Resurrectionists (6 page)

Under the lowering sky, the steel-grey sea and the curve of the headland spread out before her: to the north, ragged cliffs and a rocky outcrop; to the south, the cliffs becoming steeper, the cemetery laid out right to the edge, grey stones stained with black moss and leaning this way and that. Patches of long yellow grass grew here and there, spots of bright colour against the deep wet green. And below her, crashing over and over on to the black rocks, the ever-mobile sea. Her teeth were chattering against each other, but she felt she had never seen anything more beautiful in her life. Suddenly, it seemed worth coming all this way. After following the path that ran along the cliff’s edge for about half an hour, she was desperate to get inside to the heating. Her ears ached and her fingers felt like icy sticks. Still, she dreaded the long evening ahead. Daylight was already dissolving around her and would not emerge again for fifteen hours – longer, if the rain set in. She headed back through the wood and returned to the garden. In a gust of wind, the enormous oak tree shook some brown leaves down upon her, and upon the mossed roof of the cottage. She rested her hand upon the tree trunk, trying to imagine her grandmother performing magic rituals here. Was it possible one could grow fond of a person one had never met? Because that’s how she was starting to feel towards Sybill. Eccentric, psychic, creative Sybill. Her grandmother.

“And for all those years you were kept from me,”

she said softly.

She turned slowly towards the house, then froze in astonishment. A dark shape, a hooded figure, shifted a shadowy reflection in the glass of the laundry window. Worse, it looked as though it were standing just behind her right shoulder. She spun round to check but could see nothing, and when she turned back to the laundry window the apparition was gone. Her heart sped a little, her skin shivered, but she remained rooted to the spot.

What if somebody was in the house? But no, the windows were reflective, not transparent, especially now night had fallen.

Perhaps – perhaps it was the spectre of her grandmother in her ritual cloak. But she had seen the cloak and it was grey, not that dirty brown. And there had been no sense of a warm or eccentric old woman about that apparition. Rather, something elongated and sinister.

No, she must be imagining things. She was still tired, disoriented. It was probably just the reflection of an oak branch bowing in the wind. She walked up to the house and let herself into the laundry. Tabby sat on the washing machine looking at her.

“Was it you, Tabby? Were you trying to frighten me?”

Maybe the cat, maybe a tree, maybe just the product of an overstimulated, overtired mind. It didn’t matter. The house was warm and Tabby needed to be fed. And tonight she would watch television, drink hot tea, listen to the wind buffet the window panes, and enjoy her solitude, her time and space to think about life. And when ten o’clock came and she was tired enough to sleep and had forgotten (almost) about the thing she thought she had seen, she looked up towards the end of the house and saw Tabby sitting on the washing machine, gazing out the laundry window into the back garden. And, just as she did when she guarded a mouse-hole, the cat swished her tail back and forth idly.

As though she were watching for something.

Adrian was a good singer and he knew it, but he also knew he was a bad mathematician, which was why he was embarrassed but not surprised when his phone call to Maisie woke her up.

“It’s one in the morning,” she said, and from the other side of the world he heard her yawn.

“I thought it was nine p.m.”

“You have to add two hours then change a.m. to p.m.”

“Ah. I must have subtracted.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m just glad to hear your voice. It seems like years since I spoke to you.”

He stretched out on the bed. “So, tell me

everything.”

Which she did. About her grandmother the witch, the local Reverend coming to visit, the gardener who told her to beware the tight-knit religious community, her new cat, the view out along the cliff-tops and the vast Solgreve cemetery.

“And are you happy,” he asked, “or are you

homesick?”

“A bit of both. But I’m not coming home. I’m going to tough it out.”

“I know. You can’t let Janet think she’s won.”

“I’m not just here to piss my mother off, Adrian. I’m not that shallow.”

“Sorry.” He changed ears. “Anyway, there

wouldn’t be much point in your coming home just yet. The tour starts next Wednesday, and I’ll be gone until January.”

“You’ll have a wonderful time.”

“I’m sure I will.” There was nothing he loved more than performing in front of an audience, travelling from place to place, being treated like somebody important. Which was the case more and more since the
Otello
incident.

