‘So, Grayle,’ she says, ‘you have an extensive knowledge of different types of apparition and the people who’ve seen them.’
‘As much as anyone ever does.’
‘And does that mean you believe in them… in the traditional sense?’
Grayle leans her heads into a high wing of the armchair, closes her eyes for a moment. What a night to throw this one into her lap.
‘I have to say… that after all these tens of thousands of recorded experiences throughout history, I think people are crazy not to. But… in the traditional sense? I don’t know. I still don’t know what they are. Not sure we’re meant to, you know?’
‘Or whether it’s all down to some brain-chemical cocktail?’
‘You really lose your job at the BBC because of telling them you’d seen Diana?’
Parrish shudders.
‘I didn’t tell them. What do you think I am? I was stupid enough to mention it, in a casual, slightly incredulous way to a couple of people I never imagined I couldn’t trust. The post of deputy royal-correspondent was discontinued a short time later. Can’t honestly say that whatever I may foolishly have said was anything to do with that. Though I accept that the BBC currently has its tongue a long way up the arse of Dr Science.’
Grayle smiles. Marcus also talks like that about the world’s number one public service broadcaster.
‘Don’t know,’ Parrish says. ‘Perhaps I was just getting too old, perhaps I wasn’t very good. Though, in my defence, I’d point to some famous faces who’re a bloody sight older and a bloody sight worse. Perhaps they just needed to lose some jobs. I was on a freelance contract, so there was no huge redundancy package.’ She nods at the leather file. ‘What’ve you brought me?’
‘Another contract?’
‘They were talking about topping it up with another hundred grand. God, I mean that is so bloody tempting. We’re now in the region of half a million. There’s nothing I could do on the box, not now, that would bring in that much. Certainly not for barely more than a week’s work. But, then… I have to give them value for money, don’t I?’
Grayle shrugs.
‘They – we – would want you to talk in some detail about your experience, however much of it you believe was paranormal. They’d probably have you talking about it early in the week.’
‘So it’ll get in the papers.’
‘And maybe double the
Big Other
viewing figures. I guess that’s how they’re thinking.’
‘You guess?’
‘Figure of speech.’
Parrish shakes her head wearily.
‘On one level, it’s a no-brainer, Grayle. Just after they dumped me, I had an offer for a TV commercial. Rescue-cosmetics for the ageing. Because I’m worth it – just about. No, actually not that one, but you get the idea. And a magazine ad for Saga holidays – get photographed standing at the rails of a cruise ship with some smarmy old git in a tuxedo. Felt quite insulted at the time.’
Parrish lights a cigarette.
‘And so told them very politely to piss off. Well, actually, not that politely, which I rather regret now. Regret quite a lot. Anyway…’ She shudders again, a tad theatrically. ‘You know what worried me most when they first contacted me? Forced myself to watch a DVD of
Celebrity Big Brother
, and… celebrity? Is it my age, or do most people only recognize about two of them? I foresaw embarrassment when we were all assembled and none of us knew who the hell the others were.’
‘Was that all that worried you?’
Parrish smiles behind the smoke, doesn’t reply. Grayle’s now-educated guess is that, for this woman, an afternoon travel programme for the cruise-ship generation looks like TV’s terminal ward.
Not good.
‘Helen, I need to tell you… the producer’s idea is that every night you’ll all sit around the fireside and one of you will tell a story about how you came to believe in the existence of ghosts. Or how you came not to believe. Some seminal-moment anecdote. And the others get to question you about it, and while a few will be nut-jobs like me some of them’re gonna be serious sceptics.’
‘And I might even agree with them.’
‘Don’t agree too easily.’
Parrish blows out smoke.
‘It was… just a strange postscript to a strange period in my life. Being a royal reporter, following them around the world, you realize the whole thing is a fantasy in itself and you’re part of that. You’re inside the magic circle. Very close to some almost mythical figures, the like of which we may not see in this country for too much longer. And then, occasionally, reality intrudes, with some scandal, and you’re a hard-news reporter again and you feel you’re betraying them. Which is ridiculous.’
‘It was a few years ago, right? When you had this experience.’
‘Which I’ve never actually kept at the forefront of my memory. The more times goes by, the less sure I am that I believe it myself.’
