Fabric of Sin (53 page)

‘Just been up to the …’ Merrily put on a rueful smile. ‘Called at The Ridge, to pick up my stuff.’

‘Oh,
Merrily
… I dropped off the bags at your home a few hours ago.’

‘Yeah, I know. Sod’s Law, Teddy.’

‘Didn’t your daughter tell you?’

‘No, Beverley told me. I mean, just now. Haven’t seen Jane since breakfast – I’ve been in Hereford. Damn. Thank you. But I mean, you shouldn’t’ve bothered, anyway.’

‘Not a problem, I was going past. More or less.’

‘Anyway … Now, since I was here, I thought we ought to have a word, clear up a few things, but Beverley said she didn’t know where you’d gone, so I thought I’d just …’

‘Thought you’d drop in here instead, and get things ready for your Requiem?’

‘Well … yes. Always helps, doesn’t it? Always things on the day that you’d wished you’d thought of earlier, like … an altar? It’s amazing how often you turn up to do a Eucharist and there’s nothing to use as an altar, so I’ve got this folding—’

Talking too fast
.

‘Anyway, you know all that stuff.’

‘Yes,’ Teddy said. ‘And I think it’s terribly brave of you to come to somewhere like this, on your own, after dark. It’s just that I thought you – or rather the Bishop – had called it all off.’

Bugger
.

‘Well …’ Merrily stared into the lamp. ‘I thought it was time to stand
up for what I believed, for a change, instead of bowing to politics, so I went to see him today, persuaded him to let me go ahead. I thought it was important, I mean, to do something. Get rid of all the years of bad feeling and rumour, let this place go into a new era, clean.’

‘Good for you, Merrily!’ Teddy said.

‘Of course, I thought I’d have a bit more time to make the arrangements because it wasn’t going to be until Saturday, but then Beverley said your memorial service was being held tomorrow, and I obviously wanted to tie in with that, that whole Templar thing, so …’

‘Well, you know, I didn’t want it to become a circus, Merrily.’

‘No. I can understand that.’

‘All these odd people who seem to turn up at anything to do with Templars.’

‘Yes … in fact, I did want to—’

‘It’s why I’m here,’ Teddy said.

‘Sorry?’

‘Someone in the village was telling me that some people had been seen around the church and the Master House with metal detectors. Treasure hunters, you know? We get them all the time, and they’ve been known to cause quite a lot of damage, but … well, nothing on this scale before.’

‘In … in here?’

‘If you come upstairs, I can show you. Hell of a mess.’

‘Oh.’

‘Why I’m wearing this.’ Teddy plucked at the surplice. ‘It’s an old one I keep in the Land Rover to use as a kind of overall. Cover up my clothes.’

‘Oh … yeah. I was wondering about that.’

What Merrily
could
see now was that the red marks on the surplice were not blood but stone dust. Surprising how many clergy did that, recycled old vestments.

He beamed at her and gestured at the stairs with one hand.

‘Interesting, really. There’s a … Well, I’d heard about it, of course, but it was blocked up over fifty years ago by the Newtons. It was apparently pretty inaccessible, not much use as a storage area, reduced the floor space upstairs, and so they bricked it up. Priest’s hole, Merrily.’

‘Oh.’

‘Quite a lot of Papists here after the Reformation. An independence of spirit remaining from the time when the Templars owed no money or allegiance to anyone but the Pope himself. Quite a bit of persecution.’

‘Yes. Actually, I was going to—’

‘Anyway, what happened, I saw these two guys coming up from here towards the church, just before dark, shouted to them … and, of course, they took off. Came down here to investigate, door was hanging open, dust everywhere. They’d ripped up the floorboards upstairs, prised away the bricks, exposed the cavity.’

‘It’s in the wall?’

‘Back of the fireplace. Come and look.’

Teddy stood back from the stairs.

A test.

Merrily remembered the room upstairs, the smell of decay, probably dead mice and rats. The skeletal remains of two beds.

How she’d thought of M. R. James and the room at the Globe Inn.

