Fabric of Sin (49 page)

‘What do we do now?’ Lol said.

‘Pick up the money for the Boswell?’

‘It’s not going to be there, Merrily.’

‘Be interesting to see. Stourport clearly very much wants you off his back.’

They parked at Tesco, walked round the corner by All Saints Church and Lol went into the bank on his own.

Came back with a thick yellow envelope.

‘Let’s not get too excited, it might be a letter bomb. Or something.’

Insisting on her getting into the truck while he opened it on his own in the car park, up against a perimeter wall.

He slid back into the truck.

‘I’ve never had a fifty-pound note before. Let alone eighty of them.’

‘Well, well …’

‘And there’s also this.’

He laid a plastic CD case on the dash. Merrily grimaced.

‘I do hope it’s not death metal.’

‘I seriously don’t like to put it on.’ Lol took out the CD, held it up to the light. ‘Doesn’t
look
like it’s been tampered with.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake …’

‘Now?’

Lol switched on the engine, loaded the CD, turned up the volume.

A background hum was relayed through six speakers. A lot of rustling, movement of objects. A female voice.

‘
Is this what you wanted?
’

‘
Yeah, yeah … over there
.’ Male voice. ‘
Near the mirror. And don’t talk again, all right? Just keep quiet. Whatever happens, you keep quiet. This is important
.’

After about a minute of near-silence, the girl said:

‘
Ooh, kinky
.’

And the man hissed:

‘
’King shut it!
’

‘That
could
be Hayter,’ Lol said, ‘but …’

Merrily said, ‘The girl … did that sound like a Brummie accent to you?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Christ.’

The atmosphere – a suggestion of burning, a hissing – was issuing like steam from speakers on either side, filling the cab. After some minutes, another male voice came in, up-and-down, liturgical.

‘
I conjure thee by the name under which thou knowest thy God and by the name of the prince and king who rules over thee. I conjure thee to come at once and to fulfil my desires, by the powerful name of Him who is obeyed by all, by the name Tetragrammaton, Jehovah, the names which overcome everything, whether of this world or any other … Come, speak to me clearly, without duplicity. Come in the name of Adonai Sabaoth, come, linger not. Adonai Shadai, the king of all kings, commands thee!
’

Background noise, with swishing movements. An exclamation of distaste. ‘
Sulphur! Jeez!
’ A nervous giggle.

After a while, another voice.

‘
Told you it was boll— Sorry
.’

Then the whole incantation repeated. Twice.

Near-silence this time. A thump, as if the tape had been unsubtly edited. Then two voices, one going, ‘
Oh my—!
’

Cut off by the second, louder, triumphant.

‘
Welcome. Thou wert invoked in the name of him who has created heaven and earth and hell. I hereby bind thee so that thou shalt remain here, within the confines of the triangle, while I still require thee and leave not without the licence to depart, and then not without answering the questions I shall put to thee
.

‘
That which was brought here on the instructions of the Grand Master and Grand Preceptor of all England, Jacques de Molay, to be hidden from those who would purloin it … if it be still here, I command you to inform me of its true location and if it be not here I command that you so inform me
.’

More invocation of the secret names of God. The question repeated. No clues as to what hidden item they were hoping to locate. It went on for another ten minutes, with edit bumps, until whatever had been welcomed was formally dismissed and the recording ended.

‘The problem with ceremonial magic,’ Merrily said, ‘is that it can be incredibly tedious. The language they use … stilted, pompous. Mock liturgy.’

‘Very defined, though,’ Lol said. ‘Very exact, focused on what they want and closing up all other avenues. I don’t know what to make of it. All smoke and mirrors, or what?’

‘Actually, it involves both smoke
and
mirrors. This ex-Catholic priest Eliphas Levi – huge admirer of the Templars – once claimed to have conjured up a spirit for a friend of Bulwer-Lytton, the writer. Admitting that he couldn’t really be sure what he’d got, but claiming to see the figure of a man. And he asks it the designated questions and gets the answers in his head.’

‘No big, sonorous voice echoing around the temple?’

‘Inside your head,’ Merrily said, ‘is usually as good as it gets. Apparently.’

‘So who were they trying to invoke here?’

