Authors: Phil Rickman
Cindy moved to the tent flap, peered out to ensure they were alone. He took a small notebook from his fitted tweed jacket, opened it.
‘A look at tonight’s guest list – which the delightful Vera showed to me with a certain contempt – offers a possible explanation. I copied down a few names. For instance, we have the Chairperson of the Heart of England Tourist Board, the MP for Worcester, officials of the Malvern Chamber of Trade, the Elgar Society, the Chief Executive of Forcefield Security. Also, Lord …’
Bobby looked up, like a bird just took a shit in his lap.
‘… and Lady Colwall. I don’t think I need go on. It’s a collection of local dignitaries and notables to launch the event. None of them will be paying, of course, they’re here to bestow upon it Establishment credibility. And, because attitudes have changed considerably since Victorian times, one can’t imagine any of these people accepting the invitation if they thought it was to be a
real
seance.’
‘So they’re not even gonna
pretend
?’
‘Of course not. It’s to be a civilized after-dinner entertainment, an exhibition of deception and human folly. We see how the magic lantern was used to project phantoms, how sound effects and the deployment of light and shadow would simulate the atmosphere of a haunted house …’
‘Big deal.’
‘Ah, but then …’ Cindy laid down the notebook ‘… what if, at some point in the evening, there is an imperceptible change? What if we shift from simulation to an invocation of … who knows what? What if the obviously fake gives way to the semi-convincing and then – in front of this august assembly – to the terrifyingly inexplicable? And what if afterwards, as the somewhat timid applause dies down, the guests come to realize that what they have just witnessed is …’ Cindy raising his hands, fingers moving like undersea creatures ‘… the reality of it?’
‘This is where Callard comes in?’
‘I don’t know, little Grayle. I won’t be there. Only you will be there, among the dignitaries.’
Grayle moistened her cold lips.
Bobby said, ‘But that’s just what you
surmise
will happen?’
‘Of course,’ Cindy said lightly. ‘And if nothing happens but the fakery, nothing is lost, no reputations are damaged. But if it does, particularly in front of this distinguished group, think of the kudos for Kurt’s venture.’
‘Hold on here,’ Grayle said. ‘Are we talking about Clarence Judge? Because that’s what they’re gonna get from Callard. Just Clarence freaking Judge and his slimeball smell. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, Cindy.’
‘No,’ Cindy said. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t.’
‘Maybe we put two and two together and made sixteen.’
Bobby said, ‘I don’t suppose Seward was on that guest list?’
Cindy looked disparaging. ‘I know he’s a popular figure now, but is that really likely, Bobby? Even rejected for the Lottery Show once, he was. I think it was the idea of the big money balls in the hands of a known felon … Hush a moment …’
Cindy lifted a finger. There came the unlikely sound of ragged, unaccompanied singing. Bobby stood up, walked over and spread the tent flap. Grayle went to peer over his shoulder.
‘Aw, this always happens.’
Over on the cindered parking lot, a minibus had drawn up, a bunch of people gathered around it. They were singing a hymn. Two of them carried a banner between two poles. In black stencilled lettering, it carried a not unfamiliar appeal.
IN THE NAME OF JESUS, STOP THIS EVIL!
The banner took some holding steady in the wind, but maybe they had support from above.
‘Whenever you advertise any kind of big New Age event, you get these militant evangelicals,’ Grayle said. ‘Happens a lot back home.’
Cindy joined her and Bobby in the opening. Quite a few more New Age stallholders had emerged, so there was some kind of audience – if not the kind likely to be on the side of the protesters.
‘Open your minds, why don’t you?’ yelled this woman in a long, grey woollen cloak. ‘There’s more than one narrow little way to God!’
The evangelicals carried on singing, led by two guys in clerical collars.
‘How long will they keep this up?’ Bobby wondered.
‘Oh hell, Bobby, they’ll be here all day and then I guess another bunch’ll take over. Less, of course, the security guys move into action, but that’s not too likely. Throwing out a Christian on his ass is not what you’d call good PR.’
‘Now there’s interesting,’ Cindy said.
‘Huh?’
‘See the person on the end with the handwritten placard?’
Small guy in a suit and tie, not singing, just standing there holding up his placard.
‘What’s it say? Oh.’
The sign said
THEY MURDERED
JOHN HODGE
‘The gamekeeper?’ Grayle said. ‘The shotgun accident?’
