by Jack Gerson
He rolled the word around in his mind. Charlatan. It sounded right. He'd met so many of them he'd prided himself on knowing right away; on recognising them instinctively.
He frowned.
Except with Drexel. With Drexel he wasn't sure. But he was going to find out. But he had to be sure, when he did find out, that the test was valid.
He lifted the telephone book and looked up the number of the Edinburgh Express.
The pub was on the corner of a tall grey building in Rose Street. Rose Street was not so much a street as a lane that ran parallel to George Street and Princes Street. It was a well-known pub in a well-known street, a haunt of journalists, broadcasters, poets, drunks and students; the tired young souls of the city.
Crane had known it well in his student days and he was pleasantly surprised to find it had not changed since then. The bar was an elongated oval in the centre of the room and around the room were cubicles and tables where the hardened Edinburgh literati could entrench themselves for a long evening's drinking.
Alistair Crombie was already ensconced in a comer cubicle, a half finished pint of beer in front of him. He was a rotund Highlander with a pleasant open face always slightly flushed as if he was preparing to be perpetually embarrassed. He was the same age as Tom Crane and indeed they had been at university together; and yet he looked ten years Crane's senior.
He greeted Crane with a firm, if slightly sweaty, handshake and a grin that indicated genuine pleasure at their reunion.
'Och, now, man, success suits you. You look ten years younger than the last time I saw you,' Crombie exclaimed happily. Crane noted he had not lost his West Highland accent.
'And this time the beer is on me,' Crane replied. 'Or would you rather have a dram?'
"You know I would rather be having a dram but I have a news editor who, I'll swear, smells my breath from a hundred yards. I'll be happy with another pint.'
By the time Crane had squeezed his way to the bar and bought two pints Crombie had finished the mug in front of him.
'Tom, my lad, we shouldn't be drinking this urine. Beer isn't what it used to be. All chemicals and bubbles,' he said, taking his pint from Crane. 'Thank the Lord they can never do to whisky what they've done to beer. Still we have to make do with it.'
Crane settled down on the wooden bench beside him. 'Success hasn't done you any harm, Alistair. You are as usual blooming.'
Crombie grinned. 'The alcoholic tinge I was acquiring when we were lowly undergraduates. And what success can I claim to have had in comparison to the big Fleet Street feature writer?'
'Chief reporter isn't bad. And with a reputation as the best in Scotland.'
Crombie grin widened. 'If I was the best wouldn't I be working for the BBC or one of those pagan television companies who pay so much money and you don't have to write, you just have to talk?'
'You wouldn't like it. You need your typewriter.'
'It's true, it's true!' Crombie exclaimed, grasping his pint and draining a quarter of it.
'Now about that little bit of information you asked me for on the telephone,' he went on, wiping flecks of foam from his upper lip with the back of his hand. 'What can I be telling you?'
'This woman who disappeared..?'
'Margaret Christie.'
'Tell me about it.'
'Of course we were all on to it at first because it was a bit of a mystery. Of course there was no evidence of foul play... and indeed no developments, so we all lost interest.'
Crane leaned forward. 'Just another missing person?'
'Just another one. At an awkward age too. Change of life and all that...'
'Tell me about the mystery.'
Crombie scratched his thinning hair. 'Here's a widow, forty-five, quite attractive, plenty of friends, lives alone. Couple of Sundays ago her next door neighbour looks in. Would she be liking her Sunday papers picked up at the newsagents? Thank you, she's saying. Twenty minutes later the neighbour's back and... and Mrs Christie's gone!'
'No sign of where or why?'
'Nothing! Couldn't have been premeditated. She left the front door open, a frying pan with bacon and eggs sizzling away on the stove...'
'Touch of the Marie Celestes,' Crane interjected.
'Only this wasn't in the middle of an ocean,' Crombie screwed up his face wryly. 'It was a residential area at the time of the morning when folk will be out cleaning their cars or on their way to the kirk. Yet no one saw sight nor sign of her.'
'Did the neighbour search the house at the time?'
