‘Right.’ Grayle nods wearily. ‘You don’t insult me.’
Defford tells her he was looking for an independent investigative journalist who was both sceptical and open-minded. Who didn’t automatically believe in alleged paranormal phenomena, but didn’t laugh at them either. She decides not to ask him if he knows Marcus Bacton. It’ll all come out at some stage. If she goes through with this.
‘By the time our residents arrive this autumn,’ Defford says, ‘this person will have learned more about them than their mothers know. More than their agents know.’
‘Agents. Right. So the people in the house – the residents – this is a celebrity thing?’
‘Some better known than others. But celebrity isn’t the only thing we’re looking for.’
All residents will be specifically chosen, he tells her, because
they have a personal history of some encounter with the paranormal. Or a strongly declared belief, for or against. And if the believers claim to be experiencing something here, the programme will be looking at how their stories measure up against what’s known of the house and its history.
‘So you need to know all that,’ Grayle says.
‘Everything. Everything about this house that’s even been known or suggested or whispered about. I need the history and the legends and all the reasons to be afraid.’
‘But if you know, then surely they can also—’
‘No. They’ll know nothing. They won’t even know where in the country they are. They’ll be flown from London to Cotswold Airport. Voluntarily and comfortably blindfolded. Driven here in the back of separate vans, at night, arriving at different times. Mobile homes in the grounds where they’ll spend the night, before a briefing – individually – the following day. And then, at sunset, we’ll take them into the house, where they’ll gradually encounter one another for the first time.’
‘They’ll be completely disoriented.’
‘Absolutely. That’s essential. They won’t even have seen the house from the outside. Black plastic tunnel from the mobile home to the door. They’ll walk on their own from the twenty-first century to the sixteenth. The name Knap Hall will never be used. From the night they arrive, it’s The House. Nobody mentions Harry Ansell, it’s The Owner. The people who serve their meals and clean the place up are being brought in from London, so they won’t even hear any local accents. They’ll be confined to a set number of rooms, with all other doors locked against them. Access to the walled garden if they need air.’
‘Is that a proviso of Ansell’s? Part of the deal for letting you use the house, that it doesn’t get identified?’
‘No. We’ll reveal all at the end. But it’s why we rejected all famously haunted houses, any place that’s been in one of those
spooky-Britain guides or any of the TV programmes or the Internet. It would just take one of them to recognize the location and we’ve lost it, so you’ll need to make sure none of them ever stayed here, maybe as one of Trinity’s guests or a friend. It’s also important they don’t have any clues about the nature of the haunting.’
‘When you talk about the end… what’s the end gonna be? Will the viewers at home get to vote on who gets evicted from the house and in which order? At the end only one person remains, not always the most admirable. That gonna happen here?’
Defford pinches his earring.
‘We’re still thinking about it. We want there to be a conclusion, of course we do. And essentially that conclusion should be whether the majority of people think – from what they’ve seen and heard – that ghosts exist.’
‘Big question.’
‘And the last person left should be the one who’s convinced them that there are such things as ghosts – or not. We’ll try to deter them from voting for whoever they found the most entertaining, which is not the point. And we have just over six months to work out how to do that. This is a big, long-term, high-budget operation, Grayle. This programme could be – and I’ll be honest here – the making or breaking of Hunter-Gatherer. A lot of competition now. Country’s full of insects with degrees in media studies.’
‘So what’s it called?’
‘What?’
‘The programme. Does it have a title?’
Defford grins, drops his arms.
‘I make no apology for this. We want millions of people to stay up past their bedtime.’
‘Sure.’
‘It’s called – what would you expect?’
‘I wouldn’t like to guess.’
‘It’s called
Big Other
.’
His laughter’s like a scattering of nails on the flagged floor.
‘That title’s our best idea so far. Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ll give you some interesting stuff to take home. But first – you were asking about Trinity Ansell. I want to show you one more thing.’
13
Holy Trinity
SHE GRABS HER
coat from the car and they walk around to the back of the house, passing some outbuildings, most of them picturesquely old. Others are clearly quite modern, red-brick even, but these are mostly well screened by trees and bushes presumably planted by Jordan Aspenwall, the gardener who tried to frighten Lisa Muir.
