Mean Spirit (22 page)

An elderly correspondent called Hedges over in Norfolk had sent in an update on one of those hitchhiking spook stories: dead of night, guy in old-time clothing pops up in front of your car with a hand raised and when you stop he’s disappeared. Grayle thought she might use it to nose off a composite piece, collating a bunch of other hitchhiking ghost stories from the past ten years. It was an old scam, but it filled space, which was what they needed right now, with all the time lost.

‘Try autumn eighty-nine,’ Marcus mumbled, head in the
Mirror.

‘OK.’ Grayle started prising apart fifteen-year-old
Phenomenologists,
which were all moulded together. ‘Marcus, you’re looking better, did I say that?’

‘I may not die,’ Marcus conceded. ‘Not imminently, anyway.’

‘Got it,’ Grayle said presently. ‘Hampshire. Old lady in a shawl.
Excellent. Thank you, Marcus. Two more, and I can get a double-page spread out of this.’

‘Doesn’t seem honest somehow.’

‘It’s how magazines get filled, with no staff. How’s this for a headline? “Road Wraiths” … Marcus, are you listening?’

‘What?’

‘Like road-
rage,
only …’

‘Bloody hell, you seen this about Mars-Lewis and that smart-arsed hypnotist?’

‘Huh?’ Grayle came around to his side of the table, read over his shoulder about ‘Cindy’s Trance of the Seven Veils’.

‘Sometimes,’ Marcus said, ‘if you’re not obliged to have any personal contact with him, you can almost admire the creature’s nerve.’

‘Yeah.’ Grayle read the story through. ‘Wow. Hey, if this was Wednesday’s show, we oughta have it on tape. If you remembered to press the buttons.’

‘Of course I remembered. But you can watch it on your own.’

‘You gotta accept it, Marcus. Cindy’s on a roll.’

‘Hmmph.’

‘Uh …’ She hesitated. ‘You know, it did kind of occur to me that if anybody could help Callard … like where a church minister or a psychiatrist would totally fail to get a handle on the phenomenon, from either of their narrow perspectives …’

‘Don’t even
contemplate
it,’ Marcus said, mildly enough to suggest that he didn’t think she would do that to him, not in a million years. ‘Besides, if Maiden can help her unravel the origins of the whole disturbance, it’ll be a start.’

‘Yeah,’ Grayle said with no enthusiasm.

Last night, she’d finally gotten to return home to her own bed, leaving the sofa to Bobby Maiden. Home to the cosy little cottage behind St Mary’s Church.

Where she should have slept the sleep of the exhausted, drifting off to the sound of the night breeze in the windchimes, her amethyst crystal (cleansing and spiritual protection) under her pillow, her last conscious thought one of major relief that she was not overnighting in the slammer.

Funny these days how, when one anxiety went into remission, something else always arose to fill the space.

*       *       *

Bobby had come on at first like a straight cop – had Callard received any threats, been aware of anyone watching her, ever felt she was being stalked?

Callard shaking her head – this was a cop; what would he want to know about the ethereal, the other-worldly, the
matters of spirit.

So it was Grayle herself who had responded to Bobby’s question about Cheltenham – did Callard know anyone there?

‘Oh, I think
so.’

Callard giving her the hard stare that said,
You want me to tell this to a
policeman?

‘There are cops,’ Grayle replied, ‘and there are cops.’

And there was Bobby. Whose past experiences had shifted his whole perspective way beyond the cop-norm. The last time Grayle had seen Bobby he’d been asking her how crystals worked.

So when he was listening to Callard relating the seance stuff, about the cold atmosphere and the foul smell and the three-button grey suit and the long scar, it was without scorn, or veiled mockery. Grayle had noticed a little grey in Bobby’s dark hair. Poor baby; midlife crisis, intimations of mortality.

When Callard’s story was over he’d said, ‘But they can’t harm you, can they?’

‘They can steal your energy,’ Callard said, sliding on to the desk chair. ‘They can keep you awake like a young baby keeps its mother awake. Because they require your energy.’

‘What are we talking about here?’ Bobby asked her. ‘I mean, when the physical body dies, it’s said that what Gurdjieff called the
kesdjan
body—’

‘The what?’ Callard’s eyes opening wide. Oh God, she just could not believe this was a cop.

‘He means astral,’ Marcus said.

‘That the astral body remains alive for a while,’ Bobby said. ‘Is
that
what we’re talking about? An astral body kept alive by some earthly obsession?’

