The orchestra started up, and seconds later the music stuttered into silence as first one instrument and then another gave up the ghost.
I looked up. Matt seemed frozen, the pencil he was using as a baton poised in the air. He was staring over the heads of the orchestra towards the door to the kitchen and toilets. He looked shocked, shaken, and I turned in my seat to see what he was staring at.
“Andy,” he said, “would you mind terribly if I handed you the reins for a minute?” And so saying he dropped the pencil in my lap and hurried over to the door. He peered within, circumspectly, then stepped through.
I took my place before the bemused villagers. “Okay,” I said. “Bar forty-six, I’ll count three in…”
They played, and seconds later Matt reappeared. He entered the hall and looked around, then strode past us and moved to the front door. He was gone for about five minutes. I wondered if he’d seen an intruder and was about to call a halt and see if he needed assistance when he hurried back into the hall, thanked me and took up the baton. His hand, as I passed it to him, was shaking.
Ten minutes later he brought the rehearsal to a close.
I packed up, then caught Matt’s eye while he was in conversation with Mrs. Emmett. He seemed distracted, not himself, and he kept darting glances towards the kitchen door. I mimed downing a pint, and received his affirmative nod. While the others were packing up, I left the hall and hurried through the village, more than a little perplexed at Matthew’s odd behaviour.
The Fleece was a haven of warmth and inviting firelight.
Of the usual Tuesday night crowd, only Khalid and Doug Standish were present. Doug was a big, almost stereotypically burly, gruff police type, whose initial morose manner had mellowed, as we’d come to know him, to reveal a sensitive character with a dry sense of humour.
I secured a pint of Landlord and joined them by the fire.
A minute later the door blew open admitting a cascade of confetti-like snow and the red-faced figure of Father Matthew Renbourn.
Khalid waved him over. “Ah, ‘tis the Father, bejesus, and you’ll be having yourself a pint of the usual, I’ll be bound?” This hardly raised a smile from Matt.
Khalid went on, serious now, “Are you okay?”
Matt sat down before the fire. I gestured to Sam at the bar to pull Matt a pint.
“What is it?” I asked.
Matt looked from Doug to Khalid, and then at me. “You know I mentioned yesterday that I thought I was being followed?”
I nodded, guessing what was coming.
“Followed?” Doug said, his professional interest aroused.
“For about a month or so now,” Matt said, “‘I’ve been seeing… well, I don’t know if you’ll understand…”
“Try us,” Khalid said.
“Well, I’ve been seeing bright, white figures lurking at the edge of my vision, which mysteriously disappear when I try to look closer…”
I said, “And you saw another figure tonight, right?”
Matt took a long draught of creamy ale and nodded. He explained to Khalid and Doug, “In the hall, towards the end of the rehearsal. I saw something… a figure… near the door to the kitchen and cloakroom, but when I went to have a look… Nothing. It’d vanished.”
Doug said, “Tell us more about these figures.”
“There isn’t much more to tell,” Matt said. “I’ve seen about half a dozen of them now, approximately once a week. Tall, glowing figures, watching me—or that’s what I feel they’re doing. And when I investigate, they’re gone in a flash of light.”
Something about the expression on Doug’s big, jowly face prompted me to ask, “What?”
“It’s strange,” he said, staring into the remains of his pint with a distant expression, “but remember the murder of Sarah Roberts a few years ago?”
Khalid said, “Wasn’t she something to do with the Onward Station?”
Doug nodded. “A liaison officer. Anyway, I investigated the case. Very mysterious.” He gave a gruff laugh. “Like something out of an Agatha Christie novel. Roberts was found dead in a house surrounded by snow—no footprints leading to or from the place. Also,” he looked up at me, “Ben Knightly reported seeing a great beam of light, almost like a meteorite’s tail, fall into the valley where the farmhouse was, on the night she was killed.”
Matt stared at him. “And? Was the case ever solved?”
“It’s odd, but I always thought there was something strange about the affair. As if certain aspects of it were hushed up. Oh, officially it was explained—we found that the killer had probably stowed himself in the house before the snow fell, and then escaped later when the snow on the path to the house had been thoroughly churned. But it was never solved. The killer was never found. And do you know something, I’ve always had a strange feeling about that case—as if there was more involved than met the eye.”
“Like what?” Khalid wanted to know.
“Well, I heard rumours much later that Sarah Roberts wasn’t human at all, but a Kéthani emissary, keeping an eye on things on Earth.”
“But why would anyone want her dead?” I asked, amazed.
Doug shrugged his big, bison-like shoulders. “I honestly don’t know. It’s almost as if, when I think about it, I’m prevented from recollecting the events with any clarity.”
Khalid hummed the signature tune from an old sci-fi TV show. “Creepy. And you think that Matt’s mysterious figure and white light might be linked?”
Doug looked at the priest. “Do you have you any idea what they might be, Matt? Any theories?”
Matt stared into the leaping flames of the log fire, as if contemplating whether to tell us what he was thinking. He looked up, at each of us in turn. “I don’t expect you to share my conviction, gentlemen, but it occurred to me that they just might be angels.”
He drained his pint, excused himself on the grounds of a sick parishioner, and left the three of us staring at each other in wonderment.
On Thursday evening I finished practising around nine and decided to pop into the Fleece for a quick one.
Khalid and Doug, Ben and Elisabeth, along with Richard Lincoln and Dan Chester, the local ferrymen, were encamped around the table beside the fire. The topic of conversation, not surprisingly, was Matt and his angels.
“Do you think he’s going off his rocker?” Elisabeth asked.
“You know these religious types,” Dan said. He’d been married to a Catholic who’d refused to have their daughter, Lucy, implanted. He viewed all religions that were opposed to the Kéthani with suspicion, and it had taken him a while to welcome Matt into the fold.
“I’m concerned,” Khalid said. “Matt doesn’t seem to be himself these days.”
“Well, neither would you if you were seeing angels!” Elisabeth said.
“I think the hallucinations are manifestations of… I don’t know… stress, overwork.” Khalid looked at me. “What do you think, Andy? You know him well. He always seems hale and hearty, but what is he like when he isn’t…” he smiled and said, “performing?”
I laughed. “Do you know something? I think he always is performing.”
“Even when alone?” Elisabeth asked.
“Is a man who believes, as Matt does,” I speculated, “ever alone?”
“You mean he’s performing before his God?” Dan said, sarcastically. “Nice one.”
Elisabeth stared into her Belgian lager. “What do you expect from a religion that doesn’t allow its clergy to express their sexual desires? It’s a wonder he isn’t hallucinating Playboy centrefolds.”
“Anyway,” I said, in an attempt to bring the conversation back into line. “I don’t mind saying that I’m worried for Matt. Let’s keep an eye on him, okay?”