The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

‘I don’t know, I’m still half asleep.’

‘Look, it’s… it’s Jane. From Stanner? We met at the murder-mystery weekend? I brought the chocolate?’

‘I see. This is your revenge for being dragged out of bed to find a body.’

‘Sorry? Oh… right. Yeah. No. Listen, I’m really sorry to wake you, but this is pretty urgent. I’ll be dead straight and upfront about this. My mother’s the diocesan exorcist for Hereford, and she’s been asked to do something tonight to deal with the… presence… of Hattie Chancery. And I’ve seen the tape that Ben recorded with old Leonard, and you were there. And all I want to know is what Leonard said after Ben finished recording.’

‘What makes you think he said anything?’ Frank Sampson’s voice acquiring focus.

‘Just a feeling. And the way Ben’s behaving.’

‘So ask Ben.’

‘Well, he’s… he’s been a bit funny lately. Honestly, Frank, I wouldn’t bother you in a million years if I didn’t think this was like crucial, you know?’

‘Are you crying?’

‘Of course I’m not. I just—’

‘I’m not quite sure what you’re asking.’

‘Well, I’m not either. If I just… If I just tell what I’m worried about — I mean without going into the ins and outs of exorcism. If Hattie Chancery was in some way haunting this place…’

He chuckled. ‘I think something is, don’t you? Nobody’s had any luck there.’

‘Well, right. But if she was a presence there, what would be the significance of that? And how would it tie in with the really old stuff — Black Vaughan and everything — and the exorcism Leonard was talking about? What happened at that exorcism?’

‘But was it?’

‘What?’

‘Was it an exorcism?’

‘It was supposed to be a restaging of the exorcism of Black Vaughan, wasn’t it?’

‘But they had a medium, didn’t they? Erasmus Cookson. Why would they need a medium at an exorcism? Perhaps they didn’t want to exorcize Black Vaughan at all, but to communicate with him. Or someone.’

‘Who?’

‘Jane, I don’t feel too happy about discussing this on the phone. I think you need to talk to… do you know Mrs Pollen?’

46 The Living Dark Heart

In the kitchen, Lol was standing over Alice, blinking, focusing hard on anything that seemed paler than black, and Dexter’s voice was curling out of the hall.

‘What you gonner do now, Mister Lol?’

Alice’s breathing was much louder in here, like an old steam train might have sounded in a station.

‘Give us a song, is it?’

‘How about you go and find the doctor, Dexter?’

‘I don’t think so, boy.’

‘I’d better call 999, then.’

‘You don’t listen, do you, Mister Lol?’

Dexter’s voice had a glasspaper rasp. Lol was sure that Alice could hear all this. He laid a hand on her shoulder. It was supposed to be reassuring. It was trembling.

‘Look,’ Lol said. ‘It’s like this: she’s had a stroke and she’s wet through and suffering from exposure. If we piss about for too long, she’s going to die.’

He gently squeezed her shoulder, trying to convey that he was only trying to scare Dexter, and moved away from her, easing off his wellingtons, flexing his toes on the flags, putting his hands out to feel for the familiar and finding the edge of the refectory table.

‘How quick?’ Dexter said.

Lol stopped.

‘How quick you reckon she gonner die?’

‘I said she’d die if we didn’t get a doctor.’

‘Half an hour?’

‘Kent Asprey, that’s his name, isn’t it? The local GP?’

‘Fuck off.’

Lol went quiet. Of course, Alice had tried to tell him. Alice had told him. She hadn’t wandered into the churchyard in search of solace and then collapsed; she’d had the stroke at home, and Dexter had come back from the chip shop and found her comatose and had dragged on her coat and outdoor shoes and carried her along the orchard path into the churchyard and left her to die there of exposure. Confident that nobody would go there until well after daybreak, by which time she would be long gone, frozen to the stones.

Go on: try and think of something more rational than that.

The banality of evil. Small-time, squalid, local evil, as huge and coldly bloated as the night sky.

‘Where’s the torch, boy?’

‘Left it in the churchyard. Couldn’t manage the torch and Alice.’

‘You knob. Whereabouts you keep your candles? Where’s the matches?’

‘Don’t know if there are any.’

‘Naw, that little bitch smokes like a chimney. Where are they?’

Lol didn’t live here. He didn’t know where the candles were, or the matches.

‘Get a doctor, Dexter.’

Lol saw a slice of grey, possibly one of the kitchen windows. He saw a tiny green glow in the air: smoke alarm, reverted to the battery when the power went off.

Dexter said, ‘Her’s goin’ back, boy. Her’s goin’ back in that graveyard.’

Oh, no. No going back now.

‘You can’t put us both in the graveyard, Dexter.’

‘Landfill site for you, boy. They’ll find Alice — natural causes, no problem. They’ll never find you. You’re missin’. I got a mate in landfill. No problem. Back o’ the truck. Easy-peasy. Got no choice, look.’

‘Because you killed Darrin?’

Silence. Lol didn’t move.

‘I never,’ Dexter said.

‘Yeah, I know, it was a van, right? Like it was a lorry killed Roland.’

Alice whimpered. There was a movement like a great claw descending, then another — Dexter shifting handfuls of air to find him. He could smell Dexter now, a blend of beer, sweat and petrol. Lol moved behind the table.

‘What did Roland do to you? Come on, what? Tell Alice — you owe it to Alice.’

‘Little fuck.’ Dexter moving slowly around the table towards him, the squeak of his leather jacket.

‘He was gonna tell someone about the cars?’ Lol moving round the table on the other side. ‘All the cars you were nicking, you and Darrin?’

‘I never nicked no cars.’

‘No, OK, Darrin nicked them, because you wanted to drive them. Darrin was older, but he was smaller and weedier.’ Lol sliding between the table and sink. ‘Darrin did everything his big cousin told him because he was shit-