The Man From the Diogenes Club

by Kim Newman

  Of course, Haslemere Studios were haunted. If you knew how to look, everywhere was haunted. Richard had already noticed three separate discarnates on the premises. Tattered flags planted long ago, incapable of doing harm in the immediate vicinity, let alone reaching across distances and forcing others to do their bidding. In an arclight pool, he came across a faded wraith who had been a film actress in the 1920s, almost a star when talking pictures came in and her mangle-worzel accent disqualified her from costume siren roles. Pulled from a historical film begun silent but revamped as a talkie, losing the role of Lady Hamilton to a posher actress, she’d drowned herself in the studio tank, waterlogged crinolines floating like a giant lily among miniature vessels ready to refight the Battle of Trafalgar. All this he gathered from letting her flutter against his face, but the only name he could pick up for her was ‘Emma’, and he didn’t know if it was hers or Lady Hamilton’s.

  He tried to ask about the Barstows curse, but Emma was too caught up in her own long-ago troubles to care. Typical suicide. She chattered in his skull, Mummerset still thick enough to render her wailing barely comprehensible. The only spectral revenge Emma might have wreaked would be on Al Jolson – and he had never shot a film at Haslemere. Richard asked if any other presences were here, recent and ambitiously malevolent. It was often a profitable line of questioning, like a copper squeezing underworld informants. No joy. If anything floated around capable of hurt on that scale, Emma would have known at once what he was asking about. Communing with the ghost left his face damp and slightly oily. When he moved on, she scarcely noticed and went back to exaggerated gestures no one else there could see. She wrung her hands like a caricature spook, but he guessed that was just silent-picture acting style.

  On set, Vanessa was giving the hot-and-cold treatment to Dudley Finn. It was textbook slap-and-kiss, come-here-but-go-away wrapping-around-the-little-finger business. Richard saw Vanessa was enjoying herself as Lovely Legs, not so much the acting but the pretending. As she made faces, she let the whirring wheels show, daring anyone to call her a fake. Barbara was watching, critically. Having picked up the connection between Richard and Vanessa, she was looking for more clues. He should let the two clever women know they were on the same side or else they’d waste time suspecting each other.

  He looked at the faces watching from darker corners. Squiers stood between the director Gerard Loss, a toothbrush-moustached military type, and the floor-manager Jeanne Treece, an untidy blond woman with a folder full of script pages and notes. Squiers wore a stained flat cap that failed to match his guru threads. At the script conference, Squiers had several times used the expression ‘with my producer’s hat on’, and now – swallowing a bark of laughter – Richard realised there really was such a garment, and it served an actual purpose in demarcating his functions on the show.

  A great many other people watched, most with reasons to be there, none with a mark of Cain obvious on their foreheads. Richard picked up many emotions, all within the usual range. Jealousy from Geordie the Security Guard as ‘Ben’ clinched with ‘Lovely Legs’. Boredom from seen-it-all grips and minders. Frustration from a cameraman with ambitions to art, shackled to an outdated camera with three lenses that could be revolved with all the ease and grace of rusty nineteenth-century agricultural equipment. Severe cramps from Jeanne Treece. Concern from a wardrobe assistant who knew there was only one dupe of Vanessa’s top and that if what she was wearing got torn in the tussle, she’d have to match the rip on the back-up. Quite a few people in the room idly thought of killing quite a few of the rest, but that too wasn’t exactly unusual.

  So, how did the Barstows reach out and possess people?

  It was possible that someone here at the studio was a human lens, a focus for energies summoned in script conferences and unleashed during production, who could channel malignancies into the actual broadcast. A talent like that might slip by without disturbing a ghost, like a light that isn’t switched on – but would flare as bright as a studio filament when in use, probably burning out quickly. Raw psychic ability, perhaps not even recognised by its possessor, amplified and sent out to every switched-on television set in the land. Even if people weren’t dying, Richard would have been troubled by the concept. If there was a person behind this, they needed to be shut down. Richard dreaded to consider what might happen if the advertising industry discovered this possible psychic anomaly and tried to replicate the process of affecting reality via cathode rays.

  There was a slap, a rip, and a clinch. Richard felt the wardrobe assistant’s inner groan and the security guard’s spasm of hate.

  There was no shortage of suspects.

