Strange Sight

by Syd Moore

  Recollections of the curator’s yellow rust bucket caused an impromptu shudder.

  ‘Well, I’m not going in yours. These boots are new. Look at them, even the gold is leather. Golden leather. Leather gold.’ I sighed to express my quantum of bliss. ‘Not forgetting the jeans which are £120 worth of lift and shape that are no way touching your passenger seat unless you put a towel down. Potentially several.’

  Sam emitted an audible huff and let his eyes rove down my torso to my hips (any excuse). ‘Hope they didn’t come out of our last fee?’

  ‘What?’ I said, threading outrage through my voice but keeping my eyes down on the boots so that he couldn’t read me. Sometimes with Sam, I just couldn’t obfuscate. ‘No way!’ I said, loudly. They had. ‘How dare you? I work for a living remember. Very hard too, unlike some I might choose to mention, who lounge around reading books and stuff.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ I heard him say, and was mightily pleased he couldn’t see my face. ‘All right, fine. Just saying. We need to be careful with money. Well, we’ll take your car then, shall we? But on one condition: that I drive. Please. Just this once.’

  I considered this for a moment. The insurance I had for work might be stretched to cover him. And certainly he was an extremely exasperating back-seat driver. Maybe if he had the driving wheel it might shut him up. ‘Okay,’ I told him. ‘We can try. Just this once. Do we have to take any equipment or anything?’

  When I looked up again I saw he had an amused little half-grin playing on his lips. ‘What sort of equipment are you talking about?’

  I knew for a fact that in the office, behind reception, there was a cupboard full of electronic devices, the function of which I wasn’t yet privy to.

  ‘Don’t know,’ I said. ‘That’s your department, isn’t it? I’m just coming along to bring the common-sense element to all of this malarkey.’

  Sam laughed. His eyes sparkled.

  We fell into step as we continued down the corridor.

  ‘I mean,’ I went on, ‘aren’t we meant to be checking out Boundersby’s place to see if there’s anything, you know, a bit spooky going on? He gabbled something about a ghost.’

  ‘Rosie,’ Sam said. He was looking down at me, as he spoke, a good half-foot taller. ‘We’re not ghostbusters. As far as I’m aware there aren’t any proton packs or giga-meters lying about the Folk Magic section.’

  ‘Mmm.’ I narrowed my eyes. ‘You seem to know an awful lot of detail about that film.’

  ‘Childhood favourite,’ he said, and looked away. His fringe flopped forwards. ‘I’ve got a couple of video cameras and tripods that we could fix up. We can pack my automatic recording device for potential EVP. Tripwires etc. Talc. The usual.’ He pushed his hair back again with the hand that was still clutching the sponge. It left a streak of red paint down the right-hand side of his face. I didn’t tell him.

  ‘So,’ I went on, ‘what’s EVP when it’s at home in the Witch Museum?’

  ‘Electronic voice phenomenon,’ he said. ‘Sounds on electronic recordings. They’re often interpreted as spirit voices that have been either unintentionally recorded or intentionally requested and recorded.’

  ‘Thank you, Wikipedia.’ This is what he was like.

  Then he winked and nudged me in the ribs. ‘Though there are others who regard it as a form of auditory pareidolia.’

  I jumped at his touch and took a few strides to regain myself. ‘Pareidolia? Not that old chestnut?’

  He let out a chortle and I joined in.

  ‘Not sure that there’s anything in EVP personally,’ he went on once we’d stopped giggling at each other. ‘But we may as well add it all to our bag of tricks – the gentleman’s offering a very healthy fee.’

  Two months ago if someone had said I would be able to joke, albeit weakly, about pareidolia I would have dialled them a taxi for the funny farm. On me. Now, it was like water and ducks.

  I’d only known Sam for a couple of weeks, but they had been intense weeks and I’d experienced strange goings-on and learnt a lot about phenomena and conditions that I had previously no inkling even existed. At least they’d not come up on any staff development training in my day job investigating benefit fraud.

  Pareidolia, for instance, I now knew, was the condition in which people can perceive human features in something that is not human at all. Not even usually animate: faces in clouds, human profiles in rock formations or leaf patterns, Mother Teresa in a cheese toastie. That kind of stuff.

