Mean Spirit

‘This man … this Justin … have you tried to ring him?’

‘OK, I’ll do it now.’

She found Justin’s card in her bag, picked up the phone, punched out the anonymity code then the number.

A computer told her the mobile phone she was calling had been switched off. Well, sure, he might be out someplace, helping extricate cars from a smash up; didn’t have to be getting his head sewn together under major anaesthetic — cops waiting outside for news of his death, other cops tracing the number of the antique Mini in the garage. After which … the banging on the cottage door. Grayle Underhill? Would you come with us, please, Ms Underhill? The statements, the hearing, the whatever passed these days for deportation.

Grayle cut the line.

‘Bit of a bloody nightmare really,’ Marcus conceded.

‘Can I borrow your car to get home?’

‘Can’t you just stay here tonight?’

‘On this sofa? No way. Keys, Marcus?’

‘Underhill-’

She peered hard at him. ‘Why don’t you want to be alone with her?’

‘That’s nonsense.’ Marcus’s use of the word displayed his lack of conviction. If he’d meant it, he’d have said balls or bullshit.

‘Maybe she isn’t quite the person you remember?’

‘People change. Obviously. She was a child.’

‘Naw,’ Grayle said. ‘She’s spooky in ways you didn’t expect.’

Silence. The study was lined by about four thousand books on aspects of the paranormal. The unexplained: always safer sandwiched between hard covers.

Marcus looked old and stressed.

‘What does she want, Underhill? You haven’t even mentioned that. What does she think I can do for her? What did she tell you?’

Nothing, she told him. Nothing that accounts for anything.

She stayed. The police never came. The day grew gloomy, the fire in the stove grew brighter. The two of them had a small lunch — can of soup.

Marcus kept glancing up at the door, blinking and blowing his nose, maybe wondering if Callard had been some fever dream, the screwed-up schoolgirl metamorphosed into this strange, austere, beautiful woman.

‘You want me to go knock on the dairy door, Marcus? See she’s OK?’

‘No. Don’t … don’t disturb her.’

Like he was scared that if Grayle knocked on the door the windows would blow out. He grunted, pulled off his glasses and began to wipe the lenses. Stared into the fire, which must, without his glasses, look like some misty sunset. Persephone Callard had been his inspiration. His first signpost to the Black Mountains and Castle Farm, The Phenomenologist and the miracle healing of Mrs Willis. Callard was the shining saucer in the sunset sky. The Holy Mother on the bleak mountain.

Grayle recalled Marcus’s story of Callard and Chaucer and Sir Topaz. She sniffed.

‘Callard told me last night she had Einstein through one time and it turned out to be total horseshit.’

Marcus hissed through clenched teeth. ‘Look. Whether it comes from the Undersigned or not is essentially a side issue. The fact is, it was coming from somewhere … some exterior source. Just because the — for want of a less contentious term — spirits may not invariably be who they say they are doesn’t necessarily reduce her status as a medium.’

‘So she stops herself being a patsy for poltergeists, having windows explode on her, all this, by letting the … entities communicate with her. By acting as a mouthpiece for the dead. And, incidentally, making a lot of money out of it.’

‘You make it sound sordid,’ Marcus said.

‘Well, some people would say that. Like, how long has she known that half the stuff she’s passing on to the bereaved might be horseshit? From the picture you’re giving me of her, I think she has a lot of explaining to do, Marcus.’

And then they both saw the shadow in the study doorway.

‘Whenever you want,’ Persephone Callard said.

XII

Vic clutton wanted to meet in the Crown because it was his local now, how about that? The most expensive hotel in Elham. No villains, right?

Or none that Vic knew. Diving into the genial after-work crowd in the mellow oak bar, Bobby Maiden spotted an iffy estate agent drinking with a solicitor named in four too many wills and a county councillor believed to have imported kiddie porn and plastic sex aids from Amsterdam.

But, OK, not Vic Clutton’s kind of villain. This man was Old Crime, and Maiden was almost sentimental about him. He bought a large malt whisky for Vic and a Malvern water for himself.

‘How long you been back, Victor?’

‘Never been away, Mr Maiden.’

Victor/Mr Maiden: quaint Old Crime courtesy.

‘Just hanging out below eye-level, sorter thing,’ Vic said. ‘Wallpapering. Carpet-fitting. Old girlfriend of mine, her bloke died, left her a house. Danks Street, just round the corner almost. Nice area. Upmarket.’

Maiden nodded. ‘You’re looking well on it, anyway.’

‘Feeling better, Mr Maiden.’ Vic looked plumper and untypically ungrizzled. New suit, light blue. ‘Feeling very much better, thank you.’

Couple of years now since Vic’s son, Dean, the lowest kind of freelance doorway dealer, was grassed up by Tony Parker’s establishment and formally nicked by Riggs’s man, Beattie. Occupational hazard. But while on remand — here was the catch — Dean hanged himself in his cell.

At least, the coroner saw no reason to doubt that Dean had done it himself. But Maiden knew an example had been made of Dean to underline the downside of freelancing on Parker’s ground. A slice of bitter irony for Vic, who, as Parker’s man, had in fact planted the smack on his son — for his own long-term good, Vic had thought, the boy being a user, too.

Very bitter irony, and for a while Maiden had thought there was a real chance of Vic giving evidence that would send Riggs down.

‘I’d’ve done it, Mr Maiden,’ he said now, apologetic. ‘I would have, you know that. But where was the point, with Parker dead, Riggs gone? Where was the point in me getting meself a reputation?’

Maiden nodded. Understandable. And after all, if it hadn’t been for Vic on the night he nearly lost his eye, it could have been significantly worse. Like death, for the second time.

Equally, if it hadn’t been for Vic — in a way — there wouldn’t have been a first time. Still …

‘Reason I called you, Mr Maiden.’ Vic sipped delicately at his whisky. ‘The word is, your personal premises was penetrated last night, yeah?’

Maiden drank some Malvern, said nothing.

‘I hope this isn’t a nasty surprise. I mean, I presume you’ve been back there since last night. Knowing how wedded to the job you lads is.’

‘Can’t have been obvious,’ Maiden said. ‘Or I’d have reported it to the police.’

‘That is true,’ Vic said. ‘Oh well. Perhaps it didn’t happen after all.’

‘Who told you it did?’

‘Possibly the lad who didn’t do it,’ Vic said.

Maiden leaned back in his chintzy chair, had to smile.