Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit

‘I’m sorry, Eileen.’ Merrily blew her nose. ‘This is ridiculous.’

‘It’s that, all right. How the devil he found the strength to sit up like that is beyond me. He was a husk, so he was. Nothing left. What the hell did you do ?’

‘Do?’ She crushed the wet tissue into her palm – the palm of the scritch-scratch . ‘God knows.’

‘You reckon?’

‘How would I know? I was completely out of my depth. No real idea what I was supposed to be doing. This is a bloody mug’s game, Eileen. A charade, maybe. Play-acting?’

My bit was play-acting; his was real .

‘Hey, I didn’t hear that. This is your profession.’ Cullen put a hand on her knee. ‘We’ll go into my office for a cuppa, soon as I get Protheroe to do the necessary.’

‘The necessary?’

‘Lay the poor bastard out. We’re none of us scared of dead bodies, are we? Not even this one, although… you didn’t see his face, did you?’

Merrily shook her head. ‘I was on the floor by then. Could only see the back of his head and those tubes flying out of his nose when he… rose up.’

She shuddered. The snapping of the tubes; she could still hear it.

‘That’s lucky. You’ll maybe get some sleep tonight.’ Eileen Cullen dragged on her cigarette. ‘Jesus, he was frightened. I thought at first it was me he was looking at. But he’s staring over my shoulder, out of the door into thin air. Nobody there. Nobody I could see. And the look on his face: like somebody was coming for him, you know? Like the person he feared most in all the world was standing in that doorway, waiting to… Oh, Jesus, the things you see in this job, you could go out of your mind if you hadn’t so much to bloody do.’

‘Waiting to take him away,’ Merrily said drably. ‘Whatever it was was waiting to take him away.’

‘It’s the chemicals is all it is. The chemicals in the brain. Some people that close to the end, the chemicals ease the way, you know?’

‘The angels on the threshold.’ Merrily blew her nose again into the sodden tissue.

‘Or the Devil. Whatever cocktail of volatile chemicals was sloshing round in that man’s head, they must’ve shown him the Devil and all his works.’

‘Which means I failed.’

‘Natural justice, Merrily.’

‘That’s not the way it’s supposed to work.’ There was a question she needed to ask, a really obvious question. What was it? She couldn’t think.

‘Come and have that cuppa.’

‘Thanks, but I need to get home. I’ve got my daughter.’

‘You want someone to drive you? I think you’re in shock, you know.’

‘God no, I’ll be fine. Maybe I should come back later and… cleanse the place?’

‘What, with all the patients awake?’ Cullen stood up. ‘You in there flashing the big cross and doing the mumbo-jumbo? Forget it. Mop and bucket’ll see it right. It’s over.’

‘Is it?’

‘What do you want me to say? I’m a non-believer. Was all chemicals, Merrily, maybe a few of yours as well, don’t you think? You go sleep it off. We’ll tell the Bishop or who you like that you did a terrific job.’

The Bishop?

‘I’d rather you said I’d never even been.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘Tell them I didn’t answer the phone when you rang.’

‘Get yourself some rest. Call me at home sometime. I’ve written the number on your ciggy packet.’ Sister Cullen squeezed her shoulder. ‘Thank you, Merrily. You did OK, I reckon.’

‘For a Bible-basher?’

The Bishop?

Had the Bishop set her up for it?

This was the question she’d meant to ask. She remembered that as she was leaving the building, pulling on her coat. Who exactly had told them to contact her? Who had advised them that Merrily Watkins was Deliverance-trained and available for work?

Had to be him. He was dangerous. Michael Hunter – Bishop Cool – was a dangerous man to have organizing your career.

There was light in the sky and a cold wind. What the hell time was it? Where had she left the car all those hours ago when all she’d had to think about was Dobbs? She hurried down the drive and into the deserted street full of fresh cold air from the hills.

It was the cold inside that scared her. She stood and shivered by the entrance to the shambling jumble of a hospital where the body of Denzil Joy lay cooling.

I was raped . Like icy letters in the sky. He raped me .

She felt greasy, slimy, soiled, used. He’d made his smell go into her, had scratched himself an entrance hole. And then he’d died, he’d gone away, but he’d left his filthy essence inside her. She needed a long shower, needed to pray. Needed to think. Because this would not, could not have happened to a male priest, a male exorcist.

I need exorcizing .

Violently she zipped up her fading waxed coat and strode away into the pre-dawn murk. She would find a church that was open or, failing that, would go to her own church in Ledwardine. She couldn’t take the pitiful, disgusting dregs of Denzil home to Jane. She would have to go into a church and pray for his soul. Pray for it to be taken away somewhere and stripped and cleaned.

She saw that the old blue Volvo had been very badly parked, even for three in the morning: standing half on the grass near the little gardens where the footpath went up and then down to the Wye. Another six inches and she’d have backed into a sign saying: NO PARKING. KEEP ENTRANCE CLEAR. She fumbled out her keys.

‘Excuse me, madam.’

He’d blundered out of the bushes, a big heavy guy in some kind of rally anorak, luminous stripe down one arm. ‘Is this your car?’

‘Who are you?’

‘Police. How long has the car been here, please?’

All she needed.

‘Look, I’m sorry, I was in a hurry and I thought it’d be OK.’

‘When did you park it?’

‘About three, I suppose.’

‘To go to the hospital?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘Look,’ Merrily said, exasperated, ‘it could’ve been parked a whole lot better, I agree. I’m very sorry. Give me a ticket or whatever. I’m a bit knackered, OK?’

‘It isn’t about parking, miss. Would you mind telling me your name, please?’

‘After I see your ID.’ Merrily unlocked the Volvo. If he took any time producing his warrant card, she was out of here. You didn’t trust big guys in the semi-dark – not these days.

‘It’s all right, Peter. It’s her.’ A woman in a long white raincoat emerged from the river path. ‘Ms Watkins, Person of the Cloth. I’ll deal with this.’

The big man nodded, trudged back up the footpath.

Merrily sighed. ‘DI Howe.’

‘Acting DCI, actually.’

‘The old fast track’s moved up a gear, has it?’ Weariness loosening Merrily’s reserve. ‘Let me guess, I’ve walked into some kind of stake-out. Colombian drugs barons are bringing a consignment up the Wye?’

Annie Howe didn’t laugh. It occurred to Merrily that she had yet ever to hear Annie Howe laugh. Her short, ashen hair gleamed dully like a helmet in the early light.

‘You priests work long hours. Sick parishioner?’

‘Dead,’ Merrily said. ‘Just now.’

‘Obviously a night for it, Ms Watkins.’

‘For what?’

Annie Howe came to stand next to her, glancing into the Volvo. She was maybe five years younger than Merrily – a smooth, efficient, over-educated CID person, both feet on the escalator. During the police hunt in Ledwardine earlier this year, Jane had remarked that Howe reminded her of a Nazi dentist. You could tell where the kid was coming from.

‘We’ve pulled a body out of the Wye, Ms Watkins. Just down there, not far from Victoria Bridge.’