Slow Motion Ghosts

by Jeff Noon

  No, it wasn’t Mrs Keele.

  He saw that now.

  She stepped close, reaching out.

  His eyes started to close and he fell and hit the concrete floor and lay there, wanting nothing more than to be home again, in a place of safety, at last.

  The woman leant over him, and murmured, and cried.

  A Faraway Night

  Detective Inspector Hobbes sat up on the ambulance’s bed, brushed off the medic’s help, and walked unsteadily to the open door. The street was filled with squad cars, police officers, and a gathering of spectators beyond the cordon. He could see DS Latimer coming out of the front door of the Keele household. The sky was clear overhead, and the moon was full. The sight of it filled him with a tender, brittle joy. He stepped down from the ambulance and took a few careful steps. He’d been given painkillers, and his head was bandaged. The wound on his face would need stitches, but for now he’d insisted on just a dressing. There were more important things than his own well-being. He looked round, searching the crowd, the bustle and the noise and lights. He saw Natasha Keele being guided unsteadily into a patrol car. The blue light on the roof of the vehicle pulsed to a beat Hobbes could barely comprehend. A stray thought was calling to him – the idea that he’d made a mistake, that he was still missing a piece of the puzzle. He turned in a daze and saw Susan Keele being led away by another officer – her eyes were dead to the night around her and they passed over Hobbes without seeing him.

  ‘Should you be walking, guv?’

  It was Latimer, her face showing concern.

  He nodded and said wearily, ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Who? You mean Natasha Keele? She’s being taken in—’

  He grabbed Latimer’s arms. ‘No. The woman who saved me? Where is she?’

  ‘She’s at home. DC Palmer’s with her.’

  He was already walking away from the scene. Latimer followed, taking his arm and steering him in the right direction. The address was only a street away and they were there in minutes. The door was open.

  ‘Apparently, she saw you entering the Keeles’s house, and was worried. The family has a bad reputation around here.’

  ‘That’s not it,’ Hobbes said.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The colours of the rainbow.’

  Latimer gave the inspector a quizzical look. But Hobbes had already entered the house. He paused on the threshold of the living room.

  DC Palmer was sitting at the table, holding the hand of Violet Yorke. The daughter of the house, Morgan, was resting in an armchair in the corner of the room. The girl’s face was free of the King Lost mask, and Hobbes saw her clearly for the first time.

  He could see in her features exactly what he expected to see.

  The connection.

  He turned his attention to Violet Yorke, who immediately broke contact with Palmer. Her eyes would not meet his.

  Hobbes stepped into the room and said, ‘I want to thank you, Violet. For saving my life.’

  Mrs Yorke nodded, still without looking up.

  Palmer stood up and offered him her seat at the table, and he took it gratefully. He was suddenly tired, but he needed to say what he had to say, and that was all that mattered. He reached out and touched Violet’s shoulder, urging her to look up at him, and she did so, and he saw the tears in her eyes.

  ‘Perhaps your daughter should leave us?’ he asked.

  Her head shook and trembled, and she answered, ‘No. She needs to know.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Morgan asked.

  Violet looked over at her daughter and smiled weakly. ‘I love you,’ she said.

  ‘I know that, Mother.’

  The line was repeated, even more quietly – I love you – and then Mrs Yorke turned back to the inspector and waited for his questions.

  Hobbes began by saying, ‘Violet, when you were young, you came under the influence of a very powerful woman, someone who changed your life, and the lives of other young people, for both good and for ill. In fact, mainly for ill.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I saw a photograph of you and your friends. But I didn’t recognize you at first.’

  ‘I have changed, I know that.’ This was said with an air of despondency.

  ‘But then I turned the photograph over,’ Hobbes continued, ‘and your code name was given, along with the other five residents of Edenville. And I saw that your name was Mood Indigo.’

  She smiled broadly, hearing this. ‘Yes. That was me. The name was given to me by—’

  ‘I don’t understand. Who is Mood Indigo?’

