Urgent need trumped professional determination, and he left the lectern and hastened along the aisle, robes billowing when he broke into a run near the arched exit.
‘Evie,’ he called. ‘Evie Witts!’
But when he arrived at the porch, there was no sign of her.
The morning was bright and sunny again, another perfect day in the ripening Vale, but here in this forgotten corner of the village it was shadowy and chill. Beyond the church, the graveyard was unkempt and overgrown, the lichened tombstones half smothered in vetch and cypress spurge. Valiant sunlight forced its way through a clump of yew trees lining the perimeter wall, but the fitful penumbras thus produced only intensified the sinister atmosphere.
Keeping to the weed-strewn path, Adam skirted the building, looking for a tell-tale scarlet flash, finding nothing until he came to the oldest part of the grounds, its uneven gravestones like lines of rotting teeth, the 16th century dates hewn upon them sealed up with moss.
He stopped, hugging his arms to his body, hearing at first only the breeze sighing through the leaves. Despite the unearthly calm, he felt that he was not alone.
Then he heard it. A sound that blended with the suspirations of nature and yet stood apart from them, heavier and more urgent. A human sound, panting perhaps. And then an unmistakable sigh of – of pain? Upset? Or base pleasure?
He had heard that same sound, from those same lungs, before.
‘Evie!’ he called again, angrily now. ‘Where are you?’
He strode around the bell tower and then he saw her.
Lying on a flat granite slab, surrounded by a low wall and festooned with the only fresh flowers in the entire graveyard, was Evie. Her legs were bent so that the silky skirt of her red dress was rucked around her waist, baring her knickerless crotch to the gaze of any passer-by. She gazed up into the sky, one hand cupped around a breast, teasing its stiff nipple with a lazy thumb.
Her face was rapt, eyes glassy, and her back was arched. The flush of her cheek was just as it had been when he saw her the day before, taken by her string of lovers. She had been – doing something unspeakable – here in the churchyard.
For a moment, he could do no more than stare at her, his eyes drawn rudely to what was displayed between her thighs.
Then he took a long stride forward, reaching out for her arm to yank her off the slab. She anticipated him and rolled on to her side, ending up on all fours with her silk-encased bottom thrust up towards him.
‘I’ve been a bad girl, vicar,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Are you going to spank me?’
All self-control flying out of reach, he raised his hand to do exactly that. It wasn’t until it had fallen, with a crack that sent the birds flying from the trees overhead, that he collected himself.
‘Dear Lord, send me strength,’ he muttered, staggering back until the stone of the bell tower supported his spine.
Evie put a hand on her backside, rubbing at the spot he’d made such impressive impact upon, then she rose and beamed impishly at him.
‘That’ll leave a mark,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘But I deserved it. I shan’t tell anyone.’
He resisted the impulse to thank her, though he knew that his action could have spelled the end of his career.
‘Yes, you deserved it,’ he said. ‘How dare you desecrate the graves of the dead in this way? You are brazen and sinful.’
‘Just like her,’ said Evie, casting her gaze down at the horizontal gravestone with its curlicued script. ‘My great-great-great-grandma. There might be another couple of greats in there. I dunno.’
Adam stepped closer, reading the name.
‘Evangeline Mary Witts. You’re named for her?’
‘Yeah, strange though, ’cos she weren’t exactly a role model. We’ve got a lot in common, me and Granny Evangeline, if you know what I mean.’
‘Do you think she’d approve of what you were doing on her grave?’
Evie looked as if she were struggling with some undefined emotion.
‘I ain’t looking for approval,’ she said at last.
‘That’s obvious. But sometimes you get what you aren’t looking for when you least expect it.’
‘What d’you mean by that?’