‘Dunno. You go through the Key of Solomon and all these magical texts, you get a selection of spirits – funny names, Biblical-sounding roots – which perform certain functions to order. Finding hidden treasure – that’s a big favourite.’

‘It’s been quite heavily edited.’

‘Because this stuff takes for ever,’ Merrily said. ‘But, yeah, it also covers up essential facts. Like, we don’t find out exactly what they’re after or who they’re trying to talk to. Or what they get out of it … if anything. It’s just rich kids messing around, trying to scare themselves. Like, hey, we’ve done all the drugs, had all the weird sex, let’s do Other Spheres of Existence? Point is, why did Hayter want us to hear it?’

‘Sign of good faith? He said that if he found any of the tapes he’d let me know. I thought that was just to get my phone number. Which, of course, he put to good use a short time later.’

‘But why is he telling us
anything
? Went to a lot of trouble here. He must’ve either shot straight round to the bank with it, or he’d taken it earlier, making provision for collection by someone else. He didn’t have to offer you any money – there was no way you could pin the Boswell on him.’

Lol ejected the CD, slid it back into the plastic case.

‘Well, he doesn’t want us to drop it, does he? He’s just trying to steer us away from
him
. More or less editing himself out. Like, “something did happen, but it wasn’t down to me.” The girl … could that be Mary?’

‘Perhaps I’ll play it to Mrs Morningwood. And of course, Sycharth’s not in there at all. Where’s his big Welsh-language scene?’

‘Yet Hayter told me about Gwilym. Without mentioning his name.’

‘But that, presumably, was before he spoke to him again,’ Merrily said. ‘Now it’s like they’re on the same side, both pointing at the guy who conducted the ritual.’

‘Saying this is the bad guy, Mat Phobe, and he’s dead? End of story?’

Merrily’s mobile chimed.

‘I don’t know. It might be somebody they can’t— Hello?’

‘I think I should like to talk to you, Merrily,’ Beverley Murray said.

‘S
O WHERE DID
it happen?’ Jane asked.

The Volvo roared and surged because she’d put it back into second gear instead of up into fourth.
Shit
.

‘Was it at your home?’ Jane said. ‘Is that what this is all about?’

Mrs Morningwood glanced at her.

‘It wasn’t far from home. It’s an established fact that most car accidents take place on roads that are well known to the victim. Familiarity breeding carelessness.’

‘Yes,’ Jane said. ‘Very good.’

She wasn’t
totally
stupid. She was driving slowly but trying not to make it
suspiciously
slowly. She’d left a message on the table for Mum telling her the truth, that she was driving Mrs Morningwood home to collect some stuff, but not the entire truth, that she’d be driving back, almost certainly in the dark, unaccompanied by a qualified driver.

She could do this. Country roads all the way, a wide arc around Hereford.

‘So what was it like growing up in Garway, under the shadow of the Templars?’

‘Good question,’ Mrs Morningwood said.

Obviously any question unrelated to her having been viciously assaulted was going to be a good one.

‘Like, the first time I went up there,’ Jane said, ‘I was noticing things. But maybe if you grow up in a place you take it all for granted.’

‘In this case, Jane, I think not. Even people who profess no interest at all in the Templars are, I think, affected in some way. It’s one of those areas that seems to … I don’t know … condition the way people think
and behave. It somehow imposes its own rules and strictures. You noticed yourself the names of the pubs. I’ve never worked out how far they go back, but I don’t think it matters. They might simply be echoes from memory. The people are the memory cells of the hill.’

‘Cool.’

‘My mother, for instance. I don’t think she once mentioned the Templars to me as a child, but she knew about the Nine Witches. I can name them, she used to say. Every one.’

‘So who were the other eight?’

‘I never asked, she never told me. Of course, when I was a child, a witch meant an old woman in a pointed hat, stirring a cauldron. They were probably all around me and not all of them women.’

‘Are there nine now?’

‘Probably. It’s not a coven or anything, Jane. It simply suggests that there are always going to be nine people who, whether they know it or not, have been entrusted with the guardianship of the hill and its ways. Whenever an issue arises which might damage us, certain people will project … a certain point of view. I can’t explain it any better than that.’

