The Cure of Souls

by Phil Rickman

  ‘So when, after years of going happily to church, she suddenly knocked the chalice out of Canon Beckett’s hands and—’

  ‘It all ended at the altar, you see,’ David Shelbone said. ‘That’s the point. That was what frightened us the most.’

  No one knew exactly how it had ended. Wayne Jukes had presumably either decided or been told that it would help his defence if he was unable to remember anything after emerging from behind the curtain to find the baby sitting on the font and his wife crouched, snarling – the Kitchen Devil glinting in the feeble light, swishing the air.

  Less than half an hour later, police – summoned by neighbours who had been afraid even to go in – found the threadbare chancel carpet already slippery with blood, Wayne standing in the aisle, with his face opened up from eye to chin, Justine vomiting blood over the altar rail.

  Amy sitting on the altar itself, laughing.

  ‘Justine had stab wounds to the lungs, throat and stomach,’ David Shelbone said. ‘She died in the ambulance.’

  The trail of blood apparently suggested that Justine had first slashed Wayne and then picked up the child and run to the chancel, the trail of blood along the aisle showing how Wayne had blundered after her.

  ‘She’d put Amy on the altar and then either she’d put down the knife in horror at what she’d done, and he picked it up and attacked her with it… or he overpowered her, and in the struggle—’

  ‘What happened to Wayne?’

  ‘I gather he’s out of prison now,’ David Shelbone said without emotion. ‘Doing youth work in Bristol.’

  Merrily felt faintly sick, thinking not about Justine Jukes but Stephanie Stock and Gerard with the wild poppies on his shirt. Domestics: the most common kind of murder.

  ‘Why didn’t Hazel tell me about this at the very beginnning?’

  ‘We’d never told anyone – anyone. Besides, Hazel and I both fervently believed that the way out of this was through Christ. Her mother died in church, so Amy had some sort of flashback – again in church.’

  ‘So Hazel never really believed that Amy was possessed by Justine?’

  ‘It didn’t matter,’ David Shelbone insisted. ‘She was possessed by the past. If the memories could be reawakened by these foul experiments then they could be exorcised by Christ. We have old-fashioned values, Mrs Watkins. Today we’d probably never be accepted as foster-parents.’

  ‘When did she go missing?’

  ‘She wasn’t there when we got up this morning. That was a terrible shock. Her bed hadn’t been slept in. Her mobile phone was gone. We’ve tried ringing it, but it’s always switched off.’

  ‘And you think she’s somehow made her way to the Black Country. Does the church still exist?’

  ‘Oh yes. And also… we searched her room. Something we’ve never done before. We found an old road atlas of mine under the bed. The area was ringed. Hazel set off for there about three hours ago.’

  ‘How much money has Amy got?’

  ‘There was five hundred pounds of her money in the account. She can draw two hundred a day from a machine.’

  ‘And what do you think Amy might do there?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t a clue what they’d do.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘I doubt she’s on her own. That’s one reason I wanted to talk to you. Your daughter would know who the other girls were, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Didn’t you ask Amy herself?’

  ‘She wouldn’t tell us… except for naming your daughter. This was when Mr Beckett—We asked her again, later, as I was ready to go to see the headmaster, but she insisted it was all over.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘I honestly believe she thought it was over. And it was clear that if we tried to take it further she’d throw a tantrum. She once said if we attempted to find out, she’d—Mrs Watkins, you have to understand this is not the way she normally behaves. It’s clear, looking back, that she’s under someone else’s influence. And I rather doubt we’re talking about her dead mother.’

  So he actually didn’t know yet about Layla Riddock? He didn’t have the information to make this other, very meaningful connection with Allan Henry?

  And how, in his present state, would he react if she told him about it? Merrily wasn’t prepared to put it to the test.

  ‘Erm… my daughter’s on holiday with her boyfriend’s family. I’ll try and get hold of her, OK? I don’t know how long it’ll take, but if I find out anything I’ll… I’ll get back to you at your office. And if Hazel finds her—’

  ‘I’ll get straight back to you, of course,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Mrs Watkins. Thank you.’ He stood up. ‘There is one more thing. If Hazel finds Amy and brings her back, I don’t think it’ll be safe for her to come home. I wondered if the Church had any place of – of sanctuary, I suppose, somewhere you could recommend as safe for both of them. I mean Hazel as well. I’m sorry to put this on you.’

