Pretty Little Dead Things (26 page)

  She parked and got out of the car, looking up at the house. She had never actually seen the place before, and I wondered how it might strike her to finally be here. The house was in a nice semi-rural area, surrounded by fields, with plenty of space separating it from the closest neighbouring properties. Rebecca and I had gone into some serious debt to afford it, but she and Ally only got to enjoy the benefit for a short time before the accident.

  Ally had loved the house: the open spaces, the old, scarred brickwork, the large rooms and high timbered ceilings. Whenever I walked the rooms of the big old house, I knew that I'd give anything to hear even the smallest echo of my daughter's laughter following me. Alas, that had never happened, not even once. The rooms remained silent; the house was truly empty, even when I was home –
especially
when I was home.

  Empty, even with ghosts of hanged women swinging on the upper floor.

  I went to the front door and opened it before Ellen reached the worn stone step. She smiled at me, the weak sunlight catching in her hair and lightening it a shade, her eyes flashing, her cheeks holding rose petals. "Hi." She was subdued, as I had expected. I think she felt slightly uncomfortable standing outside the place where my family had once dwelled, if only for a brief span of time.

  They may not have lived there for long, but the house stood in their shadows.

  "Come on in. I'll be ready in a moment." I stepped back from the door and beckoned her inside. She followed me, leaving the door open – perhaps subconsciously, as an escape route if the emotions held tight within the place became too much for her to bear.

  I decided to cut short her discomfort and grabbed my jacket off the hook by the door. "I won't bother giving you the grand tour. There's nothing much to see here, these days." I couldn't prevent the note of self-pity that tinged my voice.

  Ellen simply nodded, silent now that she was inside. I could tell that she just wanted to leave.

   We went back out to the car and she pressed the key fob to release the locks. "Nice motor," I said. "Looks like a real monster."

  Ellen smiled, shook her head. "Please, don't start. It's ridiculous, isn't it? But it was all they had left at the rental place."

  Ellen slipped into the driver's seat and I squeezed in beside her, making a show of huffing and puffing. "Oh, shut up," she said, still smiling.

  The little car moved surprisingly fast along the narrow country roads. I felt myself become tense and gripped the seatbelt. "Slow down a little, eh? I know this is a toy car, but it's still a death machine."

  Ellen began to say something, and then thought better of it. She must have suddenly remembered the reason why I was so nervous travelling at any kind of speed. Whenever I drive my own car I go well under the speed limit, no matter who is sitting up my arse and in what kind of vehicle. I know from bitter experience how speed can kill.

  Traffic wasn't too bad so we arrived in Bradford a little before 3pm. Ellen parked in a space so tight that I couldn't even see it until the car had slipped neatly between two other vehicles. "Magic," she said, winking at me. "These little babies are designed for urban stealth parking."

  We got out of the car and walked down to the Alhambra theatre, and then cut up behind it until we were standing before a small, rundown building with its sign hanging askew on a rusty bracket. "Here we are. King's Theatre." Ellen stepped towards the door but held back, as if she really didn't want to be there. "This is going to be horrible," she said.

  I reached out and grabbed her hand. Squeezed it. "It's okay. Let's just try to stay calm and observe. If things get out of hand, I'll step in, but try to keep it as low-key as possible."

  She nodded. I smiled, but behind the smile lay only a sheet of ice.

  It was ten minutes before three and I knew that everyone would be sitting down and waiting for the show to begin. I walked through the glass double doors, up a short flight of carpeted steps, and towards the ticket booth. A young girl with bright green hair sat behind the counter reading a paperback book. As I got closer I saw that the book was a Stephen King novel, and she was reading so intently that she failed to register my approach.

  "Excuse me."

  The girl looked up, a slightly aggrieved expression on her face. Clearly she didn't want to be disturbed from her reading. "Yes? Help you?"

  "We're here to see the Trevor Dove medium show, but I'm afraid we didn't book in advance. Are there any tickets still available at this late a date?" I smiled, trying my best to seem dull and inoffensive. It seemed to work a treat.

