by Gary Gibson
Metka nodded. ‘So you’re still getting physical therapy?’
‘And will be, for some time yet.’
Metka winced in sympathy. ‘I read that article in the Guardian about Ashford. My God. Such a terrible man.’
As it turned out, Claire Ward had kept extensive diaries ever since her sister’s murder. Most of them were filled with gibberish: Claire had fallen in with an occult society whose members sat listening to radio static in the hopes of hearing and transcribing the voices of undead spirits. It was, journalists had concluded, her desperate attempt to get in touch with her dead sister.
Susan had been a primary witness in the inquest, of course. When she’d told Claire she had found the bracelet beneath the floorboards, Claire had realised the only way it could have got there was if Christian had dropped it while struggling to kill Clara. That realisation had driven her to set a fire in Ashford Hall before confronting Ashford in the South Wing.
All of this, in turn, had led to a reinvestigation of Ashford’s alibi, and several people, including a former MP for Wardenby and a senior clergyman, were facing fresh perjury charges. Ashford himself had died in the flames. The down-and-out jailed for Clara’s murder, meanwhile, was expected to receive a posthumous pardon.
Susan glanced back up the steps. ‘You attended the inquest?’
Metka nodded. ‘I was watching from the public gallery. I only just got back from South America this weekend.’
The hesitancy in Metka’s English had entirely disappeared, Susan noticed. ‘I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you when I didn’t hear from you for so long,’ she said. ‘Were you in Venezuela all this time?’
Metka nodded. Susan knew that she’d gone there with Professor Bernard and Angus as part of some ongoing investigation. ‘We were in a rural part of the country with almost no cell coverage,’ Metka explained, rooting around in a shoulder bag. ‘It made it almost impossible at times to contact anyone in the outside world.’ At last she pulled a hardback book out of the bag, then passed it over. ‘Here,’ said Metka. ‘This is for you.’
Susan saw that it was the updated edition of Summerfield’s book, with a smarter, more modern cover design. ‘So it’s out,’ she said, taking it from Metka. She stood carefully with her stick tucked under one arm and turned the book over to see a much more recent picture of Summerfield on the back, looking as saturnine as she remembered him.
‘You get mentioned several times,’ Metka told her. ‘You know, you’re practically famous in some quarters.’
‘Have you eaten any lunch?’ Susan asked her.
‘Not yet,’ said Metka.
‘This time,’ said Susan, ‘it’s on me.’ And she led the way down the steep concrete steps, leaning heavily on her stick.
Susan had her own questions to answer during the inquest, of course, but surprisingly few had focused on the fact of her having held on to the bracelet quite as long as she had. As Summerfield himself had pointed out, after all, the case had been closed for decades. There was no reason for Susan, a civilian, to suspect the bracelet might be connected to an abuse of justice. As far as the law was concerned, she had committed no crime or misdemeanour.
When she gave her evidence, she made no mention of whispering voices, or whatever it was that had so terrified Ashford in those last moments before Metka came to her rescue.
Ashford Industries had been taken over by its senior management team, and they had already changed the name of the company to put distance between themselves and their deceased founder.
Susan and Metka found a Wetherspoons that was remarkably quiet for the middle of London on a weekday afternoon. They picked at their fish and chips and Rogan Josh and talked about the things they’d done since they’d last seen each other.
‘They really aren’t letting you access your own experimental results?’ Metka shook her head, scandalised, as their coffee arrived.
‘No,” said Susan. “In fairness, the data’s their property, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.’
‘But none of it would have existed without you!’
Susan chuckled weakly. ‘Doesn’t matter. The experiment didn’t work.’
Metka looked confused. ‘But the EVP’s – that experiment we did? Surely, I thought...’
‘Fundamentally unsound and subjective, unfortunately.’
‘But it worked,’ Metka insisted. ‘I was there. We both were.’
Susan sipped her coffee. ‘It doesn’t count, unless you can reproduce the results. And no one can.’
