He stopped, and we all gasped. ‘It’s a true story,’ he said. ‘Set down in the Benedictine monastery at St Gall in Switzerland.’
By the time he had finished his tale the sun had slipped below the horizon and rendered the sky of the west the colour of plum. Although the heat had not lost its edge, a strange chill passed through us, causing us to shiver; we remained for a while in silence, each privately contemplating the terrible death agonies of that poor donkey from long ago.
Chapter 11
Doktor Gustav P. Essequibo and his lovely daughter Lucrezia stood patiently at the bus stop outside Aberystwyth station. It was a hot summer day and the doktor carried his tan-coloured macintosh neatly folded over his arm; he wore a light-blue Egyptian cotton shirt, open at the neck, and beige slacks. At his feet a small cardboard suitcase bore stickers of the North Surinam Passenger, Freight and Mail Steam Packet Company as well as those belonging to the British Overseas Airways Corporation. His daughter was about sixteen or seventeen with blonde hair braided into pigtails like a member of the Cherokee tribe. She wore beige jodhpurs tucked into black leather riding boots, a crisply starched white blouse and observed the bustle of the station through a monocle. At her feet was a small box that might have been called a steamer trunk had it been substantially bigger. The doktor examined his watch with the quiet patience of a man whose life has been spent on the periphery of the world in countries where all timetables are approximations and no great significance is attached to delays of less than half a day . . .
‘I’ve always wanted to be called Lucrezia,’ said Calamity.
‘I still think the monocle is over the top,’ I said. ‘In fact, I think everything is over the top.’
Calamity sighed. ‘Yeah, I’m sorry about the disguises, they were all Mooncalf had left. He said there was a fancy dress party on at the Football Club.’
I looked at my watch. ‘The buses were far more regular in Guyana.’
‘That’s out of character,’ said Calamity. ‘According to the instructions Doktor Gustav P. Essequibo is a patient man whose life . . .’ She took a small instruction booklet out of her jodhpur pocket and read: ‘. . . whose life has been spent on the periphery of the world in countries where all timetables are approximations.’
‘Not as approximate as in Cardigan.’
‘You’re doing research into the curative and restorative properties of ectoplasm. Remember there are only two known methods of harvesting ectoplasm. It can be found . . .’ She consulted the booklet again: ‘. . . in the outer corpus of the genus of sea creature vulgarly known as jellyfish. And at séances.’ She looked up from the book. ‘Keeping jellyfish in captivity is difficult because they have no swim bladders. In the ocean they drift with the current, but when kept in tanks they tend to end up in the corner where they cannibalise each other. Can you remember all that?’
‘Don’t you ever get the feeling Mooncalf is laughing at us?’
‘Yes, sometimes.’
A bus pulled up and the doors opened with a sigh of compressed air escaping. A wave of stuffy air, perfumed with hot plastic and the faint scent of diesel, puffed out. We climbed aboard and sat down.
‘How did you get on with the letter?’ asked Calamity.
I took out an airmail letter from the pocket of my macintosh. ‘It’s from your wretched brother, Wild Bill, who, as you know, is currently suffering the living hell of a life sentence in the cockroach-infested Demerara Institute of Penal Correction. Note the cuts in the paper, the result of a vicious knife fight which took place on the way to the posting box. Note also the letter smells of tequila, and hopelessness.’
‘Wow,’ said Calamity. ‘Wild Bill sure got himself in a pickle this time.’
‘We mustn’t give up hope. For the sake of your brave mother and the agonies she suffered during her struggle with the ravages of jungle foot.’
The bus passed through the tree-enshrouded gloom of Southgate and out into the bright sunlight. To our right glimpses of pure blue translucence, the ocean, flickered through the trees, sending a secret heliograph message, sweeter than the call of sirens, about the ecstasy that awaited the traveller who forsakes the bus and dives into the cold green brine. Messages that made the heart cry.
Calamity grabbed her index finger with the fingers of the other hand. ‘Item one: is there a connection between the disappearance of Gethsemane and the mystery fate of Gomer Barnaby? Item two: was it really Goldilocks who buried the shoe? Or someone trying to frame him? Item three: what did Gomer see? Was it a troll?’
‘I don’t think that matters so much,’ I said.
Calamity continued. ‘Item four: what is the meaning of the curious levitated dog?’
‘What levitated dog?’
‘The one in the photo Vanya gave us.’
‘I forgot about that.’
‘Item five: who sent the séance tape? Item six: is the hasty wedding of the Witchfinder and Mrs Mochdre significant?’
‘Item seven,’ I said, ‘was the girl down by the lake really Gethsemane Walters, and if it wasn’t, who on earth was she?’
