‘Good icebreakers, dogs.’ Mrs Morningwood smiled, disarmingly girlish in the glow from the range. ‘Had to get your attention somehow. I thought – and still do – that you would be my best bet for finding out … not only what happened to Mary, but … other things I can’t quite put my finger on. The girl showing up like that, after all these years …’
‘And then you made sure you kept our attention by telling Jane just what she wanted to hear about the mysteries of Garway.’
‘It was all true.’
‘What – including the gruesome tale of Mrs Newton laid out in her coffin to be pawed by the whole village?’
‘That was true … in essence. Garway was almost certainly the last village in Herefordshire to maintain the Watch Night traditions.’
‘So which bits did you exaggerate?’
‘Well, it … wasn’t the whole village. Just a few neighbours. But I really didn’t like the place and like it even less since Mary disappeared. Whatever you propose to do there, it needs it. What will you do?’
‘I was thinking some form of Requiem Eucharist.’
‘A Mass?’
‘A service for the repose of the dead. Thinking originally of Felix and Fuchsia but, from what you’ve said, we could be looking at something more extensive. Mrs Morningwood, look … thank you for all you’ve done. I do feel better. If a bit tired.’
Face it: without the reflexology, she’d most likely be on her way home by now, driving slowly, popping aspirins.
‘That’s normal, that’s good. You need to come back in a couple of days, have it topped up … and, of course, tell me what you’ve found out. This Requiem Eucharist – would that aim to deal with what one might term evil residue?’
‘Evil residue?’
‘Those accusations of heresy and idolatry against the Templars – no smoke without fire. We get people here, a handful every year, poking around, taking measurements in the church. Freemasons, some of them, believing themselves to be the inheritors of the Templar legacy. Idiots in robes, sometimes. Think about what might’ve destroyed Mary’s sleep. What they were doing to her. What continued to throw a shadow over her wherever she went.’
‘Well …’ Merrily picked up her bag. ‘The Eucharist can be very powerful. I need to go away and think about it.’
They walked out of the cottage, Roscoe between them, into a greyness of fields, a blackness of woodland. Two windows were lit up at Mrs Morningwood’s end of the terrace, the rest of it dead, like a neon sign in which most of the letters had fused.
‘What are the neighbours like?’
‘Absolute worst kind.’ Mrs Morningwood snorted. ‘These are all holiday cottages. We were isolated in Garway at one time, but now it’s getting just like everywhere else – local youngsters priced out by London lawyers and stockbrokers and junior government ministers here for an average of about three weeks a year. Three out of four in a single terrace, all so-called weekend cottages, and the bastards wonder why we have a housing crisis. Answer is, we don’t, we’re simply top-heavy with self-indulgent second-bloody-homers.’
Merrily stood looking back at the terrace. An empty holiday home conveyed its own distinctive form of dereliction. But then, what right did she have to moralize, her and Jane rattling around in their seven-bedroom vicarage?
‘I can’t get my bearings up here.’ Eyes adjusting now, she looked away, along the limited horizon, hills concealed by the woods. ‘Where’s the church?’
‘The church – this church – is always closer than you think,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Go carefully, Watkins.’
32
Hysterical Frenzy
‘… FOR AGREEING TO meet me, Canon.’
A woman.
‘My pleasure. That’s what I’m here for.’
‘You see, it’s difficult—’
‘And let me say that, although I’m only here for a few days and you don’t really know me at all, you can safely tell me anything you would have told Merrily.’
Safely. Jane glared at Tom Bull. Oh yeah.
‘Mrs Clarke—’
‘Look, it’s all right.’
‘No … this is about Merrily, you see.’
Jane stood up quickly, her back to the wooden screen.
‘I think we’d better sit down,’ Siân said firmly, and Jane, well out of sight, automatically sat down again, before realizing.
‘I’ve agonized about this, you see,’ the woman was saying, really intense. ‘When I heard that a very senior minister had taken over for a few days, I knew what I had to do. I said to myself, you’re not going to get a better opportunity than this, are you? In fact, to be honest, I thought … well, I thought this was a sign from God.’
‘I see,’ Siân said.
Oh sure. Like she’d believe in signs from God. Jane stood tensed against the wooden screen, airline bag at her feet, hands clenched into fists, pushing at the pockets of her parka, listening to it all coming out, this senseless stream of totally unfounded bollocks. No sublety at all, no restraint, no … no basic intelligence.
‘… I know people were beginning to have their doubts when she reduced the number of hymns at the morning worship from three to two. Hymns are traditional, aren’t they? Songs of praise we all know. And the church I went to before, there was always an evensong.’
‘Well, yes,’ Siân said, ‘I’m afraid quite a few parishes have had to dispense with it, mainly due to falling congregations, especially in the winter. Many people really don’t like leaving their firesides and, indeed, in some places, simply don’t feel safe any more going out after dark. Especially the elderly.’
‘But replacing it with this so-called service of meditation?’
‘It seems to be rather popular.’
‘But it’s not Christian, is it, Canon Clarke? It’s eastern religion, that’s what it is. Sitting there in a circle with candles, men and women, dressed in … in casual clothing, so-called opening themselves up …’
‘Well, you know, there is a fairly well-established tradition of Christian medi—’
‘Not in the Bible!’
‘Well that depends on how you— However—’
Siân, you had to give her some credit, was doing her best, but you could hear the woman’s voice rising higher, when she wasn’t getting the reactions she’d obviously expected, the accusations getting wilder, crazier. Jane getting madder.
‘… And I think what offends many of us is the way she makes no attempt to conceal her private life, which is not … Well, she has a boyfriend, see, and there’s no doubt – no doubt at all – that they’re sleeping together out of wedlock. A priest! What kind of example is that setting to young people?’
Jane fought for control. All the time and energy she’d spent bringing Mum and Lol together, and this small-minded—
‘At least, she’s one of the women he’s sleeping with. He’s a so-called musician, see, a rock musician of some kind, and we all know the level of their morality.’
‘I’m sorry, Shirley, I’m not sure I understand precisely what you’re saying here.’
Shirley?
‘Well, I’ll tell you, Canon. My brother overheard some young women talking in the Black Swan. They were drunk, as so many of these young women are today, and one of them said she … well, there are words I will not use in church, or anywhere else, but she seemed very much to be implying to her friends that she’d had sexual congress with this man.’