To Dream of the Dead

‘So whatever he finds,’ Jane said, ‘he gets all the credit?’

‘That’s… yes. He gets the credit. And the money. Look… you’ve got my mobile number. I’ll keep it charged. Just don’t get carried away. I could be totally wrong. I don’t want to look like a complete idiot. I’m a professional, not a visionary.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Jane said, ‘it looks like I’ll never be a professional, but nobody can stop me being the other thing.’

She felt her smile go crooked. She felt a small release, her soul stirring like a wounded bird among the dead leaves.

It had started to rain.

It had probably never stopped.

39 Martyr

‘What can I say?’ Merrily said. ‘He seemed a nice man. I confess I didn’t expect that.’

The rain fizzed in the chapel window. Leonora Stooke looked amused.

‘An atheist can’t be a nice man?’

‘His book is aggressive, disdainful, derisive…’

‘And funny?’

‘Occasionally.’

‘He’s a good writer,’ Leonora said. ‘A good writer can write anything. You understand that, don’t you?’

‘I think the one word we’re walking all around here,’ Merrily said, ‘is hack. He did it for the money and the need to cash in on his brief notoriety. Recycle all the dirt he’d gathered, plus a few scurrilous anecdotes he might not have been able to use in the paper. Put it all together, cement with vitriol. Get it out before his star vanished from the… journalistic firmament.’

The Hole in the Sky.

‘You feel better now?’ Leonora said.

She was playing absently with Tom Bull’s fingers. The poor old sod must be squirming in sexual anguish.

‘Yeah. I do, actually.’

Merrily felt angry at Stooke, angry at the Lord of the Light website. Above all, angry at herself, and yet…

‘All books are written for money,’ Leonora said. ‘Quite an auction for this one. More populist than Dawkins, more outrageous and no screeds of tedious Darwin-idolatry — I’m quoting one of the reviews. It was still a gamble, though. He needed to quit the paper first. Outside of daily journalism, he could drop any pretence of editorial balance.’

‘I see.’

‘And I have to tell you, Merrily, he is so tired of it now. Doesn’t want to write another word about religion, one way or the other. Out of his system. Only you don’t get away that easily. The publishers want another, and there’s a frightening pile of money on the table.’

‘But the cupboard’s bare, right? No more interviews with archbishops and cardinals. No more Dalai Lama.’

‘There’s the diary of the period post-Hole. All the lunacy it spawned.’

‘My life as the Devil’s spin doctor?’

Leonora sighed.

‘He even thought of joining one of these fundamentalist sects, dissect it from the inside. Not as if they’d recognise him. But it would just be too tedious. And they always turn out to be far less sinister than their websites, don’t they? Sad, inadequate little people in search of some kind of imaginary — look, you know the truth about that 666 thing? He didn’t change the spelling of his first name. His father simply registered his birth in a hurry and didn’t realise there were supposed to be two Ts in Matthew. And then they rather liked it. It’s that simple.’

‘This is the most disappointing day of my life, Leonora. Most people in my profession would give up two years’ stipend to come face to face with the man who handles the Antichrist’s publicity.’

‘I’m very sorry.’

‘Still needs new material, though, doesn’t he? Might even have to fall back on the story of how he wound up in a crazy village with a priest who doubles as diocesan exorcist while her daughter follows ley lines and worships old gods.’

A silence.

‘Don’t tell me we weren’t earmarked for Chapter 14, Leonora. He was questioning me far too thoroughly.’

‘It’s the way he is. He collects people. Can’t resist it. Professional curiosity.’

‘And then there was you and my daughter. At Lucy’s grave. Oh, what sort of pagan are you, Jane?’

Leonora racked up a smile that was rueful but perhaps not rueful enough.

‘You’re quite a nice story, you and Jane.’

‘It’s been done.’

‘Only skirted around — I’ve seen the cuttings. Look, Merrily, you may be right, Elliot will have you in his scrapbook, you and Jane — awfully photogenic, the pair of you. He’s an opportunist, seldom wastes anything.’

‘Well, thank you for putting my mind at rest.’

‘But he isn’t going to repay a favour by shafting you.’

Merrily leaned back, listening to the rain hissing and crackling like a fat-frier in a chip shop.

‘A favour.’

‘Yes.’

‘I was beginning to think we’d never get here.’

‘We have a problem,’ Leonora said. ‘Essentially, you’re not the only one who knows we’re in the village.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s stupid, but it’s causing us a lot of tension. The ravings of anonymous fundamentalist zealots, as I say, part of the package, all grist to the publicity mill, but this is too close.’

‘And, erm… why are you telling me?’

‘Because it’s a member of your church.’

‘Am I allowed to ask?’

Leonora leaned back against Tom Bull, so that she was almost sitting on his face. Maybe the significance escaped her, probably it didn’t.

‘It’s the postmistress.’

‘Oh.’

‘Arguably the worst of all possible scenarios.’

‘Mmm. You have got a problem, haven’t you?’

The day was growing dim. Wrapped in her sodden cape, Merrily stood on the edge of the square and watched reflections of the yellow lights in ancient houses trembling in the flood. No curtains were drawn. If it was coming for them, the residents wanted to know.

And she couldn’t lose the feeling, as James Bull-Davies loped through the lashing rain, that the village had changed for ever, lost its nerve, its confident sheen. The old timbered buildings seemed to be leaning closer together, as nightfall turned black and white into grey and white and the dismal rain kept on, and there were no lights in Lucy’s old house.

‘James, have you seen Lol?’

‘Last I saw of him, out working with Parry.’ James followed her into the shelter of the market hall. They