  Sam had explained it to me once and then just days later I experienced it myself. That is, I’d seen something like a woman’s face in a cloud of dust. Sam, of course, wasn’t convinced by my explanation. He was a sceptic, sure, but he was more of your X-Files Mulder type – he wanted to believe.

  Personally I took more of a Scully line.

  Oh, yes, and I’d found out we had one of those over here too. An X-Files. Well, a British one. Part of MI5 or MI6, allegedly. I didn’t know what they were actually called but I’d met one of their operatives. Though I’m sure this is all a bit much to take on board. It was for me. So I’ll go back to the part where we were walking through the museum.

  Well, by the time we finished chuckling we had reached the lobby. It wasn’t a big space but still managed to squeeze in a ticket office and an ‘Inquisition’ exhibit which was terrible. Though when I say ‘terrible’ I don’t mean frightening. Originally my grandfather must have hoped it would incite large amounts of fear and trembling but now the waxworks were so ropy and caked in dust, the exhibit looked like an advert for S & M granddads. Three waxworks figured in the dungeon scene. One scrawny prisoner in nothing but a tiny sackcloth tunic was suspended from the wall in chains. Before him stood a dark-robed figure. He had his back to the prisoner on the wall and was grimacing with wicked intent through a dusty beard. His hand rested on a wooden lever. If the exhibition had been on, he would have jerked it back and forth mirroring the actions of a crescent blade, which threatened to slice into another prisoner fastened to a rack. Only it was Sunday and the museum was closed, so the three dummies were taking a break from their sixteenth-century torture regime, to dangle limply in their skimpy shorts and sacks. We really needed to replace that with something else. Or would do, if I was going to keep the place. But I wasn’t.

  We passed the main entrance to the museum’s interior – a padded leather-look door that was usually lit by a green backlight and announced by a deep recorded voice: ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’ Cheesy, I know. It had Granddad’s name all over it.

  Beyond it were sections that Sam had commandeered and overhauled: display cabinets crammed full of folkloric objects and neatly labelled artefacts. On the walls beside them educational quizzes for kids. In another section, there were rows and rows of conscientiously displayed botanicals. But for the most part, waxworks pouted and creaked doing their best to look ghastly. The whole place needed a facelift.

  Sam unlocked the door to the ticket office and we squeezed past the till, turning a corner into a large office – the nerve centre of the operation – which would have looked a bit like a cross between a library and a junk shop if it weren’t for the long wooden table positioned in the middle, which appeared to be perpetually laid for tea.

  ‘Damn,’ said Sam. ‘I need talc.’

  ‘Planning to get sweaty?’ I couldn’t help it. There was something about Sam that made me want to wind him up all the time. Well, most of the time. There were moments when I wanted to do other things to him.

  He smiled wryly and said, ‘There will be some in the girls’ room.’

  I stopped fiddling with the tablecloth and said, ‘What girls’ room?’ This was a new one on me.

  ‘The attic,’ he explained. ‘Where all your aunt and grandmother’s stuff is stored.’

  ‘Ah, right,’ I said. I knew there was an attic. I just hadn’t been in it yet and didn’t know what it contained. ‘You’ll have to show it to me sometime. When we get back, yeah?’
r />   ‘Of course,’ he said, and then ducked out of the room.

  I fed Hecate, the museum cat, black of course, then cleared the table and washed the cups in the sink.

  Sam came downstairs with a battered suitcase, which he filled with wires, screens, cameras and other stuff that I didn’t recognise at all.

  ‘Mmm,’ he said thoughtfully as he snapped the suitcase shut. ‘Better pack some extra undies?’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Are you planning to soil the ones you’ve got on?’

  He rolled his eyes and picked up the case. ‘In case we have to stay up there.’

  ‘Ah, come on.’ I gave Hecate a rub behind her ears. ‘We just have to get in there, look around, set up some of this equipment and then leave. It’ll be flying visit, won’t it? Ghosts don’t exist, after all.’

  The cat changed position. Now she was stretching, no, not stretching, but backing away from me. She twitched her head, padded over to Sam and meowed loudly.

