Jake Conley Mysteries Collection

Chapter 15

Dinner in The Grapes didn’t proceed as intended. It started well as Jake and Gwen clinked glasses of red wine with Jake gallantly cutting Gwen’s steak into small bite-sized pieces so she could eat one-handed. He also showed interest in her upbringing in Scotland and chortled at her ironic sense of humour. The contrast when he became silent and pale and toyed with his food disturbed her.

“What’s bothering you, laddie?”

He was staring over her shoulder towards the window, so she turned to look at what was troubling him. It could hardly be the two middle-aged women enjoying a companionable chat over their drinks.

“What is it, Jake?”

“You can’t see him, can you, Gwen?”

“Who, love?”

“The Saxon warrior. Sitting to the left of the window. He’s glaring at me, and his aspect is horrible; his face is more like a skull. I can’t stand this!” He pushed his chair back. “I’ve got to get out of here!” He rushed to the door and out onto the main road.

Gwen twisted in her seat and looked back at the window. There was nobody to the left of the window as she expected, and to the right, the two women were looking at her curiously. They were probably speculating on what she had said to make her companion flee the room. She gave them a withering look and turned back, but as she did, she felt something disturb the air behind her and smelt a decidedly fetid odour that took away her appetite.

Jake’s right. It’s in here! Oh my God, what’re we going to do?

Jake’s right. It’s in here! Oh my God, what’re we going to do?There was also the detail of paying for their meal. She’d been invited and had come out without more than a few coins in her purse. She’d have to pay with a credit card. Gwen began a frantic search in her handbag for her PIN number. She couldn’t remember it because she rarely used her card.

I’ll have words with you, laddie, when I get home. You’re nowt but trouble.

I’ll have words with you, laddie, when I get home. You’re nowt but trouble.The laddie in question was running along the public footpath to the b****y Field. There was no logical explanation for why he’d chosen to take the path and not follow the road to his lodgings. Other than blind panic. The Saxon ghost was more than his fragile nerves could handle, and he didn’t want it to follow him home. Dusk was descending, and although he could still see around him well enough to run, the twilight distorted familiar objects like bushes and trees. This unsettled him further, and when he glanced back, he saw the Saxon chasing him, axe in hand. When he entered the b****y Field, his situation worsened. Men in ancient armour were searching through corpses which littered the area as far as he could see. He was witnessing the aftermath of a battle that had taken place over 1300 years earlier! Almost hysterical, Jake spun round. Salvation! His Saxon pursuer was bending over a body. Might it be a comrade or a kinsman? Whatever the truth, Jake blessed its soul, turned in an arc, and tried to increase his pace back to the road. His pursuer was still absorbed in the cadaver, and all the others on the field ignored Jake and went about their tasks. He could see them through a veil of time, but they could not see him.

Only when he was back on the road did he think about his next move. Of course, the correct thing to do was to return to Gwen in the pub. It was only a few hundred yards away, and he had to pay for the meal. He found her offering a credit card to the barman.

“No,” he said in a loud voice, causing everyone in the room to stare at him, “my treat!”

“Treat!” hissed Gwen. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “That’s the worst dinner invitation I’ve ever been on, Jake Conley.”

“I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

He settled the bill and bought them each a single malt – a Cardhu. They both could use a strong tipple, he reasoned, and after all, she was a Scot. They sat down at their table, and she gave him a rueful smile.

was“So, are you going to tell me?”

He did.

“The whole field was full, you say?”

She blew out her cheeks and looked at him levelly.

“Jake, I’ve no reason to doubt what you say. In fact…” And she told him about the stench she’d smelled when the ghost passed her earlier. “I didn’t see him, but my God, he stank of death. Look, other people aren’t seeing what you do. A battlefield full of ancient spectres! If people reported those sightings, Ebberston would be crawling with television crews and journalists. I think you’d better call it a day, Jake. This ghost is following you, and you must be in danger. I’ve got a broken arm and spent the worst meal of my life. Don’t you think that’s enough for anyone?”

He couldn’t meet her eye. She was right, of course. He didn’t want to give up on what had become a mission, a fixation, but he was scared. Back in the field he’d been totally unmanned. Where was the sense in this? He could be safe in his home in York, and, he felt sure, with him off the scene, Gwen would be safe in hers, too. He owed her that much.

“You’re right. I’ve made up my mind, I’m leaving in the morning.”

York, (three days later).

