A Demon Summer (11 page)

“They are somewhat off the grid out here,” agreed Max.

“Are you going into the village soon?” she asked.

“Erm. I just got here,” said Max.

“I don't suppose I could…”

“Borrow my car?” Max laughed. “No. But if I go into the village you'll be the first to know. You can come with me, but with your parents' permission, of course.”

“I'm eighteen,” she insisted.

“Still,” he said. Better to keep the peace with the Goreys, whom he had not even met, than disturb the peace in anticipation. Her father didn't sound like the type of man to approve a joyride for his daughter, particularly in a foreign country with a strange man.

A big sigh at this from Xanda. Apparently this Max person was going to be as tedious about everything as her parents were.

Clearly playing her trump card, she said: “I don't know how much more I can take, you know. They communicate with these elaborate hand signals at meals on Sundays—the nuns, I mean. The only sound you can hear is a spoon striking the bottom of a bowl, or the occasional crunch of a raw carrot or a stick of celery, or the clacking of someone's dentures. It's too horrible for words.
Ghastly
, as the English say. But worse than the silence is the readings the nuns do at dinnertime. Stuff from the scriptures, and ‘uplifting' advice from martyrs and hermits and the utterly clueless, all delivered in this, like,
mono
tune.
God!
”

“Monotone,” corrected Max automatically. “I'm sure it's a bit boring. But there is the fresh air and the little sheep, right? And perhaps fishing if you're so inclined … I suppose…?”

He trailed off. She looked at him as if he had taken leave of his senses.

“I hope you're joking. Do I look like a fisherman to you?”

“I just meant, there must be compensations. The peace and quiet. Those are hard things to come by, day by day. Perhaps it's something you'll appreciate more as you get older.”

“Not I,” she said flatly. “I never want to get old, not like this bunch. Even the postulant—she's not much older than me, and
what
a drip she is. She doesn't even know who Eminem is. I want to live my life in, like, the fast lane—you know? If I ever get out of here alive, I mean. At least the attempted murder livened things up.”

“Who told you it was attempted murder?” he asked her, rather sharply. Then more gently, he added, “I mean, what makes you think that?”

“Dunno.” She twirled one of the pink-tipped strands at the side of her head. “Stands to reason. I mean, have you met him?”

She would not be drawn further on what exactly stood to reason. After a few delicately phrased attempts at pinning her down, Max returned his attention to his granola.

“My father is always on about the mandolin,” she said conversationally after a while. She began picking through the bowl of fruit on the table. “He collects things, my dad.”

Max imagined he could afford to.

“That's an interesting hobby,” he said.

“I guess. He likes religious art. You should see our house. It's like living in a cathedral.”

She had sat down across the table from him, and using the knife he'd left lying there, began trying to peel an apple without breaking the skin. She got about halfway through.

“Rats,” she said.

Max, still puzzling over what on earth she was talking about, finally put it together.

“You mean Mandylion,” he said.

“Yeah, that's it. My dad's obsessed with the mandolin. He's not the only one.”

“A Mandylion,” Max repeated. “It is thought to be an image of the living Christ. There are several versions, none that can be authenticated.” He thought of the reappearing image back in his own church of St. Edwold's, which stubbornly reemerged on the wall despite his best attempts to eradicate it with paint and plaster. As little Tom Hooser loudly and repeatedly insisted, it bore a strong resemblance to the face on the Shroud of Turin.

“Of course,” Max added, “it is all the purest speculation. Wishful thinking at its most intense. Everyone wants to know exactly what Christ looked like when he walked the earth. And there is no one who can know.”

“Didn't the apostles or somebody leave a description in the Bible? Didn't anyone make a sketch or something?”

Max smiled. A child of the Internet age, she would find it hard to grasp that describing the physical Christ would not have occurred to anyone. Also that he didn't leave written words or autographs.

That photography had not yet been invented.

That, in any event, much that was recorded in the scriptures had been recorded long after the fact.

Max merely shook his head. “No such luck,” he said. “So I am to take it you are not religious yourself?”

