Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit

So why, to Lol, had she never seemed more of an enigma? What had caused her suddenly to launch into this place like a team of industrial cleaners? As if she’d known they were coming. Or someone else? Determined that the barn should project the image of a balanced, settled academic individual.

It was a façade; it had to be.

And the picture of her smiling father disturbed him. If Dick had noticed it, he didn’t comment. Lol looked closely at the photograph. When it was taken, Moon’s father would have been about Denny’s age – early to mid forties. He looked more like Moon than Denny did, the same smile and the same deepsunk, glittering eyes. Something black and gnarled lay on the mantelpiece below the picture. Lol bent to examine it.

‘Don’t touch that!’ Moon almost ran across the room, eased herself between Lol and the fireplace.

Lol stepped back. ‘I’m sorry…’

‘It’s very delicate.’

‘What is it?’

‘I found it. It was only about ten yards from the barn. Someone had started digging out a pond some time ago and never finished it, and there was a heap of soil where the ground was turned over, and it was actually projecting – sticking out.’

She moved aside to let them see, now they realized they mustn’t touch. It was knobbled and corroded, about ten inches long.

‘Anyone else, if they didn’t know about these things, they’d think it was just an old tractor part or something. I mean, nothing much has ever been found up here. A trench was once cut from the ramparts to the centre of the camp, and nothing much was found there except lots of black pottery and an axe-head.’

‘It’s a dagger,’ Lol decided.

‘A sword. Confirmation for me that this farm – not so much the house, but the farm – has been here since the Iron Age. It was waiting for me to find it. You see, now?’

‘Fate,’ Lol said hollowly.

‘Oh no,’ Moon said. ‘Far less random than fate.’

‘What’s that mean?’

Moon shook her head. He thought she smiled.

‘You could take it to a museum, have it cleaned up by experts.’

Moon was horrified. ‘Nobody’s going to touch it but me. I don’t want the flow blocked by anyone else’s vibrations.’

‘Good for you, Moon,’ said Dick. ‘Look, we must have a good long chat.’

‘Yes, but not today,’ Moon said. ‘My landlords are coming over for lunch. Tim and Anna Purefoy? From the farm?’

‘Ah.’ Dick nodded. ‘Excellent. Getting to know the neighbours.’

‘I’m meeting all the people who live around the hill – for my book. If I’m going to trace how the community’s changed over two millennia, I have to examine its components. Quite a few of the newcomers here are very interested too. They’re going to help me.’

‘Terrific.’ Dick looked like he wanted to pat her on the head. ‘Can’t wait to read it.’

Later, when Dick went to have fun reversing the Mitsubishi out of the morass in front of the barn where someone had once started to dig a pond, Moon came to stand next to Lol in the doorway.

‘Don’t bring him here again.’

‘He’ll hear you.’

‘I don’t care if he does. I don’t want him here. He’s an idiot. Denny only employed him to get the court off our backs.’

‘ Your back, Moon.’

‘He’s an idiot.’

‘He means well.’

‘Lol, If you come here again as Dick’s assistant, I won’t tell you anything in future. I don’t need people around me I can’t trust.’

The slanting rain plucked at the mud.

‘I’m sorry,’ Lol said. ‘Do you want me to come back?’

She looked at him, smiling almost coyly. ‘Only as yourself.’

As Merrily rolled gratefully into bed, the phone rang.

‘Unplug it!’ Jane screeched from the landing. ‘Unplug it now ! I’ll get it downstairs.’

‘Hello,’ Merrily said. ‘Ledwardine Vicarage.’

‘Merrily? It’s Sophie at the Bishop’s office. Michael asked me to ring. We wondered if you’d be popping into town today and, if so, could you call in?’

‘Well, I wasn’t planning…’ On the one hand, she very much needed to talk to the Bishop; on the other, not in this state. ‘Bit tied up this morning.’

‘Oh. Well, this afternoon there’ll be nobody here. Better make it tomorrow, I suppose. It’s just a little job – in connection with the Deliverance side of things.’

‘Oh?’

‘I don’t imagine it’s terribly urgent.’

‘Good. Sophie, do all the Deliverance cases come through your office?’

‘Well, it’s intended that they should. I’m afraid Canon Dobbs was less organized.’

‘What about the problem last night at the General Hospital?’

‘At the hospital? Was there a problem?’

‘So it didn’t come through the office?’

‘It didn’t come through me .’

‘If you weren’t there, would the Bishop have handled it himself?’

‘They wouldn’t normally get through to the Bishop. Anyway he wasn’t here last night. He was at his parents’ home in the Forest of Dean. They thought his father had suffered another heart attack but it was a false alarm, I’m glad to say.’

‘Oh,’ Merrily said, ‘good.’

‘Did you have to go to the hospital, then, Merrily?’

‘Yes, I did.’ She gripped the phone tightly. If Hunter had been away, then who had directed the hospital to approach her? Who set her up for Denzil Joy’s grisly farewell party?

‘Merrily, are you all right?’

‘Yes, I… This other job – can you tell me what that is?’

‘I’m not sure I should over the phone.’

‘You don’t need to mention names.’

‘Well, it’s… a haunting. At a home for the elderly. Near Dorstone, out towards the Welsh border.’

‘And where did that come from? Who told you about it?’

‘It came from the new vicar of Dorstone, I believe. Michael had asked me to keep him informed of any reports of this nature, and when I mentioned it to him he said he’d like you to… take a crack at it, as he put it. He…’ She hesitated. ‘What he went on to say, if I’m not speaking out of turn, is that it would be a test of how committed you were.’

‘Committed?’

‘Frankly, he feels you’re rather stalling. He’d expected a firm answer by now. When we spoke on the phone, he asked if I’d heard from you.’

‘I see. So if I sidestep this haunting, or suggest the Vicar of Dorstone handles it himself, he’ll take that as a no.’

‘I may be wrong about that.’

Sophie was never wrong. Merrily felt she could almost see the hand of fate, grey-gloved in the half-light of the bedroom.

From the landing, Jane called out, ‘For Christ’s sake, Mum!’

In Merrily’s head, the demonic Denzil Joy sat up in bed for the last time, tubes flying out of his nose in twin puffs of snot. Huw Owen’s voice echoed over the Brecon Beacons. Might as well just paint a great big bullseye between your tits .

And , she thought, it was Dobbs, wasn’t it? It was bloody Dobbs – it has to be. Dobbs set me up .

She felt light-headed with fatigue. She knew that later, when she awoke again, she was going to be very angry, but now the rage was still misty and distant.

So were the words she spoke, so faintly that she wasn’t sure she hadn’t merely thought them. ‘I’ll come in tomorrow then, Sophie. Ten? Ten-thirty?’

She didn’t hear the reply, wasn’t even aware of hanging up the phone.

There were no dreams, thank God.

SHE STOPPED AT the top of the gatehouse stairs, rubbing circulation back into her hands. It seemed to have become winter overnight. The waxed jacket felt as flimsy as a bin-liner. No good, she’d have to get herself a proper coat when she had time.