The Cure of Souls

by Phil Rickman

  ‘But he picked the wrong woman.’ Al pushed long white hair behind his ears. ‘He picked the woman with the mouth which would eat the world. It’s likely that the departure of Caroline would have fed some ambition into her head. So what does he do? Does Conrad Lake, good friend and supporter of Oliver Perry-Jones, marry a gypsy? Out of the question. Can he pay her off, perhaps? Ha! Does even the Emperor of Frome have enough money to pay off Rebekah Smith? I think not.’

  Sally said, ‘I don’t know how he killed her. Probably strangulation. But I think I can guess how he disposed of her remains.’

  Merrily stared at Sally, and the night quivered around her.

  Vision, when it came, could knock you sideways.

  The burning stench of gunpowder and rotten eggs, the smell of cheap fireworks from when you were a kid, fierce and searing as a jet from a blowlamp, the hot breath of hell; brimstone.

  Just because the pictures of Rebekah were found in the kiln, didn’t mean—?

  Merrily put a hand to her throat. She saw the sudden concern in Lol’s eyes, recalling his anxiety in the kiln, during the Deliverance – the utterly needless deliverance of the soul of the inoffensive Stewart Ash to God. It wasn’t Stewart, it had never been Stewart. Stewart wasn’t the type…

  Al Boswell put his head on one side. ‘Drukerimaskri?’

  ‘Is it possible,’ Merrily said, ‘that Rebekah Smith might have died in the kiln? Was this the conjecture at the time?’

  Sally Boswell raised up her glasses on their chain, put them on, gazed through them into Merrily’s eyes. Her face was severe and, for once, she looked her age.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said.

  ‘And could she have choked?’

  ‘Sulphur,’ Sally said. ‘Do you know what sulphur does?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve a strong idea.’

  Sally spoke in her museum curator’s voice, without emotion. ‘What happens in a hop-kiln is that when the sulphur is to be burned, everyone gets out very rapidly. Sulphur, in small quantities or as an element in spa water, can be beneficial to health. Sulphur burning in a confined space can be horribly poisonous. It causes extreme reactions very quickly. It attacks, the eyes, the throat, the lungs, the skin. It turns hops yellow. I think that anyone exposed to sulphur fumes, in a confined space and unable to get out, would be… grateful to suffocate.’

  Al said, ‘Lake always took his women to that kiln. Common knowledge.’

  ‘Women? How many women did he have?’

  ‘How many sheep in a flock?’ Sally said. ‘And after the cursory search for Rebekah was over, he became less cautious. He’d pick up prostitutes in Hereford and Worcester and bring them back – right up to his death. He had a mattress in the loft.’

  Al regarded Merrily gravely. ‘How do you come to know of this?’

  Merrily’s phone began to shrill.

  Al suddenly smashed a fist down on the iron table. ‘He locked her in, didn’t he? He locked Rebekah in the fucking kiln with the sulphur rolls burning blue in the brimstone tray?’

  ‘I don’t know that,’ Merrily said. ‘I just—’

  ‘He turned her yellow! And then he came back and did whatever else was necessary, and then he fed her to the furnace. The reliable old oil-fired cast-iron furnace, burning at two million BTUs… cremation guaranteed!’

  Merrily stood up and found she was shaking. She took the phone to the edge of the weed-choked terrace.

  ‘M–Merrily Watkins.’

  Behind her, Sally was saying, ‘We’d always suspected he must have spread her ashes on the hop-yard, then had them dug in.’

  ‘Mum…’

  ‘Jane?’

  ‘Mum, I swear to God we thought we were doing it for the best but it, like… it’s all gone wrong.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘We’re in the car. We’re on our way to Canon Pyon.’

  Merrily said tightly, ‘I didn’t know there was a Canon Pyon in Pembrokeshire.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus Christ, Mum, we went to tell Amy Shelbone to stay the hell away from Layla Riddock, but she’s piss—she’s run away…’

  Behind her, Lol was saying, ‘What do you mean, “in the real sense”?’

  ‘Jane,’ Merrily said, ‘what have you done?’