  Merrily stood up too. ‘If you think it’s necessary, we’ll find somewhere. Until all this is sorted out. Even if it’s in my vicarage.’

  She smiled.

  This was all she needed right now.

  ‘I’ll help you all I can,’ she said. ‘But if Hazel doesn’t find her by tonight, I really think you should go to the police.’

  When Sophie returned, Merrily laid the whole story on her, including the information she’d had from Charlie Howe at the Green Dragon, before Andy Mumford’s arrival had rearranged everyone’s priorities.

  Sophie’s eyebrows rose several times.

  ‘What was I supposed to do?’ Merrily asked her. ‘Do you think I should’ve warned him about Layla Riddock?’

  Sophie thought about it, hands clasped on the desk.

  ‘That would be giving him a target,’ she said at last. ‘Not good. Especially if the target’s Allan Henry.’

  ‘What do you know about him, Sophie?’

  ‘I know that he isn’t what one might call a Friend of the Earth, particularly the Herefordshire earth. He began by buying small derelict properties in villages and hamlets – a petrol station that went out of business, that sort of thing – demolishing them and developing the sites. And then somehow those sites would start to expand into adjacent fields. His own thoroughly tasteless dwelling began that way. He gets away with things. Luck of the Devil, as it were.’

  ‘Charlie Howe said that.’

  ‘And there’s a man who’d recognize it,’ Sophie said darkly. ‘However, you have no proof whatsoever of any connection between this girl’s evident persecution of Amy Shelbone and her stepfather’s grudge against David Shelbone. No, I think you did absolutely the right thing in not telling him – at this stage, at least. I think you have enough to worry about, without having an already distressed individual behaving in a probably irrational fashion because—’

  ‘Because of something I did.’ Merrily sighed.

  Sophie glared at her. ‘I certainly intended no parallel with the Stock business.’

  ‘But what if Amy Shelbone is out there with Layla Riddock? This is a girl even Jane is scared of.’

  Sophie thought for a moment, then reached for the Hereford phone book. After a couple of minutes tracking along columns of names, she slammed it shut.

  ‘Ex-directory.’

  ‘Only to be expected,’ Merrily said. ‘I imagine there’s quite a lot of people would like to ring Allan Henry late at night. Well, at least we know where he lives. A little bit of Dallas in Canon Pyon.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Sophie said. ‘You stay away from there. What would be the point?’

  ‘We could at least find out if Layla’s there. If she is, she can’t have gone off with Amy – and then it all falls down, doesn’t it?’

  Sophie scowled. ‘Why doesn’t that man just tell the police?’

  ‘But he hasn’t. He’s told me.’

  ‘Almost as if he knew you,’ Sophie said with bitterness.

  ‘And, whatever he says, Amy did lie. She claimed
Jane had approached her initially, to lure her into the circle – Jane, not Layla. She also tried to stitch me up when I went to the bungalow when her parents were out. So we know that Amy does tell lies.’

  ‘But the attempted suicide… why did she do that?’

  ‘Well, there was a vague mention of “pressure”,’ Merrily said. ‘But it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t think – and this is possibly the most worrying thing of all – I honestly don’t think he knows why she did it.’

  32

  The Big Lie

  ‘I MEAN YOU’RE not gonner scare me, Watkins,’ Kirsty said. ‘I don’t give a toss who you’ve talked to. The school year’s over. The slate’s wiped clean. They can’t touch any of us now and like, by the time we go back, those time-serving gits en’t gonner want to remember. Also, I may not even go back. I’m undecided. I may’ve had enough of education.’

  She sat down with her back to a tractor wheel, stretched out her legs, fanned herself with her baseball cap. Jane thought she looked disgustingly smug.

  ‘Came to me, couple of months ago: OK, you get your A levels, you go to university, you get some pissy little job in some nasty, overcrowded city, so that in twenty years’ time you can afford to take your kids to live in the country. It’s insane, ennit?’

