The Prayer of the Night Shepherd (16 page)

‘And folk died?’

‘Not as far as I’m aware. Though perhaps some Vaughan descendant somewhere...’

‘OK, it’s interesting,’ Antony conceded. ‘So, tell me – how important would it be to the Devon people to prove that the Conan Doyle connection here is a load of shite?’

‘Well, it makes them very angry indeed. I only need to show you the terse letter I’ve just had from this guy Kennedy, of The Baker Street League, who’s evidently poisoning a lot of people against me. It drives them crazy.’

‘And you’d take them on? I mean, I’m not sure this’d be enough, but if you really got them fired up...’

‘Look, this has become terribly important to me,’ Ben said. ‘It’s not just financial any more – I mean, not just a question of getting publicity and an image for the hotel. Sure, it’d be wonderful to be able to afford to fully re-Victorianize Stanner, down to the last gas mantle in the last lavatory. Which is how it started, I’ll admit, but it’s so much more than that now. It’s about winning the Border – Jane knows what I mean. The Border’s a hard place, a testing place. People fail here all the time, because they haven’t earned acceptance. They don’t have links with the past, they’re not part of a tradition. They don’t
understand
.’

He was standing beside Thomas Vaughan. Black Vaughan. The white, blue and gold light was behind him. He was giving Antony Largo his piece-to-camera, framing himself in the light, the way he’d done as Holmes in the final act of the murder-mystery weekend at Stanner.

‘Damn right I’d take them on,’ Ben said. ‘Me. And Thomas. And Ellen.’ He gazed into the two white faces. ‘I feel, in a strange sort of way, that we’re kind of a team now.’

Following this dramatic and – Jane thought – slightly unhinged assertion, there was silence in the chapel. Just as Ben had intended.

What he hadn’t intended was that it should be broken by a slow applause, the sound of two hands clapping.

Which was eerie enough, in this setting, to make Jane turn around very slowly.

9

S
HE REALLY WASN’T
spooky, that was the first thing. She had a well-worn sheepskin coat around her shoulders and a yellow silk headscarf and suede gloves. Jane didn’t recognize her until she pulled off the scarf.

‘Bravo, Mr Foley!’ She shook out her pale hair. ‘Golly, what a
trek
I’ve had. Your manager said you’d be down at Hergest Court by now, so of course I drove over there. Silent as the grave, as usual. Never mind, here we are. Yes, bravo. Awful man, Neil Kennedy, I’ve always thought – mean-minded and elitist. May I come in?’

Antony stepped aside to let her into the chapel, his head tilted, quizzical. Ben looked confused for a moment, and defensive, and then Jane saw his hands flick, as though he’d suddenly turned over the right page in some mental card-index.

‘Of course, you were on the murder weekend. Mrs...’

‘Elizabeth Pollen. Beth.’

‘
Beth
. Yes. And you’re... still here?’

‘I’m often here, Mr Foley. I only live at Pembridge.’

‘Good Lord,’ Ben said weakly, as though he was bemused that anybody who lived close enough to Stanner Hall to know what kind of dump it was would want to pay good money to stay there.

But Jane was placing Mrs Pollen now: the youngest of the Agathas – hanging out with them in the hotel bar in the evenings but clearly not a part of their weekend coach-party sleuthing scene. The only time she’d come out of the shadows was on that last night when she’d tried to persuade Ben to expand on the
Hound
reference and Ben had deflected it.

No way he could deflect it now.

Beth Pollen folded her silk scarf, like someone who didn’t have too many of them. Under the heavy coat she wore a pale grey dress, and she was very slim, mothlike. Probably in her late fifties, but it was hard to be sure.

‘Mr Foley, first of all, as a member of The Baker Street League, I’d like to apologize for the way Kennedy treated you over the conference. I was very much looking forward to that.’

‘Yes,’ Ben admitted. ‘Quite a blow.’

‘The membership wasn’t consulted, of course. We’re treated like geriatrics most of the time. I may forget to pay my subscription next year, after this. However... I’ve been speaking to your manager – Mrs Craven? – and I think we may have an alternative proposition to put to you.’

