‘He phoned her from Australia. On her mobile. He phoned her every night. She took her phone into the toilet, said they’d all been doing cocaine. He didn’t get it. He said get out, go away somewhere. And then she saw the pigs coming and she did. She got out. Ozzy didn’t know that she’d finally allowed Rhys to give her a line, just to keep the peace, or what effects that might have. She was probably feeling adventurous, thinking yeah, time to go… fuck them.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘Blamed himself. Ozzy. But, by Christ, not as much as he was blaming Sebold. And when he hears Sebold’s about to get back in, full time, at the BBC and in the meantime he’s collecting a hefty six figures from C4 for a week in a haunted house…’
Grayle stops, up against the back of the satellite van. Tonight, you can look up and barely see the white dish.
‘Ahmed followed him into the house. With an agenda. His
friend.
’
‘We’re all friends in light entertainment. You rarely know who really hates you. How deep it goes. Everybody’s an actor. He’ll never be a great actor, Ozzy, but he can play himself to perfection. Whichever version you want.’
‘He did that, all right. The confirmed atheist who hates ghost stories for very personal, convincing…
invented
reasons. Appalled at what’s happening, refusing to accept he’s psychic himself, thereby convincing everybody that he just might be.’
‘You’ve got it.’
‘He wants Sebold publicly exposed, disgraced?’
‘Pilloried. Shafted. Hung out to dry in front of millions.’
‘By the ghost of his girlfriend?’
‘Clever, yeh? I’m thinking you’d know how that works better than me. People believe in them, don’t they? Happen we all do a bit. Sometimes.’
‘Estimates vary between a third and a half. In this country.’
‘Chloe,’ Gill says softly, close to the phone. ‘Out there, still, and she’s unhappy, she’s distressed. And a
lot
of people knew her. And liked her. She was a researcher, they get about.’
‘We do.’
‘So how likely was it that some informed viewers wouldn’t ring in, email, saying, Yeh, the ghost is right. And
this
is who she is. I mean people who know. Including Sebold. You could see him already covering his back, making out Ozzy was stressed out, losing his marbles, shouldn’t be believed. Well, he can’t say a wrong word to Ozzy – they’re on TV… constantly. Where Ozzy knew he’d stay the distance. The comedian never gets evicted. He’d knew he’d get that name out before the end of the week. Angharad. Shit hits fan.’
‘Sebold turned over the table before the name could be spelled out in full?’
‘Really would be the end for him. Papers’d be all over him like flies.’
‘But then Ashley, of all people…’
‘What a bugger that was. Not expecting it from her. And being exposed as a phoney, that’d get him evicted for sure, if anything could.’
‘So he gets himself out.’
‘Buying himself some time.’
‘Only then Sebold decides to follows him out,’ Grayle says, breathing harder. ‘Sebold does the one thing guaranteed to offend most viewers. He repeatedly insults Helen Parrish, who everybody likes. They… need to talk, don’t they, Ahmed and Sebold. Without every word getting recorded.’
‘Ozzy wouldn’t want that. Not how he works. Doesn’t lose his temper.’
‘So you think he left when he heard Sebold was coming out?
To avoid confrontation. Maybe intending to come back for the reunion on Sunday.’
‘And finish the job? I don’t know. That’s why I’m worried. It’s a bloody time bomb, Grayle. Sebold has everything to lose. And Ozzy hasn’t finished the job. Let’s get him found, eh?’
The big oak door swings opens, and – how surreal – there’s a man in a yellow suit and a helmet, a lamp in his hand and young Jo Shepherd at his shoulder.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, people. Unscheduled intermission. The cameras have been turned off. I’m
really
sorry about this, but there’s a fire in an outbuilding, and you’re being evacuated.’
Cindy stands up. The man introduces himself as a senior officer from Winchcombe Community Fire and Rescue. A precautionary measure, he explains, but necessary. Jo tells them it won’t affect tonight’s programme and they won’t be out long.
Nobody questions it. Institutionalized, they are, filing out, like children at the school fire-drill, up the few steps into the stone passage, where electric lights come on and even Ashley is momentarily blinded.
‘Like moles, we are,’ Cindy says.
