by Phil Rickman
‘Why do I doubt that?’ Eirion said.
What they told Allan Henry was that a teenage girl had tried to take her own life after being drawn into ouija-board experiments at school. The Deliverance service was trying to establish how widespread the craze was and whether other children were at risk or in distress. Merrily said finally that a number of kids had mentioned Layla Riddock as the girl presiding over psychic sittings at Moorfield High School.
Close as it was to the truth, the story sounded worryingly thin to Merrily, and foreboding arose just a second or so before Allan Henry got to work on it.
‘Well.’ He sat in a steel-framed swivel armchair, his left ankle resting on his right knee. ‘I didn’t know about this.’
‘It came out through the hospital where the child was taken.’ Sophie had evidently assumed responsibility for any necessary lying. ‘When a schoolchild takes a potentially lethal overdose, quite a lot of people start wanting to know why. In this case, as the parents are churchgoers—’
‘No, that’s not what I meant. What I didn’t know, Mrs Hill, was that the Anglican church had its own investigative branch.’
‘It’s not quite like that,’ Merrily said.
‘Because, you see, I find that very disturbing. Are the lay police also involved?’
‘Not yet,’ Sophie said.
‘Not yet. I see.’
He was silent for a short while, during which Merrily became aware of a gilt-framed painting on the wall, high in the alcove to the right of the great fireplace. In glowing colours, style of Gauguin, it showed an unsmiling black woman, robed and veiled, with either a crown or an ornate halo over the headdress.
‘OK, let me get this entirely correct,’ Allan Henry said slowly. Neither the tone nor the pitch of his voice had altered, only the sense of laughter had gone. ‘On behalf of the Church of England, you are accusing my stepdaughter of psychologically abusing young children.’
The absolute accuracy of this left Merrily’s mind momentarily blank. She couldn’t meet his eyes and went on staring at the picture of the Black Virgin.
‘We don’t accuse people, Mr Henry,’ Sophie was saying. ‘We try to help them where we can.’
‘Mrs Hill… is it the Reverend Mrs Hill?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘You have to excuse me for feeling threatened, Mrs Hill. You two women arrive at my door like Jehovah’s Witnesses, with some assumed authority—’
‘Look,’ Merrily said, ‘it’s not about the individuals involved, it’s about the practice itself. And what it can release… psychologically, if you like. It might seem harmless, a game, though I don’t think it is. But this is certainly not a witch-hunt.’
As soon as the word was out she wanted to snatch it back, but it was too late. Allan Henry caught it in the air, like a fist closing over a fly.
‘Witch-hunt? Now that’s a very interesting term. The Church has a long history of persecuting minorities.’
‘I’m sorry… persecuting kids?’
‘Minorities, I said, not minors. If we look at the Romany culture, for instance, they’ve been subjected to the most appalling discrimination and persecution over the years, the world over, because of their customs, their lifestyle and, of course, their—’
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘No, no, let me tell you about Layla. She’s a very serious young woman, very mature for her age, with a brilliant academic career ahead of her. And she has Romany blood. Which gives her a striking presence that some people find intimidating. And also certain abilities that some people can’t accept. Ignorance breeds prejudice. ’Twas ever thus, Mrs Watkins. Ever thus.’
Merrily was aghast. ‘You’re implying there’s something racial behind this?’
‘Again, your term.’
‘Mr Henry, all I’m concerned about’ – she wished she was the other side of the plate glass; she would run and run, all the way to Robin Hood’s Butts – ‘is kids dabbling with the dead. That kind of worries me. I can’t stop them. All I can do is advise them that they could be messing with something that can’t easily be controlled.’
‘In your culture. Can’t be controlled in your culture.’
‘Let’s say not easily.’
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you need to consider your position very carefully before you come here and accuse someone you don’t know of pressuring a child into suicide, like one of those mad Californian cult-leaders.’
‘Oh, you know that’s not—’
‘We should go, Merrily.’ Sophie stood up.
Allan Henry didn’t move. ‘I’m not pushing you out. I’m just warning you to be very, very sure of your ground. These are terribly serious allegations. Which could have repercussions.’
