Mean Spirit

by Phil Rickman

  Until it came to rest on Cindy. Who froze.

  Whereupon Gary Seward’s face crinkled into the most carnivorous smile, with a wild glimmering of gold.

  All the breath went out of Cindy.

  He knew I was there. The whole time.

  Seward waited until the van began to move before waving gaily to Cindy and swinging smoothly, in his I can still do it way, into the passenger seat. The van went out through the gates and Cindy – shaken now, worried – returned to the castle kitchens to retrieve Malcolm from Vera.

  ‘… show you the rest of this mausoleum.’

  Except it wasn’t going to be the rest of it.

  His hands either side of Grayle’s waist, Kurt propelled her smoothly through a door into a low-lit room, where there was an electrical hum in the air and a small guy with glasses was messing around at what looked like a recording-studio mixing desk.

  ‘How goes it, Darren?’ Kurt asked breezily.

  The guy gave him a nonchalant thumbs-up and Grayle asked what was happening here, knowing he must be in charge of the special effects Cindy had mentioned. But Kurt just said, ‘Ambience’, and manoeuvred her across the room and out through an archway on the other side.

  ‘What’s through here?’ Grayle asked brightly, suppressing nerves.

  ‘The most interesting part,’ Kurt said.

  Then they were through another door, to the left, and going up a small, extremely dark, spiralling stone staircase – this place was a warren of stairs – and up and up, scores of stairs, twisting and twisting, Kurt just behind Grayle, and she could hear him flicking switches to put on lights ahead of them – tiny lights set deep into the stone – and, Jesus, for the first time you could really start to believe this was a purpose-built haunted house.

  And as she climbed, raincoat flapping, the backs of her legs starting to ache, she was thinking hard about what Kurt Campbell had just told her about the master-medium, Daniel Dunglas-Home, and Anthony Abblow, a man whom Cindy had seemed to compare with Kurt. The use of hypnosis to create or remove the illusion of psychic phenomena. Had Abblow done that? It didn’t matter.

  It didn’t freaking matter. It was now that mattered … and Abblow’s evident influence on Kurt Campbell.

  Grayle paused to get her breath, looking over her shoulder at Kurt’s big face with the blond hair flying back.

  ‘Look, I, uh, I’m getting kinda dizzy, you know? Where are we … where is this …?’

  ‘Not far now, Alice.’

  They must be in the big tower, the big, fat, dark tower which reared over Avenue Three. The Gormenghast tower.

  ‘Must be, uh … some view from the top of here, huh, Kurt?’

  ‘Some view,’ Kurt agreed.

  And then they were out on what surely must be the final landing, a very short, rounded landing with an electric lantern high up. Doors in stone alcoves to either side.

  Now Kurt was beside her, a big, tight-trousered presence, a whole head taller than Grayle and his arm around her waist, a little tighter now, like he was supporting them both, still laughing at their exertions. Though clearly he was less out of breath than she was, must have done these stairs many times. Behind many different people.

  Usually female, no doubt.

  Kurt steered her into one of the alcoves, reached in front of her with a classic castle-type key – about the size of a can opener, black and gleaming – pushing it into a hole in this squat, Gothic door of solid, seasoned oak, waggling it about a little before it turned. Symbolic.

  And then they were – wouldn’t you know it? – in this bedroom.

  Well, it wasn’t like she hadn’t been here before. Occupational hazard for young female journalists. Especially, it had turned out, for one specializing in the spiritual. They all tried to set you up: tantric therapists, from whom you expected it, and pot-bellied ‘celibate’ swamis, from whom … anyway, you learned how to deal with it. It seldom ran to attempted rape.

  In the room the last of the stormy light had collected through a small square window in the rounded wall. There was a giant four-poster and a dresser with a small tray on it with whisky and, inevitably, a champagne bottle and glasses.

  No closet; this was the kind of medieval bedchamber where clothing was left strewn across the polished, oak-boarded floor, abandoned in passion.

  ‘Must have been a hell of a job getting that bed up here,’ Grayle said. ‘Does it come apart?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Kurt said.

