A pathological need for fame

I met Mr Priestley for a frappuccino in the centre of Cambridge today. He wanted to show me the cover for his new book, The Dead of Winter. It is not coming out until October but he seemed childishly excited about it and I felt it best to humour him. He also wanted to show me his latest piercing but I have a surprisingly weak stomach when it comes to that sort of thing and declined his invitation quite forcefully.

As I have mentioned previously, The Dead of Winter details the extraordinary life of Michael Vyner and in particular his fateful visit to Sir Stephen Clarendon's house - Hawton Mere. Michael left his own record of these events and Mr Priestley was asked to shape them into the form of a novel. Knowing that I had myself visited Hawton Mere and had heard Michael's tale from his own lips, Mr Priestley asked if we might collaborate one more time.

My contribution to the book seems to have been overlooked by the publishers, but I am happy to remain anonymous. Mr Priestley seems to have what I can only describe as a pathological need for fame and financial gain and I have few requirements that are not met by my modest accommodation at Pity's End and the contents of a warm tea pot.

The demon bench end

Mentioning Cambridge as I did the other day, made me think of an old friend of mine - Dr Rupert Haynes. Rupert was a fellow of Pembroke College and something of an expert in English folklore. We became friends after the unfortunate business with his son Thomas.

Rupert was a rational man and could not make himself believe that Thomas' affliction was anything other than a mental breakdown. He firmly believed that Thomas was subject to some sort of crazed fixation with a curiously carved church bench end, believing in his madness that the thing spoke to him and forced him to perform the acts of violence that caused him to be imprisoned in Bedlam.

I knew the truth to be rather different of course. It was not madness that was to blame. The Demon Bench End in Mr Priestley's Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror tells the real story.

Children of the night

I do not often leave Pity's End now. Franz and I occasionally venture into nearby Cambridge, but people do seem to find Franz rather alarming, and so we tend to make our visits nocturnal ones. But it is a fine thing, to walk among those old colleges and churches with only the howl of intoxicated students to disturb the deathly hush.

Children of the night - what music they make.