‘Yeah, I can understand that.’
In a way.
‘What’s this house like?’ Helen Parrish says. ‘Are you allowed to tell me anything about it? Have I heard of it?’
Oh God, she so wants to pour it all out about the Ansell bedroom. Could be she’s the only person who’s afraid of Knap Hall, and that’s a responsibility. It’s only just occurred to her what a terrible responsibility this is.
‘I guess not,’ she says. ‘But it’s… it’s not a good place, Helen.’
Her expression must’ve betrayed something. Parrish is leaning forward, pinching out the cigarette.
‘You’re saying you think it’s actually haunted?’
Grayle pauses. The window is uncurtained, probably to make the most of a sea view. All she can see is a deep blue night sky, but she knows the sea is out there, and it’s huge.
‘OK… I think… that there is something wrong there. I think something’s… disturbed. And I think… I think that, whatever you believe, you can still be damaged by these… situations. In ways you can’t imagine. It’s my job to try and identify what it is about the building, or what people think it is. And I’m not there yet. Nowhere near.’
‘Bloody hell.’ Helen’s eyes have widened. ‘You sound almost as if you’re trying to put me off.’
‘I guess I’m not supposed to do that.’
‘I guess you’re not.’ Parrish’s grey eyes are curious now. ‘Let me see the contract.’
Grayle’s handing her the envelope when the cellphone rings.
‘Get it,’ Helen says. ‘They might want you to increase the offer.’
They both smile. Grayle pulls the phone from her jeans, slides the answer bar.
‘Underhill.’
It’s Defford’s PA, Kate Lyons.
‘Grayle, message from Leo. Are you still on the road?’
‘No. I’m… I’m with Helen Parrish.’
‘When you’ve finished, find a radio. Don’t do it in there.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘No hurry. Just something you need to know about. It’ll be on the news. Leo will talk to you in the morning.’
And the call’s over. Helen Parrish is sliding the contract back into its envelope.
‘You all right, Grayle?’
‘Sure. Nothing urgent.’
What sounds like a grandfather clock is ticking someplace. Behind it she hears what might be the sighing of the night sea.
‘I’m not being entirely truthful,’ Parrish says. ‘I’m only unsure about it until I start to relive it in my head. And you’re thinking, isn’t it amazing how a substantial six-figure sum clears the mind.’
Grayle says nothing. She wasn’t thinking that.
‘Do you want to hear this now, Grayle? I mean, do you want to hear exactly what happened between… her… and me? May take a while. Detail tends to blur until all that remain are the feelings. But I swear those were genuine.’
Grayle sits up in the armchair, takes a long, sustaining breath.
‘No, no… please. I’m like… all ears.’
Helen stubs out her cigarette and pours more tea.
Couple hours later, Grayle’s following the signs towards Exeter and the M5, whichever comes first, the satnav lady silenced to let the radio through. It’s a long drive home, but she doesn’t want to stay in a hotel tonight. She’s want home, a bed she knows, Cheltenham night traffic.
On the passenger seat beside her, the contract, signed. She doesn’t know what the figure is, but after hearing the story she can believe Helen Parrish is worth more than most of the others. A well-known, trusted face, a big, big ghost. And someone who can hold her own against the likes of Ozzy Ahmed.
It’s a whole different kind of experience, of course. Altogether different from a place of dampness and rotting leaves. But no more life-enhancing. Not really.
She’s wondering if maybe she ought, after all, to have shared what happened to her in the former bedroom at Knap Hall, when the Radio Four news headlines come on.
She doesn’t have long to wait. It’s second lead item.
‘A man whose body was found in a wood in Gloucestershire tonight is believed to have been identified as the magazine publisher Harry Ansell.’
She doesn’t even remember pulling off the road into a housing estate, just sitting there with two wheels on the sidewalk and the motor running, going oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.
‘Police have cordoned off the wood near Winchcombe in the northern Cotswolds, and a formal statement is expected within the next hour.’
Grayle sits looking at rows of house lights through coloured curtains. She didn’t know a person could shake like this. Literally shake, so hard you weren’t safe to drive.
‘It’s less than two years since the death of Mr Ansell’s wife, the former model and film-actor Trinity Ansell, whose name he took when they married.’