'Top to bottom. Upstairs, downstairs, in my lady's chamber, if you'll pardon the expression. And he took his car and drove around the streets for an hour looking for her before he reported her missing.'
Crane stared at his pint of beer thoughtfully for a moment. 'Hundreds of people take off like that every year.'
'Oh, aye, mebbe. Which is why we dropped it after a few days. Although they don't leave the bacon sizzling away to nothing on the hearth. And not one of her friends has heard a word of goodbye.' He reached into the inside pocket of his tweed jacket and pulled out a bundle of newspaper clippings. 'But there you are. Read it for yourself. After you phoned I got this lot together for you. And there's a good photograph of the lady.'
Crane pocketed the clippings and the photograph. 'I'm very grateful, Alistair.'
'And so you should be,' Crombie replied, giving Crane a shrewd look. 'Hardly comes under your series on the occult if it's just a wee disappearance? Unless you're thinking she was spirited away by ghosties and ghoulies. You wouldn't try and kid me it was that, would you?'
Before replying Crane took a gulp of his pint. 'I wouldn't try and kid you, Alistair. All I'll tell you is that I'm putting someone to a wee test and I want to be sure I've got the facts up to date.'
Crombie nodded sagely. 'That's all you'll be telling me. But if you happened to dig up anything else you'd let us have it, Tom?'
'You'll be the second to know.'
'Mind you, Tom, I wouldn't like to be the one writing articles about spooks and all that. That kind of meddling can be... dangerous!'
Crane laughed aloud. You can say that? A hard-headed tcheuchter from Islay?'
'Ah, now, in Islay, lad,' Crombie murmured sagaciously. 'There, we make sure the dead are stiff and cold and six feet under. It's safer that way.'
Crane left him drinking a third pint of 'those chemicals' and went back to Michael's flat. He spent the rest of the afternoon reading the press cuttings Crombie had given him. He read them over and over again not quite knowing why he was doing so. It had suddenly become important to him to know everything about the disappearance of Margaret Christie.
Early in the evening he put on the one decent suit he had brought from London and prepared to leave for Anne Reynolds' flat. At the living room door he turned, looking back into the room before switching out the light. The newspaper clippings were scattered over armchair and sofa. He stared at them, puzzled. What had made him read and reread them? He was conscious of a sudden weariness, as if the clippings and the story they told had taken him over, become some kind of afternoon obsession.
Stupid. Stupid and even more stupid. Each clipping told the same story; and it wasn't a long story. He had caught the radio report and that had made him suggest that Drexel's test might be to see if he could find the woman. Nothing else to it. Nothing.
Except that had he imagined Drexel had reacted to his suggestion with a kind of surprise? Or had he imagined it?
He switched the light out and left the flat.
It was early, not yet seven o'clock, and he decided that, despite the distance, he would walk and see something of Edinburgh again.
Crane walked briskly across the Meadows savouring the tang of salt air in the breeze from the Forth. As he reached the Royal Mile a watery moon struggled out from behind the clouds and the old buildings cast long, distorted shadows across the cobbles. This again was the Edinburgh of Mary, Queen of Scots, John Knox and Deacon Brodie, from whom Steven
son had created the dual characters of Jekyll and Hyde; the Edinburgh of dark closes, narrow alleys, of blood and murder committed in the name of religion.
Twenty minutes later Crane had crossed the long straight ribbon of Princes Street and walked down the long hill to Drummond Place. It was a quiet Regency row of elegant houses, many of them divided into self-contained flats. It was in one of these that Dr Anne Reynolds lived.
She greeted Crane with a broad welcoming smile and a tentative peck on the cheek. She was dressed simply in a white blouse, open at the neck, and a long dark purple skirt which reached down to her ankles. She seemed exactly as Crane remembered her five years before; not a beautiful woman but an attractive one with an inner radiance, steady brown eyes and light brown hair pulled back from a broad intelligent forehead and pulled in at the nape of the neck.
Taking Crane's coat she showed him into a large, high-ceiling room, one wall of which was lined with books. A bow window looked down on the street below. The room was simply but tastefully furnished with a large settee and two comfortable armchairs.
