Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit

‘Precisely.’

‘I’ve no idea. It is our intention to build up a file or database, but I’m only just getting my feet under the table, and nothing like that seems to exist at present. My… predecessor—’

‘Is not going to be saying an awful lot to anyone for quite a while, from what I hear. If ever.’

‘I’m sorry about this.’ Merrily was desperate for another cigarette, but unwilling to display weakness in front of Howe – who leaned back and looked pensive.

‘Ms Watkins, what’s your gut feeling?’

‘My gut feeling… is that… although there’s no obvious pattern, there’s something a bit odd going on. I mean, I was on a course for Deliverance priests. All of us were vicars, rectors… Nobody does this full-time, that’s the point. We were told a diocesan exorcist might receive four, five assignments in a year.’

‘While you…?’

‘You want to see my appointments diary already – plus two satanic links within a week. Yes, you might find it worth following through on the Stretford case. I wonder if they ever return to the scene of the crime.’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I’m going back tonight to do what we call a minor exorcism.’

‘Interesting. If they’re local, they might not be able to resist turning up.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Thank you, Ms Watkins, we’ll be represented.’ Annie Howe snapped her briefcase shut.

‘Just one thing.’

‘Hmm?’

‘Could you make them Christians?’

‘Who?’

‘The coppers.’

‘Are you serious?’

‘Two reasons,’ Merrily said. ‘One is that, if they’re not, I can’t let them in. Two, a few extra devout bodies at an exorcism can only help – I understand.’

‘You understand.’

‘I’ve never done one before, have I?’

LOL SAT IN the flat above Church Street – Moon’s ‘Capuchin Lane’. He was waiting for Denny.

He’d been waiting for Denny for several hours. It was going dark again. The shop below, called John Barleycorn, had been closed all day. Denny had not yet said he was coming, but Lol knew that sooner or later he would have to.

It was Anna Purefoy who had found the photocopy, about the same time that Lol left the bathroom and Denny went in and they heard him roar, in his agony and outrage, like a maddened bull. It was Mrs Purefoy, Lol thought, who – in the choking aftermath of a tragedy that was all the more horrifying because it wasn’t a surprise – was the calmest of them.

‘Is Katherine dead?’

Lol had nodded, still carrying an image of the encrusted overflow grille. Like the mouth of a vortex, Moon’s life sucked into it.

‘Tim,’ Mrs Purefoy had said then, ‘I think you should telephone the police from our house. I don’t think we should touch anything here.’

And when Tim had gone, she’d led Lol to the telephone table by the side of the stairs. ‘I was about to phone for them myself, and then I saw this.’ Her red parka creaked as she bent over the table. ‘Did you know about this, Mr Robinson?’

It was a copy of a cutting from the Hereford Times , dated November 1984. It took Lol less than half a minute to make horrifying sense of it. He was stunned.

‘Did you know about it?’

A mad question maybe. Would anybody knowing about this have bought the old house?

By then, Denny had emerged from the bathroom, and was standing, head bowed, on the other side of the stairs. After a moment he looked up, wiped the back of a hand across his lips and shook his head savagely, his earring jangling. He didn’t look at Lol or Mrs Purefoy as he strode through the room and out of the barn, the door swinging behind him. You could hear his feet grinding snow to slush as he paced outside.

Mrs Purefoy said, ‘Did you know her very well, Mr Robinson?’

‘Not well enough, obviously,’ Lol said. ‘No… no I didn’t know her well.’

And then the police had arrived – two constables. After his first brief interview, not much more than personal details, Lol had gone out on the hill while they were talking to Denny and the Purefoys. He ascended the soggy earth-steps to the car, freezing up with delayed horror, a clogging of sorrow and shame backed up against a hundred questions.

He’d waited by the barn with Denny until they brought the body out. Hearing the splash and slap and gurgle and other sounds from the bathroom. Watching the utility coffin borne away to the postmortem. And then he and Denny had gone to Hereford police headquarters, where they were questioned separately by a uniformed sergeant and a detective constable. Statements were made and signed, Lol feeling numbed throughout.

He and Denny had had no opportunity to talk in any kind of privacy.

The police had shown Lol the old cutting from the Hereford Times and asked him if he’d seen it before, or if he was aware of the events decribed in the story.

Lol had told them he knew it had happened, but not like this. He’d always understood it had been a shotgun in the woods, but he didn’t remember how he had come to know that.

Later, the police let him read the item again. In the absence of a suicide note, they were obviously glad to have it. It made their job so much easier.

ANCIENT SWORD USED BY SUICIDE FARMER

Hereford farmer Harry Moon killed himself with a twothousand-year-old family heirloom, an inquest was told this week .

Mr Moon, who had been forced to sell Dyn Farm on Dinedor Hill because of a failed business venture, told his family he was going to take a last look around the farm before they moved out .

He was later found by his young son in a barn near the house, lying in a stone cattle trough with both wrists cut. Dennis Moon told Hereford Deputy Coroner Colin Hurley how he found a ten-inch long sword, an Iron Age relic, lying on his father’s chest .

‘The sword had hung in the hall for as long as I can remember,’ he said. ‘It was supposed to have been handed down from generation to generation.’

A verdict of suicide while the balance of mind was disturbed was recorded on 43-year-old Mr Moon, who…

‘And when you left her at the door on Saturday evening,’ the sergeant said, ‘how would you describe Miss Moon’s state of mind?’

‘Kind of… intense,’ Lol had said honestly.

‘Intense, how?’

‘She was researching a book about her family. I had the impression she couldn’t wait to get back to it.’

The sergeant had shaken his head – not quite what he’d expected to hear.

Lol sat now in Ethel’s old chair, shadows gathering around him.

Sometime tonight he’d have to ring Dick Lyden – most famous quote: I realize you’re a sensitive soul. But you don’t particularly need to think about psychology when you’re shagging someone, do you? He couldn’t face it.

Just before four-thirty p.m., he heard a key in the lock, and then Denny’s footsteps on the stairs.

It had been Merrily’s plan to spend an hour meditating in Ledwardine Church before driving nearly twenty miles to meet Huw at the church of St Cosmas and St Damien, but she’d been waylaid in the porch by Uncle Ted in heavy churchwarden mode.

‘Where on earth have you been? I tried to ring your socalled office – engaged, engaged, engaged. It’s not good enough, Merrily.’

‘Ted, I’ve just spent nearly two hours trying to put together a small congregation that absolutely nobody wants to join. I have one hour to get myself together and then I’ve got to go out again.’

‘I’m sorry, Merrily, but if you haven’t got time for your own church, then—’