Metka leaned towards her. ‘Why not?’
‘Think about it. How many major physics research centres are haunted in the way Ashford Hall was? None. The EVP’s existed there for a long time before we turned up.’
Metka thought about it. ‘I see your point. You would have to set up the experiment in some place that already had a reputation...’ Her eyes lit up. ‘Then why not do just that?’
‘I heard from Bethany the company’s new owners did exactly that with Beauty – set it up in some abandoned hospital, with a history of hauntings and ghostly voices.’
‘And?’
Susan shrugged. ‘They found zero correlations with historical EVP’s.’
Metka sank back. ‘But it seemed as if we really had something.’
‘We did,’ said Susan. She rescued a lone chip from her plate. ‘I think there was something special about Ashford Hall – something that made it unique.’ She nodded at the book lying on the table between them. ‘You remember what happened at the séance?’
Metka thought for a moment. ‘Claire was accused of somehow ruining the proceedings.’
‘Specifically, they asked the spirit for its name, and instead of saying Clara, it said Claire.’ Susan gave Metka a meaningful look. ‘I think that the séance made contact with Claire’s ghost.’
Metka let out a baffled chuckle. ‘Now you’re confusing me. Claire was present and alive at the séance. Living people cannot haunt buildings, Susan.’
‘Look – we found evidence that we were able to send certain types of information into the past, right?’ Metka nodded. ‘So on that Saturday we were supposed to run the experiment with Ashford present, I’d already set the array in motion when he wandered off to make a call. All that was left for us to do was read out our randomised passages.’ Susan leaned across the table. ‘By some mechanism I still can’t even begin to understand, that information – our voices – were already being sent back to apparently indeterminate points in Ashford Hall’s past.’ She stabbed her still-uneaten chip in Metka’s direction. ‘But who’s to say only our voices could be sent back in time?’
‘Then... What else?’
Susan smiled. ‘How about the spirit of someone recently deceased?’
Metka’s mouth opened, then closed again.
‘What I’m saying,’ continued Susan, ‘is that Claire’s undead spirit, her essence, it could be argued, constitutes a form of data. One that could be transmitted to an earlier point in time by whatever weird physics we’d somehow tapped into.’
Metka’s eyes had become round. ‘Then... You’re suggesting Claire was haunting Ashford Hall for all those years, and not Clara?’ She stared past Susan at some indeterminate point, thinking it through. ‘So – after Ashford had killed her, her spirit somehow found its way through the array and into the past?’
‘It makes sense of what happened at the séance, doesn’t it? There were multiple witnesses to what happened there, so what if the spirit they’d contacted was simply telling the truth? And that EVP you played me, of a woman’s voice whispering to me so low I couldn’t hear it. Susan, he’ll kill me, over and over.’
The blood drained from Metka’s face. ‘My God. You think that was Claire trying to warn you?’
‘Warn me that Christian Ashford was going to murder her, yes.’
‘But... There are all those other EVPs we have on record. Are you saying she was responsible for all the rest of them?’
‘Who knows?’ Susan shrugged. ‘After what happened, I’m willing to entertain just about any crazy idea.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe some of them were echoes from parallel universes. The fact is, we’ll never find out.’
Metka shivered visibly. ‘You’ve been thinking about this a lot.’
Susan rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve had little else to think about. I spent six months lying in a hospital bed trying to relearn how to walk. And research positions haven’t exactly been landing at my feet in the meantime.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. So you haven’t been working?’
Susan shook her head. ‘I’ve got a teaching position starting in October. I can’t really complain, but...It’s not where I saw myself at this point in my life, put it that way.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No.’ Susan shook her head emphatically. ‘Don’t be. It’s my own fault, anyway.’