He looks back at Helen Parrish, who shrugs, and they leave by the chapel yard and the walled garden, all of it smothered in a surprising fog, through which the fireman’s lamp makes a solid corridor. It’s bitter cold and the air stinks. The fireman tells him to keep close to the wall of the house which Cindy finds is warm to the touch and damp.
Around the side of the house, searchlights blast through steam and fog, into an open space where fat hoses intersect. A wasteland where bushes have been ripped up, flattened, gouged out of the ground, the whole area scattered with half-burned bales, burst and steaming. A fire engine has ploughed through one corner of this war zone which Cindy now recognizes, sorrowfully, as the remains of Trinity’s knot garden.
The fire appears to have been subdued, but lumps of burning wood are widely scattered and there are small moments of erratic combustion.
‘Don’t stop to look,’ the fireman warns. ‘Just go round to the front of the house. Don’t get separated.’
‘There’s a restaurant,’ Jo says. ‘Order whatever you like, but please don’t talk to anyone or I’ll lose my job.’
Bizarrely, even as she says the word ‘restaurant’, Cindy smells food – momentarily, through the smoke, the smell of a pig roast, and he sees their fireman being beckoned urgently by another.
‘How did this start, Jo?’
‘Cindy, we really don’t know anything. Can we trust you not to speak to anyone? Even about the fire.’
‘Of course you can trust us,’ Helen says, irritated. ‘You own us.’
Cindy follows behind the others, the only one of them who knows where he’s going. Then he slows down and finally stops, watching the others vanish into the TV encampment, before turning and walking back into the wall of yellowy fog, silk scarf over his mouth, following his nose. Crossing the pools of water to where a wall of the barn has all but collapsed, he can see two firemen and a firewoman grouped inside, lamp beams pooled, and a fourth officer being noisily sick.
In this roofless shell, blackened bales lie around in the water.
Also something curled like a large, black, bloated embryo, knees bent, fists half-closed, all the hair gone from its charred and flaking head.
‘You don’t want to see this, madam.’
A fire officer taking his arm.
68
Presenter
THE ASH TREE
is spectral against the obscured sky, all those upswung fog-softened boughs steady, like it’s holding out its candles to be lit.
They won’t be. Too far away from the fire and on higher ground, higher than the house, higher than the burning barn. Grayle’s so glad to see the old sanctuary, a safe, known viewpoint beyond the village boundary, and she makes her way towards it, stepping carefully through the stiffening grass as the lights fall away behind her.
Still talking into the cellphone.
‘Neither of them’s a hero now, Neil. Not with all the collateral damage. The schoolteacher, Dave, who Ahmed made into a paedophile? All the people in the house who are either sincere in their beliefs, or their non-beliefs. All the people in the house…
most
of whom were sincere.’
‘Oh, come on.’ Neil Gill, scornful. ‘They’re all getting paid more than they’re worth. End of the day, it’s just television.’
‘Makes us all look stupid. And Ahmed look obsessive, manipulative… and kind of cruel.’
‘And Sebold? Have we forgotten what
he
did? What he is?’
‘Power-crazed bully, desperate to save his career? What’s
he
gonna do now? Go crawling to Ahmed, plead with him to stop all this? Beg his forgiveness for abusing the woman he loved? Really?’
Of all things that can possibly happen now, it’s not gonna be that. They’re way beyond forgiveness and redemption and into
an area where control’s out the window and reactions come fast and blind.
Grayle’s shaking.
‘One thing, Neil.’
‘No, that’s your lot. I’m finished, Grayle. Said too much already. Go and tell… thingy.’
‘Defford.’
This time he’ll be receptive. It’s not rational, but at least nothing metaphysical is involved.
‘Best thing,’ Neil Gill says.
‘Yeah, OK. Thank you, Neil. You cleared up a mystery. Not that it’s gonna make anybody here feel good.’
‘Be careful, eh?’
‘You’re thinking Ozzy’s still here, right?’
‘Could be.’
‘There’s a thick fog around the house. Big house. Could be in there. Could be standing right next to me, and I wouldn’t know.’
‘Try feeding him a line,’ Neil Gill says. ‘That nearly always works.’
‘I might do that.’
From up here by the ash, HGTV is mostly buried under solid air. Even the orange glow of the burning barn is a tiny light at the end of a sulphurous tunnel, the blaze hosed down to a spark. Everything hosed down.
