The Murdstone Trilogy (16 page)

It took almost a month for the Great Fly of Flemworthy to pass into folklore. The delay resulted from a certain degree of suspicion attached to the key witnesses. Merilee and Francine were, outwardly, perfectly normal. On the other hand, they were twins. There was talk about them of a sexual nature. More significantly still, they were librarians and therefore fanciful. As Leon said, on a night when the Fly was being warmly debated in the Gelder’s Rest, ‘’Tain’t by chance they calls them places
lie berries.’

Francine and Merilee themselves maintained a quiet certitude. There was an increase in traffic through the library of people feigning an interest in aerobics videos, but in response to questioning, Merilee, or possibly Francine, would say, ‘I seen what I seen, an thas all I’m sane.’

When the monthly livestock market took over the abandoned industrial estate on the outskirts of the town, things swung in the sisters’ favour. Posh Widow Flaxman, the broad and reputedly lesbian owner of the Toggenheim Goat Stud the other side of Grimspound, was
the improbable backer of their story. Between the Ready Porkers and the Overwintered Sterks she held forth in the refreshment tent.

‘Sunday, it was. Hello, Bernard. You what? Forty fucking quid a beast? Hell’s teeth. What can you do? Bloody Europe. See you later. Anyway. Yes, the same again. Cheers. What was I saying? What? Oh yes. Lunchtime, it was. Just got to the paddock when this shadow passed over it. Thought nothing of it, of course. Cloud. Then, bugger me if six of the nannies and both billies didn’t fall down in a faint. Just like that. Like they’d been shot. Couldn’t believe it. No, Gerry, I had
not
been on the sherberts, as you so quaintly put it. But while we’re on the subject … Thanks. Splash of water with it. Cheers. The goats? Came round after a minute or two. They’re still not right, though. Poor old Ajax is still off his rumpy. Might have to shoot the bugger if he doesn’t pull his socks up. Say what you like, it was a bloody rum business.’

Further confirmation – of a sort – came later the same day when the insanitary mystic Krishna Mersey came down off the moor for his weekly Vedic encounter with the fish and chip van from Okehampton. It wasn’t easy to understand Krishna at the best of times, and on this occasion he was so full of a jittery sort of gloom that he made sense only intermittently. But those queuing for their haddock and scratchings were left in no doubt that an Avatar of really Bad Karma, man, had passed over his encampment on Sunday. It was, like, a really intense shadow. And, like you would, Krishna had looked up
to see what was casting it. Nothing, man. Like,
nothing
. Clear blue beautiful spiritual empty sky. All the same, there was this shadow. And it was so intense, man. And full of
negativity
. As soon as it touched his tomatoes (in reality these were marijuana plants disguised with red Christmas baubles) they’d like just wilted and
died
, man. Half the crop gone. It was like a sign, man. Had to be.

But because Krishna was a Liverpudlian who lived in something called a yurt his evidence could not be trusted entirely.

Then it transpired that Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Arthur Rogers-Jelly MC JP of Sullencott Manor had suffered a similar experience. On Sunday afternoon he’d been whiling away the time between volumes of his memoirs by breathing on the glass of his library window and playing noughts and crosses against himself. He’d just completed a drawn game when a shadow passed across his vision and the room went utterly dark. He’d assumed, naturally, that he’d had a stroke. He’d pressed the panic button on his desk to summon his housekeeper, who’d bustled in to confirm that he was both conscious and more or less upright. After a large and restorative pink gin, Sir Arthur had made a patrol of his grounds. He’d been dismayed to discover the south lawn disfigured by a broad brown swathe of withered grass. It ran diagonally from the ha-ha to the wall of the kitchen garden. Further reconnaissance revealed that in the garden itself four rows of brassicas and three of strawberries had been devastated by a sticky black mould.

The colonel delivered a briefing on these matters to his fellow Rotarians at their monthly meeting. It was followed by a half minute of silence, during which uncomfortable glances were exchanged and throats were cleared.

‘Well,’ ventured Pharmacist Allcock, ‘we, I at any rate, have heard these, er, reports of a, ah, unnaturally large, er, emerging from Philip Murdstone’s chimney.’

