The Magus of Hay(141)

‘Just a preliminary. A sprinkling of holy water. I’d felt, I dunno, something smothering. I’m not psychic. Just felt blocked.’

‘I felt angry. You probably saw that. While you were down at Jeeter’s I came up here and I’m standing in the middle of the room, where you are now, staring at the blocked-up hole in the fireplace, thinking, How do you want to play this, Jerry? Come on out, you sordid little creep. The sort of thing Robin says. Then I realized I was shouting it.’

‘Nothing?’

‘So I did de Braose next. I’m going, Look at me, de Braose, you grasping, power-hungry, proto-Nazi scumbag. Look at me. I’m a blonde from the north, my ancestors were probably Vikings. Some of them, anyway. I’m conjuring an image of him in his chain mail and his surcoat – only I put a swastika on it as his emblem.’

‘What do you mean, you put it on…?’

‘Used to do this sort of thing a lot at one time. Before I grew up. Scared the crap out of myself. Not this time. He faded almost immediately. If there’d been anything of him here with any kind of balls it would’ve clung on. The image would either have reformed or intensified.’

‘Betty, call me an old hen, but that seems like playing chicken on the motorway.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve done a few things I regret. Bit of candle magic to sell the house. You charge a green candle – with your door key inside – and put it in the window of the house you’re trying to sell, and by the time it’s burned down… Well, we had an offer that surprised even the estate agent. Some people who’d been to view but hadn’t seemed that enthusiastic. Coincidence, or had I imposed my will on them? I don’t know, and it didn’t make me happy. Would there be a cruel twist because what I’d done was wrong? But my poor, crippled husband felt it was his destiny to live here, and him from Brooklyn.’

Merrily took out her cigarettes.

‘This OK?’

‘Sure.’

Betty dragged out two of the cane chairs and they sat down, their backs to the fireplace. The micro-flame from the Zippo seemed very bright. Nothing blew it out. Betty was right. Nothing much here. Only spent terror.

‘So what I was thinking,’ Merrily said, ‘was a Requiem Eucharist for Cherry Banks. A funeral mass. You and Robin and anyone who might have known her or this place. I think that might do a lot for the atmosphere. If that doesn’t offend your—’

‘Oh, Christ, no, that would be good.’

Funny how pagans, even atheists, leaned on Christian expletives in times of stress.

‘The evil, of course, is still around,’ Merrily said. ‘But probably not here.’

‘Bringing the tape out of the wall… I’m thinking that might reduce the weight.’

‘Actually, I’m wondering now if Jerry Brace put that tape in the wall not for any ritual reason. Suppose he wanted it to be fairly accessible. To prove something, if necessary.’

‘Like what?’

‘Not sure. But maybe he was thinking that, when he was a long way from here, he could get word to somebody where it could be found. Dunno. Junkie logic. He never had the chance, anyway.’

Betty cradled her hands on her lap.

‘Don’t go thinking I’m any less scared. People are frightened of ghosts, who seldom harm anybody – just things you saw as a kid but didn’t have to bother with, adults you didn’t have to be polite to, children you couldn’t play with. But… we live in a human world, with human evil, and human evil is… nearly always much worse.’



‘Did you hear Tamsin Winterson’s been found? Murdered.’

‘Oh Christ. Where?’

‘Cusop.’

Betty sighed.

‘They gave Robin a hard time. We only found the tape because they took the place apart. It’s like we were brought here to be some kind of bloody catalyst. What’s happened to her?’

‘Confidentially – pretty much what happened to Cherry Banks, that’s the thing. Gwyn Jones is making connections.’

‘Small town. Unusual if things this horrible aren’t linked. This is awful, Merrily. You feel you’re watching something… forming… out of the past. And we’ve been made part of it. This guy photographed me in front of the castle. Said it was for a tourist brochure. I didn’t believe him somehow. It was like… I don’t know. Like being fitted into something.’

‘Robin said you heard the laugh.’

‘I’m no judge.’ Betty stared at the black window. ‘I don’t know the woman.’

‘What’s that?’

A whistling outside. Might have been a hymn tune, though not one that Merrily knew. Betty found a tired smile.