  Locking the door behind them.

  Sliding the long key into his hip pocket, where it made a matching bulge to the one the other side.

  ‘You know, I think we need a rest after that,’ Kurt said lazily.

  Aw, for heaven’s sake … this was like Justin level, God rest his greased-up soul.

  Kurt crossed to the bed, slid through the curtains, which did not draw all the way, were just there for effect. Eased himself up, with his back against the big, dark headboard.

  Grayle stood by the snow-speckled window, with this sheer seventy – eighty, ninety, a hundred, who-knew-how-many – foot drop to the stone parapet around the castle.

  ‘Oh well.’ She pulled open the belt, shrugged out of her raincoat. ‘You want I should pour the drinks?’

  XLVII

  ‘NO FOOLING YOU, VERA, I CAN SEE THAT.’ CINDY PEERED THROUGH the scullery window into a yard with a broken-down wall and, beyond that, outbuildings of brick and stone – a barn, stables – and the wooded hillside.

  ‘No bloody patronizing me, neither, dear.’ Vera wiping her hands on her white apron. ‘What’s going on? What you been up to, Miss Bacton?’

  No real escape route through the back. Only hiding places. The real hiding place would be a change of persona. Imelda had been rumbled. The consequences, given Gary’s background, were not to be contemplated.

  ‘I believe I have offended the organizers, Vera. Complaining about the situation of the stall, demanding money back, causing unrest among the other stallholders. I think they plan to … invite me to leave.’

  Which, he supposed, was the most innocent possible interpretation of Gary Seward’s wild smile.

  ‘It ain’t a police state,’ Vera said. ‘For all it looks like one, with all these geezers in uniform. They can’t just throw you out.’

  ‘They will manufacture a pretext, Vera.’

  ‘So that’s why you’re in hiding, is it? I ain’t too bright, but I can’t believe that.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Cindy looked frankly into Vera’s plump, olive-skinned face; an intelligent woman cast into the lowliest of employment situations on some miserable pittance, for the crime of being widowed. ‘I didn’t want to compromise your position here.’

  ‘Position? Don’t make me laugh.’

  ‘Vera, how much do you know about your employers?’

  ‘I never even seen my employers. I hear about this festival coming off, walk into that conservatory place where all the admin people are getting it together. I says, you got any jobs going, and this woman grabs hold of me, brung me down the kitchens – looks like a flaming bombsite – and she says, Here, can you do anything with that? So I rolls up me sleeves, works me knees off, fourteen hours non-stop, and I got me a job. That’s how you always got jobs in my day.’

  ‘You came all the way from London?’

  ‘I’m not that daft. Nah, lived up here for years now. My late husband, he was a Brummie.’

  ‘So you know nothing about the people running this show.’

  Cindy was aware that he’d slipped back, near enough, into his normal voice. The shock of being rumbled, he supposed.

  ‘No, dear.’ Vera shook her head, opened the scullery door a crack, peered through at the bustle of the caterers preparing a sumptuous, Victorian banquet for the Mayor of Malvern, the MP for Worcester and so on. Closed the door quietly. ‘But it sounds like you do. So if you want any more out of me, Miss Bacton, you better come clean, you had.’

  ‘Clean?’ Cindy slumped in an un
steady farmhouse chair. The dog, Malcolm, sat as still as a bollard on the flagged floor. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Consider me an investigative journalist. Consider the Vision stall as something of a front, a cover. And your employers … consider them under investigation.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Let’s call it fraud. Misrepresentation. Vera, would you perhaps be amenable to assisting me a little tonight? My movements appear to be a trifle restricted at present. I could make it worth your while … in due course.’

  ‘Worth me while? What do you think I am, a prostitute?’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘All right, listen. I’m not daft, and yeah, I do keep my eyes open. I been making breakfasts for people the past two days, been seeing who’s who around here. I seen that geezer always smiling, doing his little laugh and I’m thinking, where’ve I seen him before? On the telly? Played a gangster, some’ing like that? And then I realize …’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Ain’t life strange,’ Vera said. ‘When I was fifteen I worked in the biscuit factory at Bow, and I had a mate called Paula what went out with a boy called Gary Seward.’

