The Fabric of Sin

‘Interesting.’

‘You’ve read that one?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘And you knew James was in Garway?’

‘My grandmother met him. And the girl — his ward, Jane McBryde. But that’s by the by. So Fuchsia Mary Linden borrowed Monty’s seaside ghost. How very imaginative of her.’

‘What’s that say to you?’

‘Only that she didn’t want to tell you — or Barlow — what actually happened to her in the Master House.’

‘Which was?’

‘How should I know?’

‘She wanted me to bless her, give her protection. Before she came back here.’

‘And then, afterwards, she returned and battered Barlow to death. What do you know about Barlow’s history?’

‘Not a great deal.’ Merrily thought about it; where was this going? ‘He spent time in a tepee community in West Wales where he met Fuchsia’s mother, who was already pregnant. Felix was a bit in love with her and also, I think, felt sorry for her. He said she was … fragile. And he seems to have accepted a role as a kind of godfather … guardian. Tragically sealing his own fate, if you want to be—’

‘Tepee community,’ Mrs Morningwood said.

‘Tepee City. In Cardiganshire.’

‘Why did Barlow go there?’

‘Gap year was all he said.’

‘No such thing in those days, darling.’

‘I think he was probably being ironic. It was just a year between leaving school and having to do something responsible connected with his dad’s building supplies business. Which maybe didn’t seem very appealing at a time when everyone else seemed to be sleeping around and taking exotic drugs.’

‘Did he …’ Mrs Morningwood sat on the piano stool ‘… mention being a part of any other community? Before Wales?’

‘No, he didn’t. What are you thinking of?’

‘I’m thinking of the one that was in occupation at the Master House in the 1970s, when the Newtons were repeatedly leasing it out.’

‘Don’t know anything about it.’ Merrily finally brought out her cigarettes. ‘Some kind of good-life smallholding — did you tell me that?’

‘Good life? Not me, darling. Bastards couldn’t even grow their own dope. The house was leased by the Newtons to an honourable — son of some minor member of the Midlands aristocracy. Newtons were well pleased, at first. Not realizing he’d turn out to be the kind of dissolute, overprivileged hooray hippie that could turn … I don’t know, Sandringham into a shell in a matter of weeks.’

‘Anybody I’ve heard of?’

‘Shouldn’t think so. Lord Stourport?’

Merrily shook her head.

‘Endless rumours about the things that went on there,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Orgies and the rest. Nude bathing in the Monnow. Place would probably’ve been burned to the ground, result of some discarded spliff, if there hadn’t been a rather timely police raid. Result of which Lord Cokehead was sent down for three months or so. Lease effectively terminated.’

‘So why would Felix Barlow have been there?’

‘Most of the hoorays couldn’t replace a washer on a bloody tap, so anybody who was halfway practical was welcome to move into one of the sheds, drugs on the house, long as he brought his tools. That’s what I was told, anyway — wouldn’t know anything for sure, all this happened while I was … away.’

‘Well … Felix was indeed a very practical man, but I’m not getting why you think he would’ve been at the Master House. In fact …’ Merrily sat up, the cigarette halfway to her mouth. ‘What is your angle on this, Mrs Morningwood? Where are you actually coming from? Like, what did you mean when you said on the phone that someone didn’t do a terribly good job?’

Merrily slumped on to the edge of the chaise longue. Her body felt weak but the low vibration was still there and went cruising up into her head, bringing on a dizziness.

‘Steady, girl. You got the works, you know.’

Mrs Morningwood turned and threw the remains of her cigarette, with practised accuracy, into the heart of the fire.

Merrily lay back against the pillows. The windows had dimmed, crimson caverns opening up in the iron range. Roscoe, the wolfhound rose up and stretched, his front legs extended, revealing the black smudges of old burn marks on the rug where he’d been lying.

Mrs Morningwood stood up and moved across to the ebony desk. Sound of a drawer sliding open. She bent and drew the piano stool towards the well of the desk, switching on a green-shaded oil lamp converted to electricity.

Placing a fold of paper on the floodlit blotter and beckoning Merrily over.

‘Sit there. Won’t take you long to read it. I have to go and shut the chickens in for the night. Toilet’s back into the hall, second left. You’ll probably need it now you’ve been on your feet.’

Merrily sat looking down at the paper, pooled in lamplight, apple green. She opened it out.

‘What is it?’

‘A suicide note,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Kind of. With hindsight.’

29 Like a Ghost

SITTING ON THE lavatory, bent over, elbows on her knees, head in her hands, Merrily was holding the first sentences in her head.

People say death is like sleep.

I just hope they’re wrong. Sometimes I think I must be very close to death and I hate sleep more than anything.

It wasn’t the original, that was clear. There was no address, and — she’d looked at the bottom — no signature. Mrs Morningwood, or somebody, must have copied it into a computer.

When she came out of the downstairs bathroom, a bit fresher, Mrs Morningwood had returned and was stripping off her old Barbour, hanging it in the whitewashed hall, fluffing up her hair — the first conspicuously feminine thing Merrily had seen her do.

‘You’ve read it?’

‘I had to stop. Had to … go.’

Mrs Morningwood nodded, and Merrily went back to the desk in the living room.

You wouldnt know me Muriel. Theres nothing of me no more I am so thin and my head feels like a rotten egg sometimes and what can you do with a rotten egg except get as far away from it as possible. But you can’t, can you, if it’s inside your head day and night and all your dreams are addled. (See, I remember all about eggs. They were the good times.)

Merrily looked up.

‘This is a girl?’

‘Poor little darkie.’

Mrs Morningwood came over to the desk. Brought out a small leather photo album and began thumbing through it.

‘It was what people called her. Almost a novelty in the 1970s, a black girl in these parts. Mixed race, actually. Used to come here on holiday with her parents, in a caravan on a farm at Bagwyllydiart.