Cindy turned to Bobby.
‘Go and have a word, boy. You are the detective, go and detect. Grayle and I will mind the shop.’ He seemed suddenly alive with an excitement Grayle hadn’t seen in him in such a long time. ‘This is what we’ve been waiting for. The answers always lie in history. Get him out of here, Bobby. Don’t let anyone see you.’
HE HAD A LONG PIECE OF STICKING PLASTER DIAGONALLY ACROSS HIS
forehead.
‘Oh, yes, they did that,’ he said diffidently in the snug, panelled bar of the Unicorn.
‘The security men?’
‘Well, you see, I landed on a piece of barbed wire. This was when they slung me off the site. I don’t suppose they meant it to happen, but they never came out to help me. I could’ve lost an eye, I suppose, for all they cared.’
‘Just let me get this right. This is the Forcefield men?’
‘Is that what they’re called? Anyway, I came back. I paid my entrance fee and I came back. And when these religious people arrived, I decided to attach myself to them. I explained that this was an example of the kind of evil that resulted from all this meddling. Had to say I was thinking of joining their church, but at least it meant I could make my protest without getting assaulted. Stand there a while and hope someone would come along who’d take a bit of notice. And now here you are, sir.’
He raised his glass to Maiden.
Get him out of here, Bobby. Don’t let anyone see you.
They’d thrown his placard face-down in the back of Marcus’s truck and then Maiden had driven him through the gates, the man’s face turned away from the Forcefield gateman, and four miles to the
Unicorn, which was three pubs distant from Overcross and almost empty, thankfully.
‘I’ll go back again,’ he said. ‘Got to keep it up, sir. I promised.’
He was a slightly built man about Marcus’s age, gingery-white hair and a small, pointed face as inoffensive as a hedgehog’s. His name was Harry Douglas Oakley. John Hodge, gamekeeper to Barnaby Crole, was his great-grandfather.
‘You really are the police?’ He spoke quietly, the way informers spoke in pubs, the way Vic Clutton would speak, only a little more refined and with none of Vic’s irony. Mr Oakley had a small bicycle shop in West Malvern.
Maiden displayed his warrant card. ‘But, I’ll be honest, this is not my area. And I’m on leave, anyway.’
‘So, can I ask what your interest is, sir? Do you mind?’
Maiden hesitated. ‘This would be in confidence?’
‘Surely.’
‘I don’t know about John Hodge being murdered, but people have certainly been killed since and I’m looking for connections with some friends. We’re not sure what we’re after. I’m sorry to be so vague.’
‘If you’re sincere, that’s good enough for me, sir.’
Maiden said, ‘Would you mind not calling me “sir”? I have a bit of a problem with it. My name’s Bobby.’
‘Certainly, Bobby,’ said Harry Douglas Oakley.
By early afternoon many more vehicles had entered the site and the tents were taking on a new allure, signs going up proclaiming palmistry, crystal-healing, Tarot readings and a big caravan, where you could attach yourself to devices that altered your brainwaves. There were practitioners of Reiki and a
feng shui
adviser. An Asian band with a range of hand drums set up in a corner of the field and beat away the cold.
Cindy and Grayle finished laying out the stall. Even with the dramatic colour pictures of the Knoll and one oblique photo of Castle Farm, home of
The Vision
(silhouetted against the sunset, its location unidentified; Marcus would kill them first), it all still looked a little sparse, even for a cover, a smokescreen.
Grayle had brought a small case containing the long black skirt
and the high-necked Edwardian-style blouse she guessed she’d need to wear for the period seance. ‘I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling uneasy about tonight, Kurt Campbell coming on to me and all. And what happens if … when … Callard spots me?’
They were standing with Malcolm the dog in front of the tent, watching the build-up of cars and vans. Grayle was looking for a Jeep Grand Cherokee with a woman at the wheel. She’d already checked the cordoned off exclusive parking lot up by the castle. Was Callard coming here at all, or had Marcus got it all wrong?
‘She won’t give you away.’ Cindy lit a cigarette. ‘She wants an end to this. It’s been going on too long. Longer than she knows.’
‘What’s that mean? What are you saying?’ Puzzled by this new animation around Cindy. Everything he said seemed pointed and penetrating, like a needle teasing a splinter out of the skin.
‘I think’, he said, ‘that Bobby may be able to complete the picture when he returns. But ponder this, Grayle: the only purpose-built haunted house? What does that
mean?’
