Phil Rickman - The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

‘And you think this was what sent Dacre up Stanner Rocks in a snowstorm? Confirmation that this was Brigid Parsons and she hadn’t changed?’

‘We’ll be looking at Sebbie’s mobile, to see who he rang last night, who he might’ve made an appointment with. Unfortunately, the thing was smashed on the rocks, so it’ll have to go to the boffins. But, yeh, you’re right, I reckon. Puts paid to any doubts he might’ve had that the lovely Natalie was indeed his little cousin Brigid. And it gives him more leverage. Being arrested for GBH, if you happen to be Brigid Parsons, it’s not gonna be a smack on the wrist, is it? Also, think of the publicity. Sebbie gives her an ultimatum, re sale of farm... she sends him on his last journey.’

‘Frannie, would anybody in his right mind attempt to blackmail somebody known to be violent while standing with his back to a cliff edge?’

‘Who says he was in his right mind? Have you spoken to anybody thinks he was in his right mind? He was probably in an alcoholic haze. Besides, it didn’t end there. Just pushing the feller off the cliff, see, that wasn’t very Brigid. A bit perfunctory.’ Bliss rubbed his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, I don’t know why I’m—’

‘Go on.’

‘Zelda Morgan? Matrimonial ambitions?’

‘I remember.’

‘Zelda was at her mother’s seventieth birthday party in Kington, didn’t get back to Sebbie’s till just before we talked to her last night. Checked the answering machine but she didn’t get round to checking the voice-mail on her mobile till an hour or so ago when she woke up in the armchair. Bit of a shock, out comes Sebbie’s voice, being very Sebbie. “Get your” – excuse me, Reverend – “get your fat arse over here. Get the police. Fucking madwoman’s pushed me off the fucking rocks, and I can’t move.” ’

‘What?’

‘The voice of an injured man, possibly, but certainly not the voice of a dying man. Billy Grace was right. The facial injuries were not entirely consistent with a fall. She followed him down and beat him to a pulp. She’s not a pussycat, Merrily.’

‘Can I talk to her again?’

‘And would you like to tell me why?’

‘I don’t know why.’

‘About this Vaughan connection, yeh? What’s that mean to you?’

‘Frannie, this could take a while.’

‘Never mind,’ Bliss said.

At six-thirty a.m. Merrily went up to Hattie Chancery’s room with a Gideon Bible and the decanter of holy water.

Pictures of Hattie in the mustardy light. What struck her was how pale the woman had been, skin like white fish-flesh, anaemic.

There was a picture of her with the Middle Marches Hunt, which presumably provided regular infusions of blood.

Merrily shivered. Hardy was right: the entire room was a cold spot, the atmosphere thick with something she could only interpret as loathing. It could be Hattie; it could also be Brigid.

I was lying up in her room, surrounded by creepy old photos of the bitch. The biggest one, I had to clean the glass and I did that by spitting in her face, over and over again.

Merrily loosened the stopper on the decanter.

When she came down, Bliss was in the lobby, putting down the phone. There was concern in his eyes when he saw her; she must have looked something like she felt.

‘You’ve gorra tell me, Merrily.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, come on .’

It was up to Ben to tell him about the video, so what she told him, in the end, was about Lol and Dexter. What Dexter had done to Darrin and to Alice, what he’d tried to do to Lol, how it had ended and what lay on the floor of the inner hall of Ledwardine Vicarage.

Stuck out here in the snowy wastes, Bliss hadn’t caught up with the Hook inquiry. By the time Merrily finished, expressions were shifting around his face like jigsaw pieces in search of a picture. He walked away across the lobby and then back again. He stood in front of Merrily, chewing his lip, and then he turned his head and nodded at the lounge door.

‘Yeah, OK. Go in. Tell Alma I said you could have her.’

‘Well... thanks.’

It was time, then. No excuse.

As the C of E Deliverance manual kept underlining, when you conducted a Requiem Eucharist in an exorcism context, it was advisable to have at least one other priest there and preferably several. This was for a normal service, with full preparation taking place over several days. This was with a congregation of carefully vetted Christians.

With no back-up, and a congregation including two spiritualists, a trance-medium, a Roman Catholic, a teenage pagan – kind of – and a murderer, you just tossed the book over your shoulder and prayed for survival.

IT WAS BETTER in here now. Clouded with damp mist and shadows, but the candles were glowing brightly on the makeshift altar, unexpected stars in a murky sky, and the murmured amens were rising to join hers, this soft miasma of voices, a fuller response than she’d expected.

It was as if the ritual itself was controlling the conditions, making rough but perfectly symmetrical interweaving shapes in the void. The living and the dead, and the holy. One small circle of light.

Or maybe she was delusional through lack of sleep, and this was autopilot.

Before the others had even come up from the kitchen, she’d done some sprinkling of newly sanctified water, the routine blessing of the room. Haunted-house procedure. Then a short prayer, once they were all inside. And then a repeated blessing after the Dr Bell episode and the Vaughan revelations – all this probably helping her as much as anyone, calming her nerves, setting up a receptive state of mind.

Careful devotional preparation before the service is recommended for every communicant . And also for the priest, naturally.

Oh sure...

There was a white cloth on the altar, a small chalice for the wine, a saucer for the wafers. Beth Pollen had assisted here. Merrily glimpsed Beth sitting next to Jane, staring straight ahead with focus and determination.

There seemed to be twelve of them now, including Brigid and Bliss and Alma. Antony Largo, wherever he was, had made no attempt to come in and his cameras were gone. The one she knew least was Clancy: school skirt, white school blouse, dark golden hair overhanging her eyes, her mouth sullen – eerily like the young Brigid, whose same picture, from a school photo, had been appearing in the papers for years and years.

Twelve of them. Twelve and Hattie. More holy water sprinkled in Hattie’s room before leaving. Lord God, our heavenly Father, you neither slumber nor sleep. Bless this bedroom...

Merrily connected now with that. It was the beginning. She stepped out with her Bible and her service printout.

‘ “I am the resurrection and the life,” the Lord says. “Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die...” ’

We have all got a sperrit something like a spark inside we , said the old man to Mrs Leather.

The brown mud in the stained-glass window began to clear in the early dawn, suggestions of colour rising like oil in a puddle.

‘So this is a service with Holy Communion to bring peace to Hattie Davies – Hattie Chancery, who died by her own hand before the Second World War. But I’d also like us to remember, in our prayers, Hattie’s daughter, Paula, who was also a suicide, and Paula’s daughter, Brigid who is... with us.’

With the aid of a car battery provided by Ben, she’d managed to print out the order of service from Common Worship on the C of E Web site. Close to the top of the service – and lest anyone forget what this was about – she’d brought in a serious Confession that she made them repeat after her, line by line.