Defford raises both palms against the brightening sky to describe the banks of monitors that will feed images and sounds from the house.
‘What we’re looking for now is a nice barn to put them in.’
‘So your guys won’t be in the house itself?’
‘Only the residents will be in the house.’
There’s a walled garden out back, which Defford says will be the residents’ exercise yard, and where they go when they need to breathe. It’s not very big and it doesn’t have much of a view, just directly to the top of the hill, where the Scots pines frown.
Up against the wall in the left-hand corner is a distinctive outbuilding. The stones in the ivy-stubbled walls are regular and, along with the lack of a timber-frame, suggest eighteenth century, even later. An exposed bell turns on an iron bar in its little turret, below which is a small round window and, below that, the door, which is Gothic-shaped, ivy-fringed. Grayle quite likes the look of it. As much as she likes the look of anything here.
‘Chapel?’
Defford nods. They’re standing on a small forecourt of stone flags. He has a bunch of keys, the size of jailhouse keys or castle
keys. He’s tried three in the Gothic door before the one that turns and opens it into a dark cherry glow.
‘After you, Grayle.’
She hesitates, suddenly recalling Jeff Pruford:
Putting her on a pedestal, that’s an understatement. If you ever go to Knap Hall, have a glance at the chapel
.
‘Does Harry Ansell know what kind of programme this is going to be?’
‘He knows everything. Go on…’
Inside, she’s transfixed by the rosy stillness. There’s a narrow aisle with five pews either side, each long enough to seat maybe four people. At one time they must’ve faced an altar, but the altar’s gone, leaving only a flaky rectangular outline on the stones. Above it, a stained glass window in three panels.
‘Who built this, Leo? It’s not Tudor.’
‘No, it’s not. Somebody at some stage must’ve thought Knap Hall needed religion. For one reason or another.’
The light’s seeping like juice from the triple-paned window. From the centre pane, a robed figure of leaded glass faces you, offering a vessel in cupped hands. Supported by two other figures in the supporting panes, turned side-on. They stand in silence. Defford hisses impatiently and throws the bunch of keys in the air.
‘Obviously –’ he needs both hands to catch the keys ‘– there’s a shitload of stuff Ansell hasn’t seen fit to tell me. However, we have a lease till Christmas, which is all that matters.’
‘Is it?’
‘Fuck, no.’ Defford breathes out slowly, looking down at his trainers. ‘I’m ready to admit this is looking more complicated than I’d figured. I have a weekend cottage half an hour or so from here. We go to parties, the missus and me. We hear the goss. Tuned into the whispers, the nervous laughter. I did used to be a journalist, too, you know.’
‘Whispers?’
‘In your report you talked about Trinity’s obsession with Katherine Parr who died at Sudeley, aged thirty-six. Same age
as Trinity. And the childbirth angle. We hadn’t noticed that. Inference is that something happened here to disturb her state of mind.’
‘Leo, I have no evidence that Trinity was obsessed with Katherine Parr. Only that she played her in a movie that didn’t do big box office, and that she liked to visit Sudeley Castle – maybe to get decor ideas.’
‘All right,’ Defford says. ‘Harry Ansell employed a young couple – mature students – to live here, for security reasons. While the house was being cleared after the hotel closed down. Even though they were being well paid, they lasted less than a week before giving notice.’
‘You’ve talked to them?’
‘I’ve talked to Ansell. He didn’t want to name them. But perhaps you could find out who they are.’
‘Me.’
‘There’s plenty of time. You at all psychic, Grayle?’
‘What, like I’m supposed to get my spirit guide to tell me who they are? I don’t think about it. Being psychic means a whole bunch of things, and it means nothing if you accept, as I do, that we’re all psychic to a degree.’
‘Just asking.’
‘This couple… you’re saying they say they… saw Trinity?’
He considers, fingering his earring.
‘I don’t honestly know what they claim to have seen. I think… that there could be good reason for viewers, late at night, to wonder if there’s just a possibility that something of the late Trinity Ansell remains in this house. Apart, of course, from… that.’
