Remains of an Altar mw-8 Read online

  ‘That’s OK.’ Merrily brought out the Silk Cut and the dented Zippo. ‘Really.’

  To a stranger, the road was the least ghostly aspect of Upper Wychehill. It glided down the valley in a long, slow slope, with the wooded hills hunched behind it like a giant’s shoulders. As many of its dwellings were invisible, it had been hard to make out where the village began and where it ended.

  The reason why many of the homes were invisible was that they were on different levels, with rows of houses above and below the road. The ones above were set back into the hill and the ones falling away below it, all you could see of them as you drove past were hedges, walls and gates. They seemed to be mainly bungalows with colonial verandas or flagged patios with sundials and statuary, barbecues and big views across Herefordshire.

  The few grey buildings at road level were weighted by the church, this immense neo-Gothic barn, probably late-Victorian, screened by two substantial oak trees either side of the entrance. Further down, built of the same stone, with a dramatic view of the Beacon, was the rectory. A big family house with a home-made swing in the front garden. From what Merrily understood from Sophie, the Spicer kids had been long past the swing stage. But it still looked starkly symbolic of loss, with its peeling frame and one side of the wooden seat fallen off its chain.

  When they were inside, she’d asked Spicer, without thinking, if he had help in the house.

  ‘What? A cleaner? A housekeeper?’ He’d laughed. ‘Do you?’

  Point taken. No private income.

  ‘I get occasional offers,’ he’d said. ‘We’ve got several nice ladies in Upper Wychehill. The Ladies of Wychehill? That sound like a book? Listen. First rule for the solo priest. Don’t give anybody room for gossip. My wife left just over three months ago. Since then, I’ve done all my own cleaning, cooking, gardening, painting, the lot, plus keeping three parishes on the go. Which makes for a long day.’

  He’d looked at her, his soft-toy’s eyes unmoving.

  ‘But a mercifully short night.’

  Outside the bay window, the still-shadowed long back lawn was tidily mown and trimmed but had no flowers. It ended where a bank of fir trees lifted the land into the hills.

  ‘I can give you a list of people to talk to, so you can make up your own mind.’ Syd Spicer crossed to the Rayburn. ‘You want some toast? Or I can do full English. I’m fairly capable.’

  ‘I can see that. Tea’ll be fine, thanks.’

  He brought two white mugs to the table, and then sugar and milk.

  ‘Point is, Mrs Watkins, country areas—’

  ‘Merrily, do you think?’

  ‘Yeah, OK. Country areas, Merrily, are superstitious, just like they’ve always been – you know this. Where are you based, North Herefordshire?’

  ‘Ledwardine. ’Bout an hour from here.’

  He nodded. ‘Only nowadays the superstition comes from a different direction. The locals might be less credulous than their grandparents were, but your city-bred incomers always include the kind of people who’re living in the sticks because they want to get back to a primitive belief system. They’re the ones who organize the wassailing and stuff at Christmas, dangle charms off their porches.’

  ‘Everything except go to church,’ Merrily said. ‘But if you have an accident black spot, they’ll be the first to suggest the area might be haunted?’

  Spicer shook his head sadly.

  ‘I’ve got three parishes and the others are a healthy mix of locals and new blood. In Upper Wychehill, a real local person is somebody who’s been here twenty-five years. It didn’t really exist until the 1920s, when the church was built – gesture of apology by the owner of one of the quarry firms mutilating the Malverns.’

  ‘He must have been very sorry.’

  ‘Yeah, big, innit? Especially in the middle of a few farms and not much else, as it was then. The bloke saw it as a concert hall as well, however – strictly religious, of course. Same time, he had this house built for the minister, and a sum of money donated to the Church, to pay him – long exhausted, of course but, by then, more housing had gone up and it was a legit parish.’