Merrily felt mauled. He hadn’t even raised his voice or moved his ankle from his knee. Persecution? she wanted to cry out. What about David Shelbone? But she knew the most that would get her would be a writ or an injunction by morning. He hadn’t got this far without being able to push people over with one finger, like dominoes.
She suspected there would indeed be repercussions from this. Everything she’d touched lately, there were repercussions.
‘OK. I’m sorry if…’
She stood up. Her face felt hot. As she rose, she became aware of a group of objects laid out on a ledge in a small cavity inside the fireplace: acorns, two dice, a magnet, something that might have been a rabbit’s foot.
‘Allan…?’
A woman had entered the room through a narrow archway at the furthest end. She had on a full-length black kimono, open over a tiny white bikini. She wore sunglasses. She carried a champagne glass, half-filled.
‘Allan,’ she said, ‘I didn’t leave my mobile—?’
Allan Henry stood up. ‘Layla,’ he said warmly, ‘we were just talking about you.’
Merrily could almost feel Sophie’s stomach contract.
Ethel met them on the driveway and Jane picked her up and carried her round to the back, where they found Gomer Parry, placidly weeding the path.
‘Welshies throw you out, is it?’ Gomer said.
‘They found my arms cache, and there was this car chase, but we made it over the border. Hullo, Gomer. Where’s Mum?’
‘Ah, well.’ Gomer laid his trowel on the gravel, straightened up, blinking a few times behind his bottle glasses. ‘The vicar en’t yere, see, Janey. Her’s been called away.’
‘How long’s she been gone?’
‘Oh… day and a half, mabbe.’
‘Huh?’ Jane clutched the cat to her chest. Mum spending a night away, without a word? This did not happen. This just did not—‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Gomer?’
‘Nothin’ exaccly wrong.’
‘So like… where is she?’
‘Out east,’ Gomer said. ‘How are you, Eirion boy?’
‘Not too bad, Gomer. You’re looking—’
‘East? What’s that mean? Norwich? Bangkok?’
‘Bromyard way, I believe,’ Gomer said.
‘Jesus, Gomer.’ Jane slumped in relief. ‘So it’s a job, right?’
‘Som’ing of that order. Her spent the night over there and mabbe a few more to come. I does the days yere, feeding the cat, doing what’s gotter be done. Give her a ring, I should. Her’ll likely explain.’
‘A few more? A few more nights? I don’t understand. Where’s she staying? Who’s she with?’
‘You can get her on the mobile. Her’s, er…’ Gomer scratched an ear. ‘Her’s staying with young Lol Robinson, ennit?’
‘Oh.’ Jane bent to put Ethel down and to conceal her expression. Bloody hell. ‘I… didn’t know Lol was living in Bromyard.’
‘Not livin’, exaccly. Just mindin’ a place. Like me.’ Gomer gestured at the back door. ‘You stoppin’ a bit, Janey? Only I gotter be off in a coupler minutes. Gotter help young Nev sink a new cesspit up by Pembridge.’
‘We’ll probably just get something to eat,’ Jane said.
Well,
bloody hell. All those hints she’d been dropping, like for months. Heard anything from Lol lately? Lol still doing that stupid course, is he? Why’s he wasting his time on that crap when he’s so cool and talented? Somebody should take him on one side, somebody he really trusts and believes in and… Why don’t you invite Lol over sometime? You know he’s never going to invite himself. You ever think about the future, Mum – what it’s going to be like when I’ve gone?
Actually, Jane felt kind of resentful, if you wanted the truth. Mum going behind her back, giving it a little try at Lol’s love nest in Bromyard, to see if things worked out, and if they didn’t that would be it, and Jane would be none the wiser – if she called her on the mobile, she could pretend to be at home, anywhere. Bloody sneaky, really. Just when you thought you knew how certain people would react to a given situation, they did something to surprise you – shock you, even. In a way, it made Jane feel a lot better about not immediately telling Mum what had gone on in Steve’s shed.
‘She’s still fairly young,’ Eirion said when Gomer had gone and they were in the kitchen.