  ‘You’ve got a point,’ Eirion agreed. ‘But—’

  ‘But meanwhile – yeah, yeah – Amy bloody Shelbone.’ Kirsty closed her eyes in a kind of weary contempt. ‘Why don’t you just let it go, Watkins? The kid’s neurotic. She tried to kill herself, so-called, but she didn’t make it. After an hour or so on the end of a stomach pump, or throwing up, whatever, she en’t gonner do that again in a hurry, is she, stupid little cow?’

  Jane stared at the chunky girl sprawled in the hay. The other guy had gone, just slipped away. Kirsty didn’t need back-up, she was wholly self-sufficient; this was her place. But for the tractor and the blast of Massive Attack from its cab, she could have been part of a scene from centuries ago.

  ‘Questions are being asked all over the place,’ Jane said. ‘And it isn’t you in the frame, or Layla, either. It’s me, right? I’m the only one she named – like to the doctors and the police and people like that.’

  Jane didn’t know if Amy had named her to anyone except her parents, but she needed to bring it down to a personal level that Kirsty Ryan just might relate to.

  ‘Tough,’ Kirsty said. ‘Go tell Morrell about it.’

  ‘Like you said, why should Morrell care? School’s out. But I am so not gonna sit here and take the shit for you and Riddock. I’m going public on it. You ever heard of Bella Ford from Radio Hereford and Worcester?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Well, she’s a mate of mine, anyway, and I’m going over there to see her tonight, and I’m putting you and Riddock in the frame for bullying and terrorizing this younger kid into trying to top herself.’

  Kirsty’s eyelids flicked up.

  ‘Believe it,’ Jane said grimly.

  ‘I only listen to Radio One,’ Kirsty said. ‘Therefore, I don’t give a monkey’s.’

  ‘OK.’ Jane shrugged. ‘So you won’t hear it.’

  ‘So why you telling me?’

  ‘’Cause I’m kind of a straight person. I don’t go behind people’s backs. I just wanted to tell you why I was doing it, is all.’

  ‘And to warn you they’ll probably be ringing you up for a comment,’ Eirion put in swiftly. With his news-reporting ambitions and his dad having fingers in BBC Wales, HTV and the Welsh-language outfit, S4C, Eirion knew quite a lot about radio and TV. ‘They’re obliged to do that, to give you a chance to get over your side of the story.’

  ‘Well, they can piss off, can’t they?’

  ‘Sure. Sometimes it’s easier for them if you do refuse to comment. They only need to give you the opportunity.’

  Jane said, ‘It’s just, you know, that I’d started to feel a bit bad about you. Thinking maybe you weren’t as majorly responsible as Layla, and I wanted to tell you what I’d done. And now I’ve done that, so, like… we’ll go now.’

  She turned away. It was beginning to get uncomfortably hot in this field, anyway, like the hay was extracting all the juice out of the sun.

  Eirion pulled the car keys out of his jeans.

  Kirsty sat up. ‘You’re an evil little cow for a vicar’s daughter, aren’t you?’

  Less than ten minutes out of the centre of Hereford, you could be into deep countryside. There weren’t many cities like this any more and, the way things were going, Merrily thought – as she thought almost every time she drove out of the city – it wouldn’t be long before Hereford had become like the rest. Rampant megalomania, disguised as essential economic growth.

  Ego-tripping councillors and unscrupulous developers.

  Allan Henry.

  Sophie stopped the Saab with two wheels on the grass verge, near the top of a low hill a mile out of the straggling village of Canon Pyon.

  They were in a quiet lane, looking down on sloping woodland. On its lower fringe, the sun was reflected darkly from the huge picture windows on the side of a long, brick villa that had been built on so many levels it seemed to cascade down the hill.

  Where they were now parked was probably the only place you could get a good view of Allan Henry’s home. The surrounding trees failed to conceal a wall with railings enclosing about two acres of garden, suggesting Allan Henry must also own the land between the wall and the lane. In fact, Merrily supposed he owned the whole hill.

  ‘What do we do now?’ She was in need of a cigarette, but Sophie had a yellow and black no smoking sign on the dash, and she meant it.