And if she didn’t go up with him now, she’d be revealing fear. Fear of a colleague in the clergy. If she did go up … what?

Problem was, it rang true, this story. More than hers did, anyway. The light falling into the inglenook had been an indication of something being knocked through, perhaps the wrong stones being taken out.

She said, ‘Why would they … I mean, what did they expect to find?’

What had
Teddy
expected to find?

Or was he going to put something in? Brick it up again.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve not been able to see. If you were to hold the lamp for me, perhaps we might …’

‘Well, maybe not now, Teddy, if you don’t mind. Best clothes?’

‘Oh, it’s not too bad, now the dust has settled. They must’ve left in quite a hurry. Left this behind.’

He bent down, came up holding a crowbar, a long one, heavy-duty. Held it in both hands.

‘Well … well-prepared, then,’ Merrily said. ‘Templar treasure – that what they were looking for, do you think?’

‘Templar treasure.’ He looked at her, head on one side, lamplight glazing his eyes. ‘What a joke.’

‘Is it?’

‘If there
was
treasure, it wasn’t
their
kind of treasure – gold and jewels.’

‘No?’

‘Perhaps something much more … abstract than that. The essence of an ethos.’

She was starting to feel very cold. Cold and scared enough to shiver. Mrs Morningwood. Where was she?
Had
she been in here tonight? And if she had …

It was crazy. No rape victim would deliberately expose herself again to the …

… Rapist.

But how could you think that of easygoing Teddy,
placid
Teddy? How could anyone?

‘I keep hearing stuff about Jacques de Molay being here,’ Merrily said. ‘Some ex-Templar’s confession. Jacques de Molay forcing him to deny Jesus Christ or be … put into a sack or something.’

There was a sack in the inglenook, an animal-feed sack of thick plastic. Maybe two.

‘Ah,’ Teddy said. ‘That old tale.’

‘You don’t believe it?’

‘Confessions could be extracted without too much difficulty in those days.’

‘Not so easy now.’

‘No?’

‘To get someone to confess,’ Merrily said. ‘Not so easy.’

Wondering how quickly she could get out of here, if necessary. How fast she could run. Wearing a skirt.

But then all she had to do was open the door and scream for Lol, and he’d be down here in seconds, ready to face Teddy.

And his crowbar.

And Jane … Merrily flinched at an image of Jane’s soft face raked across by the sharp end of a crowbar wielded like a weapon of war. Like a Templar’s …

She straightened up. Patted some red dust off her best dark blue woollen jacket.

‘You know what, Teddy?’ she said. ‘
I
think you’ve been misleading us all.’

‘This is so weird.’

Jane and Lol had got out of the car. The night wind was blowing Jane’s hair back. She faced into it.

‘I can’t believe she did that, Lol. Can’t believe how much she’s changed … even this past year Or you, come to that. Never used to notice people changing.’

‘No.’

‘Scary, really.’

‘Yes.’

She didn’t think he’d taken his eyes off the front of that farmhouse once since Mum had gone in. He was like Roscoe, sitting upright on the grass between them, Jane resting a hand on the dog’s neck, feeling a quiver there.

‘When we came here – I mean to Ledwardine – I had no respect for Mum. I
despised
her. For being a priest. For making me watch her … pray and stuff. How
could
she, you know? How could she put me through that?’

‘That’s normal,’ Lol said. ‘Oh God, Jane, I forgot. Eirion rang.’

‘Irene?’

It was out before she could stop it.

‘He, um … he said you hadn’t been returning his calls.’

‘Did he?’

She looked at Lol’s shape in the darkness, tense. He used to look very boyish, in a wispy kind of way. Even just a couple of years ago. There was grey in his hair now and he had an air of faint regret. Maybe the wasted years. And there was still anxiety. Not so much about his career as a fear of losing Mum. And how to handle a priest.

‘He said he must’ve rung about twenty times,’ Lol said. ‘He sounded pretty upset. He thinks, um … he thinks you’re having an affair with a married man.’

‘Coops.’

‘That would be the guy, yes.’

