To Dream of the Dead (37 page)

T
HE HEAT WAS
like urban heat. Penthouse-apartment heat. Or like when you walked into one of those department stores with powerful blow-heaters over the doors, and it made you feel almost faint.

‘Coffee?’ Stooke said.

‘Oh . . . please.’

Aware of a small tremor under her voice. Nerves, for heaven’s sake. Merrily hadn’t expected nerves.

She walked ahead of him towards a stone fireplace, floor to ceiling, with a cast-iron wood-burning stove, logs stacked in stone recesses either side, the room so bright she was blinking.

So what
had
she expected – coldness, absence of light, a sense of
void
?

Certainly not nerves. She hadn’t expected nerves. Perhaps she should have prayed for strength before leaving the car.

Perhaps she was pathetic.

‘Lenni’s washing her hair. Gets rather messed up in this weather. She’ll be down in a few minutes.’

‘I’m sorry, I tried to phone, but you’re—’

‘Ex-directory. Of course. She should’ve given you the number. Probably just slipped her mind. Things do. Not a problem. We weren’t going anywhere.’

Stooke took Merrily’s dripping Barbour and extended an arm towards a long cream-leather sofa. She sat at the end furthest from the stove, its glass doors shimmering a fierce furnace red, which still wouldn’t account for the temperature in a room this size.

All the lights were on. Circular halogen lights, like little bright planets, sunk into the plasterboard between new oak beams. Bracketed spotlights on the walls, all fully lit. No dark corners, no
secrets, no mystery. Maybe a message here for the religious.
Mystery wastes everyone’s time
, Stooke had said in Coleman’s Meadow.

‘I’m afraid it’s rather
too
damn warm in here at the moment,’ he admitted, ‘but if one tries to turn something off it can go suddenly quite chilly.’

From where she sat she could count one, two, three . . . four big radiators.

‘Temperature fluctuates hugely,’ he said. ‘Perhaps the absence of insulation. I’m not used to places like this. The countryside’s so demanding of
effort
. Townie to the core, I’m afraid.’ His face creased into a lopsided smile. ‘Merrily, I’m so sorry about the deception. Winterson . . . Stooke. It was beyond my—’

‘Don’t worry about it. Life can be complicated.’

‘Yes. Excuse me a moment, I’ll fetch some coffee.’

He strolled away through an open doorway, not looking back. Merrily leaned her head back into the sofa. You could see why someone might choose to rent Cole Barn. This room had been converted in broad strokes: the big fireplace, the stone flags, the rough beams of light oak. A room you could move into in about an hour, one size fits all.

The Stookes’ additions had been fairly minimal: this sofa and a plush swivel chair, a steel-framed desk, two dense cream rugs and enough utility shelves to hold a few hundred books. She tried to make out titles on spines, but she was too far away.

It was another world. A world of unlimited oil, while she and Jane were shivering over candles, like Scrooge’s clerk.

‘Merrily!’

Leonora, confident and graceful in a cream towelling robe, towel around her hair. Merrily stood up.

‘I’m sorry to just appear like this, but I couldn’t—’

‘No, I heard. My fault entirely.’

‘I won’t take up very much of your evening. Just wanted to check out a few things. Something you said in the church about Elliot infiltrating a fundamentalist cult. Something’s connected.’

‘Sit down . . . please.’ Leonora sank into the swivel chair. Her feet were bare. ‘That wasn’t really a serious possibility. I doubt he could stand mixing with people like that for more than an hour or two. Especially if they’re
all
like our friend in the post office.’

‘And was
that
the cult he’d thought about infiltrating? The Lord of the Light?’

‘He was angry when they started to target us. He wouldn’t have done it, wouldn’t have the patience. Merrily, I don’t want you to think we’re
afraid
of this woman. It’s just that if she does expose us, it’ll be in a horribly negative way. If we stay, I’ve no doubt it will all come out eventually, but I wanted us to become known as
people
first. There’s more to us than a book, you know?’

Odd
, Merrily thought. They’d be disowning it in a minute. A germ of hypocrisy here, somewhere.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I don’t know what your tastes in music are, but if you wanted to meet some people, a friend of mine, Lol Robinson, is doing a little concert in the Black Swan tomorrow night. I could introduce you to a few open-minded people you might not have met, if you . . .’