  ‘That’s a wrap for the day,’ said Loss, though not before getting a nod of the producer’s hat from Squiers. ‘The talent are released. The rest of you strike the boardroom and throw up…’ (Squiers whispered in the director’s ear) ‘…Mavis’s lounge, for tomorrow.’

  Squiers clapped, and the orders were followed. Television was not a director’s medium.

  Vanessa threw Richard a look, then slipped out with the other dismissed persons. Her co-star had a quiet, hissy row with Geordie. Lionel shrugged and angled his head, tossing off a ‘told you so’ flounce, sneaking a gander under his shades at Vanessa’s departing legs. Richard was amused but not yet ready to write off the PR as comedy relief. In this soap, anyone could be anything. No rule said killers couldn’t be amusing.

  He stood by Barbara.

  ‘Is it all you expected? Or are you faintly disappointed?’

  She smiled. ‘You’re sharp, but try not to be too clever. I’m interested in The Northern Barstows and what it means, in why it’s popular, why so many people find it important. Whether it’s, in objective terms, “any good” is beside the point.’

  ‘So these people aren’t the new Dickens or Shakespeare.’

  ‘No, though Dickens and Shakespeare might have been the old “these people”. Come back in a century and we’ll decide whether the Marcus Squiers method counts as art or not.’

  ‘Method?’

  ‘Crowd control is a method, Richard.’

  ‘Is he in control?’

  ‘Not completely. He knows that, you can tell. June O’Dell – who, you’ll note, hasn’t been around all day – has more say, if only negatively, in what goes out on the show. In the end, the audience has the conductor’s baton. If they switch off a storyline, it gets dropped. If they tune in, it’s extended. This is all about showing people what they want to see and telling them what they want to hear.’

  ‘Wonderful. Fifteen million suspects.’

  Barbara laughed, pretty lines taut around her mouth and eyes. ‘If it were an easy puzzle, it wouldn’t be a Diogenes Club case.’

  ‘You pick up a lot.’

  ‘So do you. Tell me, is this place really haunted?’

  ‘Of course. Want to meet a ghost?’

  She laughed again, then realised he meant it.

  ‘There’s a ghost?’

  ‘Several.’

  He led her to Emma’s arc-light patch. The lamp was off but she was still tethered to her spot.

  ‘I don’t see anything.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Hold out your hand.’

  He took her wrist, easing back filigree bracelets and her sleeve, enjoying the warmth of her skin, and puppeteered her arm. She stretched her fingers, which slid into the ghost’s wet dress.

  ‘Feel that?’ he asked.

  ‘Cold… damp?’

  She took her hand back, shivering, somewhere between fear and delight.

  ‘A frisson. I’ve always wondered what that meant. It really was a frisson. Tell me, what should I see?’

  ‘You don’t have to see anything. I can’t see anything, though I have an image in my mind.’

  ‘Like a recording?’

  Richard realised Emma was in black-and-white. She had been around before films were in colour.

  ‘That’s one type of ghost,’ he said. ‘Empty, but going through
the motions. A record stuck in a groove. This is a presence, with the trace of a personality. Very faint. She probably won’t last much longer.’

  ‘Then where will she go?’

  ‘Good question. Search me for an answer though. We have to let some Eternal Mysteries stand.’

  ‘You know more than you’re letting on.’

  He really didn’t want to answer that. But he had reasons other than shutting off this line of questioning for kissing Barbara Corri.

  She had reasons for kissing him back, but he didn’t feel the need to pry.

  ‘You two, watch out, or the fire marshal will bung a bucket of sand over you,’ shrilled Lionel. ‘Come away and exeunt studio left. Pardon me for mentioning it, but you’re an unprofessional pair of ghost-hunters. It’s a wonder you can find so much as a tipsy pixie the way you carry on.’

  Richard and Barbara held hands, fingers winding together.

  The studio was dark now, floor treacherous with cables and layers of sticky tape. Lionel led them towards the open door to the car park.

  As they stepped outside, Richard felt a crackle nearby, like a lightning strike. He flinched, and Barbara felt his involuntary clutch. She squeezed his hand, and touched his lapel.

  ‘Nothing serious,’ he said.

  She lifted aside his hair and whispered, ‘You are such a poor liar,’ into his ear.

  VIII.

  They had two rooms at a guest house near the studio. As it happens, they only had use for one room.