  ‘I suppose that depends on to what extent you think Henry might be implicated,’ Sophie said. ‘Personally, I wouldn’t even get out of the car.’

  ‘Think about it. If we assume David Shelbone is costing him hundreds of thousands of pounds, maybe millions – because, if the Hereford bypass goes through there, the Barnchurch estate would be gold dust – then anybody might feel frustrated to the point of… I mean, people have killed for less, haven’t they? Much less.’

  Sophie nodded. ‘It’s frightening when you think about it. Which is why, if I were you, I wouldn’t get out of the car.’

  ‘So… accepting that killing people can seriously damage your future, Allan Henry’s looking for ways of neutralizing a sober, clean-living, God-fearing man who can’t be bought. What are the most important things in Shelbone’s life?’

  ‘His family,’ Sophie said reluctantly. ‘Wife, daughter… and his religion.’

  ‘Adopted daughter. Originally a foster-child taken in by the Shelbones under very difficult circumstances. Now, David Shelbone might think Amy’s origins are a secret, but quite a few people in and around social services will be aware of the history – including councillors, present or past.’

  ‘In some quarters it would be quite an open secret,’ Sophie agreed. ‘It wouldn’t take much for the information to get back, via certain councillors, to Allan Henry.’

  ‘Whose stepdaughter goes to the same school as Amy.’

  ‘This is very much the tricky part, Merrily.’

  ‘But if you work from the premise that Allan Henry initially asks his stepdaughter what she knows about Amy Shelbone, and Layla tells him that Amy’s this prissy, stuck-up little swot… And from then on, Layla starts to take a particular interest in Amy. Now, why – as a teenager – would she particularly want to help her stepfather?’

  ‘No,’ Sophie said. ‘They don’t, as a rule, do they? Not without an incentive, usually monetary. Has her stepfather told her the full background, do you think? That this girl’s father is a serious thorn in his side who could affect their future standard of living? Does he perhaps exaggerate that situation?’

  Merrily thought of Robert Morrell on the phone the other night: like a lot of wealthy men with potentially problematical stepchildren, he’s been throwing money at her for years.

  ‘Mmm. Maybe he
tells Layla that if the Barnchurch project goes down, his business will be in ruins and her lovely new sports car will have to go?’ She caught a glimpse of shimmering turquoise behind Henry’s villa. ‘Or even the swimming pool? I mean, maybe he isn’t exaggerating at all – we don’t know the size of his stake in Barnchurch.’

  ‘I don’t normally like to encourage flights of fancy,’ Sophie said. ‘But I suppose there is a certain tainted logic to all this.’

  ‘At some point Allan Henry tells Layla what he’s learned about Amy Shelbone’s history – the background even Amy herself doesn’t yet know. So then what happens? Most girls would simply confide it to a best friend, and within a couple of days it’d be all round the school. And Amy would probably become a more popular figure as a result – attracting a lot more interest, even some sympathy, for a change. But Henry realizes that Layla, being Layla, is going to come up with something far more elaborate.’

  Merrily thought of Gypsy Layla: black hat, dark veil, predictions of death and destruction. Had Layla also been aware that it was the father of Amy Shelbone who’d complained about her at the Christmas Fair and ended her show – the very same David Shelbone who was now trying to shut down Allan Henry’s show?

  ‘So Gypsy Layla becomes Madame Layla, confidante of the dead, in session every lunchtime in the caretaker’s hut. She has at least one friend in on the secret and, between them, they work the glass. She has a lovely name to play with – Justine. She takes it very slowly, feeding out bits at a time to Amy… there are probably usually other girls involved as well so it won’t look suspicious – like Jane, in fact. And slowly and exquisitely, little Amy is hooked.’

  The barb really taking hold when Amy went home and asked Hazel Shelbone certain questions – saw the instant dramatic effect on Hazel. Immediately, Amy would feel herself to be at the centre of this awful conspiracy – her beloved adoptive parents had been lying to her for all these years. The only person who wasn’t lying to her was her real mother, reaching out from beyond the grave. Layla, with her sense of drama, could create whatever kind of Justine she needed for the purpose: lonely, sad, unloved, imploring.