George

When George pulls back the curtains, there is an empty milk churn standing in the middle of the lawn. He points it out to his father. They dress and investigate. The churn is missing its lid, and when George peers in he sees a dead blackbird lying at the bottom. They bury the bird quickly behind the compost heap. George agrees that they may tell Mother about the churn, which they put to stand in the lane, but not about its contents.

The next day George receives a postcard of a tomb in Brewood Church showing a man with two wives. The message reads, 'Why not go on with your old game of writing things on walls?'

His father receives a letter in the same unformed hand: 'Every day, every hour, my hatred is growing against George Edalji. And your damned wife. And your horrid little girl. Do you think, you Pharisee, that because you are a parson God will absolve you from your iniquities?' He does not show this letter to George.

Father and son receive a joint communication:

Ha, ha, hurrah for Upton! Good old Upton! Blessed Upton. Good old Upton! Upton is blessed! Dear old Upton!

Stand up, stand up for Upton

Ye soldiers of the Cross

Lift high your royal banner

It must not suffer loss.

The Vicar and his wife decide that in future they will open all mail addressed to the Vicarage themselves. At all cost, George's studies must not be interfered with. Therefore he does not see the letter which begins: 'I swear by God that I will do harm to some person. The only thing I care about in this world is revenge, revenge, sweet revenge I long for, then I shall be happy in hell.' Nor does he see the one that says: 'Before the end of the year your kid will be either in the graveyard or disgraced for life.' However, he is shown the one beginning: 'You Pharisee and false prophet you accused Elizabeth Foster and sent her away you and your damned wife.'

The letters increase in frequency. They are written on cheap lined paper torn from a notebook, and posted from Cannock, Walsall, Rugeley, Wolverhampton and even Great Wyrley itself. The Vicar does not know what to do about them. Given the behaviour first of Upton and then of the Chief Constable, there seems little point complaining to the police. As the letters pile up, he tries to tabulate their chief characteristics. These are: a defence of Elizabeth Foster; frantic praise of Sergeant Upton and the police generally; insane hatred of the Edalji family; and religious mania, which may or may not be assumed. The penmanship varies in style, as he imagines it might if you were disguising your hand.

Shapurji prays for enlightenment. He also prays for patience, for his family, and – with a slightly reluctant sense of duty – for the letter writer.

George leaves for Mason College before the first post arrives, but on his return can normally detect if an anonymous letter has been delivered that day. His mother will be falsely cheerful, flitting from one topic of conversation to another, as if silence, like gravity, might pull them all down to ground level, to the mud and filth that rest there. His father, less equipped for social dissimulation, is withdrawn, and sits at the head of the table like a granite statue of himself. The reaction of each parent frays the nerves of the other; George tries to find a middle ground by talking more than his father but less than his mother. Meanwhile, Horace and Maud chatter away unchecked, the sole if temporary beneficiaries of the writing campaign.

After the key and the milk churn, other items appear at the Vicarage. A pewter ladle on a window sill; a garden fork pinning a dead rabbit to the lawn; three eggs broken on the front step. Each morning George and his father search the grounds before Mother and the two younger ones are allowed outside. One day they find twenty pennies and halfpennies laid at intervals across the lawn; the Vicar decides to regard them as a donation to the church. There are also dead birds, mostly strangled; and once excrement has been laid where it will be most visible. Occasionally, in the dawn light, George is aware of something that is less than a presence, a possible observer; it is more like a close absence, the feeling of someone having just left. But nobody is ever caught, or even spotted.

And now the hoaxes begin. After church one Sunday, Mr Beckworth of Hangover Farm shakes the Vicar's hand, then winks and murmurs, 'Starting a new line of business, I see.' When Shapurji looks puzzled, Beckworth passes him a clipping from the Cannock Chase Courier. It is an advertisement surrounded by a scalloped box:

Eligible Young Ladies

of Good Manners amp; Breeding

Available for Matrimony

to Gentlemen of Means amp; Character

Introductions: apply Rev S Edalji,

Great Wyrley Vicarage.

Fee payable.

The Vicar visits the newspaper offices and is told that three more such advertisements have already been ordered. But no one has set eyes upon their purchaser: the instruction came by letter with a postal order enclosed. The commercial manager is sympathetic, and naturally offers to suspend the remaining insertions. If the culprit tries to protest or reclaim his money, the police will of course be summoned. But no, he does not think the editorial pages will be interested in the story. No offence to the cloth, but a newspaper has its reputation to consider, and telling the world it has been hoaxed might undermine the credibility of its other stories.

When Shapurji returns to the Vicarage, there is a young red-headed curate from Norfolk waiting to see him, and holding his Christian temper with some difficulty. He is impatient to know why his fellow servant in Christ has summoned him all the way to Staffordshire on a matter of spiritual urgency, perhaps requiring exorcism, of which the Vicar's wife appears quite ignorant. Here is your letter, here is your signature. Shapurji explains and apologizes. The curate asks to be reimbursed for his expenses.

Next the maid-of-all-work is called to Wolverhampton in order to inspect the dead body of her non-existent sister, which is supposedly lying in a public house. Quantities of goods – fifty linen napkins, twelve young pear trees, a baron of beef, six crates of champagne, fifteen gallons of black paint – are delivered and have to be sent back. Advertisements appear in newspapers offering the Vicarage for rent at such a low price that there is an abundance of takers. Stabling facilities are offered; so is horse manure. Letters are sent in the Vicar's name to private detectives, engaging their services.

After months of persecution, Shapurji decides to counterattack. He prepares his own advertisement, outlining recent events, and describing the anonymous letters, their handwriting, style and contents; he specifies the times and places of posting. He asks newspapers to refuse requests in his name, readers to report any suspicions they might have, and the perpetrators to examine their consciences.

A broken soup tureen containing a dead blackbird appears on the kitchen step two afternoons later. The following day a bailiff arrives to distrain goods in favour of an imaginary debt. Later, a dressmaker from Stafford comes to measure Maud for her wedding dress. When Maud is silently brought before him, he asks politely if she is to be the child-bride in some Hindoo ceremony. In the midst of this scene, five oilskin jackets arrive for George.

And then, a week later, three newspapers publish a response to the Vicar's appeal. It is in a black box and headed APOLOGY. It reads:

We, the undersigned, both residing in the parish of Great Wyrley, do hereby declare that we are the sole authors and writers of certain offensive and anonymous letters received by various persons during the last twelve months. We regret these utterances, and also utterances against Mr Upton the sergeant of police at Cannock, and against Elizabeth Foster. We have examined our consciences as requested and beg forgiveness of all those involved and also of the authorities, both spiritual and criminal.