The Cure of Souls

by Phil Rickman

  DAVID SHELBONE DIDN’T look well. There was something static about one side of his long face, as though he’d had a stroke.

  ‘No, I’m all right, quite all right,’ he’d kept saying to Sophie, as she offered him more tea, a paracetamol. ‘I’ve always suffered from migraines; this is nothing.’

  Merrily didn’t like to stare, but she wondered if perhaps he had only one eye. He was not what she’d imagined. Charlie Howe had led her to expect some stern prophet type, wielding the banner of Christ and the Law of Listed Buildings. But David Shelbone had a diffident, faraway look, like some ageing poet weary of words.

  Sophie had read something in his manner. Announcing that she had some papers to collect from the Bishop’s Palace, she left them alone. Merrily led Mr Shelbone into the little Deliverance office. A few weeks ago, she’d turned the desk around, so she now had her back to the Palace yard and was facing the door – a feng shui arrangement, recommended by Jane. She had to admit it did feel better-oriented; she felt more in control. Even this morning.

  ‘I owe you an apology.’ David Shelbone didn’t have a local accent like his wife; there was something vaguely northern about it, and his voice was flat but thin, like card. ‘When Amy came home from hospital, we had a talk. She told us your daughter was not one of the organizers of this spiritualist circle, that she in fact only attended once and was virtually dragged into it.’

  Merrily nodded. ‘That’s my understanding, too.’

  ‘Amy said it had been on her conscience. She felt pressured – not so much by you as… Anyway, I’m very sorry. There was, I’m afraid, some overreaction.’

  ‘That was understandable.’

  ‘We were going to write to you, to apologize.’

  ‘No need. How is she? It must’ve been—’

  ‘It could have been a lot worse. We thought there’d have to be a stomach pump, but fortunately she was very sick in the ambulance. Anyway, I rang Canon Beckett last night, and he said I should talk to you, although he wasn’t sure whether or not you’d gone on holiday yet. Failing that, he thought I should go to the police. But we’d rather keep the authorities out of this. She’s our only child, you see, the only child we’ll ever have now.’

  Police? ‘Erm… Sophie said your wife and Amy had gone away somewhere, because you were afraid Social Services might—I mean, can they do that? Can they take her away, if she’s been formally adopted?’

  ‘It’s complicated, I’m afraid, Mrs Watkins, but broadly, yes, they can take away any child they might consider to be in danger.’

  Merrily thought of all the battered wives, abused children in unstable homes. She didn’t understand.

  Mr Shelbone coughed nervously. ‘Also, you see, I’m… This is going to sound ridiculous.’ There was a patch of white stubble on his neck, a grease spot on the collar of his faded grey shirt.

  ‘Which is what most people say when they come here,’ Merrily told him.

  ‘Normally, I abhor talk of victimization… vendettas.’

  She said carefully, ‘We are talking about Amy here? We’re talking about school?’

  ‘Er… not entirely.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Or at least, we… we’re probably also talking about me.’

  ‘I see. I think I see.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Possibly. I happened to be talking to one of the councillors.’

  His eyes flickered: a hunted look. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Well, I don’t think I’d better…’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course not.’ His breathing had quickened.

  ‘But someone who I think you could say is neutral on the issue of the Barnchurch development,’ Merrily said.

  He blinked hard then looked almost relieved, closed his eyes for a moment. The wall clock clicked on 11.55, and Merrily remembered, with an inner shudder, precisely where she’d been standing this time yesterday.

  ‘I have to be careful what I say here, Mrs Watkins,’ Mr Shelbone said. ‘As you may have heard, I’m not a very popular person in some quarters. Though I try to do what is right and Christian.’

  Merrily nodded. Tell me about it.

  ‘The problem with councils,’ he said, ‘is that, although different departments – let’s say planning and social services – have very different functions, and officials rarely encounter one another in the course of their work, they’re all closely linked, through the elected members.’

  ‘In that a councillor who serves on – shall we say, planning…’

  ‘May also serve on social services.’ He nodded. ‘You’re being very perceptive, I think.’

  ‘No, I’m just putting two and two together from what I’ve been told. You’ve a history of getting in the way of certain people’s plans. They’d like you out. Your wife indicated you’d been offered some sort of early-retirement deal, but you wanted to go on.’

  ‘We all feel we’re here for a purpose, and protecting the past is mine,’ he said simply. ‘How could I relax at home, knowing wrong decisions were being made and important buildings were in danger of disappearing for ever?’

  ‘Especially religious buildings?’

  He bowed his long head, like a shire-horse over a gate.

  ‘So someone who might be adversely affected by a planning decision influenced by a ruling from you,’ Merrily said slowly, spelling it out, ‘might seek to use any influence they might have in Social Services to damage you in other ways.’

  ‘Knowing that if I became ill or… disgraced in some way, it would be difficult to continue. You don’t believe people would behave like that?’

  ‘To get rid of someone seriously damaging their potential incomes? Of course I believe it. But, just so we know where we are, are you suggesting a bunch of councillors are on the take from Allan Henry?’

