The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

‘Chas? Charles Headland. The Reverend. You remember him?’

Merrily sank back into the sofa, an image coming up of an unforgiving, grey Nonconformist chapel below the point of Pen-y-fan in the Brecon Beacons, overlooking the valley of the shadow of death. An ill-assorted bunch of Anglican priests, most of them nervous, a couple over-confident, trying to see across the valley.

‘I was on a course with him. The course — the Deliverance course. Where we were trained to investigate the paranormal and told where to sprinkle the holy water. I knew he’d been in the Army, but he never said anything about being chaplain of a women’s prison. Where is he now?’

‘He’s out of it. He’s not even a vicar any more. He had a breakdown.’

‘I didn’t know.’ It happened. It happened to Deliverance ministers in particular.

‘He faxed me a load of guff — where you lived, your phone number, the fact that you had a daughter about Clancy’s age who went to Moorfield High School. Which was the only bit that was any use, initially. I didn’t want Clancy to go to the school at Kington in case… well, I don’t trust people, I didn’t want any risk of it getting out. So I got Clancy into Moorfield, which was a safe-ish distance away. And I did ask her to look out for a girl called Jane Watkins, if only for Chas’s sake. Not realizing Clancy was going to be practically stalking the poor kid.’

Merrily sat up.

Brigid smiled ruefully. ‘She’s quite good at not seeming to be doing it. She has a talent for appearing forlorn and vulnerable.’

Merrily remembered Jane telling her, half-exasperated, about the new girl who hung around looking all needy and alienated. Who was a year behind where she ought to be and therefore had to go into classes with little kids. How they had absolutely nothing in common, but she felt sorry for her and…

Merrily began to feel uneasy.

‘It was me who got the Foleys to offer Jane a job,’ Brigid said. ‘I don’t know why I did it, really. Except that I supposed it would guarantee Jane not becoming too fed up with Clancy, and I thought Jane was probably good for her. And Amber kept offering to pay Clancy to help out around the place, and frankly I didn’t want her around this place too much. I suppose that while I wanted to find Hattie Chancery I didn’t want Hattie to find Clancy. If that makes any sense.’

Merrily nodded, lighting another cigarette.

‘I got to know a woman called Beth Pollen, whose husband had died, and the suddenness of it had thrown her into spiritualism. She was interested in Stanner, because he’d been doing a paper on it, and… she was OK. Somebody I could trust, amazingly. So I did. Beth became the first person outside the System I’d ever just told who I was and what I’d done. And she said that if there was an ancestral problem here — a curse, however seriously you want to take that as a description — then we should address it from a position of knowledge. Between us, we uncovered a lot of stuff about the Chancerys and Hattie and what she was like. We went right back into it… right back to Ellen Gethin, who was the wife of Black Vaughan and killed this guy in cold blood after he killed her younger brother who—’

The lounge door opened a crack, and Brigid turned and waved, and the policewoman, Alma, came in. ‘Everything OK?’

‘Thanks,’ Merrily said. Alma went out and the door closed.

‘I still didn’t want to involve you,’ Brigid said. ‘I didn’t want us to have a half-arsed bloody exorcism — not after we found out about the crazy thing the Chancerys did, when the guy over the fireplace may or may not have been in attendance. I didn’t want to resort to superstition, if there was any way… I don’t know what I wanted.’

Jeremy? Did you want Jeremy?

The question had kept pushing itself into Merrily’s head, and she kept pushing it back. She was aware that Brigid had mentioned Jeremy only in passing, only in relation to some other point she was making.

The log on the fire was giving up. There were no more flames. Brigid shivered and pushed her arms into her cardigan. Her mouth was wide and generous, her eyes were warm, with deep, wry lines in the corners, and she talked like she was already back behind bars.

‘I gather you’ve got quite a big vicarage in Ledwardine. Seven bedrooms?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Just you and Jane?’

‘Mmm.’

‘I won’t dress this up. Would you have room for Clancy?’

‘What?’

‘That’s my bottom-line question. When I go away again, can Clancy come and live with you?’

‘I—’

‘Jane’s told Clancy all about you and your situation. Jane’s done a lot of rabbiting, because Clan doesn’t have much to say, except to me.’ Brigid was talking rapidly now. ‘Jane’s told her about the big vicarage, and Lol, and how inhibited you are about that — not wanting anybody to know, not wanting to be seen as living in sin, and yet you’re big on the concept of the Church offering sanctuary, and you feel guilty about all those bedrooms doing nothing, and… Look, I’m sorry to hang it on you like this, Merrily, but what other chance am I going to have?’

‘Brigid, it’s—’

‘Natalie. It’s Natalie. For the moment, it’s Natalie.’

‘It’s a big step.’

‘It could be the biggest thing you ever did. I mean it’s too late for me, right? And yeah, I feel very bad about putting this kind of responsibility on anybody. But what happens if Clancy goes into the System? What happens if she goes into the System and somebody gets hurt, or somebody dies? Go on, tell me I’m being ridiculously superstitious. Tell me, from your vast experience as a Deliverance Minister, that I’m entirely irrational.’

‘No. You’re not.’

‘Doesn’t have to be a full-time thing — I realize that if Jane thinks Clancy’s a pain in the arse now, that isn’t going to improve. I thought maybe Danny and Greta, they got no kids… I thought they could have her some of the time, to take the pressure off.’

‘That’s why you sent her to Greta tonight?’

‘It was an opportunity. I didn’t realize, obviously, how tonight would turn out — this wasn’t a set-up, Merrily, it wasn’t cold-blooded. Listen, the other thing is that money won’t be a problem. I know how pitifully little the clergy earn, and I can pay you ten grand a year, maybe a good bit more, until she’s twenty-one. It’s… all arranged.’

‘It isn’t about—’

‘What it’s about is spiritual security. And I know it’s a huge thing to ask, and I promise that if it goes wrong for her, I will never, never hold you in any way responsible.’

‘Natalie, how long have you been planning this?’

‘Is that important?’

‘And what about Jeremy Berrows?’

The door opened again, and Bliss’s head appeared. ‘Ladies—’

‘Five minutes, Frannie,’ Merrily said. ‘Please.’ Before the door had closed, she was leaning forward. ‘What about Jeremy?’

‘I’ve damaged him enough,’ Brigid said. ‘It’s best if he doesn’t see me again. Best if he truly forgets me this time, and that’s all I want to say about it.’

Her face had become flushed and against the faded brocade of the chair she looked radiantly beautiful, lit up by this powerfully incandescent, raging… sorrow.

Merrily said, ‘Tell me something: did you ever love him at all, or was he just the only man you could be around for any length of time without wanting to take him apart?’

‘That’s not fair—’

‘Natalie, we don’t have time for fair.’

‘What do you…?’ Brigid Parsons dug her shoulders into the back of her chair, pulling her cardigan tightly across the opening of her shirt, as if it was a gash. ‘What do you know about Jeremy, anyway?’

‘I’m just trying to work out, from the bits you’ve let slip, whether you came back here for Jeremy or Sebbie Dacre.’