Ben blinked. ‘The League?’

‘
Not
The League, I’m afraid. Our coffers may not be as deep as The League’s, but I hope we can strike a deal.’ Mrs Pollen placed her folded scarf in the cleft between Ellen Gethin’s alabaster waist and her praying hands. ‘Isn’t she adorable? Isn’t she proud?’

‘She’s got
something
,’ Antony agreed.

‘Sorry – this is Antony Largo, an old colleague of mine.’ Ben’s expression had sharpened, Jane noticed, at the word
proposition
. ‘We’ve been discussing some TV possibilities.’

‘So I hear.’ Mrs Pollen wore this soft, knowing smile, and Jane realized that her surprise arrival at the church had to be down to Natalie, the professional hotelier, plotting efficiently behind the reception desk to retrieve a situation which could put her out of a job.
People I need to phone. Bookings to make
. It had to have been Nat who’d told this woman about Kennedy’s brutal cancellation.

Jane guessed that Ben, too, had worked all this out. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Beth, but with so much happening I’m afraid I’ve rather forgotten...’

‘You haven’t forgotten
anything
, Mr Foley. Don’t fuss.’

‘Ben.’

‘
Ben
.’ Her figure might be light and wafery but her voice was low and warm and soothing, like dark coffee. ‘All you really need to remember is that, while I might be a member of The Baker Street League, I have a much more meaningful role with the White Company. And no... you aren’t expected to have heard of them either.’

‘One of Doyle’s books, surely?’ Antony said.

‘It’s an historical novel, of which he was enormously proud, about medieval mercenaries. And I suppose it
is
rather good. Arthur, as I’m sure you know, considered Holmes to be very much a secondary creation and always hoped to be recognized as a great historical novelist. As far as we’re concerned, though,
the White Company
was simply a phrase that came through repeatedly to our Mr Hardy, and it stuck. Which gratifies Arthur, although I’m afraid most of us haven’t even read it.’

‘I’m afraid I haven’t either,’ Ben said.

‘Mr Foley...’ Mrs Pollen placed a calming gloved hand on Ben’s arm. ‘That doesn’t
matter
.’

And the deal was done, more or less, right there in the cold blue Vaughan Chapel, silently witnessed by Ellen and Thomas. the White Company would hold their annual conference – or
moot
, as Beth Pollen called it – at the Stanner Hall Hotel in the week before Christmas, effectively replacing The Baker Street League’s original booking.

There would be more than twenty of them, including wives and husbands – not as many as The League and unlikely to spend as much on meat and drink, given that over half of them were vegetarians and too much drink was not encouraged, even over the festive season.

Like Ben cared, at this stage of the game – facing the cold-weather heating bills, the burst pipes and the need to keep the fridges stocked for the benefit of a handful of masochists who were into punishing winter walks and cold bedrooms. In the hollow of the night, he must surely have wondered if the Hound itself was out there somewhere, howling to herald the death of the Stanner Hall Hotel.

But now it was all turned around again. They discussed special terms, Ben meeting every suggestion with, ‘Absolutely – talk to Natalie about it.’ Knowing that Nat would organize the very best, most workable terms, leaving Ben to float around being entertaining and Amber to cook.

Antony Largo had been leaning against the wall between the tomb and the stained-glass window, arms folded, listening to the one-sided negotiations behind a foxy little smile which, it seemed to Jane, was fronting a deeper amusement.

‘So, Beth.’ Antony casually uncoiled from the wall. ‘the White Company... is
what
, exactly?’

Jane saw Ben throw him a look that said:
Back off
. She guessed that Ben, on the threshold of the bleak season, didn’t give a toss if the White Company was a society of rubber-fetishists, as long as they left a deposit.

Beth Pollen gave him a candid look. ‘I think you’ve already guessed, Mr Largo.’

‘But you could humour me.’

‘Well... the society was officially formed in 1980 – the fiftieth anniversary of Arthur’s passing.’

‘Arthur’s
passing
. Ah Beth, you’re dropping wee clues the whole time.’

