afraid for myself, for my friends and – worst of all – for my very dear wife, my soulmate.’
Merrily said cautiously, ‘Israel believes all exorcists should be psychic to a degree. Which I suppose means you could be a lot better at this than me.’
‘He doesn’t, however, say all psychics should be exorcists. Spare a cig?’
‘Sorry, I assumed—’
‘Periodic vices. All my vices have been periodic – the worst kind. Look, my view on suffering is simple: you ask the question, “Is anyone benefiting from this?” If not, don’t fucking suffer.’
‘What about Stock?’
‘We couldn’t help Stock. His only recourse was to get out, and I told him that. Al told him that. But Stock was Stock.’
‘So why this, now?’
‘It’s for Sally.’ Simon lit up, holding the cigarette between finger and thumb, like you’d hold a joint. ‘Sally didn’t want Al doing this on his own.’
‘Why does he have to do it at all?’
‘Ancestral ties. Who else is gonna do it? Al was trained for years in the Romany mysteries and then backed off. Bit like me, really, but I only backed off to a place that looked safe. Nowhere’s really safe, is it? You ready, now?’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Deal with this stupid bitch, I suppose.’ He went up to the picture of Rebekah Smith.
‘I meant, what are we going to do? Those Christian things.’
Simon turned back to Merrily. ‘You ever sleep with Lol?’
‘No.’
‘Poor sod puts you on a pedestal. He thinks you’re a much better person than he is, purer, holier. You’re going to have to make
‘People tend to underestimate Lol,’ Merrily said. ‘Where is he, anyway? I’d somehow expected him to be here.’
‘Nah, this is a priest thing. He drove off somewhere.’
She stiffened. ‘Where?’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He had another deep drag on his cigarette. ‘Anyway, I’m very grateful to you for coming.’
‘I’m sure you are, Simon.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘It’s a set-up, isn’t it? For instance, why can’t you and Al do this on your own?’
‘Maybe we could.’
‘No, you bloody couldn’t,’ Merrily said, ‘because you need a woman. Because of the nature of it, there has to be a woman, doesn’t there? It’s a female entity, so it needs a woman’s energy, a woman’s aura. Poor Stephanie underlined that. And who else? Who else before Stephie?’
Simon’s eyes didn’t move. ‘OK, I suspect there was some similar impact on the second Mrs Conrad Lake, Adam’s mother. But she was wise enough to get out before too long.’
‘And the Hereford hookers?’
‘Sure, and the working girls of Worcester. “Come back to my kiln, my dear. Help me recapture some old memories.” ’
‘Each one of them acquiring, however briefly, the essence – the destructive essence – of Rebekah Smith. I just hope none of them ever got into his car a second time. I pray the psychological damage wasn’t permanent.’
He grimaced. ‘Depends what fucking Conrad did to them. Not much, by the end, I’d imagine. I suppose the times he couldn’t get himself fixed up, he’d potter along to the kiln and get auto-erotic over his photographs. And she’d be there for him.’
‘Like a drug.’
‘A craving, yeah. Until he died. How far you want to take this? I don’t know if it’s an infection, like the wilt, or a sporadic phenomenon. I don’t know whether it’s a wilful spirit or an imprint. Should I be poetic here? Should I say it came out of the kiln on the smoke of Rebekah’s cremation? Was it scattered with her ashes? How the hell can we know?’
‘Until you present her with a woman’s aura to enter, you probably won’t.’ She met his eyes and saw the fear behind the aggression.
‘You done this sort of thing before, Merrily?’
‘That a serious question?’
‘What I meant was, there’s nothing in the book on this one, is there? When she comes,
‘I do hope not,’ Merrily said.
Simon St John smiled tiredly. ‘
Merrily looked into Simon’s light blue eyes for flecks of bullshit. Saw only the faded sorrow of experience.
45
Drukerimaskri
CHARLIE SAT BACK, with his hands on his knees and his tea going as cold as anything could in this weather. His smile was constant and condescending. Although he wasn’t looking directly at Lol most of the time, Lol felt under intense study.
‘If this is poker,’ Charlie said at last, ‘you better show me some cards, boy.’
‘Ron Welfare?’ Hesitantly, Lol brought out the only name he’d been given by Frannie Bliss. ‘PC Ronald Welfare. He’d have been one of your old colleagues?’
‘Dead,’ Charlie said, with contempt.
‘Ron Welfare talked to a bloke who saw a woman closely resembling Rebekah Smith going over to the kiln and the door opening and a man closely resembling Conrad Lake standing there in the light, before the woman was admitted.’
Charlie made no comment.
‘There were probably other witnesses, but most of them would have had some family members still employed by Lake. This was a chap from outside the area who’d gone to visit his mother nearby.’
‘How’re you, Terry?’ Charlie called out to a man leaving the coffee shop. ‘Don’t forget to get that application in before September, now.’
Lol pressed on. He realized no ordinary former copper would even be talking to him by now, but Charlie Howe was a prominent local councillor, a friend to the people, an open book. And maybe his ward was a marginal. And also they were in a public place. And you couldn’t tell whether Charlie was worried now, or just curious.
‘Ron Welfare was so convinced he was on to something that he even worked on it in his spare time,’ Lol said. ‘But no police were going to risk grilling Lake, because he was the Emperor of Frome and he owned half the valley, and Rebekah Smith was considered the lowest of the low.’
‘Could be you’re a journalist,’ Charlie said thoughtfully. ‘But I don’t think so. You don’t talk like a journalist.’
‘When Ron eventually reported it to his superiors, a detective was assigned to check it out. By this time, Ron had put some more stuff together – reports of the kiln furnace being fired for two days or more, even though the hop season was well over.’
‘Not unusual,’ Charlie said. ‘Furnaces can be used for more than drying hops. You don’t talk like somebody works for some gypsy-loving civil-liberties charity, either.’