‘It’s over,’ Jane said.

‘What?’

‘He’s given me what I need.’

Lol took his stare off the house for nearly a second.

‘The best places to apply for courses in archaeology.’

‘Jane …?’

‘I was thinking, well, if I hate the idea of the future so much, like the way the world’s going, why not just like … immerse myself in the way it used to be.’

‘You told your mum about this?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I wasn’t certain. Coops took me on a field walk. You just, like, walk a line through a … field. And pick things up … bits of stone, bits of pottery, and it’s like you’re peeling away the layers. It was amazing. Unexpectedly amazing. The feeling of … I dunno …
contact
.’

‘That’s … fantastic, Jane. You’ve found it? At last?’

‘Yeah. Maybe. I’d have to get accepted somewhere first. How did he sound?’

‘Who?’

‘Eirion.’

‘Seriously pissed-off.’

‘Oh God. Sometimes I can’t believe what a total bitch I am.’ Jane looked down at the long stone house. ‘What do you think they’re talking about in there?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t like the feel of this, Jane.’

‘You think Mrs Morningwood is … I mean, we know nothing about her, really. What are we going to do? About Mum.’

‘I don’t know. I’m not her … boss.’

‘Yeah, but you love her. Trouble is,’ Jane said, ‘she thinks the boss does, too.’

‘Which …? Oh.’

‘She’s inclined to trust the bugger too much, if you ask me. Faith doesn’t always win through. Look at all the good people He … Good people who get shafted. Destroyed. Happens all the time.’

She had to stay with this. Nobody else was going to find out. She sank her hands into her jacket pockets for warmth.

Misleading everybody. Not really. Teddy could have been standing up in various pulpits for thirty years and preaching from the Gnostic gospels and nobody would notice. Faith was flaccid. People no longer heard. Congregations didn’t
listen
.

‘I meant the Templars, that’s all.’ Merrily keeping her voice light. ‘You like to pretend you have only a cursory knowledge, but the first time we met you said you were a historian by inclination, and it’s just not
possible
for a historian to live in a place like this without getting …’

‘Obsessed?’

‘Totally immersed, I was going to say. I bet you were so excited when you found The Ridge. Like your … like your whole life had been moving towards Garway.’

Teddy looked up, first in surprise. And then, maybe, in suspicion, his eyes sullen in the lamplight.

‘Yes. I suppose so. I applied several times for this parish. Always went to someone else. I suppose the time wasn’t right. And, as a team minister, with the other parishes, I wouldn’t have had the space I have now. This has been a happy coincidence. A time to be seized.’

‘You knew a lot about them before you came? The Templars?’

‘Yes, I suppose I studied quite a bit. A good bit.’

‘Before theological college.’

‘Yes. Theology was … an interesting tangent. I grew up at a time when you could follow your …’

‘Stars.’ Merrily found a smile. ‘As it were.’

‘I was born in Hertfordshire. There’s always been a lot of Templar activity around Hertford itself.’

‘Hertfordshire to Herefordshire?’

‘Interesting. One letter and almost the whole width of a country away. In Hertford itself, there’ve always been rumours of tunnels under the town, connected to the Knights Templar, the Holy Grail. There’s still an organization there. An Order.’

‘Of Templars?’

‘It didn’t go away.’

‘Secret?’

‘To an extent. But enough on the surface for them to call on the Vatican to apologize for the inquisition of 1307.’

‘You think the Vatican
should
apologize, Teddy?’

‘It would just be a token gesture. The Templars never needed tokenism. They dug out their own heritage. Literally.’

‘From the site of Solomon’s Temple. Or is that a metaphor?’

‘It’s both. Like Garway. This place is as important as Solomon’s Temple now. More important.’

‘Because it hasn’t altered? Apart from the odd radio mast, much the same now as it was in the thirteenth century.’

‘And even the mast is symbolic. Like the hill itself, it communicates information that not everyone can receive.’

‘As above, so below.’

He shrugged.

‘You get periods of great activity and illumination,’ he said. ‘Periods of urgency.’