Ghosts Know

by Ramsey Campbell

“I didn’t think we had any. You know everything about me.’”

  “I know you’re my cute producer and a psychologist as well.”

  “I’ve got a few letters after my name, that’s all. Good at writing essays but who knows if I’d have been much use at the job.”

  “You’re good with all kinds of people, Chris. There are too many graduates to go round, that’s the trouble. You said you saw someone from your graduation year working in a supermarket.”

  “We’ll all be working for Frugo soon.”

  I need to get back in touch with Hannah Leatherhead. I haven’t mentioned her to Christine yet, but I will once I’ve learned if there’s a definite offer. Instead I say “I do think with all your knowledge—”

  “I ought to be making more use of it and not hiding away from the public.”

  “I was only going to say I’m surprised you can’t see through the likes of Frank Jasper.”

  “Maybe there’s more to see than you want to think, Graham.”

  “It sounds as if you’d like there to be. That’s not like you,” I say but have to add “Is it?”

  “I don’t believe psychology can explain everything. There has to be more to all of us than that.” With a hint of reproach Christine says “He found out more about you than I had.”

  “I told you how.” Having left her unconvinced brings me close to rage, certainly only with him and his tricks. “Tomorrow I’ll prove it,” I assure her. “And honestly, now you know everything you’d want to know.”

  “Well, here’s something you didn’t know about me.” Christine takes rather more than a sip of her coffee as a prelude to saying “I told you Oliver started knocking me about and that’s why I left him. He’d lash out if he couldn’t win an argument, and I’d got tired of letting him win.” Another swallow of coffee lets her say “He kept telling me he’d had an abusive childhood as if that was an excuse. He even tried to make me feel it was up to me to understand him.”

  “You know I’d never do that. I hope you know.” When Christine only gazes at me, at least without disagreeing, I add “And see, you had a secret after all.”

  “It isn’t the same, Graham. It wasn’t about me.”

  I know better than to argue under all the circumstances. She finishes her coffee and glances at the recorder lying dormant on the table. “If you’re going to be busy with that,” she says, “I’m off to bed.”

  I don’t need to be psychic or even a psychologist to read her mind. “It can wait till the morning,” I say, and soon we’re on top of the quilt in the bedroom. The subdued light is all I need in the way of mystery. Her firm cool fingers on my back and her legs around my waist feel like forgiveness as well as the delicious messages they’re sending to my nerves. We don’t need words when we’re so close. I’m deeper inside her than any question could take me, and surely she feels united with me. We can forget about false spirits, as if there’s any other kind, and even about investigating them while I have Christine in the flesh. At last we gasp, sharing our breaths, and as we grow peaceful in each other’s arms I remember wondering as a boy why people called it the little death. This kind of dying I can live with, and before long we come back to life.

  6: A Scar And An Insight

  “Police are appealing for anyone who’s seen Kylie Goodchild since the twelfth of May to contact them. Remember that was Diversity Dividend Day…”

  The twelve o’clock news is cranking up my irritation while I wait for Frank Jasper—not the content of the newscast or even Sammy Baxter’s chummy tone, but the way she links each item with the next. “Meanwhile in Baghdad a car bomb has killed at least twenty people…” What does she mean by meanwhile? It reminds me of captions in old cinema serials and makes me feel as if she’s trying to bundle the randomness of the world into a narrative that will lend it sense. One of the injured came from somewhere not too far from Manchester, which apparently renders the carnage more significant, though not for long in terms of airtime. “And now in sport there’s rumours of new blood at Manchester United…” I might be tempted to broadcast some wry comment once the news ends with the weather, but my jingle intervenes, and the Wilde Card slogan reminds me why I’m here. “Wilde is right,” I say. “Graham Wilde here, the Wilde man of Waves. Today I’ve got a special show for you. Clairvoyant Frank Jasper has agreed to leave the stage and take questions. Can he predict what’s coming? I’m hearing a voice in my head that tells me he’s here even though I can’t see him.”

