The Fabric of Sin

said I’ve been watching you he said I can see your in trouble let me help you and I screamed at him GET AWAY GET AWAY GET AWAY YOUR EVIL.

I think it was just that he was in black clothes I thought he must be evil. He gave me a card to get in touch with him but I never have, whats the use.

One of the cathedral canons? Might even have been Dobbs, the exorcist.

‘She must’ve been looking a bit deranged to get that kind of approach.’

‘Evidently.’ Mrs Morningwood nodded. ‘What does it suggest to you?’

‘Extreme paranoia? Which obviously could be linked to drug use. Did the police find any acid? If she was still tripping, she might look at the Mappa Mundi, with all these mythical beasts, and it becomes like a nest of monsters or something.’

‘I’ve never seen an inventory of what they found.’

‘I could probably get some background. There’s a cop I know—’

‘No!’

Mrs Morningwood backing away, well out of the pool of light, leaving Merrily blinking.

‘Sorry?’

‘What’s the point of involving the police? They’re not going to find her now, are they? Not going to be remotely interested.’

‘Find her? I thought she was—’

‘I don’t know she’s dead. I simply never heard of her again. Nobody I know ever did. We even tracked down her mother in Birmingham. Not interested. Didn’t seem to care. Nobody cared. Except me, because I could’ve saved her. Could’ve got her out of there.’

‘But somebody obviously did …’

Mrs Morningwood’s face was grim amongst the shadows.

‘Mary came back to my mother, apparently unwell. Stayed for four days. Quiet, penitent. And … my mother would awake in the morning to hear her throwing up. Coming to the obvious conclusion. Which she put to Mary. When she got up the next morning, Mary had gone. For good.’

‘Didn’t leave a note or anything?’

‘Only this one. Which took weeks to find me. I came back at once, but of course it was all too late.’

I expect you guessed I’m writing to ask a favour. You were always so strong Muriel and I cant go back on my own.

You see I’ve got a baby now.

30 Directionality

Not that Jane was fooled or anything. This woman was a former barrister. Barristers defended people they knew were guilty and prosecuted people they guessed were innocent. You didn’t need to watch much TV to know that.

You didn’t trust barristers, you paid them. And if someone else was paying, you’d mean less than nothing to them. They’d take you apart with merciless precision and discard the bits.

OK, Sian was a priest now, but you could still sense this kind of — to borrow a stupid word from one of those hi-gloss US forensic shows — directionality. Focus. Everything she said was coming from somewhere down in the small print of her personal agenda.

Like, when Jane was showing her round the vicarage, entering the nest of rooms around the back stairs, Sian going, ‘It’s awfully large, isn’t it? For just the two of you.’

Translating as, Even in its present condition, we could flog this place for well over half a million and put you in a bungalow.

With no attics and no apartment.

‘Well, you know, I used to think that, too,’ Jane had said, ‘but that was before we had to take people in. Like deliverance cases? People who think they’re mad? Need a big house for that, so nobody can hear the screams.’

Knowing as soon as it was out that, if she’d been in the witness box, Sian would have dismantled her. Having studied all the cases in her capacity as Deliverance Coordinator, she’d know this was not even loosely true. Well, except for …

‘Like, Dexter Harris?’ Jane pointing at the blackened oak beam where a door had once hung at the bottom of the stairs. ‘That was where he … you know …’

‘Yes, I heard about that. Regrettable.’

‘Mum had to do the necessary, for quite a few nights afterwards, to make sure there was no, like, detritus?’

‘Yes, I’m sure she would have felt that was necessary.’

Like, Your mother is a superstitious idiot.

It really hadn’t been easy last night, having to watch what you said all the time, looking for the loaded questions. Now, with dusk and rain seeping in, Jane, in her old parka, airline bag over a shoulder, was standing between the oak pillars of the market hall, looking across at the vicarage, psyching herself up before going home. Except it wasn’t really home at all, right now, was it?

After school, she’d slipped into Leominster in the vain hope that Woolies might have any CD by Sufjan Stevens who, she’d just discovered, was sufficiently like Lol to be interesting. Catching the last bus back to Ledwardine, predictably Sufjanless, she’d realized this had been just an excuse to shorten the evening.

The hardest bit of all was when Mum rang and Jane, taking it from the privacy of her apartment, had been like, Oh, no, fine, she’s really quite nice. We had a long chat about how she’d wanted to be a barrister from the age of about eight.

Mum trying hard to conceal her dismay, Jane going, Hey, Mum, it’s not my fault she wasn’t being a bitch. Knowing that if she’d come out with the truth, Mum would be on edge the whole time, imagining this cataclysmic row exploding, Jane screaming at Sian. Mum imagined her daughter was still fifteen or something and had no subtlety. But Jane was changing. She had to.

During the lunch hour, she’d called the vicarage from the school library stockroom, borrowing Kayleigh Evans’s mobile in case Sian checked. Getting the answering machine and deepening her voice, sounding posh, she’d asked for the time of the wonderfully inspiring meditation service and would it really be all right if someone from outside the parish attended, she’d heard it was always so packed.

A few more calls like that, carefully spaced, would do no harm at all. Maybe a toned-down Scottish accent next time. Go careful, though, because this woman was …

… oops, coming out.

Jane stiffened. It was strange, almost surreal, watching another woman cleric emerging from the vicarage drive. Sian had on a dark belted coat, unbuttoned, over her cassock, the dog collar luminous and her pewter hair gleaming in the lights from the square. Walking purposefully, with directionality, up towards the church through sporadic rain.

On the edge of the square, Sian was ambushed by Brenda Prosser from the Eight till Late. Nobody else was about, so Jane could hear most of what they were saying.

‘Yes, I am indeed,’ Sian said. ‘We couldn’t leave Ledwardine without a priest for a whole week, could we?’

‘Well, you know, I hadn’t seen her since church on Sunday,’ Brenda said, ‘and I thought she might be ill or something. She works a bit too hard, I think, sometimes.’

Well, thank you, Brenda.

‘Merrily is very conscientious,’ Sian said. ‘Now, I know you’re at the shop, Mrs Prosser, and I fully intend —’