‘Means they were ambitious. They were aiming to call down spirits at will. Scientifically.’
‘But how many ghosts is it reputed to have? You’d think a hundred, wouldn’t you? And yet … John Hodge, the gamekeeper. The sole apparition. Just poor John. Accidentally shot, here in the grounds, with his own gun. I wonder where, precisely.’
‘They probably put the damn toilets over the spot.’ Grayle glanced briefly over at the Portaloos. ‘You’re saying you think there’s a connection between the death of John Hodge and what’s happening now? Or is that shamanic intuition?’
‘If we think of Anthony Abblow as the Kurt Campbell of his day … a man whose interest in the paranormal had little of the mystical about it. A man who—. Something wrong, is it, Grayle?’
‘Sorry, I just saw …’ Grayle was staring at a big vehicle heading up the main drive towards the castle. ‘Cindy, you see that van? Wait till it comes out the other side of that clump of bushes … OK, you see the symbol on the side panel?’
‘A blue rose?’
‘Right. Well, this is probably nothing, but I would swear that is the same firm we saw taking stuff out of the flat we thought was Barber’s. In Cheltenham.’
‘You’re sure about this?’
‘I’m almost sure it’s the same company. It may not be the same van. I mean I wouldn’t recognize the licence plate or anything. Maybe this is the outfit everybody uses in these parts. Coincidence.’
‘You are saying this could be the van which departed carrying furniture and effects from the room in which Persephone Callard conducted a seance for Sir Richard Barber?’ Cindy’s eyes flared. ‘Grayle, in such a situation as this, there can be no such thing as coincidence.’ He clipped on Malcolm’s lead. ‘Come on.’
‘What about the stall?’
‘Would all these spiritually developed people help themselves to free copies of
The Vision
?’
‘Only if they haven’t read one before.’
Grayle followed Cindy and the dog up towards the castle. It looked bloated against the light.
‘My mother died earlier this year, Bobby,’ said Harry Oakley. ‘She always used to say to me, “The truth won’t come out in my time, there’s still too much prejudice. But perhaps before the end of your life it might.” So I promised her, you see, that one way or another I’d make sure it did come out. Not quite on her deathbed, but it was a promise.’
‘What did she mean by too much prejudice?’
‘Prejudice in his favour. Nobody in the locality would hear a word against Barnaby Crole. You see, not only was he the local benefactor, he was the only one there’d
ever
been around here. He built almshouses for the old people. Built the school. Turned a blind eye, the locals, out of pure self-interest, Bobby.’
‘So … how do you think your great-grandfather died?’
‘How much do you know?’
‘I’ve read that little book. It says he had an accident with his shotgun.’
‘Aye, and no-one’s ever going to prove otherwise now. I’d be happy, and I think my mother and her mother would rest in peace, if it was just accepted locally that they probably murdered him. That’s all we want.’
‘Crole and Abblow?’
‘They were doing experiments’, Harry said, ‘into what happened at the moment of death. I remember my grandmother talking to my
aunt – in that hushed way they talked when there were children about – about Mr Crole and Mr Abblow coming to see their neighbour when he was dying. They wanted to be with him when he died, you see. Crole even offered to pay for the funeral, with an expensive memorial in the churchyard – oh, he was made of money was Crole. But they still wouldn’t let him go into the bedroom that last night because they knew he just wanted to watch what happened when the old man passed over. Watch the light go out of him.’
‘It was said they took animals.’
‘I believe it. Though that wouldn’t satisfy them for long.’
‘You think they experimented on John Hodge? Or did he see too much and they killed him to stop him talking?’
‘Oh, he’d already talked,’ Harry said. ‘Or his dreams had. These terrible nightmares he couldn’t properly remember. But he knew he was going to die, my mother said they were all convinced of that. By day he was very quiet and withdrawn. At night he’d scream. My grandmother remembered those screams and they disturbed her own nights all her life. That’s how bad it was.’
‘What were the actual circumstances of his death?’
‘They heard a shot and then Abblow was said to have found him in the woods with half his face blown away. They claimed he was unfit to move, so they made him as comfortable as they could on the grass, Crole laying down his fine jacket and Abblow tending him – Abblow was a doctor, you see.’
‘What year was this?’
‘Eighteen eighty-seven. This month. This day.’
‘This actual
date
?’