  ‘I know,’ he said to her. ‘And I’ll be there when she does. Come on then,’ he continued his conversation with the museum’s furry resident as she waved her tail in my direction dismissively. ‘And you don’t mind if I leave the place in your capable paws, do you, dear H?’

  The cat meowed again then they both disappeared into the ticket office.

  This place was seriously nuts.

  An afternoon in a swanky modern restaurant was going to be just the tonic.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The dark pines that bordered the perimeter of the Witch Museum glittered wetly as clouds departed the sun and allowed it to shine for just a moment on our little patch of Essex. I sent a farewell nod to the museum, a lumpy white building that looked uncannily like a skull, then jumped in the car and strapped myself in next to Sam.

  It felt slightly odd to be in the passenger seat but I had decided to make an effort not to nag while he drove. It wouldn’t help. And, actually, as he eased my silver Mercedes out of the car park I was relieved to see him executing safe and competent manoeuvres. I liked a man who could control his gearstick.

  ‘I’ve driven this make a few times,’ he explained as he changed gear. ‘My father had one.’

  He’d never mentioned his parents before and I found myself surprised to learn he had them at all. Sometimes I imagined that he had sprung fully grown from a giant egg or something. But he was just as human as the rest of us, it seemed. ‘Are they, you know, still around?’ I asked.

  He began to brake and started looking left and right as we approached the main road. ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  A little smile cracked his furrowed expression. ‘They’re in America. Mum’s a professor at the University of California.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. That rather stumped me. ‘And do you have siblings?’

  ‘An older sister, Sybil.’

  I banished Prunella Scales from my mind. ‘Does she still live over here?’

  ‘No, she’s in Ibiza.’

  Why all of this shocked me into silence is anybody’s guess. I suppose I had lumped the curator into the ‘orphaned loner’ category, though I wasn’t sure why. After all, he was confident (possibly to the point of arrogance), and didn’t seem to shun society (mostly), though I knew he also enjoyed his semi-solitude at the museum. Even so the associations with California and Ibiza were unexpected. These were hip, cool-sounding places. And although Sam was by no means square he paid only a cursory nod to passing trends. I knew he took care of himself though – he had a muscular frame that had been worked on, I was sure. I snuck a quick glance at his thighs – just to check. He’d got chinos on today and, instead of his usual denim jacket or parka, had put on a classic herring-bone suit jacket which he’d done up over his T-shirt. Along with the high cheekbones and excellent teeth, which a posh person might assume to be a sign of good breeding, I reckon he might pass for a preppy American.

  My guess was that he was intending to make a positive impression on Mr Boundersby, who was a wealthy man and therefore also a potential Witch Museum benefactor. I’d thought about that too and had swapped my regular boots for the new black-and-gold leathers that made me feel breathy and a little too excited. Teamed with my silky bomber jacket I knew I looked a class act. ’Course, I was wearing jeans but like I said, they were designer. I figured you could tell.

  Sam had stopped the car at the exit and put the handbrake on, which I thought was a little bit over-cautious. Though when I looked over his way, I saw the reason why loom into view.

  Beyond Sam, a tatty grey face was scowling into the car. It was Audrey, our resident protester. With her protruding red nose and wild wiry hair she looked more like a witch than anyone else in the museum, animate or otherwise. Generally, I was aware, she tended to take up residence on the pavement outside along with her placards and a table dispensing leaflets whenever she got bored of the Christian fellowship club and WI.

  I heard Sam sigh as she rapped on the car roof and made a rotating gesture for him to wind the window down. Behind her fog-drenched bulk I could see one of her hand-made posters propped against the museum’s sign. It had a picture of Jesus on the Mount defying a reddish devil figure. Except, no, he wasn’t on the Mount. He was on a photocopied picture of the Witch Museum. Coming out of its door were myself, Sam and Bronson, our handyman-cum-caretaker. We all appeared to have grown horns. Underneath she’d written: Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil. Isaiah 5:20, 21. Nice.