‘Claptrap,’ the colonel said. ‘Superstitious nonsense. Stammering eleven-toed halfwits around here will believe anything. I should know. Have ’em up in front of the Bench on a weekly basis.’

Another silence was broken by Surveyor Gammon. ‘So you think there is a rational explanation for this phenomenon, do you, Colonel?’

‘Course I do. Rational explanation for everything.’ The old soldier looked sternly at his colleagues, then leaned forward over his clasped hands. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, in a quieter voice, ‘I want your absolute assurance that what I am about to say will go no further than these four walls. Understood? Yes?’

All nodded.

‘Very well. It is my considered opinion that what we’re dealing with here is a drone.’

‘Ah,’ Gordon Chouse exclaimed. ‘A bee.’

‘Not a bloody bee, man! A
drone
. Unmanned aircraft. Spy in the sky.’

The Rotarians gazed at him.

‘Now then,’ Sir Arthur continued, ‘if you plot the course of this thing on the map – meant to bring it with me,
forgot, sorry – from Flemworthy to the Manor, you get a line running south by south-west. Project that line forty miles or so, and where do you end up?’ He was forced to provide his own answer. ‘
Plymouth
. And there is, in the vicinity of Plymouth, a certain establishment involved in what we might call, ahem, Military Futurology.’

‘The Technical Support Unit,’ exclaimed Malcolm Sweet, proprietor of Farm and Leisure Footwear. ‘The wife’s brother does the catering. They don’t half—’ The colonel’s glare withered him and he fell silent.

‘I am certain in my own mind that what overflew the Manor last Sunday was something dreamed up by the boffins of the TSU. Test flight. Heading back to base. Nothing whatever to do with your writer chappie.’ Sir Arthur leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.

Gammon said, ‘What puzzles me is this fly business …’

‘Ah, well. It’s possible, very possible in fact, that the drone was indeed disguised as a fly. The big eye thingies packed with cameras and whathaveyou. Spot a tick on a stag’s arse from a mile up, that sort of thing.’

Heads were nodded.

‘Why a fly, though, Sir Arthur? Why not, I don’t know, a bird or …?’

‘Obvious, isn’t it? Where are the theatres?’

The Rotarians blanked. Well, there was the Plough Arts Centre at Torrington. The Northcott in Exeter. Bristol Old Vic …

‘Afghanistan. Iraq. Somalia. Iran, if we’re lucky. What
do they all have in common? Flies. Bloody flies everywhere. See what I’m getting at? Johnny Raghead looks up, sees a fly. One of thousands above his sweaty little turban. Doesn’t notice that it’s much higher up than the others. Doesn’t realize that it’s taking photographs of the rust on his Kalashnikov, the attack map he’s drawn in the sand with a stick, the Semtex he’s stuffing into his cummerbund. Get the picture? Bloody clever. I take my hat off to those chaps. Quality intelligence is what tips the balance every time.’

Irritating Gordon Chouse persisted. ‘And how, if you don’t mind me asking, Sir Arthur, do you explain the business with Mrs Flaxman’s goats? Or the damage done to your garden? Or, for that matter, to Krishna’s secret dope plantation?’

‘Ray,’ the colonel said.

‘Pardon? Who?’

‘Ray. A
ray
. Laser sort of thing. State-of-the-art weaponry. Fired by mistake, I imagine. Some chappie down in Plymouth pressing the wrong button. Or simply a gremlin. Takes time to iron these things out, y’ know.’ He waited. ‘Any further questions?’

Gammon drew in a breath and looked around the table. ‘No? Thank you, Colonel. I’m sure we’ll all sleep easier in our beds. Now then, item one on the agenda. Apologies for absence.’

Had Rogers-Jelly not sworn the Rotarians to secrecy, the fearful thrill that possessed Flemworthy might have been quickly suppressed. Instead, reports of, or imaginings of, the Great Fly became almost the sole topic of conversation. Visits to the library increased tenfold; sometimes there were more than five people at once in there, pulling books at random off the shelves and spending an hour or more at the checkout desk. Now that persons of quality had come out in support of their story, the Weird Sisters began to wax loquacious.