“No. I leave all that to the people who go in for this sort of thing.” With a wave, Xanda indicated the other inmates of the abbey. Realizing what she'd just said might have sounded rude, considering her audience, she added, with the urgent gaucheness of youth, “I didn't mean you, of course. It's your job, like, and I'm sure you're really good at it. But my parents … I've just had it up to here with being told what Jesus said and what Jesus thought and how I'm breaking the rules all the time. And my hair! Why do adults always make such a thing of hair? Besides, you should have seen it before. Curly, but not in an interesting way. More like escaped-lunatic curly.”

“They're very devout, your parents?”

“What a nice way of putting it. They're crazy, actually. Our house also looks like a gift shop in Lourdes. They dragged me there when I was ten. Let me tell you, there is no plastic left in France that hasn't been melted down into a statue. I don't know why my parents don't just convert over to the Catholic side. They're so—what do you call it here? High Church? Yeah, so High Church it practically makes no difference.”

There was a movement outside the window overlooking the cloister. Xanda pointed and said, “There they are. Meet the parents. If you dare.”

Max stepped over to the window and saw the couple walking in the cloister, near the north alley that ran beside the church. The cloister was actually a large square garden with fruit trees and flowers, now coaxed into bloom by the summer heat. The U.K. as a whole had endured a rainy spring, but now the Monkbury Abbey garden seemed to be reaping the full and glorious benefit. The cloister was surrounded in traditional style by a roofed arcade on all sides, with the nunnery buildings opening off of it. There was what appeared to be a stone well in the center of the garden. Max remembered reading somewhere the waters of that well had miraculous healing powers.

The couple were near enough Max could see them clearly over the top of the muslin curtain. Clement was a large, tuna-headed man with a shiny bald pate and round wireless spectacles perched precariously on the bridge of a fleshy nose. He had small teeth like rows of baby corn kernels, misshapen but gleaming white. He wore what Max thought of as the uniform of the travelling, well-off tourist, genus American: khaki pants with large pockets on the legs, and a short-sleeved polo shirt unbuttoned at the neck to reveal a clean white T-shirt. He had on expensive white trainers with a tread fit for an all-terrain vehicle.

Mrs. Gorey—Oona—was, like Piers Montague, dressed in black, but in some drapey fabric that hung loosely from her shoulders to cover what looked to be a substantial frame. Somehow Max didn't think this was an arty choice on her part, as it was in the case of Piers. She may have thought of it as proper nunnery-visiting garb, but, although black was all the rage these days, this clothing was funereal rather than stylish. Her hair was like a balled-up fist, the blond curls tightly corkscrewed to her head. She had a pretty little face but it wore a mean, pinched-in expression.

Max was reminded of one of those grand ladies whose effigies could be seen carved on medieval tombs, her husband lying beside her and perhaps a little dog curled at her feet. Her expression stern and forbidding, just
know
ing she was on her way to meet God in person at last. Judging by her strong visage and the sturdy walk of this living example of grit and fortitude, Max imagined Oona Gorey could easily hold her own against her powerful husband.

He turned back to Xanda.

“The fun couple,” she said. “As I told you, they adore this place, which gives you some idea of the limits to their definition of a fun vacation.”

“Perhaps you could learn a craft while you're here. The sisters are famous for their skills at pottery, just for one example.”

“Oh, yeah. I suppose. I was helping Dame Potter the other day. But that is
so
not me.”

“What is you?” asked Max gently.

For that she had a ready answer, surprising Max somewhat. Generally, at her age, the answer was more about what she did
not
want to do. “I want to study fashion design. In New York, at the Fashion Institute. My father ‘won't hear of it.'”

“Ah,” said Max. “I suppose he holds the purse strings and decides what you study, and where.”

“You got it.”

“Is there any chance of a scholarship?”

“Not when you're rich, no.”

“I meant a merit scholarship. You know, based on your talent.”

“I dunno.” It didn't seem to have occurred to her, strangely enough. The rich really are different, thought Max. A glimmer of something like hope crept into her eyes.

