Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

Betty smiled. The book-stuffed kitchen was stiflingly warm.

‘And so, with great reluctance, Terry took me into his living room. And when I say living room... it contained not only his chair and his writing desk, but also his bed, which was just a sleeping bag! He told me he was repainting his bedroom, but I wasn’t fooled. This single room was Terry’s home. He was camping in this one room, like in a bedsitter, and, apart from the kitchen, the rest of the rectory was closed off. I doubt he even used a bathroom. Washed himself at the sink instead, I’d guess – when he even remembered to. Not terribly... Is there something the matter, Mrs Thorogood?’

Betty shook her head. ‘Please go on.’

‘Well, he’d chosen this room, I guessed, because of the builtin bookshelves. He might not have had much furniture or many private possessions, but he had a good many books. I always examine people’s bookshelves, and Terry’s books included a great deal of theology, as one would expect, but also an element of what might be termed the esoteric . Do you know the kind of thing I mean?’

‘The occult?’

‘That word, of course, merely means hidden. There was certainly a hidden side to Terry. He was perfectly affable, kind to the old people, good with children. But his sermons... I suppose they must have been beyond most of the congregation, including me occasionally. They were sometimes close to meditations, I suppose – as though he was still working out for himself the significance of a particular biblical text. When I told him about our dog Hopkins, he didn’t seem in the least surprised. He asked me how much I knew about the history of the area. At that time not a great deal, I admit. He asked me, particularly, if I knew of any legends about dragons.’

Betty cleared her throat. ‘Dragons.’

‘In the Radnor Forest.’

‘And did you?’

‘No. There’s very little recorded folklore relating specifically to Radnor Forest. The only mention I could find was from... Hold on a moment.’

Mrs Pottinger jumped up, her hair rising like wings, an outstretched finger moving vaguely like a compass needle. ‘Ah!’ She crossed the room and plucked a green-covered book from the row supported by tall kitchen weights on a window ledge. ‘You are enlivening my morning no end, Mrs Thorogood. So few people nowadays want to discuss such matters, especially with a garrulous old woman.’

She laid the book in front of Betty. It was called A Welsh Country Parson , by D. Parry-Jones. It fell open at a much-thumbed page.

‘Parry-Jones records here, if you can see, that a dragon had dwelt “deep in the fastnesses” of the Forest. And he records – this would be back in the twenties or thirties – a conversation with an old man who insisted he had heard the dragon breathing . All rather sketchy, I’m afraid, and somewhat fanciful. Anyway, it soon became clear to the people he was involved with on a day-to-day basis that Terry was becoming quite obsessed .’

Betty looked up from the book, shaken.

‘As a symbol of evil,’ Mrs Pottinger said, ‘a satanic symbol, the dragon from the Book of Revelation represents the old enemy . My impression was that Terry thought he was in some way being tested by God – by being sent to Old Hindwell, where the dragon was at the door. That God had a mission for him here. Well, English people who come to Wales sometimes do pick up rather strange ideas.’

Mrs Pottinger put on a rather superior smile, as though Scots were immune to such overreaction. Ignoring this, Betty said, ‘Did he believe there were so-called satanic influences at work in the Forest? I mean, is there a history of this... of witchcraft, say?’

‘If there was, not much is recorded. No famous witchcraft trials on either side of the border in this area. But, of course’ – a thin, sly smile – ‘that doesn’t mean it didn’t go on. Quite the reverse, one would imagine. It may have been so much a part of everyday life, something buried so deep in the rural psyche, that rooting it out might have been deemed... impractical.’

‘What about Cascob?’

‘Cascob? Oh, the charm.’ Mrs Pottinger beamed. ‘That is rather a wonderful mixture, isn’t it? Do you know some of those phrases are thought to have been taken from the writings of John Dee, the Elizabethan magus, who was born not far away, near Pilleth?’

‘Do you know anything about the woman, Elizabeth Loyd?’

‘Some poor child.’

‘Could she have been a witch? I mean, the wording of the exorcism suggests she was thought to be possessed by satanic evil. Suspected witches around that time were often thought to have... relations with the Devil.’

... some women are known to have boasted of it, Betty had read yesterday. The Devil’s member was described as being long and narrow and cold as ice ...

‘Nothing is known of her,’ Mrs Pottinger said, ‘or where her exorcism took place, or who conducted it. The historian Francis Payne suggests that the charm was probably buried to gain extra potency for the invocation.’

‘Buried?’

‘It was apparently dug up in the churchyard.’

Betty sat very still and nodded and tried to smile, and felt again the weight of a certain section of Cascob’s circular churchyard, and the chill inside the building.

‘Mrs Pottinger,’ she said quickly, ‘what finally happened to Terry Penney?’

‘Well, he’d virtually destroyed his own church – an unpardonable sin. He had effectively resigned. He’d already left the village before the crime was even discovered, taking with him his roomful of possessions in that old van he drove.’

‘You suggested in your letter to Major Wilshire that there’d been previous acts of vandalism.’

‘Did I? Yes, minor things. A small fire in a shed outside, spotted and dealt with by a churchwarden. Other petty incidents, too, as though he was building up to the main event.’

‘Where did he go after he left?’

‘No one knows, or much cared at the time. Except, perhaps, for me, for a while. But the Church was very quickly compensated for the damage done, so perhaps Terry had more money than it appeared. Perhaps his frugal lifestyle was a form of asceticism, a monkish thing. Anyway, he just went away – after setting in train the process which ultimately led to the decommissioning of Old Hindwell Church. And the village then erased him from its collective – and wonderfully selective – memory.’

‘You really didn’t like the place much, did you?’ Betty said bluntly.

‘You may take it that I did not feel particularly grateful to some of the inhabitants. We left in eighty-three. My husband had been unwell, so we thought we ought to live nearer to various amenities. That was what we told people, at least. And that’s...’ Mrs Pottinger’s voice became faint. ‘That’s what I’ve been telling people ever since.’

She sat back in her typing chair, blinked at Betty, then stared widely, as if she was waking up to something.

Betty returned the stare.

‘You’re really rather an extraordinary young woman, aren’t you?’ Mrs Pottinger said in surprise, as though she’d ceased many years ago to find young people in any way interesting. ‘I wonder why it is that I feel compelled to tell you the truth.’

‘The truth?’

‘Tell me,’ Mrs Pottinger said, ‘who’s your doctor?’

THERE WAS NO doorbell, so she knocked twice, three times. She was about to give up when he answered the door.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Reverend Watkins.’ Registering her only briefly before bending over the threshold, apparently to inspect the candles in the neighbouring windows. ‘Good.’