Furthermore, I do not believe that it would be in the best interests either of the Diocese or the deliverance ministry if it were to become known that we were making something out of this. Do I really need to remind you why having Deliverance linked with the taking of life, whether it’s suicide or murder or, in this case, God forbid, both , is—’

‘No. You don’t.’

‘Good.’

‘And the subtext here is what, Bernie?’

‘Just come home,’ the Bishop said, as though she was abroad. ‘Administer a blessing, if you think it’s necessary, and then come back. There are other issues we need to discuss. Organizational issues. Re organization.’