‘That would be wonderful.’

‘Good. Meanwhile, I’ll talk to Shirley. Although this . . . may involve more than her. I was wondering if Elliot, in the course of his research into various cults, had encountered a guy called Nicholas Ellis? Fringe Anglican clergyman who ran a fundamentalist ministry just across the border, in Radnorshire.’

‘Not sure. There’s so many of them.’

‘Just I’ve learned in the past couple of hours that the Lord of the Light church was developed from the remains of Ellis’s organisation, and it’s possible he may still have some influence. From America. On the Net.’

Leonora called out, ‘Darling, have you heard of a man called Ellis?’

‘Father Nicholas Ellis,’ Merrily said, as Stooke came in with a loaded tray. ‘That’s not his real name, but it doesn’t matter.’

‘I’ve a computer file on him.’ Stooke laid the tray on the desk. ‘Had some correspondence with a reporter out there. I
think
he was linked to a corrupt itinerant evangelist called . . . McAllman?’

‘Yes.’ Merrily nodding. ‘Ellis’s was an unpleasant kind of ministry involving sexual exploitation of women. He’ll be blaming me, among others, for its demise in this country.’

‘This West woman is one of his disciples?’

‘It’s unlikely she ever encountered him in person. I just
wondered if
you
’d had any contact. Couldn’t find any mention of him in
The Hole in the Sky
.’

‘It would be in the next book.’

‘Does he know?’

‘Possibly, I don’t know.’ Stooke looked at his wife. ‘Probably does now.’

‘Yeah, yeah, very stupid of me,’ Leonora said. ‘I didn’t think. Pretty damned angry that morning. The electricity meter was read after the last of the workmen moved out and before we moved in. Four or five weeks later we had a bill for over £900? Which, even allowing for the way fuel prices are going . . .’

‘Crazy,’ Merrily said. ‘You do like it warm in here, though, don’t you?’

‘This is oil. And wood? OK, a lot of lights, but we don’t use much electricity otherwise. Eat out most days. It’s not that we can’t afford to pay the bloody bill, it’s just that it’s so obviously
wrong
.’

‘Thanks.’ Merrily accepting a coffee from Stooke. ‘And that’s why you were asking the guy on the archaeological site where they got their power from?’

‘Just a thought that they might in some way be leeching electricity from here.’ Stooke brushed a hand through his grey-black spiky hair. ‘Bit of a long shot.’

‘We had it tested,’ Leonora said, ‘according to the complaints procedure. They said they could find absolutely nothing wrong. As they usually do. Anyway . . . that’s why I wasn’t in the best of moods when I stormed into the post office to pay the final demand instead of just posting it.’

Stooke sat down on the sofa, close to the stove. He didn’t seem to be aware of the heat.

‘The agents were no help at all. And the firm that owns the place is in France. Places like this, Middle England, they think they can charge what they like for half a job. I’d quite like to move out and try and get some of our money back, but—’

‘Darling, I couldn’t face it again. Not for a while. The sheer stress of moving, feeling like refugees. We’ve just . . .’ Leonora turned to Merrily ‘. . . had a run of trivial teething troubles, that’s all. It’s a barn conversion, nobody’s lived here before. Power surges. Bulbs
popping. Wake up in the night and one of the smoke alarms is going off, which sets off all the
other
smoke alarms.’

‘They saw us coming,’ Stooke said.

‘So
they
know who you are?’ Merrily asked. ‘The agents.’

An irrational tension had set in.
Power surges. Bulbs popping. Smoke alarms
. How often had people brought domestic problems like that to her door?

‘The security services had a word with the agents,’ Stooke said. ‘Presumably pointing out that if anything leaked out from
them
, we’d have to move, putting the house back on the market.’

‘And they had enough difficulty letting it last time.’

‘Did they?’ Stooke looking up sharply. ‘Why?’

‘Because . . . the future of Coleman’s Meadow is undecided. You either get a whole army of new neighbours or a prehistoric tourist attraction. You were a godsend. As it were. What’s the atheist term for a godsend?’

‘Are you going to make atheist jokes all night, Merrily?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No, no.’ Stooke stood up awkwardly. ‘It’s me.’ He grimaced. ‘Fractious. Sorry.’

