The Cure of Souls

right, forget it.’

She had a vague idea where the farm was because Kirsty and her sister had thrown this barn-rave for Kirsty’s sixteenth, about a year ago, and these little maps had been given out. Despite her old friend Dr Samedi doing the music, Jane hadn’t gone along in the end because… well, because of a nobody-to-go-with kind of short- term situation, if you wanted the truth. But she remembered the name of the farm.

‘The Bluff?’ Eirion said. ‘Is this an omen?’

He was taking it very slowly because this was, after all, Gwennan’s car, and they were into rough tracks now. He’d left a terse but nervous message on his dad’s answering machine, explaining about the car. All Jane knew was that it was terse and nervous, because it was also in Welsh.

‘I could’ve sworn this was right.’ She was sitting up, peering from side to side: fields full of hay like big rolls of butter, a distant church steeple that could be Weobley. The Bluff implied high ground, but this was all fairly flat.

It was getting very hot; she wished she’d worn shorts.

‘You didn’t say you’d never actually been here,’ Eirion said crossly, the BMW lurching on a baked rut. ‘And you don’t know she’s going to be there when we find it. In fact, you haven’t really thought this out, have you?’

‘I’m an emotional, volatile, charged kind of person, Irene. When I see what has to be done, I just go for it. I thought that was one of the things you—’

‘Don’t push it,’ Eirion growled.

‘All right,’ Jane said. ‘I’d have rung her, if I’d thought about it. But anyway, I always think the element of surprise works best, don’t you?’ She looked over the back of the seat, through the rear window. ‘You know this… this has got to be right, Eirion. If Weobley’s over there and Sarnesfield’s back there—’ She pointed across the field. ‘OK, look, there’s a guy on a tractor. Why don’t we just ask him? Just like drive across, you’re OK.’

‘I can’t just drive across his field!’

‘Course you can, he’s already done this bit.’

Eirion changed down; the BMW chugged across the spiky surface of the mown meadow. When they got to within about ten yards of the tractor, the big machine stopped and the driver was jumping down, walking slowly towards them. The driver wore a red shirt and jeans and a dark blue baseball cap with Ford across the front.

The car couldn’t go any further; they were into this rolling sea of cut hay. There was another guy messing about with whatever you called the piece of machinery the tractor was pulling. He looked up. Both of them looked sweaty and knackered. Eirion wound down the window and hot, urban music came in, along with the industrial juddering of the tractor.

‘Sorry to bother you—’

The driver whipped off the cap, uncovering short red spiky hair and unshadowing a face that was, despite its deepening tan, not a happy face.

‘Right, mate – deal. You show me the sign that says “picnic site” and I won’t ram you into the bloody ditch.’

‘Oh.’ Jane leaned across Eirion to the open window.

The tractor driver peered past Eirion at Jane.

‘Er… hi,’ Jane said. ‘Hi, Kirsty. You got a couple of minutes?’

Kirsty Ryan wiped the sweat from her nose with the back of a hand, and a clinking of the outsize nose-rings not allowed in school. She looked butch and she looked sullen. She also looked like she knew exactly what this was going to be about.

‘Piss off, Watkins,’ Kirsty said. ‘We got nothing to say to each other.’

‘Element of surprise,’ Eirion murmured. ‘Yes, that always works best.’

31 Little Taps

DAVID SHELBONE DIDN’T look well. There was something static about one side of his long face, as though he’d had a stroke.

‘No, I’m all right, quite all right,’ he’d kept saying to Sophie, as she offered him more tea, a paracetamol. ‘I’ve always suffered from migraines; this is nothing.’

Merrily didn’t like to stare, but she wondered if perhaps he had only one eye. He was not what she’d imagined. Charlie Howe had led her to expect some stern prophet type, wielding the banner of Christ and the Law of Listed Buildings. But David Shelbone had a diffident, faraway look, like some ageing poet weary of words.

Sophie had read something in his manner. Announcing that she had some papers to collect from the Bishop’s Palace, she left them alone. Merrily led Mr Shelbone into the little Deliverance office. A few weeks ago, she’d turned the desk around, so she now had her back to the Palace yard and was facing the door – a feng shui arrangement, recommended by Jane. She had to admit it did feel better-oriented; she felt more in control. Even this morning.

‘I owe you an apology.’ David Shelbone didn’t have a local accent like his wife; there was something vaguely northern about it, and his voice was flat but thin, like card. ‘When Amy came home from hospital, we had a talk. She told us your daughter was not one of the organizers of this spiritualist circle, that she in fact only attended once and was virtually dragged into it.’

Merrily nodded. ‘That’s my understanding, too.’

‘Amy said it had been on her conscience. She felt pressured – not so much by you as… Anyway, I’m very sorry. There was, I’m afraid, some overreaction.’

‘That was understandable.’

‘We were going to write to you, to apologize.’

‘No need. How is she? It must’ve been—’

‘It could have been a lot worse. We thought there’d have to be a stomach pump, but fortunately she was very sick in the ambulance. Anyway, I rang Canon Beckett last night, and he said I should talk to you, although he wasn’t sure whether or not you’d gone on holiday yet. Failing that, he thought I should go to the police. But we’d rather keep the authorities out of this. She’s our only child, you see, the only child we’ll ever have now.’

Police? ‘Erm… Sophie said your wife and Amy had gone away somewhere, because you were afraid Social Services might—I mean, can they do that? Can they take her away, if she’s been formally adopted?’

‘It’s complicated, I’m afraid, Mrs Watkins, but broadly, yes, they can take away any child they might consider to be in danger.’

Merrily thought of all the battered wives, abused children in unstable homes. She didn’t understand.

Mr Shelbone coughed nervously. ‘Also, you see, I’m… This is going to sound ridiculous.’ There was a patch of white stubble on his neck, a grease spot on the collar of his faded grey shirt.

‘Which is what most people say when they come here,’ Merrily told him.

‘Normally, I abhor talk of victimization… vendettas.’

She said carefully, ‘We are talking about Amy here? We’re talking about school?’

‘Er… not entirely.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Or at least, we… we’re probably also talking about me.’

‘I see. I think I see.’

‘Do you?’

‘Possibly. I happened to be talking to one of the councillors.’

His eyes flickered: a hunted look. ‘Which one?’

‘Well, I don’t think I’d better…’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course not.’ His breathing had quickened.

‘But someone who I think you could say is neutral on the issue of the Barnchurch development,’ Merrily said.

He blinked hard then looked almost relieved, closed his eyes for a moment. The wall clock clicked on 11.55,