‘Jane, we’re all—’ Eirion picked up his trainers and ran barefoot along the sand towards her. ‘We’re all braver after the event. She’s not going to hold it against you. You think she doesn’t understand how hard it is? You think she was never in that position herself, of having to keep her street cred at school?’
‘Huh?’
‘Plus, she’s your mother. Plus, she’s a – you know – a Christian. And also a very nice woman.’
Jane stared at him in pity. ‘Irene, did I even mention my mother?’
‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ Eirion said. ‘I’m a stranger on your planet.’
‘OK.’ She stopped. ‘This evening, when I went up to change before we went to see the film, I pinched the cordless from the sitting room – leaving three quid in the dinky little box marked ffon, I hasten to add – and I locked myself in the bathroom and found the number from directories, and I tried to ring Amy Shelbone.’
‘Ah.’ He sighed. ‘I did wonder if you might.’
‘She’d fitted me up, Irene. She’d lied. She was supposed to either put that right or give me a bloody good reason why not. She wouldn’t talk to Mum but she’d have to talk to me. Also, I was gonna tell her what a disgusting old slag Riddock was and how she should tell her to piss off out of her life. Try and put her right, you know?’
‘All right.’ She felt Eirion’s hand close around hers. ‘That was a reasonable thing to do, but why’d you have to be so secretive about it?’
‘Wasn’t anything to do with anybody else.’
‘Thanks.’ Eirion had trodden on an old bottle in the sand, and let go of her hand to rub his bare foot.
‘I didn’t mean you. I’m sorry, I’m a bitch, I’m a bitch, I’m a bitch… Anyway, she wasn’t in. I got her mother, and I said like, when will she be in? I didn’t say it was me, of course, just a friend from school. But then her mother, she’s just like… screaming at me: “Don’t you go claiming to be one of her friends, she hasn’t got any friends, just enemies.” And then she goes, “You’re evil, you’re all evil! But you won’t hurt her again, she’s not going back to that school.” And I’m like… what? Gobsmacked, obviously. I mean, come on, let’s get this thing in proportion, you know? Oh, for Christ’s sake, Irene, put your bloody shoes on!’
She walked up a couple of steps, where the beach joined the stony path, and waited for him to pull on his trainers. She could see a light far out in the bay. This was such a romantic place.
‘And then it came out,’ she said. ‘ “As if you didn’t know,” she’s screaming. ‘ “As if you didn’t know, you Godless wretch!” ’
‘Know what?’ He reached for her hand.
‘Amy tried to top herself.’ Jane pulled away. ‘Overdose of aspirins.’
‘Oh, dear God,’ said Eirion.
‘Yeah.’ Jane picked up a big pebble, pulled back her arm as if to hurl it at the sea, then let it drop by her feet. ‘Could you live with that?’
Eirion said, ‘It doesn’t mean—’
‘It does, Irene.’
‘It’ll all come out now, though, won’t it? There’ll be an investigation.’
‘You reckon?’
‘Probably.’
‘Proving what? Gonna nail Riddock, are they? Not a chance. Her old man – her mother’s husband – is one of the fattest fat cats in the entire county. It’ll never come out, unless…’
‘Oh, shit,’ Eirion said.
Jane glared at him. ‘How do we know there aren’t other kids being terrorized? I think it was actually you who said the other night that when you’re nine, an eleven-year-old could seem like Charles Manston.’
‘Manson.’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ hissed Eirion through his teeth.
‘What kind of holiday do you think I’m gonna have, dangling my toes in the ocean, listening to Sioned trying to teach me the complete works of Taliesyn and all the time thinking about the evil that slag’s wreaking?’
‘And what could you do if you were back home?’
‘Loads of things. I could speak out about it for a start. I know this woman, Bella, at Radio Hereford and Worcester. I could go on there live and talk about it and I could just like name names before anyone could stop me.’
‘They’d pre-record you,’ Eirion said. ‘And then they’d edit out the names.’
‘I could do something. I could get that slag. I will get her.’
They both stood looking at the light out at sea, Jane thinking, What a magic night, what a magic place to make love. What an incredible memory to have for the rest of your life.
Too late now. It was all soured.
26
Cats
LOL WOULD KEEP pausing, glancing at her to see if she believed him. As if she might be thinking he’d invented these two bizarre, creepy and sexually provocative encounters with Stephanie Stock, both of them ending with him walking away. But this, in fact, confirmed it: walk away was what Lol would do.
Of course she believed him. But what was it all supposed to convey, apart from that Stephanie had been as mad as Gerard?
As she followed Lol across the yard, a sensor switched on two lamps projecting from the stable wall, revealing the cottage in front of them. She could see it had originally been quite small, a typical Herefordshire farmworker’s timber-framed home: two up, two down and a lean-to. There was a brick extension, probably nineteenth century, longer and taller than the original dwelling.
‘Just the four bedrooms at present.’ Lol had a long key for the cracked and ill-fitting front door. ‘But there’s scope for conversion of a few more outbuildings, if Prof can get listed-building consent.’
Merrily thought that with David Shelbone around this could turn out to be more of a problem than Prof might figure.
Unexpectedly, she discovered she was starting to feel less depressed. It was clear that the case of Gerard and Stephanie Stock had several dark and, as yet, unprobed levels, was more complex than either the police or even she had imagined and went deeper than a violent rage inflamed by a botched Deliverance.
If she could be convinced of this, it was a start. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself – as an exorcist, a priest or a person – if she thought anything she’d done had led, however indirectly, to the slaughter of Stephanie Stock.
‘It’s a nice idea, in principle,’ Lol was saying. ‘Musicians can come and stay, no real time limit, and help out generally around the place when they’re not recording. Van Morrison on orbital sander – that’s yet to happen, but people will do all kinds of things for Prof.’ He pushed open the front door and put a hand inside, feeling around for light switches. ‘This is the living room. It’s still a bit, er…’
Merrily stepped inside, looking around by the harsh light of two naked bulbs. She saw several wooden packing cases, a bubblewrap mountain, an inglenook full of CDs, a TV set on a tea chest, two deckchairs and one padded garden recliner in the middle of an ice floe of polystyrene packing.
‘Lol, this is a dump.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s, er… that’s one way of—’
‘It’s the only way, Lol.’
‘The bedrooms are tidier,’ Lol said.
Which was true. Merrily chose the smallest of them, which contained just a tiny porcelain washbasin, a rag rug and a bed. It was in the old part of the cottage but had recently been done up – fresh plaster between the beams. The three-quarter bed had no headboard, but there was a new duvet lying on it, still in sealed plastic.