The Stranger House. Reginald Hill

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СКАЧАТЬ accident. In contrast to God’s sports shirt and jeans, he wore a dark suit and a collar and tie.

      ‘I still think we should get you checked out,’ said God. ‘That was a nasty tumble you took.’

      ‘You saw it?’ said Sam.

      ‘No. I came in and saw you lying on the floor under all that crap. It didn’t take Miss Marple to work out you must have fallen off the loft ladder, right?’

      ‘It might have tested her to work out what my name was,’ said Sam.

      Before he could reply, the porch door opened and another man came in, this one wearing a priest’s cassock and collar. He too was in his fifties, medium height, slightly built, with a salt-and-pepper shag of hair, and a matching tangle of beard, which, if the moistly anxious brown eyes peering out above it were anything to go by, had been cultivated to conceal meekness rather than express aggression.

      ‘Thor,’ he said. ‘And Gerry. Hello. What on earth’s happened here?’

      As he spoke his gaze swung rapidly from the pile of hassocks and hymn books on the floor to Sam, and stuck. His mouth opened and white teeth gleamed through his beard like the moon through a bramble bush in what may have been intended as a welcoming smile but came over more as a grimace.

      The man called Thor (right name for a god, wrong religion, thought Sam) said, ‘I came down to make sure young Billy got screwed in properly. This young lady seems to have slipped off the tower ladder. You should get it fixed. It’s a death trap.’

      ‘Oh dear. I’m so sorry. Are you all right, Miss…?’

      ‘Flood. Sam Flood,’ said Sam. ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Few bruises, nothing broken. And I didn’t slip. Someone slammed the trap shut on my fingers.’

      Something in what she said robbed the vicar of the power of response for a moment and when he got it back, it hardly seemed worth the effort.

      ‘What…? You’re sure…? Who would do such a thing…? It hardly seems likely…’

      While the vicar was wittering, God ran up the ladder with the casual ease of an ancient mariner and pushed open the trap.

      ‘No one up here now,’ he declared. ‘Wind must have blown it shut.’

      He slid down, landing easily.

      ‘You’d need a bloody gale!’ protested Sam.

      ‘Gales are what we get round here,’ said the man. ‘Did you actually see anyone?’

      ‘No, not really,’ she admitted. ‘But I did hear something. And he had time to come down and get away…’

      She moved away from the support of the font and was pleased to find she was pretty well back in control of her limbs. Standing under the once more open trap, she peered up at the clouds and recalled that sense of a presence just before it slammed shut. No features, just that frightening feeling of being at the focal point of a predatory stare…

      ‘There was a guy outside digging a grave when I arrived,’ she said. ‘Was he still there when you arrived?’

      She directed this at the man the vicar had called Thor.

      ‘Laal Gowder? Yes, I had a word with him. Why?’

      Because I thought it might be him who came in behind me and climbed up to the tower seemed even less sensible an answer than it had a moment ago.

      ‘Just thought he might have seen someone,’ she said lamely.

      ‘Coming out of the church, you mean? Well, I didn’t see anyone. And you were coming up the path behind me, Gerry. You see anyone?’

      ‘No,’ said the silent man. ‘Only Gowder.’

      He spoke the name as if it tasted foul on the tongue. Despite his apparent lack of enthusiasm for her own presence, Sam felt maybe they had something in common after all. She recalled that Mrs Appledore had mentioned someone called Gerry Woollass. It came back to her. Not God’s son, but the squire’s son. Same thing round here, perhaps?

      Despite beginning to have doubts about her interpretation of events, she wasn’t quite ready yet to give up.

      ‘He could have gone out that way,’ she said, pointing to another door in the wall opposite the main entrance.

      ‘Sorry, no,’ said the vicar. ‘That’s the Devil’s Door.’

      ‘Sorry? What was that? The devil’s door?’

      ‘Yes. It opens north, which in the Middle Ages was regarded as the direction the devil would come from. In some churches the doorway was actually bricked up. Here at St Ylf’s we’re not so superstitious. We merely keep ours locked.’

      The bramble bush smile flashed again, this time definitely a smile, signalling a joke.

      Sam thought of checking the door but didn’t. These old farts probably thought she was simply overreacting to the embarrassment of admitting that she, young, fit Sam Flood who held her year’s record for scaling the uni’s climbing wall, had fallen off a ladder. And they might be right!

      She said, ‘Look, I’m sorry for the bother I’ve caused. Thanks for all your help.’

      ‘Glad to be of service,’ said God. ‘I’m Thor Winander, by the way. And this is Gerry Woollass.’

      Got you right, then, thought Sam, looking at the vicar who, rather reluctantly, said, ‘And I’m Peter Swinebank, vicar of this parish.’

      ‘Same as the guy who wrote the Guide? Which reminds me, it must be lying around here somewhere.’

      It was Woollass who spotted it. He picked it up, dusted it off and handed it back to her, taking the opportunity for a close inspection of her face as he did so.

      ‘Good. Well, I’m glad that no real damage was done,’ said Swinebank rather stagily. ‘Once again my apologies. Now I really must get on. People will be arriving for the funeral soon…’

      ‘Can I have a quick word first?’ said Sam. ‘It was you I was looking for when I started climbing the ladder. Thing is, I think maybe my grandmother came from these parts. Don’t know much else about her except that she made the trip out in spring 1960.’

      ‘The trip out where?’ enquired Swinebank.

      ‘Have you got cloth ears, Pete?’ said Winander. ‘I should have thought even a deaf man would have picked up our young friend has come hopping along the yellow brick road from Oz.’

      ‘Oh, shoot,’ said Sam. ‘And all them elocution lessons my ma wasted money on. Anyway, Vicar, any chance you can help me?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ said Swinebank. ‘What was your grandmother’s name?’

      ‘Same as mine. Don’t ask me why. It’s a long story,’ she said. ‘Flood. Samantha Flood. I thought if it was a local family they might be mentioned in the church records.’

      The three СКАЧАТЬ