Nothing set in stone
MERRILY STOOD AT the top of the stairs and listened. It was crazy, but every time she came up here now, she felt like a fugitive, as if there was a warrant out for her and hands would grab her as soon as she went in.
She waited for about half a minute, letting her heartbeat slow. It had been routine for so long. Monday: traditionally a parish priest’s day off; for Merrily, the day she came into the Hereford Cathedral gatehouse office, Sophie’s Deliverance tower, always parking in the Bishop’s Palace yard.
Not any more. She’d dropped Jane off in town to do some shopping. Left the Freelander on the public car park down by the swimming pool and walked up to the tucked-away Cathedral under an unpromising bronze sky. An air of impermanence – builders and roadworks, charity shops, a city without focus. County-border signs carried the annoying slogan HERE YOU CAN. Can what? It just needed a cartoon of the council leader with a finger pointing at his head, going duh.
Only a keyboard softly tapping in the gatehouse office. Satisfied that it was safe, she went in.
‘You’re early,’ Sophie said.
She was wearing warm clothes, a woollen skirt and a long grey cardigan. She looked… almost lonely, Merrily thought. Like a headmistress left in a school which had shut for the long holidays.
‘A few things to do in town later, so I thought…’ Merrily stood her bag on the desk in the window. ‘Unless there’s anything come in that I don’t know about, in which case…’
‘Mr Unsworth rang, from Lang/Copper, to say the demolition of Susan Lulham’s house would be going ahead next week, so if you were available to perform, ah…’
‘A blessing for the site?’
‘I think that’s the idea.’
‘Could you tell him I’d be happy to do it before or after. Or both.’
‘I think he knows that. He just wanted to confirm the date. They’re looking at next Tuesday.’
There was a general consensus that the house should be gone before Christmas. It was overshadowing the estate and becoming the wrong kind of tourist attraction. A group of well-off neighbours had bought it between them, for demolition. The site would be landscaped, trees planted to create an amenity area.
‘According to Mr Unsworth, people keep driving up there and turning round,’ Sophie said. ‘Some of them hanging out of the windows taking photos on their phones.’
Merrily winced.
‘How do these things spread?’
‘Social media, I imagine.’
‘Mmm. In which case… could you tell Mr Unsworth I’ll call him nearer the time, but it might be best if we had the neighbours – those who want to be involved – gathered on the site just before first light. So as not to attract attention.’
Sophie nodded, sinking behind her desk to make a note. Merrily collapsed into her old chair, her back to the window overlooking Broad Street. Wondering how to approach what needed approaching.
Sophie said she’d never heard of Paul Crowden.
‘Although I’m afraid the Bishop tells me less and less. Everything on a need-to-know basis. Dictates his letters over the phone or I go over to his office in the Palace. Mostly, however, I deal with Ben Adams. As…’ Sophie frowned. ‘… does the Bishop.’
Canon Ben, the Bishop’s clerical secretary. One of a coterie of canons, usually the Dean, too, who would support Innes whatever he proposed, while the archdeacon, Siân Callaghan-Clarke, sat uneasily on the communion rail.
Not easy for Sophie, lay secretary and confidante to Hereford bishops for more than twenty years. The role of lay secretary had been effectively diminished because Innes no longer trusted her. For which Merrily felt entirely responsible.
‘I could ask Ben about Crowden,’ Sophie said.
‘No. Please don’t. Don’t chance it. Don’t give Innes anything he can use. I worry about coming in here now, in case he thinks we’re conspiring.’
Sophie rose, white hair spinning out of its loose bun.
‘Don’t you dare start limiting your visits. Essentially, nothing’s changed. The Bishop has no solid reason to believe that you know anything about his determination to downgrade deliverance. And you weren’t even here when Huw Owen… challenged him.’
‘But if he’s still insisting that all requests for deliverance are run past him…’
‘Requests for exorcism, major, minor or peripheral, have always passed through the Bishop’s office. Which meant me. Bishop Dunmore had no dealings with any of it unless it was brought specifically to his attention.’
‘But not any more.’
‘Nothing’s been set in stone.’ Sophie looking defiant. ‘You’re sure it was this man last night?’
