Crybbe

CHAPTER II

Rachel noticed that Denzil George, licensee of the Cock, had several shaving cuts this morning. He'd obviously overslept, unused, no doubt, to rising early to prepare an 8 a.m. breakfast for his guests. What a torpid town this was.

'Parcel come for you,' the licensee said, placing a small package by Max's elbow.

'Thanks.' Max tossed it to Rachel.

'No stamp,' Rachel noticed. 'Obviously delivered by hand.'

'Better open it,' Max said, digging into some of the muesli he'd had delivered to the pub.

Rachel uncovered a tape cassette and a note. 'Who's Warren Preece?'

Max looked up.

'He's sent you a tape of his band.'

'Delivered by hand, huh?' Max put down his spoon thoughtfully. 'I dunno any Warren Preece, but the surname has a certain familiar ring. Maybe you should find out more, Rach.'

'Yes,' Rachel said, pushing back her chair. 'I'll ask the landlord.'

The Anglicans' Book of Common Prayer had nothing to say about exorcising spirits of the dead.

The Revd Murray Beech knew this and was grateful for it. But he was leafing through the prayer book anyway, seeking inspiration.

Murray was following the advice of Alex Peters and attempting to compile for himself a convincing prayer to deliver in an allegedly haunted house.

He came across the words,

'Peace be to this house and to all that dwell in it.'

This actually appeared under the order for The Visitation of the Sick, but Murray made a note of it anyway. Surely with an alleged 'haunting' – Murray recoiled from the word with embarrassment – what you were supposedly dealing with was a sick property, contaminated by some form of so-called 'psychic' radiation, although, in his 'exorcism' – Oh, God – the prayer would be aimed at the troubled souls of the living. In his view the health of a property could be affected only by the attitude and the state of mind of the current inhabitants, not by any residual guilt or distress from, ah, previous residents.

He looked around his own room. The neat bookshelves, the filing cabinets, the office desk with metal legs at which he sat, the clean, white walls – feeling a twinge of pain as he remembered the walls being painted by Kirsty exactly a fortnight before she'd said, 'I'm sorry, Murray. This isn't what I want.' Murray looked quickly back at the prayer book, turned over a page, came upon the following entreaty:

'Oh Lord, look down from heaven, behold, visit and relieve this thy servant… defend him from the danger of the enemy.'

He breathed heavily down his nose. He abhorred words like 'enemy'. The duty of the Church was to teach not opposition but understanding.

He was equally uncomfortable with the next and final paragraph of the prayer book before the psalms began.