  Richard decided the unnecessary expense wouldn’t trouble the accountants of the Diogenes Club. After an ‘it’s not just the precious metal, it’s the workmanship’ argument over a bill for silver bullets, his chits tended to get rubber-stamped without query.

  He let Barbara sleep on, primping a little at her early-morning smile, and went down for his full English. Framed pictures of supporting players who’d stayed here while making forgotten films were stuck up on the dining-room wall. The landlady fussed a little, but lost interest when he told her he wasn’t an actor.

  The third pot of tea was on the table and he was well into toast and jam when Fred arrived. He had come down from London on his old Norton and wore a leather jacket over his Fred Perry. The landlady frowned at his heavy boots, but became more indulgent when Richard introduced him as a stuntman who had worked on Where Eagles Dare. More toast arrived.

  Fred had new information. He was fairly hopping with it.

  ‘Guv, this is so far off your beat that it has got to be a false trail,’ he said, ‘but I’ve tripped over it more times than is likely, and in so many places I’d usually rule out coincidence.’

  Barbara appeared, light-blue chiffon scarf matching her top, tiny row of sequin buttons down the side of her navy skirt. Her hair was up again, fashioned into the shape of a sea-shell. She joined them at the breakfast-table.

  Fred, quietly impressed, waited for an introduction.

  ‘This is Professor Corri, Fred. Barbara, this is Fred Regent. He’s a policeman, but don’t hold it against him. Continue with your input, Fred. We keep no secrets from the Professor.’

  Fred hesitated. Barbara signalled for the ‘continental breakfast’: grapefruit juice, croissants, black coffee.

  ‘I’m all ears,’ she announced, nipping at a croissant with white, even, freshly brushed teeth whose imprint Richard suspected was still apparent on his shoulder. ‘Input away.’

  Fred cleared his throat with tea and talked.

  ‘I’ve been calling in favours on the force and the crook grapevine, asking about, as requested. I started with Jamie the Jockey, since he’s our most recent case. Then I looked into Sir Joseph and Prince Ali. Plus a few we didn’t think about, Queenie Tolliver and Buck D. Garrison.’

  Richard furrowed his brow.

  ‘Queenie Tolliver ran nightclubs in Manchester,’ put in Barbara.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ said Fred.

  ‘Very well. She was, what would you call her, a gang boss? The Godmother, the press said in her obits. Choked on a fishbone at her sixtieth birthday party. Just when—’

  ‘I can guess,’ said Richard. ‘The same thing happened on The Northern Barstows to a character based on her.’

  ‘“Lady Gulliver”, Cousin Dodgy Morrie’s backer, and Mavis Barstow’s deadly enemy last year,’ said Barbara. ‘Garrison I’ve never heard of. But there was a Texas tycoon called “Chuck J. Gatling” on the Barstows. Drowned in a grain elevator just after he tried to buy up a controlling interest in Barstow and Company.’

  Fred flipped his note-book. ‘I was iffy about listing Garrison as a curse victim. He died just like Gatling, but on his own spread in Texas. He’d never visited Britain. He’d probably never heard there was a character like him on some English TV show. But he’s where I first tripped over the Thing.’

  ‘The Thing?’ prompted Richard.

  ‘The Strange Thing. Actually, the Non-Strange Thing. Professor, we don’t do regular police-work. We look for the unbelievable. What happened to Buck D. is all too believable. He annoyed some business rivals, and the FBI say he was hit.’

  ‘Hit? I really must frown upon this Yankee slang, Frederick.’

  ‘Sorry, guv. You know what I mean. Hit. Assassinated. Killed. By a professional. High-priced, smooth, hard to catch. In, out and dead.’

  ‘He was rubbed out by a torpedo?’ blurted Barbara. ‘Don’t look so aghast, Richard. I teach a course on Hollywood Gangster Cinema.’

  Richard shrugged.

  ‘I like her,’ said Fred. ‘Can we keep her?’

  ‘Entirely her decision,’ said Richard. ‘After much more of this, she may not want to keep us.’

  Barbara sipped coffee, enigmatic but adorable.

  ‘I put Garrison to one side and came back at the others. The Thing is… whisper has it that they were hit too.’

  This was not what Richard expected.

