The Cure of Souls (43 page)

‘The business?’

‘The magic. Doing the magic for his friends and cursing his enemies. She got all the books, and whenever there was gypsies in the area she’d spend hours with them. She even went off with the buggers once for two nights, her ma went bloody spare. And then… Oh yeah – she cursed a teacher once. We had this gym teacher at Moorfield, Mrs Etchinson. Gave us a hard time. Gave everybody a hard time – team spirit, all this shit. Layla was never a team player.’

‘Cursed her how?’ Jane asked. ‘This was probably before my time.’

‘It must’ve been before your time, because everybody knew about it. I dunno what she did. The evil eye, the bad words… grave-dirt in an envelope.’

‘What happened?’

‘Put it this way – within a few months it was confirmed she’d got multiple sclerosis. Not good for a gym teacher.’

‘That takes years to come on,’ Eirion pointed out. ‘She must have had it already.’

‘That was what we said,’ Kirsty said. ‘But it does makes you think, don’t it?’

It didn’t give Jane a good feeling. She stood up, too. ‘What did she do for Steve, to get him to lend her his shed?’

‘More what she didn’t do, if you ask me,’ Kirsty said
enigmatically. ‘Like being considerate enough not to shrivel his genitals.’

‘But she’s still seeing Amy?’

‘Look, all I know is, when she rang me she said Amy was coming out to meet her at night. Like
really
at night – when her parents were in bed. She’d ring Amy on the little phone that Amy kept under the pillow, and Layla would say the word and Amy would be up and dressed and out the front door and Layla would pick her up at the bottom of the lane.’

‘Where would they go? I mean she’d need somewhere with a table, to lay all the letters out and—’

‘No way,’ Kirsty said scornfully. ‘That is
history
.’

‘What?’

‘That’s primitive stuff, now. They got
well
beyond the glass and the little bloody letters.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘You don’t wanner know, Jane.’ Kirsty started to walk away. She looked back over her beefy shoulder. ‘Or, more to the point,
I
don’t wanner know.’

A
LLAN
H
ENRY
’
S SITTING
room had one wall that was all plate glass, perhaps forty feet long. It had wide green views across to one of the conical, wooded humps known as Robin Hood’s Butts. Appropriately, according to legend, the Butts had been dumped there by the Devil, making him Hereford’s first sporadic developer.

‘And this is your…’ Allan Henry studied Sophie, evidently trying to decide whether she was mother or sister.

‘Secretary,’ Sophie said quickly and firmly. She and Merrily were at either end of a white leather four-seater sofa, one of two in the vast snowy room. Under their feet was a pale grey rug with an unusual design – a tree growing through the centre of a wheel.

Merrily didn’t recall ever seeing Sophie looking more agitated. Sophie wanted out of here. Sophie was Old Hereford to the core; to her this man
was
the Devil.

‘Vicars have secretaries now?’ Allan Henry said.

‘Sophie works for the Cathedral,’ Merrily told him.

‘And what do
you
do, Mrs Watkins? Specifically.’

‘Erm… official title: Deliverance Consultant. I’m afraid I don’t have a card or—’

‘Or a dog collar. So what
is
a—?’

‘It’s somebody who deals with problems of a paranormal nature,’ Merrily said, for once without embarrassment. ‘Used to be Diocesan Exorcist.’

His eyes widened. ‘They still
do
that?’

‘It’s never gone away, Mr Henry.’

‘Well…’ He leaned against the towering brick inglenook, long mirrors either side of it reflecting the greenery. ‘I’m now trying to think if I have a problem of a paranormal nature. Let’s see… when things go bump in the night, I can
usually
explain it. And although I often have people leeching off me, I wouldn’t call them vampires. Can I offer you both a glass of wine?’ He laughed. ‘That is, can I offer you
each
a glass of wine.’

‘Thank you, but I’m driving,’ Sophie said quickly.

‘And I’ll be driving in a short while,’ Merrily said.

‘Not even one glass?’

‘Not even one between us. Honestly, we don’t have very long. We’ve got a number of parents to see.’

‘Oh, parents, is it?’

His local accent had been planed down to a light burr. He was probably in his late forties. He had strong, lank hair, deep lines tracking down his tanned face from eyes to jaw. A modest beer-belly overhung his jeans, but you had the feeling it was being gradually ironed out.

‘So why did you want to see my wife rather than me?’