  ‘So, what you’re saying, it’s not—’

  ‘Not a real village, no. Just a mess of mixed-up dwellings either side of a road with no pavement. So people never walk about and they rarely meet each other. Some are weekend cottages. Bloke died in one last year, wasn’t found for three weeks. That’s the way it is. No village shop, no cosy pub. Just a church that was always too big and people who move here for the views.’

  Spicer had taken a folded piece of notepaper out of his cassock. He opened it out and placed it on the table in front of Merrily.

  Dear Rector,

  I am sorry to bother you, and I never thought I would write a letter like this, but I am worried sick about my daughter who as you know is a district nurse and has to go out at all hours in her car. I am terrified that something will happen to her on that road. These stories are hard to credit, but something is wrong here. I do not get to church as often as I would like since I have become disabled but I beg of you to take whatever measures are necessary to deal with this problem. I do not care who or what it is, it must be got rid of by whatever means are open to you.

  I feel foolish writing a letter like this but Helen is all I have left in this world.

  Yours sincerely,

  D. H. Walford

  ‘Poor old Donald. His wife died three years ago. Daughter got divorced and moved in with him. He’s an entirely rational man, retired primary school head. But this … this is how it escalates.’

  ‘What was the first reported accident?’

  ‘Lorry. Came across the road, into the church wall, like I said. Still waiting for the insurance to get sorted.’

  ‘Did you talk to the driver?’

  ‘I was out at the time, but the guy told Mrs Aird, who does the flowers in the church. She was in there when it happened. He said he’d seen this white orb coming towards him down the middle of the road.’

  ‘So this was at night?’

  ‘Early morning. Police suggested the bloke had been driving too long. We tidied up the wall, thought no more about it.’

  ‘Until…’

  ‘Week or so later, Tim Loste, the choirmaster, hit a telegraph pole. Not injured, fortunately. And then there was a woman, lives up the hill, flattened her sports car on a tourist’s Winnebago.’

  ‘And they both saw this light?’

  ‘They both … saw a figure behind the light.’

  He turned to the window. The summer sun had finally penetrated his flowerless garden, but it still looked as if it was clinging to winter. Syd Spicer too, Merrily thought, as he turned to face her.

  ‘And there might be another one, which is … a bit weird. Joyce Aird can tell you. They won’t talk to me about it. Joyce was waiting for me after the worship yesterday. We’d had some prayers for the victims of the night before, and Joyce said … She gave me a piece of paper with your phone number on it, which she’d obtained from the Diocese. Said it was time to seek help to remove the evil from our midst.’

  ‘So, essentially, you had me forced on you,’ Merrily said.

  ‘Me, I’ve been telling them, let’s get the council in … surveyors … examine the road camber. Let’s not get carried away. Famous last words.’

  ‘What about the Land Rover driver, the chairman of the parish council. Did he see—?’

  ‘I haven’t even asked him, Merrily.’

  She sighed. ‘Would you mind if I had a cigarette?’

  Spicer put his head on one side.

  ‘You disapprove?’

  He shrugged. ‘I have one occasionally. When I want to. You go ahead, if you need one.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ Merrily dropped the Silk Cut back into her shoulder bag. ‘You said there was something a bit weird.’

  ‘Oh, well, that … Joyce wouldn’t talk about it. Not to me. Said it was best discussed with a woman. I suppose I’m getting a b
it…’

  ‘I can imagine.’ She lowered her bag to the floor. ‘How do you want me to go about this?’

  ‘Well, that’s up to you, Merrily. But the way some of them are reacting, I’m not sure that a simple blessing of the road would be quite enough. I suppose I’d like you to talk to them.’

  ‘Well, obviously I’d have to—’

  ‘No, I mean all of them.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Everybody,’ Syd Spicer said.

  4

  A Very Public Ghost

  ‘All of them?’ Sophie said in the Cathedral gatehouse office. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing? At a public meeting?’

  Merrily sighed.

  ‘It’s a very public ghost.’

  ‘Merrily…’ Sophie looked pained. ‘Has there ever been such a thing as a public ghost?’

