The Chalice

TEN

'Bastards.' Woolly threw the Daily Press on to Juanita's counter. 'Bastards, bastards, bastards''

His roughened elbow poked through a hole in his shapeless orange sweater. The rubber band securing his stringy ponytail had snapped. He looked like an ageing Dickensian street urchin. There were tears in his eyes.

'I'm so sorry. Woolly,' Juanita said. 'But it's hardly a surprise, is it?'

She could see in his face that, no, it hadn't been a surprise. But there'd still been that final strand to be snipped before the rope broke and dropped him into the black pit.

She turned the paper around on the counter. The story was front-page lead.

Green Light for M-way The controversial Bath-Taunton expressway is to go ahead – despite furious protests from environmentalists.

The report of the two-month public inquiry, published today, rejects claims that the proposed route would be a 'savage rape of Central Somerset'. But a leading opponent of the plan said last night, 'We'll fight them to the last tree.' The Government claims the road is the only way to end crippling congestion in several small towns and villages, especially during the holiday season. It will also link the county firmly into the trans-European road network, opening up major industrial and commercial possibilities, according to local authority chiefs who have welcomed the decision.

'Got a call from the paper late last night asking for a quote,' Woolly said. 'Too choked to give a reasoned response, just wanted to get it over that we'd be re-forming the action committee, only it come out a bit stronger, like.

'Sheesh.'

Mendip Councillor Edward Woolaston. one of the original protesters, said, No way are they going to get away with this. This is going to be a nationwide issue, even a world issue, and we'll fight them to the last tree.'

Juanita didn't know what to say. The thought of an enormous public protest with the police and armies of security men guarding the site and people getting hurt made her feel faintly sick.

'The thing is, Woolly, it just never works. There've been so many full-scale road protests and it just leaves everyone beaten and bitter. Look at Newbury… Batheaston… Twyford Down… If the Government decides a road's going through, it goes through.'

She stared despondently through the window. All the shards of pottery had disappeared from the gutters, which streamed now with dark rain. Apart from Holy Thorn Ceramics being closed, you'd think nothing exceptional had occurred in High Street. Last night's spark in the air had fizzled out. There was no sign of either Tony or Domini.

'And the thing is. Woolly, if you organise a militant protest to stop the road, all it does is split the community even more because most of the locals think it's a good thing. They don't like the idea of the countryside being ripped up, but if it prevents traffic snarl-ups and children being run over and heavy lorries shaking their foundations… oh hell, you know all this better than I do, a lot of those people voted for you.'

'And won't vote for me again if I'm behind this protest,' said Woolly soberly. 'But I got to go with my conscience. We're fighting for the West Country's right to breathe. We're fighting for green hills, places to walk, places to be. We're fighting to stop them selling Britain for scrap. Sorry. There I go again. Councillor bloody Woolaston. It's all a sham, being a councillor. There is no democracy.'

Juanita pushed the newspaper away. 'So you want me to tell people… what?'

'Tell 'em there's an emergency meeting tonight. Put it round. Seven-thirty. Assembly Rooms. Now they've made a decision they won't hang around. It'll be bulldozers and chainsaw-gangs on every horizon before we know it. Still, you know how you could help.'

'Mmm?'

'Well don't sound so excited, my love.'

'I'm sorry. Lot on my mind.'

The idea of putting Rankin in the frame for murder seemed less straightforward than it had last night. You could never be sure what Diane was going to say, how much of her statement would include what she might consider normal but the police would see as the ravings of a certifiable psychiatric case.

'The Avalonian, I mean,' Woolly was saying. 'You get The Avalonian on the streets, we'd at least have a reliable mouthpiece to counter all the propaganda.'

'I have to tell you, Councillor,' Juanita said severely, 'that The Avalonian isn't going to be anybody's mouthpiece'

'Well, yeah, I accept that, but…'

'But it will be fair and maybe consider certain viewpoints that the regular Press would be a touch queasy about.'

'Fair enough, fair enough. What's your schedule?'

'I don't know. February maybe. Things are moving. As it happens, I've just sent Diane to the print-shop to get acquainted with Sam Daniel. She's a little nervous, having heard that Sam thinks all upper class people should be placed against a wall and shot.'

