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Part One
Lampe and Cupitt proposed that āexorcism should have no official status in the Church at allā¦ā
ā¦ they argued that encouraging belief in āoccult evil powersā could lead to dire social consequencesā¦ and implied that exorcism was a kind of Christian magicā¦
About a public letter from theologians
Geoffrey Lampe and Don Cupitt in 1975, quoted in
A History of Anglican Exorcism by Francis Young
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1
The lolly and the stick
THE SKY HAD grown darker, small lights had begun bobbing below the forestry, and a chainsawās whine fell away into the evening wind. David Vaynor didnāt like any of it, though the Home Office pathologist with him didnāt appear particularly fazed, contemplating the newly dead man in the beam of his lamp and nodding.
āIāve seen this, I think, twice before. Thereās a name for it, though I canāt remember for the moment what it is.ā
He moved closer, flashlight shining brutally into the lifeless face and the dark silver hair.
āStone dead after fallingā¦ what, forty metresā¦ two hundred? Who knows?ā
Behind him, avoiding the light and the face, Vaynor smothered a shudder. Working detectives were supposed to have left shuddering far behind.
āBut itās him, all right,ā Dr Billy Grace said. āPeter Portis. You can certainly confirm that to Bliss.ā
Billyās face, with its lavish white moustache, was lit up by Vaynorās own lamplight. He raised both hands and gazed up as if waiting to receive something substantial from a crane.
āEnding up on oneās feet, supported only by bushes, is not, as might be thought, any kind of aid to survival.ā He lowered his arms. āWhen someone comes down with some velocity, like this chap, the upper vertebrae may pass quite neatly through a ring fracture of the occipital bone. You see?ā
Vaynor forced himself to move closer. Heād need to tell DI Bliss heād viewed the damage, but couldnāt remember where the occipital bone was.
Then, avoiding the dead manās open eyes, he somehow knew.
Oh, Godā¦
āLike, uhā¦ā he turned away again, coughed āā¦the stick getting pushed through the lollipop?ā
Billy Grace turned and beamed at him.
āThe lolly and the stick. Ha. Yes, indeed.ā Billyās mouth was a lavish gash under the moustache heād probably first grown in the army more than twenty years earlier. āPerhaps put that in my report for the coroner. Heāll pretend to the police he thought of it himself, but thatās a coronerās prerogative.ā
āYou said Portis,ā Vaynor said. āThis is Portis the estate agent?ā
āAnd the regionās leading rock-climberā¦ And now, Iām afraid, ex-rock-climber.ā
In a fatal fall, Vaynor was thinking, from a rock where climbing was no longer permitted. Unsafe, unstable. In all kinds of ways.
āHe was climbing alone?ā
āNothing to immediately indicate he wasnāt,ā Billy Grace said. Though I expect thatās why youāre here. Weāll be checking for signs of struggle, of course.ā
āI think the DI is just covering his back in case it turns out to be more sinister,ā Vaynor said. āI can probably think of a few people whoād like to help an estate agent off a cliff, butā¦ā
Billy Grace might have smiled. Over his plastic protective suit, he wore a plaid jacket so conspicuously dated that heād probably bought it from a rack labelled windjammers. But even up here there was very little wind, and the dusk was folding the surrounding hills, into a luminous mid-March night.
Spring, then. But nobody was in the mood for spring this year, Vaynor thought, thanks to the virus, which seemed to be rampaging everywhere.
āCouldāve been suicide,ā Billy said. āThough he never struck me as the type. Thought too highly of himself.ā
āYou knew him?ā
āNot well, but I saw him less than a month ago, at a rotary lunch.ā He sniffed.
Vaynor said, āI didnāt know youāā
āIām not. I was their guest after-lunch speaker. You find rotarians all keep their food down if you donāt go into too much detail.ā Billy Grace kind of laughed as he prepared to march off. āLetās hope you keep yours.ā He clapped Vaynor on the shoulder. āDonāt really like this sort of thing, do you? Unsightly death?ā
āHeights,ā Vaynor said guardedly. āI donāt really like heights. But I was the only one who knew how to reach this place quickly.ā He raised a hand to the projecting rocks. āThe Seven Sisters, anyway.ā
He let his gaze glide down from the Sistersā faces to the water-top and the rising oaks that hid the cave.
Between the trees on the left, Vaynor could just see where the rocks arose from stony soil, where the poet Wordsworth had once walked. Apart from the lights and the chainsaw, not much had changed since William Wordsworth was here, having fled from the blood-pooled streets of Paris, heads bouncing under the guillotine blade behind him. Seeking peace again where he thought heād once known it.
Again I hear those waters rolling from their mountain springs.
Vaynor thought he could hear the water, too, where the bank of trees ended above the Wye. Must have been about five years since he was last here. Very little had changed since then, and the forestry roads, lit by sparse headlights, were no safer.
Now Billy, cutting a figure bulkier than Wordsworthās, was striding ahead into the dusk, and Vaynor called to him, not looking at the body.
āFollow you down then, doc?ā
Dr Billy Grace stretched out an arm towards the river, obscured by the bank of trees below the bony crag.
ā āO sylvan Wyeā¦ā ā
āāā¦how often has my spirit turned to thee?āā Vaynor murmured instinctively.
Billy Grace nodded.
āEnglish at Oxford, David? In fact shouldnāt I be calling you doc?
āNo way! Please donāt.ā
No way did Vaynor want to be one of those people who insisted on being addressed as doctor on the strength of one poxy thesis.
It had been published online under the pseudonym Al Fox ā after the house Alfoxden, where the poet and his sister had lived in Somerset. He ā or rather, Al ā had been invited to give a talk at Hereford Library on the poetās 250th anniversary next month. A big relief, therefore, for the reticent Vaynor, when Herefordās proposed Wordsworth weekend festival had been abandoned because of the virus and he could go on being seen just as a cop.
He followed the Home Office pathologist to an old, black Jaguar parked at the edge of the field. Of course, Billy Grace would have an ageing Jag, letting in an echo of Eveās disparaging voice from last night at the bedroom door.
You know, I can just imagine you in twenty yearsā time ā one of those sad old Inspector Morse cops, full of regrets.
Which was how the destructive stuff had started, right on bedtime, going on for dismal hours and climaxing in the morning, with Eve quietly following the taxi driver and her suitcases out of the door, having barely spoken to him since first light. Given a last chance to put things right with her, heād thrown it all away and walked off to work at Gaol Street, thinking he could deal with it later. But heād sensedā¦ relief, could it have been that, coming from Eve? Could this be her relief at having left him, at getting it over so quickly?
āDidnāt really need a lamp tonight, David,ā Billy Grace said, unlocking the Jagās boot. āNot with the lovely Venus doing her best for us.ā
He jabbed a thumb towards the single bright planet which dominated the darkening sky. Some years you were hardly aware of Venus at all and other times, night after night, you couldnāt avoid Wordsworthās evening star.
To watch thy course when Day-light, fled from earth,
In the grey sky hath left his lingering Ghost.
Vaynor looked away, thinking he should be going to try and repair things with Eve before it really was too late. Should have stopped himself from instinctively responding when Bliss had first asked the small gathering in the CID room if anybody knew where the Seven Sisters rocks were. Unless there was something Bliss hadnāt told them, it was just a routine climbing accident which, even on a quiet day like ...
