The Cure of Souls

‘I can imagine.’

‘We thought you might like to talk. Now… or tomorrow morning? There’s quite a lot to—’

‘No, there isn’t,’ Simon St John said curtly. ‘It’s over. Let the police sort it out.’

‘Hang on, how can you—?’

‘It’s over, Lol.’

The vicar hung up on him.

The old pine door of Lol’s loft opened on to a rickety wooden gallery directly above the mixing board, overlooking the studio floor – moonlight now falling through the skylight on to snaking cables and the Boswell guitar on her stand.

It must have been after three a.m. when he came out and stood there, leaning on the basically unsafe rustic railing. Times like this when you smoked a cigarette. Maybe he should start, if only to get through the nights.

He’d just dreamed of the Lady of the Bines again, weaving and rustling towards him, and this time she was a ghost and she came in a shroud of cold, and her eyes were like smoke, and Lol had shuddered awake.

He stood on the gallery – the minstrel’s gallery, Prof called it – and thought about Merrily, lying no more than forty feet away, thought about how close he’d come to kissing her. Clearly it just wasn’t meant; as she’d pointed out herself, only weird cats jumped into his lap.

And although he thought about her every day, only negative circumstances had ever brought them together, and even then… He was aware that tonight they’d attempted to analyse his experiences but hadn’t even touched on hers: whatever had happened to her in the kiln, whatever it was that had made her appear to choke, sent her dashing around the place flinging open doors.

It’s over, Simon St John had said. Was it?

Was Gerard Stock lying awake in his cell at Hereford Police Station, going back over the day, screening the movie? Lol tried to see that movie – Stock, still angry after showing Merrily the door, walking in on Stephie… Don’t say no to me… Predatory Stephie. Gerard Stock imploding, like an old radio blowing all its valves.

It struck Lol that Stock could still virtually walk away from this. Only in exceptional circumstances these days did the perpetrators of hot-blooded domestic murders get life. A domestic killing was a one-off, the killer no danger to the public. In this case, the killer had been under massive stress, heightened by an exorcism that hadn’t worked.

It could, in the end, be Merrily who came off worst. A career wrecked. More than a career, a calling.

It’s over.

In the hour before dawn – the only way to cool the fever of his thoughts – Lol wrote a song and, as the sun came up, sat in the shadows of the booth with the Boswell guitar and played it through, complete.

It even had a title: ‘The Cure of Souls’.

27 Scalding

AS SHE OPENED her eyes, a shaft of sunlight from the one small window threw her back into the kiln-house. She tasted sulphur, heard the shrill, cold calling: beep… beep… beep… beep… invoking dead Stephie, racked with laughter. I think you’d better answer that, vicar. It might be God!

She clawed around the bare boards for the mobile. ‘Yes?’

‘Merrily?’

‘Sophie…’ She sat up in the bed – no headboard: stone and rough plaster against her back and shoulders, dungeon-like. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in the office, of course. Are you alone?’

‘I’m in bed. Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m alone.’

‘I have the morning papers here.’

‘Oh. Do I want to know this?’

‘Gerard Stock was charged last night with the murder of Stephanie Stock.’

Merrily closed her eyes.

‘I think that for you we can take that as a…’ Sophie hesitated. ‘I was about to say reprieve.’

‘Think the phrase is “stay of execution”.’ Merrily fumbled for her cigarettes. ‘What do they actually say?’

‘It’s made page one in the Mail and the Telegraph. All the reports identify the Stocks as people who complained that their home was haunted, and how it was the site of the murder of Stewart Ash. Nowhere, I’m relieved to say, is there any mention of an exorcism taking place, although the Telegraph reminds us you’d voiced an intention of looking into the problem. I would think that they’ve said all they consider themselves allowed to say until after the trial.’

‘Which, since he’s confessed, may be not too many months away.’

Sophie said calmly, ‘Has he?’

‘What?’

‘Confessed.’

‘He was the one who called the police.’ Merrily tried to grip a cigarette between lips that felt slack and rubbery.

‘But you don’t know if he’s made a formal statement, do you?’ Sophie said. ‘We may not even find out. He’ll probably be shipped off to a remand centre, if he hasn’t gone already.’

‘Well… it means I’m back in circulation, at least.’ Merrily looked around the tiny monk’s cell and felt a small pang of regret. Safe haven. Sanctuary. ‘For the present.’

‘Ah,’ Sophie said. ‘About that. I’ve… spoken briefly to the Bishop at his hotel in Gloucester. He feels, as I do, that – since we’ve already told several people that you’re away on holiday – perhaps it would be best if you were to remain away. For a week, at least.’

‘What about the parish?’

‘That’s all been arranged. A locum’s been organized for the Sunday services, if you agree. It’s the ubiquitous Canon Beckett, I’m afraid. Jeffrey Kimball’s back in Dilwyn tomorrow, so the Canon’s available again.’

‘Oh.’

‘I imagine DCI Howe will need to talk to you again, but I wouldn’t make the first move there if I were you. I’d keep your head well down.’

‘What’s Bernie’s attitude?’

‘Guarded,’ Sophie said.

‘That’s a useful word.’

‘And there’s something else. Someone else wants to see you. I pass this on now, but I’ve also told him you’re going away.’

‘Who?’

‘Mr Shelbone. David Shelbone. Perhaps you could talk to him on the phone, if you must.’

‘Something’s happened?’ Merrily swung her feet to the bare boards.

‘Well, it seems Mrs Shelbone’s done something rather drastic.’

‘Oh, Jesus…’ The unlit cigarette fell from her lips.

‘Nothing like that,’ Sophie said hastily. ‘What’s happened is that she’s apparently left home and taken the child with her. Convinced – he claims – that, in the wake of her attempted suicide, Social Services will try and take Amy away from them and put her into care. Mr Shelbone reckons there’s a story going round that he and his wife are religious extremists and the child may be psychologically dam—’

‘Does he know where they are?’

‘If he does, he isn’t saying.’

‘Sophie, I need to talk to him.’ A couple of days ago this would have seemed like a serious breakthrough, and