Metka studied her closely, then slowly began to shake her head. ‘Susan, none of what happened is your fault. I don’t see how you can possibly –’
‘I wouldn’t have wound up working for Ashford if I’d just kept my head down and stopped demanding credit; I’d have got to where I wanted to be eventually. And that bracelet...’ She sighed. ‘I hung on to it because I was afraid if Ashford really had something to do with Clara’s murder, and the bracelet connected him to it, then it would risk my project.’ She spread her hands, remembering how Summerfield had tried to warn her and how she had refused to listen. ‘Do you see? I was thinking of myself, not those poor girls. If Claire hadn’t seen the bracelet in the library, if I hadn’t told her where I’d found it, she’d never have come to confront Ashford and they’d both still be alive.’ She stopped herself, suddenly aware her voice had been rising. ‘The way I see it, that makes me at least tangentially responsible.’
‘You did what you had to do,’ Metka insisted. ‘You couldn’t possibly have known what would happen.’
‘No, I couldn’t,’ Susan agreed. ‘But Claire’s spirit knew. And all this time it was trying its damnedest to warn us about Ashford.’
‘And we didn’t listen.’
‘No,’ said Susan, slowly shaking her head. ‘I’m afraid we didn’t.’
Coda
‘There you go,’ said Adam Phillips, pushing the front door open and stepping to one side. ‘Do you need any help with that step...?’
‘I’m perfectly fine,’ said Arthur Melville, placing the brass tip of his cane against the step and carefully levering himself across the threshold and into the narrow hallway of the house. Thin grey hair curled around the collar of his long dark coat, his mouth twisted up with just a suggestion of distaste.
Adam watched from the doorway as Melville reached for a light switch, flicking it back and forth to no effect.
‘The electricity is still off,’ Adam explained, his tone carefully apologetic. The old duffer seemed the type who appreciated a subservient attitude. ‘It’s been a year, after all.’
‘Ah.’ Melville nodded. ‘Perhaps if you were to draw the curtains in some of the rooms, that might help?’
Adam stared into the shadowy hallway, and somehow found the courage to walk into the house, aware of the way the old man was looking at him. However much Melville’s hand trembled where it gripped the cane, his eyes were sharp and unyielding in their focus.
Adam sniffed the air, mausoleum-cold and scented with dust and mould. He made his way into the living-room, drawing back the curtains and letting in thin afternoon light. Melville followed in his wake, studying the meagre furnishings with a disdainful eye. The light revealed cheap furniture not good for much outside of a scrapyard. Adam had developed a certain instinct when it came to the homes of the deceased, and he knew they would find no lost Rembrandt tucked under the bed or pushed to the back of a cupboard.
Melville turned to look at him. ‘It’s been empty since Miss Ward died, I presume.’
‘It has.’ Adam gestured around at the furniture. ‘I have a firm I use for clearances. They can come around and get rid of all this old furniture even before we hand the keys over to you –’
‘No,’ Melville said abruptly. ‘It was bad enough when the police were here.’
Adam blinked. ‘I don’t understand...?’
Melville pushed at a pile of Home & Gardens mouldering on a coffee table with the tip of his cane, and some of them slid off onto the floor. ‘They took things,’ he said with evident disgust, ‘including Claire’s diary. I only just managed to reacquire it, and it’s been a year since she died. I don’t want anyone else in here touching things that don’t belong to them.’
Adam shivered, but not from the cold. The old man gave him the creeps. He’d heard a rumour Melville used to visit Claire Ward here in her house, and the assumption had been they were having some sort of affair. Yet there were other rumours, to do with Ashford Hall and some cult in Brighton.
‘But surely, if you’re moving in...?’
Melville smiled stiffly. ‘I didn’t buy this property to live in it, Mr Phillips.’
‘I don’t understand. Do you mean you intend to let the property out? That would require a different type of mortgage than the one you-’
‘No tenants,’ Melville said sharply. He took another glance around the bare, cold living-room. ‘I intend to use it as a... meeting place.’
‘A –’ Adam caught himself before he could ask anything more. Who cared, really, what the old dingbat wanted with the place? It was hard enough selling a house associated with a grisly murder, so when Melville had appeared with an offer of just over half of what the property’s market value had been prior to its owner going up in flames along with Ashford Hall, Adam had jumped at the chance to get rid of it.
