The Cold Calling

‘York?’

‘New York.’

‘A bloody American. Had a bloody American woman on the phone last week. Insane. Gabbled.’

‘That was me, Mr Bacton.’ Grayle Underhill came out of the study, carrying a tumbler with an inch of Scotch, looking very small inside the borrowed sweatshirt. ‘I called you about my sister. In the dreaming experiment? At Black Knoll?’

‘High Knoll.’ Marcus glared at her. ‘Is that my fucking whisky?’

When Marcus Bacton pulled out this leather-bound photo album, Grayle got cold feet.

‘Listen, say I … Just say I do recognize her. I could be lying. How would you know I’m not lying?’

‘I’ll know if you’re lying,’ Marcus said. ‘Thirty years of interrogating bastard schoolboys. World’s most adroit liar, the schoolboy.’

It was nearly six p.m., going dark early. In the lamplight, Marcus’s study was like something out of The Wind in the Willows. Flames in the glass-fronted woodstove. Shadows leaping up columns of books and everything misshapen and kind of organic, as if the furniture had grown out of the thick walls.

She took the album onto her knees. Part of her didn’t want to do this.

‘OK.’ She opened the album.

‘Fortunately’ — Marcus poured himself more whisky — ‘the pictures aren’t captioned or anything, and there are a lot of little kids in there, as you’ll see.’

‘I’m kinda scared to look.’

‘Where did you get this?’ said the guy with the eyepatch Marcus called Maiden.

‘Mrs Willis’s. To be honest, I pinched it in case any of the relatives tried to claim it. It’s all we have, you see. The only picture.’

‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ Grayle said. ‘All these years of writing about people claiming they saw ghosts. I just can’t believe I saw … Did you ever? Mr Bacton?’

‘Sore point,’ Maiden said.

‘I mean, I read hundreds of books, interviewed all these psychics and mediums. I knew if ever I saw a ghost, no way was I gonna be scared because of course a ghost is just a trick of the atmosphere, a memory imprint. Like, you see an old movie on TV and it’s Errol Flynn and you know he’s dead, you don’t go, Waaaah! That’s a dead guy! Because although I personally cannot imagine how a plastic box can bring a dead guy into my apartment, I know there are people who can, so that’s all right. And so I think … I think I lost the point. Am I burbling here? Am I gabbling? ‘

Turning the stiff card pages, peering back down a sepia century. Past men in wing collars, ladies in droopy hats. Men in baggy pants tied up with string, standing under haystacks. A line-up of small children.

Both of them watching her. Marcus with his soft bow tie and his glasses on the end of his nose. The comical dog called Malcolm watching too, through misaligned eyes. Everything completely still except for her hands turning the pages.

‘If you don’t find her,’ Marcus said, ‘it doesn’t invalidate your experience. If any of this was simple …’

But she could tell his tone was forced; Marcus was trying to keep emotion out of his voice. And Grayle was scared to look into the eyes of the children in the album. Although she knew, anyway, that the eyes were unlikely to help her, on account of none of them would be either wet with tears or flat and dead.

Lights shone in the window. Car sounds outside. Maiden stood up.

‘Probably bloody Lewis back,’ Marcus said. ‘Don’t let her in.’

And just then Grayle turned over a page and her hands sprang back from the album.

‘Red BMW. Oh my God, it’s … Oh, Christ.’

‘Oh God,’ Grayle said.

‘Underhill …?’ Marcus leaning urgently towards her.

‘Oh Jesus. I can’t believe this. This is, like …’

Marcus staring hard at her, searching her face for any sign that she was lying.

XXIX

Below them, St Mary’s was a smudge on the bronze evening sky. How could he possibly have forgotten about this?

‘I can’t believe you’re living in a place like this,’ the blonde said.

Not having rushed out to embrace him or anything like that. Or left the car at all. Hardly looked at him, in fact, as the red BMW spurted dirt getting them out of the farmyard.

‘Well, I like places like this,’ Bobby Maiden said. ‘Quiet, lonely places.’

‘Very weird.’ She relaxed, checked her speed. ‘Wouldn’t want to get stopped by your little Welsh colleagues.’

‘We’re still in England.’

‘Not for long. Always safer to go abroad, I tend to think.’ She pulled up at the junction outside the pub. ‘I’m confused now. How do I get back on the main road?’

‘Just carry on through the village, turn left, keep going. This is possibly a naive question, but what’s with the blond wig?’

‘You don’t like it? A bit Marilyn, maybe? Nah. Maybe not. Truth of it is, I’ve been tailed, Bobby.’

‘You sure?’

‘Of course I’m bloody sure.’

‘Who?’

‘Well, it didn’t have a blue light, but …’

‘Bastards.’

‘Pa would’ve gone berserk. Straight to Riggs. That would never do. So I didn’t tell him. Anyway, you start taking this seriously, you lose your bloody marbles.’

‘Too late,’ Maiden said.

‘For you maybe. Nothing wrong with me, sunshine.’ Emma Curtis drove slowly down into the village. ‘Gawd, you forget there are still places like this. That a Black Cat cigarette sign over the shop? This is not my car either, by the way. Hired. Mate of Vic’s. A gem, that guy. Takes an almost paternal interest.’

‘Good,’ Maiden said.

A silence. Nightfall nuzzled the high hedges on either side.

Em put the headlights on. ‘It’s not good, actually, is it, Bobby?’

‘Shows they’re worried, not sure which way to jump. What’s Tony’s position?’

‘Saying nothing. But I suspect, in the blackness of his heart of hearts, even he wants you popped now.’

‘Popped? ‘

‘Killed, then. Killed. All right?’

‘Absolutely fine.’

‘You know what I really wish? I wish he’d retire to Spain like any normal … businessman. He’s looking old. Not well.’

‘That an option? Some contingency plan there?’

‘Not for me to say, Bobby.’

‘You can say what you like to me, love, I’m out of it now.’

‘Or perhaps,’ Em said, ‘just biding your time until you can come back with enough to screw down Riggs and Pa in the same coffin and cover yourself with commendations?’

‘You’d like that?’

‘Riggs? Sure. Stake through the heart, whatever. Pa — retirement, don’t you think? I mean, he hasn’t done anything really bad. ‘