‘Well, of course I am.’

Ben said, ‘Antony, would you please—’

‘No, no...’ Mrs Pollen lifted a hand. ‘It was originally called The Windlesham Society, after Arthur’s much-loved last home in Sussex. It wasn’t terribly well supported in the early days, and many of the members were rather elderly and found it increasingly difficult to get to meetings. After a few years, it faded virtually out of existence. And then, about six years ago, Alistair Hardy, of whom you might have heard...? A fellow Scot?’

‘Big country, Beth,’ Antony said.

‘
I
’m sorry. We do tend to think that because someone’s eminent in our particular field he must be a household name. Alistair’s a very well-known trance-medium from Edinburgh. His spirit guide, at the time, was Dr Joseph Bell, who, if you recall—’

‘Doyle’s tutor at Edinburgh University medical school. Impressed young Arthur with his incredible deductive skills, thus becoming the prototype for Holmes himself. Arguably a useful guy to have as your spirit guide.’

Ben whispered, ‘You’re
spiritualists
?’

Jane had to laugh.

Mrs Pollen said, ‘Approximately six years ago, Dr Bell communicated to Alistair Hardy that a friend and former student of his was most anxious to find an enlightened audience because he didn’t feel his work here was complete.’

‘Now, I wonder who that would be,’ Antony said.

Beth Pollen merely raised an eyebrow at him. ‘In the last years of his life, Arthur’s beliefs were derided. But let’s not forget that when it was introduced in the West in Victorian times, spiritism was considered a science and had enormous credibility. When Arthur first applied to join the Society for Psychical Research, in 1893, its president-elect was Arthur Balfour, who would later become Prime Minister.’

‘Did I know that?’ Antony wondered. ‘I don’t believe I did.’

‘New technology was rampant. If we could pull voices from the air into a radio set, capture images on film, how long before we would all be seeing and talking to the dead?’ Mrs Pollen made a wry face. ‘By the twenties, we had commercial aircraft, phones, cinema, but spiritism wasn’t felt to have come up with the goods, so it was considered a crank fad. Everyone’s idea of a medium was Madame Arcati from Noel Coward. So it’s quite reasonable to suppose that Arthur was biding his time.’

Jane thought,
And she seemed such a balanced woman
.

‘The way you always refer to him as Arthur,’ Antony said, ‘suggests...’

‘An affection. He’s our patron, after all.’

‘You’re all spiritualists?’

‘We’re all spiritists, but we’re not all mediums, if that’s what you’re asking – I’m not. Essentially, we’re a group of people committed to furthering the work which occupied a good twenty years of a fine man’s life.’

‘He was – how should I put this? – a somewhat credulous man,’ Antony said, avoiding Ben’s agitated gaze.

‘
Not
as credulous as his critics would have us believe, Mr Largo. He fought two elections. He campaigned on behalf of the wrongly convicted. He was a passionate, liberal-minded man who constantly questioned his own beliefs and fought against injustice the whole of his adult life. His only flaw – if that’s how you want to regard it – was a desire to offer
hope
.’

Nobody spoke for a few seconds. Mrs Pollen turned away and spread her scarf over Ellen Gethin’s face, as if she wanted to protect her from cold scepticism.

‘Aye, OK, I’ll buy that, Beth.’ Antony leaned back against the wall. ‘I’m just no’ gonnae ask, if you don’t mind, under what circumstances Conan Doyle became your patron.’

The short drive back to Stanner started in silence, Antony lounging against the passenger door of the MG, chewing his lip and watching Ben drive with one hand on the wheel and his hair flowing behind him. Ben’s expression was so bland that Jane knew there had to be frantic action behind it. Which was understandable because, like,
Jesus
...

Coming up to the bypass Antony said, unsmiling, ‘My friend, if this is a set-up, I think it would be wise if you were to tell me right... now.’

Ben didn’t look at Antony. Jane had the impression he’d been expecting this.

‘We go back, pal.’ The open cuff of Antony’s denim jacket rolled back along a muscular forearm and his forefinger came up like a knife. ‘But not far enough that I wouldnae—’