  ‘So we were in this like really difficult situation, and we ended up telling Mr and Mrs Shelbone about Layla Riddock, but it was only when—’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘It was only when I said, just, like, in passing, that Layla’s stepfather was – was Allan Henry…’

  ‘Dear God,’ Merrily said drably.

  When she came back to the table, Al Boswell was saying intensely to Lol, ‘… drains him, you know? Exhausts him sexually, but it’s like a drug, until he doesn’t know what day it is. You know what I’m telling you, boy?’

  38

  Physical Dependency

  IF THE SHELBONES knew they were being followed, it didn’t seem to bother them. Their Renault was puttering steadily along like this was some little jaunt to the all-night supermarket. Even in his seriously unstable condition, Mr Shelbone was driving with impeccable care, slowing for every bend.

  ‘And she said what, exactly?’ Eirion was keeping a steady distance between them, all the same.

  ‘She said kind of, you know, be careful,’ Jane said.

  ‘These were her actual words?’

  ‘Close.’

  ‘She said “Go home”, didn’t she?’ Eirion didn’t take his eyes from the tail lights ahead.

  ‘Well, yes, she did. She said that, too.’

  ‘But the phone signal wasn’t great at that point, I would guess.’

  ‘Maybe the full moon affects them.’

  The road at this stage was absolutely dead straight, probably an old Roman road, and there was no other traffic, so Eirion let the Shelbones increase the space between the two cars. ‘What did we have to lose, after all?’ he said morosely. ‘There was only one parent left to alienate.’

  ‘The point is, Irene, she doesn’t know what we know, and she wouldn’t let me explain.’

  ‘Jane, you really think we know everything? You see the looks those Shelbones were exchanging as soon as they heard Layla Riddock’s name? What was that about?’

  ‘It was the Christmas Fair thing, of course. And anyway that was your fault for telling them. The Shelbones are immensely strange people. All those awful, sombre pictures? You can tell why Amy’s turned out the way she is. If they’ve got a shotgun in the car with them, Allan Henry’s blood will be on your hands.’

  ‘But she is coming out here?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your mum.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. And Lol, I expect. And OK, she did say to keep out of it, but what she really meant—’

  ‘What she really meant was, keep right on top of it so you don’t miss any of the action.’

  ‘I would not forgive myself if something happened I could’ve prevented. Riddock’s psychotic, and Allan Henry’s some kind of semi-criminal with pockets full of councillors and police – bit like your dad.’

  Eirion let this go; there were some issues beyond argument. They drove through Canon Pyon, which was strung out like a Welsh village.

  ‘What is it with you, Jane?’

  ‘Maladjusted?’

  ‘Angry,’ Eirion said.

  They drove in silence, eventually leaving the village lights behind. Then Jane said, ‘Actually, that day in the shed, when Riddock – when she kind of dominated me – it was like she was a woman and I was just a little girl. I was feeling screwed up and insecure. Whereas now…’

  Eirion braked slowly as the Renault in front indicated right. The moon shone down on woodland.

  ‘Don’t say it,’ Eirion said. ‘Do not even—’

  ‘Whereas now…’ Jane smiled grimly. ‘Now, I reckon I should be able to take the slag, no problem.’

  Lol drove. His old Astra wasn’t as fast the Volvo, but when you lived in the country you knew that speed didn’t h
elp, because cars didn’t own country roads. He headed straight for Hereford, the most direct route to Canon Pyon; at least there’d be no hold-ups, past midnight. He concentrated on his driving; there were issues he didn’t want to think about until there was something meaningful he could do – if there ever could be.

  At the Burley Gate crossroads, Merrily said, ‘Lol…’ He heard her groping in her bag for cigarettes. ‘Lol, I have to—’ All kinds of stuff rattling in the bag, getting thrown about. ‘Look, what happened back there… in the hop-yard—’

  Oh God.

  ‘Nothing happened,’ Lol said.

  Nothing at all.

