‘Brought you coffee,’ she said, setting the mug down on the Landy’s wing. ‘You’re covered in grime.’ She reached over to Ben’s face, touched his cheek, looked at her blackened fingertips and grimaced. ‘Yuck. Any joy?’
‘Jeff was right,’ Ben said. ‘I shouldn’t have come in Le Crock.’
Michaela had the decency not to rub salt into Ben’s wounds by mentioning old bangers again. ‘Can you fix it?’ she asked, peering over his shoulder into the rusty engine compartment.
‘Not without a spare part or two,’ Ben said.
‘Worry about it later. Come inside and I’ll make you the best scrambled eggs you’ve ever had in your life.’
‘Coffee’s fine for me,’ he protested.
‘I insist. You’re officially on holiday, after all. And it’s all beautiful fresh local produce. The eggs are just a day old, courtesy of our neighbours, the Dorans. You can’t possibly refuse.’
Ben relented. Scrubbed clean and tucking into a plate of what were indeed the most delicious scrambled eggs he’d ever tasted – just a smidgen of organic butter, just a pinch of sea salt, a little fresh-ground pepper – he said, ‘Simeon was off early this morning.’
‘He had to drive into Oxford for a radio interview,’ Michaela said, sipping her tea. The eggs were all for Ben. Trying to diet, she’d said.
‘You weren’t kidding about him being a celebrity.’
‘Man on a mission. Fighting a one-man war against the decline of the Church.’
‘Is it declining that much?’ Ben asked.
‘You’re a little out of the loop, aren’t you?’
‘Just a little,’ Ben admitted. But he’d seen the signs, in France as well as in England. The chains and padlocks on the church gates. The silent bell towers. Buildings falling into decay, with grids over the windows to stop the vandals smashing the stained glass, whose beauty few people seemed to appreciate any more.
‘Simeon’s determined to bring youth and vigour back to the Christian faith. That’s how he puts it. Heaven knows, it needs someone with his dynamism to give it a shot in the arm, or else it’s just going to crumble away to nothing before too long, the whole institution and its churches to boot. When Simeon’s father passed away three years ago he left him almost four hundred thousand pounds. Simeon donated every penny of it towards church restoration projects. But as he says, churches are worth nothing without the people inside them. So he fights, and he fights, and he never stops. Twelve hours is a relaxing day for him. When he isn’t in church, it’s one radio interview after another, as well as the odd television appearance. His blog. His podcasts. Anything he can do to raise the profile of Christianity for a modern audience, he throws himself into it with a passion you wouldn’t believe.’
‘He’s a hard-working guy,’ Ben said through a mouthful of egg.
‘You have no idea, Ben. Gone are the days when a vicar only had his own cosy little corner to tend to. The C of E is so strapped for cash, old vicars being pensioned off all over the place and a shortage of new recruits, that Simeon now has three churches to look after, and he’s constantly zapping about from one to the other. Some of his colleagues have even more, but none of them has managed to boost attendance the way he has. He’s amazing. How he still finds the time to research his book is beyond me.’
‘What’s he writing about?’ Ben asked as he helped to clear up the breakfast dishes.
‘I only know the title,’ Michaela said, piling plates in the cupboard. ‘And then only because Simeon accidentally left the draft title page lying on his desk one day. He’s calling it The Sacred Sword.’
‘Interesting,’ Ben said.
‘And more than a little mysterious,’ Michaela added wryly. ‘He never stopped prattling on about his first two books while he was working on them. I could almost have written them myself, he told me so much. But this one … let’s just say he’s being extremely secretive. He’s taken to locking his study door when he’s not around. Even bought a safe to keep his notes in. And that time he accidentally left the printout lying around, he burned it afterwards. I don’t think he’s printed off a page of it since.’
‘Maybe he thinks he’s onto a hot bestseller,’ Ben said.
‘It’s not just the book. He spends hours on the phone to people all over the world, then refuses to tell me what it was about. Even when he went to America to meet some “expert” he wouldn’t tell me why, or who the man was, not even his name. I think it was him who phoned last night, in the wee small hours. I didn’t bother asking Simeon about it this morning, although he seemed very preoccupied and I can only assume it was to do with the phone call. Oh, I don’t know. Maybe he’ll tell me one day, when he’s ready to.’
Michaela went quiet and looked pensive for a while as they finished clearing up. She glanced out of the window and forced a smile. ‘Shame to be stuck indoors when it’s a lovely day outside. Would you like to go for a walk?’
Ben said he would love to. They stepped out into the crisp sunny winter’s morning and walked down the long, sloping garden with Scruffy running rings around them, a stick in his mouth. Ben was wearing a pair of Simeon’s wellingtons that crunched on the frosty grass.
‘Isn’t the air wonderful?’ Michaela said. ‘Maybe we’re in for a nice, cold, dry spell, after all the rain we’ve had. I’m praying for a white Christmas.’
‘That would be nice,’ Ben said, a little insincerely. Snow mainly just meant a big clearing headache for him.
A gate at the bottom of the garden led to a little patch of woods. Crows cawed in the cold air. The sunlight sparkled on the fast-flowing river through the gaps in the trees.
Ben pointed at the dog, who was running on ahead of them with a world of rabbits to flush out and chase. ‘I like him.’
Michaela seemed pleased. ‘He’s a real character, isn’t he? Turned up here out of the blue, about a year ago. No telling where he came from or who his former owners were. We took him in. I think he’s about three or four. I love him to bits.’
Michaela threw the stick for the dog a few times, and Ben watched her, noticing the way that her look of contentment had faded to a frown as they walked on.
‘You know, I’m really worried about Simeon,’ she said suddenly. ‘He’s got so much on his mind, and sometimes I’m afraid he’s going to burn himself out or make himself ill. He works far too hard, and what with all the quarrelling between him and Jude, not to mention this awful business with Fabrice Lalique …’
‘The man who committed suicide?’
She nodded. ‘He was a Catholic priest. Simeon met him a couple of years ago in France while visiting a church restoration project, and they became friends.’ She shook her head. ‘I still can’t believe it. What a shock. And the worst of it are the revelations that came afterwards.’
‘Revelations?’
‘A day or two after his death, his home was raided by police, acting on a tip-off. They seized his computer and found … how can I put it?’ Michaela paused uncomfortably. ‘Certain material. Very unpleasant and explicit material. Pictures of children. You can guess what kind of pictures I’m talking about.’
‘I can guess,’ Ben said, with a stab of revulsion.
‘It was the reason he killed himself,’ Michaela said. ‘Out of guilt, or shame, or perhaps just because he knew what would happen if he was caught. Before he did it, he sent an email to everyone he knew, confessing his sins and asking for forgiveness. Then he threw himself off the highest bridge in France.’
‘That’ll certainly do it,’ Ben said, without the least trace of pity in his voice.