  The girl looked down at a computer terminal, tapped a few buttons, and nodded. "Yep. Still a few left. How many do you need?"

  "Two, please," said Ellen, now at my side and pulling out her purse.

  The girl printed out the tickets, one eye still on her novel.

  "I'll pay," I said, reaching into my jacket pocket.

  "Don't be silly, Thomas. You're doing me the favour here, and I'm not about to let you pay for the privilege." She scowled and opened her purse, talking out a credit card.

  I held up my hands and stepped back. "Fair enough. I'm not going to argue with you today."

  Ellen smiled; that was one small victory under her belt. She always was an independent lady.

  We headed for the double doors at the bottom of the stairs, which led to what a sign rather ambitiously described as the Main Stage. From the look of the place I doubted there were any other stages in the building, so it had assumed the title by default.

  Ellen pushed her arm though the crook in my elbow and held me. It felt good, pure, and I hung on to the sensation for as long as I could, with a vague notion that I might need the memory at some unspecified time in the future to arm me against the dark. Life is full of such small moments of unacknowledged intimacy, and what I have learned is that they are valuable weaponry against despair.

  The room we entered was like an old music hall, with drapes laid against the walls, red velvet chairs aligned in neat rows and a nice long stage at the front. The audience was impressive; there was barely an empty seat in the house. Dove's television show was something of a cult item, and despite not pulling in huge viewing figures for the cable channel who broadcast it, revenue from tie-in shows like this one must have been enough to keep the man in business.

  Just as we grabbed a couple of seats near the back of the hall – the only two empty ones within range, next to a group of giggling students – the house lights went down, a tinny electronic version of Mussorgsky's
Night on Bare Mountain
started playing, and the curtain went up jerkily. It could not have been better timed if we had been following a script. Perhaps we were; maybe, at some points in all of our lives, we are following scripted directions without ever knowing that we are doing so.

  The crowd began to applaud as a tall, lean man in a powder blue suit emerged and strutted onto the stage. Trevor Dove cut an impressive figure mainly because of his height – other than that, the silly suit, bleached hair and fake tan made him look shallow and pompous, and more than a little vainglorious. He strode to the front of the stage and took a modest half bow. On his head was strapped one of those portable microphones the pop singer Madonna made popular in her live shows back in the Nineties; the whole affair already had the air of a carefully choreographed musical act.

  The soundtrack faded and the star of the show began his spiel.

  "My name is Trevor Dove, and I welcome you, friends, to my evening of spiritual adventure."

  More applause. The students on our row were still giggling. I looked around and noted that there was a mixed crowd in place to view the entertainment: old ladies hoping for messages from loved ones, middle-aged women on a girls' day out who would probably go on for a curry afterwards, students like the ones next to Ellen and me, and a smattering of hardcore ghost-groupies after their latest fix of this sanitised version of the paranormal.

  It took me a while to locate Shawna Royale, where she had been placed in a good seat close to the stage. Her husband wasn't with her (an unbeliever?) but it isn't an overstatement to say that I was stunned to see who was accompanying her. Baz Singh sat at her side, looking rather uncomfortable in a pinstripe suit and heavy overcoat. I stared at him, thinking for a moment that I was seeing things – I had no idea why he might be there, or who had invited him.

  "Do you know that man sitting next to Shawna?" I nodded in their general direction and Ellen squinted to see in the dim light.

  "I recognise him, yes, but I don't know his name. God, this is rubbish, isn't it?"

  "Ellen. This is important. What is that man doing with your cousin?"

  Ellen turned to look at me, her face suddenly serious. "Sorry, Thomas. I don't know his name, but he's a local businessman who's organised a fund to help look for Penny. He gathered together a few more prominent local figures and they all chipped in with some cash to kickstart the thing. It's probably some kind of tax write-off."

  My mouth had gone dry; I licked my lips but there was no spit on my tongue to do any good.

