The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

saying I totally didn’t want to ring your mother — it would’ve been nice to get some objective advice from someone with expertise. And if she managed to step in and stop you coming, well, I suppose that was something else I didn’t have to worry about. Ben’s going, “Oh, don’t worry, Jane will have told her by now, we can expect another visit.” ’

‘But I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I work here, I wouldn’t—’

‘I know. I said you wouldn’t.’

Jane unslung the camera, very much mistrusting it now, and placed it on the island unit, backing away from it. ‘Why are you telling me this? Why are you telling me now?’ Trying to stay calm, work out the extent of Ben’s duplicity, but aware of breathing faster.

‘I was going to call you tonight,’ Amber said, ‘and warn you that all the roads would be blocked so don’t even think of coming tomorrow. But with your youthful enthusiasm and your obvious desire not to miss anything interesting, you bloody well turned up tonight. That’s why I’m telling you.’

‘But, like, why would you… why would you not want me here? I’m shooting the video. And if Antony doesn’t make it—’

‘He may very well not get through, that’s true,’ Amber agreed. ‘Which would be leaving the lunatic in charge of the asylum.’

‘Ben?’

I’m a drama man. It’s about using real people and real places…

‘I don’t know whether Antony not being here will make him more sensible or even more irrational. All I know is, he’s been busily shooting material all week — interviewing Hardy and Mrs Pollen and a man in Kington who used to work—’

‘Hang on.’ Jane stiffened. ‘You’re saying he’s got a video camera? Ben?’

Amber sighed.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Jane, you—’ Amber’s face crumpled with this terrifyingly maternal kind of sympathy. ‘You didn’t really think they’d leave it all to you, did you?’

Jane stepped back and stared at the camcorder on the island unit like it was contaminated with anthrax.

‘Well, I…’ She felt this acute burning behind her eyes.

‘I’m really sorry,’ Amber said. ‘I should’ve told you days ago.’

Jane swallowed hard. No wonder Matthew had been laughing at her. They were all laughing at her. All of them laughing up their sleeves at the smart-arse schoolkid prancing round with her professional video camera. All of them: Ben, Antony… the White Company… Ben… Antony…

Don’t worry, it’s gonnae be fine. It’s gonnae be riveting, Jane.

‘Antony set me up?’

You’re my number one girl.

‘Jane, it’s— He really wouldn’t see it like that. These little Sonys are so comparatively cheap, they can scatter them around like throwaway pens. And if you thought you were the only person with a camera, you’d try all the harder to get good material. You’d start seeing your name in lights. Obviously, he’ll use some of what you’ve done, of course he will…’

‘He set me up!’

‘He also set Ben up. And Ben set Antony up. And you and I, between us, were supposed to set your mother up. Television, Jane — everybody at some time gets set up, the end invariably justifying the means. When it’s all over, Ben and Antony’ll watch the results together and get pissed, and that’ll be that. Television.’

‘It’s despicable.’

‘No, Jane.’ Amber did this brittle little laugh. ‘It’s art.’

‘And what do we do now? Just go along with it?’ Jane snatched up the camera with no reverence.

Amber said, ‘If you were thinking of hurling that thing to the flags in rage, please don’t. There’s been too much rage.’

Jane shook her head, letting the camera dangle from her hands on its strap. ‘What should I do?’

‘I think you should do what you were supposed to do in the first place. Tell your mother. Everything.’

‘And what’s she going to do?’

Amber said, ‘Look, I’m only a cook, but—’

‘Christ, Amber, if you say that again— I mean, I’m only a schoolkid, and if I can see it—’

‘See what?

‘That if Conan Doyle, the John the Baptist of Spiritualism, kept quiet about what happened here — even if it was evidence of survival after death — then there must have been something fairly unpleasant.’

‘Though obviously not unpleasant enough to prevent you grabbing the chance to film something similar, if you got the chance.’

Jane put the camcorder back on the island unit.

‘I’m not a very nice person, am I?’

‘You’re a young person, that’s all.’

‘OK, I’ll phone Mum. What then?’

Amber folded her arms, staring at the flags. ‘Realistically, I think your mother ought to talk to the only one of them I’ve had much to do with. Mrs Pollen.’

‘When was that?’

‘Earlier today. She came looking for me. Would hate to cause offence, et cetera. Old-fashioned country woman — Women’s Institute, cakes for the fete, jolly dinner parties, two golden labradors. And she’s the only one of them who got into this through personal loss. And she was a churchgoer.’

‘All the reward you get for suffering Victorian hymns and dismal sermons,’ Jane said. ‘He pinches your husband before his time.’

‘You must have stimulating discussions, you and your mother,’ Amber said.

‘Keeps her on her toes.’

‘Mrs Pollen now thinks that she was somehow directed here by her husband.’ Amber shrugged, looking uncommitted either way. ‘My feeling is that she believes that if they can get through, she’ll be… rewarded.’

‘Get some contact with him? That really doesn’t happen.’ Jane looked up at the high window, through which, by daylight, you could see the top of Stanner Rocks. ‘That’s so sad.’

‘On the surface, she’s very breezy and sort of earthy about it, but underneath she’s mixed up. In a way, it’s rekindled her faith, but she’s aware that the Church thinks it’s wrong, and there’s clearly some guilt about that. Anyway, I think she’d like to talk to your mother, and that wouldn’t do any of us any harm at this stage.’

‘Except possibly Ben.’

‘Not my problem,’ Amber said, and Jane looked at her, recalling what Nat had said about her calling it quits, moving out.

Amber said, ‘They call it the Stanner Project, Ben calls it the Hook. The contemporary events from which they can hang a century of conjecture. As far as he’s concerned whatever kind of answer they get, if any, is entirely irrelevant. What’s important is that the question gets posed, on television. Did The Hound of the Baskervilles begin here? Any extra spooky bits would be a nice bonus, but the programme doesn’t depend on that, now he knows what happened when Conan Doyle was here.’

‘He does?’ For a moment, Jane almost forgot her own humiliation. ‘You mean someone finally traced the missing document?’

‘Oh, Ben did better than that.’ Amber’s smile was twisted. ‘He traced someone who was working here. Well, not then, obviously, not at the time. But someone who worked here sixty-odd years ago and so talked to people who were here at the time.’

‘Wow — who?’

Amber said the contact had come through the guy who played the Major in the murder thing, Frank Sampson. When Dacre was trying to stop people talking to Ben, it had worked in reverse in some cases, and Frank had phoned on Tuesday to say an old man called Leonard Parsonage, who used to be the butler here, would be happy to talk to Ben.