Innocent Blood

‘Well . . . I probably won’t have any writing to do.’

‘Is that a yes?’

‘Yes, OK. It’s a yes.’

‘Good. You can sing me “The Girl With the Left-Footed Limp.”’

He tried to read her eyes. They were sparkling and alive, but he couldn’t decide if they were lit up with pleasure, or with something else altogether – the secret delight of a woman who has got exactly what she wants.

They slept in each other’s arms, restlessly, all tangled up, but they didn’t make love. In the small hours of the morning, when it was just beginning to grow light, Frank was woken up by somebody talking. At first he thought there was somebody in the living room, but then he realized that it was Astrid.

‘Believe it . . . in your head. It’s the only path. Dark . . . I know it is. Dark! Can’t you hear the fountain? Go through the garden and never come back.’

After a while she turned her back to him and started to breathe very deeply, as if she were trying to calm herself down. The sky outside grew lighter and lighter, and at last the sun came in, and lit up the bed. She opened her eyes and smiled at him.

‘I was dreaming,’ she said.

Frank didn’t realize that he had overshot the entrance to Nevile’s house until he passed the Earth Mother Juice Stand by the side of the road. If you pass the Earth Mother Juice Stand, Nevile had told him, you’ve gone two hundred yards too far. He twisted around in his seat and backed his car up all the way.

The driveway to Nevile’s house sloped steeply downhill between two dark yew hedges. He followed it around a tight left-hand curve until he reached a wide shingled area in front of the house, where a skinny teenager in a splashy Hawaiian shirt was waxing Nevile’s Mercedes. Frank didn’t have to ask if Nevile was home. The house was walled almost entirely in glass, so that Frank could see right through the living room to the deck at the rear, where Nevile was pacing up and down with his cellphone.

He went to the front door and pushed the bell. A dumpy Mexican woman in a flowery apron stopped chopping red capsicums in the kitchen and came waddling along the shiny hardwood hallway.

‘Yes?’ she said, as if she were surprised to see anybody standing outside.

‘Frank Bell. Nevile’s expecting me.’

‘Hokay. You come inside.’

She showed him into the living room, which was furnished with low couches upholstered in natural linen and chrome-plated Italian chairs. A tall bronze statue of a naked woman stood in one corner, her hands covering her eyes. On the opposite wall hung an abstract painting of a scarlet triangle and a black square. It was titled Doubt.

Nevile saw Frank through the window and beckoned him out on to the deck. The back of the house was built up on pilings and it commanded a precipitous view of Laurel Canyon, with trees and rooftops and bright-blue swimming-pools, and the hazy city sprawling in the distance. Nevile gestured to Frank to sit down.

‘Yes,’ he snapped, into his cellphone. ‘That’s all it’s giving me. I’ve tried, believe me, but you wouldn’t want me to fabricate evidence, would you? Even psychic evidence.’ He dropped the cellphone into the pocket of his blue-black Armani shirt. ‘Lieutenant Chessman again,’ he said to Frank. ‘He gave me what was left of the driver’s seat from the catering truck, the one they used to bomb The Garry Sherman Show. He wants to know if I got any feedback from it.’

‘And did you?’

‘A couple of flashes, but they didn’t make any particular sense. One was somebody shouting; it sounded like an angry father telling off a child. The other was more like a dream . . . walking between two rows of cypress trees, with a full moon shining overhead.’

‘So what do you make out of that?’

‘Absolutely bugger all, so far. Both flashes obviously represent highly significant moments in the driver’s life, otherwise they wouldn’t have left such a strong resonance in his seat. It’s also likely that they’re both connected with his decision to act as a suicide bomber. But how, and why . . . well, your guess is as good as mine.’

‘You still don’t have any idea who these terrorists are?’

‘Not really. I get a strong feeling that there’s a religious motive behind it, although it’s impossible to say which religion. I also get the feeling that Dar Tariki Tariqat has a very powerful and charismatic leader behind it – somebody that these suicide bombers desperately wanted to impress. In almost every fragment I’ve picked up, there’s an extraordinary sensation of pride. That’s something I’ve never sensed at a crime scene before, even when the British Army had me sorting through bomb debris in Northern Ireland.’

Frank pulled a face. ‘Whoever they are, they’ve certainly done what they set out to do. Almost every new TV series is on hold, and three major movies have been closed down altogether.’

‘Why don’t you come inside?’ said Nevile. ‘Let’s see if Danny can’t give us some answers.’

Nevile showed him into his study. One wall was lined with reference books and leather-bound encyclopedias and files on the paranormal; another was clustered with photographs of Nevile with various famous people – Uri Geller, Elton John, Shirley Maclaine, Henry Kissinger. There was no desk, only a large, low table in the center of the room, made out of a solid square of highly polished black marble.

‘This is my pride and joy, this table. I had it shipped over from Delphi, where the oracle Pythia lived. You’ve heard of the Oracle of Delphi?’

‘Sure.’

‘The story is that she could tell the future by getting high on bay leaves. But I think there’s much more convincing evidence that she was a psychic. She was capable of giving accurate predictions of what was going to happen in the near future, but only in flashes and riddles, the same way that things come to me, and any other psychic detective. For instance, she foresaw that “wooden walls will save Athens from Persia,” and what happened? The Greek fleet defeated the invasion fleet of King Xerxes of Persia at the battle of Salamis, 480 BC. And she predicted dozens of other famous events.’

Frank said, ‘There’s one thing I wanted to ask you, before we started. If another spirit’s pretending to be Danny, how are we going to get in touch with the real Danny?’

‘I think he’ll make himself known, if he’s recovered. It’s my belief that he must have been just as shocked as Kathy Ashbee and all the other children, and so the last time I tried to contact him, his spirit was still very weak. The other spirit was much more mature and consequently much stronger and so it was able to drown him out. It jammed his signal, as it were. But I’m hoping very much that Danny is going to be able to talk to us, this time.’

‘OK, then. I understand. Let’s get on with it.’

Nevile sat up straight in his black leather armchair and focused on the wall just above Frank’s head. Frank sat up straight, too, although Nevile hadn’t asked him to.

There was a long, long silence. It was so quiet that Frank could hear Nevile breathing. After three or four moments, a clock chimed eleven. Outside the house, in the sunlight, the teenager in the Hawaiian shirt was giving a last brisk polish to the Mercedes’ front bumpers.

‘Is that you, Danny?’ asked Nevile suddenly. ‘I want to talk to Danny.’

Frank sat up even straighter, right on the edge of his chair. He looked at Nevile, trying to catch his attention, but Nevile’s eyes were still focused on the wall above his head.

‘I want to talk to Danny,’ Nevile repeated. ‘Nobody else.’

It was all Frank could do to stay in his seat. ‘Nevile,’ he demanded, ‘is somebody there?’

Nevile glanced at him quickly and nodded.

‘Is it Danny? Please, God, let it be Danny.’

There was another silence. Nevile slowly lowered his head, so that he was staring down at the shiny oak floor, and he nodded, and nodded again, as if he were listening.

Eventually, he said, ‘All right, if you’re really Danny, why don’t you give me a sign? Better yet, why don’t you show yourself?

Frank waited, his heart beating – thumpp, thumpp, thumpp – as slowly as a funeral drum.

Nevile nodded again and then he looked up. ‘He says you should forget about him and make a new life for