  Christine widens her eyes and cocks her head in a gesture that might be on the way to a rebuke, and then she lets go of the microphone and leaves the control room. I’ve asked her to say as little as possible to Jasper, and nothing he can use. As I tell the listeners that I saw his show last night she reappears with him. When she lets him into the studio I lean across the console and give his hand the briefest shake. “Welcome to Wilde Card, Mr Jasper.”

  He’s wearing slacks and an equally white T-shirt, which is emblazoned with the slogan SEE THE TRUTH. Perhaps we’re meant to see him as modelling innocence. He sits opposite me and raises his gaze like a promise of honesty. His eyes are intent on looking both alert and gende, positively sympathetic. His faint smile may be meant to appear relaxed and amiable, but I’d call it smug if not secretly amused. “The name’s Frank,” he says. “This is a surprise.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought you’d want any of those, Frank.”

  “There’s not a whole lot I like more than surprising people.”

  He’s going to play more of his word games, is he? That’s fine if the listeners notice. “Do I call you Gray?” he wonders—says, at any rate.

  “I didn’t think you’d need to ask.” When he leaves that unanswered I say “Try Graham. What were you calling a surprise?”

  “Finding you’re running this show. Didn’t I give you a reading last night? That was at the Palace, your listeners should know. I’ll be giving readings there all week.”

  “Are you having to ask if you gave me one, Frank?”

  “I don’t have that great a memory. It isn’t necessary for what I do. If the spirit world speaks directly through me I may not remember what I said.”

  “Then here’s a reminder,” I say and switch on the playback.

  There’s silence for a moment and then for another. The recording was more distant and muffled than I liked, and I fiddled digitally with it, as much as it could take. Jasper clasps his hands together and parts his lips, just in time for his voice to be heard. “Now there’s a Jay down here in the stalls…”

  “Gee, you did show up prepared,” Jasper says and looks reproachful. “Did you check with someone it was okay to record?”

  I’ve paused the playback so that he can’t blot it out. “Wouldn’t you want anybody to?”

  “I’m just concerned about whoever got the reading.”

  “I don’t believe it was too personal. Would you like me to edit out everything she said?”

  “Hey, it’s your show. You do whatever you feel you have to.”

  I have to glance past him, because Paula has come to her door. As I meet her eyes she gives a single nod. “I will,” I say and let the playback loose.

  “Is it J for Jo? Somewhere in these first few rows? Jo something, is that what I’m being told?” When at last the lady in the audience rewards him with Josie’s name I stop the playback. “What would you say about all that, Frank?”

  “I’d rather hear what else the lady has to say.”

  “You can’t take a guess at her name.”

  “I’m not always told those. The spirits let me know when I’ve found who they’re seeking. That’s what counts.”

  “Didn’t you say Josephine was at the lady’s shoulder? I wouldn’t call that far to seek.” As Paula shuts her door, presumably content to let me deal with him, I point out “Somebody cynical might say you didn’t tell her as much as you seemed to. They’d say you knew there was a good chance there’d either be someone with a name like Jo near the
stage, so you could be that specific, or somebody who knew someone with that kind of name. And once you got a response you started trawling for the full name or a surname.”

  “Well, that’s a whole lot of words just to try and take away the lady’s comfort.”

  I won’t respond to that except by reviving the playback. He gazes at me while we listen to several of his exchanges with the lady’s niece, and then I cut off his voice, which the digital improvements have left a little thin and shrill. “Everything you said to her could mean something else.”

  “But it didn’t, Graham, did it? You heard the lady say so herself.”

  “You weren’t even sure what colour Josie’s hair was until you were told. Glasses could be spectacles or glassware, and it’s an easy bet that some of those would have been broken in the past. You claimed Josie liked to talk and when her niece told you she hadn’t you made out she’d changed in the afterlife.”

  “I guess you’re paid to think that way.” Jasper’s gaze has grown infuriatingly tolerant. “I just wonder,” he says, “what your listeners think.”