For an instant Maiden was aware of himself being vibrantly aware of the moment – as though he was standing behind himself and Harry Douglas Oakley seated at a round, mahogany table in the small, dark-panelled bar.
‘Those evil beggars,’ Harry said. ‘Myself, I don’t think they were tending him so much as prolonging his agony. Dragging out his death so they could study him and make him tell them what was happening. Perhaps they’d got gadgets attached to him.’
‘Gadgets?’
‘I don’t know. Like Frankenstein. They always had gadgets in those days. Kept them in the dungeons, most likely.’
‘The castle has dungeons?’
‘Well, cellars with thick walls. Nobody been down there in years. All the years it was derelict, it was well fenced off and barb-wired, and no-one ever went there because it was always private land. Except for my poor old great-grandfather. Who never went away.’
‘You mean his ghost.’
‘Aye.’
‘That was seen quite often?’
‘At one time. So it’s said.’ Harry looked down into his beer, as though the face of John Hodge might materialize there. ‘Poachers and so on. But even the poachers got nervous. The last time … well, that would be a young couple, staying at the Crown for a night. Ramblers, with backpacks. Walked into the pub at sunset, all ashy-faced. Strangers wouldn’t know, you see. Ninety-seven, this would’ve been.’
‘What did they say they’d seen?’
‘They’d found one of the paths through the grounds and they were getting as close as they could to the castle and up strolls a man in a cap, with a shotgun under his arm – so clear and sharp they thought he was a real, living person. And they stopped and wished him good evening and hoped they weren’t trespassing … and he walks within a few feet of them and never took them on and just disappeared into the air. Been a few like that.’
Maiden took a slow sip from his glass of cider. He was hearing Seffi Callard.
…
certainly, in my experience as a medium, I’ve never seen anything quite so clear as this before. So fully defined. Such a physical presence.
‘A few like that? Were they always so clear?’
‘There’s ghosts and ghosts, aren’t there, Bobby? Some you hear of, it’s just a wandering light, no shape, no features. People who’ve seen this one, they could identify my great-grandad from old photographs. And
did!’
‘You’ve never seen it?’
‘And never wanted to, Bobby. Never wanted to. Besides, it’s better coming from others, isn’t it? Old John Hodge, he’s doing no more than I am today – drawing attention to a murder.’
‘Why did the place become derelict?’
‘Well, it didn’t happen overnight. Abblow left – went abroad, it was said. Crole never came out much after that, although you’d apparently see his wife sometimes, on her own. When he died she sold the castle, and then it went through the usual things – a school, a hotel. Before this syndicate put in an offer, it was owned by Arthur Slater, the farmer. His dad, he bought it with a hundred and fifty acres in the Seventies. They ploughed round the castle.’
‘Why do you say syndicate?’
‘Well, I don’t know if it was or not. This young man, Campbell, he always makes out it’s his castle, but I do know Arthur slightly, and he reckons it was a Gloucestershire firm made the initial approach. Bright’s? Would that be it?’
‘How about Bright Horizon Developments?’
‘That’s it,’ said Harry without much interest. ‘Bright Horizon Developments.’ He finished his beer. ‘You got what you wanted, Bobby? Only I wouldn’t mind getting back. They reckon there’s Midlands television coming to film the festival taking shape and I wouldn’t mind getting my sign in front of the camera. P’raps they’ll want to interview me. Do you think?’
‘It’s always possible.’
‘I’m not a nutter, you know,’ Harry said. ‘It’s funny – my grandmother used to say it was a big joke in the family that one day her father was going to be the ghost of Overcross. Because he loved that place so much you couldn’t get him away. Dawn till dusk and then half the night, building up that estate from nothing. Part of it, you see.’
Vera, the cleaner from the kitchens, was a large woman with white hair tied up in a bun and kind of knowing eyes. You could tell, somehow, that nothing would get past her.
Grayle and Cindy sure didn’t. They went in through the kitchen door, round back of the castle. It didn’t look much like a castle this side, the door and the woodwork modern and utility.
‘You’re back again, Miss Bacton.’
‘It’s
bloody
cold out there, Vera.’
Wasn’t too warm in here. The kitchen was the size of a hospital ward and all white tiles. Vera said, ‘You’d like some tea, I s’pose.’
‘That would be splendid,’ said Cindy. ‘This is my assistant,
Thornborough. And this is my poor bloody brother’s dog, Malcolm, who would appreciate a bowl of water and a chocolate digestive.’