She tries to call Leo Defford at home, but his cellphone’s busy.
28
Exorcizing Trinity
SHE KEEPS DRIVING
north till she finds the M5 and then what must be the other side of those same motorway services, where she pulls in and makes another call.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ Fred Potter says. ‘Thought you might’ve come out, in the circumstances.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Where else would I be, Grayle? Sitting on a damp stile on the edge of a wood I’m not allowed into. Police cars, police tape and one of those ambulances for the dead, and it’s bloody cold. Where are you?’
‘Not close. On the way back from Devon. All I know is what was on the radio.’
‘A farmer found him. Doing a last check on his sheep.’
‘Where?’
‘Don’t know if the wood has a name. It’s probably less than half a mile from Knap Hall.’
God.
‘What happened to him? How did he die?’
‘You don’t know how he died?’
‘Fred, I don’t know anything. It sounds like suicide.’
‘Yes.’
‘So, like… carbon monoxide in his car? What?’
‘Cops are not letting anybody through, but I did manage to talk to the farmer. Recognized Ansell straight away from when he was at the hall. Quite a shock.’
‘Fred—’
‘He was hanging from a tree. Oak tree, I think. Barely light when the farmer found him. Might’ve been not very long after he did it.’
Fred goes on talking, oblivious to Grayle covering the mouth-slit on becoming aware of how hard she’s breathing. And then she jumps in her seat – someone tapping on the steamed up side window.
She starts the car, lowers the glass. An elderly man is asking if she’s all right but looking suspicious like it might be a stolen car. It’s the shorn hair does it.
‘Had to…’ Holding up the phone, waving it around to conceal the shake. ‘Had to make a call.’
‘Oh, righto.’ He smiles apologetically; her voice, her accent, seems to have reassured him. ‘Thought I ought to check… the speed you came in.’
‘I’m sorry. Sorry about that.’ And when he’s gone, this concerned local person, she says into the phone, ‘Harry Ansell…’
‘Word is he was in trouble with the bank, and banks don’t help you these days even if you’re Harry Ansell. We know he’d borrowed money to launch
Cotsworld
in Australia, Canada and… other places. And then Trinity dies… and that just blows the whole conceit, doesn’t it? Paradise looking a little sordid. It’s a matter of record he sold some of his other magazines to stay afloat. We think he was even looking for a buyer for
Cotsworld
itself. No chance. Not at a price worth having.’
‘Harry Ansell hanged himself?’
The word comes back at her:
hanged, hanged, hanged
.
‘Grayle, are you all right?’
‘Yeah. I’m just…’
She’s vibrating. The bedposts are vibrating. All five of them.
Oh God, oh God, oh God
.
‘Who gets his empire now?’ Fred says. ‘Or rather his debts. I don’t know. Eddie Burgess – that’s his son from his first marriage – is still at university, doing an MA in history. Could take years to sort out… Grayle?’
‘Still here.’
‘How’s it going to affect you? I’m assuming Defford’s got Knap Hall on a firm lease.’
‘Sure. I don’t suppose it is. Going to affect us. Not in that way.’
‘He was actually here about an hour ago.’
‘Defford?’
‘With a woman in his car who I didn’t recognize, but… not his wife, and too old, you know, too old to be a girlfriend.’
‘Maybe Kate Lyons. His PA.’
‘I know Kate. Wasn’t her. Anyway, he said he’d talk to me tomorrow. Needs time to think, obviously. He’s got to be on thin ice here, if he doesn’t want it to get out about what he’s doing at Knap Hall. Media’s going to be down in force. Bunch of us here already.’
‘He’ll stick to the cover story about the Trinity Ansell biopic documentary.’
‘Anybody asks me,’ Fred says, ‘I’ll obviously tell them that, too. Assuming our arrangement…’
‘Sure.’
Unofficially, they have a deal, her and Fred. He passes on information, like about Ansell, stuff which, for legal reasons, he can’t sell for publication, and she agrees to give him newsworthy
Big Other
background stuff, exclusive, not to be used till it won’t interfere with the programme.
‘Defford’s got to be nervous though,’ Fred says. ‘Wondering why Ansell came back here to do it.’