  “Let’s find out, shall we?” Christine has entered a caller’s details on the monitor. “Martine from Longsight,” I say. “You’ve a question for Frank Jasper.”

  “First of all I want to say I’m shocked how rude you’re being to your guest. Did Mr Jasper know this was how you were going to treat him?”

  “I’m sure Frank did some research.” As he shakes his head I say “Go ahead and speak to him.”

  “I’m not finished with you yet. You’re trying to twist things to discredit him. He didn’t just say the lady’s aunt’s name before the lady said anything. He said her aunt meant a lot to her and there was unfinished business, and that turned out to be the will she didn’t make.”

  “The way he phrased it, Will could have been somebody’s name.”

  “Oh, Mr Wilde, how determined you are not to believe anything you aren’t paid to believe.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with money.” Rather than say this despite the provocation, I ask her “Are you ready to talk to my guest yet?”

  “I’m here for you whenever you’re ready,” Jasper says, “and please do call me Frank like all my friends do.”

  “Well, thank you very much.” At first the privilege seems to have robbed her of words, and then she says “Do you think some people have a gift like yours even if they don’t know?”

  “It could be everybody has if they search deep enough within themselves.”

  “Would you want that?” I wonder. “You’d be out of a job.”

  “It isn’t just a job, Graham.”

  “Maybe you could run courses for budding psychics.” His wistful expression as much as his comment has provoked my retort. “Any other questions?” I ask the caller.

  “Do you think you have the gift, Martine?” Jasper intervenes.

  “I’d love to find I did. Can you tell over the air? Would you be able to give me a reading now, Mr Jasper, Frank?”

  “He can’t do that, Martine, sorry.”

  Christine gazes at me through the window as Jasper says “How come you’re speaking for me, Graham?”

  “I’m saving you can’t do that on my programme.”

  Perhaps he sees why, though I don’t know whether Christine realises he could have planted Martine to ask for the reading “Okay, Martine,” he says. “When can you come to the Palace? Name your night and I’ll fix up free tickets for you and a friend.”

  “We don’t do that on here either.”

  Christine frowns, because we’ve given away tickets to shows in the past. This time Jasper doesn’t protest, perhaps for fear I’d point out that he could research Martine’s background—there can’t be many people of that name in a single district of Manchester. “Then just tell the front of house I sent you,” he says, “and there’ll be tickets.”

  “Thanks for your call, Martine. Shall we hear some more of your performance, Frank?”

  “Sure, let people make up their minds.”

  I let the playback run until he tells Josie’s niece her aunt is with her. “What would you say you were doing there, Frank?”

  “Just exactly what everyone heard.”

  “You told the lady her aunt had lost something valuable. Not much of a deduction when she’d told you her aunt was careless with her spectacles. And you could have seen from her face they’d been accused of stealing it, the family you weren’t sure about until she said who was who. Someone cynical might say she told you more than you told her.”

  “I don’t know why anyone that cynical would come to see me. Don’t you have callers waiting in line?”

  I glance at Christine, who nods at the monitor. In a moment details of two callers appear on the screen, and I’m infuriated by the notion that Jasper is more capable of picking up cues from her than I am. “Answer me one question first,” I say. “Is it a chummy place, the afterlife?”

  “That’s kind of an English way of putting it. Can you say what you mean?”

  “Are all the dead on first name terms? Whenever you said you were in touch with somebody you never gave their whole name. Do we forget our last names once we’re dead?”

  “Most people forget stuff as they get older, don’t they? It’s part of the process of becoming what’s essential about each of us. All that matters is it never dies and we find peace.”

  I meant to show up another flaw in his performance, but I’ve handed him a notion he may not even previously have thought of. I need to be more alert, and I feel as if I’ve already overlooked some remark of his or something else about him. “Are we taking more calls?” he says.

  “In a moment.” I don’t want to be distracted from identifying whatever I failed to notice. “Let me ask you this,” I say to gain time. “Why did the lady get Josie for her, what’s the phrase you use, her spirit guardian?”