Rising, not without difficulty, from one of the armchairs, a plump man with shining round eyes and thinning hair, dressed in an expensive pin-striped suit, held out a large hand to greet Crane.
'Ever since Anne told me you were coming, I've been looking forward to meeting you, Crane.'
The hand was soft, fleshy but the handshake was firm to the point of violence.
'Harry Gilchrist, Tom,' Anne introduced them. 'Harry saved me from a fate worse than death at the hands of the Inland Revenue when I first came to Edinburgh.'
Gilchrist shrugged. 'Their computer went mad with desire when it reached Anne's name. Shot out demands for impossible sums. However we got it put right.'
Crane accepted a large neat whisky from Anne. 'Harry, as you will gather, is an accountant,' she said.
Before Crane could speak Gilchrist went on. I deal in credit and debits, old man. The great reality of hard cash. Now take that fascinating article you wrote in that Sunday rag. Unreal. Of no commercial value, all that occult mumbo-jumbo. Can't really believe in it.'
Behind Gilchrist's back Anne gave Crane a broad wink.
'Enjoyed the article, of course,' Gilchrist was now in full spate. 'But you can't tell me you really believe in the occult. All that voodoo, black magic rubbish!'
'It's not what I believe, Mr Gilchrist,' Crane replied, constrained to defend even the indefensible against Gilchrist's onslaught. 'It's what an awful lot of people do believe. And I suspect a lot more would like to believe.'
Gilchrist beamed benignly. The front doorbell of the flat rang.
'My other guest,' Anne explained, moving to the hall doorway. 'Three men and me. That's the kind of odds I like at a party.'
She went out leaving Crane and Gilchrist facing each other.
'Between you and I, old man,' Gilchrist glanced at the door and then leaned forward towards Crane, his voice dropping to a stage whisper. 'I'm very fond of Anne there. Keep telling her it would be just as easy for me to make out a tax form for two as for one. But she keeps turning me down.'
He lifted his shoulders in mock despair and Crane felt the warm, whisky-scented breath on his face.
'I think she's probably very wise,' Crane said, amused at the frown that crossed Gilchrist's face. 'Financially speaking of course.'
The frown dissolved and the plump man laughed. 'You may be right. Indeed you may.'
Anne came back into the room followed by a tall man, with a thin face and sharp alert eyes. He was dressed in a well-cut grey flannel suit, a spotless white shirt with a dark grey tie and his outstretched hand revealed the yellow gleam of a wafer-thin gold wristwatch.
Anne introduced them. 'Tom Crane, Roy Martindale.'
Martindale's grip was firm but his hand ice-cold. There was something about him that instantly brought to Crane's mind an alertness, a feeling that care was necessary in dealing with the newcomer.
'Roy's directing the research project I'm working on,' Anne explained turning once again towards the door. 'Excuse me, will you, but I must see to the food. Roy, help yourself to a drink and top up the others.'
As Martindale poured the drinks with an easy familiarity, Crane felt a pang of irritation. The man moved across the room as if it was a second home to him. At once Crane was annoyed with himself. There was no reason for his irritation with Martindale. Anne was a single woman and entitled to choose her friends with whatever degree of intimacy she cared to grant them.
'That's a coincidence,' Crane heard himself say. 'The second Martindale I've met since I came to Edinburgh.'
Martindale raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly. 'Really?'
'The first one was prettier,' Crane added, not without a hint of mischief.
Martindale looked at him evenly. 'Light brown hair, hazel eyes, about five feet four?'
'Sounds right.'
'Sounds like my daughter, Sheila. Where did you meet up with her?'
'She called at my brother's flat. You must know him. Michael Crane?'
Martindale shrugged regretfully. 'Don't think so. But then Sheila has so many friends. Mostly of the opposite sex. You know what they're like at that age.'
'I think I've forgotten.' Crane forced a smile.
Martindale changed the subject. 'Been reading your article. Found it fascinating.'