‘Hey,’ Grayle said lightly. ‘Technical, or what?’

‘I really don’t know.’ Callard leaning closer to Bobby, the woolly sweater coming open a little more, showing off those flawless brown tits. God-
damn.
‘I don’t think the astral body and the spirit are the
same, although one may inhabit the other. Certainly I’ve never seen anything quite so clear as this before. So fully defined, such presence. If it wasn’t such a negative presence I’d want to know more. As it is, I just want it out of my life.’

‘So it’s getting its energy from you.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You dream about it?’

‘I’m not sure. When I’m asleep, I can’t…’ she smiled ‘… police my consciousness. I thought at first that, in some perverse way, I was
inviting
it. Now I think it only comes when I open myself formally. Other essences may come through when I’m not trying, but never this one. But if I go deliberately into trance it’s there. Immediately.’

‘Every time?’

‘I’d say so. Which is why I couldn’t work, even if I wanted to. This is something that’s become attached to me because of what I am. What I do.’

‘Like a computer virus,’ Bobby said.

‘Or a vampire?’ Grayle standing up and crossing to the window. It seemed to have stopped raining. ‘Like the undead? Something that either doesn’t know it’s dead or doesn’t want to
be
dead.’

‘Does anybody?’ Bobby said.

Marcus said, ‘Maiden had a negative death experience.’

‘Really?’ Callard looking at him with awfully serious interest. ‘I’ve heard of that. But not all that often – most people, when they’re across, seem to wonder why the hell they spent so long trying to put it off.’

Grayle moved away from the window. ‘Anyhow, Seffi and I are going over to Gloucestershire tomorrow to talk to this woman who was at the party. Whose husband fucked the son’s girl.’

Bobby frowned. ‘Is that wise?’

‘What’s wise gotta do with it?’

‘Just that if you find the woman’s husband has a slice out of his face …’

Grayle started to say something, fell silent.

‘Those blokes had an agenda,’ Bobby said. ‘They didn’t complete it. Right now, they don’t know where you are. Either of you. Unless they got Grayle’s name out of Justin before …’ He stiffened. ‘You didn’t give him your address, did you?’

‘Oh. Did I? No … wait … I didn’t. I gave him my name was all. For the bill. I didn’t even write anything down.’

‘Nothing in the car with your address on it?’

‘I don’t think so. Bobby, you think we could be in danger
here?’

‘It’s unlikely, but we can’t rule it out.’

At which point Callard had actually said, ‘Aren’t we pushing the bounds of credibility a little here?’ And Grayle had thought, didn’t it ever occur to you that this is the first time tonight we
haven’t
been doing that?

She’d been drawn back to the window. The uneven castle walls looked like a grey army keeping vigil until dawn. Except the castle walls couldn’t even keep the damn rain out.

‘Look,’ Callard said, ‘I don’t want to put you in danger. I ought to leave.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’ Marcus was half out of his chair.

‘If we go over to Cheltenham tomorrow, that gets both of us out,’ Grayle said.

Bobby shook his head.

‘Two defenceless women, huh?’ Grayle snapped.

Then Callard was turning to Bobby, saying, ‘All right then, if you think there’s a risk, why don’t
you
go to Cheltenham with me?’

‘And I suppose, Underhill, that you’re glad to get rid of her for a day,’ Marcus said, getting it all ass over tit as usual.

Grayle said tightly, ‘Might freshen up the place a little.’

‘All right,’ Marcus said. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘No problem.’

‘Underhill?’

‘Forget it,’ Grayle said.

XXIII

WELL, THEY HADN’T BEEN EXPECTING THE HUSBAND, BUT IT HAD
always been a possibility. It made it harder, but the rewards were potentially greater.

He was a big man in his fifties. Wide chest straining his mauve polo shirt. Wide face.

Unmarked, as it happened.

He was standing, arms hanging loose, under the veranda of the spacious, colonial-style bungalow in a scrappy, semi-rural village five miles outside Cheltenham. He was staring at Persephone Callard as if he just could not believe this.

Seffi was summery today in a cream woollen jacket over a turquoise silk top and off-white jeans. The ensemble said,
Whatever you’ve heard, I’m still a woman.

‘Ah, Mr Hole.’ She stood no more than a couple of feet from him and did not back away. ‘I really came to see your wife.’

