Part 11 (1/2)

Matthew engaged in pointless small talk with Belinda for a few moments, then made his excuses and headed for the library in the west wing. The coolness of the room was in sharp contrast to the atmosphere outside. Hatch found himself alone in the echoing circular chamber. He headed towards the section devoted to nineteenth-century history, and removed the copy of The Peninsular War and Its Causes The Peninsular War and Its Causes from the top shelf, depressing a hidden b.u.t.ton set into the case. from the top shelf, depressing a hidden b.u.t.ton set into the case.

The tunnel behind the bookcase was narrow, and Hatch had to stoop to prevent his head banging on the wooden ceiling. After twenty yards the floor beneath him gave way to four stone steps cut into rock the colour of bleached bones, the tunnel widening as it continued downward. Despite the gloom, Hatch could see the rough footprints beneath his feet.

Ever since he had first come to this place, as a fourteen-year-old, he had been aware of following his ancestors.

Then came the still incongruous sight of an ornate, seventeenth-century, gold-trimmed mirror set in the rough rock. Hatch stood before it. He remembered the terror he had felt when he had faced his own reflection in this place as a boy.

''Tis I,' he said, his voice no longer Oxford-and-London English, but rich and filled with West Country inflection.

'Where art thou?'

In the mirror, Hatch's reflection had gone, replaced by swirling mist, from out of which stepped a tall figure in the rough clothing of long-dead centuries. His eyes were the colour of blood, his cheeks as ruddy as a funeral-parlour corpse. He looked at Hatch with an animal intensity.

'What be thy business?'

Hatch had met this avatar before.

'Inform thy master John Ballam, that research into the cure goes well. I'm expecting to have the latest results within the next four days.'

'The master grows impatient,' cut in Ballam with a snarl.

'Jack i' the Green has waited nigh on three hundred years for his coming,' said Hatch contemptuously. 'He can wait another week.' And with that he turned and walked back up the tunnel.

In the mirror, John Ballam faded into the mist. But a gaggle of voices followed Hatch up the tunnel.

'The work must be influenced to serve the master better.'

'The time is almost upon us.'

'Delay frustrates us, but soon we shall be free.'

The Reverend Thomas Baber knelt down as the paris.h.i.+oners began trudging through the final verse of 'Oh for a Closer Walk with G.o.d'. Was it him, or was the organ even more out of tune than normal? That really would need attention again, when funds permitted.

Baber shook his head to clear the babbling, interminable clutter from his mind. Concentrate. He rested his head against the pulpit of oak, knowing that it s.h.i.+elded him from the rest of the church, affording brief sanctuary. He sighed, trying desperately to find G.o.d within his heart... And found something else, as dark and gnarled as the wood that surrounded him like a dry and dusty womb.

So shall my walk be close with G.o.d, Calm and serene my frame: Calm and serene my frame: So purer light shall mark the road That leads me to the Lamb. That leads me to the Lamb.

Baber sighed. Fine sentiments, but they were alien words, with no relevance to Baber's inner life. This was the lull before the storm.

He rose to his feet, a snivelling, fidgeting hush coming over the congregation. He surveyed them slowly, heads all turned up towards him, faces bright with expectation and fear.

Baber closed his eyes. 'May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.'

The murmur of a.s.sent from the villagers echoed down the main aisle, bounced off the high Gothic arches, before finally dissipating on the stained-gla.s.s window of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Very precisely, Thomas Baber opened his leather-bound volume of notes. But he barely glanced at them.

'Saint Paul, I think, put it well in his epistle to the church in Rome. ”I am unspiritual,” he wrote. ”Sold as a slave to sin.

I do not understand what I do. I know that nothing good lives in me, for I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Instead, I keep on doing the evil things I do not want to do.”' Baber paused, as if the words were too painful, too intimate to relate. '”What a wretched man I am!”' he exclaimed, his knuckles white as he gripped the edge of the pulpit. '”Who will rescue me from this body of death?”'

