Fallen Angel. Andrew Taylor

over.

      She was down to visit a nursing home for the first part of the afternoon, but when she reached the Vicarage (IS THERE LIFE BEFORE DEATH?) she found a message in Derek’s neat, italic hand.

      Tried to reach you on your mobile. Off to see Archdeacon. Margaret at Brownies p.m. Please ring police at KV – Sergeant Hatherly – re attempted suicide. Paint apparently indelible.

      She picked up the telephone and dialled the number of the Kensal Vale police station. She was put through to Hatherly immediately.

      ‘We had this old woman tried to kill herself last night. She’s in hospital now. Still in a coma, I understand. I think she’s one of your lot so I thought we’d better let you know.’

      ‘What’s her name?’

      ‘Audrey Oliphant.’

      ‘I don’t know her.’

      ‘She probably knows you, Reverend.’ Hatherly used the title awkwardly: like many people inside and outside the Church he wasn’t entirely sure how he should address a woman in holy orders. ‘She’s got a bedsit at twenty-nine Belmont Road. You know it? She’s one of the DSS ones, according to the woman who runs the place. Very religious. Her room’s full of bibles and crucifixes.’

      ‘What makes you think she’s one of ours?’

      ‘She had one of your leaflets. Anyway, I’ve checked with the RCs. They don’t know her from Adam.’

      Sally pulled a pad towards her and jotted down the details.

      ‘Took an overdose, it seems. Probably sleeping tablets. According to the landlady, she’s a few bricks short of a load. Used to be in some sort of home, I understand. Now they’ve pushed her out into the community, poor old duck. Poor old community, too.’

      ‘I’ll ring the hospital and ask if I can see her. I could go via Belmont Road and see if there’s anything she might need.’

      ‘The landlady’s a Mrs Gunter. I’ll give her a ring if you like. Tell her to expect you. I think she’ll be glad if someone else will take the responsibility.’

      That makes two of you, thought Sally.

      ‘I knew that one was trouble,’ Mrs Gunter said over her shoulder. ‘People like Audrey can’t cope with real life.’ She paused, panting, on the half-landing and stared at Sally with pale, bloodshot eyes. ‘When all’s said and done, a loony’s a loony. You don’t want them roaming round the streets. They need looking after.’

      They moved slowly up the last flight of stairs. They were on the top floor of the house. Someone was playing rock music in a room below them. The house smelled of cooking and cigarettes. Mrs Gunter stopped outside one of the three doors on the top landing and fiddled with her keyring.

      ‘I phoned that woman at Social Services this morning. I’m sorry, I said, I can’t have her back here. It’s not on, is it? They pay me to give her a room and her breakfast. I’m not a miracle-worker.’ Mrs Gunter darted a hostile glance at Sally. ‘I leave the miracles to you.’

      She unlocked the door and pushed it open. The room was small and narrow with a sloping ceiling. The first thing Sally noticed was the makeshift altar. The top of the chest of drawers was covered with a white cloth on which stood a wooden crucifix flanked by two brass candlesticks. The crucifix stood on a stepped base and was about eight inches high. The figure of Christ was made of bone or ivory.

      ‘If you met her on the stairs she was always muttering to herself,’ Mrs Gunter said. ‘For all I know she was praying.’

      The sash window was six inches open at the top and overlooked the back of the house. The air was fresh, damp and very cold. The single bed was unmade. Sally stared at the surprisingly small indentation where Audrey Oliphant had lain. There were no pictures on the walls. A portable television stood on the floor beside the wardrobe; it had been unplugged, and the screen was turned to the wall. In front of the window was a table and chair. Against the wall on the other side of the wardrobe was a spotlessly clean washbasin.

      ‘She left a note.’ Mrs Gunter twisted her lips into an expression of disgust. ‘Said she was sorry to be such a trouble, and she hoped God would forgive her.’

      ‘How did you find her?’

      ‘She didn’t come down to breakfast. I knew she hadn’t gone out. Besides, it was time for her to change her sheets. And I wanted to talk to her about the state she leaves the bathroom.’

      They found a leather-and-canvas bag with a broken lock in the wardrobe. As they packed it, Mrs Gunter kept up a steady flow of complaint. Meanwhile her hands deftly folded faded nightdresses and smoothed away the wrinkles from a tweed skirt.

      ‘She’s run out of toothpaste, the silly woman. I’ve got a bit left in a tube downstairs. She can have that. I was going to throw it away.’

      ‘Do you know where she went to church?’

      ‘I don’t know if she did. Or nowhere regular. If you ask me, this was her church.’

      Sally picked up the three books on the bedside table. There was no other reading material in the room. All of them were small and well-used. Sally glanced at them as she dropped them in the bag. First there was a holy bible, in the Authorized Version. Next came a book of common prayer, inscribed ‘To Audrey, on the occasion of her First Communion, 20th March 1937, with love from Mother’.

      The third book was Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici, a pocket edition with a faded blue cloth cover. Sally opened the book at the page where there was a marker. She found a faint pencil line in the margin against one sentence. ‘The heart of man is the place the Devils dwell in: I feel sometimes a Hell within my self; Lucifer keeps his Court in my breast, Legion is revived in me.’

      As Sally read the words her mood altered. The transition was abrupt and jerky, like the effect of a mismanaged gear change on a car’s engine. Previously she had felt solitary and depressed. Now she was on the edge of despair. What was the use of this poor woman living her sad life? What was the use of Sally’s attempt to help?

      The despair was a familiar enemy, though today it was more powerful than usual. Its habit of descending on her was one of those inconvenient facts which she had to live with, like the bad dreams and the absurd moments when time seemed to stop; just another outbreak of freak weather in the mind. While she was driving to the hospital she tried to pray but she could not shift the mood. Her mind was in darkness. She felt the first nibbles of panic. This time the state might be permanent.

      On one level Sally continued to function normally. She parked the car and went into the hospital. In the reception area she exchanged a few words with a physiotherapist who sometimes came to St George’s. She took the lift up to the seventh floor. A staff nurse was slumped over a desk in the ward office with a pile of files before her. Sally tapped on the glass partition. The nurse looked at the dog collar and rubbed her eyes. Sally asked for Audrey Oliphant.

      ‘You’re too late. Died about forty minutes ago.’

      ‘What happened?’

      The nurse shrugged – not callous so much as weary. ‘The odds are that her heart just gave way under the strain. Do you want to see her?’

      They had given Audrey Oliphant a room to herself at the end of the corridor. The sheet had been pulled up to the top of the bed. The staff nurse folded it back.

      ‘Did you know her?’

      Sally stared at the dead face: skin and bone, stripped of personality; no longer capable of expressing anger or unhappiness. ‘I saw her once in church. I didn’t know her name.’

      On the bed lay the woman who had cursed her.

      Sally found it difficult not to feel that she was in one respect responsible for Audrey Oliphant’s death. It made it worse that the old woman now had a name. Perhaps if Sally had tried to trace her, Audrey Oliphant might still be alive. The pressure must have been enormous for