  “Don’t say you wouldn’t want it, Graham.”

  “I’m asking why she’d be favoured and not her sister.”

  “There’s no time and space in the forever. I’m sure Josie is with both of them.”

  Perhaps I can recognise the clue while he’s dealing with a caller. “Now we have Vic from Crumpsall,” I say. “What would you like to ask Frank Jasper, Vic?”

  “Do you reckon you’re clever?’”

  Jasper’s sad smile doesn’t falter, and so I say “Frank?”

  “Not him, you,” says Vic. “How many more silly tricks are you going to play to try and make him look bad?”

  “What tricks do you think you’ve been hearing, Vic?”

  “The lot of them. Don’t fret, Frank, anyone with half a brain can see what he’s up to. The likes of him should keep their gobs shut while you’re helping the police. You don’t want to be put off finding the lass that’s disappeared. You’re doing it for nowt, he might like to know.”

  “Is that right, Frank? You aren’t charging a fee?”

  “I hope you didn’t think I would, Graham.”

  “I just wanted to tell you we’re all with you, Frank,” Vic says. “You do whatever’s wanted to find the girl, God protect her.”

  “Thanks for your contribution, Vic.” I don’t know if this sounds ironic; my voice in the headphones seems too remote for me to judge. “Harry from Harpurhey, you’re on the air.”

  “Let’s be hearing you, then.” He gives me a moment to feel encouraged before he says “Let’s hear what he said to you at the Palace.”

  For just an instant I think Jasper isn’t anxious for it to be broadcast. I’m very much hoping to discover the reason as I set off the playback. “I’m getting an uncommon name …”

  There’s no question that he knew my discarded one but didn’t want to seem too obviously informed. Of course, he would have prepared for the interview by looking on the Waves web site, and he’d have recognised me at the Palace from my photograph. I let his monologue run to the end, stopping it just short of the single word I blurted. “What did you think of
that, Harry?”

  “What do you? It’s meant to be all about you.”

  I could question whether it’s accurate and challenge Jasper to prove it is, but I’m goaded to enquire “How do you think he does it then, Harry?”

  “How he says. That’s if it’s true, and you’re not saying different.”

  I’m tempted to deny it is, not least because Jasper’s gaze is insufferably confident, but I could be shown to have lied. Am I really so desperate to expose him? Surely I haven’t run out of legitimate options, even if I’m reduced to asking Harry “What do you think is so accurate?”

  “You tell us. Herbert’s your real name, is it?”

  “It was one of them. It isn’t now.”

  “He got that, then, and the things that went on when you were a lad. He even knew you lived in Hulme and all about your grandpa.”

  “Not all about him. Not quite your usual style, is it, Frank?”

  “You’ll need to tell me what you mean, Graham.”

  I’d like to let him wonder for a while and demonstrate he’s less perceptive than he wants his audience to think, but I can’t leave a silence on the air. “You never said his name. Don’t say he’s forgotten that when you said he could remember so much else.”

  “Maybe he figured he didn’t need to mention it,” Jasper says. “Like you said, he told you so much that you recognised.”

  I’d be more infuriated by his deftness if I hadn’t thought of a trick of my own. “Can you ask him now?”

  “That isn’t how it works, Graham. I’m just the receiver. The spirits choose when they want to get in touch.”

  “You said yourself he wants me to acknowledge him.” I wish I’d let the playback reach that point. “You said he’s at my shoulder. I just need him to confirm his name.”

  “Gee, you sound like you’re running a security check on your own grandfather,” Jasper says, holding up his hands. “Do you really want me to try and raise him now he’s at peace?”

  He might be trying to look like a saint displaying stigmata—there’s even a scar on his left palm. I’m about to authorise him to rouse my grandfather when the sight of him seems to pinch the world into sharper focus, and I recall what he said earlier that I didn’t fully grasp. It feels as though I’ve discovered a talent quite as psychic as his, and I say “Do you think I could do it?”