A mobile phone rang, making Adam almost jump. Melville reached into the depths of his coat and withdrew a smartphone, placing it against his ear.
‘If you would,’ said Melville, catching Adam’s eye and nodding at the door.
‘Of course.’ Adam stepped back into the hallway. It smelled terrible. A year without any heating meant the whole place was probably thick with mildew. He stepped into the kitchen, similarly untouched since its owner had left it for the last time. The walls of the old house were thick enough he couldn’t hear Melville next door speaking to whoever it was on the phone. Even the garden outside the kitchen window seemed still and silent, as if anything living that crawled or swam or flew had chosen to abandon it.
He reached for an ancient transistor radio sitting on a counter and turned it on, finding the silence oppressive, but no matter how he turned the dial all he could hear was static, and the faint echoes of voices transmitted from far, far away. He thought he caught a trace of music, but no matter how he turned the dial he couldn’t find it again.
He carried the radio over to the window and tried once more. After a moment he got something a little clearer, but it was just a man’s voice, apparently crying out in pain.
Adam frowned, and listened more closely. Help me, he heard the voice say, and then again: help me. Don’t let them find me. Please. I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I didn’t mean it to happen. Claire, please, it was an accident. Please don’t. Please don’t. Claire...
He dropped the radio and it fell to the floor with a clatter before falling silent.
‘Mr Phillips?’
Adam looked up suddenly to see Melville watching him from the door with a strangely knowing look. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘we should discuss when I can get the keys.’
‘Of course.’ Adam brushed trembling hands across his suit and tie, straightening it. ‘If we step outside, I can call the office and arrange a pickup date.’
‘After you,’ said Melville with a bemused smile, as Adam made for the front garden with what under any other circumstances would have appeared to be unseemly haste.
About the Author
Gary Gibson is the author of ten novels, including Stealing Light (first in the four volume Shoal Sequence), and Extinction Game, and various shor
t stories. A native of Glasgow, he currently lives in Taipei. He has a blog and website at: www.garygibson.net.
Selected Bibliography:
Angel Stations (2004)
Against Gravity (2005)
Shoal Sequence
1 Stealing Light (2007)
2 Nova War (2009)
3 Empire of Light (2010)
4 Marauder (2013)
The Final Days
1 Final Days (2011)
2 The Thousand Emperors (2012)
The Apocalypse Duology
1 Extinction Game (2014)
2 Survival Game (2016)
NewCon Press Novella Set 4: Strange Tales
Adam Roberts – The Lake Boy
Cynthia lives in a lakeside parish in Cumbria, where none suspect her blemished past. Then a ghostly scar-faced boy starts to appear and strange lights manifest over Blaswater. What of the astronomer Mr Sales, who comes to study the lights but disappears, presumed drowned, only to be found naked days later with a fanciful tale of being ‘hopped’ into the sky and held within a brass-walled room? What of married mother of two Eliza, who sets Cynthia’s heart so aflutter?
Ricardo Pinto – Matryoshka
Lost in Venice in the aftermath of the war, Cherenkov just wants to put his head down somewhere and sleep, but her copper hair snares his eye. She leads him to Eborius, a baroque land lost in time, and takes him on a pilgrimage across Sargasso seas in search of the Old Man, who dwells on an island where time follows its own rules. Last of his kind, the Old Man is the only being alive who may hold the answers Cherenkov craves.
Hal Duncan – The Land of Somewhere Safe
The Land of Somewhere Safe: where things go when you think, “I must put this somewhere safe,” and then can never find them again. The Scruffians: street waifs Fixed by the Stamp to provide immortal slave labour. But now they’ve nicked the Stamp and burned down the Institute that housed it, preventing any more of their number being exploited. Hounded by occultish Nazi spies and demons, they leave the Blitz behind in search of somewhere safe to stow it…
