Free The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori by Robert Barnard Page A

her hands clasped in front of her on the table. She was looking around her at the locals, nearly all of whom she seemed to know.
    â€œDo you often drink in pubs?” Declan asked.
    â€œQuite often. Why not? I go round pubs twice a week, trying to bring people to salvation.”
    â€œNo reason, of course. What else do you do?”
    â€œWe bear witness in Keighley market twice a week, and we do a lot of work among the homeless—”
    â€œNo, I meant what else do you do apart from, well, this?”
    â€œApart from my Christian witness? I work in the SPCK bookshop in Keighley. I have decided that my whole life must be devoted to Jesus. It’s the only way I can give it a meaning. You don’t find that?”
    â€œWell, no.”
    â€œYou will,” she said with serene confidence. “I’m sure you will find Him, perhaps quite soon. You must feel the need to, to get you out of the terrible atmosphere at Ashworth. I’m there as little as possible—that’s why we’ve never met. We call on sinners to repent, but to be always in their company is to invite contagion.”
    â€œI’m not sure I see the Ashworth people as sinners,” said Declan.
    â€œThen you can’t have met them yet. But you’ve seen Ranulph. He’s the greatest sinner of all.”
    â€œHe’s nothing but a poor old man sliding toward death,” said Declan with conviction. Mary Ann shook her head vigorously. “But there’s one thing I have noticed about the Ashworth people.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œAlmost all of them are alone,” said Declan. “The two old men, Chesney and Mellors. The brother and sister, living close but not together. Mrs. Max, who Martha tells me has a son, but he’s not with her. Even the four at the farmseem to live in separate worlds: you’d think there’d be something between mother and daughter, mother and son, but there’s really practically nothing, not a spark. You and your mother—”
    â€œWe’re the most alone of all.”
    â€œThat’s what I suspected.”
    â€œOf course, I’m not alone now I’ve found the path to Jesus. You can’t be alone with Him, can you? But before that . . . And when we’re together in the house we . . . we have nothing to say to each other.”
    â€œWhy is that, do you think?”
    â€œWhy is what?”
    â€œWhy does Ranulph Byatt seem to attract these lonely types around him?”
    She shrugged.
    â€œI suppose he is a sort of false messiah. Mrs. Max is different: she has a son, like you say, and he’s grown up, got a job in Burnley, and moved away. Nothing odd there. They’re close, even if they don’t live together any longer, and they’re quite normal. But the others seem to need something in their lives, and they’ve chosen him. They need to find the True Way, but they blind themselves to it.”
    â€œHow long has the community been in existence?”
    â€œCommunity? That’s not a community. Just a collection of sad, lost people. Ranulph inherited the house and cottage from an admirer about fifteen years ago. An old lady who loved his early landscapes. He moved then, and the rest of us have moved in over the years. But I think many of them have been sort of around him for years before that.”
    â€œWhat do you mean ‘around him’?”
    â€œI mean known admirers of his work who were sometimesadmitted to the Presence. People living off of the crumbs from his table. My mother is typical. She went to an exhibition of his work at the Hayward Gallery in 1982, and she’s been a sort of groupie of his ever since. It’s pathetic.”
    â€œSo let me get this straight—Ranulph Byatt inherited the farm and all the cottages from an admirer?”
    â€œYes, an elderly spinster, as you might have guessed.”
    â€œRight. And all the cottages were