The Cure of Souls

by Phil Rickman

  Lol recalled that Al Boswell had been among the Romany pickers at Knight’s Frome, back then, and wondered how he’d managed to drink in the same bar as Oliver Perry-Jones. Nonconfrontational is all we are, Al had said. He’d have to be.

  Isabel explained how Perry-Jones was forever on at Old Man Lake – this was Conrad’s father – to ban the gypsies from Knight’s Frome for good. In the nineteen-forties and fifties, the Lakes owned the two biggest farms in the village.

  ‘But Old Man Lake, he said the gypsies were good workers and that’s all that concerned him – wasn’t one of his boys that wound up dead in the river.’

  ‘But if there was no proof—’

  ‘No proof whatsoever. But then the old man, he died, and Conrad took over, and Conrad was very ambitious, too, went at it like an industrialist, buying up every bit of ground going, until he owned what amounted to the whole of Knight’s Frome. And he was around the same age as Perry-Jones, and a close friend of his, and Perry-Jones was on the council by then and oiling wheels for Conrad. So… well, the first thing Conrad does is cut the gypsy pickers’ pay, hoping this will drive them away. Didn’t work – they still came back. Resentful, sullen, but they came back. No loyalty to him now, mind, and a good deal more poaching and theft, including his wife, it was said.’

  Lol stopped pushing. They were at the crest of a rise, and the land before them sloped panoramically away, low hills and woodland, towards Hereford.

  ‘His wife?’

  Isabel peered over her shoulder at him. ‘Nobody’s told you that?’

  He shook his head. Isabel smiled.

  ‘His first wife, this was, not Adam’s mother. Caroline, her name, and quite a prize – high-born beauty, god-daughter of the Earl of so-and-so. And, well, she just disappeared one day, isn’t it? Gone. Vanished. And it was never explained. Well… the police certainly weren’t called in, so it’s clear that Conrad must’ve known where she was and was too proud to let it out. But this was the height of the picking season, and the rumour was she’d been bewitched by the gypsies – seduced, kidnapped, spirited away. That’s what they do, isn’t it, gypsies? Conrad never mentioned it, never a word, but that was it for the Romanies… and the tinkers and what-have-you. Conrad’s manager told them to take their money, clear out and never come back.’

  Lol pushed the chair into a passing place near the bottom of the lane and sat on the grass verge in front of Isabel. ‘When was this?’

  ‘Oh… the sixties? You don’t hear the full truth about it, ever, because this was the time when machines were taking over from the hop-pickers, generally, so most of them were going to be out of a job soon anyway – the gypsies, the Dudleys and the Welsh, all of them together. And some people still say Conrad kept quiet because his wife had run off with one of his own friends, and he just took it out on the gypsies because they were there and because Perry-Jones was his best mate. Today you’d have questions asked, but in the sixties people knew their place – though that was about to change, mind – and Conrad Lake was the boss, and he owned the whole bloody village, so…’

  ‘This was when he was living at the house that was originally behind Stock’s kiln?’

  Isabel’s eyes shone. ‘Correct. It was after Caroline left, he started building his new place. Turned his back on the old farmhouse, knocked it down, just left the kiln. As if the house itself was responsible for the failure of his marriage.’

  ‘And the gypsies all went?’

  ‘Oh, they went. In their own time and their own way. The hop-picking, see, that was part of their seasonal cycle – Hereford, for the hops and apples, then down to Evesham for the plums, what have you? They went… but not before buildings were set on fire, fences cut, stock loosed into the hop-yards. And that was when the police arrived in force.’

  ‘Not very non-confrontational.’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘The gypsies. Al Boswell says the Romanies are essentially non-confrontational.’

  ‘Aye, well, what had happened, they accused Lake, or one of his managers, of taking one of their own women. An enormous outcry, there was. Police out searching for her. In the end, I think the cops decided the gypsies had made it up, to get back at Lake. The gypsies of course, were saying – still say – that the coppers never really tried to find her because she was only a gypsy, see, and not worth shit. Maybe something in that. At least some things have changed for the better since the sixties.’