He’s pointing at the window. The stained glass has turned his skin psychedelic. Grayle looks up, rocks back against a pew-end.
Seeing what she was missing.
‘Oh my God, I was… I was thinking it was… like Mary Magdalene or somebody.’
But hell, no woman in the Bible has lips like that.
In all three glowing representations of Trinity Ansell, her eyelids are modestly lowered and she wears a semi-smile. Most of the cerise light comes from her dress. The cloak around her shoulders is a dark red wine colour. She wears a gold necklace with a ruby in it. Smaller Trinitys, side-on, are looking up at the big Trinity. The gold cup between her hands is like the holy grail.
It’s like electric wires are connecting, and Grayle feels the pulse, shudders. She wasn’t expecting this. Turns to Defford whose hands behind his back are jingling the keys. He’s evidently satisfied with her reaction.
‘It gets better. Seems the original glass had gone years ago, blown out in a storm, and the space had been boarded up. Someone seems to have told Harry Ansell what the original window had illustrated. He became… inspired would be the polite word.’
‘He told you this?’
‘The estate agent told me when I came to look round. Ansell hired a stained-glass artist down in Tewkesbury, then went through the whole planning process. Submitted the artwork to the Listed Buildings officials. And had it accepted for the strange reason that nobody would ever think it was old. If he’d tried to replicate the original, he’d probably’ve been turned down.’
‘What was the original?’
‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost – seen as a dove inside a halo. I suppose people might say it was a blasphemous pastiche.’
Grayle breathes in through her teeth.
‘The Holy Trinity.’ She looks up at the full-on face: primitive and not what you’d call pious. ‘It’s kind of turned this chapel into a mausoleum.’
‘Except it was done while she was still alive and well.’
‘Not what I’d choose to have around, if I were her.’
‘But you’re not her, Grayle. And it was a birthday present. His birthday.’
‘This is getting…’ Grayle’s turning away towards the Gothic door, tightening the belt on her woollen coat, ‘a tad unhealthy.’
‘I just wanted you to see it before we cover it over. Which we obviously have to do because we don’t want any of the residents to identify her.’
‘Why not just lock the chapel?’
Defford shakes his head.
‘No can do. We have specific plans for this place that are more like its original purpose. Ansell doesn’t mind. He tells me he has no particular beliefs. Not in God, anyway.’
‘And, like, does he know you’ll be revealing all, at the end? Like whose house this is? Tossing around his wife’s name and the possibility she’s become some kind of sad wraith in her decaying home?’
‘You know…’ Defford looks wry. ‘I thought that was going to be the hardest part. I thought that was the last fence and we’d fall at it. Either have to back down and promise we wouldn’t reveal who the last owners were – and that wouldn’t be easy. Or just find somewhere else. But he just shrugged. He really doesn’t mind. In fact…’
‘Weird.’
‘With hindsight, I think so, too. And it gets weirder. He wants to be here, in person, while the show’s transmitted.’
‘In the house?’
‘In the gallery,’ Defford says. ‘With the team.’
‘Like… watching?’
‘Yeah,’ Defford says. ‘Watching.’
‘Oh.’
‘Quite.’
‘He tell you this personally?’
‘Came through his PA. He’s been unavailable since we closed the deal.’
‘The PA explain why?’
‘No.’
‘And you don’t want him in there.’
‘No, I don’t. Especially if I don’t know what he wants.’
‘He doesn’t have to tell you, Leo. It’s his house.’
‘We have a lease. I could keep him out if I wanted to. But I’m curious.’
‘You want me to talk to him?’
‘I’d love it if you were to talk to him, but I’ll try not to hold it against you when he refuses.’
‘I’m guessing you tried to arrange a meeting.’
For the first time since she met him, Defford’s displaying an uncertainty. It lasts like two seconds before he exercises his producer’s prerogative and unloads it.
‘You getting an idea how big your job is yet, Grayle?’
14
Watershed
GRAYLE
’
S TURNING IT
over in her head all the way back to Cheltenham. On one level, it has to be a major turn-on for Defford. That tainted undercurrent of obsession. An atmosphere charged with… what? Sorrow? Guilt?