right to do that, even Catherine can't stop you. And if you find you don't like it, and there are reasonable grounds, then you've got something solid to fight against it.'
Cantelli had a point. He should have thought of it himself but emotion and Emma's sobs had clouded his judgement. 'I'll call them.'
'Yeah, and don't leave it too long. I know what you're like when on a case. That's not meant as a criticism,' he added hastily at Horton's dark look. 'Call that school as soon as we've finished with Gordon Elms — and talking of which, we're here.'
Cantelli indicated off the main road into a side street of stone bay terraced houses much smaller than the ones two streets away where Owen had lived. Convenient if you wanted to start a fire, Horton thought. But he had no reason to suspect Gordon Elms of anything let alone almost killing both him and Thea.
'It's not very impressive for a world-renowned professional ghost hunter.'
'Perhaps he's got a penthouse apartment on the south of France and this is his work base,' Cantelli joked.
The door was answered promptly. If Horton had expected someone dressed like Merlin then he was gravely disappointed. Gordon Elms did, however, resemble a gnome. He was small with a little round pot belly protruding over a pair of camel corduroy trousers that came just an inch short of being the right length. Beneath them, Horton caught a glimpse of fluorescent pink socks above shabby white trainers. In his fifties, with greying hair and a little grey goatee, Elms waved them into a small sitting room and offered them refreshments, which they both refused.
Horton noted there was no television. Above the fireplace was a sinister-looking painting of a large house, which he didn't recognize, though it bore a faint resemblance to Manderley before Mrs Danvers had set fire to it, according to the Alfred Hitchcock version. As he took the seat Elms gestured him into, Horton thought it rather a gloomy picture to hang in this room, it being executed primarily in shades of grey, while the room was decorated in red and gold, as if it had overdosed on Christmas and was reluctant to let go of the festive season. He noted the candles on the mantelpiece along with a couple of photographs of a younger version of Elms with an older woman, whose facial qualities and age paraded the fact that she must be Elms' mother.
Cantelli opened the questioning. He showed Elms the photograph of Thea and asked if he had seen her recently. Clearly by Elms reaction he had.
'Why yes! She came some days ago.'
They'd been right then, thought Horton; this had been the address Thea had been looking up in the library.
'When exactly?' pressed Cantelli.
'It was a Thursday. I know that because I hold an evening class on Thursdays. I lecture on the paranormal at the community centre. I was preparing for it when she arrived. Yes, it was the fifteenth.'
Two days later Owen Carlsson left his house and never returned.
'She'd read my book,' Elms said proudly.
Maybe he didn't get many admirers, thought Horton.
Cantelli said, 'The Lost Ghosts of the Isle of Wight.'
'Yes. She was very complimentary. Said it had been given to her as a present. I said that must have been at birth.' He smiled. 'I wrote it years ago and it's long been out of print though I am considering updating it and publishing it myself. Publishers these days only seem interested in you if you've been on the telly. And, as you can see, I don't even have a television set, and I wouldn't appear on one if you paid me. I'm not into cheap magic tricks. I'm a genuine ghost hunter and medium.'
'I'm sure you are, Mr Elms,' soothed Cantelli. 'When did you write the book?'
'Let me see. It was published in 1985, which means I wrote it in 1983, but I remember researching it for a year before that. In fact I began as soon as I moved here in 1982, a year after I first came here with my mother on holiday. I knew immediately this was the place for me, so when my mother died, I sold up and moved from London. Never regretted it either.'
Cantelli nodded and jotted this down in his notebook.
Horton said, 'Are you a full-time ghost hunter and medium?' If his voice held a note of scepticism, Elms didn't seem to notice it.
'Yes. I took early retirement from the council where I worked in the planning department. Why do you want to know about the book and this woman?'
Horton was tempted to say, 'Psychic powers deserting you?' But he held his tongue and instead asked, 'What did Thea Carlsson ask you?'
'She said her mother had given her the book,' Elms continued, with a slight frown at not having his question answered. 'She showed it to me and asked if I recalled selling it to her mother.' He gave a little laugh. It sounded as if his underpants were too tight, thought Horton.
'I told her I was a writer, not a bookseller, and that her mother could have bought it in any number of bookshops. She showed me a photograph of her mother, a blonde, good-looking woman, but I didn't recall her…'
Suddenly Elms looked uncomfortable, almost embarrassed. Horton wondered why, but it was Cantelli who beat him to the question.
'But you remembered something.'
'I felt something.'
Horton tried not to snort with derision. He was getting the impression that Elms was a bit of an actor, and the word 'ham' sprang to mind.
Earnestly, Cantelli continued. 'Like what, sir?'
Elms drew in his breath, closed his eyes, and steepled his hands in front of his chest. Cantelli flashed Horton a glance. Horton raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes in response. He'd almost had it with this little squirt, but Cantelli, with a nod of his head and a steadying hand, urged patience. Horton waited. After a moment Elms threw open his eyes.
'Evil. I felt evil.'
'In what way, sir?' asked Cantelli chirpily, drawing a slight narrowing of eyes from Elms.
'In the danger kind of way,' he snapped. 'Is there any other kind of evil? You of all people should know it exists. You see it daily in your professional lives.'
He had a point, thought Horton.
Cantelli said solemnly, 'And evil seems to have befallen Miss Carlsson. Her brother was killed shortly after her visit here.'
'Good grief!'
'You didn't see, feel or smell that?' Horton sneered, drawing a flash of hostility from the little gnome.
'The evil wasn't specific, and it wasn't directed at Miss Carlsson,' Elms replied tight-lipped. 'I would have warned her otherwise.'
Horton considered this. Was Elms really psychic or had Thea told him about her mother's death and Elms was making this up as he went along? Horton wouldn't mind betting that was so. Behind Elms' angry eyes Horton saw his dislike of him, but then he was used to that.
'Did you tell Thea Carlsson of this evil?'
'Yes. She said she already knew about it. But I didn't pick up any vibes of her being a kindred spirit, so to speak.'
If he believed Elms was a genuine medium or spiritualist, or whatever you called them, then maybe he hadn't detected the vibes because Thea wasn't in danger, and neither was she psychic, but had colluded in the killing of, or had killed, her brother. Dr Clayton's words returned to haunt him. This is a clever killing by a clever killer. But no, he refused to believe it of Thea. They'd got their killers — Westbury and Danesbrook — even though they couldn't prove it yet. Elms was the phoney.
'Who was the evil directed at then?' he snarled, tired of the gnome and not wanting to waste any more time on him.
'I'm not sure, but as Miss Carlsson handed me the book I felt it.'
He wanted to say 'bollocks'. Maybe Cantelli felt this because he quickly interceded.
'Did she ask you about ghosts mentioned in the book or any specific ghosts?'
