Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit

‘You still think he might back out, right?’

‘Not if the little shit knows what’s good for him,’ Dick said through his teeth. Then he laughed at his own venom. ‘Look, Lol, Moon was ill – more ill than any of us knew. Delusional. Shouldn’t have been on her own there. We’re all to blame for that – Denny, you, ah… me, and the Health Service. All I’m saying… the police are right. Let’s not overcomplicate things, or see things that might not be there. That’s how myths are created.’

‘Right,’ Lol said. A small fury ignited inside him.

‘Good man.’ Dick clapped him on the shoulder.

It was thawing at last. Clouds crowded the moon as Lol crossed the main road towards the refashioned ruins of the city wall.

This CD would be his last work for Dick Lyden. He hadn’t been to his psychology night-class for over a fortnight.

The city wall glistened in the moonlight.

So the version of Moon’s death which the inquest would establish would be untrue. The verdict – unless the post-mortem threw up something unexpected – would be a straightforward Suicide While the Balance of Mind was Disturbed. And no blindingly obvious warnings from the coroner afterwards; there was nothing anyone else would learn from this.

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

Kind of… intense. She was researching a book. About her family. I had the impression she couldn’t wait to get back to it .

It was true. When he’d left her, there was no indication at all that she might—

If you were the police , Denny had said, would you want a hint of anything paranormal?

Why had Denny said that? It was the first time he’d ever mentioned the paranormal in connection with Moon, or indeed any connection at all. But how well did he really know Denny? Only well enough to know now that Denny had been putting up a front to conceal unvoiced fears. Perhaps if he’d told Denny, rather than Dick, about the crow and about Moon seeing her father…

Oh, hell!

Lol stood on the medieval bridge, gazing over the parapet into the Wye, numbed by a quiet panic. He didn’t know what to do, which street to go down. Directionless. Working with Dick, while it hadn’t felt exactly right , at least had been a new rope to hold on to.

Very soon he would reach the main road again, having walked in a complete circle. He felt like some aimless vagrant – or worse, closer to the truth, a mental patient returned to the care of the community. He turned abruptly, moved back up Bridge Street, past the off-licence and Peter Bell’s Typewriter Shop, the snow on the pavement reduced to slivers of slush.

Two young women walked out of a darkened doorway about five yards ahead of him and he saw, by an all-night-lighted shopfront, that one of them was Jane Watkins. Perhaps she noticed him; she turned sharply away and hurried on, slightly ahead of her companion.

The doorway belonged to Pod’s, a healthfood café. He’d been in there just once: it was dark and primitive and woody, with secondhand tables and rickety chairs – people who opened healthfood restaurants were into recycling and no frills. On the whitewashed walls, in thin black frames, he remembered, were reproductions of drawings by Mervyn Peake: twisted figures, spindly figures, bulbous figures, in gloomy landscapes. Lol recalled eating a soya-sausage roll under one showing a crone with a toad. He hadn’t stayed long.

When she got in, she put out some food for Ethel and went up to the bathroom, which was still like a 1950s public lavatory, with black and white tiles and a shower the size of an iron streetlamp. She sat on the lavatory, head in hands, her stomach churning. She heard Jane’s key turn in the door, but it was quite a while before Merrily could go down.

‘You’re ill,’ Jane said. Looking up from the omelette mix in the pan. The sight of the yellow slop made Merrily want to throw up.

She shivered damply inside her dressing-gown. ‘I’m sorry, flower, I can’t eat… anything. I’m really sorry.’

‘I’d better stay off school tomorrow and look after you,’ Jane said promptly, ‘if you’re no better by then.’

‘No, thank you… I mean, certainly not.’

‘How long have you been in?’

‘Not long.’ Merrily leaned against the Aga rail next to her daughter.

‘How did it go?’

‘All right, I think.’

‘Did you feel ill then ?’

‘Yes. In fact, I… couldn’t do it. But Huw was there. Huw did it.’

Jane sniffed, her eyes narrowing. ‘You’ve been drinking.’

‘Hey, what is this? I called into a pub for something to settle my stomach.’

Everybody trying not to stare at the cloaked figure with the bottom of her cassock showing: the first female whisky-priest in the diocese.

‘Hmm,’ Jane said, ‘why don’t you go to bed? I’ll bring you a drink up.’

‘Thanks, flower.’ She thought she might be about to cry.

Again.

She took up a hot-water bottle, dumped her cassock and surplice in the wash-bin, lay between the sheets and sweated.

She’d been here before: a panic-attack at her own installation service at Ledwardine Church. And hallucinations…

But what kind of sick, warped mind conjures up the filth of Denzil Joy?

Dear God .

Franny Bliss and his colleague had watched her hobble to the car, perhaps waiting to see her safely back to the church of St Cosmas and St Damien, but she hadn’t returned. Out of here, lass .

It was all over. Finished.

Jane brought her hot chocolate.

‘There’s a drop of brandy in it.’

‘You’ll have me at the Betty Ford Clinic, flower.’

Jane smiled wanly.

‘Where did you go tonight?’

‘Just… you know… to see a couple of friends.’

‘They could come here sometime. Lots of room.’

‘Yeah,’ Jane said. ‘Maybe sometime.’

Merrily sank back into the sweat-damp pillow and slithered into a feverish sleep. At times she heard bleeps and voices – which might have been on the answering machine or in her hot, fogged head – like satanic static.

Just before midnight, the bedside phone bleeped.

‘Huw?’ she said feverishly.

‘You were asleep, Merrily?’

‘Yes. Hello, Eileen.’

‘Your man’s back,’ Cullen said, ‘with his candles and his bottles.’

‘Oh.’

‘I said I’d call you.’

She clawed for consciousness. ‘It’s not… visiting time, is it?’

‘Jesus, you must have been sound asleep. Being as Mr Dobbs is in a side ward, any time is visiting time, within reason. This is not exactly within my idea of reason, but the visitor’s a very plausible feller. Whatever the hell kind of weirdness he’s getting up to in there, I have to say I quite took to him.’

‘You… talked to him?’

‘He was very apologetic. Said he’d have come earlier but he had some urgent business to see to… Are you still there, Merrily?’

‘What did he look like?’

‘Oh… late fifties. Longish, straggly grey hair. He had a bobble-hat and he was in this auld blue airman’s coat. Talked like… who’s that feller? Alan Bennett? But a real auld hippy, you know?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s still in there, doing his stuff around Mr Dobbs with his candles. Probably be gone by the time you get here. I could try to keep him talking, if you like…’

‘No,’ Merrily said bleakly, ‘it’s all right now, Eileen. I don’t think I want to see him.’

AT FIRST IT felt like the start of a cold: that filthy, metallic tainting of the back of the throat. And then she was fully awake – knowing what it was, panting in terror.