  ‘I doubt it’s as simple or as provable as that. It might involve a new garage or an extension to someone’s house. All peanuts to Henry, of course. But I’m not naming names.’ He looked directly at her, eyes full of pain and fatigue. ‘All I want to convey to you is that if anyone took Amy away, it would destroy Hazel. There’d be nothing left for either of us. Ever.’

  ‘These fears are very much in the wake of Amy’s overdose?’

  ‘Gossip travels fast in Herefordshire. In no time at all, people were linking Amy’s sudden hospitalization… to the incident in the church.’

  ‘They were linked, weren’t they?’

  He looked defiant. ‘It was a horribly stupid and dangerous thing to do, and she knew it. I said to Hazel, if Amy wanted to draw attention to herself, she’s certainly done it now.’

  ‘Is it your feeling she was just trying to get attention? Rather than…’ Wanting to be with her mother?

  ‘And it’s all horribly exaggerated, I’m sure.’ Avoiding her question. ‘Because serious churchgoing is so unfashionable these days, people have accused us of being fanatics, forcing Amy to go to church all the time, operating a strict religious regime at home. I…’ He passed a hand across his eyes. ‘There’ve been all kinds of stupid stories. People are so needlessly cruel and vindictive. And social workers have big ears.’

  ‘You don’t need big ears when somebody’s whispering into them,’ Merrily said. ‘Have there been any formal inquiries? Any contact at all from Social Services?’

  ‘I have some friends left in the office. I’ve been discreetly warned, put it like that.’

  ‘As a result of which, Hazel’s actually taken her away?’

  ‘I – no. No, she hasn’t, of course. That was untrue.’ When he half turned, she thought it was to hide tears, but he was putting a hand into an inside pocket.

  He slid a folded paper across the desk to her.

  Merrily unfolded it carefully. Though the message was word-processed, it didn’t looked official – probably something to do with the fact that the paper was pink and had a kitten in the top right hand corner.

  Oh God.

  Dearest Mum and Daddy,

  I am so very sorry. I h
ave behaved abbominably and feel I am ruining both your lives. I pray that you will understand what I am doing and support me in this and not worry for my safety because I have definately learned my lesson and you need have no fears on that score any more.

  I know it is not your fault and that you were only trying to protect me by not telling me the truth about Justine, but I know now, beyond all doubt, that my real mother is very unhappy and cannot rest in spirit and I know I cannot live a normal life until I have done all I can to help her.

  By the time you read this I will have been to a cash machine and drawn out the money that you said was mine from your account. I am sorry I borrowed your card and will post it back to you.

  Please try to understand how important this is to me and do not try to find me or tell the Police. I am quite safe, but if I find out that they are looking for me I will be very upset and might do something stupid, so please trust me and I shall return home in a few days, when Justine is at peace.

  Yours sincerely,

  Your loving daughter,

  Amy

  Merrily folded the letter. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

  ‘Erm… I’m with Dennis,’ she said as calmly as she could. ‘I think you should take this to the police.’

  David Shelbone reached for the letter and quickly pocketed it.

  ‘No,’ he said very quietly.

  ‘David, just a couple of days ago she tried to kill herself.’

  ‘Tell me, do you trust your daughter when she tells you something?’

  ‘I…’ It was the things Jane didn’t tell you about… ‘Yeah. I suppose I do.’ She thought quickly. He wouldn’t want to go to the police for two principal reasons: one, that Amy might indeed do something stupid if she thought there was a search on for her, and two, it would confirm any social worker’s suspicions.

  But this development might be more serious than David Shelbone could imagine. For instance, how much did he know about Layla Riddock? Anything at all?

  ‘She’s never lied to us, you see,’ he said. ‘Not from being a small child. Not about anything. It’s the way she was brought up, certainly, but also the way she is.’

  Merrily sighed. ‘She lied – I’m sorry, but she lied about Jane, didn’t she?’

  ‘No!’ he insisted. ‘She didn’t. She said your daughter was there. The rest was implied. She didn’t lie.’

  ‘So when you told Sophie that your wife—’

  ‘I lied. Hazel’s gone to try and find her.’

  ‘She knows where to look?’

  ‘She has a good idea, yes.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Up near Birmingham. It’s where Amy was born. And where her mother died.’

  ‘And Amy knows this?’

  ‘We assume she does.’

  ‘From…’

  ‘Initially, from the so-called messages she received.’

  ‘The spirit messages?’

  ‘Whatever they were, they were horribly accurate. And so, in the end, we had to tell her where she came from. And what happened to her mother.’

  Merrily said, ‘Do you think you could tell me?’

  She’d been born Amy Jukes at Tipton in the Black Country. Her parents were even married before the happy event. Just about.

  Justine was seventeen when Amy arrived and not yet a heroin user. She came from a respectable family, was doing A levels, hoping to become a doctor. This was what the court was told.

  The father, Wayne Jukes, was twenty-two, an ‘assistant manager’ at a night club. What this actually meant was that Wayne had been responsible for selling various stimulants to the punters. He also did a little pill-peddling around the schools and colleges, for a bit of extra cash, and that was how he met Justine. Wayne wore nice suits and a tie and was smooth and plausible. He had a Toyota sports car, so it didn’t take long.