  ‘It’s a small world.’

  ‘Not that small. He was putting it about all over east London. She only went out with him twice, mind. Took her to the pictures and when they wouldn’t let him in for nothing, he slashed two full rows of seats on the way out.’

  ‘Could not tolerate it,’ Cindy mused.

  ‘But that wasn’t the reason she didn’t go out with him again. It was just she found out he was only thirteen.’

  ‘Heavens.’

  ‘See, his mother died. They’d moved up from the country when he was little. And then his ma got killed in an accident when he was twelve, and he went wild after that, apparently. Nobody could control him.’

  ‘And what is his position here, Vera?’

  ‘Boss man, ain’t he? Wouldn’t do nothing without he was the boss, would he? They’re all terrified of him, for all he’s supposed to be straight these days. Course, when he first heard my accent – this is Gary – he made me sit down, gives me a glass of champagne. Very friendly. Old East Enders together. I didn’t say nothing about Paula, mind.’

  ‘And did he tell you why he was here?’

  ‘He said’, Vera smiled, more than a trifle cynically, ‘that he was Tired of Earthly Concerns.’

  ‘There’s spiritual.’

  ‘Tell that to the bleeding troops,’ said Vera. ‘I tell you, Cindy … it is Cindy, isn’t it?’

  Cindy smiled weakly.

  ‘Yeah, I thought so. It was the voice done it. I never bought a Lottery ticket in me life, but I always watch the show. Very amusing, you and that bird.’ Vera paused meaningfully. ‘It’s you and him, ain’t it? Kurt Campbell. We all saw that bust up you had on the box. Made him look an idiot and he didn’t like that. Has he got back at you in some way and now you’re getting back at him?’

  ‘I’m really not in a great position to get back at anybody, am I?’

  ‘Seems not. They’re all after you now.’

  ‘So I imagine.’

  ‘In hiding, eh? I reckon some papers would pay a fair bit to know where you are.’

  ‘A price on my head, is it? I feel like Butch Cassidy. Except, possibly, for the butch part. So …. what do you propose to do about this opportunity, Vera?’

  ‘Puts me in a funny position, don’t it?’

  Outside, the snow had stopped, but the fingers of dusk were feeling through the wooded hill behind Overcross. It would be dark in under half an hour.

  ‘I’ll make a bargain with you,’ Cindy said. ‘I’m told I can command a substantial sum for my … story. Far far more than anyone could expect for shopping me. Split it with you, I will. Whatever it amounts to. Fetch me pen and paper and I will put that in writing.’

  Vera looked at him for a moment and then laughed hugely, clapping her hands to her apron. ‘I don’t want your money. I’ll have a kiss from that bloody Kelvyn Kite. You tell me what I can do to help.’

  ‘I won’t forget this, Vera.’

  ‘Go on! Get on with it!’

  ‘Well, to begin with, I should be most interested to know what happened to the furniture brought here from Cheltenham.’

  ‘Can’t help you there. Never seen no furniture. I could try and find out.’

  ‘If you could.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘If I … have to go away for a while … would you look after my dog?’

  ‘Blimey. Sounds like you think you might not be coming back.’

  Cindy laughed.

  ‘I got to work later on,’ Vera said. ‘Bloody waitressing. One of the girls fell down six stairs, twisted her ankle. Muggins got volunteered. If I shut the dog in here with some water and scraps, will he be all right?’

  ‘He has a stoical temperament.’ Cindy had taken off the wig concealing the mauve hair, unbuttoned the tweed jacket to reveal the purple woolly.

  ‘There you are, see,’ Vera said. ‘You were underneath all along. That furniture you’re looking for, where would it most likely be? Not something you could easily miss, is it?’

  ‘What about the room where the seance is to take place?’

  ‘No way, dear. Just the big dinner tables, lots of chairs. They won’t get nothing else in there now and they’ll be starting dinner in an hour.’

  ‘Mr Seward is not on the guest list, then.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘But definitely Miss Callard.’

  ‘This is the coloured lady?’

