Spirits from Beyond (10 page)

“You’d know better than me,” said Heather. “She summoned the three of you here directly instead of going through me and this office.” She didn’t actually stop typing, but JC couldn’t help noticing that she did look a bit put-out. “And that’s not like her! The Boss is normally a stickler for following protocol. I think something’s worrying her. She’s hiding things from me. She’s hiding things from everyone.”

“Situation entirely normal, then,” said JC.

And that was when the door slammed open, again, and the newly appointed Minister for Supernatural Affairs stormed back in. There was dried blood all down the front of his nice suit, and two thick tufts of cotton wool protruded from his nostrils. He was accompanied this time by half a dozen large and heavily armed security types. The Minister struck an aggrieved pose before Heather’s desk and pointed a quivering finger at her.

“That’s her! That’s the bitch! I want her arrested, and dragged out of here, and thrown in a cell! In handcuffs!”

Heather was already up on her feet, behind her desk. Two really big guns had appeared in her hands, out of nowhere. The Minister’s jaw dropped, and he stood very still. The six security guards lowered their weapons immediately. The man in charge nodded respectfully to Heather, then looked witheringly at the Minister.

“You idiot. This is who you wanted us to arrest? Catherine Latimer’s personal secretary? Are you insane? Sorry, Heather. We didn’t know. Please don’t kill us all and dump our bodies in a mass grave.”

“It’s all right, Dave,” said Heather. “He didn’t know. He’s new.”

“Well, he’s not going to get old, acting like that,” said the security guard. “Come on, lads, let’s get going while the going’s still good.”

They left in a rush, pushing and shoving each other in their hurry to get through the open door. The Minister stood alone, staring in an almost hypnotised way at the really big guns Heather was now pointing exclusively at him.

“So,” he said finally. “If I’m not in charge . . . what, exactly, is my job here? What do I do?”

“You get to talk to the media and convince them that we don’t exist,” said Heather. “And that’s it.”

“Ah,” said the Minister. “Yes. I think I’ll go now if that’s all right.”

“I would,” said Heather.

The Minister left, closing the door quietly and very politely behind him. The really big guns disappeared from Heather’s hands, and she sat down again and resumed her typing.

“Potentially bright sort, I thought,” said JC. “He learned quickly.”

Catherine Latimer’s voice sounded suddenly in the office, from no obvious source. “Chance, get in here with your team. Heather; we are not to be interrupted. Unless it’s that thing we talked about.”

“What?” Happy said immediately. “What thing?”

“That thing the Boss and I talked about that the likes of you don’t need to know about,” said Heather.

“Unless it’s that thing we already know about,” said JC.

“The thing with the thing?” said Melody.

“No; the thing with the other thing,” said Happy.

“You all think you’re so funny,” said Heather, crushingly.

“Get in here, Chance!” said Catherine Latimer’s voice.

The extremely solid steel door at the back of the Waiting Room swung slowly open, as though daring the three field agents to enter. JC made a point of swaggering in, while Melody stuck her nose in the air, and Happy slouched along in the rear. The door closed very firmly behind them.

* * *

The Boss’s private office hadn’t changed much since the last time JC and his team had been called before her. Large and comfortable, but in no way cosy or inviting, with only the most luxurious and expensive fittings and furnishings. Catherine Latimer sat upright behind her Hepplewhite desk and gestured for the three of them to arrange themselves on the even more uncomfortable visitors’ chairs set out before her. She then looked them over with her usual cold gaze. JC made a point of not looking at her, pretending an interest in the contents of her office. Which was actually quite interesting in its own right. The Boss’s antique desk might be covered with all the most up-to-date electronic equipment, but there was no doubt Catherine Latimer had placed her own personal mark on her surroundings. Strange objects leapt to the eye everywhere, demanding the visitor’s attention.