  Merrily thought about this, elbows on the desk, chin cupped in her palms. She’d been thinking about it for many of the fifty gridlocked minutes she’d spent watching guys in cranes playing pass-the-girder on the site of another new superstore that Hereford didn’t need.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘In the real sense, I suppose not.’

  ‘There you are, then,’ Sophie said. ‘Let the Rector have his public meeting and then you go along afterwards – quietly – and do what you think is necessary.’

  Sophie Hill, crisp white blouse and pearls. Very posh, discreet as a ballot box. The Bishop’s lay secretary who, essentially, didn’t work for people or organizations. Who worked for The Cathedral.

  Except on Mondays, when Sophie worked more or less full-time for Deliverance. For most parish priests, Monday was a well-defended day off; for Merrily, only a day off from the parish. Monday was when she and Sophie met in the gatehouse office at the Cathedral to deal with the mail and the Deliverance database, and to monitor outstanding cases.

  ‘I need to remind you that the Crown Prosecution Service have warned that you may still be called to give evidence in the Underhowle case when it finally comes to trial. And on that issue – aftercare. The new minister there would welcome some discreet advice on, as he puts it, disinfecting the former Baptist chapel.’

  ‘In which case, I might need to go over. Could we stall him until next week? If he could just keep it locked, meantime … keep people out.’

  ‘Next week also, you’ve agreed to talk to that rather persistent Women’s Institute in the Golden Valley … unfair to postpone again. Don’t look like that – you agreed.’

  ‘OK.’

  Problem here was that WIs always wanted lurid anecdotes, and this was a small county population-wise: one of the audience would always be able to fit names into whichever sensitive issue you were discussing. The policy was to avoid WIs, but occasionally one squeezed through the net. And, sure, there was a pile of parish stuff accumulating on the diary, including a christening tomorrow, and two weddings looming. Big months for weddings, June and July. So…

  ‘What you’re telling me, Sophie, is that I really don’t need Wychehill.’

  Sophie said nothing.

  ‘What if I walk away now, and it happens again?’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Merrily, what if it happens again after you’ve been involved?’

  Which it sometimes did, hence the need for aftercare.

  ‘There are still two people dead, and while linking that to something paranormal is deep water, I’d feel safer going along. Even if it means opening the whole thing up at a public meeting. I mean, I can understand Spicer’s problem. He’s got a worried community which he says isn’treally a community at all. Houses are widely separated, people don’t know one another. He wants to make sure that everybody at least has a chance to find out what the score is.’

  ‘Merrily, deliverance is about discretion – how many times have you said that? You don’t like addressing WIs about past cases, but you’re perfectly happy to—’

  ‘I’m not happy—’

  ‘—To discuss an ongoing problem with a roomful of people, probably including the media.’

  ‘I don’t think the press would cover anything that local, do you? Hope not.’

  ‘You don’t think,’ Sophie said. ‘That’s hardly satisfactory, is it? I’d be inclined to get the Rector to absolutely guarantee it. What’s the format going to be?’

  ‘I listen to the evidence and then outline the options.’

  ‘Oh, I see. You present them with a series of options, and then they vote on it?’

  ‘No, I listen to what they have to say and then I make a recommendation based on my … experience.’

  Sophie gave Merrily a resigned look and opened the desk diary.

  ‘When is it? And where?’

  ‘Wednesday evening at the church. They haven’t got a village hall in Wychehill, I think it was converted. This gets tagged on to the end of the bi-monthly parish meeting, which is open to the public—Look, I’m not going to go in cold, Sophie. I’m going to check it all out thoroughly.’

  ‘In which case you really don’t have much time.’

  ‘Which is why, unless you can think of anything more pressing, I think I’d better go back there now.’

  Merrily walked over to the window. There was something else…

  ‘Oh yeah … Sophie, have there been any inquiries to the Diocese from Wychehill – anybody asking for my number?’

  ‘No. I’d have been told. I’m very strict about that. And they don’t give out your number, they give this number in the first instance. Why?’

  ‘Nothing, really.’

