Mean Spirit

‘Position? Don’t make me laugh.’

‘Vera, how much do you know about your employers?’

‘I never even seen my employers. I hear about this festival coming off, walk into that conservatory place where all the admin people are getting it together. I says, you got any jobs going, and this woman grabs hold of me, brung me down the kitchens — looks like a flaming bombsite — and she says, Here, can you do anything with that? So I rolls up me sleeves, works me knees off, fourteen hours non-stop, and I got me a job. That’s how you always got jobs in my day.’

‘You came all the way from London?’

‘I’m not that daft. Nah, lived up here for years now. My late husband, he was a Brummie.’

‘So you know nothing about the people running this show.’

Cindy was aware that he’d slipped back, near enough, into his normal voice. The shock of being rumbled, he supposed.

‘No, dear.’ Vera shook her head, opened the scullery door a crack, peered through at the bustle of the caterers preparing a sumptuous, Victorian banquet for the Mayor of Malvern, the MP for Worcester and so on. Closed the door quietly. ‘But it sounds like you do. So if you want any more out of me, Miss Bacton, you better come clean, you had.’

‘Clean?’ Cindy slumped in an unsteady farmhouse chair. The dog, Malcolm, sat as still as a bollard on the flagged floor. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Consider me an investigative journalist. Consider the Vision stall as something of a front, a cover. And your employers … consider them under investigation.’

‘What for?’

‘Let’s call it fraud. Misrepresentation. Vera, would you perhaps be amenable to assisting me a little tonight? My movements appear to be a trifle restricted at present. I could make it worth your while … in due course.’

‘Worth me while? What do you think I am, a prostitute?’

‘I didn’t mean-’

‘All right, listen. I’m not daft, and yeah, I do keep my eyes open. I been making breakfasts for people the past two days, been seeing who’s who around here. I seen that geezer always smiling, doing his little laugh and I’m thinking, where’ve I seen him before? On the telly? Played a gangster, some’ing like that? And then I realize …’

‘Ah.’

‘Ain’t life strange,’ Vera said. ‘When I was fifteen I worked in the biscuit factory at Bow, and I had a mate called Paula what went out with a boy called Gary Seward.’

‘It’s a small world.’

‘Not that small. He was putting it about all over east London. She only went out with him twice, mind. Took her to the pictures and when they wouldn’t let him in for nothing, he slashed two full rows of seats on the way out.’

‘Could not tolerate it,’ Cindy mused.

‘But that wasn’t the reason she didn’t go out with him again. It was just she found out he was only thirteen.’

‘Heavens.’

‘See, his mother died. They’d moved up from the country when he was little. And then his ma got killed in an accident when he was twelve, and he went wild after that, apparently. Nobody could control him.’

‘And what is his position here, Vera?’

‘Boss man, ain’t he? Wouldn’t do nothing without he was the boss, would he? They’re all terrified of him, for all he’s supposed to be straight these days. Course, when he first heard my accent — this is Gary — he made me sit down, gives me a glass of champagne. Very friendly. Old East Enders together. I didn’t say nothing about Paula, mind.’

‘And did he tell you why he was here?’

‘He said’, Vera smiled, more than a trifle cynically, ‘that he was Tired of Earthly Concerns.’

‘There’s spiritual.’

‘Tell that to the bleeding troops,’ said Vera. ‘I tell you, Cindy … it is Cindy, isn’t it?’

Cindy smiled weakly.

‘Yeah, I thought so. It was the voice done it. I never bought a Lottery ticket in me life, but I always watch the show. Very amusing, you and that bird.’ Vera paused meaningfully. ‘It’s you and him, ain’t it? Kurt Campbell. We all saw that bust up you had on the box. Made him look an idiot and he didn’t like that. Has he got back at you in some way and now you’re getting back at him?’

‘I’m really not in a great position to get back at anybody, am I?’

‘Seems not. They’re all after you now.’

‘So I imagine.’

‘In hiding, eh? I reckon some papers would pay a fair bit to know where you are.’

‘A price on my head, is it? I feel like Butch Cassidy. Except, possibly, for the butch part. So …. what do you propose to do about this opportunity, Vera?’

‘Puts me in a funny position, don’t it?’

Outside, the snow had stopped, but the fingers of dusk were feeling through the wooded hill behind Overcross. It would be dark in under half an hour.

‘I’ll make a bargain with you,’ Cindy said. ‘I’m told I can command a substantial sum for my … story. Far far more than anyone could expect for shopping me. Split it with you, I will. Whatever it amounts to. Fetch me pen and paper and I will put that in writing.’

Vera looked at him for a moment and then laughed hugely, clapping her hands to her apron. ‘I don’t want your money. I’ll have a kiss from that bloody Kelvyn Kite. You tell me what I can do to help.’

‘I won’t forget this, Vera.’

‘Go on! Get on with it!’

‘Well, to begin with, I should be most interested to know what happened to the furniture brought here from Cheltenham.’

‘Can’t help you there. Never seen no furniture. I could try and find out.’

‘If you could.’

‘Anything else?’

‘If I … have to go away for a while … would you look after my dog?’

‘Blimey. Sounds like you think you might not be coming back.’

Cindy laughed.

‘I got to work later on,’ Vera said. ‘Bloody waitressing. One of the girls fell down six stairs, twisted her ankle. Muggins got volunteered. If I shut the dog in here with some water and scraps, will he be all right?’

‘He has a stoical temperament.’ Cindy had taken off the wig concealing the mauve hair, unbuttoned the tweed jacket to reveal the purple woolly.

‘There you are, see,’ Vera said. ‘You were underneath all along. That furniture you’re looking for, where would it most likely be? Not something you could easily miss, is it?’

‘What about the room where the seance is to take place?’

‘No way, dear. Just the big dinner tables, lots of chairs. They won’t get nothing else in there now and they’ll be starting dinner in an hour.’

‘Mr Seward is not on the guest list, then.’

‘No way.’

‘But definitely Miss Callard.’

‘This is the coloured lady?’

‘The medium. The one who is to conduct the seance.’

‘Nah, you’re wrong,’ Vera said. ‘It’s some geezer.’

‘I don’t think so, Vera.’