‘Yeah,’ Jane said airily. ‘Sure.’
‘It’s always hard to imagine your parents still feeling—’
‘Oh, come on, I know that. Don’t be patronizing, Irene.’
‘He’s a good bloke,’ Eirion said.
‘I know that, too. And interesting – an artist. And vulnerable. Women like guys who are vulnerable and a little… askew.’
‘Askew?’
‘You know.’
Eirion was sitting at the kitchen table with his chin in his hands. He eyed her sheepishly, eyebrows disappearing into his hair. ‘What would a guy have to do to appear… a little askew?’
‘Hmmm.’ Jane came to a decision. Little bloody Sioned and Lowri weren’t here. Gomer had gone to sink a cesspit. Mum was out east finding out if everything still worked after all these years. Even Ethel was a cat of the world.
‘Irene,’ Jane said. ‘Did I ever tell you about the Mondrian Walls?’
Eirion lifted his chin out of his hands. ‘This would be in your… apartment? On the—’
‘Top floor. Formerly attics.’
‘Where you painted the plaster squares between the timbers in different primary colours in the style of the great Dutch abstract painter?’
‘Correct.’
‘It sounded very… experimental.’
Jane nodded. ‘I thought maybe you could give me your expert critical assessment.’
‘Well…’ Eirion stood up. ‘I’m not an expert.’
‘Good,’ Jane said.
Jane wasn’t wrong. There was something forbidding about Layla Riddock.
A big girl with a mature, not to say ripe figure, a mass of dark brown curly hair still slick from the pool. She had smoky brown eyes under heavy brows. She was seventeen going on thirty-eight, and darkly radiant. And she was here.
She was here.
As in, not in the Black Country with Amy Shelbone.
‘Layla, love,’ Allan Henry said. ‘Excuse me, but these ladies would like to know if you have much regular contact with the dead.’
Layla Riddock backed away, mock-startled, wrapping her kimono and her arms around her.
‘We talking about necrophilia?’ She cocked her head. ‘Necrophilia’s useless for women, isn’t it? I mean, rigor mortis doesn’t last, right?’
Allan Henry laughed again, for the first time in several minutes, as if a little light had come back into his life.
‘No, actually, Layla,’ he said, ‘this could be very serious. For somebody. This is Mrs Hill and Mrs Watkins. Mrs Watkins is a minister of the Church of England, and it seems one of her parishioners, a young girl from your school, has attempted to take her own life.’
Layla nodded casually. ‘Amy Shelbone.’
‘Oh…’ he said. ‘You know about this, do you?’
Merrily was watching him closely now. She saw nothing. No obvious reaction from Henry to the name Shelbone. And there really should have been, shouldn’t there?
‘Sad,’ Layla said. ‘But horribly predictable, I’m afraid. That’s one disturbed little girl.’
‘Really.’ Allan Henry looked at Merrily and Sophie in turn, triumph in his eyes, then back at his stepdaughter. ‘Layla, would you tell us about this?’
‘About what?’
‘About any previous dealings you might have had with this young child. Please?’
Layla shrugged. ‘Not much to tell. I’ve never made any secret about my bloodline, and so I’m always getting approached by kids who want their palms read, or their cards, or something. Anyway, one day – a few weeks ago, I suppose – up comes this rather solemn little girl, says would I help her contact her mother, for heaven’s sake. Her mother is, you know… dead.’
‘She approached you, did she, this little girl?’
‘Oh yeah. Very politely. I told her not to be silly. I told her that whatever she may have heard about the Rom, we have great respect for the dead but we don’t get involved with them on a personal level. I said – you know – like, run along.’
‘And that was the last you heard?’
Layla sighed, wrapped her kimono tighter in frustration. ‘Wish I could say it was. Next thing I hear that some other students – principally a girl called Kirsty Ryan – have taken Amy under their wing and they’re holding these kind of seance things, what d’you call them – where you lay out letters in a circle and have a glass upside down?
Merrily said nothing.