'He's a good boy, is Sam. You only got to listen to his old man to know that.'

'I thought Griff Daniel hated the ground Sam walks on.'

'Exactly,' said Woolly. 'A good boy.'

In the square entrance hall, he stood on the flagstones, under one of the high, deep-sunk windows either side of the front door, and nodded approval.

'See, Verity, the old Tudor guys built this place, they had it right. They understood the importance of luminary-control. Hence the restrictive fenestration. Everybody says this was down to defence, but that was only part of the calculation.'

Dr Pel Grainger wore a formal black jacket over black jeans and black trainers. In daylight, he looked shorter and rather less imposing. As she supposed he would, given that the night was his chosen environment. Seeing him at the door so early had been quite a shock, rather like seeing an owl perching on one's bird table.

'Verity, you are just so lucky to have this place to yourself.' Dr Grainger smiled, showing small, rather stumpy teeth, their whiteness enhanced by the blackness of his close-mown beard. 'Which is how you got to look at the situation from now on in. Lucky.'

Cornered by Wanda last night, Dr Grainger had expressed – to Verity's dismay – immediate interest in Meadwell. It sounded the kind of place, he said, where just being there could virtually put you into Second-stage Tenebral Symbiosis.

When Verity had tried to explain to Dr Grainger that even in her time here Meadwell had not always been as dark as this, the American had nodded indulgently; he could explain this. Or maybe, he told her, when his therapy programme began to take effect, she wouldn't need to have it explained.

Well, perhaps it would work. Perhaps, after tenebral therapy, there would be more than the usual few precious moments of clarity when she first awoke, before her thoughts began to contract under the pressure of the house.

Dr Grainger moulded his body to one of the oak pillars, ran his hands up and down it. Verity had heard, at the Assembly Rooms, of people who liked to hug trees to share their life-force. But hugging centuries-old long-dead oak?

'And here's another thing…'

He stepped away, giving the oak a fraternal sort of pat, as if they had already established a rapport.

I have been horrified, since I came here, to see how many owners of old houses kind of bleach their beams, to make them lighter. Can you believe that? See, oak is wonderful wood because it absorbs darkness so well. So… three, four centuries of storing the dark and these people want to take it all away. Can you believe that?'

'Perhaps they…' Verity swallowed. 'Perhaps they just want to make it more… cheerful.'

Dr Grainger almost choked on his own laughter. 'That's a joke, right?'

'Right,' said Verity weakly.

'You know. Verity, I could really use this house. It's hard to find one of these late medieval homes that hasn't been tampered with – windows enlarged, all this. Maybe I could hire it? Maybe a weekend seminar here in the summer, or around Christmas?'

He stood on tiptoe and slipped a hand into a dim space between the Jacobean corner cupboard and the ceiling.

'Yeah,' he said with satisfaction but no explanation. 'Tell me, why's it called Meadwell?'

Verity explained about the well in the grounds, is old as the Chalice Well and similarly credited with great curative powers. But unfortunately sealed up now because of a possible pollution problem.

'Uh huh.' A knowing smile. 'Uh huh. Now I begin to understand your problem here.'

How could he? This was utterly ludicrous.

'Seems to me that what may have happened is the house has become repressed because people have been afraid of it. Yeah? So what we got to do. Verity, I' we got to alter the house's self-image. And yours. Remember, when you learn to embrace the dark, the darkness will embrace you back.'

'Yes,' said Verity. 'Thank you. You've made me feel better about it.'

But he hadn't. He'd made her feel worse. And when they went upstairs and Dr Grainger began to peer into the bedrooms in search of deeper and denser shadows, Verity could almost hear the voice of Major Shepherd, Oh Verity, Verity, why didn't you tell me about this?

Dr Grainger was crouching in a comer of the landing, both hands moving in empty air, trying to locate what he called 'the crepuscular core' of the house. 'This is commonly the place where most shadows meet. The repository of the oldest, the least disturbed darkness, you following me?'

I don't want to know. Verity almost panicked. I don't want to know where this place is.

And she was so grateful when there was a rapping from below. 'The front door. Excuse me, please, Dr Grainger.'