  ‘What do you really think?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, Lol. But Stewart Ash thought he did. Gone into it all, he had. And of course it was all going to be in his book, in detail.’

  Lol blinked. ‘Which book?’

  ‘The book he was working on when he died. The book the Smith boys were supposed to be helping him research. He was going into the whole business: the reasons the Romanies were banished from Knight’s Frome, never to return – if you don’t include Al – and what really happened to the girl. Rebekah, she was called, with a k and an h. Rebekah Smith.’

  ‘Smith?’

  ‘Oh, it’s a big tribe, Lol, the Smiths. None bigger. Doesn’t mean she was related to the boys who killed Stewart.’

  ‘It does give them a reason for not killing Stewart, though, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose you could say that.’

  ‘And did Stewart claim to know what happened to this Rebekah Smith?’

  ‘I don’t know. The thing is, Lol, you can’t libel the dead, and if Stewart wanted to suggest that Conrad Lake was in some way connected with the so-called disappearance of Rebekah Smith, there was nothing much to get in his way…’

  ‘Except Adam Lake, maybe. How much does Stock know?’

  Isabel spread her hands. ‘Who can say? Especially now.’

  ‘Is there a manuscript?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I don’t even know if he’d started writing it before he was murdered. But, yes, you’re right, of course, it wouldn’t make young Adam feel any more at home to have some book on sale for ever and ever in Bromyard and Ledbury and Hereford, linking his late father with some nasty old scandal. Especially,’ Isabel smiled gently, ‘as the local people have always said – and Sally Boswell will confirm this for you – that the terrible collapse of the Lake family hop-empire is down to what you might call a very traditional Romany curse.’

  ‘Of course.’ The aphids, the red spiders, the white mould… and the Verticillium Wilt. The four plagues of the Frome Valley.

  And the Lady of the Bines – where did she fit in?

  Lol stood up. ‘So that was where Stock was coming from.’

  ‘Bit clearer now, is it?’

  ‘That’s a joke, right?’ Lol said.

  ‘You asked God,’ said Isabel, ‘and God, in His mysterious way, asked me to fill you in on a few basics. Can we go back now? I need a wee, I do, and I can’t just nip behind a bush any more. Not till I’ve been to Lourdes.’

  Lol pushed the wheelchair back into the lane. He wondered when God might think it appropriate to ask her exactly why she’d been so afraid of Simon going into Stock’s kiln?

  30

  Element of Surprise

  EIRION TOOK THE big roundabout at Carmarthen on two wheels, it felt like, throwing Jane into the passenger door. ‘There’s a station here, right?’ she demanded, but he didn’t react. He drove on, until, quite soon, there was only open countryside in front of them.

  ‘I did not ask for this,’ Jane said. ‘I did not want this.’

  Eirion was heading north towards Llandeilo. He was, like, serious. He was even wearing his baseball cap the right way round.

  ‘I’d really hoped,’ Jane said, ‘that you were not going to turn out to be one of those guys who think women can’t transport themselves from A to B on their own.’

  He still didn’t respond. Well, stuff it, Jane was thinking now, why should I complain if he wants to drive me to Hereford and then turn the car around and drive all the way back to the bosom of his incredible family? Except…

/>   ‘This is Gwennan’s car, isn’t it?’

  ‘She lets me use it,’ Eirion said through his teeth, eyes fixed on the road. ‘And anyway, they’ve still got Dad’s car.’

  ‘As I understand it, she only lets you use it because you’ve got some heavy dirt on her. Like that she’s really English or something?’

  ‘If you’re just trying to make me dump you at the roadside,’ Eirion said, ‘it won’t work.’

  ‘I was merely trying to envisage the scenario when little Sioned and little Lowri returned from y siop, maybe half an hour ago, to find out that we’d pissed off without them, and their mummy discovered she was obliged to take care of them for the entire day. I would have gone on to make the point that whatever dirt you have on her – and I would be the last one ever to ask – would then count for like… not a great deal. I just make the point.’