‘It pulled itself outer Murdsten’s chimberly like a fat rat outer a pipe,’ Merilee said. ‘Us didn’ notice it at first. We wasn’ really lookin, was we, Francine, being as we was just on our walk.’

‘No.’

‘Then there was this rustlin, like someone undoin a parcel. Come from up above. So we looked, and there twas. Our heart stopped in our chest, didn’ it, Francine?’

‘Oh, worse’n that. I felt like I had a paira hands acrost
my throat. I tried to speak but I couldn. There it was, head goin this way and that, wings whackin together with a sound like cardboard. Then it takes off backards an go back’n’forth for a bit like he’s pissed, then set off in the general drection a Nodden Slough.’

Their audience shuddered satisfactorily.

Pale-faced Pauline from the post office said, ‘Wasn’t you tempted to hev a peek through the winder?’

‘Us did try,’ Merilee admitted, ‘but we cudden see nothun cos the glass were covered in condescension. And us was buggered if we was gorna knock on the door.’

A great deal of lively conversation centred on Philip Murdstone.

That he was a queer fish had never been in doubt.

The way he’d just shown up out of nowhere and bought that damp hole Downside Cottage after it had lain empty for six years since its previous inhabitant, old Ma Birtles – who was definitely a witch – had been found dead in her armchair with the Bible upside-down –
upside-down,
mark you – in her stone-cold claws and half her left ear eaten by her cat.

The way he’d lived poor as a church mouse, and then suddenly made millions with a book all about Black Magic and Neck Romancers and what have you.

The way he’d lurk up at The Devil’s Clock at all hours.

And lately, he’d been acting very strange indeed. Who could forget how he’d turned up, bearded and sockless, at Kwik Mart and caused mayhem?

‘I thought at the time,’ Merilee or Francine said, ‘he was pissed as a two-legged stool. Now I hevta ask maself if I wasn wrong. Whether what we witlessed wasn a boner feeday case of demonic possession.’

Even those unconvinced by the Weird Sisters’ analysis had to concede that it was very significant that Murdstone had disappeared at the same time – perhaps at
exactly
the same time – that the Great Fly had launched itself from his chimney. Simple logic seemed to insist that the fly
was
Murdstone. And that, therefore, Murdstone’s return was a thing to be feared.

On the fifth Sunday after the Fly, the Reverend Colin Minns was somewhat surprised to discover that the congregation at Evensong was thrice its normal size. No fewer than twenty-four worshippers, some of whom he barely recognized, huddled together in the tall gloom of Saint Jude’s. He knew that this burgeoning of the faithful was not the result of his going amongst his flock inspiring them with the love of the Lord because it had been some time since he could be arsed to do much of that sort of thing.

His first inkling of the explanation came towards the end of the Lord’s Prayer.

‘
And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil
,’ he intoned; and in the following short pause his congregation loudly murmured, ‘And from the Great Fly.’

He glared down at them, but none would meet his glittering eye.

Later, emerging from the vestry with gin on his breath
and microwaved Chicken Tikka on his mind, the vicar found a deputation awaiting him. It was headed by his sexton, William Sexton.

‘Bill,’ Minns exclaimed, more or less heartily, and popped a Polo mint into his mouth.

‘Vicar,’ Sexton said.

All stood silent for a long moment in the dimness that smelled of mould and wax and unanswered prayer and moth-eaten military banners.

Minns rubbed his hands together. ‘So, er, how can I help you good folk? You do look most dreadfully solemn, I must say. Is there a problem?’

Someone almost discernibly female poked Sexton from behind and whispered something urgent. The sexton braced himself and spoke.

‘Us wants you ter perform a extersism, Vicar.’

‘Beg pardon?’

Sexton shifted his feet. ‘I dunno if perform be the right word. Do one, anyhow. On Downside. Philip Murdsten’s place.’

Minns put his hands into his trouser pockets and lowered his head.

All waited.