  ‘That’s not entirely true, is it?’ Flick of the lighter. ‘What I remember feeling was… what you might describe as a – at that moment, an unseemly need. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’ve been times, and – and quite recently, when it would not have struck me as unseemly. Not at all.’ He heard her sink back against the vinyl. ‘God, the older you get, the harder it is to talk about these things. Or is that just me?’

  ‘Could I have a cigarette?’

  ‘You don’t smoke.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since after you hand me one. No, all right, forget it.’ He sighed. ‘If you’re asking, was it normal, healthy, adult passion, well, I would love to have thought it was. But in the end…’

  ‘Thanks,’ Merrily said.

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Where does that leave things?’ Lol said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Lol swallowed.

  After a while, Merrily said, ‘What did Al say to you when I was on the phone?’

  ‘You know – gypsy stuff.’

  He heard her blowing out a lot of smoke. ‘Al is saying that the presence in the kiln is this Rebekah Smith, isn’t he?’

  ‘That’s what he seems to be saying.’

  ‘And even though he knew Rebekah – had known her since she was a child – he’s very much afraid of her now, isn’t he?’

  ‘He…’ Lol could see clusters of lights in the distance, maybe the city itself. ‘The difference apparently is that gaujos – we’re ambivalent about our ghosts. We have bad ghosts, we also have vaguely tolerable ghosts. But the Romanies – I may be wrong, but I think mulo is the only word they have for a ghost.’

  ‘And it can also mean vampire,’ Merrily said, ‘in the real sense.’

  ‘They don’t have to take your blood, Al says. They’ll just take your energy.’

  ‘That’s…’ He sensed her strained smile. ‘I was going to say “normal”. It’s usually suggested by those who accept these things that spirits need to absorb energy in order to manifest. Hence cold spots in haunted houses. Hence, in extreme cases, possession.’

  ‘In the case of the mulo or muli,’ Lol said, ‘it seems to be… sexual energy. It’s sexually voracious. Sometimes it comes back to its old partner. In the old gypsy stories, it would come out of its grave and appear in its lover’s wagon and spend the night. The next day, the lover would be physically drained. And this would go on. And eventually the lover would die. Exhausted. A husk. Maybe become another mulo. Something like that. I don’t know. Al was losing it by then, and you were just coming off the phone.’

  ‘This is not going to be pleasant,’ Merrily murmured. ‘It’s going to be much worse than I could have imagined.’

  ‘When you asked Sally why Conrad Lake would have knocked down the house but kept the kiln – I mean, why would he? Especially if that was the place where he’d left Rebekah to die, where he’d burned her body. You’d think it would be the very first place he’d choose to demolish, wouldn’t you? Unless the kiln was the place where they used to meet…’

  ‘And would perhaps go on meeting?’ Merrily said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And if he had to keep going back there. I mean had to. He said—’ Merrily coughed. ‘Boswell said Lake became old quickly and died quickly. He said he virtually drove his second wife and the child away – as if he wanted to be alone there. People were saying his mind was going.’

  Lol heard Al talking. Exhausts him sexually, but it’s like a drug, until he doesn’t know what day it is. You know what I’m telling you, boy?

  ‘As if he had to be alone with her,’ Merrily said tonelessly, ‘and with what he’d done. Killed a gypsy, but he couldn’t kill the need. Kept her pictures in the kiln. A memorial. A shrine. And she was still there. In his head. A physical dependency.’

  Lol glanced at her. She was holding the cigarette between finger and thumb, eyes focused on its smouldering tip.

  ‘But he wasn’t always alone there,’ he said. ‘According to Al, he’d pick up prostitutes in Hereford and Worcester and pay them to come back with him. I believe that. You can’t take women regularly in and out of the kiln without somebody noticing. But people would keep quiet – at least until such time as Conrad no longer had any money left to pay them.’

  ‘Still found money for the women, though?’

  ‘Because she needed them.’

  ‘Rebekah.’

  ‘Yes.’ Lol drove faster as he saw the lights of Hereford gathering ahead and then surrounding them. He wanted them to get there soon, wherever they were going. He didn’t want to talk about this any more. He didn’t want the theory expanding to take in Stephanie Stock and the scratches she’d made down her husband’s back – maybe Stephie and Rebekah between them. Stephie and Rebekah on the bed with the bine.