‘Anyway, I thought I’d better check it out. There’s a lot of this stuff about the school lately – little witchcrafty groups popping up. Awfully childish. I don’t like to see kids playing at it. If you have psychic skills, it’s your responsibility to develop them sensibly. If you haven’t got it… don’t mess with it. So, yeah, I found them in this shed on one of the fields and I…’ Layla paused and smiled. ‘I’m afraid I arranged a little surprise.’
Layla glanced around. Holding court, now. A dominant kind of girl, Robert Morrell had said. Perhaps the kind of girl where all the teaching staff, both sexes, would be relieved when she left school.
It was hard to believe this woman was only about a year older than Jane.
It was also hard to believe she’d want to waste time on a little girl like Amy Shelbone.
‘What did you do, Layla?’ Allan Henry was taking a back seat, playing the feed, the straight man – and proud to do it, Merrily thought.
Which was interesting in itself.
‘I grassed them up,’ Layla said smugly. ‘I discreetly tipped off one of the staff. And there was a raid.’
‘Caught them at it?’ Allan Henry said.
Layla put up both her hands. ‘Absolutely nothing to do with me!’ She wore five rings, all gold.
Everyone was quiet. It was not so difficult to believe that Layla Riddock would consider her natural peers to be found among the staff rather than the pupils.
Allan Henry glanced at Merrily and Sophie in turn again. He was smiling gently.
Very mature for her age.
‘Good for you,’ Merrily said hoarsely to Layla, and the schoolgirl smiled at her, too, the tip of her tongue childishly touching a corner of her mouth. But her eyes were cold with malice. Merrily felt sure it was malice.
You can’t touch us, the smile said. You can’t get near us.
Neither of them said a word until they were in the lane, heading back towards Canon Pyon. Merrily was expecting a hard time. Stay away, Sophie had advised back in the office. What would be the point? And then, in the car, If I were you, I wouldn’t get out.
When had Sophie ever not been right?
She was looking at her most severe, sitting stiffly, eyes on the road, both hands positioned precisely on the wheel, like she was taking her driving test. Merrily sat with her bag on her knees, a hand inside playing with the cigarettes. She couldn’t keep the hand still.
‘I’m sorry, Sophie.’
Sophie said n
othing, but you could almost hear her thoughts ricocheting like pellets from the upholstery and the windscreen and the dash.
‘It was a very bad idea,’ Merrily said. ‘I should not have dragged you into it.’ She’d crushed a cigarette, strands of tobacco teased between fingers and thumb. ‘I don’t know how he’ll get back at us, but he will. I was useless in there. I let him walk all over us. A corrupt developer, a crook, and I let him… let them both walk all over us.’
Sophie turned right, towards Hereford, and the car speeded up. A mile or so along the road, she said mildly, ‘They’re an item, aren’t they, those two?’
The sky was flawless, the blue deepening. Across the edge of the city, you could see all the way to the hooked nose of The Skirrid, the holy mountain above Abergavenny.
Merrily closed her bag on the tobacco mess. ‘I’m glad you said it first.’
‘Is Sandra really away on a cruise, I wonder?’
‘Maybe she’s buried in the garden. He can do anything, can’t he? He’s got everybody in his pocket, and now he’s sleeping with his stepdaughter!’ Merrily was momentarily horrified at how high her voice had risen.
‘He might sail close to the wind,’ Sophie said, ‘but he’s not stupid. I expect Sandra is on a cruise. Quite a long cruise.’
‘So you think she knows?’
‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘I wonder how long it’s been going on.’
‘A more interesting question is, which of them initiated it?’ Sophie said.
A very lucky man, Charlie Howe had observed. Things’ve fallen his way.
And people have fallen out of his way.
Sophie said, ‘The girl was lying rather cleverly, wasn’t she?’
‘Beautifully. Forget about the trinkets, that’s probably the best evidence of genuine Romany ancestry.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘They’re supposed to consider it an art form.’
‘Lying?’
‘Mmm.’
‘And what else do you know about them?’
‘Not enough. Not yet, anyway.’
‘Well, forget about it for tonight,’ Sophie said. ‘Get a good night’s sleep. If Inspector Howe or anyone else rings wanting to speak to you, I’ll put them off.’