She almost ran downstairs to the hall, where a little light pooled on the flagstones. Probably the postman; it was his time. She unbolted the door.

'Oh.'

It was not the postman.

'Well, well. Miss Endicott.'

A deep, educated voice and there was something strikingly familiar about it that made her feel both afraid and strangely joyful.

She stared at him. A tall and slender man, in his late thirties or early forties. His face lean, his jawline deep. His eyes penetratingly familiar. When he smiled she noticed that he did not have a moustache.

Does not have a moustache. She caught herself thinking this and wondered why.

'You don't remember me, do you. Miss Endicott?'

'I'm so sorry.' Verity blushed. Something about him. Something so painfully known.

'But I was only a boy. When we last met.' He put out a hand. 'Oliver,' he said. 'Oliver Pixhill.'

One of the huntsmen – what appeared to be a savage snarl on his face – was beating a hound away from a dead stag. Too late; its head was awfully messed up and one of its antlers looked broken. It was very important to huntsmen that the head should be unspoiled.

Diane winced.

Across the bottom of the scene was pasted a page-heading from a holiday guide. It read: THE QUANTOCKS: A REAL HAVEN FOR WILDLIFE.

The photo had been blown up, all grainy. The caption had a serrated edge, what Diane had learned on the paper in Yorkshire to call a ragout. It made a pretty devastating poster and it hung uncompromisingly just inside the door.

'Sometimes we go out at night, a bunch of us,' Sam Daniel said. 'Paste 'em on a few tourist offices, show the visitors what it's really like in the pretty countryside. Plus, it shows blood sports aren't what you'd call compatible with a tourist-based economy.'

He gave Diane a candid sort of look, as though defying her to report him to the police. Another test. People were always testing her, as though you couldn't expect automatically to trust anyone whose name was prefixed by The Honourable.

'Your old man done any of that? Stags?'

'Foxes,' Diane said. 'We haven't got many stags in our part of the county.'

Sam pulled on his earring. 'Ah, well, you know, I figured maybe he'd done a bit as a guest of one of the hunts over Exmoor way. They like to involve as many nobs as they can get, those bastards. Social cred.'

'I don't think so.'

'Or maybe you didn't like to ask him?'

'You don't,' Diane said. 'You don't ask my father anything like that. Or if you do, you don't expect to get a reply. Anyway, what about your father – doesn't he shoot?'

Like Griff, Sam Daniel was stocky, but not so heavy. He grinned through quarter-inch stubble, I don't ask him anything either. Mainly on account of we don't talk.'

The print-shop – the sign just said SAMPRINT – was on the corner of Grope Lane. Quite a central location. Diane didn't know much about computers and laser-printers, but it all looked jolly impressive. There was also a young boy called Paul, sixteen, his first job. Computer-whizz, Sam said.

Sam was about thirty and not so notorious nowadays, Not since he'd been dismissed from the County Planning department after his conviction for assault while sabotaging a hunt. The Beaufort Hunt, as it happened, the one Prince Charles sometimes rode with. Diane seemed to remember Sam had got off with a conditional discharge, but it still made all the papers, in the very week Griff Daniel had been installed as chairman of the district council.

Diane looked around the room at the equipment which must have cost, well, thousands. I thought you must have sort of made it up with your father.'

'What? Him invest in me?' Sam swept his buccaneer's hair back off his shoulders and rolled his head.

Juanita had said it was no secret in Glastonbury that Griff blamed his subsequent electoral defeat on the publicity over Sam's court case – despite his celebrated No Son of Mine statement to the Gazette.

'Business loan, this was,' Sam said. 'Achieved after a lot of grovelling and blatant lying. So if there's a chunk of the Ffitch fortune going spare, I can give you an immediate directorship, how's that sound?'

'Super.' Diane said. 'But, as my father likes to remind me every so often, my personal position is sort of, you know, what's the word? Destitute.'

Sam grinned and shook his head. He clearly didn't believe that; nobody ever could, quite.

'I've got a van,' Diane said, if that's any use. For deliveries and things.'

With pink spots and holes in the side. Just what he needed to boost his image within the business community.

