‘No. It’s old Mrs Randall at the forge. She’s dying. She wants Extreme Unction.’
‘That’s a Catholic sacrament –’
‘Oh, whatever. Whatever it is you do. She needs it.’
‘I see. I’ll need to get my bag from the vicarage. Let me speak to Mrs Witts.’
‘No, no time. You’ll be back for the feast, I daresay.’
They left the hall and hastened up to the vicarage. Adam hurried into his study, packing his prayer book and Bible. He was scrabbling in his desk for a pack of communion wafers in case she felt up to taking it, when he was suddenly and instantly aware of a fierce burst of pain at the back of his neck.
He heard Julia say, ‘Sorry, Adam,’ a millisecond before everything went black.
There was pain, redness behind the eyes, and a fuzz in his head when consciousness began seeping slowly back to him. He could open his eyes, but it was dark and he was somewhere very uncomfortable, wedged in between wooden walls, brushed by hanging fabrics. A wardrobe. He put his hands out and felt the clerical robes. His wardrobe. He pushed at the door. It was locked.
He blinked over and over again, and some of the pain receded. It was an ache now, and a dryness of the throat, but that was more to do with the dust in there than anything else.
Julia, he remembered. She must have hit him. Knocked him out.
He kicked at the wardrobe door, but it was sturdy Victorian oak and the lock was a good one. With a rush, he realised that he was missing his own Harvest Supper. This was ridiculous. Everything about his ministry here had been ridiculous and now it was ending on an appropriately bizarre note.
He tried to stand, but couldn’t do more than hunch over. He reached up for a wire coathanger and worked in the dark at picking the lock with it, not that he had much aptitude for that kind of thing. He should have paid more attention at that James Bond spy club he’d joined at junior school. He was sure there’d been something about picking locks … What did that boy say? Oh, it was no use. He couldn’t remember.
He scratched away, kicking at the door intermittently in the hope of weakening the clasp, but at heart he was resigned to being stuck there until Julia deigned to release him. If she ever did.
He must have been working on it for over an hour by the time he heard the bedroom door open.
‘Let me out!’ he bellowed. ‘Julia!’
He heard footsteps and saw the handle turn, but whoever was there could only wrench at it. They didn’t have the key. It wasn’t Julia.
‘Hold on!’
It was Evie’s voice. Even her voice made him flare up with love, even now.
‘I’ll get help, lover.’
He heard her run out again. Ten minutes later, someone was picking at the lock, rattling the handle like fury.
The catches lifted and the doors were flung open. Evie held out a hand to him. She was more maddeningly beautiful than ever, in a flowing full-length dress, her hair pinned up with a rose. Staggering out of the dark, he perceived an aura of shimmering light around her. She was his saviour.
‘This’ll be the work of that Shields,’ she said.
Adam nodded.
‘Well, screw her. Let’s go to the feast.’
‘Is it still going on?’
‘Nearly done, but there’s the party on the green. Come on.’
The locksmith walked through the door in front of them.
‘First,’ said Adam, holding her back.
‘What?’
‘This.’ He held her face and kissed her, all the pain forgotten, all the indignity and heartache melted away by the sight of her.