‘We didn’t think you’d be here,’ Merrily said. ‘We thought you’d probably be out somewhere building something.’

‘With my bare hands.’

‘We all have our fantasies,’ she said, and then realized there were two ways he could take that. Sophie frowned at her. Sophie was sending out the message:
Get out now, make some excuse, this is a mistake
.

Allan Henry laughed. He laughed, Merrily was noticing, with a confidence that was almost self-conscious. Maybe he’d had a lot of costly work done on his teeth, was determined to get his money’s worth. Otherwise, she sensed around him a kind of conserved energy. She could imagine him in board meetings, relaxed and expressionless and then jumping on someone without preamble, like a jungle cat. Laughing, maybe.

‘Rare afternoon off,’ he said. ‘You were lucky to catch me.
And my wife’s away, as it happens. The only parent here is me. A parent from my first marriage, that is. The youngsters live in France now, so I don’t see them very often.’

‘Perhaps we’ll come back when your wife’s at home.’ Sophie half rose. ‘It’s nothing terribly pressing.’

‘Unless it’s about Layla, of course,’ he said.

‘She’s with her mother?’ Merrily asked him.

‘I hardly think so. Her mother’s on a cruise around the Azores, with her sister, who was recently widowed, poor woman. Thing is, I don’t think of Layla as a child any more. And she’s my wife’s daughter, not mine. This
is
about Layla, yes?’

As he leaned forward, a medallion on a black leather thong swung out from his bare chest. It was clearly made of gold. Engraved on it was the symbol of a wheel.

‘Yes,’ Merrily said. ‘It’s about Layla.’

Sophie sank back in her seat, with a leathery creak that sounded like a cry of pain.

Jane said, ‘I remember Mrs Etchinson now. It was at one of the prize-givings. She was in a wheelchair. A guest of honour. Everybody was making a fuss over her and she was smiling so much that you thought it must be hurting her, all that smiling. And somebody said she used to be a teacher and she had MS, and I remember thinking,
God, she’s so young
.’

She flopped back into the soft leather and felt for Eirion’s hand and squeezed hard, as if to make sure she still could.

They were parked on the grass outside a farm shop overlooking the Ledwardine valley, the sunlit steeple of her mother’s church poking out of the surrounding orchards like a terracotta rocket.

‘Listen, Jane… that’s how they get these reputations,’ Eirion said. ‘They utter a curse and then something like that happens, and everybody conveniently forgets how many curses have been laid on people who go on to have completely trouble-free—’

‘It’s the fact that she could even
do
it!’ Jane could feel tears of anger coming on. ‘Wish illness and misfortune on someone.’

‘You never done that, in a fit of pique? Wish that someone would have a bad time?’

‘Yeah, but I don’t ever believe it’s gonna have any effect whatsoever, and then I take it back anyway in a couple of minutes. Or a couple of hours. Or before I go to sleep. Whereas Riddock, she believes, like, totally that she can do it… and then she does it. It doesn’t matter whether she gave Mrs Etchinson this awful degenerative disease with the grave-dirt in the envelope or whatever. The fact that she wanted to, that’s just as bad, isn’t it?’

‘It comes back on you, though, doesn’t it?’ Eirion said. ‘Karma.’

‘Allegedly. But not necessarily in this life.’

‘Sounds to me,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘like she needs this kid, Amy, as much as the kid needs her. You know what I mean? She lays a curse and somebody falls ill or dies or something, well… She isn’t
really
sure, is she? She might like to fantasize, but she knows that’s all it is. But when she sets up this spiritualism scam, then suddenly she’s getting what seem to be
real
messages from the Other Side.’

‘How?’

‘Trance? Automatic writing? Whatever it is, it’s proof to her that she’s got the power. She’s a medium, now, she’s a shaman. And maybe that’s never happened before, except with this young kid.’

‘Who’s so precious she drove her to attempt suicide?’ Jane said.

‘What do you want to do, then? It’s getting a bit late, if I’m going to get the car back before nightfall…’

‘You’ve got hours yet. But sure, by all means, drop me somewhere.’

‘To do what?’

‘I’ll think of something.’

‘There’s only one thing you
can
do. You can go home and lay the whole lot on your mum and leave it to her.’ Eirion nodded down at the valley. ‘Stop putting it off.’

‘She’ll probably be a bit gobsmacked to see us.’

‘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.’