  ‘Jamie Hepplethwaites was in hot water with almost everyone he ever met,’ said Fred. ‘He was under investigation for race-fixing and rumour was that he was on the point of telling all. Which would have been inconvenient for certain followers of the turf. The sort of enthusiasts who’d have no scruple about laying out cold cash to put Jamie in a morgue drawer.’

  ‘Della Devyne is not a “tarpaulin”,’ said Richard.

  ‘A torpedo, guv. No, I’m not saying she is. I’m just saying some big crims are puffing cigars and bragging that they did for Jamie. Ditto Prince Ali, Queenie and Sir Joe. The Prince can’t talk any more with his vocal cords slashed, which is dead convenient for his uncle the King, who was not a big fan of Ali’s international playboy act. Queenie’s Mancunian empire is being carved up by her old competition, which mostly consists of her daughters.’

  ‘How Lear.’

  ‘Manchester CID say they hope the war of succession thins out the herd a bit. Unofficially.’

  ‘What about Keats? He’s the only one of the victims who had any prior connection with the people who make the show. He was on the board of Amalgamated Rediffusion.’

  ‘The more that comes up, the more the show looks like a complete blind alley. It’s not just Sir Joe who went missing but his secretary. Between them, they had ten months’ worth of work on the Factories Regulation Bill in their heads which is all out the window and back to the drawing board now. That means very happy proprietors of unregulated factories. Guess what’s being said about them?’

  ‘That they paid to get the job done?’

  Fred snapped his fingers. ‘Got it in one.’

  Richard whistled and sat back to think.

  ‘I reckon it’s a smokescreen,’ said Fred. ‘Our Mystery Murder-to-Order Limited is twisting the Barstows to put a spin on their business, keeping the fuzz off their case while advertising a service to potential clients. Jobs like Prince Ali, Queenie and Sir Joe do not come cheap. This is not an envelope full of fivers to a couple of washed-up boxers to do over a builder who put the bathroom taps in the wrong way. This is serious mon
ey for a serious business.’

  Richard waved his friend quiet.

  ‘It won’t do,’ he said. ‘It’s still too… weird.’

  ‘You don’t want to let it go, guv. But if it’s just killers with a gimmick, then this goes back to Inspector Price. We’re surplus to requirements.’

  ‘I mean weird in the strictest sense, Fred. Not merely bizarre and freakish, but occult – concealed and supernatural. I’m tingling with an awareness of it.’

  ‘Don’t you reckon the Professor might have something to do with that?’

  ‘Cheek,’ said Barbara, smiling and sloshing Fred with a napkin.

  ‘Very well,’ said Richard. ‘Fred, hie thee back to town and share this with Euan Price. Start the Yard moving on this from the other end. Go after the putative clients of your phantom assassination bureau. See if the urge to boast about getting away with it leads to indiscretion.’

  ‘What about you two? You’ll continue the canoodling holiday?’

  ‘We’ll stay here, with the Barstows. There’s something or someone we’ve not seen yet. Some big piece which will fill in the jigsaw.’

  Richard’s tea was cold.

  IX.

  June O’Dell knew how to make an entrance.

  The company made an early start. Dudley Finn was pressed up against a wallpapered backdrop by a single camera. He held a phone to his ear, though the dangling cord didn’t attach to anything. Jeanne Treece hoisted a large sheet of card (‘an idiot board’) on which one side of a phone conversation was written in magic marker. Ben Barstow was getting news about Delia Delyght.

  ‘We’re tying off plot ends,’ Lionel whispered to Richard as Finn took one of many breaks – the actor wasn’t as good at reading off the card as he had been yesterday at instantly memorising his lines. ‘Viewers have written in asking what happened after the murder so Mucus whipped up this bit overnight to reveal all. It’s how this show always goes. Big build-up, over months and months, nation on the edges of their three-piece suites, a shattering sensational climax… then we drop the whole thing and move on. Once your plot is over, there’s no hanging around. No trial scene with an expensive courtroom set and guest actors in those ducky wigs, no twelve extras on the jury. Just one side of a call. “So, she’s copped an insanity plea, eh… fancy that… well, never mind… you’re telling me she’s going to be locked up in a looney bin for t’ rest of her natural life? Fancy that. We’ll remember Delia Delyght for a long time in Bleeds.” Like fork, we will. That’s all over, and we’re onto something else. Makes your head spin.’