Baber paused, leaving the heartfelt plea hanging in the air like an accusation. 'Good men and bad have pondered this ever since. Who will rescue us from the turmoil - the war, as Paul puts it - that we feel within?' He scanned the faces arranged below him. 'As I walk the village, I notice many things. I see delinquent, drunken children, completely out of control.' He glared at Mr and Mrs Tyley. Only the man returned his gaze. The woman's cheeks were still wet with tears. 'I see abominable practices and brutality that defies description.' There were nervous coughs from pews towards the back of the church. 'I see infidelity, unfaithfulness and s.e.xual immorality.' He glanced at the Matsons, sitting in the side aisle. They stared forward, unblinking, like children at a.s.sembly, their hands limp in their laps. The s.p.a.ce between them was the chasm of their lives. 'Racism, fornication, contempt for the Lord and his day. I see all these things, and am appalled.'

Baber's voice was rising in volume and pitch now. He wasn't quite shouting, but the anger in his voice was like a flaming brand. Dust motes sparkled and danced in the air, lit by a beam of sunlight through one of the side windows. 'As Saint Paul said in the letter to the Galatians, ”The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, selfish ambition. I warn you, as I did before,” concludes Paul, ”that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of G.o.d.”'

Baber licked suddenly dry lips. 'I warn you, the kingdom of G.o.d is at hand. It is close by! Even in Hexen Bridge!' The affirmation was so strong, so surprising, it almost shocked Baber. He could feel the sharp intake of breath in the congregation. 'And if we do not follow that narrow road that leads to the Lord, we shall instead find ourselves on the wide and easy road that leads to h.e.l.l and destruction.' There was a sn.i.g.g.e.r from somewhere, some blase, contemptuous child.

'h.e.l.l is no laughing matter,' Baber continued, louder still.

'The valley of Hinnom, to the south of Jerusalem, is the Old Testament picture of h.e.l.l. A place of slaughter, where children were cut open and sacrificed to Molech, a rubbish dump that burnt continuously and s.h.i.+fted like quicksand. In the New Testament, we hear of a lake of burning sulphur, a place of torment, an underworld, a bottomless pit. Our Lord himself spoke of a fiery furnace, the outer darkness, where there is weeping, and gnas.h.i.+ng of teeth.'

The boy who had dared to laugh was staring at his shoes, his face pale. 'You think the filth of Hexen Bridge, the filth in your own black hearts, is terrifying beyond description? If you stay on the wide road, that will be as nothing to what awaits you when reunited with your true master. The author of the turmoil and conflict in your hearts.'

Thomas Baber closed the journal as firmly as one would close the book of life on the unrepentant. '”Who will rescue me from this body of death?”' The answer was clear to Baber, but he knew that he could never say it, not in this place.

'Who indeed?' he concluded, turning sadly away from the villagers.

Hatch emerged back into the library to find Trevor Winstone sitting in one of the leather-covered reading chairs, his feet propped up on a stool, smoking a cigar. Hatch's younger partner looked decadent, and the initial inclination was to hit him hard. Hatch found himself having these urges more and more, especially in the House. The desire to take three steps across the chamber and slap the opposition spokeswoman on defence across the face was enormous.

'You shouldn't be smoking in in here,' he said, closing the secret entrance. 'It's very bad for the books.' here,' he said, closing the secret entrance. 'It's very bad for the books.'

'You're right, of course,' said Trevor, easing himself out of the chair and turning to face Hatch. He stubbed out the cigar in the fireplace. 'Mind you, I don't imagine the novelists, poets and historians who wrote these magnificent works would approve of them being attacked by grubby little hands, either,' he continued.

'You were young yourself once,' said Hatch. 'I can remember what a snot-nosed brat you were. You and Becky Baber. The Romeo and Juliet of Hexen Bridge.'

'All right,' said Trevor defensively. 'That was a long time ago.' He looked at the politician more closely. 'You look knackered,' he observed.

'I should be,' noted Hatch with a wicked smirk. 'I've been up half the night giving your ex-girlfriend one.'

Trevor winced but said nothing.

'Well, you'll know yourself, she can be pretty energetic,'

continued Hatch.

'Like I said, that was a long time ago.'

'The consignment is safe?' Hatch asked, changing the subject abruptly.

Trevor nodded. 'Phil's got it, not far from here.'

'Good.' Hatch grinned.

'And our little visitor?' queried Trevor, not sharing Matthew Hatch's boyish enthusiasm.