The Cure of Souls

‘Oh yeah. Very politely. I told her not to be silly. I told her that whatever she may have heard about the Rom, we have great respect for the dead but we don’t get involved with them on a personal level. I said – you know – like, run along.’

‘And that was the last you heard?’

Layla sighed, wrapped her kimono tighter in frustration. ‘Wish I could say it was. Next thing I hear that some other students – principally a girl called Kirsty Ryan – have taken Amy under their wing and they’re holding these kind of seance things, what d’you call them – where you lay out letters in a circle and have a glass upside down?

Merrily said nothing.

‘Anyway, I thought I’d better check it out. There’s a lot of this stuff about the school lately – little witchcrafty groups popping up. Awfully childish. I don’t like to see kids playing at it. If you have psychic skills, it’s your responsibility to develop them sensibly. If you haven’t got it… don’t mess with it. So, yeah, I found them in this shed on one of the fields and I…’ Layla paused and smiled. ‘I’m afraid I arranged a little surprise.’

Layla glanced around. Holding court, now. A dominant kind of girl, Robert Morrell had said. Perhaps the kind of girl where all the teaching staff, both sexes, would be relieved when she left school.

It was hard to believe this woman was only about a year older than Jane.

It was also hard to believe she’d want to waste time on a little girl like Amy Shelbone.

‘What did you do, Layla?’ Allan Henry was taking a back seat, playing the feed, the straight man – and proud to do it, Merrily thought.

Which was interesting in itself.

‘I grassed them up,’ Layla said smugly. ‘I discreetly tipped off one of the staff. And there was a raid.’

‘Caught them at it?’ Allan Henry said.

Layla put up both her hands. ‘Absolutely nothing to do with me!’ She wore five rings, all gold.

Everyone was quiet. It was not so difficult to believe that Layla Riddock would consider her natural peers to be found among the staff rather than the pupils.

Allan Henry glanced at Merrily and Sophie in turn again. He was smiling gently.

Very mature for her age.

‘Good for you,’ Merrily said hoarsely to Layla, and the schoolgirl smiled at her, too, the tip of her tongue childishly touching a corner of her mouth. But her eyes were cold with malice. Merrily felt sure it was malice.

You can’t touch us, the smile said. You can’t get near us.

Neither of them said a word until they were in the lane, heading back towards Canon Pyon. Merrily was expecting a hard time. Stay away, Sophie had advised back in the office. What would be the point? And then, in the car, If I were you, I wouldn’t get out.

When had Sophie ever not been right?

She was looking at her most severe, sitting stiffly, eyes on the road, both hands positioned precisely on the wheel, like she was taking her driving test. Merrily sat with her bag on her knees, a hand inside playing with the cigarettes. She couldn’t keep the hand still.

‘I’m sorry, Sophie.’

Sophie said nothing, but you could almost hear her thoughts ricocheting like pellets from the upholstery and the windscreen and the dash.

‘It was a very bad idea,’ Merrily said. ‘I should not have dragged you into it.’ She’d crushed a cigarette, strands of tobacco teased between fingers and thumb. ‘I don’t know how he’ll get back at us, but he will. I was useless in there. I let him walk all over us. A corrupt developer, a crook, and I let him… let them both walk all over us.’

Sophie turned right, towards Hereford, and the car speeded up. A mile or so along the road, she said mildly, ‘They’re an item, aren’t they, those two?’

The sky was flawless, the blue deepening. Across the edge of the city, you could see all the way to the hooked nose of The Skirrid, the holy mountain above Abergavenny.

Merrily closed her bag on the tobacco mess. ‘I’m glad you said it first.’

‘Is Sandra really away on a cruise, I wonder?’

‘Maybe she’s buried in the garden. He can do anything, can’t he? He’s got everybody in his pocket, and now he’s sleeping with his stepdaughter!’ Merrily was momentarily horrified at how high her voice had risen.

‘He might sail close to the wind,’ Sophie said, ‘but he’s not stupid. I expect Sandra is on a cruise. Quite a long cruise.’

‘So you think she knows?’

‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘I wonder how long it’s been going on.’

‘A more interesting question is, which of them initiated it?’ Sophie said.

A very lucky man, Charlie Howe had observed. Things’ve fallen his way.

And people have fallen out of his way.

Sophie said, ‘The girl was lying rather cleverly, wasn’t she?’

‘Beautifully. Forget about the trinkets, that’s probably the best evidence of genuine Romany ancestry.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘They’re supposed to consider it an art form.’

‘Lying?’

‘Mmm.’

‘And what else do you know about them?’

‘Not enough. Not yet, anyway.’

‘Well, forget about it for tonight,’ Sophie said. ‘Get a good night’s sleep. If Inspector Howe or anyone else rings wanting to speak to you, I’ll put them off.’

‘No, put them through.’

‘You’re getting personally involved. That’s not helpful to anyone.’

‘I am personally involved. And now there’s a child missing.’

Only two, three years between Amy Shelbone and Layla Riddock, but one was a child and one was a woman. Merrily folded her hands in her lap, couldn’t keep them still. A teenage girl had done this to her. She closed her eyes, breathed in.

‘Sophie,’ she said. ‘Could I possibly have a cigarette?’

34 The Cure of Souls

‘HA,’ HE SAID. ‘The drukerimaskri.’

He seemed to be dancing in the last of the dusk, will-o’-thewispish. The late evening was rich and close, the atmosphere laden with herbal scents. There was going to be a full moon.

Merrily said, ‘Drukeri—?’

‘—maskri. It’s a Romany term.’ Al Boswell’s white hair flurried as he did a little bow. She suspected he was mocking her.

A lantern hung from the bowed roof of the vardo, a thick candle inside it. On the grass in front of the wagon, a heavy wooden table was set up, with bentwood chairs. A shaggy donkey browsed nearby. In the distance, beyond the building housing the hop museum, glittered the tiered lights of Malvern.

Al Boswell presented himself in front of Lol, hands behind his back. ‘Where’s your guitar? Why didn’t you bring your guitar? We could have played for the moon.’

Lol told him Prof had insisted the guitar was a short-term loan. ‘Besides, it didn’t seem—’