'Don't tell me you believe in all that too, Roy?' Gilchrist interjected. Crane adjudged them to be at least old acquaintances if not old friends.
'I think, Harry,' Martindale replied, 'Anne invited you along as our pet professional sceptic.' He turned back to Crane. 'We always need our sceptic to stimulate argument, you see, Crane.'
Gilchrist gave a nervous laugh which could not wholly conceal a slight air of embarrassment. He changed the subject turning to the current political situation in the country and the three men discussed this until Anne reappeared to announce dinner.
It was only after they had consumed four steaks and followed them with a pleasant concoction of fruit and ice-cream that the conversation came back to Crane's article. Anne was pouring large whiskies when Gilchrist turned once again to Martindale.
'Really, Roy, I cannot understand how a practical medical man like you can believe in the stuff Crane dug out for his article. I'm sure he doesn't even believe it himself.'
'Some of it I believe in,' Crane insisted mildly.
Martindale accepted his whisky from Anne with a thin-lipped smile. 'A great deal of what Tom's put into his article is easily credible. It all depends from which viewpoint you look at it. And by the way I am a psychiatrist and many people don't count that profession as coming under the category of practical medical man.'
Crane felt surprised at Martindale's statement. 'Anne said you worked on the same project... that you were her chief. But Anne's a biophysicist!'
'Biophysics is as much to do with human life as psychiatry. In our project we use biochemists and many other disciplines. It's a wide programme,' Martindale replied smoothly. 'Of course Harry here will have to understand that the many strange subjects you touch upon in your article... and I'm sure in the ones we have yet to read... will have a direct relation to psychiatry.'
Crane nodded. 'There is always the mental aspect.'
Martindale pressed on. 'Most supernatural or supra-normal occurrences I believe would be found to have a scientific explanation given time to examine them. Time and the scientific facilities of course.'
Martindale's apparent assurance irritated Crane. The man's innate pomposity was showing. It had to be countered. 'While I appreciate your defending my articles against Mr Gilchrist's scepticism,' Crane replied, 'I can't quite let you get away with the strictly scientific explanation. You can of course try to explain the mental attitudes of some of those people I met but...'
'Exactly!' Martindale cut in. 'In psychiatry we have names for those attitudes. Schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucinatory states and so on. We recognise the conditions...'
'Huh! O
ne's as bad as the other!' Gilchrist growled amiably to Anne. 'The mumbo-jumbo but this time with big scientific words.'
Crane ignored him. 'But can you explain telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis in psychiatric terms?' he demanded.
'I can't. Not yet,' Martindale replied. 'But in time I believe science will. The research being done in those fields has yielded fascinating results. The answers of course will not lie simply in psychiatry. But you've only got to look at the work of Ullman and Kripper...'
'Roy!' interjected Anne sharply, irritation showing on her face.
'Anne?' Martindale turned a bland face towards her.
'You're not to lecture my guests...'
Crane smiled at his hostess. 'Actually I am interested, Anne. Let him go on.'
'You see,' Martindale looked smug. 'Anyway, Anne, you know you'll confirm all I'm saying.'
'We've been known to disagree before,' she replied tartly.
'Very well,' Martindale dismissed the necessity of her agreement with a wave of his hand. 'I stand alone. Now, look, Crane, the human brain has two hemispheres, the left and the right. The left controls language, logic in general, conscious thought...'
Crane found himself leaning forward. Despite his conscious antagonism towards the man, he could not help being interested. During the months of interviews and investigations that had gone to make up the first series of articles he had been aware of the psychological aspect of every situation he had investigated; conscious that he could be dealing with highly neurotic or even wildly disturbed personalities, some living their own esoteric fantasies. Despite this awareness he had not consulted trained medical or scientific sources. He had avoided these deliberately, not wanting to introduce elements of scepticism at an early stage in his investigations.
'Now regarding the right hemisphere of the brain,' Martindale was expanding his argument. 'The functions are rather more mysterious.'
'You really should be on television, Roy!' Gilchrist broke in. 'The Magnus Pyke of the brain waves.'
