Phil Rickman - The Cure of Souls

‘More or less,’ Merrily admitted.

‘Just that we put a story round earlier,’ Fred said, ‘but a couple of the Sundays have come back, asking for a quote from you or the Bishop, and the Bishop seems to be unavailable.’

‘Let’s see… Saturday night? Probably out clubbing.’

‘ What? Oh.’ He laughed. ‘Listen, Mrs Watkins, if I lay this thing out for you very briefly, perhaps you could see if you have any comments. I’ve got to be really quick, because the editions go to bed pretty early on a Saturday.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘Right. This chap’s convinced his house is badly… haunted. He and his wife are losing a lot of sleep over this. It’s an old hop-kiln, a man was murdered there. Now they say they’re getting these, you know, phenomena.’

‘I see.’

‘Wow,’ said Fred, ‘it always amazes me when you people say “I see” and “Sure”, like it’s everyday stuff.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Wow,’ Fred said. ‘Brrrr.’

‘Is this person living in the diocese?’

‘Of course.’

‘Just I haven’t heard about it.’

‘Well, this is the point,’ Fred said. ‘Our friend gets on to his local vicar and asks him if he can do something about this problem. And the local vicar refuses.’

‘Just like that?’

‘More or less.’

‘What did the vicar say to you?’

‘He said, “No comment”.’

Odd .

‘So what do you think? Do you think it’s a genuine case of psychic disturbance?’

‘Hey, that’s not for me to say, is it? What I wanted to ask you was, what is the official policy of the diocese on dealing with alleged cases of, you know, ghostly infestation, whatever you want to call it. Like, if you get something reported to you—’

‘We help where we can,’ Merrily said.

‘And how common is it for you to refuse?’

‘I didn’t refuse. It’s never been referred to me.’

‘No, I mean—’

‘Let me tell you the normal procedure with Deliverance, which is the umbrella term for what we do. A person with a psychic or spiritual problem goes to his or her local priest and explains the situation, then the priest decides whether to handle it personally or pass it on to someone like me, right?’

‘Do they have to tell you about it?’

‘No. I’m here if they need me. Sometimes they’ll just ring up and ask for a bit of advice, and if it’s something I can tell them I do… or maybe I ’ll need to seek advice from somebody who knows more about a particular type of… phenomenon than I do.’

‘So, if I say to you now, have you had a call or a report from the Reverend Simon St John, at Knight’s Frome, about a plea for help he’s received from a Mr Stock…?’

‘No, not a word. But the vicar doesn’t have to refer anything to me.’

‘Even if he’s refusing to take any action?’

‘Even if he’s refusing to take any action.’

‘Doesn’t it worry you that there’s someone in the diocese who’s plagued by ghosts and can’t get any help from the Church?’

Merrily had dealt with the media often enough to recognize the point where she was going to be quoted verbatim.

‘Erm… If I was aware of someone in genuine need of spiritual support, I would want to see they received whatever help we were able to give them. But I’d need to know more about the circumstances before I could comment on this particular case. I’m sure the Reverend St John has a good reason for taking the line he’s taken.’

There was a pause, then Fred Potter said, ‘Yep. That’ll do me fine. Thanks very much, Mrs Watkins.’

‘Whoa… hang on. Aren’t you going to give me this guy’s address, phone number…?’

‘Mr Stock? You going to look into it yourself?’

‘Just for the record, Fred.’

‘Oh, all right. Hang on a sec.’

She wrote down Mr Stock’s address. Afterwards, she looked up the number of the Rev. Simon St John. She didn’t know the man, but she thought she ought at least to warn him.

No answer.

Lately, everywhere she tried, there was no answer. Jane would explain this astrologically, suggesting Mercury was retrograde, thus delaying or blocking all forms of communication.

Bollocks.

… Always amazes me when you people say ‘I see’ and ‘sure’, like it’s everyday stuff .

Merrily gathered up the printed notes for her sermon and walked into the lonely, darkening kitchen.

THEY’D TURNED STOCK’S kiln-house into Dracula’s castle, rearing against the light, looking to Lol very much as it had on that first, milky night, only darker, more brooding.

… BLACK HELL

It shrieked at him from the pile of newspapers in the shop, the top copy folded back to page five. Two other customers bought copies while he was still staring.

You believe in ghosts, Lol?

Christ, he hadn’t seen this one coming, had he? Nobody had, judging from the comments in the shop. ‘I’ve heard of this feller,’ a woman in sweatpants told the newsagent. ‘He’s an alcoholic.’

‘On bloody drugs, more like,’ an elderly man said.

The newsagent nodded. ‘Need to be one or the other to live in that place.’

Whichever, it was a development Prof Levin did not need to know about, Lol decided, driving back from Bishop’s Frome with a bunch of papers on the passenger seat. It was eight-thirty, the sun already high: another hot one. Prof was due to leave for London before ten, his cases already stowed in the back of his rotting Range Rover – Abbey Road beckoning. The unstable virtuoso Tom Storey would already be pacing the floor with his old Telecaster strapped on, spraying nervy riffs into the sacred space.

Lol considered leaving the People in the Astra until after Prof had gone. Not as if he’d notice; all the time he’d been staying here, Lol had never once seen him open a newspaper; it was only Lol himself who was insecure enough to need to know the planet was still in motion.

In the end, he gathered the papers into a fat stack, with the Observer on top, and walked into the stables with it under his arm. He found Prof in the kitchen, connected to his life-support cappuccino machine, froth on his beard.

‘Two things, Laurence. One: when I return, I expect to hear demos of five new songs. No excuses. You get St John over to help. If he don’t want to come, you get his wife to kick him up the behind – metaphorically speaking, in her case, as you’ll find out.’

‘The vicar’s married?’

Prof gave him a narrow look. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘No particular—’

Prof frowned. ‘Robinson, I can read you like the Sun . Who’s been talking about the vicar?’

‘What was the second thing? You said two things…’

‘The second thing – maybe I mentioned this before – is you keep that bastard Stock out of here. Bad enough he shows up when I’m around, I don’t want him— What? What’s going down? What’s wrong?’

Lol sighed. He didn’t want to pass on Stock’s innuendo about Simon. He unrolled the newspapers: Observer, Sunday Times, People . He handed the tabloid to Prof.

‘What’s this crap?’ Prof held up the paper, squinting down through his bifocals. ‘What am I looking at?’

Lol said nothing.

After about half a minute, Prof peered over the page at him, looking uncharacteristically bewildered, glassy-eyed, as if he’d been winded by a punch from nowhere to the stomach. He put down the paper on the upturned packing case he was still using as a breakfast bar.

‘This man,’ he said at last, ‘is the most unbelievable piece of walking shit it was ever my misfortune to encounter. Is there nothing in his life he won’t exploit?’