Jane stood up and went over to the worktop. Taking the opportunity – which the bloody woman had obviously deliberately just given her – to hide her reddening face.
‘I just want to say, in case you were wondering …’ talking into the mugs ‘… All that stuff about Lol and other women …’
‘It’s nonsense, of course.’
‘You …’ Jane looked up. ‘You do believe that?’
‘I met Mr Robinson once,’ Siân said. ‘He wasn’t what I might have expected.’
‘No. No, he isn’t. Look …’ Jane started talking, in this great, hot rush, before she could stop herself. ‘Why are you really here? Why did you offer to come?’
‘Why do you think I’m here?’
Lawyers. Always elegantly turning your questions around.
All right, then.
‘Mum thinks … that there’s a possibility they’re putting together some kind of carve-up? And that she’s going to end up with about eight parishes and lose the deliverance thing. Or it gets divided up and, like, run by a committee?’
‘I see.’
‘I don’t suppose I should’ve said that, but, you know …’
‘Why not? It’s true.’
‘Oh.’
‘There is such a proposal, and I have been asked to make an unofficial report.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Right.’
Siân shrugged.
In the end, the bedroom had been too small to contain Merrily’s emotions. She came out of the shower room and dressed in a hurry: jeans, sweatshirt, trainers. Within ten minutes, she was at the foot of the stairs, sliding back the bolt on the front door of The Ridge, letting herself out into a breeze swollen with rain.
It wasn’t cold and, physically, she was feeling much better. Still slightly … well, not weak exactly, but a bit tender, a bit raw.
Oh, come on … very bloody raw.
The blowing rain was stinging Merrily’s face. Like the Bishop’s veiled threats.
Threats? From good old easygoing Bernie Dunmore? Could she possibly have misheard?
I don’t want to see your position prejudiced.
No. It wasn’t even subtle. It wasn’t veiled at all.
And she’d thought she knew him. Thought he was a friend. But a friend would have said, Come over and we’ll talk about this. There are some things I can’t say on the phone. He hadn’t said that. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it at all. There were other issues they needed to discuss. Of an administrative nature.
And if it was hard to fire an incompetent vicar, it was a lot less complicated to remove a deliverance consultancy from someone who tended to go beyond the brief.
The mist was lifting over the woods in the valley, the landscape forming in a watercolour wash as Merrily walked down the steps to the parking area and the intersecting footpaths, one up to the hill, one down to the church. Behind her the steep, tawny house was silent. Nobody about yet. No real need to be; she was the only guest, and she hadn’t exactly been demanding an early breakfast.
Maybe, by nine, she’d feel up to talking to people.
And then what?
She could go, on her own, to the Master House, suitably attired and equipped with holy water. A straightforward room-by-room blessing. An end to it. Or merely a reprieve, because Bernie Dunmore would know there’d be no easy retrieval of their old relationship.
On which basis, she might just as well ignore the bastard’s instructions and go in search of Sycharth Gwilym.
Angry now, but she cooled it. She unlocked the Volvo, reached behind the driving seat for her waterproof and then, on impulse, tossed it back and climbed in, switched on the engine and let the car slide away, down the hill.
Merrily drove slowly, although there was no other traffic around, not even a tractor or a quad bike. She was looking for a lay-by, a field entrance, a patch of grass verge wide enough to park on. She needed to sit alone somewhere. And listen.
… This sieve of our own needs, desires, fears … what we’re afraid they might really be saying. We’re processing the words, analysing. Our minds are taking an active role. We’re not listening.
In a service with no sermon, it had probably been the best sermon she’d delivered all year.
She needed to listen. She took a left turn, high hedges either side, trees still laden with a summerload of leaves. The point of the tower of Garway Church, with its bent cross, appeared over the trees.
Why not?
Weighted as it was with the density of the Templars, it was still a church, and Merrily wondered if it was open yet.
Never did find out, though, because that was when the dog ran in front of the car.
36
Only Darkness
SHE’D PULLED HARD into the verge, a thorny hedge screeching against the Volvo’s side panels, its scratchy mesh compressed against the window. Finishing up in a cage of brambles, with a back wheel in a shallow ditch and the engine stalled.
Oh God, no …
She’d been travelling at well under thirty m.p.h., but the road was wet and the brakes were spongy. She’d slammed on and gone into a skid on the overflowing verge of grass and mud, letting go of the steering wheel as she was flung back into the seat, the frayed belt slipping and cutting into the side of her neck.
What was she doing in the bloody car, anyway? Driving off in a self-righteous fury. Resentment. Inflated self-esteem. They can’t treat me like this.
Releasing the belt, she inched painfully across the slanting seat, over the gear lever and the handbrake, to reach the passenger-door handle, pushing the door open.
Climbing out and staggering around to the front of the Volvo, Merrily went down on her knees, half-sick with dread, looking underneath.
Couldn’t see. The grass was still knee-high on the verge, around the bumper. She had to lie down on the wet tarmac, edging between the front wheels and …
… Face it, there was unlikely to be more than one Irish wolfhound in this part of Garway.
‘Roscoe?’
With one wheel in the ditch, the other on the edge, the big car was tilted in the undergrowth, its belly hard into the muddy bank. Impossible to squeeze underneath; she just about managed to push her left arm under, feeling around in the soaking foliage.
‘Roscoe!’
Nothing moving under there, only … multiple stabbing pains in her left hand and up the inside of her wrist told her she’d grabbed a handful of nettles.
This was no use, basically; she’d have to get back in and try to shift the car. With extreme care.
Warm breath on the back of Merrily’s neck made her body retract, twisting over onto her side. Like they always did when you were on the ground, he thought she wanted to play; he was standing over her with his nose above her ear, poised and quivering.
‘Oh, Jesus, Roscoe—’
Collapsing into the road in a moment of wild relief, head in her arms, before pulling herself up. The dog waited, panting. His coat was messed up, matted, spiked and sodden, a thorny twig trapped in his collar. He’d been through hedges and perhaps a stream.
Merrily pulled herself up, clothes wet through, cold and clinging. There was no sign of Mrs Morningwood, and it seemed unlikely that she habitually turned her dog out in the mornings to take exercise in fields full of sheep.
Detaching the thorn twig, Merrily slipped a hand under Roscoe’s collar. He squeaked.
‘What’ve you done?’
She ran her hands down his flanks; at some point he squirmed away, as if in pain, but eventually let her lead him to the car. Tried twice to jump in; she had to help him into the back seat before dragging herself back through the passenger door.