Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

Pause.

‘Whiteleafed … ?’

‘Oak.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I’m sorry, Winnie, but I think you do,’ Merrily said, gripping the big bakelite phone for some kind of support. ‘Whiteleafed Oak is a hamlet at the southern tip of the Malverns. It seems to be the joining point of the three counties: Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire.’

Winnie was silent.

‘The three counties that come together every year for what seems to be the world’s oldest music festival, the Three Choirs. Which, although it only officially dates back to the eighteenth century, reflects something a lot older. I mean, the concept of … perpetual choirs?’

It had taken most of an hour to become basically conversant with this from the information that Lol had picked up from Athena White (Oh God, Athena White?) and it was coming up to eight p.m., and half of the churchyard wall was in shadow.

At one stage, Merrily had gone up to Jane’s apartment in search of books which might illuminate the subject, coming down with a paperback entitled Sound and the Shaman and not discovering, until she’d laid it on the desk in front of Lol, that it had been published by an American company called Taliesin and written by one C. Winchester Sparke – the name appearing in small, perfunctory lettering under a picture of an Irish bodhran drum with feathers attached to its frame. One of those books which sold purely on subject, and the author’s identity was of little significance.

In the beginning , the book began, was – and is – the sound .

‘The idea of perpetual choirs seems to have begun as a Druidic concept. It also seems to link into the theory of the Music of the Spheres, attributed to Pythagoras, way back before Christ. In which the planets are believed to resonate according to a musical pattern that maintains celestial harmony. A perfect universe.’

Merrily paused, looking at Lol. Felt like she was in the pulpit. Lol was nodding.

‘The perpetual choirs – stop me if you start to lose interest – were supposed to have maintained that level of harmony on earth. As above, so below. Each choir would have at least twelve members – monks in Christian times, bards or whatever before that. Singing in shifts so that it never stopped. And the choirs were said to have been set up in churches or temples on the perimeters of huge circles in the countryside.’

But where did this idea come from? Merrily had demanded desperately, watching Lol spreading out an OS map on the carpet. A map with black lines and circles drawn on it.

He had, after all, obtained the information from Athena White, a little old woman whom Merrily had encountered perhaps twice, in those scary early days of Deliverance. A long-retired civil servant with a child’s voice and a child’s instinctive, remorseless cunning. A repository of arcane data who’d made that intimidating new assignment seem even more like a journey to the centre of the Earth. Merrily had been slightly afraid for the woman’s soul, whereas wary, tentative Lol could casually approach Athena – real name Anthea, it helped to keep reminding yourself of that – and emerge … enlightened?

Or at least slightly infatuated. The musician lit up by this beautiful but possibly apocryphal concept resurrected in the early 1970s in England by the earth-mysteries scholar John Michell, who had suggested that maintaining the perpetual chant was how the Druids kept control over the Celtic tribes – presumably because nobody would risk breaking the sonic connection between heaven and earth. And then it was absorbed by Christian communities, perhaps using Gregorian chant, and…

‘Only fragments of knowledge seem to remain. Apparently it was thought that there were twelve choirs in a circle, like a big clock. But, as I say, only fragmentary … Three Choirs. Twelve choristers. The figures one and two adding up to—’

‘Who told you all this?’

Winnie Sparke’s voice was distant, as if she was looking away from the phone, into space.

‘Of course, you can explain anything with numbers. Biblical scholars do it all the time, but … chanting, in any religion you can name, is designed to induce a higher state of consciousness. And something – psychological or whatever – something certainly seemed to work when Tim Loste put choirs of twelve into three churches, one in each of the three counties. Two ancient churches and Wychehill, which was built on an ancient site.’

‘You did some homework.’

‘I had help. We … don’t have a record of Druidic chant, but Gregorian chant goes back a long, long way. And Elgar … while Elgar’s music is modern, it arose from his grounding in the Catholic church and I think much of it was nurtured and developed by the Three Choirs Festival.’

The festival rotates among the cathedrals of Hereford, Worcester and Gloucester, right? Lol had said. All of which are at least medieval. Obviously, Loste doesn’t have access to cathedrals, but little-used ancient parish churches are easier, and the three he chose are roughly equidistant to Whiteleafed Oak, where the counties converge. And there’s more …

‘Over the years, Elgar wrote a lot of music for the Three Choirs, I believe,’ Merrily said. ‘Having been connected with the festival since, I understand, the age of nine. Or, if you want to be esoteric about it, that would be three times three.’

‘Listen.’ Winnie Sparke’s voice was higher now, and sounding satisfyingly abraded. ‘I don’t have time for this right now.’

‘You keep saying that.’

‘You don’t understand. I have to go collect Tim.’

‘Where from, his self-defence class?’

‘Goddamn you, Merrily—’

‘I’m sorry, that was— You have something planned for tonight, don’t you? Choirs singing in the three counties from nine p.m. till three a.m. Is that because this is the last chance you’ll get to approach what you—?’

‘That your doing?’ Winnie’s voice was like cracking ice. ‘Getting us kicked out of the church?’

‘No, of course it isn’t. It had already happened when I…’

Merrily waited, the big phone clammy against her ear.

‘OK, listen,’ Winnie said, ‘I spend all of Friday and Saturday evenings with Tim. When the Royal Oak starts up. He’ll go crazy, else. I get down there well before dark and sometimes we have to get out of Wychehill. We go … we go someplace.’

‘Like Whiteleafed Oak,’ Merrily said. ‘Was that where you sent Tim when the parish meeeting was on in Wychehill?’

‘Why can’t you just leave us alone ?’

‘I wish I could, but I can’t.’

‘ Why can’t you?’

‘Because nobody tells me the whole truth. And when so much is being hidden—’

‘Sometimes things have to be hidden, you stupid woman. For the sake of preservation.’

‘I didn’t mean that. This is—’

So difficult. So easy for the cops, but a priest had no right to demand answers and you were on shaky ground even asking questions.

‘Malcolm France,’ Merrily said. ‘Do you know about that?’

‘Who?’

‘Malcolm France was found dead this afternoon, at his office in Hereford.’

Two seconds of silence almost sizzling on the line.

‘What are you doing?’ Winnie screamed. ‘Why are you lying ? Why are you giving me this shit?’

‘France was murdered. He was shot, repeatedly. I’m sorry if—’

Winnie’s breathing was turning to panting.

‘I want to help,’ Merrily said. ‘I would like to help you.’

And then she kept quiet, not wanting to give away how little she knew.

‘France was killed?’