The Cure of Souls

She followed him back into the kitchen. The gloom seemed at once oppressive – or was she imagining that? He went straight to the wall where the implements hung, brought down a short pole with what looked like an ashpan from a stove or grate attached. He sniffed at it.

‘Can’t smell anything now.’ He thrust it towards her. ‘Can you?’

‘What is it?’

‘Was known, I’m told, as a brimstone tray. Used for feeding rolls of sulphur into the furnace.’

‘Why’d they do that?’

‘Some sort of fumigation. It also apparently made the drying hops turn yellow, which the brewers preferred for some reason. Made the beer look even more like piss, I don’t know. I don’t think they do it any more.’

‘Would sulphur have any special interest for Stewart Ash? Can you think of—?’

‘You’re saying you smelled sulphur.’

‘Quite powerfully.’

He tilted his head again. ‘Fire and brimstone… Merrily?’

‘That was what it smelled like. Could be argued it was subjective, I suppose.’

‘Oh… subjective.’ Stock held the wooden shaft of the brimstone tray with both hands like a spade. ‘There’s a good psychologist’s word. Why don’t we ask Lol what he thinks?’

‘Like you said, things are inclined to go awry in there. A few minor elements which, when you put them together, suggest a volatile atmosphere. Not necessarily connected with the murder of Stewart Ash.’

‘Volatile?’

‘I would like to come back, Mr Stock.’ She saw Lol in the doorway. ‘What about tonight?’

‘To do what?’

‘There are quite a few things—’

Stock hurled the brimstone tray to the stone with cacophonous force.

Merrily flinched but didn’t move. ‘—things we can still try.’

‘You don’t really know what the fuck you’re doing, do you?’ Stock snarled.

Lol walked in.

‘No… geddout… both of you.’ Stock picked up the chalice and the Tupperware box of communion wafers, shoved them in the airline bag, tossed the bag to the flags near Merrily’s feet. ‘You’re a waste of time, Merrily. I heard you were a political appointment.’

Merrily bit her lip.

‘Been better off with the fucking arse-bandit,’ Stock said.

‘Well…’ Lol picked up the bag. ‘This is actually quite reassuring. For a while back there, I was almost convinced you’d been possessed by the spirit of a nice man.’

Stock looked at him silently, then back at Merrily. He was waiting for them to go.

Merrily paused at the door. ‘I’d like to come back. If not me, then someone else.’

‘Geddout,’ Stock said.

22 Barnchurch

‘MERRILY!’ CHARLIE HOWE stood up, tossing his Telegraph to one of the tables in the hotel reception area. He was wearing a creased cream suit and a yellow tie with the lipsticked impression of a woman’s red lips printed on it, as though it had been kissed. He looked genuinely delighted to see her. Putting an arm around her shoulders, he steered her into the coffee lounge. ‘What a job you’ve got, girl: devils and demons on a wonderful summer’s day.’

She’d shed the cassock, was back in the T-shirt. ‘How d’you know I wasn’t doing a wedding?’

‘Contacts.’ Charlie tapped his long leathery nose.

‘Sophie’ll be mortified.’

‘When Mrs Hill wouldn’t tell me where you were, look, nigh on forty years of being a detective told me a wedding wasn’t an option.’

‘Smart.’

‘Pathetic, more like.’ He pointed to a window table. ‘Over there?’

‘Fine.’ She followed him. ‘Why pathetic?’

‘’Cause I miss it, of course.’ They sat down. ‘Don’t let any retired CID man tell you he don’t miss it. I’m even jealous of my own daughter.’

‘I’m jealous of your daughter,’ Merrily said ambivalently.

Charlie laughed and patted her wrist. ‘Scones,’ he said. ‘I feel like some scones. You don’t diet, do you?’

‘My whole job’s a diet.’

‘Scones, my love,’ he called to the waitress before she’d even made it to the table. ‘Lashings of jam and heaps of fresh cream. And coffee.’

‘Just spring water for me, please, Charlie, I’m afraid I don’t have very long. I’m sorry.’

She and Lol were due to meet at the Deliverance office in the gatehouse at five. Lol had said he had things to tell her, but neither of them had wanted to hang around Knight’s Frome. It was a blessing, in Merrily’s view, that someone like Lol had been there, seen the way it had gone, the two faces of Gerard Stock.

‘We better get down to it, then,’ Charlie said. ‘Brother Shelbone.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘Not wrong about that one, were you, Merrily? As for the little lass…’

‘Little lass?’

He looked pained. ‘Give me some credit, girl. This suicidal Shelbone child and that kiddie getting messages from her dear dead mother, courtesy of Allan Henry’s stepdaughter – one and the same, or what?’

‘You never retired at all, did you?’

‘I tell you, my sweet,’ said Charlie Howe, ‘the longer you live in this little county, the more you wonder how anybody manages to keep anything a secret. There are connections a-crisscrossing here that you will not believe.’

‘Really?’

‘She was very lucky, mind – the child. The version I heard, the mother only found out because she’d got a headache herself, and saw the aspirins were down to about three in the bottom of the jar. Another half-hour and your colleague over in Dilwyn would’ve had a very sad funeral.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘No cry for help, this one. Kiddie must’ve been messed up big-time. You were dead right, and Brother Morrell was dead wrong, out of touch.’

‘He didn’t know the full circumstances.’

‘Nor wanted to, Merrily, nor wanted to. I tell you another thing – nobody who was at the Christmas Fair’s likely to forget that girl of Allan Henry’s. Jesus Christ, no…’ He looked suddenly appalled. ‘Oh, I am sorry. Easy to forget what you do, Reverend, when you’re out of uniform.’

‘Doesn’t offend me, Charlie, long as it’s not gratuitous. Keeps His name in circulation.’

Charlie Howe raised both eyebrows. The scones arrived. ‘Put plenty of jam on,’ Charlie said. ‘You’ll be needing the blood sugar.’

Then on to David Shelbone. ‘Got to admire him, really,’ Charlie said. ‘Sticks his neck out for what he believes. You know anything about listed buildings?’

‘I live in one.’

‘So you do.’

‘Frozen in the year 1576. I pray we never get an inspection, because my daughter’s created what she calls The Mondrian Walls in her attic… all the squares of nice white plaster and whatever between the beams are now