Killing the call, Grayle stares towards the fuzzy lights of the TV village, calls out in frustration.
‘Ozzy?’
Thinking now about the night of the raid on Rhys Sebold’s place. Chloe, who is really Angharad, taking a call from Ahmed in Australia, whispering to him about the cocaine. Him saying, ‘Get out, go away somewhere’. And later blaming
himself.
Why? No, really, why? Not like he told her to get into her car and head for the M25.
So who tipped off the cops in the first place? Must’ve been a hundred middle-class homes in that area where people were putting white powder into their nostrils that night.
Ozzy calling the British cops from Australia? Unlikely. But suppose Ozzy called Neil? Good old
said too much already
Neil.
God-
damn
. Grayle walks head down into the fog, climbing onto higher ground, clawing for enlightenment. Sensing movement behind her, she spins around.
‘Ozzy?’
Hell, it’s not very big, the village, and, if he’s here, he’s more likely to be at this end than watching the fire in full view of the people he crapped on.
‘Listen, I know you’re here, and I know
why
you’re here. And about the woman in the white coat. The one who isn’t called Angela?’
Is that breathing?
‘And I’m truly sorry for your loss. And I see why you felt the need to hit back. But you… you didn’t have to screw Defford and his programme with your… your own private production. That was just ego, your need to perform. To
out
-perform. Bottom line, you’re an asshole, Ozzy.’
Can’t even see the house, but she feels the rolling resentment. Whether he knew it or not, the house was helping Ozzy. Providing a mould for his fantasies. Maybe even letting him see what he wanted them all to believe he was seeing.
The house connives.
‘Come on! Come outta there!’
She hears the words coming back at her, realises she’s half screaming, hoarsely, into the polluted night. Damn place is taking her head apart. The air’s like concrete, like stone, like the medium which formed the faces on Winchcombe church with their bulging eyes and howling mouths.
And he comes out.
‘Something like this happens…’
The drawly voice is low and reflective and almost conversational, like they were already talking and got interrupted. He’s wandering over, developing out of the fog.
‘… it makes you realise how flimsy and inconsequential it all is.’
Wrong guy. She pushes both hands into her coat pockets, fists forming, one around her cellphone. How long has he been with her? How much has he heard?
She says, ‘Something like what?’
‘The fire. It’s all too real, isn’t it? While you’re spending millions examining childish fantasies we all should’ve grown out of long, long ago.’
‘Not me, Rhys. I’m just the hired help. Anyway, isn’t that what most TV is? Fantasy?’
‘
No
, actually,’ he says, irritated. ‘Good TV can be penetrating and informative.’
Oh yeah, wrong guy all right. Grayle takes the phone out of her pocket and puts it into flashlight mode, keeping it pointing down, away from him; there’s enough light to see he’s wearing an expensive black leather jacket and gloves.
‘My money’s on Eloise,’ he says.
‘Huh?’
‘For the fire. Terrifying psychiatric issues, that woman. Buys a house that’s been burned down with someone inside, claims it was started deliberately. Nobody believes her. Comes here looking for more publicity and she’s the first to get evicted. Because
still
nobody believes her. So furious. Didn’t you see that? She’s thinking, how can I possibly draw attention to myself now?’
He’s talking fast and excitedly like he sometimes did at the start of his radio programme. Like the show’s already moving and he just swung into his seat. Grayle’s shaking her head in disbelief.
‘Start a fire? You truly think that?’
‘Didn’t say it made any logical sense, but it might to her. Retribution. She’s flakey. Pity the fucking house didn’t catch fire, too, don’t you think?’
‘I might agree with you there.’
‘I couldn’t stand any more of it. Worst kind of claustrophobia. Banged up with mad people. Eccentrics. People who can’t handle real life, want to make their own worlds. Herridge – how did that man ever get elected to the Mother of Parliaments? Sad little man who wants to see a ghost.
Who
… has ever… seen a ghost? They see pale circles of fucking light on a fucking wall.’ His hands are fixing shapes on the fog. ‘…and there’s a cold draught… and that…
that
proves there’s a
fucking God
?’
‘Probably doesn’t.’
Aw hell, the white powder went up there tonight all right, and not too long ago.