  It was Morgan speaking, interrupting her mother’s speech. Violet Yorke looked at her daughter and said, quite simply, ‘I am Mood Indigo. The name was given to me by Lucas Bell.’

  Morgan smiled. ‘You’re saying that you knew Lucas?’

  ‘I did, yes.’ Violet Yorke was speaking calmly. Hobbes could see the physical effort she was making, holding her body still and upright in the chair, keeping her hands out of sight, maintaining eye contact with her daughter. She continued now, ‘I’ve never told you before, my love, but I was quite friendly with him, when I was younger.’

  ‘I know you’ve always liked his music,’ Morgan said, ‘but I never realized …’

  ‘Well, there it is. A true story.’ And with that she turned back to Detective Hobbes and said, ‘Did you work out the reason for the name?’

  Hobbes nodded. ‘I thought of Violet and Indigo being next to each other in the rainbow. And I recalled the phrase I learned at school to learn the correct order of the colours: Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain. And I realized that your surname was included in the line.’

  ‘Lucas was always clever, that way. Playing word games, leaving clues all over the place.’

  Morgan was staring at the detective and her mother. She was alert, and yet anxious at the same time.

  Hobbes continued, ‘You were eighteen or nineteen at the time?’

  ‘Eighteen,’ Violet answered.

  ‘And you were pregnant. I saw that from the photograph.’

  ‘Yes, I was. I was pregnant with Morgan.’

  Her daughter made a noise, a gasp of surprise, but Violet held up a hand, and said, ‘Please, darling. Let me explain everything.’

  Quickly, Hobbes carried on. ‘So you were young, and unmarried. And I’m guessing that you moved in a tiny circle of people, namely the members of the Minerva Club?’

  ‘They were my only friends.’

  ‘There were three boys in the group, Lucas, Gavin and Edward, but I can’t imagine Edward Keele or Gavin Roberts were the type, really.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘So Lucas Bell is the father of Morgan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Morgan stood up from her chair. She was going to move forward, but it got no further than a thought, a shiver of fear. To Hobbes’s eyes, her features had now taken on the ghost of her father’s face. Her mother turned to her and said, ‘Morgan, I told you your father was a man who had moved away from the town. That was a lie.’

  The girl managed a single word: ‘Why?’

  The question silenced her mother.

  Hobbes said to Morgan, ‘Please sit down.’

  The girl did so immediately, glad to be given a task.

  The detective turned back to the table. ‘Violet, why don’t you tell us what happened. From the beginning.’

  She looked at Hobbes and then at her daughter. The look in her eyes, the utter yearning that she held, spilt over into tears. She wiped these away with the back of her hand and then visibly steeled herself for the story.

  ‘I was very much in love with Lucas,’ she began. ‘It was a teenage crush, I know that now, but at the time it felt as though nothing else mattered in the whole world, nothing at all. I gave myself to him, completely. And I found myself with child.’

  Here she paused and took a few deep breaths.

  ‘Did Lucas love you back?’ Hobbes asked.


  ‘No. Not really. Well, a little perhaps. But his family absolutely hated mine; they thought we were awful and very working class, and that it was all my fault, that I’d tempted their son into mischief. My parents were Catholics and they were adamant that I have the child, but then insisted that I give the baby up for adoption. Of course, I would not do that.’ She glanced over at Morgan, with a sudden brave, defiant look in her eyes. ‘I loved my child more than anything else.’

  ‘And then Lucas left Hastings?’

  ‘Yes. He stuck around for a few more years, until Edward Keele died, which ended the whole Edenville dream, and then he left for London.’

  Mother and daughter stared at each other. Hobbes saw the look that passed between them, the fierce determination they shared: they weren’t that different, really.

  ‘I watched from a distance as Lucas became a pop star, adored around the world, and I looked after Morgan, and played her his records from an early age, which was my way, I suppose, of allowing her father to remain an influence on her.’

  ‘Did Lucas ever try to get in touch?’

  ‘No. Occasionally, in the early days of his career, a cheque would arrive through the post. But as his fame increased, the money stopped entirely. And by that time, Morgan and I were settled into our life together.’

