Merrily recalled Hazel Shelbone’s reaction to the suggestion that some kind of psychiatric assessment would be needed as a preliminary to exorcism.
‘What did you tell her when she asked you about her real parents?’
‘We told her we understood there’d been an accident – and she never questioned that. We always accepted that there may come a time when we’d have to tell her the real truth, but not until she was old enough to deal with it.’
‘So when, after years of going happily to church, she suddenly knocked the chalice out of Canon Beckett’s hands and—’
‘It all ended at the altar, you see,’ David Shelbone said. ‘That’s the point. That was what frightened us the most.’
No one knew exactly how it had ended. Wayne Jukes had presumably either decided or been told that it would help his defence if he was unable to remember anything after emerging from behind the curtain to find the baby sitting on the font and his wife crouched, snarling – the Kitchen Devil glinting in the feeble light, swishing the air.
Less than half an hour later, police – summoned by neighbours who had been afraid even to go in – found the threadbare chancel carpet already slippery with blood, Wayne standing in the aisle, with his face opened up from eye to chin, Justine vomiting blood over the altar rail.
Amy sitting on the altar itself, laughing.
‘Justine had stab wounds to the lungs, throat and stomach,’ David Shelbone said. ‘She died in the ambulance.’
The trail of blood apparently suggested that Justine had first slashed Wayne and then picked up the child and run to the chancel, the trail of blood along the aisle showing how Wayne had blundered after her.
‘She’d put Amy on the altar and then either she’d put down the knife in horror at what she’d done, and he picked it up and attacked her with it… or he overpowered her, and in the struggle—’
‘What happened to Wayne?’
‘I gather he’s out of prison now,’ David Shelbone said without emotion. ‘Doing youth work in Bristol.’
Merrily felt faintly sick, thinking not about Justine Jukes but Stephanie Stock and Gerard with the wild poppies on his shirt. Domestics: the most common kind of murder.
‘Why didn’t Hazel tell me about this at the very beginnning?’
‘We’d never told anyone – anyone. Besides, Hazel and I both fervently believed that the way out of this was through Christ. Her mother died in church, so Amy had some sort of flashback – again in church.’
‘So Hazel never really believed that Amy was possessed by Justine?’
‘It didn’t matter,’ David Shelbone insisted. ‘She was possessed by the past. If the memories could be reawakened by these foul experiments then they could be exorcised by Christ. We have old-fashioned values, Mrs Watkins. Today we’d probably never be accepted as foster-parents.’
‘When did she go missing?’
‘She wasn’t there when we got up this morning. That was a terrible shock. Her bed hadn’t been slept in. Her mobile phone was gone. We’ve tried ringing it, but it’s always switched off.’
‘And you think she’s somehow made her way to the Black Country. Does the church still exist?’
‘Oh yes. And also… we searched her room. Something we’ve never done before. We found an old road atlas of mine under the bed. The area was ringed. Hazel set off for there about three hours ago.’
‘How much money has Amy got?’
‘There was five hundred pounds of her money in the account. She can draw two hundred a day from a machine.’
‘And what do you think Amy might do there?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t a clue what they’d do.’
‘They?’
‘I doubt she’s on her own. That’s one reason I wanted to talk to you. Your daughter would know who the other girls were, wouldn’t she?’
‘Didn’t you ask Amy herself?’
‘She wouldn’t tell us… except for naming your daughter. This was when Mr Beckett—We asked her again, later, as I was ready to go to see the headmaster, but she insisted it was all over.’
‘She told you that?’
‘I honestly believe she thought it was over. And it was clear that if we tried to take it further she’d throw a tantrum. She once said if we attempted to find out, she’d—Mrs Watkins, you have to understand this is not the way she normally behaves. It’s clear, looking back, that she’s under someone else’s influence. And I rather doubt we’re talking about her dead mother.’
So he actually didn’t know yet about Layla Riddock? He didn’t have the information to make this other, very meaningful connection with Allan Henry?
And how, in his present state, would he react if she told him about it? Merrily wasn’t prepared to put it to the test.
‘Erm… my daughter’s on holiday with her boyfriend’s family. I’ll try and get hold of her, OK? I don’t know how long it’ll take, but if I find out anything I’ll… I’ll get back to you at your office. And if Hazel finds her—’
‘I’ll get straight back to you, of course,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Mrs Watkins. Thank you.’ He stood up. ‘There is one more thing. If Hazel finds Amy and brings her back, I don’t think it’ll be safe for her to come home. I wondered if the Church had any place of – of sanctuary, I suppose, somewhere you could recommend as safe for both of them. I mean Hazel as well. I’m sorry to put this on you.’
Merrily stood up too. ‘If you think it’s necessary, we’ll find somewhere. Until all this is sorted out. Even if it’s in my vicarage.’
She smiled.
This was all she needed right now.
‘I’ll help you all I can,’ she said. ‘But if Hazel doesn’t find her by tonight, I really think you should go to the police.’
When Sophie returned, Merrily laid the whole story on her, including the information she’d had from Charlie Howe at the Green Dragon, before Andy Mumford’s arrival had rearranged everyone’s priorities.
Sophie’s eyebrows rose several times.
‘What was I supposed to do?’ Merrily asked her. ‘Do you think I should’ve warned him about Layla Riddock?’
Sophie thought about it, hands clasped on the desk.
‘That would be giving him a target,’ she said at last. ‘Not good. Especially if the target’s Allan Henry.’
‘What do you know about him, Sophie?’
‘I know that he isn’t what one might call a Friend of the Earth, particularly the Herefordshire earth. He began by buying small derelict properties in villages and hamlets – a petrol station that went out of business, that sort of thing – demolishing them and developing the sites. And then somehow those sites would start to expand into adjacent fields. His own thoroughly tasteless dwelling began that way. He gets away with things. Luck of the Devil, as it were.’
‘Charlie Howe said that.’
‘And there’s a man who’d recognize it,’ Sophie said darkly. ‘However, you have no proof whatsoever of any connection between this girl’s evident persecution of Amy Shelbone and her stepfather’s grudge against David Shelbone. No, I think you did absolutely the right thing in not telling him – at this stage, at least. I think you have enough to worry about, without having an already distressed individual behaving in a probably irrational fashion because—’
‘Because of something I did.’ Merrily sighed.
Sophie glared at her. ‘I certainly intended no parallel with the Stock business.’
‘But what if Amy Shelbone is out there with Layla Riddock? This is a girl even Jane is scared of.’