The Magus of Hay(22)

‘Eerie.’

‘I need to see her again, don’t I?’

‘I think not, Merrily.’ Sophie still didn’t look up. ‘The Bishop happened to be there when I was dealing with the call and asked me what it was about. His opinion was that this was something in which, ah… in which it was better that Deliverance should not be involved.’

‘Bernie said that? Better for whom?’

‘Better for you, certainly. Better for Ms Merchant, in the long term. And – presumably – better for poor Ms Nott. So I’m afraid I had to call Ms Merchant back and tell her that I’d forgotten you were on holiday. And that another priest would come to see her.’

‘What?’

‘Didn’t have a choice in the matter.’

‘Who?’

‘Likely to be George Curtiss.’

Cathedral canon. Large, bearded, well known for diplomatic skills.

Bloody hell.

‘Merrily…’ Sophie was looking up at last, cutlery abandoned. ‘… your role, surely, is primarily as an adviser on the paranormal. In most cases an adviser to the clergy.’

‘But once I’m involved—’

‘Once it becomes clear it’s a mental health issue, some form of delusional grief, it might require an entirely different approach. Let it go, Merrily. You need a holiday. You need to spend time with Jane.’

‘What exactly did Sylvia Merchant say to panic Bernie? Because I can’t imagine, from what you’ve told me so far…’

Sophie’s eyes narrowed.

‘We’ll talk about it back at the gatehouse.’





11

Without comfort


MISTAKE. THE GATEHOUSE office was Sophie’s domain. Sophie’s eyrie at the top of a narrow staircase, overlooking Broad Street and the Cathedral Green.

‘So… Laurence,’ Sophie said. ‘Did he go, in the end?’

Merrily looked out of the window, an irritable rain bubbling the glass, smudging the people crossing the Green with their heads down into the weather.

‘Yes. He went. I think he wanted me to say don’t do it.’

‘It was the right thing, Merrily.’

‘To get away from me?’

‘To get away from the village.’

Sophie still had her short camel coat on, open but with the collar turned up against her crisp white hair. An unspoken protest about the heating being off in the gatehouse office. Her gloves lay on the desk.

She was right, of course, about Lol, who’d arrived in Ledwardine on the run from the horrors of the mental health system, coming through with the help of the late Lucy Devenish, wise woman of this parish, whose cottage he’d bought after her death. And then, as his relationship with Merrily had deepened, had been increasingly nervous of leaving the village. It wasn’t agoraphobia, but there was probably a name for it.

‘How long’s he away?’

‘Five weeks, give or take. So that’s four more. I mean, you’re right. He was like a plant in danger of becoming potbound. And the money angle, of course.’



With free downloads starving the recording industry, the only way a musician collected a worthwhile income these days was by going back on the road. Not that Lol cared much about money but, if he wasn’t making any, his confidence would evaporate. Not good, for either of them.

‘Did I tell you Danny Thomas had gone with him? Gomer’s partner. Fulfilling an old dream. Well, the dream was Glastonbury, actually, but playing second guitar for Lol… is a start.’

She’d told Lol he should do it for Danny. What she hadn’t told him yet was about Jane. She pushed her chair back, away from the Anglepoise lamp. Sophie had switched it on, ostensibly against the unseasonal dimness; it was starting to look like the preliminary to an interrogation.

‘So at least you’ll be able to spend more… mother and daughter time with Jane, before she goes on her gap year… excavation.’

Sophie edged the lamp a little closer to Merrily, waiting, lines of concern making her face more priestly than any lay person had a right to look. Merrily gave up.

‘All right. It didn’t go quite as planned. Should’ve been an excavation down in Wiltshire, in August. But then she was offered a place on another one, in Pembrokeshire, which meant that Eirion was able to go with her. Which is good because these digs have a reputation for, erm, impropriety. So that’s worked out quite well, too. For everybody. Almost.’

‘And that’s when?’

Merrily followed the progress of an elderly couple under a golf umbrella, through the rain to the cathedral porch.

‘They left yesterday.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Sophie steepled her fingers. ‘So that’s why you didn’t come in.’