He folded his arms. Amazingly, in this temperature, he was still wearing the black fleece. Merrily smiled uncertainly. She felt swimmingly disorientated – that uncomfortable sensation of floating one step behind your senses. Too much heat, too much light. She stood up.

‘I’m going to have to go.’

‘I didn’t mean to offend—’

‘No, you didn’t. I have to drive to the other side of the county and I don’t want to be back too late in these conditions. Just one final thing. Shirley’s friend . . .’

Stooke looked blank. Merrily almost snatched the opportunity to say it was OK, it didn’t matter. Get herself out of the heat. She didn’t need this kind of complication.

‘Oh,’ Stooke said. ‘You mean the man who was watching the house.’

‘Erm . . . yeah.’

‘That made me angry. I don’t think Lenni’s seen him, but I spotted him a couple of times. He’d just be standing there at the top of the field, on the edge of the wood.’

‘The orchard?’

‘Yeah, whatever, the trees. I thought he was one of the archaeologists at first, and I shouted to him from the door, but he didn’t say anything. He just stood there. Well, it’s a public right of way, so you can’t actually order people off. I just went back into the house.’

‘What time of day was this?’

‘Early evening. Just on dusk. Five-ish? Next time I looked he’d gone. Then I saw him again, a couple of days ago.’

‘Same time?’

‘More or less. It was raining. Lenni’d gone into Leominster, to the shops.’

‘Antique shops.’ Leonora had pulled off the towels, was shaking out her red tresses. ‘So many in Leominster.’

‘And there was the guy again, getting soaked?’

Stooke went over to the desk, opened a drawer, took out some papers and extracted one.

Merrily said, ‘What was he like? Anybody I might recognise?’

‘He wasn’t close enough. I thought . . .’ Stooke handed her a folded sheet of A4. ‘We’d had that the same morning, and I suppose I saw him in those terms . . . as, presumably, I was expected to.’

We know why you are here.

We know why you have come NOW.

To call forth the old dark ones from

the woods and reclaim the stones for

your infernal master.

But know that we too are vigilant!

Stooke wrinkled his nose in distaste.

‘First time one of these . . . missives had mentioned the stones. I should’ve made the connection after your parish meeting. I suppose when the guy appeared again, I saw him as . . . like it says there.’

‘One of the dark ones from the woods?’

‘Some kind of Stone Age warrior. Short cloak or a skin, and a stick. Couldn’t see him clearly, too much mist. I was angry, but I did nothing. Should’ve gone out, but the field was soaking wet and . . . you don’t know what drugs these guys are on, do you?’

‘Who? The Church of the Lord of the Light? You really think so?’

‘Well, maybe not drugs.’ Stooke took the paper back, crumpled it angrily. ‘But how can they think we’re so
stupid
?’

‘You’re destroying the evidence.’

‘It’s a copy.’

Stooke looked into Merrily’s eyes, and she really didn’t know what to make of his expression.

‘I’d better be off,’ she said.

Merrily stood for a while, leaning against the Volvo, relishing the cold, even the rain, looking back across the hardstanding at what was, essentially, a new house, all its downstairs windows bright.

For a fraction of a second, the lights seemed to flare brighter still, as if there was a flash of lightning inside Cole Barn.

Don’t go there
.

She got into the car, troubled.

W
HEN
S
ISTER
C
ULLEN
rang from the hospital, Bliss was parked in the entrance of Phase Two of the housing estate where Gyles Banks-Jones lived.

Just after five p.m., and well dark. Phase Two had barely been started and had no street lighting yet. Two hours ago Bliss had slid in next to the site hut, his rear wheels spinning, his lights already switched off. He was sure he could feel the car sinking into the mud, but at least the building site gave him an excellent view of Gyles’s house, directly opposite, and the house the other side of Gyles’s shared drive.

Steve Furneaux’s house. Still no car there, still no lights.

‘So would that be all right, Sister?’ Bliss said.

‘Don’t see why I can’t find that out, it being Sunday,’ Cullen said. ‘Although I shall expect some personal intervention from your good self the next time I fall foul of a speed camera.’

‘I hate them speed cameras, me.’

Both of them knowing Bliss had nil influence in Traffic.

‘Give me twenty minutes, then,’ Cullen said.