There was a large goldfish bowl, half-full of murky ectoplasm, in which the ghost of a goldfish swam calmly backwards; flickering on and off like a faulty light bulb. A glass display case, remarkably similar to the ones JC had encountered down in the Secret Libraries, here containing the Haunted Glove of Haversham, known to have strangled seventeen young debutantes in 1953. The long white evening glove had been very firmly nailed to its wooden stand. It looked ordinary enough until you realised the fingertips were still twitching. Another display case contained an exceedingly large tooth labelled, simply but worryingly,
Loch Ness 1933
. A portrait of Queen Elizabeth II took pride of place on the wall behind the Boss’s desk. It was said to have been painted directly after her Coronation, but that it had aged along with the Queen, in real time. It was also said that the Boss talked to the portrait concerning important matters of the day. It was not known whether she ever received a reply; but there was a great deal of discussion on the subject.

JC reluctantly returned his attention to Catherine Latimer to find she was still looking the field agents over, taking her time, saying nothing. So JC looked her over, taking his time.

The Boss had to be almost eighty now, but she still projected an air of unnatural strength and vitality. She was medium height, unapologetically stocky, her grey hair cropped in a bowl cut. Her face was all hard edges and cold grey eyes. She wore a smartly tailored grey suit and smoked black Turkish cigarettes in a long, ivory holder; supposedly an affectation that had survived from her old student days in Cambridge. There was a long-standing rumour that a long time ago, Catherine Latimer had made a deal with Someone, but no-one had ever been able to prove anything.

“You’ve all come a long way,” she said abruptly. “From C-team agents with disreputable backgrounds and quite appalling business interests to full-time A-team agents. With an impressive record of cases solved and a series of impressive victories against the Institute’s enemies. I’d put you all down for a commendation if we did that sort of thing. I am pleased to see you’re all giving the Institute your full attention these days.” She looked at JC. “Mr. Chance, you used to run an antiquarian bookshop, in the Charing Cross Road, specialising in the kind of esoteric forbidden lore that would give any reputable scholar nightmares. The literary occult equivalent of the back-pack nuke.”

“Guilty as charged,” JC said easily. “It’s all in storage now. Just don’t have the time, any more. And A-team pay is so much better than C-team. As long as the money continues, I see no reason why I should have to go back to my bad old ways.”

Catherine Latimer turned to Happy, who sat up straight in his chair, trying hard not to look guilty. Or at least, no guiltier than usual.

“Mr. Palmer,” said the Boss. “You used to be an accountant. A very creative accountant, by all accounts.”

“I find numbers comforting,” said Happy, hardly meeting her gaze. “They are what they are. But like JC said, the money’s good enough now that I have no need for outside income. No need at all. Honest.”

“And you, Miss Chambers,” said the Boss, switching her cold gaze to Melody. “You used to publish . . . Well, let’s be polite and call it specialised erotica.”

“Filth,” said Melody. “For the discerning connoisseur. But like JC said, I don’t need the money now. Though I do still have a lock-up full of really quite interesting stuff. In case times get hard . . . Banks may come and banks may go, but filth goes on forever.”

“We all give the Carnacki Institute our full attention, these days,” said JC, quickly cutting in. “If only in self-defence. So why don’t we forget the pleasant conversation and get down to business?”

“By all means,” said Catherine Latimer. “What the hell were you doing, back at Chimera House? Is it connected with what happened to Robert Patterson?”

“Kim is back,” said JC. “We had to go back to Chimera House to pick her up.”

The Boss nodded briefly. “Why isn’t she here with you? I said I wanted to see all of you.”

“Apparently she doesn’t trust you, or the Institute,” JC said flatly. “And she really didn’t feel like being interrogated.”

“She’s been gone some time,” said the Boss, avoiding the pointed comment. “What did your ghost girl have to say for herself? Where has she been? What’s she been doing? What did she learn?”

“She can’t remember,” said JC, calmly.

“What?”
said Catherine Latimer. She actually leaned forward in her chair, glaring right into JC’s sunglasses. He met her gaze unflinchingly.

“Some form of traumatic amnesia, apparently,” said JC. “I’m sure her memory will return, in time. As long as she’s not . . . pressed. But for now, she can’t tell us anything. Such a pity.”

Catherine Latimer switched her gaze to Melody, then to Happy. They both presented the Boss with their best poker faces though everyone present knew they weren’t fooling anyone. The Boss looked back at JC.

“Did anything happen at Chimera House?”

“Like what?” said JC, not giving an inch.