‘William. My friends. I really do think that this fly business has got out of hand.’ He now looked at them squarely. ‘There are those of this parish who have, shall we say, rich imaginations. And, to be frank, there is a, shall we call it tradition? Of superstition? In this part of the world? Mister Murdstone is a successful writer. That
is, of itself, no reason for suspicion, let alone fear. I’ve met him once or twice and he seems, well, a perfectly normal sort of a fellow, really. I don’t know if you are familiar with the phrase “mass hysteria”, but—’

Sexton the sexton cut him off. ‘The place is evil, Vicar. Allers has been. Ask anyone. Any dog’ll whine goin pass, and if a dog dunno the Devil no one do.’

Minns opened his mouth and shut it again. The faces that glimmered at him were stonily, anciently, determined.

Hell’s bells, he thought.

When he got home he poured himself another stiff one and called the Bishop.

There had not been a midnight event in Flemworthy since the public burning of a Spanish ventriloquist in 1828, so the procession that wended its way towards Downside was joined enthusiastically by almost the entire population of the town and its nearer environs.

Even so, it was strangely quiet. Children – normally thrilled or querulous past their bedtimes – were silent in their all-terrain buggies. The usually and randomly garrulous inmates of Sunset House stumbled or trundled along quietly. Also there, or represented, were the Friends of Abused Donkeys, the members of the White Knights of St George (who also represented UKIP), the Young Farmers, the codpiece enthusiasts of the Francis Drake Society, the Saint Jude Optimists, the grizzled Young Conservatives, both members of the Watch Committee, Eric who pretended to work for the Council, the addled punters who hung around the Gelder’s for an hour after closing time and, in the vanguard, the Weird Sisters. Only the Methodists, the Women’s Institute and Leon and
Edgar, for reasons of ideology or indifference, boycotted the occasion.

All were led by the Reverend Minns, who wore a rucksack and as solemn an expression as he could muster, and William Sexton, who bore a large wooden cross. A great many in the train were holding candles; others burned cigarette lighters which flickered off when thumbs were scorched and flickered on again when thumbs had cooled. However, there fell a light but persistent rain, so these various flames and their bearers were sheltered by an almost continuous carapace of umbrellas. These lent the parade a spectral, almost sinister aspect. Viewed from some height and distance – from, say, Krishna Mersey’s smoky yurt halfway up Beige Willie – it might have been mistaken for an improbably large millipede, bearing glowing eggs within its innumerable crotches, creeping towards some unspeakable hatchery.

At the cottage, Minns and Sexton halted, facing the gate. Their followers fanned out behind them along the lane.

Sexton shuddered bulkily. ‘I can feel the evil coming offut in waves, Vicar.’

Nonsense, Minns didn’t say. For all his ecumenical scepticism, he was forced to admit that there was something unwholesome about the place. The way it beetled into the flank of the hill like a trapped and watchful animal, candlelight reflected snakishly in its glass eyes. The thatch lowered like a scowl. A whiff – probably imaginary – of staleness and corruption.

He shrugged the rucksack off his back, turned and raised his voice. ‘Friends.
Friends
. Thank you. Mr Sexton and I will now enter this house and conduct the exorcism. I cannot say for certain what will happen during this procedure. But whatever happens, I must insist that none of you try to enter the house or take any other unconsidered action. I mean that most sincerely. Mr Sexton and I would appreciate it if you stayed where you are and supported us with prayer. Thank you. Bill?’

The two men opened the gate and approached Murdstone’s front door and hammered loudly upon it.

‘Admit us in the name of God Most High,’ Minns demanded, twice. When nothing happened Sexton put his shoulder to the door, which yielded on the instant. The sexton slipped on a slithery dune of junk mail and tumbled into the living room. Struggling to save himself, he collided with a low table and sent the telephone clattering into the darkness. His dropped torch struck the floor and went out.

‘Bill? Are you all right, Bill?’

‘Vicar?’

‘Wait. I’ll light a candle. By all that’s holy, it smells like a dead badger in here, doesn’t it?’

‘Ar. Tis the stink of the Devil’s chuff.’