‘Or maybe you come to see if I’ve still
got
a wife.’ Mr Hole had a rounded Gloucestershire accent. ‘You got some flaming nerve, lady.’

The bungalow was in a choice spot at the top of a rise. There was a long gravel drive, about half an acre of lawn between the veranda and the road. Security gates seven feet tall at the bottom, but one had been hanging open.

They’d parked the Grand Cherokee on a grass verge about a hundred yards away and sat there a while discussing how to handle this. How angry
was
the husband? Maiden had asked.

Called me a black slag.

Mr Hole’s face was smoothly shaven. But not, it would appear, with a hedging knife.

‘Like you haven’t caused enough trouble,’ he said.

‘It’s been troubling me, too,’ Seffi Callard said smoothly. ‘Look, sometimes these things just come out, yah? And are not invariably accurate. One can never entirely guarantee that what comes through is going to be the absolute truth.’

‘Oh,
can’t
one? Then why …?’ His cheeks reddening. ‘Well, we both know why in this case, don’t we, lady?’

Anger there, genuine outrage.

‘Coral does two afternoons a week at a charity shop in Cheltenham,’ he said, ‘which is not a suitable place for you to talk to her. So you can talk to me or you can fuck off.’

He wasn’t being friendly, he wasn’t ready to be talked round. But he was curious, Maiden thought. There were things he wanted to know.

Inside, there were low sofas in bright spacey colours. Potted palms, yellow roller blinds, a Spanish-looking TV cabinet. The picture windows framed flat, scrubby farmland. Mr Hole nodded at one of the sofas but didn’t sit down himself. Maiden wondered where the money had come from.

‘This is Bobby Maiden,’ Seffi said. ‘My fiancé.’

Mr Hole didn’t smile, making it clear he wasn’t mellowing. ‘I accept the material compensations might be considerable,’ he said bluntly, not looking at Maiden, ‘but how does he stand it?’

‘I’ve got no imagination, Mr Hole.’ Maiden sat next to Seffi on a sofa with a banana pattern. He was somehow reminded of Consuela’s sitting room in Elham.

Mr Hole kept on looking at Seffi and came directly to the point. ‘My wife wrote to you.’

Seffi’s eyes widened. ‘You know about that?’

‘Of
course
I bloody know about it. Twenty-six years of marriage, a phoney stage act don’t destroy that, lady. We did a lot of talking and we decided we ought to take steps to find out who put you up to it.’

‘
Put me
—?’

‘We came to the conclusion’, he said, ‘that it was somebody’s idea of a joke.’

‘Doesn’t strike me as that funny, somehow,’ Maiden said.

‘Some people have a mighty strange sense of humour.’ Mr Hole came to sit in a sofa opposite them. It had a citrus fruit design. He’d never stopped looking at Seffi. ‘You could save a lot of trouble, Miss Callard, if you just told me who it was. And don’t give me any of that spirit world crap. I don’t take any moral stance on how you make your living, but I know a set-up when I see one.’

‘Now,
look
…’ Seffi Callard began to rise. Maiden put a fiancé’s hand on her arm.

‘Let’s hear what Mr Hole has to say. You see, what happened, Mr Hole, was that Seffi was given a lot of money by Sir Richard Barber to come along on the night, and she—’

‘Quite
a lot of money, I’d guess.’

‘And she doesn’t really know what that was all about. So if you’re talking set-up, perhaps she was the one set up.’

Hole still didn’t look at him. ‘I would like a name. I think you owe me a name.’

Seffi said nothing.

‘Not Sir Richard Barber, that’s for sure. What about Gary?’

‘Gary?’ Maiden said.

‘You stay out of this.’

‘Gary who?’ Seffi said.

‘You know who I bloody mean, you’re not that stupid. Listen, if it’s Gary I won’t tell him. I won’t tell him you told me. I just need to know. If it’s Gary, it’s all right. You know what I’m saying?’

‘Oh,’ Maiden said. ‘
That
Gary.’

And Mr Hole finally turned and looked at him. It was a long, hard look designed to tell Maiden he might have just made a mistake.

‘Who
are
you, my friend?’ Mr Hole said coldly.

‘You’re a mate of Gary’s then, Mr Hole?’

Mr Hole came slowly to his feet.

‘Only, if Gary—’

‘Out,’ said Mr Hole.

‘Is there a problem?’

Mr Hole’s fists bunched. They were big, hard fists which had been bunched before. ‘Problem’s gonner be all yours, boy, you push it any further with me.’