Phil Rickman - The Cure of Souls

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.’

Merrily felt mauled. He hadn’t even raised his voice or moved his ankle from his knee. Persecution? she wanted to cry out. What about David Shelbone? But she knew the most that would get her would be a writ or an injunction by morning. He hadn’t got this far without being able to push people over with one finger, like dominoes.

She suspected there would indeed be repercussions from this. Everything she’d touched lately, there were repercussions.

‘OK. I’m sorry if…’

She stood up. Her face felt hot. As she rose, she became aware of a group of objects laid out on a ledge in a small cavity inside the fireplace: acorns, two dice, a magnet, something that might have been a rabbit’s foot.

‘Allan…?’

A woman had entered the room through a narrow archway at the furthest end. She had on a full-length black kimono, open over a tiny white bikini. She wore sunglasses. She carried a champagne glass, half-filled.

‘Allan,’ she said, ‘I didn’t leave my mobile—?’

Allan Henry stood up. ‘Layla,’ he said warmly, ‘we were just talking about you.’

Merrily could almost feel Sophie’s stomach contract.

Ethel met them on the driveway and Jane picked her up and carried her round to the back, where they found Gomer Parry, placidly weeding the path.

‘Welshies throw you out, is it?’ Gomer said.

‘They found my arms cache, and there was this car chase, but we made it over the border. Hullo, Gomer. Where’s Mum?’

‘Ah, well.’ Gomer laid his trowel on the gravel, straightened up, blinking a few times behind his bottle glasses. ‘The vicar en’t yere, see, Janey. Her’s been called away.’

‘How long’s she been gone?’

‘Oh… day and a half, mabbe.’

‘ Huh? ’ Jane clutched the cat to her chest. Mum spending a night away, without a word? This did not happen. This just did not—‘Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Gomer? ’

‘Nothin’ exaccly wrong .’

‘So like… where is she?’

‘Out east,’ Gomer said. ‘How are you, Eirion boy?’

‘Not too bad, Gomer. You’re looking—’

‘ East? What’s that mean? Norwich? Bangkok ?’

‘Bromyard way, I believe,’ Gomer said.

‘Jesus, Gomer.’ Jane slumped in relief. ‘So it’s a job, right?’

‘Som’ing of that order. Her spent the night over there and mabbe a few more to come. I does the days yere, feeding the cat, doing what’s gotter be done. Give her a ring, I should. Her’ll likely explain.’

‘A few more? A few more nights ? I don’t understand. Where’s she staying? Who’s she with?’

‘You can get her on the mobile. Her’s, er…’ Gomer scratched an ear. ‘Her’s staying with young Lol Robinson, ennit?’

‘Oh.’ Jane bent to put Ethel down and to conceal her expression. Bloody hell . ‘I… didn’t know Lol was living in Bromyard.’

‘Not livin’, exaccly. Just mindin’ a place. Like me.’ Gomer gestured at the back door. ‘You stoppin’ a bit, Janey? Only I gotter be off in a coupler minutes. Gotter help young Nev sink a new cesspit up by Pembridge.’

‘We’ll probably just get something to eat,’ Jane said.

Well, bloody hell. All those hints she’d been dropping, like for months. Heard anything from Lol lately? Lol still doing that stupid course, is he? Why’s he wasting his time on that crap when he’s so cool and talented? Somebody should take him on one side, somebody he really trusts and believes in and… Why don’t you invite Lol over sometime? You know he’s never going to invite himself. You ever think about the future, Mum – what it’s going to be like when I’ve gone?

Actually, Jane felt kind of resentful, if you wanted the truth. Mum going behind her back, giving it a little try at Lol’s love nest in Bromyard, to see if things worked out, and if they didn’t that would be it, and Jane would be none the wiser – if she called her on the mobile, she could pretend to be at home, anywhere. Bloody sneaky, really. Just when you thought you knew how certain people would react to a given situation, they did something to surprise you – shock you, even. In a way, it made Jane feel a lot better about not immediately telling Mum what had gone on in Steve’s shed.

‘She’s still fairly young,’ Eirion said when Gomer had gone and they were in the kitchen.

‘Yeah,’ Jane said airily. ‘Sure.’

‘It’s always hard to imagine your parents still feeling—’

‘Oh, come on , I know that. Don’t be patronizing, Irene.’

‘He’s a good bloke,’ Eirion said.

‘I know that, too. And interesting – an artist. And vulnerable. Women like guys who are vulnerable and a little… askew.’

‘Askew?’

‘You know.’

Eirion was sitting at the kitchen table with his chin in his hands. He eyed her sheepishly, eyebrows disappearing into his hair. ‘What would a guy have to do to appear… a little askew?’

‘Hmmm.’ Jane came to a decision. Little bloody Sioned and Lowri weren’t here. Gomer had gone to sink a cesspit. Mum was out east finding out if everything still worked after all these years. Even Ethel was a cat of the world.

‘Irene,’ Jane said. ‘Did I ever tell you about the Mondrian Walls?’

Eirion lifted his chin out of his hands. ‘This would be in your… apartment? On the—’

‘Top floor. Formerly attics.’

‘Where you painted the plaster squares between the timbers in different primary colours in the style of the great Dutch abstract painter?’

‘Correct.’

‘It sounded very… experimental.’

Jane nodded. ‘I thought maybe you could give me your expert critical assessment.’

‘Well…’ Eirion stood up. ‘I’m not an expert.’

‘Good,’ Jane said.

Jane wasn’t wrong. There was something forbidding about Layla Riddock.

A big girl with a mature, not to say ripe figure, a mass of dark brown curly hair still slick from the pool. She had smoky brown eyes under heavy brows. She was seventeen going on thirty-eight, and darkly radiant. And she was here.

She was here .

As in, not in the Black Country with Amy Shelbone .

‘Layla, love,’ Allan Henry said. ‘Excuse me, but these ladies would like to know if you have much regular contact with the dead.’

Layla Riddock backed away, mock-startled, wrapping her kimono and her arms around her.

‘We talking about necrophilia?’ She cocked her head. ‘Necrophilia’s useless for women, isn’t it? I mean, rigor mortis doesn’t last, right?’