‘Pretty sure. The fact that he came in after the lights had been switched off and left as soon as they went back on.’
‘You had the lights out?’
‘I was using the opening of The Cloud of Unknowing for the meditation. The sense of the soul starting its search for enlightenment in total darkness. If he wanted to make something out of that…’
Sophie sighed.
‘For what it’s worth, I do remember, some months ago, when Bernard Dunmore was still Bishop, someone writing to him to complain about the suspension of evensong in Ledwardine. Replaced by something described as too experimental for a village. More suited to an urban area with a wider range of worship.’
‘Who said that?’
‘I can’t tell you. I only learned about it because Bernard dictated a reply in which he said – more or less – that he found it rather patronizing to suggest that a Ledwardine congregation was unsophisticated. A second, less rational letter expressed the fear that the use of eastern practices—’
‘What?’
‘—might open up the congregation to undesirable influences. I didn’t tell you about these, Merrily, because all bishops receive this kind of mail. Anyway, meditation is being used increasingly in churches. Probably also using non-Biblical texts as a basis.’
‘These complaints – Innes would have access to that kind of history?’
‘It’s possible.’
Merrily smiled.
‘Just after Crowden came in – although I didn’t know it was him at the time – I invited everyone to inhale the darkness. What’s that sound like as supporting evidence against someone suspected of intimacy with the allegedly satanic Bishop Hunter?’
‘Far too clumsy.’
‘Actually, I’m not sure it is.’
Paul’s not the subtlest of implements, is he? Abbie Folley had said. But then Huw Owen hadn’t been subtle either in the way he’d got Innes, temporarily at least, off her back. Only four of them knew what had happened on an autumn morning in the gatehouse office. Huw and Sophie were watertight and Innes surely would not talk about it, for reasons of face-saving, although it struck her now that he might think she and Huw would not be discreet, that what had happened might be a running joke.
‘Can’t go on like this, Sophie.’
‘No. I suppose you can’t.’
‘Should I ask for a meeting with Innes? Have it out with him?’
‘Not the way you’re feeling now. I’ll see what I can discover.’
‘Thank you, but don’t, you know, break cover. Don’t let him think there’s collusion.’
‘Merrily, he knows there’s collusion.’ Sophie slipped back into her chair. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’
‘Bit of background, perhaps. Kilpeck. Part of the Ewyas Harold group?’
‘Along with Dore Abbey and a few neighbouring parishes.’
‘And the minister there is Julie…?’
‘Duxbury. Arrived just over six months ago from South Gloucestershire, where she and her husband were both priests. Sadly, he died suddenly and she wanted a new start. Not quite new, as it turns out. They had a holiday cottage near Ewyas Harold and when the parishes became vacant some sort of deal was struck with the diocese to have it as the rectory.’
Sophie turned away to fill the kettle. She wouldn’t directly ask why Merrily wanted to know about the priest in charge of Kilpeck, though she would expect to be told, eventually. This really wasn’t the time for the full story.
‘A man I buried last week – Aidan Lloyd – was born in Kilpeck.’
‘The accident victim?’
‘A friend of his came to church yesterday. Bereavement apparition. I’ve not been asked to do anything about it, so it doesn’t need to go on the database. I just want to keep an eye on it. Maybe find out a bit about Aidan Lloyd’s life before Ledwardine.’
‘Mrs Duxbury’s only been there since the spring. Although, if what I’m told is accurate, I’m sure she’d be eager to help. She’s… enthusiastic. A people person. Worked in social services in the London area. Then, briefly, a Labour councillor.’
‘Perhaps I’ll call her before I leave. If she’s in.’
Sophie peered over her chained glasses.
‘The person you talked to – is she from Kilpeck?’
‘No, no, she’s here in Hereford. She’s an educated professional woman, and she’s very cool, very balanced. But I think… however you want to look at this, I think she’s dealing with what you might call a powerful presence in her life.’
‘Might this involve psychiatric input?’
‘If it did, she’d know exactly how to get it.’ Merrily picked up the phone. ‘Have you got Julie Duxbury’s number there?’