“I have other news,” he said. “First, the
Sydney
Morning Herald
are interviewing me for the cover of their Good Weekend magazine.”

“Oh, Adrian! That’s fantastic. Make sure you send me a copy.”

“There’s more. Churchwheel’s want me.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Not kidding.” Churchwheel’s was the most

prestigious opera company in the country, a privately run organisation which toured throughout

Australasia and quite often beyond. “I’m looking over the contracts at the moment. I’ll probably be signing up to start with them in February. Can you believe it?”

“Of course I can believe it,” Maisie said. “You’re the best. God, I wish I was there so I could give you a hug. You’re so far away.”

“Too far.” He sighed and rolled over, looked at the picture of them together at her Bachelor of Music graduation three years ago. Her hair had still been long then, all wild black ringlets. He had almost wept the day she cut it all off. “It’s all a bit flat without you here.”

“If you’re joining Churchwheel’s, we’d better get used to being apart.”

“I suppose. Though I could put in a good word for you. Who knows, the next time they need a cellist . . .”

“I don’t want to think about that now. Perhaps I’ll have a change of career when I come back.”

“But what would you do?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I’m here figuring out. I’m supposed to be finding myself.” She yawned. “Though I haven’t the faintest idea where to start looking.”

“I should let you go back to sleep,” he said gently.

“I miss you so much,” she said.

“Me too. Want me to call again tomorrow?”

“Would you? Would you call every day until you go away?”

“Sure,” he said. “I love you, Maisie.”

“I love you too. Bye.”

The phone clicked. He hung up and lay back, looking at the ceiling and daydreaming of crowded concert halls.

“We’re a special community,” Constable Tony Blake was saying to Lester Baines as they leaned against the boot of his car. “We have special needs.”

The Reverend hurried up to them. He had expected to arrive first, but it was taking him longer and longer to get out of bed and dressed at this time of night. It frightened him a little, because it made him aware of how old he grew. He hated being outside in this weather: the black sky, the black icy wind coming off the sea, and the distinctive emptiness of three a.m. lying over the streets.

“Tony,” the Reverend said in what he hoped was a stern voice.

“Reverend,” Tony replied, stepping back from Lester and looking chastened. He was under orders not to get into conversation with the crook. Lester asked so many questions, and the Reverend knew Lester had the kind of mind which could figure things out eventually, given enough snippets of information.

The Reverend turned to Lester. “This is very quick work.”

“I got a call just after I’d seen you. This one’s from Manchester.”

“Well, let’s get him to his final destination, shall we?”

“Her. It’s a lady.”

The Reverend nodded, hoping his distaste wasn’t apparent. A lady. He didn’t like it when the bodies were female. A male body was generic, such a known quantity that he did not think about identity. But a female body was a mystery, full of variables. It made him wonder who she had been.

Lester opened the boot of his car. She was in a bag, but the Reverend could still make out the mounds of her breasts as he peered over the top of the open boot.

“You two get her to the door of the abbey. I’ll have to take her the rest of the way.”

Tony and Lester took an end of the corpse each and lifted simultaneously. It was a sight to make a social worker smile, the crook and the police constable working in such happy co-operation. The Reverend followed as his two assistants carried the body to the iron door which was inset into the remains of one of the abbey spires. It led down into the foundations. He pulled out his keys and unlocked the door, and Tony and Lester took the body in and laid it by the rusty trapdoor. They helped the Reverend to get the trapdoor up, and then turned to observe him expectantly, and, in Lester’s case, curiously.

“Do you put them down there because it’s cold?”

Lester asked, even though he’d asked exactly the same question a dozen times before and never got an answer.

The Reverend ignored the question. “Thank you for your help.”

“Can you manage alone?” Tony asked, sizing up the body against the Reverend’s tiny frame. Clearly the Reverend’s conviction that he was growing old was shared by his colleague.

“Yes. I have to. Tony, pay Mr Baines what he’s due.”

Tony reached inside his overcoat and pulled out a roll of money. They were sheltered enough from the wind for him to count it out without it blowing away.