York, (three days later).Jake spent a peaceful few days mostly in his room trying to sketch an outline of a novel that was forming in his head. This implied a little research, and he soon hit contradictions and lack of source material for the eighth century. Many historians maintained that King Aldfrith died of natural causes, but with his own eyes he had seen the king struck in the chest below the shoulder by an arrow. So he tended to believe the contradictory accounts that had the king dying of his wounds in Driffelda. Another matter that bothered him was the presence of the Picts fighting on the side of Aldfrith. He could find no reference to this anywhere. On the contrary, the constant warfare at the time between the kingdom of Northumbria and the Picts was well documented. In 698, in Aldfrith’s reign, Picts slew Berhtred the dux regis, leader of the Northumbrian forces only seven years before the battle of Ebberston.

dux regisJake spent considerable time sorting this out to his own satisfaction. Aldfrith had been a bastard child of Oswy, fathered to an Irish princess named Fina. By Irish law, he had to be fostered and brought up in Ireland. As a result, he became a Christian and a very learned one at that. When he became king of Northumbria, his accession was opposed by very powerful factions, not least the family of Berhtred. The king’s background perhaps explained why he did not share the imperialist designs of his predecessors. It would explain why Picts rallied to fight by his side against potential invaders who first had to seize his throne. Jake decided he had seen a battle fought by rival factions against the crowned king.

After several days at home, he decided to walk out in the city and headed in the general direction of the Minster. Quite near the huge monument, his eye strayed to the façade of the Catholic Church of St Wilfrid. This splendid Gothic Revival building boasted detailed Victorian carving on the arch over the main door. He must have passed it countless times without lingering as today. Maybe it was the warm, low light bathing the carvings that made them leap to his eye. He took out his phone and began to snap them, zooming in particularly on the archangel banishing Adam and Eve. The winged figure pointed, forefinger outstretched from his right hand, whilst from his left dangled a sword.

That was when an idea came to him: he wished he had St Michael and his sword to fight the Ebberston ghost for him. Jake wasn’t a Catholic, but he reckoned that if he needed a priest to fight evil, the Catholics were his best bet. They believed in archangels, saints and the whole works. He hesitated outside the doorway. As a non-Catholic, how could he walk in claiming that he needed an exorcist?

The seed had been sown, and at home in his armchair, sipping a coffee, he found the Gallery on his phone to look at the photos he’d taken of the tympanum at St Wilfrid’s. He dwelt on the image for a while, and the seed began to germinate in his brain. He decided he must make an effort to get an exorcist for Elfrid’s Hole. With his thumb, he scrolled through the other snaps and almost dropped his coffee in shock. He’d swear he’d deleted that photo. But there it was, with its hideous, grinning, skull-like features of the Northumbrian Saxon warrior. How was it possible? Now he cancelled the photo again, switched off the phone, switched it back on, and double-checked that it really had gone.

He gulped down his coffee and wondered whether it was a coincidence that the horrible photo had reappeared while he was thinking about an exorcist for the ghost. Or had he been careless and distracted in Ebberston? Yes, more likely, he hadn’t deleted it at all.

Convinced that this had been the case, he stood and walked over to the bathroom. His terror-stricken face peered back at him from the mirror where one word was written, probably by means of stick deodorant, in Old English. His knowledge of that language was minimal, but he translated the Anglo-Saxon for DIE without difficulty.

DIE The ghost had latched on to him and followed him to York. He had provoked the spectre by thinking of St Michael and an exorcist; he needed one more than ever now. He had felt safe this far away from Ebberston, but he was still in danger wherever he went. He switched on his computer and began a search for exorcists, which is how he found the Sacred Order of St Michael the Archangel, with branches in more than 30 countries. This body specialised in exorcism of malignant entities. He read through the whole site and when he’d finished tried to find an exorcist in York. This search proved fruitless, or perhaps, he wondered, he hadn’t typed the right words into the browser. He thought back to the site of the Order. They were quite clear on this: if a person felt he was being haunted, he should approach his parish priest for advice.

He went back into the bathroom. No, he hadn’t imagined it. The word still menaced him from the mirror. He took out a bottle of cream glass cleaner and set about removing every last trace of the word. His anxious face peered back at him as he inspected his handiwork. There was nothing ambiguous about the chilling message. He would have to be careful. His mind went back to the bedroom of the bed and breakfast and how the axe had sliced through the pillow where his head had been an instant before. The danger was only too real. He wondered whether the ghost would leave him alone if he dropped his inquiries. Say he forgot about Elfrid’s Hole and exorcists and the church? It was true the spectre had left him in peace for three days while he hadn’t thought or done anything about Ebberston. He’d only researched the king they’d guarded at the cavern.

Yes, this has to be the way forward.

Yes, this has to be the way forward.He breathed in and in a deep loud voice cried:

“Hark! It’s over. I will let you be. Heed this, I will never return to Ebberston.”

He stood there feeling foolish, speaking to an empty room and doing so in a kind of pidgin Old and Modern English. Then it arrived: the stench of decomposing flesh!

Jake yelped and dashed for the door. He was out and down the street, warily glancing over his shoulder and almost demolishing a small group of tourists in his panic. He threw them an apology over the same shoulder and headed straight for the Minster. There, he went into the visitors’ shop and found what he was looking for – a crucifix – the largest they had. Maybe it had been produced for a church hall or a similar vast space. He bought it regardless of the price. It was large enough to hold in front of himself and cover his whole breast and more.