‘Where are you from originally, Martin?’
‘Me? Cardiff.’ Pronouncing it like a native, Cairdiff. ‘So, thinking you’re doing your best to be virtuous, trying to be a good Christian – sin of pride, do you think?’
‘Not necessarily, no.’
‘When Daniel died… I just gave in to an all-consuming rage. You’ll’ve heard some of it, anyway. I think you need to hear it all from me, really, before you—’
‘No!’
Didn’t need to, didn’t want to. Was that wrong, unfeeling?
‘Martin,’ she said desperately, ‘can I ask your advice? Not being patronizing or anything, I do actually need help. This…’ She took from her jeans the postcard of Hereford Cathedral from Sylvia Merchant. ‘This is something that also relates to bereavement. In, perhaps, a potentially… quite negative way.’
She read the message on the card, explained its background. Standing in the window, from which you could see Lol’s cottage.
‘These women,’ he said. ‘I’m assuming a long-term relationship?’
‘Though I don’t think they lived together until she retired. And there’s no certainty that it was anything more than companionship. But… that’s not my business.’
‘Boss and secretary,’ Martin said.
‘A long, working relationship. I was thinking two desks in the same office, twin beds. Continuity.’
‘In Victorian times,’ Martin said, ‘some wealthy women – and some not so wealthy – would have a personal maid. To cater for all their needs.’
‘So I gather.’
‘But what did she want from you?’
‘I don’t know. Thought I did. She went directly to Sophie, saying that she’d been seeing her companion after death. I thought she wanted some reassurance there was nothing unhealthy or worrying about that. And that Ms Nott, having provided evidence of an element of survival, could now go on to find… you know, eternal rest? Not quite the case. Apparently.’
‘Did she ask you to try and stop it happening?’
‘Thinking back, she didn’t ask me anything. She just reported it. She apparently wanted advice. I played it by ear. As you do.’
‘And when she says we…’ Martin waved the card ‘… I presume she means the two of them.’
‘She’s either… well, there are several possibilities. She’s deluded… she’s pretending, she wants me to think Ms Nott might still be around, or…’
‘Or Ms Nott is around,’ Martin said.
‘Yes.’
‘Or the other possibility, Merrily, is that she wants Ms Nott with her, and by visualizing her there…’
‘There’s a word for that. I think it’s the N-word.’
‘I believe it is, yes.’
‘But… even if we’re prepared to believe that a retired businesswoman is ready to give in to what she may not realize are necromantic urges to keep a dead person on a lead…’
‘She’s a regular churchgoer, you say?’
‘A cathedral-goer.’
‘Yes.’ Martin nodded. ‘I suppose the worst this reveals is a lamentable ignorance of the rules of exorcism and deliverance.’
‘I think…’ Merrily put a finger over her lips then took it away ‘… a deliberate misinterpretation.’
‘Which prayers did you use?’
‘Well… nothing that might sound ritualistic. I busked it. As cosy as I could make it, without insulting her intelligence. Ms Merchant is not a particularly cosy person.’
Martin lowered himself to a corner of the bed.
‘I don’t know what to say. I mean, are you consulting me as a recently bereaved person… or as a homosexual?’
‘As a priest, of course, with a knowledge of exorcism.’
Martin smiled. He’d done the course with Huw, even if he’d probably never been called on to do the business.
‘There’s always been gay clergy,’ Merrily said. ‘Did anybody make a thing of it? It’s a point Huw Owen makes. As soon as you turn something into an Issue, everyone starts to overreact. The Church never handles Issues very well.’
‘Men like me,’ Martin said, ‘we don’t help. I’m a stupid, emotional person, Merrily, which I hope is nothing to do with being gay. Rendered temporarily insane by grief and rage, I… got drunk.’
Merrily nodded, resigned to it now.
‘On wine. On communion wine – quite deliberately – in the vestry. Helplessly, mindlessly, angrily drunk.’
‘I didn’t know that bit.’