Mean Spirit

The former dairy had four small rooms, including a kitchen with a hotplate and grill and a refrigerator. The living area was basic, with a pine-framed sofa like a child’s cot with the side down, a chair and a low table. Apparently, Marcus’s friend Andy Anderson, the nurse, had fixed this place up for him as a source of extra income. It was done out in her favourite colour: hospital white, bright and sterile, halogen wall lights reflecting the dazzling whitewashed stones back at each other.

The door to the bedroom was ajar. From the chair, Grayle could see Callard’s suitcase open on the floor; she hadn’t even properly unpacked.

‘I do expect a bill for the use of this place’, Callard said from the kitchen, ‘before I leave. You have sugar in your tea?’

‘Two. I don’t put on weight, I use nervous energy.’

She was, as yet, unsure about how successful the expedition to High Knoll had been. On the one hand, she was on the way to getting this basket case off Marcus’s back. On the other — disturbingly — she was less sure that Callard was a basket case.

Grayle said, ‘Uh, this may be simplistic, but did you ever think maybe a priest-’

‘God, no!’ Callard flung back from the kitchen. ‘Not having anybody gleefully wheeling out the bloody bell, book and candle trolley for me.’

‘But you wear the cross.’

‘It’s different,’ she said quickly.

‘I guess so.’ Marcus would understand that: the radiant symbol transcending all the dogma and the liturgy and the politics. ‘But there are other kinds of priests is what I was thinking. Guy we know … he has abilities in this general area. He’s helped people. I guess.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Hard to know how to describe it. But he’s had results.’

‘This is someone Marcus trusts?’

‘Uh …’ bloody prancing pervert, deranged deviant ‘… trust may not be the appropriate word in this instance. I’ll need to think about this. Look, should I tell Marcus we’re driving over to Stroud, or what?’

Callard came in with two mugs of tea. ‘I’m not entirely happy about it, but I can’t see an alternative. We’d have to go carefully.’

‘Naturally.’

‘I …’ Callard hesitated. ‘I’ve been thinking about Barber. And that party. There is another possibility. I’d forgotten about this, but we had a letter from the woman whose son committed suicide. Coral … Coral Hole. Asking if she could see me again. A private consultation.’

‘You didn’t follow up on it?’

‘Nancy sent the usual reply — I’m committed for the foreseeable future, but if she’d care to write again in six months’ time. They never do.’

‘So,’ Grayle drank some sugary tea, ‘if you were to get her address from your agent, maybe we could get some information out of this woman. How this party came to be organized, what was behind it, who was invited and why.’

Callard nodded.

‘So what was the tone of the letter?’ Grayle asked. ‘She mention her husband? I mean … nothing to suggest they might no longer be … together?’

‘She just asked for an appointment. What are you getting at?’

‘Just I was thinking, if my marriage had been broken up by a passing remark from a spiritualist medium … if she’d destroyed my life, set me up for a costly divorce, well, maybe I wouldn’t feel too well disposed towards her.’

‘What are you-?’ Callard’s hand shook slightly, had to put down her mug. ‘You think the husband might be behind the attack?’

‘You said he stormed out of the apartment. You said he was an aggressive kind of guy and you were afraid to leave in case he was waiting for you. Could he have been one of them? One of them spoke. Called you a slag?’

‘That wasn’t him. The accent wasn’t the same.’

‘What about the other one?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘In light of that possibility, would you still be prepared to go see that woman?’

‘I don’t know. I’d need to think.’

‘Let’s put it to Marcus. He should be up and about.’

‘All right. I’ll ring Nancy and get the woman’s address.’

‘Good.’ Grayle stood up. This was practical. This was movement. This was getting Callard and her ghost out of Marcus’s space. Although hard into Grayle’s — and this particular relationship still had some way to go before mutual trust was in sight.

‘Persephone, would you tell me one thing? When we were at the lodge, you seemed to get a … a sense of Ersula.’

Callard sipped her tea, eyes watchful over the mug. ‘Perhaps I was getting a sense of you.’

‘Please don’t try and deflect this. You were ready to let Ersula come through, right? Why would you do that, knowing that if you went into trance, the bad thing would come up like shit out of a drain? Why would you take that chance?’

‘Because it wasn’t a sitting. It wasn’t formal.’

‘I don’t understand. What’s the difference?’

‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Grayle. There’s no logic to any of this or, if there is, I can’t see it. I’m a sensitive, yah? Things come. I may wake in the night and something’s there, on the periphery. Or, meeting someone for the first time, I’m aware of another someone. But never — thank Christ — him. That would be possession, and that’s not what this is. If it was, I’d probably kill myself.’

‘You’re saying it only happens …’ tamping down the incredulity in her voice ‘… when you sit down formally. Play the music, say the words?’

Callard said nothing, didn’t blink.

Always, with this woman, just when you thought you were halfway to connecting, the walls of the old credibility canyon got pushed back again, leaving you with one foot hanging stupidly in space.

But Marcus looked a little better. Not much colour in his face beyond the raw redness of his nose; his body still sagging, rather than plump. But the will to eat and a little mild walking on the hills would maybe deal with both problems.

‘You sleep OK, Marcus?’

‘Some of the time.’ He was sitting at his desk. He had books out. He looked up beyond Grayle at Callard and then beyond her to the door, like she might have brought someone unpleasant in with her.

‘Coffee?’ Grayle said. ‘Breakfast, even?’

‘Give it a try, I suppose.’

‘Try hard, Marcus. Listen, I’ve been giving some thought to the problem of the car.’

‘Sorted,’ Marcus said, eyes directed back to the page.

‘Persephone’s gonna drive me over there and we’re gonna check out the situation. OK?’

Marcus looked up. ‘Don’t you ever listen to me, Underhill? I said it’s sorted. Arranged. Your vehicle will be picked up by lunchtime.’

‘What?’

‘And brought here by tonight.’

‘Marcus …’

‘Yes?’

Grayle facing him, hands on hips. ‘By whom, for Chrissakes?’

‘By the police,’ Marcus said.