Phil Rickman - The Smile of a Ghost

‘OK…’ Merrily took a breath. ‘I want to get something right. Did Bell actually use the word “betrayal”? About me.’

‘She said you’d won her trust and entered her fortress by deceit and you’d betrayed her in the worst way possible. She… she lost it for a while. I was glad to get her out of the house.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Hour or so? Hour and a half?’

‘Any idea at all where she’s gone?’

Susannah shook her head. ‘She just put on her long coat and walked away, and then, a minute or two later, she just, you know, screamed. Just once. She’s always been a screamer, hasn’t she?’

‘You mean you took no notice.’

‘I went to the window. There was no sign of her.’

‘Well, I think I have to find her, don’t I?’ Merrily said.

‘Don’t you ever give up?’

‘No, look, tell me if I’m wrong here. Robbie’s death – the way it happened, and where it happened – took something out of Bell’s life that I don’t think she’ll ever get back. Now she thinks we’re about to try and take something else away. Doesn’t she?’

‘I just can’t believe any of that.’ Susannah moved away across the flags, a trickle of sweat gleaming on her forehead. ‘It’s not rational… even for her.’

‘It’s very rational – for her. And now she thinks the town’s turned against her. Did she tell you she was attacked last night? Did you see her face?’

‘She said she tripped.’ Susannah stood with her back to the window, her mouth half open, her control slipping away fast. ‘Tripped, coming down The Linney.’

‘But now, worst of all, the town’s conspiring with the Church to have Marion exorcized. Marion. And all she represents.’

You’ll lie like carrion… I’ll fly like Marion.

‘Look, that petition’s virtually a fake!’ Susannah shouted.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Most people here couldn’t care less about all this nonsense. Yes, there were petition forms in a few shops, but hardly anybody signed. It’s George, can’t you see that? My bloody soon-to-be father-in-law, God help me. George is behind it.’

‘Why would—?’

‘Ask him. You go and ask the old bastard.’

On the way back to the road – mid-afternoon, now – Merrily stopped to look back at The Weir House, a shambling timbered and stone farmhouse, born again. Trees on two sides were thickening into spring, and the grass was getting longer, and either she could hear the river or the hissing was in her head.

She walked across to the yew tree, where the paths converged, the hollow yew growing anew around its own exposed entrails, wondering if she’d dreamed last night that there was a door in it, like in a fairy tale – Bell stowing something in there, the mandolin in its case. Was this the same mandolin that had appeared on the cover of Nightshades ? If so, what was its significance? She couldn’t play it, she probably couldn’t play any instrument. And anyway…

… There was no door, only a black and gaping hole, as if the tree had been shot with a cannon ball. Merrily paused, glanced over her shoulder and then stepped over the roots and into the tree, the ripe and resinous yew scent all around her.

The door was here. It was in the tree, loose, separated.

She edged it out. It was the real thing, beautifully shaped to fit the elliptical hole in the tree into which a solid frame had been moulded. The door looked like oak and had strong cast-iron hinges, one hanging off.

The key, presumably, was kept hidden somewhere in the tangle of tree. But there was no need for it, because the door had been brutally removed; you could see the marks left by the crowbar or whatever had been used to wrench it off.

Merrily went back into the hole, and kicked something with her trainer. Picked it up and brought it out: a prayer book. No need to look inside to know this was going to be the one that George Lackland said had been taken from St Laurence’s.

Someone had forced an entry, and Bell must have discovered it when she left.

She just, you know, screamed. Just once.

Merrily went back in, further this time, pushing up her sleeves. Seemed there was room to fit a couple of people in here at least. Her fingers found something regular and rigid and jutting out at about chest height: a ledge, a shelf. She felt around on top of it and drew back with a shudder – something slick and slippery like fat on bone.

Right. She brought out the Zippo.

The fatty item was a candle. Two of them on the wooden ledge; she lit one and watched the ancient organism becoming a brackish grotto around her, parts of its walls hanging like fragments of a rotting rood-screen, other segments moist and alive like hard flesh.

The candle flame was reflected in several small jars with stoppers, like the ones on the apothecary shelves in the kitchen, only clear. One had what looked like water in it, with some sediment at the bottom. Others contained sandy soil, crumbled dead leaves and what looked like chips of stone. Two bigger jars held coils of hair, yellow and white, and there was a small one with what seemed to be thin wood-shavings, but were probably nail clippings.

No mandolin case.

Just, you know, screamed …

‘What are you doing?’

Merrily came out of the tree. Susannah Pepper stood in the grass, her business suit vainly buttoned against the raw madness in the air.

‘You knew about this, Susannah?’

‘I thought you were going to look for her.’

‘Somebody broke into the tree. That would be why she screamed.’

‘It cost her a fortune. She had this guy who does wood sculptures up from Herefordshire. She told him she was going to make it into a summer house.’

‘Not exactly. Do you know what she kept in there?’

‘Private things. That was the point. We weren’t supposed to know.’

‘Good an excuse as any,’ Merrily said. ‘I was once married to a lawyer. The thing he used to say that I was most uneasy about was, “You can sleep better if you know when to stop asking questions.” There’s one thing missing from here.’

‘I don’t—’

‘The mandolin case she put in here last night?’

‘I don’t know anything about that. I think I’ve seen it, obviously…’

‘She play the mandolin often, Susannah? She play anything?’

‘She plays games,’ Susannah said.

WAITED ON THE spare land round by the old Greyhound Dog pub, and he was wearing the new clothes he’d bought at Millet’s – sort of clothes he’d never worn in his life before, jogger’s clothes. Felt real strange, too loose. Like he was naked.

Also had on Robbie’s baseball cap, the one that was always far too big on the boy, made him look dafter than he’d known. Mabbe there was another reason Mumford was wearing that cap, but he didn’t want to think about that.

Thing was, nobody was looking at him. Half his life, folks had seen him coming – looked like a copper the way a sheep looked like a sheep – and now, feeling more conspicuous than at any time since his first day in uniform thirty years ago, he was aware of folks passing by and nobody noticing him. And he realized the so-called plain clothes he’d been wearing for work all those years weren’t plain clothes at all these days, they were obvious copper’s clothes.

Stayed at the Green Dragon last night, biggest hotel in Hereford, therefore the most anonymous. Money no object. Emerging this morning in his jogging kit: dumpy, middle-aged, bastard, casual civilian.

And even Jason Mebus never noticed him.

After he’d come out the pub, round about half-one, Jason had been straight down the chip shop, the Fries Tuck, and he was walking up now, over Greyfriars Bridge, loping along, eating his chips and still making faster progress than the two lines of cars queuing up to get into town. Saturday-afternoon shoppers. It was all queues in Hereford now – more useless chain stores and still no bypass on the schedules. Be gridlocked soon, this city.