Phil Rickman - The Cure of Souls

‘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.

And horribly seductive to an adolescent who perhaps did sometimes feel like an alien – without previously having known why. Had something previously hidden been unblocked, horrific memories awoken?

‘So gradually Layla was feeding it out to Amy: blood in the church, blood on the altar. Then here’s Dennis Beckett in his vestments, with his chalice: “The blood which he shed for you… The blood of Christ keep you in eternal life.” And Amy Shelbone, kneeling in the chancel, is getting a whole different slant on this.’

All smelly and musty and horrible, and it’s full of dead people … There must have been some ghastly images in her head by then – Wayne Jukes, maddened with pain and shock, half his face hanging off, plunging the kitchen knife into Justine. And ‘eternal life’ was some church-bound, tortured spirit.

‘The big lie, the great cover-up.’ Merrily was rocking in the passenger seat, everything suddenly making blinding sense. He watches us suffer and die and he doesn’t help us, ever, ever, ever… Nobody’s going to ever save you. It’s all a horrible sick lie! ‘Amy only knows one church, one altar. She’s imagining her mother dead… in Dilwyn Church .’

She stopped, hearing what else Amy had screamed from her room: And I don’t… I don’t want to die in … Had ‘Justine’ predicted that Amy too was going to be killed or at least die in church? Had she given some kind of terrible warning that made suicide seem like a soft option?

‘The essence of all this,’ Sophie said, ‘is that the child has been virtually programmed to turn against everything the Shelbones cling on to. If that’s true, then, in its insidious way, it’s actually extremely sophisticated. Almost Satanic in its… Do you know what I mean?’

‘In the way the poison’s been introduced.’

‘However, I don’t even see that any laws have been broken. And I still don’t think you should get out of this car.’

‘You bastards.’ Kirsty Ryan lay flat in the churned hay, staring up at the deepening blue. ‘I don’t know whether you’re lying to me, or what. It don’t matter either way to me, though, look, ’cause I en’t catching no armful of shit for that bitch, I can tell you that much.’

‘Why don’t you just tell us everything?’ Eirion suggested.

Kirsty rolled her spiky head back into the hay. ‘Who is this guy thinks he’s Geoffrey Paxman?’

‘Just a friend,’ Jane explained.

‘Thanks, Jane,’ Eirion said.

‘Well, all right, a really good friend,’ Jane conceded.

Kirsty grinned. ‘Then why’n’t you both just go and have a roll behind that hedge and leave me alone, eh?’

‘Please, Kirsty.’ Jane leaned over her. ‘This is really important.’

Kirsty sat up. ‘All right. Siddown. Got any blow? Naw, forget it. Only kidding. Wouldn’t do at the vicarage, would it? Listen, I’ll go so far and no further, so don’t go asking me more stuff when I say no . And you keep me out of this, right? Else I’ll come after you with the four-ten.’

‘OK.’ Jane sat down in the mown grass. Kirsty with a shotgun – that was entirely believable. ‘We never even spoke to you.’

‘This thing, it got out of hand, right? I went so far with it then I was out. Finished. I even tried to bust it all up, but that didn’t work. So that was it, I was outer there. Plus, I mean, in school you need diversions, right? You gotter have things to get you through it. Though I don’t need that now, do I? I look like I got time to mess with the mind of some stupid little cow?’

‘No,’ Jane said.

‘All right, well, it’s simple enough. Layla knew some things about Shelbone, look – about her parents, her real parents.’

‘How did she—?’ Eirion began, but Jane put a warning hand on his knee and he shut up.

‘Like, for instance, that her dad knifed her ma to death in this church,’ Kirsty said.