The Cure of Souls

never a team player.’

‘Cursed her how?’ Jane asked. ‘This was probably before my time.’

‘It must’ve been before your time, because everybody knew about it. I dunno what she did. The evil eye, the bad words… grave-dirt in an envelope.’

‘What happened?’

‘Put it this way – within a few months it was confirmed she’d got multiple sclerosis. Not good for a gym teacher.’

‘That takes years to come on,’ Eirion pointed out. ‘She must have had it already.’

‘That was what we said,’ Kirsty said. ‘But it does makes you think, don’t it?’

It didn’t give Jane a good feeling. She stood up, too. ‘What did she do for Steve, to get him to lend her his shed?’

‘More what she didn’t do, if you ask me,’ Kirsty said enigmatically. ‘Like being considerate enough not to shrivel his genitals.’

‘But she’s still seeing Amy?’

‘Look, all I know is, when she rang me she said Amy was coming out to meet her at night. Like really at night – when her parents were in bed. She’d ring Amy on the little phone that Amy kept under the pillow, and Layla would say the word and Amy would be up and dressed and out the front door and Layla would pick her up at the bottom of the lane.’

‘Where would they go? I mean she’d need somewhere with a table, to lay all the letters out and—’

‘No way,’ Kirsty said scornfully. ‘That is history.’

‘What?’

‘That’s primitive stuff, now. They got well beyond the glass and the little bloody letters.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘You don’t wanner know, Jane.’ Kirsty started to walk away. She looked back over her beefy shoulder. ‘Or, more to the point, I don’t wanner know.’

33 Item

ALLAN HENRY’S SITTING room had one wall that was all plate glass, perhaps forty feet long. It had wide green views across to one of the conical, wooded humps known as Robin Hood’s Butts. Appropriately, according to legend, the Butts had been dumped there by the Devil, making him Hereford’s first sporadic developer.

‘And this is your…’ Allan Henry studied Sophie, evidently trying to decide whether she was mother or sister.

‘Secretary,’ Sophie said quickly and firmly. She and Merrily were at either end of a white leather four-seater sofa, one of two in the vast snowy room. Under their feet was a pale grey rug with an unusual design – a tree growing through the centre of a wheel.

Merrily didn’t recall ever seeing Sophie looking more agitated. Sophie wanted out of here. Sophie was Old Hereford to the core; to her this man was the Devil.

‘Vicars have secretaries now?’ Allan Henry said.

‘Sophie works for the Cathedral,’ Merrily told him.

‘And what do you do, Mrs Watkins? Specifically.’

‘Erm… official title: Deliverance Consultant. I’m afraid I don’t have a card or—’

‘Or a dog collar. So what is a—?’

‘It’s somebody who deals with problems of a paranormal nature,’ Merrily said, for once without embarrassment. ‘Used to be Diocesan Exorcist.’

His eyes widened. ‘They still do that?’

‘It’s never gone away, Mr Henry.’

‘Well…’ He leaned against the towering brick inglenook, long mirrors either side of it reflecting the greenery. ‘I’m now trying to think if I have a problem of a paranormal nature. Let’s see… when things go bump in the night, I can usually explain it. And although I often have people leeching off me, I wouldn’t call them vampires. Can I offer you both a glass of wine?’ He laughed. ‘That is, can I offer you each a glass of wine.’

‘Thank you, but I’m driving,’ Sophie said quickly.

‘And I’ll be driving in a short while,’ Merrily said.

‘Not even one glass?’

‘Not even one between us. Honestly, we don’t have very long. We’ve got a number of parents to see.’

‘Oh, parents, is it?’

His local accent had been planed down to a light burr. He was probably in his late forties. He had strong, lank hair, deep lines tracking down his tanned face from eyes to jaw. A modest beer-belly overhung his jeans, but you had the feeling it was being gradually ironed out.

‘So why did you want to see my wife rather than me?’

‘We didn’t think you’d be here,’ Merrily said. ‘We thought you’d probably be out somewhere building something.’

‘With my bare hands.’

‘We all have our fantasies,’ she said, and then realized there were two ways he could take that. Sophie frowned at her. Sophie was sending out the message: Get out now, make some excuse, this is a mistake.

Allan Henry laughed. He laughed, Merrily was noticing, with a confidence that was almost self-conscious. Maybe he’d had a lot of costly work done on his teeth, was determined to get his money’s worth. Otherwise, she sensed around him a kind of conserved energy. She could imagine him in board meetings, relaxed and expressionless and then jumping on someone without preamble, like a jungle cat. Laughing, maybe.

‘Rare afternoon off,’ he said. ‘You were lucky to catch me. And my wife’s away, as it happens. The only parent here is me. A parent from my first marriage, that is. The youngsters live in France now, so I don’t see them very often.’

‘Perhaps we’ll come back when your wife’s at home.’ Sophie half rose. ‘It’s nothing terribly pressing.’

‘Unless it’s about Layla, of course,’ he said.

‘She’s with her mother?’ Merrily asked him.

‘I hardly think so. Her mother’s on a cruise around the Azores, with her sister, who was recently widowed, poor woman. Thing is, I don’t think of Layla as a child any more. And she’s my wife’s daughter, not mine. This is about Layla, yes?’

As he leaned forward, a medallion on a black leather thong swung out from his bare chest. It was clearly made of gold. Engraved on it was the symbol of a wheel.

‘Yes,’ Merrily said. ‘It’s about Layla.’

Sophie sank back in her seat, with a leathery creak that sounded like a cry of pain.

Jane said, ‘I remember Mrs Etchinson now. It was at one of the prize-givings. She was in a wheelchair. A guest of honour. Everybody was making a fuss over her and she was smiling so much that you thought it must be hurting her, all that smiling. And somebody said she used to be a teacher and she had MS, and I remember thinking, God, she’s so young.’

She flopped back into the soft leather and felt for Eirion’s hand and squeezed hard, as if to make sure she still could.

They were parked on the grass outside a farm shop overlooking the Ledwardine valley, the sunlit steeple of her mother’s church poking out of the surrounding orchards like a terracotta rocket.

‘Listen, Jane… that’s how they get these reputations,’ Eirion said. ‘They utter a curse and then something like that happens, and everybody conveniently forgets how many curses have been laid on people who go on to have completely trouble-free—’