  Eirion slowed the BMW. She saw that, despite the air-conditioning, he was sweating.

  ‘I just don’t want you to get disinherited in favour of those spooky kids, is all,’ Jane said. ‘It would like distress me if you were to be taken away from the Cathedral School and forced to work as a rent boy in Abergavenny.’

  ‘What makes you think I don’t already?’

  ‘You’re not pretty enough.’

  ‘Why don’t you call your mum?’ Eirion said.

  ‘It’s not your problem.’

  ‘Then why did you tell me about it?’

  ‘We’ve been through this. I just didn’t want you to think it was a racial thing when I went over the wall.’

  Eirion pulled into the side of the road. Though it was a main road, it was still fairly quiet. The hills were low and green and there were broadleaf woods. Apart from the colour of the soil, it didn’t look dramatically different from Herefordshire.

  Eirion turned to face her and took off his baseball cap. His eyes were solemn, his famously amazing smile now in cold storage.

  ‘I’ll be straight with you, Jane, I’m going to be in deep shit over this. Gwennan and Dad have a big lunch today in Tenby with some Arts Council people and National Assembly delegates and a cultural delegation of Irish-speakers from Ireland. It’s informal, but there could be a significant PR contract in it for Gwennan, in connection with this pan-Celtic cultural festival.’

  ‘Turn the car round now,’ Jane said with this, like, dark menace.

  ‘No. They’ll deal with it. They’ll find someone to look after the kids. Things will be a little tense for a while. I may have minor transportation problems – nothing I can’t handle.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Brownie points, that’s all,’ Eirion said. ‘I mean I’d really hate you to think I was in love with you or anything like that.’

  He turned on the engine and pulled back into the traffic without looking at her.

  Jane sank back into the leather. ‘Holy shit,’ she whispered, almost to herself.

  They stopped for lunch at a roadside diner, where they were served chips only slightly broader than matches, then made it through Llandovery and Brecon without once being stopped by the Welsh National Assembly Cultural Police looking for a stolen BMW, and reached the outskirts of Hereford by early afternoon.

  It was like Eirion had crossed over some barrier, and nothing emotive was touched on again. His mood was lighter, but Jane also sensed an underlying determination, and by the time he pulled into a side road off Kings Acre it was clear it had never been his intention to drop her off at the bus station.

  ‘Where exactly do we find this suicide kid?’

  ‘It wasn’t my intention even to try,’ Jane said. ‘It would mean getting past her old lady. That could take time. She sounded like a very difficult woman.’

  ‘Then let’s be sensible about this and go and see your mother.’

  ‘You’re missing the point. My mother is in an invidious position. And if she gets involved with Riddock it will like rise off the scale of invidiousness.’

  ‘So you want to go and face up this Riddock?’

  ‘Christ, no. She’d chew us up. Especially you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re a guy. Guys she eats for an aperitif.’

  ‘An aperitif is a drink, Jane. Try hors d’oeuvre.’

  ‘I thought children of your ethnic persuasion had to do Welsh instead of French.’

  ‘I didn’t need to do Welsh, Jane. It was my first language – well, almost.’

  ‘Sometimes you scare me, you’re so alien.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Eirion said. ‘Neither, somehow, do I believe this Riddock scares you.’

  ‘Doesn’t scare me, exactly. I just don’t want to go near her until I’ve got the means to, like, bend her to my will. No, listen…’ Jane hammered both fists on her knees. ‘Listen, listen, listen, I can work this out. You were right, of course. There was no way I could go to the media with half a story. We have to know first what the complete score is with this slag. Like, are we talking extortion? Because when I first sat down at that table in Steve’s shed, the first thing Kirsty Ryan asked me was had I got the ten quid. I mean, was that a joke? Or have they actually been taking money off little kids for letting them talk to their dear departeds?’

  ‘Little kids tend not to have dear departeds,’ Eirion said. ‘Death doesn’t mean that much to them.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Jane said, ‘when did you have your mid-life crisis?’

  ‘Besides which, I thought you said she had this rich stepfather who bought her a yellow Porsche.’