“And you did this with the utmost discretion?” the Reverend couldn’t help asking nervously.

“Of course, Rev,” Lester replied, “and anyway she’s just some junkie or teenage runaway. They probably won’t even notice for a week.”

A young girl. Even worse. The Reverend nodded.

“Both of you may go now. The next part I have to do alone.”

Lester blew on his hands and rubbed them together.

“I’ll gladly get out of this cold. Give me a call when you need me again, yeah?”

“Yes.” The Reverend watched the crook get into his car and start to back down the laneway. Tony turned to him. “Are you sure you’re okay with that? I’m certain it wouldn’t matter if I helped you get it down the stairs.”

The Reverend looked at the black girl-shaped bag on the ground. “No. I’m not so infirm that I can’t drag it behind me. She won’t feel a thing now in any case.”

Tony nodded and hurried off towards his police car. The Reverend waited until he heard the car engine start, then locked the trapdoor behind him. He descended the first few steps, then turned to grab the bag around the feet. He felt a twinge of pain in his left shoulder, and wished he could have asked Tony to stay and help. But that couldn’t be. A certain procedure had been set out by a higher intelligence, and all he could do was obey.

Two good reasons to go into the village. First, the hallway was too narrow to store all those old clothes, plates, pots and pans. Second, she had eaten nothing but toast and canned soup since she arrived. Maisie dressed carefully and soberly. If what Sacha said was true and the villagers were religious looneys, she didn’t want to cause offence on her first visit. Third reason to go: she was desperately curious to see if he was right. She let Tabby into the garden and locked the door behind her. Small patches of pale blue showed between the clouds above her, and she thought she could spy the sun about forty degrees off the horizon. Today she had remembered a scarf and gloves. Her breath made fog in front of her and the air felt slightly damp and salty on her lips. She followed the road from her grandmother’s house and onto the main street. She glanced at the cemetery from time to time as she walked alongside it, and at the shadowy old abbey looming beyond it – eerie even in daylight. She passed the bus stop and soon found herself in the heart of the village.

A row of connected brick houses – they looked to be hundreds of years old – lined the cobbled alleys. Crooked drainpipes and wilting windowboxes

shivered under mossy tiles. Up ahead were some newer places, shoe-box shaped with red roofs. She passed under an archway and into the village proper. A small, family run grocery store stood next to a locked craft shop and picture-framing business. She knew the store was family run because the sign over the front door declared it proudly. She went in, took a small basket and picked up the essentials: fruit and vegetables, herbs, pasta, rice, some frozen fish fingers. It was a sad business shopping for one, knowing the food was going to be split into such small portions. On impulse she bought some fresh chicken breasts, in case she worked up the courage to invite Sacha over for dinner. At worst she could always freeze them. She took her groceries up to the counter.

“Hi,” she said, “do you deliver?”

The girl behind the counter – perhaps the teenage daughter of the owners – looked up from the magazine she was reading. “Sure. Dad can run them over to you straightaway,” she said in an almost-indecipherable northern accent. “Where are you staying?”

“Up in Sybill Hartley’s house on Saint Mary’s Lane.”

The girl looked surprised. “Have you bought the place?”

“No, I’ve inherited it. She was my grandmother.”

“Really?” The girl keyed in the prices and Maisie packed the groceries in plastic bags as they went through. “Will you be staying long?”

“I don’t know,” Maisie replied.

“You should think about going down to Whitby. Or to York. That’s where I went to school. There’s nothing much on offer here in Solgreve.” The girl fixed her with a direct, almost challenging, gaze. “That’s seventeen pounds and forty.”

Maisie paid her and waited for her change. First the Reverend and now the grocery store girl. Discouraging newcomers must be a local pastime. Was it a religious thing? Did Maisie look like a sinner?

“Is there a second-hand shop around here? Like an Oxfam or something?” Maisie said, tucking her purse away. “I have some old things I’d like to donate.”

“Celia Parker runs a second-hand place on the next corner to raise money for the church.” The girl turned away. “I’ll have Dad run these things over shortly.”