  ‘The medium. The one who is to conduct the seance.’

  ‘Nah, you’re wrong,’ Vera said. ‘It’s some geezer.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Vera.’

  ‘I’m telling you, there’s no place been laid for a Callard. Just this … Oh, blimey … same name as the old Prime Minister. Douglas-Home?’

  ‘Dunglas-Home?’ Cindy stared at her. ‘Daniel Dunglas-Home? Vera, he’s been dead since 1886.’

  ‘Well, all I know is, they’ve made him a little sign thing for his place at the dinner table.’

  ‘Damn.’

  This meant, of course, an actor was playing the part of Dunglas-Home. It meant the whole thing was a fake. An illusion. Undisguised trickery.

  So what on earth was Persephone Callard’s part in this? Wasn’t going to be in the audience, that was for sure.

  An explicit dread seized Cindy.

  Of course.

  There would be two seances tonight. One a sideshow, a costume drama, a parody.

  The other – with Seward and Miss Callard – would be the business.

  ‘Vera …’ When Cindy arose, his legs felt weak. ‘One more thing. Would you happen to know which room Persephone Callard is occupying?’

  ‘That’s easy,’ Vera said. ‘Room Three. First landing, turn left.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  XLVIII

  ‘NO,’ GRAYLE SAID, ‘DON’T PUT THE LIGHT ON.’

  ‘Hey … you can’t be embarrassed, surely. Nobody’s embarrassed any more. You’re from New York, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘I just don’t like artificial light, is all.’

  On account of, in the light, we can see into each other’s eyes, and I don’t like what I understand you can do with yours. I don’t wanna wake up, if you don’t mind, to a snap of the fingers and semen running down my inner thighs.

  She sat on the edge of the four-poster bed with her glass of champagne. So far, only her raincoat had come off. Not the jeans, not the baseball sweater.

  ‘Kurt, can we talk?’

  ‘I don’t …’ He gave this kind of exasperated sigh. ‘I don’t want to talk. I didn’t come up all those stairs for a fucking light conversation. Alice, I thought you were up for this.’

  Grayle looked at the stiff shadow and laughed. ‘You big stars, you’re so goddamn presumptuous.’

  Kurt laughed too, softly. ‘Hey,’ he whispered, ‘Alice, I wanted you from the momen
t you came into my hotel suite last night. You’re not the consolation prize, you’re my very special present and I would very much like to … unwrap you …’ His hands were on her shoulders now, lips close to her ear. ‘Snip the string, peel off the giftwrap, slip my fingers through the tissue-paper …’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ She stood up, at the same time picking up the champagne bottle.

  ‘Christ, Alice, come on … what’s the matter with you?’

  ‘I have another question.’

  ‘What?’ Angry.

  OK, here we go …

  ‘Down in the banqueting hall just now, when you were talking about Anthony Abblow and Dunglas-Home, you said how people could be hypnotized to see or not see a ghost, right?’

  ‘You want to discuss fucking ghosts?’

  ‘Did you ever do that?’

  Grayle moved slowly round the bed. Up from the festival site, way below, floated the windy rhythms of an Andean-type band. Through the window you could see lights coming on, on the fringe of the site.

  Kurt said, ‘Alice, what are you talking about?’

  Her foot touched Kurt’s pants, on the floor where he’d tossed them. She bent down slowly, keeping the champagne bottle from clinking on the boards.

  ‘Did you ever hypnotize somebody to see a ghost?’

  Feeling for the pocket where he’d put the key. A key that size, it should be …

  ‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Alice.’

  ‘Well, like …’ she was being real quiet, in case a bunch of coins or something spilled out ‘… like you could say to someone – under hypnosis – you could plant some kind of auto-suggestion thing, so that every time they came into certain circumstances, like they entered a particular room or something, it would be there, this ghost. And it’d keep happening to them. Scaring the shit out of them. Until you hypnotized them again and took it away.’

  ‘It wouldn’t work,’ Kurt said. ‘You can’t make someone do something that would be repugnant to them or see something terrifying they wouldn’t normally believe in.’