  ‘Oi, you,’ Audrey poked a bony finger in my direction. Dishevelled hair fell across her face as she spoke. Though it was April she had on thick woolly fingerless gloves. I caught a whiff of damp, cat wee and lily-of-the-valley and tried not to gag. ‘You there,’ she said again. ‘Spawn of the Strange.’

  I leant forwards to meet her gaze. ‘You called? Well, good morning, Audrey. Weather looks like it might turn. Let’s hope spring’s on its way, at last. It’s been a rainy few days, hasn’t it?’

  She pursed her lips. A thousand wrinkles deepened around them. ‘You said you were going to sell the damn hellhole. Haven’t seen any for-sale signs going up.’ It was an accusation filled with ragged disappointment.

  I nodded. ‘There will be soon. All in good time.’

  Audrey narrowed her eyes and spent some time staring hard at me while Sam drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  ‘All right,’ she said slowly, beginning to withdraw her head. ‘You make sure you get on with it.’ She sniffed and straightened and started to back away then as an afterthought looked back in and spat, ‘Satan’s whore.’

  Sam checked his right mirror. ‘Twinned with Adder’s Fork,’ he muttered under his breath, then focusing on something beyond me he nodded respectfully, ‘Morning Mr de Vere.’

  I followed his gaze and saw a very old man wheeling a bicycle. He stopped and lifted a sopping panama hat in greeting.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I asked Sam.

  ‘Edward de Vere,’ he whispered. ‘Lord of the manor and local patron of the village’s minimal artistic community. He painted the Strange family portrait I showed you when you first came down.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ I said, thinking back to the huge picture which dominated Septimus’s living room. It featured my granddad in a grey silk suit, nicely accessorised by a triangle of white handkerchief in his breast pocket – upright and firm. Next to him his wife, Ethel-Rose, smiled lusciously, almost coquettish if I’m honest, a coil of raven hair wound down her neck practically pointing to her full creamy bosom. Strawberry cheeks and alabaster skin suggested the artist had enjoyed painting this particular subject. In her arms my grandmother cradled baby Celeste, my dead auntie, all wrapped up in christening clothes. By her side a small boy in a sailor suit, my dad, scowled.

  ‘Didn’t you say that was painted around 1952?’ I ventured. Despite the ruddy complexion and kinky white hair the cyclist looked surprisingly agile. ‘How old is he?’

  ‘In his nineties.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘What’s h
is secret?’

  ‘Never worked a day in his life.’

  ‘Ah, that’ll do it,’ I said.

  As Sam turned into the road, the old man’s eyes caught mine. For a moment we smiled at each other.

  When we finally accelerated into the lane, I caught a glimpse of him in the rear mirror. He was still staring at me. Despite myself I felt an odd flutter of adrenalin run though my body. I didn’t know why or how that might be.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘Stop! Stop! You’re going to kill us.’ Pause. Breathe. ‘But I’m not going to bloody let that happen. Stop. Stop right now.’

  ‘What?’ Sam’s eyes were wide. Though he wasn’t letting on, I could tell he was kind of flustered. And so should he be too. ‘What? It’s not my fault – I’m driving by the rules.’

  ‘That’s the problem,’ I said. ‘You can’t do that in London. We’re too late now. Get out. Out of the car!’

  I opened the door and stood on the pavement somewhere in Whitechapel, instantly creating a bottleneck of traffic and attracting several honks and a barrage of assorted death threats.

  It was true Sam was driving by the Highway Code, but no one else was and his style was causing some serious issues with other drivers.

  I plonked my hands firmly on my hips, removing my right only to flick a V in the direction of a crimson-faced lorry driver who looked a bit like Pete Postlethwaite if he’d taken too many steroids.

  Sam was still in the car.

  For god’s sake.

  I stomped around the bonnet and opened the driver’s door. ‘I am not going to sit there like a moron while you play grown-up bumper cars on the streets of London in my car. You may have a death wish, but I would like to see the sunset if that’s all right with you?’

  His face was pinched and whiter than usual. ‘You were the one who said I could drive!’

  ‘Yes, but that was to shut you up so you’d stop calling out every single friggin’ road sign that we pass. And we’re late now, and you yourself said we shouldn’t irritate someone like Ray Boundersby.’