  Stephie and Rebekah in the hop-yard, rustling and crackling with the cold electricity of the dead, and the keening in the wires.

  Had Stewart Ash known this would happen when he left them the house? But why would he do that to his favourite niece? The answer, Lol supposed, was simple: Stewart was unaware of it. He was gay, so Rebekah’s muli could never have reached him. It had taken predatory males to destroy Stewart.

  Lol drove into half-lit Hereford with its shutters up, its pubs long shut, a cruising police car waiting at the traffic lights.

  He thought of Merrily finally in his arms, breath on breath, the warm confluence, then the passion turning cold as they became a foursome: Lol and Merrily and Stephanie and Rebekah.

  The lights changed. He felt her hand on his arm.

  39

  Rich Girl With a Hobby

  BIG, BLACK, METAL gates. Not decorative gates, but gates with bars more than an inch thick, and with spear-prongs on top. Gates designed to keep you out. White security lights pooling the turning circle in front of them.

  The Renault was stopped outside them with its engine running and its headlights on full, and its horn was blasting, an unbelievable noise down here in the woods.

  What was more unbelievable was that this was adults, in the old-fashioned sense: staid middle-aged people. It was kind of shocking. And, sooner or later, it was going to have to get a reaction.

  It was cooler now, in the hours before dawn. Jane, in her old fleece jacket, was hunched down by some rhododendrons about ten yards behind the Renault. She’d got Eirion to drop her at the end of the drive and she’d walked down through the trees while he’d gone to find a place to park the BMW – so it would be ready for a fast getaway, he said; also so it wouldn’t be damaged in the event of—

  —whatever happened.

  Jane couldn’t blame Eirion for being cautious; he was in enough trouble, domestically. And anyway she wasn’t in any mood to blame him for anything tonight. Right now, stocky, solid Eirion was very OK; Jane still carried that warm glow, warmer than the fleece, and her body felt different, felt stronger; felt like a complete unit – though maybe the unit now was her and Eirion: an item, official. Yeah, OK, cool. It felt like the start of a journey. Scott Eagles and Sigourney Jones? Had it come to this?

  ‘STOP THAT NOW!’

  This guy was inside the gates, on the edge of the area floodlit by the headlamps – big guy in a leather jacket and jeans.

  The horn stopped, though Jane could still hear
it in her head, so the silence was kind of shattering. Mr Shelbone got out and stood next to the Renault, staying behind the headlights, a long silhouette.

  ‘I want to speak to Allan Henry.’ His voice sounded harsh and fractured, the way cardboardy voices did when they were raised.

  ‘We’ve got an office,’ the guy in the leather jacket said. ‘You can phone in the morning and ask for an appointment like anyone else. Now go away.’

  ‘You tell Allan Henry I want to see him now. Tell him it’s Shelbone.’

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’

  ‘Tell him if he doesn’t come out, I shall stay here all night, blowing my horn.’

  ‘You won’t, you know. Because if you aren’t away from here in two minutes, I’m calling the police.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘The gardener. Don’t you even know it’s illegal to sound a car horn after dusk? Now get back in your car and get out of here, before I get annoyed.’

  Oh yeah, he really looked like a gardener. The kind of gardener who planted people.

  Mr Shelbone got back into his car, like he’d been told – and just leaned on the horn again. It filled the night like a wild siren. Jane felt a little scared. If this was a bunch of kids, like drunk or stoned, it wouldn’t mean a lot, but these were quiet, suburban, middle-aged, extremely Christian people, and they believed this man and his stepdaughter had somehow taken away their precious child.

  And Jane was now inclined to believe this, too, though it didn’t make any proper sense. It was one thing for Layla Riddock to be very turned-on by the idea of real communication with the spirit of Amy’s murdered mother, something else entirely to kidnap the kid. And bring her here, thus connecting Allan Henry to it?

  An arm around her waist. She screamed.