  Trevor Dove continued with his introduction, pacing the stage like a rather light-footed caged tiger in pastel colours. His voice, with its modified Yorkshire accent, sounded camp and affected: it was staged entirely for the local crowd.

  "Now, friends, I must warn you not to expect too much from me. The spirits – our friends on the other side – do not always come forward in the way we would like. Sometimes the wrong ones step forward into the light, and other times, even when we connect with someone we know, the messages they bring are confused and uncertain. They speak to me in code. A smell. A colour. A vision of some kind. They are never direct, and always go round the houses, as my old mam used to say, to get to the point. So I must ask all you friends to be patient, to be calm and polite in the hope that we get something of value coming through from the other friends – the ones we've all come to meet."

  The music had finished now, and the applause was more of a ripple this time rather than the clamorous noise from before. The audience were settling; Dove had them eating out of his hand. The man was a pro.

  "First I do have someone here, a friend who has passed over, who seems to be telling me about some washing, or a washing line. Does that mean anything to anybody here?"

  Several hands shot up. I shook my head and fought the urge to leave.

  "This is pathetic," said Ellen. Her former light humour had disappeared and in its place there was a quiet, simmering anger. She clearly didn't enjoy the thought of this showman conning her cousin and feeding off the family's pain.

  "No… no, it isn't washing, not really. It's a peg. That's it, isn't it, friend?" Dove glanced to the side of the stage, as if he were speaking with someone who stood there. "Come on, friend, can you be more specific?" A peg… peg… Peg! That's it, it's a name, isn't it, friend?" He turned back to face the hall, his eyes wide and filled with a sort of fervour that I could not be sure was entirely faked. "Is there a Peg or a Peggy in the room? Have you lost someone?"

  Most of the hands that had been raised dropped; only one remained in the air.

  "Stand up, please, won't you, friend?" Dove had now adopted the warm persona of a caring family member. "Don't be frightened."

  An old woman slowly stood, clutching her handbag to her chest. She was wearing her hat indoors, as if she was afraid to put it down in case someone stole it. Her smile was weak, uncertain, and even standing she hunched her shoulders as if she were still sitting down.

  "Are you Peg, friend? Is that your name, dear?" Dove kneeled down at the front of the stage, opening his arms in a broad, showy gesture of inclusion.

  The old woman coughed lightly. "No… no, it isn't me. My sister, she was called Peggy. We lost her, oh, six weeks back now. To the cancer."

  Applause rippled gently around the room; someone gasped; the students giggled into their hands.

  "Well, friend, Peggy is here. She doesn't seem to have much to say – her presence is weak – but I think she just wants you to know that she's always watching over you. Is that all right, friend? Does it make sense to you?"

  The woman was weeping openly. She nodded her head and dabbed at her eyes with a paper tissue she had produced from the sleeve of her dress. "Thank you, Trevor. You're a very kind young man." Adoration poured from her eyes along with the tears, and I began to feel nauseous. The old man sitting next to her reached up and touched her arm; she sat, smiling and dabbing with the tissue. The applause intensified, and when Dove raised his hand it slowly died down.

  "Thank you, friend. You enjoy the rest of the show, and I'll leave your Peggy's love with you." He stood and walked back to his mark, his strides long and confident.

  It went on like this for some time: Dove making vague allusions to people who may or may not be dead and hoping that one would stick; performing like a high wire artist, constantly and minutely readjusting his position to prevent a fall. He was very good, of his kind, and possibly did possess some minor mediumistic intuition, but the rest of it was pure bluff and bullshit. He hid his secrets well, too. Behind the glitter and the sham he was virtually unreadable.

  Then, almost an hour into the show, he called for Shawna Royale.

  "I can see… I can see a coin. A penny. It's Penny, and she has a message for her mother. Now, I've been contacted by this one before, and she knows that her mummy is afraid. Could Penny's mum please stand up and make herself known to us? That's right, friend, you come forward. I have a message from someone who says that she's your little girl."