‘I don’t …’ Tears threatened Cindy’s make-up. ‘I felt
‘A force of nature,’ Grayle said.
‘It was one of the absolute worst moments of my life. About to try mouth to mouth, I was, until I saw the look in his eyes.’
Cindy found a smile. Last night he’d been a mess. Prowling the windy ruins, a ragged spectre of despair. He’d killed Marcus, just like he’d killed the BMW family and the plane guy and the guy who’d married a gold-digger less than half his age. Killed them all. Cindy, the walking curse.
After talking it over with Bobby, Grayle had called the hospital at midnight, learned that Marcus was sleeping. She’d told Cindy that Marcus had whispered to a nurse to tell Lewis that it wasn’t his fault, that he had to pull himself together, see it through. A necessary lie.
This morning they’d had a call from Amy at the pub to say Cindy had left for Overcross before six a.m.
‘We’re gonna have trouble with him, though, Cindy.’
‘Marcus? Yes. Taking it easy, obeying doctor’s orders … not his way. Mind, I didn’t even know he had a heart problem.’
‘Nor did he,’ said Grayle. ‘He hadn’t seen a doctor in twenty years. He just saw Mrs Willis. Like, if he did have a heart problem, maybe it didn’t matter with her around.’
Bobby looked at Cindy, who really didn’t look at all like Cindy. ‘Does he
‘I have no idea, Bobby.’ Cindy pulled up a wrinkle in his tights, flexed a leg. ‘But if he did, this is what she would be like, and if she doesn’t achieve a fifty per cent reduction in Marcus’s stall rental, she won’t consider herself worthy of the family name. Now, listen to me, children — close those tent flaps — there are things you need to know.’
Arriving early was always useful, Cindy said. It was barely light when he got here and freezing cold and the restaurant marquee wasn’t open. So Imelda Bacton had gone up to the house, where the woman who cleaned the kitchens had taken pity on her.
This cleaner was one of the temporary staff hired for the festival, a big, cheerful cockney lady called Vera, who made coffee for Cindy and herself in the vault-like kitchen where dinner was to be prepared each night by a catering company from Worcester. And, of course, they’d gotten talking and Imelda had said she was only managing the stall for her brother, who’d had a heart attack, and Vera said she’d been forced to take this miserable job because her husband had died recently, leaving her short.
Like old friends, the two of them, in no time at all. Vera was cynical about the Festival of the Spirit and appalled at the amount being paid by the house guests attending the Victorian seance.
And the thing was, she said, it was all going to be a complete con. She’d taken Cindy up to the baronial dining hall where, behind screens and false bookcases, all was revealed.
‘Projection equipment,’ Cindy said, ‘for the creation of ghosts. Hidden spotlights to illuminate the muslin and chiffon gauze used to simulate ectoplasm. Tables with mechanical rapping devices built into the legs, a platform with a floorboard that rises when a foot pedal is pressed, thus causing the table to rock. Need one go on?’
Grayle’s eyes widened. ‘A scam? The whole thing’s gonna be a scam?’
‘And a rather obvious one, it seemed to me. Obvious to us, today, that is, but convincing enough, evidently, to the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and other believers in the early part of last century.’
‘But — hold on — how does this equate with all the bullshit Campbell’s giving us about seeking the scientific solution?’
‘Perhaps he wishes to demonstrate how those early researchers were frequently fooled, which they undoubtedly were. Such was the craving for mystical experience that there was considerable money to be made in those days.’
‘In New York’, Grayle said, ‘there was a woman had a hole in the front of her dress, used to pull this glowing ribbon from a roll she kept up her snatch. Sure. All kinds of scams. But why would Campbell wanna bother with this garbage?’
Cindy moved to the tent flap, peered out to ensure they were alone. He took a small notebook from his fitted tweed jacket, opened it.
‘A look at tonight’s guest list — which the delightful Vera showed to me with a certain contempt — offers a possible explanation. I copied down a few names. For instance, we have the Chairperson of the Heart of England Tourist Board, the MP for Worcester, officials of the Malvern Chamber of Trade, the Elgar Society, the Chief Executive of Forcefield Security. Also, Lord …’
Bobby looked up, like a bird just took a shit in his lap.
‘… and Lady Colwall. I don’t think I need go on. It’s a collection of local dignitaries and notables to launch the event. None of them will be paying, of course, they’re here to bestow upon it Establishment credibility. And, because attitudes have changed considerably since Victorian times, one can’t imagine any of these people accepting the invitation if they thought it was to be a
‘So they’re not even gonna
‘Of course not. It’s to be a civilized after-dinner entertainment, an exhibition of deception and human folly. We see how the magic lantern was used to project phantoms, how sound effects and the deployment of light and shadow would simulate the atmosphere of a haunted house …’
‘Big deal.’
‘Ah, but then …’ Cindy laid down the notebook ‘… what if, at some point in the evening, there is an imperceptible change? What if we shift from simulation to an invocation of … who knows what? What if the obviously fake gives way to the semi-convincing and then — in front of this august assembly — to the terrifyingly inexplicable? And what if afterwards, as the somewhat timid applause dies down, the guests come to realize that what they have just witnessed is …’ Cindy raising his hands, fingers moving like undersea creatures ‘… the reality of it?’
‘This is where Callard comes in?’
‘I don’t know, little Grayle. I won’t be there. Only you will be there, among the dignitaries.’
Grayle moistened her cold lips.
Bobby said, ‘But that’s just what you
‘Of course,’ Cindy said lightly. ‘And if nothing happens but the fakery, nothing is lost, no reputations are damaged. But if it does, particularly in front of this distinguished group, think of the kudos for Kurt’s venture.’
‘Hold on here,’ Grayle said. ‘Are we talking about Clarence Judge? Because that’s what they’re gonna get from Callard. Just Clarence freaking Judge and his slimeball smell. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, Cindy.’
‘No,’ Cindy said. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t.’
‘Maybe we put two and two together and made sixteen.’
Bobby said, ‘I don’t suppose Seward was on that guest list?’
Cindy looked disparaging. ‘I know he’s a popular figure now, but is that really likely, Bobby? Even rejected for the Lottery Show once, he was. I think it was the idea of the big money balls in the hands of a known felon … Hush a moment …’
Cindy lifted a finger. There came the unlikely sound of ragged, unaccompanied singing. Bobby stood up, walked over and spread the tent flap. Grayle went to peer over his shoulder.
‘Aw, this always happens.’
Over on the cindered parking lot, a minibus had drawn up, a bunch of people gathered around it. They were singing a hymn. Two of them carried a banner between two poles. In black stencilled lettering, it carried a not unfamiliar appeal.
IN THE NAME OF JESUS, STOP THIS EVIL!
The banner took some holding steady in the wind, but maybe they had support from above.
‘Whenever you advertise any kind of big New Age event, you get these militant evangelicals,’ Grayle said. ‘Happens a lot back home.’
Cindy joined her and Bobby in the opening. Quite a few more New Age stallholders had emerged, so there was some kind of audience — if not the kind likely to be on the side of the protesters.
‘Open your minds, why don’t you?’ yelled this woman in a long, grey woollen cloak. ‘There’s more than one