‘That’s a lot of items,’ said Calamity.
There were four other members of ‘the sitting’. There was a man in his seventies with a bald head and big ears; he had a warm and simple smile and seemed nervous. There were two spinsters, sisters, and a woman who claimed to be a collector of antique china figurines; she engaged everyone in conversation, displaying such a degree of inquisitiveness that it was clear she had to be a plant. The man and the spinsters told her about their lost loved ones whom they were coming in search of and the maid pretended to dust the sash windows and was clearly listening intently as well. Five minutes later they were called into the other room, ‘The Parlour’, where a dining table was set with a green baize cloth and more tea was served.
Madame Sosostris strode in with a self-consciously theatrical demeanour, and the members of the sitting simmered with anticipation. She was in her early sixties, wore a purple dress and had a large bosom which supported a chain of heavy amber beads. She wore the stern expression of a schoolmistress who tolerated no nonsense from her girls and would equally tolerate no monkey business from the spirits at her séance.
The lights were dimmed and Madame Sosostris closed her eyes and clasped her hands; she lowered her head slightly. After a while she began to moan. The excitement intensified, meaningful looks were exchanged around the table. She began to speak in a voice that was not her own, or rather was not the one she had used when she greeted the guests. This was the voice of her personal go-between in the spirit world; for a reason not disclosed she didn’t talk directly to the spirit but the information was relayed via this intermediary who was called Prince Marmion. Not much information was available concerning this prince, such as when he had reigned and where and what sort of palace he inhabited, but one of the spinsters whispered with a glint of excitement in her eye that he was a ‘dark fellow’.
Prince Marmion told the two spinsters that Lucy their third sister was happy and did not resent them for abandoning her during the final years of her illness. They were told that they should not reproach themselves, the bitter terrors of a painful death which Lucy had endured alone had now been forgotten. The old man was informed that his late wife had noticed his collars were slacker than they used to be and was worried that he wasn’t eating as well as he should. He ran his finger around the collar and indeed the spirit seemed to be correct. The man made an apologetic smile to us as if he had been caught out in an indiscretion. All the while, Madame Sosostris maintained her ‘trance’ and allowed herself to be the conduit to the prince’s insights. She groaned a few more times, and then told the old man that his late wife was a bit short of cash because things were so expensive in heaven. He took out a ten pound note and passed it across the table. Prince Marmion promised to see that she got it without delay. Then he asked, ‘Is there a doctor here?’ It seemed like an easy guess but the two sisters expressed admiration for the acuity of t
he prince’s vision. ‘I have a message from William, he’s in a terrible place,’ said Prince Marmion.
Calamity grabbed my hand. ‘Papa, the prince is talking about Wild Bill!’
‘Hush now, Lucrezia! Let the spirit speak.’
‘He is in a dark and terrible place, with lots of cockroaches,’ said the spirit. ‘He’s not happy. And hanging over him is the shadow of the curse of the man he slew!’
There were gasps round the table: it didn’t usually get as juicy as this.
‘And now he broods upon his wasted life and contemplates a desperate action. You must save him, you must go and implore him not to lose faith, not to lose heart, because the dear Lord is watching over him, even in the darkest pit, even when it least seems like it.’
The old man watched the medium, entranced, the sisters nodded at the wisdom of the prince’s advice because this description of the MO of the Lord accorded exactly with their understanding of his benevolence.
‘But wait!’ said Prince Marmion. ‘There is something else . . . another person . . .’
The tension increased, people strained to hear the spirit’s next words.
‘A woman, the spirit of a beautiful, sad and desolate woman, a sweet lady who died young, whose little limbs were tormented on the rack of the infirmary bed, night after night on fire with the fever that started in her foot—’
‘Papa, it’s mama!’ said Calamity.
‘Isabella,’ I cried, ‘Isabella! Is it you?’
‘Oh the poor man,’ whispered one of the sisters. The old man watched, his lower jaw thrust forward in fascination.
‘Isabella!’
‘Oh!’ cried the prince. ‘She is receding, receding, receding . . . going away into the fog. I could try to call her but she won’t respond, she is going far away over the misty plain . . .’
After the séance the sitters were quickly ushered out by the maid. We retrieved our coats and returned to the parlour. We asked the maid to inform Madame Sosostris that the police would like to have a word with her. She sailed in with a slightly less regal air than before and looked perplexed and slightly anxious. I pulled out my wallet and let it fall open to show my badge the way the TV cops do. ‘I’m Detective Medavoy and this is Loo-tenant Sipowicz.’
Calamity gave her a steely gaze.