Minns groped in his bag and pulled out a beefy beeswax and lit it with his lighter.

(It never occurred to either man to try the light switches. Had they done so, they would not have had to proceed umbrageously. South West Power, having not
received Philip’s quarterly payment, had assumed he had switched allegiance to EuroLec and, in an attempt to woo him back, had granted him a reprieve. A letter to this effect was one of the things that had sent Sexton’s foot on its skid. On the other hand, turning the lights on would have seriously disappointed those waiting outside, for whom flickering flame and uncertain light were essential elements of the long-anticipated ritual.)

The clergyman held his flame aloft until it illuminated a table. He set the candle down and lit another. Sexton had located and relit his torch and was now reciting, loudly, the Lord’s Prayer. Minns thought it unwise to silence him and used the opportunity to scan the text he had downloaded from an American website. He was frankly embarrassed by the prospect of addressing Satan directly and in stentorian tones, but it was some consolation that the only person who would hear him do so was an idiot.

Sexton got to the end of the prayer and said ‘Amen’. He waited expectantly.

‘Ah. Yes,
Amen
.’

‘What do us do now, Vicar?’

‘Well, we arrange ten candles in the shape of the cross. In the middle of the floor. Six down and the other four across. Two either side. See what I mean?’

Sexton drew in a sorrowful breath. ‘I knew twud be complercated, Vicar. I’d best leave it ter thee, I reckon.’

‘Yes. OK, Bill. Shine your torch on my bag, there’s a good chap.’ Minns rummaged again.

Sexton said, ‘I did wonder if he mightn’t be here.’

Minns looked up into the dazzle. ‘What?’

‘Well, like we haven seenum for some time don’ mean he mightn’t be here. Holed up, like.’

‘What?’ Minns’ eyes skittered around the gloom. ‘Are you telling me you think Murdstone might be here?’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Bill. That would be … terrible. It would be so embarrassing. If he—’

A noise came from above them. A crash followed by a small howl of pain.

‘Oh, fuck,’ the clergyman said.

An upstairs door opened. A hoarse voice was heard. ‘Fluke me, I can’t be doing with that much longer. Like being puked up by a goat been eating thorn. Murdstone? Murdstone!’

Minns and Sexton drew closer together. Sexton held forth the cross. He aimed the trembling beam of his torch at the head of the stairs.

‘Aha! So you are here, you frolicking arsewipe. We were beginning to think—’

A demon walked into the light. A demon in the guise of a child wearing a hoodie and sandals. But its eyes were dark and ancient; they flinched from the glare.

‘Stap me, Murdstone. Turn that flukin lamp off!’

‘Don’t, Bill,’ Minns warned.

‘I won’t, Vicar. Tis a thing of darknuss!’

The demon crouched, peering. ‘Who the bollix …?’

When the torch found its face again, the fiend hissed and thrust out two white talons. Sexton cried out in horror when the torch turned to hot biscuit and crumbled in his
hand. Men and monster, motionless shadows, stared at each other for an eternal moment. The two candle flames burned in the creature’s eyes.

Sexton said, ‘Vicar?’

All saliva had departed Minns’ mouth. He croaked, ‘In the name of the One and Only God …’

It was as far as he got.

The demon snarled, ‘In the name of the crack of my arse!’ Then it turned and scuttled into darkness. A door banged against a wall. A shudder thrilled the house. Then silence.

Time not measurable by the normal means passed. When it had gone, Sexton walked backwards and cautiously to one of the candles and picked it up.

‘Us’d better check, Vicar,’ he whispered.

Minns rallied himself and picked up the other candle. ‘Yes. You’re right. After you, Bill.’

With the cross leading the way they ascended the stairs. The only door open was that of the bathroom which, when they dared enter, was significantly colder than the rest of the cottage despite the smell of scorch that hung in the air. The exorcists examined the room by the light of their candles.

‘I’d say tis gone,’ Sexton said.

‘Yes. Shall we get the hell out of here?’

At the foot of the stairs Sexton said, ‘Well, all in all, that were a bleddy sight easier than I thought twud be.’