'Can you write, is the main thing,' Sam said. 'Can you make this thing read like a proper paper, instead of the usual old hippy shit?'

She imagined huge stacks of The Avalonian piling up by the door, under the anti-blood sports posters. The image was quite exciting and Sam did seem like the sort of person who could help make it happen. She knew Juanita had sent her along here in the hope that she would become inspired.

And also to take her mind off that trip to the police station. And Headlice. I could have saved him.

'Actually, I'm really not very good,' she said a little breathlessly, in Yorkshire I was always forgetting to ask people's ages and all that. My spelling isn't terrific either.'

Sam slowly shook his head. 'Ah 'tis the usual problem with you aristocrats. 'Always so arrogant and full of yourselves.'

A shadow fell across the window of the print-shop, accompanied by a thump on the glass, and Sam looked up sharply and then made a dive for the door. 'Hey! Piss off, pal!'

Something had been stuck to the outside of the window.

'Bloody Darryl Davey, that was.' Sam came back into the shop, holding a yellow printed sheet he'd torn from the glass. 'About all he's fit for, fly-posting. Thick bastard.'

He unrolled the yellow paper.

GLASTONBURY FIRST

A public meeting to bunch a new initiative for the promotion of Priorities in the town and its environs will be held

Tonight Nov. I6 at the TOWN HALL

7.30 p.m.

Sam Daniel sniffed the paper suspiciously.

'The old man,' he said. I can smell the old man all over this.'

Verity was at once horribly anxious.

Oliver Pixhill. It must be thirty years since she'd seen him, and on that occasion she'd chased him angrily away.

'I hope it isn't inconvenient.'

'No.' She felt an awful blush coming on. 'Not at all. Besides…'

It had been not long after she'd taken over as housekeeper, Oliver and his mother having moved into the town. The boy had returned with his schoolfriend, Archer Ffitch, and an air pistol, both of them far too young to have such a thing in their possession.

'Old place doesn't change, does it?' Oliver Pixhill stooped to enter. 'Doesn't it frighten you, being here alone in the winter?'

Verity had found the dead bullfinch on the path, near the back door, the boys sitting on the wall, grinning at her, their legs swinging.

'I… I'm used to it,' she stammered, thinking of the American poking around upstairs looking for the heart of the darkness, wondering how he might alter the house's self-image. Oh lord, what was she going to do? How was she going to explain this? Oliver Pixhill was a member of the Trust; it would get back to Major Shepherd.

'I expect you're wondering why I'm here.' Oliver was soberly attired in a business suit. He was, Verity understood, some sort of corporate lawyer. In the City. Silly to judge him on that one incident from his childhood.

'You have every right to be here. That is, I'm very glad to see you, Mr Pixhill.'

There was the sound of footsteps overhead. Oliver glanced up briefly but didn't question it. Verity was struggling to put together an explanation in her head. About a man who was very interested in old, dark houses and…

'My father would never allow me to visit him here, you know.' Oliver walked languidly over to the stairs but didn't look up. He looked unnervingly like the Colonel as Verity first remembered him. Perhaps a little taller, sharper in the jaw.

'He'd come to my mother's flat two or three times a week and sometimes take me for walks. But he would never let me come here. Wasn't that odd. I used to think he was trying to protect me from something.'

'I suppose he simply thought it was a rather gloomy old place for a boy to grow up in,' Verity said lamely. 'Certainly your mother did.'

'That's what you were told, was it?' An eyebrow rose. 'I see.'

'I…' What could she say? How could she even start to explain?

But she didn't have to. Black trainers appeared on the stairs.

'Verity, I found it.' Moving quickly and lightly for a man of his bulk, Dr Pel Grainger padded down the last few steps and arrived next to her, looking fulfilled, like a cat with a bird. 'The crepuscular core. A slight misnomer, but I like the phrase. Oh. Good morning.'

'Dr Grainger, this…' Verity held the oak pillar to steady herself. 'This is Mr Oliver Pixhill. The son of my late employer.' Her voice was small and dead. Like the bullfinch.

'Mr Pixhill, this is…'

'Hi' Dr Grainger was already shaking hands with Oliver.

'Dr Pel Grainger.'

Oliver Pixhill shook hands, said nothing. He tilted his head enquiringly.