  Hobbes said, ‘It must’ve been strange to see him take up the King Lost mask?’

  ‘It was. But I was happy that poor Edward’s creation had been given this new lease of life.’

  ‘How did you feel when Bell destroyed the mask?’

  ‘It seemed to me inevitable that such a thing would happen. Of course, Natasha was livid, beyond any kind of measure.’

  ‘You were friends with Natasha Keele?’

  Violet flinched. ‘Hardly that. But she was the only one of the Minerva group that I still saw. She was quite horrible, easily the worst of us all. She carried the most pain, shall we say. But we spoke now and then. Natasha was always so full of regret, and bitterness.’

  ‘And then Lucas came back to Hastings, after his final gig?’

  Violet Yorke licked at her dry lips and closed her eyes momentarily.

  ‘Yes, he came back. He waited until I had left the house one day, and he came up to me in the street. He wore a hat, and a jacket with a high collar which he had turned up to protect his face. It was an ineffectual sort of disguise. But he actually looked quite ordinary out of his stage clothes and his make-up, a very ordinary man. And he was drunk, and I believe he had taken a drug of some kind. I don’t know, I’m not an expert on such things.’

  ‘Did he want to see Morgan?’

  ‘No. My daughter was ten years old at the time, and was staying the night at a friend’s house, a sleepover. That simple fact emboldened me. Lucas and I sat on a bench in Alexandra Park, and we talked of many things – well, of his life and his problems, mainly. He was very depressed, I think. Lost. A helpless soul, burdened by the weight of the world.’

  ‘Did you feel sorry for him?’

  She met his gaze for the first time with a fully directed look. ‘Yes. It was strange, I thought I would feel anger, but I couldn’t find it inside me. It just wasn’t possible, because he looked so very, very pitiful. He told me a story, that he’d sent a letter that morning to an old girlfriend of his. He thought that by promising her his future love, he would somehow escape the present day, and its troubles. But sadly, he told me, it was not to be.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Dusk was falling, and the park was being closed for the night. He walked me back to his car, his lovely blue car, and he offered to drive me out to the countryside, to the cottage he’d rented in Westfield, a village to the north of the town.’

  ‘And you agreed to this?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I was curious, I suppose. And more than that, I could see he was in no fit state to drive, and I was fearful of him being in an accident, or even killing someone on the roads. So I drove him home.’

  ‘Did you see a tarot card on the dashboard?’

  ‘No. Natasha placed that there, later.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She told me it was a marker, a symbol of King Lost’s eternal soul. You see, Lady Minerva introduced us to such things, and she gave each of us a card that represented us. For instance, Edward was the Emperor, I was the High Priestess, and Lucas was the Fool. And he really didn’t resent such a term – in his youth he revelled in the blind promise of adventures to come. He was very close to Minerva, when he was young. Yes, very close.’

  A tinge of jealously took over her features.

  ‘Did you go straight to the cottage?’

  ‘Not quite. Lucas wanted a drink. I told him the pubs were closed, but he wouldn’t listen. He told me to stop the car. I was quite scared, he was thrashing around, shouting, and so on. So I stopped, and he staggered out and walked towards the nearest pub. I remember a man standing there on the pavement, staring at him. Lucas had taken his hat off and his dyed, streaky hair was on view. He must’ve been recognized. I pleaded with him to get back in the car, and he did. I think the fact that he’d been recognized sobered him up a bit.’

  ‘So you drove out to his cottage?’ Hobbes asked.

  ‘We did.’

  ‘Was there any sign of Natasha Keele?’

  ‘No. Not yet. She came along later.’

  ‘But this was the last night of Lucas Bell’s life?’

  ‘It was.’

  At this simple statement of the truth, Morgan spoke up for the first time in a while. ‘Mother, did you see Lucas Bell kill himself?’

  Violet Yorke nodded.

  Morgan wanted to ask another question, but Hobbes interrupted her. He needed to keep the interview on track.