“Don’t play games with me, Chance.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” said JC. “I did happen to notice that Chimera House hasn’t been pulled down and bulldozed, even though everyone was promised it would be. And it wasn’t in any way whatsoever under armed guard.”

“I know,” said the Boss. “I took the guards away. Chimera House is being left intact, as a trap. To see who or what tries to move back in.”

“You didn’t tell us that,” said Melody.

“I don’t have to tell you everything.”

“And you don’t,” said JC. “What can you tell us about what’s really going on, Boss? How far have your investigations progressed, into the infiltration of the Carnacki Institute? Any names, or facts? Anything you’d care to share with us?”

“I have learned nothing useful, as yet,” said Catherine Latimer. “I have to be careful with what I ask and who I talk to, and even more careful not to reveal how much I know and, more importantly, how little I know, for certain . . .”

“Would you tell us?” said Happy. “If you did know something?”

“He’s being very brave, all of a sudden,” said the Boss, still looking at JC. “Back on the pills again, is he?”

“It’s no thanks to you if he is!” said Melody, bristling immediately.

“Happy goes his own way,” said JC. “He always has.”

“Why is everyone talking about me as if I weren’t here?” said Happy, loudly. “Oh hell; I haven’t gone invisible again, have I? I hate it when that happens . . .”

“You are entirely visible, every appalling inch of you,” JC reassured him. “Now hush, while the grown-ups talk.” He gave Catherine Latimer his best hard look. “You have been working us very hard, Boss. Working us into the ground, in fact. It’s no wonder some of us are feeling the pressure. It’s been one case after another, often without the mandatory downtime between cases that the rules call for, to help us get our heads back together again.”

“That’s what being an A team means,” said the Boss, sitting back in her chair, entirely unmoved. “You get the most important, and the most dangerous, missions, as and when they arise. Whether you’re rested or not. Now stop changing the subject. I haven’t finished haranguing you yet. I want to know what you were all doing down in the Secret Libraries?”

“You gave me the password,” said JC.

“Yes!” said the Boss. “I gave it to you! I thought with the understanding that you had enough sense to keep it to yourself. At the very least, I expected you to avoid exposing your team members to toxic spiritual material. I’m surprised those two came back out with their souls still attached . . . Well, what’s done is done. Hopefully. Did you at least turn up something useful?”

“Not . . . useful,” said JC. “Not as such . . . But we did uncover a few interesting things. For example, I was looking for information about past strange happenings down in the London Underground; and imagine my surprise when I discovered that all relevant materials had been removed from the Secret Libraries. On your orders.”

Catherine Latimer removed the dark cigarette from her ivory holder and stubbed it out in an ash-tray shaped like a lung. She made no move to light another. She sat in her chair, thinking. She didn’t look particularly surprised or even shocked; but she was quite definitely thinking.

“I gave no such order,” she said finally. “The fact that someone was able to use my name and falsify my authority, in such a way that no-one even questioned it . . . is interesting. I shall have to look into that. Makes me wonder what else might have been done in my name that I don’t know about . . .”

“Did you know about the piece of The Flesh Undying that had been gifted to the Acquisitions Section?” said JC.

“Of course I know!” said the Boss. “I arranged for it to be put there, in a safe location, as far as possible from the Institute itself. Tell me you haven’t damaged it!”

“More like . . . muzzled it,” said Happy, smiling unpleasantly.

Catherine Latimer shook her head slowly. “He worries me; he really does . . .”

“You’re doing it again!”

“This is what I’m talking about!” said Catherine Latimer. “Disobeying orders, blundering around, interfering in things you don’t understand!”

“Only because you won’t explain them to us!” said JC.

“You’ve all been making too much noise,” said the Boss. “Drawing too much attention to yourselves. And that . . . is getting in the way of my investigations. So I’m sending you away for a while. To deal with a haunted inn, down in the south-west.”

JC, Melody, and Happy all sat up straight in their chairs. They looked at each other, then back at Catherine Latimer.

“What?” said Happy.

“You’re . . . sending us away?” said JC. “With everything that’s going on here, after all we’ve uncovered . . .”

“That’s why you’re going,” Latimer said firmly.