“Why don't you look into it?” said Max. “You're not a minor any longer. Once your father sees you making your own way, he may come around.” Remembering his own father, Max added: “If slowly.”

“The minute I'm near an Internet connection again, which can't be a moment too soon, I will look into it. Thanks.”

A rather loud, throat-clearing
harrumph
could be heard from the hallway, along with the sound of a rather heavy footfall.

“That would be the lord,” said Xanda. “Lord Lislelivet. Sorry to do this to you, Father, but I am
so
out of here.”

 

Chapter 9

THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN

The sisters should remain vigilant to each other's needs as they eat and drink, so that no one at table need ask for anything.

—The Rule of the Order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy

Max actually welcomed the intrusion, for here was a chance to meet the devil in the flesh.

Lord Lislelivet was much smaller than he appeared on the telly, where Max had seen him in various ceremonial appearances in the House of Lords, dressed head to toe on high occasion in feathers and swords and other inherited bling. As one of the few remaining members sitting by virtue of a hereditary peerage, Lord Lislelivet was a vanishing breed. Perhaps the glittery accoutrements added inches to his height, for in person he was a small man, one who might have been mistaken for any man on the street except for the certain glow of privilege that exuded from every pore.

Today he was dressed casually in a linen sport jacket on top of an open-collared shirt and cotton chinos. If he added a tie, he'd be ready to take a last-minute business meeting at his club. Dark-haired and olive-complexioned, he had that special polish that came with having loads of money and access to the best bespoke tailors, that sheen of hair and skin as if he had been spray-painted with fairy dust. Prince Charles had the same patrician look of hair blown into place by royal hairdressers and of shoes polished to a deep gleam by royal shoeblacks.

Like many men of his breed he also wore an invisible cloak of entitlement. Max had dealt with many such in his career, as he had often been called in by MI5 when the have-nots showed signs of wanting to exterminate the haves, as happened routinely. The haves sat in their resplendent drawing rooms and sipped their single malts, these winners of the inheritance lottery, as they poured out their distress at being targeted yet again. Most of these men were charming, if oblivious. Lord Lislelivet struck Max as leaning heavily toward the oblivious side, not feeling an overarching need to waste his limited resources of charm.

As Max pondered how much to tell Lord Lislelivet of the reason for his being there, the Lord stole the initiative.

“I am glad,” he said, “the bishop is taking this seriously. You have been sent by the bishop from Monkslip Cathedral, have you not?”

“In fact, I am the vicar of Nether Monkslip,” Max replied. Feeling that he towered over the man, he stood back an inch or two to try to even the eye level. “Father Maxen Tudor. But yes, I am here at the behest of the bishop. Obviously, the situation concerns him mightily.”

“The
vicar
?” Lord Lislelivet repeated, obviously taken back by Max's low station in life. “Of—what was it—Nether Monkslip? And where on earth is Nether Monkslip?”

“Not far from the Channel,” Max answered vaguely. “A few miles from Monkslip-super-Mare.”

“So you're not officially attached to the bishopric? You're not part of the bishop's official investigative team?”

“So far as I'm aware, the bishop does not maintain an investigative team.” Max struggled to keep the exasperation from his voice, although the image of the bishop trailed by a bodyguard of MI5 agents did raise a smile. “It's not the Vatican, you know. Just one smallish diocese of the Church of England.”

“Well,” said Lord Lislelivet. If he'd added, “I suppose you'll do,” Max might have turned heel and left the room. Instead the man unbent enough to say, “The bishop is a sound man. An Etonian, you know. I suppose he knows what he's doing. What exactly are your qualifications for this investigation?”

Every bone in Max's body resisted the impulse to provide Lord Lislelivet with a summary of his C.V., although he was fully aware that a mention of his MI5 background would instantly have placated the man. There was about it too much of a tone of pandering to live up to Lord Lislelivet's inflated sense of his own worth—of a need for all the forces in the kingdom to be brought to bear on this fruitcake problem of his. “I simply have an inquiring mind,” said Max evenly, “as well as a desire to arrive at the truth of what happened to you. The bishop has found my involvement in … similar cases … useful in the past.”