  Merrily looked out of the window over the Cathedral green and sunny Broad Street with its library and museum, its extensive hotel, its classical-pillared Roman Catholic church, its shops and cafés … and at least two well-attested ghost stories that she could think of.

  From behind Merrily heard the faint clinking of the chain on Sophie’s glasses as she shook her head in sorrow – with just a hint, Merrily thought, of foreboding.

  5

  Between the Lines

  On top of the hill there was a clearing and the remains of what might have been a cairn of stones.

  Lol had never been all the way up before, but Jane had said there was something of serious, serious importance here, and not just to her or even to the whole community of Ledwardine. This was possibly a national treasure.

  She’d dragged him out to the edge of the village and then across the main road and over the fields to the first stile, which had a public footpath sign next to it. But if there ever had been a footpath it was long overgrown, and it had been a steep and slippery climb to the top of Cole Hill.

  ‘You can’t see much now,’ Jane said, among the gorse clumps on the summit, ‘but there was a Celtic settlement here once. So obviously that makes it Ledwardine’s holy hill, right?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Lol had felt slightly uncomfortable about walking through the woods with his girlfriend’s daughter, her navel exposed below the sawn-off summer top.

  No, actually, it wasn’t so much this as her attitude: intense, no frivolity, Jane carrying a sense of purpose like storm clouds around her, intimations of war.

  Now she was telling him about the name. How, in The Old Straight Track, Alfred Watkins had identified three other Cole hills, or similar, in Herefordshire. One definition of the word, apparently, was juggler … or wizard.

  ‘“Cole-prophet” – that’s another ancient term,’ Jane said. ‘So Cole Hill – serious, serious magical associations, Lol. I hadn’t realized that. And if I hadn’t realized it…’

  Jane stood in the sunlight. Her hair was pulled back and her eyes seemed to be full of tiny sparks.

  ‘We live in an enchanted landscape, Laurence. And most of us just don’t see any of it any more. How dispiriting is that?’

  Below them, the village was wrapped in greenery, and the mist made smoke rings around the church steeple. The view was dizzyingly seductive: you felt that if you fell into it, it would just absorb you
and by the time you reached the ground you’d have evaporated.

  Lol shook his head. His day had already been tilted. Monday mornings, he needed to establish a work pattern for the week: sit at the desk by the window, write songs. His livelihood. What he did. What he was supposed to do. So why had he been almost grateful to see Jane crossing the street from the vicarage, wearing her skimpy orange top and her sense of purpose?

  Jane said she had the day off school to work on a project connected with A-level art, a portfolio she was compiling on landscape mysteries. Something in connection with this that she needed to discuss, and Merrily had gone off early to meet some angsty priest, so, like, if Lol could spare just one hour…

  All around Cole Hill the paths were overgrown; there were broken stiles and barbed-wire fences. It had taken most of an hour just to get here.

  Jane shouldered her canvas bag.

  ‘Nobody comes up here now, and that’s wrong. We all need to go to the high places. It says that in the Bible, so even Mum—’

  ‘Had you been to this … particular high place before, Jane?’

  She frowned. ‘I’m here now, that’s what matters. It’s where the ancient energy is drawn down, to feed the village spiritually, to feed its soul. You know?’

  ‘Alfred Watkins actually said that, did he? About feeding energy into Ledwardine?’

  ‘Not exactly, but he would have said it if he hadn’t been a magistrate and stuff, with civic duties and all that crap. You have to read between the lines, Lol.’

  ‘Right.’

  Lol would have to agree that reading Alfred Watkins entirely altered your awareness of the humps and bumps of the countryside – the way Watkins’s own had been altered when he’d stood on top of a hill not far from here and noticed, in a flaring of wild revelation, how ancient sites, from prehistoric stones and mounds to medieval churches, seemed to have been arranged in straight lines. But Watkins had seen them as the earliest British trackways; most of the rest was New Age conjecture.

  ‘So what do we do now, Jane?’