The Cure of Souls

Stock stared at him, froth on his beard, set the glass down hard, about an inch from one of Lake’s hands. He said nothing. He’d got what he wanted: Lake was losing it.

‘Let me tell you… Gerard. Let me tell everybody…’ Lake looked around wildly, and Lol saw emotional immaturity twitching and flickering in his big angular frame like a forty-watt bulb in a street lamp. ‘You picked the wrong man.’ Lake levered in towards Stock. ‘You couldn’t have done it to my father and you won’t do it to me.’ His face inches from Stock’s, exposed to the booze and the sour breath. ‘You can stay in that dump for as long as you like, you and your imaginary ghosts, you stupid, pathetic little turd.’

Like some soiled Buddha, Stock gazed blandly into the bared teeth and the glaring eyes for maybe a couple of seconds before his own eyes seemed to slide up into his head and his body wobbled.

Lol knew what was coming and so did Lake, but too late.

Simon stood with Lol on the forecourt under a night sky like deep blue silk shot with rays of green.

His white shirt was dark and foul with brown vomit. The good shepherd. It was Simon who’d guided Gerard Stock outside. In his life of ducking and diving, bartering and bullshit, Stock had probably come close many times to getting beaten up; Lol reckoned maybe he was now so physically attuned to the proximity of a kicking that his metabolism automatically came up with the most effective defence.

After it happened, Adam Lake could have battered him, drunk or sober, into the stone flags without blinking. But it was clear that all Lake wanted – women and some men shrinking away from both of them with cries of abhorrence and disgust – was to get into the men’s toilets and wash Stock away. On his way, he’d collided blindly with Simon.

Now Simon stank of Stock’s vomit, too, but Stock was clean and dry, leaning casually against the pub wall, the calm in the eye of the storm.

‘You are a piece of work, Gerard,’ Simon said. ‘It just drips off you, doesn’t it?’

‘I’m a survivor, Simon,’ Stock said.

‘You’d better go home. Lake’s going to be out in a minute, in search of a change of clothes. He sees you out here, he – he’s a big boy, Gerard. And not a happy boy.’

Stock made a contemptuous noise.

‘You as good as accused him of murdering Stewart. You accused him in front of a score of witnesses.’

‘Oh no.’ Stock straightened up. Apart from the sheen on his face, caught in the blue light from the window, he looked almost sober. ‘You don’t listen, Simon. I asked a question, was all. I asked who else might have done for Stewart if it wasn’t the Smiths. No libel in a question. Didn’t even ask him, either, I asked you. He doesn’t get me that easy. Nobody gets me that easy.’

Simon walked over to the pub door and pulled it until the latch caught. ‘Where did you get that idea, anyway, Gerard?’

Stock tapped a meaningful finger on the side of his nose: not telling. ‘But what a reaction, vicar. What a beautiful, instantaneous reaction… and’ – inclining his head to Simon – ‘in front of witnesses.’

Lol wondered precisely how drunk Stock had really been in there. How pissed did you have to be to throw up on cue?

A good publicist has control, tells you what he wants you to know, when he wants you to know it. Timing.

What was happening here? Lol felt on the edge of something from which he could still, if he wanted to, turn away. ‘You OK to walk home?’ he said to Stock. ‘Or you want Simon or me to—?’

Stock looked down at the dirt and cindered surface of the forecourt. ‘Not going home, yet, Lol, thank you. Gonna take a walk, clear my head. Time is it?’

‘Nearly closing time,’ Simon said, ‘in case you were thinking of going back inside, to attempt to get served.’

‘Actually, I think this may finally call for a change of hostelry.’ Stock produced a hawking laugh. ‘What d’you think, vicar?’

‘I think you’re walking a narrow ledge,’ Simon said.

‘Reason I need a clear head,’ Stock said, ‘is I’ve got your lady exorcist coming to visit. Tomorrow, we lay Stewart, as it were.’

Lol froze, as the latch of the pub door clacked. ‘Thanks very much,’ Isabel said to someone, and wheeled herself out. Then she saw Stock. ‘Bloody hell, you still here?’

‘You’re going to ask this woman to exorcize your place, then, are you?’ Simon said quietly. ‘It isn’t that simple, you know, Gerard. It isn’t just a formality.’

Stock sniffed. ‘Goodnight, boys. Goodnight, Mrs St John.’

He began to walk away towards the lane. Above him rose the broad-leaf woods that enclosed the village, the pinnacles of occasional pines piercing the green-washed sky, stars beginning to show.

‘Gerard,’ Simon called out, ‘it’s not something you fart about with.’

Stock stopped about fifteen feet beyond him and turned round. He was quite steady. He pointed a finger at Simon.

‘Don’t you,’ he said, ‘presume to patronize me, sunshine. I came to you with an honest request and you told me to piss off. Whatever happens with this woman, it’s down to you. Remember that.’

Lol thought the pointing finger quivered; he thought he saw a smear of something cross Stock’s half-shaded face, and then Stock stiffened and turned and walked away. At some point before the shadows took him, Lol thought the walk became a swagger.

Lol walked back to the vicarage with the St Johns, Simon pushing Isabel’s chair, lights blinking up on the Malverns.

‘Bloody hell,’ Isabel said. ‘Stink rotten, you do, Simon.’

They crossed the humpback bridge over the silent Frome, hop-yards either side, the bines high on the poles. Simon looked over to the church, about fifty yards from the river bank, small and inconspicuous among trees risen higher than its stubby tower.

‘Maybe the stink around Stock is subtler.’

‘I’m not sure he’s right about Lake,’ Lol said. ‘The way he claimed he just threw out a question and Lake dived on it, like this was a sign of some kind of guilt. I don’t think—’

‘Be nice, it would, to think he did have a hand in it.’ Isabel looked up at Lol. ‘But it didn’t feel right to me either. Boy was clever enough to realize smartish where Stock was going, but not intelligent enough to control his reactions – if he had something to hide. Does that make sense?’

Lol nodded. ‘Lots of money, well educated, but nowhere near as clever as Stock. And yet…’ He turned to Simon, took a breath. ‘Look, what you said about exorcism…’

They came to the vicarage; against dark woods and hills and the lines of foliate poles in the hop-yards, its whiteness seemed symbolic. There were no lights on in the front rooms, but a soft glow seeped through to most of the windows from some inner core.

‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ Lol said.

Simon didn’t reply, went to open the gate. Isabel reached up and squeezed Lol’s arm. ‘Listen, love, he gets things he can’t put into words, sometimes. You know what I mean?’

Lol looked up over the wheelchair to a broken necklace of moving lights rising up into the Malverns, to a band of black below the stars.

17 Comfort and Joy

SOD IT. NOT a question of keeping confidences, not any more. Merrily switched on the anglepoise in the scullery, picked up the phone. At 10.45 p.m., this wasn’t going to make her very popular.

However, the situation had altered. She hadn’t been in a position to give away any names before, when all her information had come from Hazel Shelbone. But now there was another and possibly more reliable source.