‘Funny. Huw Owen makes the same point.’ She glanced at him. ‘If in a slightly blunter fashion.’
‘I suppose it’s just the same way, as Sylvia didn’t, for quite a while, say she was a spiritualist, although it became clear that she—’
‘What?’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘No.’
‘Doesn’t mean she’s one of these people who go to public seances every week. Seems to attend only one church, which is the Cathedral. What she wanted to know – and that, I’m guessing, is what she wanted to approach with you – is whether spiritualism is considered compatible with Church of England worship.’
‘She didn’t mention this.’ The scream of an oncoming emergency vehicle forcing Merrily to switch the phone to her other ear. ‘She told Sophie I was treating her best friend as if she was an evil spirit requiring major exorcism. Which was, of course—’
‘Merrily, grief—’
‘Even allowing for what grief does. I don’t understand this. Or why she also avoided discussing it with George Curtiss from the Cathedral.’
A police car went past at speed, full squeal.
‘I think she just wanted to talk to you,’ Martin said. ‘To have an intelligent discussion, one-to-one.’
‘About spiritualism?’
‘Which we had. An intelligent discussion. And I thought I should tell you, as soon as possible, that she has no intention – nor ever did have – of making an official complaint against you.’
‘That’s not what she told Sophie.’
‘Merrily, it was a cry for help. She wanted attention. I’m glad that I was able to give it to her. Permitted to give it. No offence at all to you. She probably opened up to me because I’m gay.’
‘And what did you tell her – about compatibility?’
‘I told her it was a broad church and we never turned anyone away, but that our belief – or at least mine – was that attempting to maintain contact with our loved ones on the other side of death was unlikely to be beneficial to either.’
‘And she said?’
A woman came out of the Granary with their lunch on a tray. Merrily pushed her chair back and signalled to Huw to eat.
‘She said there was sometimes unfinished business,’ Martin said.
‘There’s nearly always unfinished business. This is still not making any sense, Martin. You tell her you don’t condone communion with the dead, where does this get her?’
‘Well, I hope I’ve made it clear that it’s nothing for you to worry about. You’re on holiday and you can relax.’
‘So you’re going to see her again? Unfinished business?’
‘She wants me to meet her medium. To make it clear to me, as she said, that there’s nothing unhealthy in it.’
‘And you’re going to—’ She waited for another police car to go through. ‘You’re actually going to do that?’
‘Can’t do any harm. It’s not as if I’m going to become a convert. Relax, Merrily.’
‘Be very careful, Martin. We’re both on unsafe ground here.’
She watched the blue lights dispersing oncoming traffic like fly repellent, nobody relaxing here.
43
Weight of bone
NEVER REALLY LIKED to get there first, and it rarely happened, thank Christ, but this was a small town, being on foot an advantage.
If you could call it that.
Bliss had alerted Rich Ford and then followed the woman downhill through the back streets on the English edge of town. She said she hadn’t seen it herself; a canoeist in a wetsuit had asked her if she knew where the police station was, telling her his mate had spotted it near the bank. Was it a man or a woman? She didn’t know, was pointing now across the narrow main road to a turning alongside a vet’s clinic.
It ended at a car park next to a concrete building – sewage works. Then there was rough grass and a beach of pale brown stones sloping into the river, and what looked like an explosion of blood against the greyness of the water and the sky.
‘Police,’ Bliss said quietly.
Out of breath, forehead numbing, as they parted for him.
‘In all his finery,’ someone said. ‘Rather eerie.’
The sun had gone in completely, and the scene was sombre, a mist of funereal rain draped over the dark trees on the opposite bank. The red was lurid, maybe just a blanket thrown over the body.
And then someone laughed.
Mother of God.
Bliss pushed urgently through.
* * *
Laid out in his sodden robes: the full-length cape edged with fake ermine, held together by a chrome pin. The tall crown of beaten gilt on his head. In his left hand the sceptre made from the ballcock from a lavatory cistern with the small H on top like a tiny version of an old-fashioned TV aerial.