Mean Spirit

evidence?’

But he knew he was trapped. The youth had at least one of his colleagues behind him. And behind him, probably a great many members of the Lottery-following public who would enjoy seeing a disgraced Cindy Mars-Lewis ignominiously led away into the gaily coloured night.

‘Get lost, sonny,’ Lorna said. ‘I’m paying silly money to occupy this tent and as long as I’m doing that you’re not welcome here. Go on. Push off.’

‘Please stay out of this, madam. It’s really not your concern.’

Lorna erupted. ‘You got a flaming nerve! You clowns marching round like bloody storm-troopers — you’ve got less authority than traffic wardens! This is supposed to be a spiritual event. You know what that means? I doubt it. I tell you, a lot of things here don’t fit and you Gestapo bastards are one of them.’

‘I think you’ll find, madam, that this will go down on record as one of the least troublesome festivals of its kind ever staged. And that will be precisely because we don’t tolerate stealing or’, he sniffed, ‘drugs.’

‘Oh, do me a favour …’

‘We don’t do favours on drugs.’

‘No? Depends who’s selling them, doesn’t it?’

‘That’s a lie.’

‘What’s a lie? Go on, bugger off, you’re all bent.’

The boy turned his back on Lorna. A leather-gloved hand went out to Cindy. ‘Come on. We don’t want a scene. I’m only obeying orders.’ Steering him towards the tent flap.

Only obeying orders. God forbid. Cindy was suddenly quite afraid of this humourless boy and his masters, and of where it was going to end.

‘Bastards,’ Lorna said. ‘And you’ve got an aura the colour of shit.’

Grayle felt a small tug on the handcuff as both Bobby and Ron Foxworth moved to the edge of their chairs. Both pairs of cuffs clinked, and Persephone Callard glanced across and saw the situation for the first time, and her whole body went taut.

Grayle could almost see Bobby thinking that now would be the time for all three of them to rush Gary Seward, hold him in a chained circle … that this would be the last chance they’d get.

And then, what would happen was that Seward would let off the gun.

The sawn-off twelve gauge.

As Grayle understood it, British hoods appeared to hold this weapon in some kind of black affection as part of their criminal heritage. The only time she’d seen one before was last year, with Marcus, when they visited a grisly crime museum in a small town near the Forest of Dean. There were also old police helmets, domestic artefacts from the Kray household and a skeleton in a cupboard. You tried to laugh.

Close up, this gun, like Seward, was about as funny as cancer, as sentimental as Hitler’s smile. Close up, you could clearly understand the point of sawing off the barrels more than halfway down. If all three of them went for Seward, whatever was down there would come out like some kind of heavy metal custard pie, and if any of them survived it, it would not be a great life thereafter.

Bobby half-turned and Grayle met his dark eyes and saw that he was arguably more scared than she was, maybe having seen at some stage of his career the carnage a weapon like this could leave. Foxworth stared straight in front of him, but his breathing was faster, and Grayle knew that because of Foxworth, most of all, and the weight of law he represented, there was no way any of them would be walking out of here as long as Seward was in the way with his arms full of death.

Only Persephone Callard looked calmly into the two barrels.

‘The way I see it’, she said candidly to Seward, ‘you could probably also be an actor. Like that idiot upstairs with the whiskers stuck on. I mean, I have, as yet, no reason to think otherwise, yah? You understand what I’m saying?’

The silence lasted long enough for Grayle to try and count, for the fifth time, the filaments in the feeble light bulb.

Callard said, ‘You could put that ludicrous thing away, unlock those people, and we could all go upstairs and have a quiet drink and talk over what I can do to help you.’

‘That’s your proposal, is it?’

Seward walked over to the wall, as though he was giving this serious consideration. He stood with his back to a photograph framed in black lacquered wood. It showed two men posing on either side of an antique microscope. Except it was probably a brand new, state-of-the-art microscope when the picture was taken and the men’s watch-chains and yard-brush moustaches were the height of fashion.

‘Know who these two are?’

Callard shook her head.

‘That’s Crole, that’s Abblow. That picture was took right here where we’re standing. This was their research lab. This basement, where we are now.’

‘I guess that’s why you couldn’t bear to change the bulb,’ Grayle said.

‘Shut the fuck up, Grayle. Do you feel their presence, Miss Callard?’

‘I really don’t believe’, Callard said, ‘that you’re stupid enough to think the atmosphere in here at the moment is conducive to any kind of psychic communication.’

‘No?’ Seward walked round the wall until he and his weapon were somewhere behind Grayle and the others, sending a cold tingle of apprehension through her neck. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, sweetheart, I got good reason to think this atmosphere is close to bleedin’ perfect.’

Outside a small crowd had gathered, ten or fifteen people. Cindy recognized a number of them as stallholders and resident psychics. A murmur rippled through the group as Cindy was brought out.

A young man stepped forward. He wore a motorcycle jacket. A golden ankh hung from one ear and his shaven head was green and red under the coloured lights. He stood in the path of the second and older Forcefield officer. His accent was deepest Lancashire.

‘You know who you’ve got there, man, don’t you?’

‘We’ve got a thief.’ One of the security guards gripped Cindy’s arm, bruisingly, above the elbow. ‘Out of the way, please.’

‘That is Cindy Mars-Lewis, man.’

The Forcefield man snatched a look at Cindy; his eyes widening momentarily. ‘It doesn’t matter to me who it is. It’s what she … he … has nicked is what concerns us, so you just-’

‘Perhaps,’ Cindy said, ‘I could meet the person who is accusing me of theft. Or you could simply name the stall from which the items are alleged to have been removed.’

‘I think what you do is you let go of him, man,’ the young man in the leather jacket said. ‘You’re nowt but a bumped-up bouncer, anyroad.’

At which the Forcefield men hardened visibly, the two of them shoulder to shoulder, like riot police.

The older one said, with a formality which was indeed indicative of an earlier career in the police service, ‘Under the authority invested in me by the organizers of this event, I must ask you to step out of the way. And I must warn you that if you don’t-’

The young man smiled. ‘And by the authority invested in me by the radiance of the unquenchable flame, I’m warning you that if you don’t let go of Mr Mars-Lewis right now, me and my enlightened brethren will take you and your mate over the field there and shove them bloody big torches where the eternal light never shines.’

A cheer went up. Several other people moved forward. Including, Cindy observed, the mild little man who had carried the placard relating to the death of John Hodge. When the Forcefield officer let go of Cindy’s arm so that he might grip his long torch with both hands, the shaven-headed boy grinned in satisfaction, thrust himself between the security men and Cindy and pushed out a hand.

‘Maurice Gooch, Federation of South Pennine Dowsers. Glad to meet you, Cindy, man.’

Seward’s nasal voice was so close behind Grayle that she imagined she could smell his breath. ‘See, what you got in here is Clarence’s, as you might say, vibe. Clarence’s kind of atmosphere. Put the old love in a dark room wiv a few frightened people and an air of — as you might say — repressed violence, and poor old Clarence, he’d