  Justine’s parents were disappointed, naturally, but they thought Wayne was a presentable enough boy, with an apparently promising managerial position. They helped Wayne and Justine get a house, a little semi on a not-bad estate, ready for the baby.

  David Shelbone knew all these details from the Social Services people in the Black Country and in Hereford. He’d also gone out of his way to obtain the inquest and court reports in the local papers – destroying them, of course, before Amy learned to read. He’d even traced Justine’s parents. David was very thorough: anything that might help understand Amy better, he and Hazel wanted to know.

  Justine had been very young, had never really wanted this baby, found it awfully hard work, especially with Wayne out most nights, pursuing his junior managerial role. Justine, at home with the infant Amy, had very rapidly become depressed, and it became clear that Wayne Jukes had taken to slipping her a little something to make life seem easier. Sometimes he’d even keep her company.

  They thought they were cool, rising above it. They thought because he was in the business somehow that meant they could control it. And they were young, too young for life to appear seriously bad. When you were young, you bounced.

  It was a long time before Justine’s parents realized what was happening. By then, Wayne was himself using more than he was selling – too far gone to realize he was being eased out of the club operation because he was becoming untrustworthy, careless, a risk.

  And the mortgage wasn’t getting paid, and the baby cried too much and Justine complained sometimes – to the extent that Wayne had found it expedient to give her a little tap from time to time.

  David Shelbone was telling the story in his colourless, hesitant way, but Merrily was seeing it in harsh documentary flashes, hearing the voices, the accents, the head-spinning, squashy, bloody, sobbing reality of those little taps.

  There was a serious falling-out with her family, and Wayne and Justine sold the house and got a small flat in a run-down area, at the end of one of those streets that went on for ever, a greasy ribbon of tatty garages and betting shops, chip shops, half-dead pubs.

  At the very end was a church, which had been a big parish church back in the days when this had been a village street but now had a congregation of about seven pensioners. Some days Justine would retreat into the church, taking the baby, when Wayne was in one of his moods.

  Which was most days, because Wayne was drinking heavily now as well. He’d made friends in one of the half-dead pubs and Justine had found it best not to be around – or to be there but completely out of it – when Wayne got home.

  It was worse at night, obviously. A neighbour, who cleaned the church for the vicar – who had four other collapsing congregations to try and shore up – became concerned for Justine and gave her a key to the side door next to the vestry, and some nights that was where Justine would go, carrying the baby and a carving knife in case there was anyone already in there.

  And one night there was.

  Wayne had been wondering for a long time where Justine went, the times she wasn’t there when he came home in need of some kind of action. So one night he left the pub twenty minutes earlier than usual and waited in a derelict doorway across the street and followed her when she came out with the kid. Next day, he found the church key in the back pocket of Justine’s jeans and had a copy cut for himself.

  And that same summer night, when Justine came into the church with Amy, Wayne was waiting for them behind the dusty, moth-eaten drapes in front of the vestry door.

  It might have ended differently if Justine hadn’t done some business of her own that afternoon with a bloke she and Wayne used to know when Wayne was at the club – a bloke who gave her a little something for her trouble. If Justine hadn’t shot the little something into her arm before she came out, if she hadn’t been up there and ready for anybody, Wayne included, it might have ended with just a few more little taps.

  ‘And Amy saw all this?’ Merrily said. ‘How old was she?’

  ‘Nearly three.’

  ‘Dear God, that’s old enough to absorb everything. Even if she had no conscious memory, it would all be there.’
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  ‘The Social Services were very careful about where she was taken,’ David Shelbone said. ‘The grandparents didn’t want her – they’d recently taken in an elderly relative, and, well…’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘It was an emergency, obviously. They wanted to get the child well out of the area, and we were experienced, reliable foster-parents, unencumbered at the time. We were approached, told the background. We were fully prepared.’ He fell silent.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing to cause alarm. Not ever. No particular problems at all – and, believe me, Hazel and I have coped with some very taxing children in our time. But Amy settled down remarkably quickly. No nightmares beyond the norm. Nothing to suggest suppressed memories of violence. She was always a very well-balanced, if rather serious child. Our daughter. We both decided very quickly that, if at all possible, she should stay with us and become our daughter.’

  ‘There were no indications at all that she might have remembered something?’

  ‘Not until… I mean, yes, I have sometimes wondered if her serious and rather… orthodox approach to life didn’t reflect a subconscious need to impose an order that would in some way cancel out the chaos of her early years. But it’s not something that’s greatly worried me, and Hazel was always most emphatic that Amy should never be exposed to any kind of psychological assessment. We were naturally glad when she – without any coercion from us – began to embrace Christianity from quite an early age… perhaps four or five. Hazel always believed that if she ever required solace she would find it there, rather than in counselling or therapy.’

  Merrily recalled Hazel Shelbone’s reaction to the suggestion that some kind of psychiatric assessment would be needed as a preliminary to exorcism.

  ‘What did you tell her when she asked you about her real parents?’

  ‘We told her we understood there’d been an accident – and she never questioned that. We always accepted that there may come a time when we’d have to tell her the real truth, but not until she was old enough to deal with it.’