And did not have to wait long Within a minute, to Verity's mounting distress, Dr Grainger had identified himself as a therapist specialising in Tenebral Psychosis, which, he explained, was not entirely dissimilar to Seasonal Affective Disorder, only all-year-round, more intense and usually connected to a particular dwelling.

He identified Verity as his 'patient'.

Verity burst into tears.

'Oh, have I been indiscreet?' Dr Grainger turned to Oliver Pixhill. I guess you knew nothing of this, right?'

'I certainly did not.' Oliver's deep voice was full of surprise and concern. He guided Verity through to the dining hall, hands on her quaking shoulders. I did not indeed.'

Oliver pulled out a chair for her at the long table. At which she hadn't sat since the Abbot's Dinner. He took the chair next to hers.

'Miss Endicott, this is utterly dreadful. None of us knew about this. I feel absolutely devastated. And guilty.'

'Please… it's my fault. I'm so…'

'I've been back in this house, Miss Endicott, for less than ten minutes and already I'm finding the atmosphere decidedly oppressive. We shall have to get you out.'

'No! You don't und-'

'Mr Pixhill,' Grainger said from the head of the table, where the Abbot sat. I can help this lady. I have got this…'

'I'm sure your therapeutic techniques are entirely creditable. What I'm saying is she should never have been left here alone and that is the responsibility of the Pixhill Trust. I'm going to make it my business to find Miss Endicott fully furnished accommodation in the short-term and then…'

'You don't understand!' Verity gripped the edge of the table. 'This is my responsibility. I made a promise to your father.'

He looked astonished. 'Good God, you really think my father was in a fit mental state to extract a promise from anyone?'

'Your father was a great man,' Verity whispered.

'My father?' Gently, Oliver took her hands in his. He hesitated. He took a breath. 'Miss Endicott, my father was a deeply unhappy man with a paranoid and obsessive nature. Who ruined his own and other people's lives through…'

'No!' Verity snatched her hands back. That's a… that's untrue.'

Oliver said, with compassion, I do know how you felt about him, you know.'

She stared at him through a blur of angry tears. Saw an unexpected pain in Oliver's eyes. His father's eyes.

'He was my father, and I'm frankly tired of having him venerated. It's time the truth was acknowledged.'

'What can you know of the truth?' Hard to get the words out, her throat was so tight.

'Verity, I've made it my business to find out the truth. You never wanted to. You loved him too much.'

Verity gasped.

Oliver held up a placatory hand. 'Oh, not in any physical sense, I don't suppose. I doubt he was interested in that side of things anymore.'

'Stop it.' Verity drew a handkerchief from her sleeve, wiped her eyes, I don't want to hear any more of this.'

Oliver shrugged. 'All I know is, the oppressive darkness I felt when I entered here was nothing to do with the age of the building. Nothing to do with the legend of Abbot Whiting. You know that.'

Verity rose and backed away from him.

'It's him. Miss Endicott. You know that too. You've always known it. Him and his obsessions. His delusions. His self-importance. His invented visionary experiences. His crazy, rambling diaries The darkness in here is him.'

'How can you say these things?' Verity wouldn't look at him.

'He destroyed my mother, he neglected his parental responsibilities. And he's left his stain on this place. Jesus, you can feel him. The self-inflicted misery of him.'

Verity covered her ears, but his voice was low and insistent.

'I asked you if you were afraid and you said you were used to it. Well, of course you are. Part of you wants to feel he's still here. That's what he left you. His stain.'

'No.' Verity began to beat her knuckles on the table. 'No!'

Oliver stood up. 'This is the source of your darkness, Dr Grainger. George Pixhill. Last and most pathetic of a long line of pseudo-mystics who've thrown away their lives in Glastonbury. You don't need to teach her how to wallow in it. She's been doing it for half her life.'

Verity said quietly, I think you should leave, Oliver.'

'I haven't told you why I came'

'I do not wish to know.'

'I think you do,' Oliver said softly. 'I came to tell you that Major Shepherd was rushed to hospital late last night.'

Verity went very still.

'And died early this morning, I'm afraid,' Oliver said, 'I'm so sorry.'