I threw the bogus letter down on the coffee table. ‘I don’t need to ask whether you recognise this.’
Madame Sosostris’s eyes widened but she said nothing.
Calamity examined her nails and spoke to them. ‘Funny, I never took her for the type who would fall for the Ehrich Weiss. I had her down as someone smarter.’
‘W . . . what do you mean?’ asked Madame Sosostris.
‘Make a habit of reading other people’s mail, do you?’ I said.
Madame Sosostris glanced at the letter and stammered, ‘The letter just fell out of your coat . . .’
‘I know, and you just accidentally read it.’
‘Oldest trick in the book,’ said Calamity.
‘I haven’t done anything,’ she said.
‘Keep it for the DA,’ I sneered, then turned to Calamity. ‘What do you reckon we got ourselves here, loo-tenant? The genuine article or one of those “gottle of geer” jobs?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Madame Sosostris.
‘Don’t play coy with us, Sosostris,’ I said.
‘Prince Marmion a regular visitor here, is he?’ said Calamity. ‘Or just some clever piece of voice projection?’
‘I’m not a ventriloquist, if that’s what you are trying to imply.’
I snorted. ‘What would you say if I told you Prince Marmion has been in Acapulco for the whole of the past month?’
‘No!’
‘I’ve got fourteen witnesses who can place him within two blocks of the casino. What have you got?’
‘A nickel’s worth of nothing,’ said Calamity. ‘Medium schmedium. Just a two-bit toffee apple grifter peering into the crystal ball and seeing dollar signs.’
I leaned forward, close to Madame Sosostris. ‘You spent any time in the Pen recently?’
‘Whose pen?’
‘She thinks you’re talking about a Biro, boss,’ said Calamity.
‘Sure she does. Listen up, Sosostris, we send you to Shrewsbury the only pen you’ll hear about will be the one some cell-block big shot hammers into your ear.’ I began to shout, ‘Through the ear, Sosostris, so you can hear it going bang bang bang!’
‘No!’
‘Yes!’ said Calamity. ‘Last thing you ever hear: the sound of a Biro being hammered into your brain.’
‘No, no, no! They would never do a thing like that.’
‘Of course they would,’ said Calamity. ‘Why do you think they call it the Pen?’
‘They put them other places too,’ I said. ‘Some of those felons in Shrewsbury gaol are none too refined.’
‘I’ll thank you not to use profanity in my house!’
‘Oh you don’t like profanity, huh? We’d better not send you to prison then. Make a note of that, loo-tenant, the perp. doesn’t like profanity.’
‘Maybe we’ll send you to the Girl Guides’ jamboree instead,’ said Calamity.
‘Play her the tape, loo-tenant.’
‘What tape?’ said Madame Sosostris.
Calamity took the portable cassette player out and banged it down on the table. She punched the play button the way the Feds do in the movies. She said, ‘One of our guys wearing a wire caught this. We think it’s one of your séances. You prove to us it’s not, maybe we can ride you a little easier.’ The tape began to play. ‘Recognise any of this? That demonic laughter, one of yours is it?’
‘No, no, he’s not one of mine.’
‘We think it is,’ I said.
‘I’ve never heard it before. It’s not Astaroth, his voice is deeper, and it’s not Caacrinolaas nor Malacoda; and the Tartaruchi never laugh; it’s not Zelusrous, nor Xitragupten, nor Oulotep, and defintely not Naberius. No, it’s not one of my usual ones. Please don’t send me to the Pen, I don’t want to die like that.’
‘What about the squeals?’ I said. ‘I guess you don’t know anything about them either?’
‘No!’
‘Think about it, Sosostris,’ said Calamity. ‘You’re looking down the barrel of twenty years.’
‘What for? I’ve done nothing wrong.’
Calamity gave a bitter laugh. ‘Nothing wrong? We caught you red-handed!’
‘Doing what?’
‘Money laundering.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
Calamity gave me her cynical, world-weary cop’s scowl. ‘They think once it passes through them pearly gates we can’t trace it.’
‘Or maybe that ten pound won’t even get that far,’ I said. ‘Maybe it will end up in the cashier’s pouch down at the bingo.’
‘No, no, you don’t understand . . . I can explain about the money.’
‘Save your breath,’ I said. ‘We saw that money passed across the table, we caught it on hidden camera.’
‘But it’s not like you think.’
‘It never is,’ said Calamity. ‘Robbing an old guy like that of his pension.’
‘I wasn’t robbing him, he knows it doesn’t really go to the spirits. We have to do it this way, you see. That Mr Williams is a kind man, a very decent man.’
From Aberystwyth with Love an-5 Page 11
