The Cure of Souls

maybe you consult the tree spirit first to make sure it’s OK to take the wood?’

Al pointed a long forefinger. ‘And I’ll tell you something else, Lol, boy – if you ever bring that instrument back, you’ll be insulting those spirits… have you thought of that?’ He flung back his head and laughed. Directly above the table, Merrily was aware of the full moon, the colour of custard cream. It seemed warmer than the day had been, as if the moon was putting out its own heat.

She said carefully, ‘So a gypsy who was attempting to arouse the dead, for whatever reason—’

Sally said, ‘You know of a gypsy doing this?’

‘I know of somebody trying to do it. Somebody claiming to have a gypsy father.’

‘A poshrat?’ Al Boswell asked.

‘Sounds vaguely appropriate.’

‘Half-breed. Is this the same person seeking wealth?’

‘Seeking even more wealth would be more accurate. And ensuring his wealth involves damaging another person. A family, in fact.’

‘Have nothing to do with this person,’ Al said. ‘Erm… it’s my job, Mr Boswell.’

His face was blank in the milky moon and candlelight. ‘What, at the end of it all, is so important about a bloody job?’

‘It’s a gaujo thing,’ Lol said.

‘Black magic,’ Al said flatly. ‘Raising the dead to damage another person or acquire wealth – that’s the black arts. And also, let me tell you, it’s far too stupid a thing for a traditional Romany ever to go near.’

‘There are no evil Romanies?’ Lol said.

‘You don’t understand, boy. Romanies respect, sometimes consult the ancestors. But they let the dead lie. Most of us don’t even like to touch a body after death. This is about fear.’ He leaned towards Merrily and into the candlelight, as if he was concerned that she should see how agitated he was. ‘Listen to me, drukerimaskri, I want to tell you – and this also concerns the other thing, the thing in the kiln – I want to say to you, don’t ever trust the dead.’

In Merrily’s bag – she jumped – her phone began to shrill, just like it had in the Stocks’ bedroom when she could have sworn it was switched off. She didn’t touch the bag. ‘Go on,’ she said to Al.

The phone went on bleeping – Al glancing nervously at the bag, as if this might be a spirit coming through.

‘I’ll get it if you like,’ Lol said. Merrily nodded gratefully, dug in the bag and pulled out the phone, handed it to him. Lol took it over to the boundary fence.

‘We have a word,’ Al said, and he whispered it. ‘Mulo. This is the Romany word for a ghost. The same word… this word is also used for a vampire: the living dead.’

Sally Boswell was silently observing her husband’s melodramatics with a faintly sardonic expression, but her skin looked whiter than the moon.

‘The point being, I think, that we don’t see that much of a difference,’ Al said.

Merrily didn’t know how to react to this. Was she supposed to say something inane about not all ghosts sucking your blood? The moon picked out a circle of pink, as perfect as a tonsure, on the crown of Al’s white head.

‘This is our dead I’m talking about. We don’t worry about your dead – we’ll settle down to sleep in your cemeteries any night of the week. We believe that the Romany dead… we believe they don’t come back for no reason. And they’ll leech off you. They’ll steal your life-energy. They’ll keep on taking it until you’re a cored and cancerous husk. We are very afraid, drukerimaskri, of the vengeful power of our dead.’

She didn’t really know what he meant. She didn’t understand what he was saying to her.

Lol came and sat down again, but said nothing. Nervously, Merrily drank some more of the nettles and hops. The night was suddenly swollen with tension.

‘Whatever it is,’ Sally said to Lol, ‘you’d better tell her. We’ll go away and leave you.’

‘No, it’s OK. It’s no big secret.’ Lol handed the phone across the table to Merrily. ‘It was Sophie. The police are trying to get hold of you.’

Merrily drew a fearful breath. She was thinking of Amy Shelbone… David Shelbone not answering his phone.

‘There’s been an incident at the remand centre in Shrewsbury where Gerard Stock was taken. He, um—’ Lol cleared his throat. ‘Stock’s hanged himself.’

35 Left to Hang

THE TURNED HAY was a rich confection, baking under the moon. Merrily stood on the hard mud track that bisected the meadow below Prof’s place, the mobile damp against her ear, a cigarette in her other hand.

The air was so very still and DCI Annie Howe’s voice so crisp and distinct and authoritative, it was like the news was being broadcast to the whole valley.

‘Easier for them to do it in remand centre,’ she explained, as if she was talking about laundry or something. ‘Fewer personal restrictions there. As they haven’t been convicted of anything, they’re not forced to wear prison clothing.’

The full moon, Merrily was thinking, outraged. She and Lol had walked all the way back from the Boswell hop museum before she’d felt able to make the call to Hereford police. Why the hell don’t they watch them more carefully under a full moon?

‘Unfortunately, it’s not too infrequent an occurrence,’ Annie Howe said. ‘There’s more of an element of loneliness and despair among remand prisoners. But a man of Stock’s apparent intellect and resilience – I have to say I wouldn’t have expected it from him, and I do wonder what pushed him over the edge. Did he suddenly realize he enormity of what he’d done? Was it remorse? Or had something… perhaps altered his state of mind?’ Meaningful pause. ‘What do you think, Ms Watkins?’

Merrily thought about the court scenario Lol and she had built from what they knew of the mind of Gerard Stock. She didn’t like Howe’s innuendo, but she let it go.

‘How did he do it?’

‘With his shirt,’ Annie Howe said. ‘The shirt was torn and soaked – he’d urinated on it and rolled it up tight.’

‘Not a cry for help, then,’ Merrily said dully.

His white shirt. White for innocence. White for the side of the angels. Out in the endless darkness, Gerard Stock’s heavy body was revolving slowly, his feet inches from the floor. Don’t really know what the fuck you’re doing, do you? You’re a waste of time. Geddout. Stock revolving slowly for ever: an obscene enigma.

‘I do feel obliged to warn you,’ Howe said, ‘that all legal barriers must now be considered down. No impending court case any more, only inquests. No one’s freedom’s at stake, so the gates are wide open. The media can go in now, with all its fangs bared. You understand what I’m saying?’

Merrily said nothing. She imagined Howe in her half-lit office, relishing the moment.

‘It means they can exploit the exorcism angle to the full,’ Howe said. ‘They can print whatever they like. I can’t stop them.’

Even if you wanted to.

‘And it means, of course, that they’ll come after you, Ms Watkins. If they aren’t after you already.’

‘I expect you’ll give them a full description,’ Merrily said, ‘so they don’t miss me.’

Everything under the full moon was bright and sharply defined: the crisp ridges of hay, a line of graceful poplars, Lol – still and compact, standing looking down at his trainers.

‘I should get some sleep,’ Howe said. ‘It’s been a fairly stressful couple of days for you, I imagine.’