Mean Spirit

Gary in the house?” And up steps Seward with some heavy questions. Who did it, Clarence? Who blew you away? Just gimme a name.’

‘However, the man presumably doesn’t realize’, Marcus said, ‘that the most useful piece of information ever gleaned from a denizen of the bastard spirit world is that the brown socks mislaid by Uncle Tom in 1946 may be found behind the fucking hot-water tank.’

‘Ah.’ Grayle lifted a finger. ‘I think he does know that. I think that’s why he wanted Persephone Callard.’

‘Only the best,’ Bobby said.

‘Plus … what about this? … all the people at that party, with the possible exception of Sir Barber, had one thing in common. They were all people who knew Clarence Judge! It was like Clarence’s party! How could he — Jesus, this is eerie — how could he not turn up for his own party?’

‘Underhill, I would hate to think you’re getting carried away …’

‘It’s a hypothesis, Marcus, but I think it’s a good one. Callard kept saying how like a fish out of water Barber seemed among these people. He didn’t know them, he was a little nervy in their company.’

‘I figured that too,’ Bobby said. ‘These were mostly, if not all of them, decidedly iffy people.’

‘It’s still a bloody gamble, Maiden.’

‘So? Seward’s a gambler. He loves risk. Also, he put himself very close to Seffi earlier on, when he posed as Barber’s chauffeur so he could pick her up at the hotel. So he could get close to her. Would he see that as establishing a link — with someone who wouldn’t normally handle pond life like Gary Seward?’

Grayle stood up. ‘There’s clearly a whole lot we don’t know, but we have a working theory. So let’s follow it through. Callard gives out real indications that she’s in contact with Clarence. But then it all goes wrong because Callard’s this loose-cannon kind of medium. The breaking of the vase, all this chaos … and then she runs out on them.’

‘Taking Mr … Judge with her?’ Cindy said delicately.

‘Right! And then’, Grayle grabbed his hand with a jangling of bangles, ‘she goes off into the night … with this dead guy … attached to her. And she can’t get rid of it.’

‘Why, though?’ Marcus said. ‘Why can’t she get rid of it? She’s an extremely experienced medium, she’s done all this before.’

‘Yeah, well, I can’t explain that. Except maybe there’s something different here. Something she hasn’t done before. Or, of course … she may know more than she told us.’

‘The point about all this’, Bobby Maiden said, ‘is that most of it remains valid even if you don’t believe in ghosts. All you need to accept is that Seward himself is a complete believer. Also a gambler, chancer, ruthless bastard …’

‘Because of what comes next, right?’ Grayle said.

XXXVIII

What came next was the Mysleton Lodge incident.

And the dead guy, Crewe. And Justin.

Bobby hypothesized that Seward wasn’t about to give up on Callard, even though she’d put herself out of the picture.

Grayle took up from here.

‘Seward’s getting real antsy. He’s thinking: Shit, does this woman now know what I oughta know? After all, he’s paid this broad twenty grand, he’s entitled to that information. What’s he do next, Bobby, how’s he go about this?’

‘He puts out feelers. Among his own people, to begin with, and maybe some of his showbiz friends. His network. On the fringes of which, maybe, are Justin Sharpe’s “hard friends” in Cheltenham. So when Justin happens to find out that Seffi’s at the lodge at Mysleton …’

‘It gets back to Seward in like no time at all, and Seward, he’s through with elaborate scams, arranging smart parties. It’s down to basics. He sends these guys out to fetch her. Bring her in.’

‘That could be it. We know that one of them was an employee of a security firm doing a bit of moonlighting, like they often do.’

Marcus looked appalled. ‘The man was having Persephone kidnapped, to make her attempt to re-engage with … Is that even possible, Lewis? That she could be forced to do it? Go into trance, under duress?’

Cindy considered. ‘Perhaps we should be asking ourselves not what is possible, but what such a man as this might consider possible.’

‘And when it all goes pear-shaped and one man winds up dead,’ Bobby said, ‘Justin’s hard friends go back to make sure he doesn’t implicate them. Maybe one of them is even the other Mysleton guy. The one who felt obliged to put Crewe out of his misery.’

Grayle thought of something. Wished that maybe she hadn’t. Felt queasy.

‘If they made Justin talk, there’s, uh, one thing he could’ve told them. Which is my name.’

‘Oh,’ Bobby said.

‘I told him my name. I didn’t write it down or anything, I didn’t spell it out, but…’

‘This is madness!’ Marcus howled. ‘It’s got completely out of hand.’

‘Yes,’ Cindy said, ‘perhaps it has.’

‘What if the bastards turn up here?’

‘Just a name?’ Bobby said. ‘No address?’

‘No. No address.’

‘She’d be hard to track down from just a name, Marcus, even if Justin remembered it correctly. All the same …’

Marcus pushed his chair back. ‘We should take it to the police.’ He glanced at Bobby, coughed. ‘I mean …’

‘You mean the real police,’ Bobby said.

Grayle thought about having to make that full statement, tell the cops about the hacker at the bottom of the River Wye, take them to the spot where they tossed it in, stand by while the divers went down. Oh God.

‘They gonna believe us, Bobby?’

‘Do we believe us?’

Marcus came to his feet, paced the flagged floor. ‘We’ve been here before, I think. What the holy fuck are we going to do, Maiden?’

‘If this is Seward,’ Bobby said, ‘it would be naive to assume that he’s going to stop now. He’s still going to want Seffi.’

‘We need to find her first, right?’ Grayle now had that jumpy sensation around her middle.

‘Well, at least I know a senior copper who’s prepared to believe anything of Gary Seward. If we can spend an hour or two trying to harden all of this up a bit, I could take it across to Gloucester and dump it in his lap. That would be the sensible solution.’

‘I guess.’ Any residual excitement seeped out of Grayle, leaving only the queasy feeling. If they were right, at bottom this was just a sordid tale of underworld obsession, revenge, cover up. Which, as Marcus said, had gotten way out of hand.

And yet was still glowing darkly under the halo of Big Mystery: the imploded window, the drawing — where did you get by taking stuff like this to the cops? You got disbelieved. Derided. Suspected. Accused. Referred for psychiatric reports, like all those creeps who said, I heard a voice telling me to do it.

‘All right.’ Marcus cleared his throat. ‘I think we all probably agree that before doing anything hasty we should spend some time attempting to locate Persephone ourselves. She needs to know about this possible Judge connection.’

‘Assuming she doesn’t already,’ Grayle said. ‘And that’s one of the reasons she hightailed it into the night without so much as an offer to pay for the glass.’

‘Yes, all right, Underhill. So how do we go about finding her?’