Mean Spirit

‘But she deserved it, Ron,’ Seward said. ‘You forget that. What she would do, she’d lead customers on. Then, on the way back to her place, her brothers would step out the shadows and roll the poor sods, for wallets and watches.’

‘The same night’, Foxworth intoned, like he was giving evidence in court, ‘one Clayton Hall, aged nineteen, brother of the rape victim, was hospitalized with serious abdominal stab wounds.’

‘A very silly boy,’ Seward said.

‘He died three days later, from complications. We never managed to hang that one on Judge, as a murder.’

Seward snorted. ‘That was not murder, Ron. That was waste disposal. Those youths was becoming an irritant.’

Persephone Callard had started to back away towards the door. She had her hands clasped so tightly in front of her that Grayle thought she heard a knuckle crack.

‘Come back, Seffi,’ Seward said lightly. ‘You got away last time, just when we was so very close. That is not gonna happen again.’

‘Close?’ Callard screamed. ‘Close to what?’

‘Close, darlin’, to the manifestation. Come back. You know what I want. I want Clarence Judge here. I wanna see my dear old friend. In all his glory.’

‘You’re insane.’

‘Am I? That’s your opinion, is it?’

‘Think about it, Gary,’ Bobby said. ‘It doesn’t really make any sense.’

But Grayle knew that it kind of did.

And there were photos of the mother all around the walls, and her favourite things scattered about … clothes, handbags. And all the family — the husband, the twins, another sister — all of them there. And the room was dense with her before we started …

Callard at Mysleton, talking about the most effective manifestation she ever scored.

Bobby said, ‘You want Clarence to tell you who killed him? Because if that’s-’

‘I just want Clarence! I wanna see him. I want the proof that we go on. Just the way Abblow said we go on. Without any fucking angels with harps on fucking clouds. That we remain what we are. Who we are. That what we made ourselves into is not blown out like a bleeding match, know wha’ mean?’

‘Life everlasting and no heaven,’ Grayle said. ‘Jesus, Gary, you’re a piece of work.’

Her neck contracted; she was sure he was going to do something to her from behind.

‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Over there. Join the circle, Seffi. And fetch Clarence for me. I will not ask you again.’

Callard tossed her head like a pedigree racehorse, turned her back on him and walked towards the door.

‘Fetch him yourself,’ she said, ‘you crass little man.’

There was a moment like a chasm.

It was only when the light bulb turned red that Grayle was truly aware of what had happened: the shotgun had gone off.

LIII

By the time they reached the castle, there were possibly sixty of them. Gentle, peace-loving New Age people: astrologers, dowsers, palmists, Tarot-readers; practitioners of acupuncture, reflexology and reiki; regulators of auras and biorhythms; experts on earth mysteries, geomancy and feng shui; members of the New Order of the Golden Dawn, the Aetherius Society and the Subud Brotherhood; followers of Wicca, Rosicrucians and Scientologists. Seers and mystics and healers in suits and saris, patched jeans and ceremonial robes. They carried lamps, they carried candles in glass holders. They held Celtic crosses and wooden staves with archaic symbols carved into them.

At the head of the procession, with the militant Maurice and the edgy etheric therapist Lorna Crane, were Cindy Mars-Lewis, Celtic shaman, and Mr Harry Douglas Oakley, whose great-grandfather was said to haunt the grounds.

Overcross Castle, where the dead had been formally invited to walk, was now floodlit from the parapet, its stone walls gauntly splendid, its tower swollen with the dark charisma of the forbidden.

It had begun to snow very lightly again, out of only a part of the sky, a strange, gritty dust over the cloud- locked crescent moon. Cindy looked up at the high turrets with an anxiety for the most part unrelated to the Forcefield personnel awaiting them at the main entrance.

The Forcefield personnel numbering precisely seven.

None of whom — this was evident — had expected an invasion. Who now assembled on the parapet, exchanging uncertain glances, knowing that if they behaved in a fashion deemed less than formally polite there would be a riot, the real police would be called, and their jobs and conceivably their short-term freedom would be on the line.

‘Look, lads,’ Maurice Gooch said reasonably, from the bottom step. ‘I don’t know whether I’m addressing trade unionists at all, but this is a legitimate, peaceful protest relating to conditions on the site, and we would like to put our grievances directly before Mr Kurt Campbell or one of his associates.’

A Forcefield man who, absurdly, wore an armband with three stripes, pulled at the peak of his cap and beckoned Maurice to the top of the steps. Cindy followed. The Forcefield man said quietly, ‘Come back tomorrow morning, between nine and ten, no more than three of you, and we’ll see what can be arranged.’

Maurice smiled at him and turned to the assembly. ‘This gentleman would like us to come back tomorrow between nine and ten. How would you feel about that?’

There was a great roar, which in no way could be interpreted as assent.

‘Nice try, man,’ Maurice said. ‘Now go get Kurt.’

Behind the four uniformed men, the conservatory extension was deserted. A small security lamp burned. Carried from inside the house, a full-blown theatrical voice related a story.

‘In 1866, I spent some time for my health’s sake at Malvern Spa, where I fasted for several days, partaking only of the mineral waters. It was on this visit that I made the acquaintance of Mr Barnaby Crole and a fellow spiritist, Dr Abblow. And so I came to Overcross …’

One of the Forcefield officers had pulled a mobile phone from a pocket of his uniform and was swiftly tapping out a number when Maurice leapt up the remaining steps and snatched the instrument from his hands, smiling grimly. ‘On second thoughts, lads, we’ll come in and find him ourselves.’ He cancelled the call and handed back the phone. ‘Now don’t you even-’

Which was when, above — or, in fact, below — the actor’s commentary, they heard what could have been nothing but a muffled gunshot.

Maurice stopped. ‘What the bloody hell’s that, Cindy? A sound-effect?’

‘I rather doubt it, boy.’ Cindy saw one of the Forcefield employees close his eyes upon an intake of breath which suggested the man had a suspicion of what or who this was about — and a fervent wish that he was no longer a part of it.

Maurice, also, now appeared less ebullient. ‘What do we do, Cindy?’

In reply — while holding in his inner vision the glory of the sunrise over High Knoll and praying incoherently to the Lady of the Dawn — Cindy ran up the steps and thrust himself urgently between the uniforms.

It went on echoing massively in Bobby Maiden’s head long after it had died away, repeating itself over the ulp ulp of Grayle throwing up.

Maiden fought to swallow his own nausea, to hold his handcuffed wrist steady against the drag. He heard the efficient clack of the sawn-off as Gary Seward finished reloading, came briskly around to the front, not a stain on his suit, not a blotch on his white dress shirt.

‘Twice I warned him, yeah?’ Seward said. ‘You heard me warn him twice.’

Now that the solitary bulb had turned crimson, it was much darker in the cellar, but the reddened glow