  ‘Mazda. Look, we don’t know enough, OK? Therefore, we need to talk to someone who does. Turn the nice German wheels around, and I shall endeavour to direct you. And…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m very grateful to you for sacrificing your cultural heritage on the altar of, um…’

  ‘Don’t embarrass us both,’ Eirion said. ‘We have all the time in the world for that crap.’

  ‘Wasn’t that in an ancient James Bond film?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Bond’s like, “We have all the time in the world.” Then his woman gets shot.’

  ‘You have to turn everything into wide-screen, don’t you, Jane?’

  ‘It’s a cultural thing,’ Jane said. ‘It’s about seeing the big picture – being outward-looking, rather than… all right, forget it.’

  She had a vague idea where the farm was because Kirsty and her sister had thrown this barn-rave for Kirsty’s sixteenth, about a year ago, and these little maps had been given out. Despite her old friend Dr Samedi doing the music, Jane hadn’t gone along in the end because… well, because of a nobody-to-go-with kind of short-term situation, if you wanted the truth. But she remembered the name of the farm.

  ‘The Bluff?’ Eirion said. ‘Is this an omen?’

  He was taking it very slowly because this was, after all, Gwennan’s car, and they were into rough tracks now. He’d left a terse but nervous message on his dad’s answering machine, explaining about the car. All Jane knew was that it was terse and nervous, because it was also in Welsh.

  ‘I could’ve sworn this was right.’ She was sitting up, peering from side to side: fields full of hay like big rolls of butter, a distant church steeple that could be Weobley. The Bluff implied high ground, but this was all fairly flat.

  It was getting very hot; she wished she’d worn shorts.

  ‘You didn’t say you’d never actually been here,’ Eirion said crossly, the BMW lurching on a baked rut. ‘And you don’t know she’s going to be there when we find it. In fact, you haven’t really thought this out, have you?’

  ‘I’m an emotional, volatile, charged kind of person, Irene. When I see what has to be done, I just go for it. I thought that was one of the things you—’

  ‘Don’t push it,’ Eirion growled.

  ‘All right,’ Jane said. ‘I’d have rung her, if I’d thought about it. But anyway, I always think the element of surprise works best, don’t you?’ She looked over the back of the seat, through t
he rear window. ‘You know this… this has got to be right, Eirion. If Weobley’s over there and Sarnesfield’s back there—’ She pointed across the field. ‘OK, look, there’s a guy on a tractor. Why don’t we just ask him? Just like drive across, you’re OK.’

  ‘I can’t just drive across his field!’

  ‘Course you can, he’s already done this bit.’

  Eirion changed down; the BMW chugged across the spiky surface of the mown meadow. When they got to within about ten yards of the tractor, the big machine stopped and the driver was jumping down, walking slowly towards them. The driver wore a red shirt and jeans and a dark blue baseball cap with Ford across the front.

  The car couldn’t go any further; they were into this rolling sea of cut hay. There was another guy messing about with whatever you called the piece of machinery the tractor was pulling. He looked up. Both of them looked sweaty and knackered. Eirion wound down the window and hot, urban music came in, along with the industrial juddering of the tractor.

  ‘Sorry to bother you—’

  The driver whipped off the cap, uncovering short red spiky hair and unshadowing a face that was, despite its deepening tan, not a happy face.

  ‘Right, mate – deal. You show me the sign that says “picnic site” and I won’t ram you into the bloody ditch.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jane leaned across Eirion to the open window.

  The tractor driver peered past Eirion at Jane.

  ‘Er… hi,’ Jane said. ‘Hi, Kirsty. You got a couple of minutes?’

  Kirsty Ryan wiped the sweat from her nose with the back of a hand, and a clinking of the outsize nose-rings not allowed in school. She looked butch and she looked sullen. She also looked like she knew exactly what this was going to be about.

  ‘Piss off, Watkins,’ Kirsty said. ‘We got nothing to say to each other.’

  ‘Element of surprise,’ Eirion murmured. ‘Yes, that always works best.’

  31

  Little Taps