  ‘What took place when you reached the cottage?’

  ‘It was an isolated place, which suited his need to escape. Inside, the place was filthy, smelly, with lots of unwashed plates and piles of dirty laundry. I could see that for the last three weeks, since he’d killed off King Lost, he’d just about given up on life. And there were pages and pages of lyrics on the floor and the table. I looked at some of them; they were songs from long ago, tunes I’d heard him play for the Minerva Club. Songs about Edenville.’ She paused and then said, ‘I thought he was looking for clues.’

  ‘Clues to what?’

  ‘A reason to live. He had also been reading the tarot, I saw the cards set out in the Celtic cross layout. Seeking help, I guess. Clarity.’

  ‘So Lucas Bell had decided to kill himself, at this point?’

  ‘I know that to be true.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because he told me so. He poured himself the remains of a bottle of whisky and he sat there in the middle of all this mess with his head in his hands and he told me the truth. That his life was over. He told me this, and once he’d started talking, he couldn’t stop. It all came out. That fame was destroying him, that his guilt over Edward Keele’s death was too much to bear. He had worn the King Lost mask for a while, hoping that would relieve the guilt, but it was no longer working. He felt that his success was built on a stolen crown. That was his exact phrase. A stolen crown.’

  Violet Yorke stopped talking, overwhelmed by the emotions she was bringing back to life.

  Fearful of stemming the flow, Hobbes prompted: ‘So you helped him?’

  She nodded. ‘He asked me to drive out to Witch Haven. It wasn’t that far away, and we could’ve walked, quite easily. But we took the car. It was a clear warm night, the moon almost full. I can bring it all to mind quite easily.’

  ‘What time was it?’

  ‘Nearly midnight, I imagine. Ours was the only car on the road. We stopped at the crest of the hill and Lucas got out and opened the farm gate. He asked me to park the car in the field. Which I did. We sat there with only the car’s interior light to shine on us. And that’s when I saw the gun.’

  Hobbes could hear Morgan draw a breath. />
  ‘You weren’t expecting that, I imagine?’

  ‘I don’t know what I was expecting, to be honest. Sleeping pills, perhaps. Washed down with more alcohol. I thought I might be watching over something peaceful, a slow fading away. And of course I was drawn back to the night of Edward’s drowning.’

  ‘Go on, if you can.’

  Violet nodded. ‘He took the gun from the glove compartment. I wasn’t scared. I mean, I wasn’t expecting him to turn it on me. I could see from the look in his eyes that the desire to end it all was in him. He placed the gun against his temple. And then …’

  ‘He hesitated?’

  Her voice broke. She wiped more tears from her eyes. ‘He faltered. It was terrible – why, why did he do that? If only he hadn’t, if only he’d gone through with it, as he intended.’

  ‘What did you do, Violet?’

  Again, Violet Yorke looked at Hobbes directly. ‘I thought I might yet save Lucas.’ She stopped and glanced over at her daughter. ‘So I asked him a question.’

  ‘What did you ask?’

  ‘You see, in all our talk in the park and on the journey to Witch Haven, and in the cottage, not once had he mentioned Morgan, not by name or anything. So I asked him about her. I said, What about Morgan? Surely, you would like to see her. If you lived, that would be possible. The gun was still in his hand when he answered me.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing matters. Nothing at all. Nothing. And that was it. That was all I needed. The anger rose up in me from nowhere and I reached out and grabbed his wrist to hold the gun in place against his head. He was trembling now. Sweating. I could see the fear in his eyes, as though he wanted to pull away, but I closed my hands around his wrist and I held the gun. A spell enclosed us both. One of my fingers crept forward and squeezed itself inside the trigger guard, on top of his.’ Her voice wavered. ‘I wasn’t thinking. It just happened, one action after another.’

  Her eyes were staring ahead, far away from this living room, as far away as yesterday – she was back in that car, parked in Witch Haven field on that night with the moon clear and the hills rolling away into the darkness.

  ‘I pulled the trigger.’

  There was a dreadful moment of silence in the room.