Chapter 4

"Just as I thought, Diana! This is the clever forgery my fellow students and I made all those years ago. It might look pretty old but any laboratory worth its salt would soon enough prove the parchment is no more than twenty years old. Sorry to disappoint you, my dear, but this is no ancient find."

Father Stephen was sitting in one of Diana's more comfortable chairs - a chair much favoured by the absent and already deeply missed Fortescue. He was looking at the paper with a magnifying glass. He wondered how this document had come to be reposing in Diana's attic. He tried vainly to recall the names of all the fellow conspirators. Maybe hthe brain might begin to function after another glass of her excellent old Cognac? Diana must be psychic! The glass was refilled without his needing to make the slightest sign. What a splendid girl!

"Who owned this place before you, my dear?"

"I think he was called Ferguson. I'm sure that was his name. Did you have a fellow student of that name?"

Of course! Old Fergie! It must have been he who had pocketed the parchment. And he did hail from these parts. It was Ferguson who knew about the old legend and had kept his comrades entertained with tales of the awful doings of the Spirit of the Old Wood. On stormy winter nights his tales had gone down very well, as they supped old port and listened to Fergie's tales against the scary background of the rain beating upon the windows and the wind howling.

Father Stephen nodded. That was one mystery explained. But what was behind the shining light, the screaming as of a siren and the cackling demented laughter which had so frightened six cats and thirteen naked girls? One of the cats, Sukie, jumped on to his lap and purred in a friendly way. Now that the selfish and domineering Fortescue was out of the way, she could appropriate this chair for herself! He stroked the cat expertly knowing just how to cause her purring to change from the merely satisfied to the ecstatic. She liked this newcomer!

"I see you get on with cats, Father Stephen!" laughed Diana as Sukie writhed delightedly under the Vicar's caresses.

"I do seem to be on their wavelength. But I have never kept one of my own."

"You should. They're wonderful company and great fun."

There was a pause while Father Stephen sipped the fine old brandy. He was by no means the hopeless drunk of popular gossip, but fond of a drink now and again.

"I wonder what chance there is of seeing you in Church a little more often in future, Diana? I'm not trying to be a nuisance, but we are always happy to welcome new blood."

"I'd like that, Father! I think I need a lot more focus in my life. That nonsense of last night had really made me think about myself. I've loads of spare time, you know. If you've any jobs you'd like me to do, I'd love to help. I wouldn't mind what it was. Cleaning the floor, arranging the flowers. Anything."

And so Diana became a regular member of Father Stephen's flock, finding her way within weeks on to the Parochial Church Council and within a year into the Vicarage itself, as Father Stephen's wife. In the midst of all these changes she wondered from time to time what had happened to Francine who had gone out in her car on the night of the aborted occultism.

"She was on her way to see you, Diana." her flatmate had said. "She was in a very funny mood that night. They found her car abandoned a few miles away from your house. There was no sign of a struggle. It's a real mystery."

And her disappearance was to remain a mystery for many months.