Mean Spirit

‘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 fiance.’

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 fiance’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.’

Maiden rather thought he meant it. This was where you had either to blow your cover and bring out your warrant card or leave quietly.

Seffi Callard prodded the Jeep back on to the road. Big, solid clouds were walling up the sky in the east; over the hills a weak sun was trying to get its fingers in the cracks.