‘People with Garway in their blood?’

‘Nothing so prosaic as blood, Jane. It’s in their very being. I really do believe that. It conditions how one does what one does.’

‘Like your herbalism? Healing?’

‘Or dowsing. Water-divining. Or painting, sculpture, gardening, furniture-making. Everything somehow relating to the place and its relationship with the heavens and infused with … a special energy. Sometimes.’

‘As above, so below. Paracelsus?’

‘I’m not aware that Paracelsus was ever in Garway, or even if someone so loud and demonstrative would have been welcome here. We’re very low-key. Which is why I’ve always felt that Owain Glyndwr, as depicted by Shakespeare, would have been unlikely to have fitted in either.’

‘Archetypal Welsh windbag?’ Jane figured she had a good working knowledge of Shakespeare, the big ones, anyway. ‘
I can call spirits from the vasty deep
.’

‘Anyone who goes around telling people he can call spirits is usually bugger-all use at it,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Do you mind if I smoke, or are you like most kids, indoctrinated by the fascists in Westminster?’

‘Are you kidding? In our house?’

‘Thank you. I’ll open the window. You see, that’s why I suspect Glyndwr was not such a windbag. Although the wind does appear to have been important to him in other ways.’

‘Huh?’

‘Vast amount of mystery and superstition attached to the man – the wizard, who could manipulate the elements, alter the weather, leaving opposing armies drowning in Welsh mist. A very Templar thing to do. I can’t believe that, coming here a mere century or so after the dissolution, he wasn’t exposed to the full blast of residual Templarism. Some of them would still have been here, undercover now, sitting on their secrets.’

‘But he only came here towards the end of his life, didn’t he?’

‘Who says that was the first time? I think not. Besides, the Templars may have favoured Welsh independence, just as they supported the Scots at Bannockburn. I’ve even heard it said that they included among their number Llewelyn ap Gruffudd, the last official Prince of Wales, in the thirteenth century. His dates certainly fit.’

‘Really?’

‘The Templars seemed to like governments being fragmented, Jane. Made it easier to sustain their own international power-base.’

‘Right.’

Jane slowed at the single-lane Brobury Bridge over the Wye, waiting for every possible oncoming car to come across before chancing her arm. Dorstone Hill, narrow, winding and wooded, wasn’t going to be easy. When she and Eirion had come last summer he’d had to keep reversing to find somewhere to pull in to let other cars get past. And she was … well, crap at reversing.

She’d stopped talking, to concentrate, but Mrs Morningwood seemed to want to talk, as if she was afraid of where her own thoughts might lead her.

‘OK,’ Jane said. ‘So, like, is Garway the way it is because of the
Templars? Or did the Templars only come here because Garway was already, you know, this really charged-up landscape? Maybe back into Celtic times?’

‘Mixture of the two. Whatever was here, they certainly enhanced it. It’s an unstable area, too. Has a major geological fault line. Climatic anomalies are often noted. We used to talk about gusts of wind from The White Rocks, which are supposed to be a Celtic burial ground. And then, of course, there’s M. R. James.’

‘
We must
…’ Jane’s hands tightened on the wheel. ‘
… have offended someone or something at Garway
… ’

‘My God, Jane, for a child you’re remarkably well informed.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Anyone under forty’s a child to me now. It’s the wind again, you see. Why did James have this chap discover a whistle that could arouse the wind on the site of a Templar preceptory? It’s never explained in the story.’

‘But you think the Templars … and Owain Glyndwr …?’

‘And farmers in this area, at one time. John Aubrey refers to
the winnowers of Herefordshire
who believed they could arouse a wind to blow the chaff from the wheat, by whistling. Whistling up the wind. That’s undoubtedly where Monty James got the idea from.’

‘You reckon?’

‘It’s the only possible connection.’

‘But M. R. James didn’t even come here until years after he’d written that story. He didn’t come until this Gwen McBryde came to live here with her daughter. Erm … Jane.’

‘Well we don’t know for certain that he hadn’t been here before that. But, as an antiquarian, it’s most unlikely that he hadn’t heard of Garway.’

‘I keep thinking of Jane MacBryde,’ Jane said. ‘How old would she have been?’