Mean Spirit

by Phil Rickman

  Set back from the main road, just before you reached the estate, was a plain, modern, detached house in the same reconstituted Cotswold stone. There was a swing in the garden and a slide. A half-sized motorbike, for kiddy scrambling, was leaning against the side door, which opened before Maiden reached it.

  ‘Don’t ask me, cause I don’t friggin’ know,’ a woman snarled.

  Razored blonde hair. Fierce.

  ‘You must be Sandra,’ Maiden said.

  ‘And who are you, her husband? Well, don’t come whingeing to me, mate, I’ve had this situation more times than you.’

  ‘Where do you reckon they are?’

  ‘Fuck knows.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Not long ago enough.’ Sandra half shut the door. ‘Why don’t you try the pub? That’s his second home. This is his third home. Maybe.’

  Sandra shut the door all the way.

  Maiden stood by the slide.

  Marcus Bacton. Wouldn’t you know it would be like this?

  Problem with pubs, they had too many eyes, especially for a stranger outside the tourist season. It was nearly an hour before Scott came out of the White Lion. Maiden had watched him through the window, idly tossing darts. One of only four customers, so no mistaking him: big lad, well built, straight ginger hair combed forward, old-fashioned pudding basin.

  He stumbled slightly on the steps; he’d had a few pints.

  ‘A word, Scott,’ Maiden said.

  ‘Who’re you?’ He wore no earrings or anything of that nature.

  ‘Army?’ Maiden wondered.

  ‘What of it?’ Scott looked ready to smash his face in and throw him in the river.

  Ah, well. Maiden displayed his warrant card.

  ‘I’m not driving, squire,’ Scott said.

  ‘I’m not Traffic. Just want a word, that’s all.’

  ‘What’s this about?’ Scott looked worried, but not worried enough for it to be significant. Maiden led him to a bench above the riverbank.

  ‘Justin Sharpe. Mate of yours?’

  ‘Not specially. I know him.’

  Maiden shook his head.

  ‘What’s he done?’ Scott said.

  ‘What do you think he might have done?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘You don’t work with him, then?’

  ‘Nobody works with him.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Cause he … cause he don’t employ anybody no more. Look—’

  ‘The word is you go out at night with him, on the piss.’

  Scott closed his eyes briefly. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘just spell it out. What’s he done?’

  Maiden waited. Scott breathed in, bit down on his bottom lip. A duck came over to check if they were eating sandwiches. Maiden leaned back on the bench, clasped his hands behind his head. What the hell was he getting into here?

  It was about Vic Clutton, he concluded. He had this pent-up rage inside him. He was looking for a target. Any target.

  Scott said, ‘If he’s in trouble, it’s nothing to do with me. I don’t need any trouble. Coming out the army in a few weeks.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I’m looking around.’ The lad smiled faintly, embarrassed. ‘Been thinking about the police, actually.’

  ‘Really.’ Maiden kept his face expressionless.

  ‘So you see the problem,’ Scott said.

  ‘Of having a mate like Justin?’

  ‘He’s not a mate really. He just latches on to you. Wants to go clubbing with you at weekends, down Gloucester, Cheltenham. You know?’

  ‘Wife and kids, though, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Sort of. Some of the time. What’s he done?’

  ‘What about women? Likes to put it about?’

  ‘You need me to tell you that? Mind, he talks a lot of bullshit – this totty, that totty. You don’t believe half of it. Like the other day, he reckoned he picked up this American tart, like a hippy type, and she’s all over him, and so he give her one in the grass round the back of the garage. That’s Justin.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Man, you must know what he’s like or you wouldn’t be asking. Old feller died, left him these garages and he flogged the other for a building site, but the council wouldn’t give him planning permission for this one so he’s letting it go to rack and ruin, deliberate eyesore. While he spends the money he got from the other place.’

  Maiden nodded. It was what the old man with the bicycle had told him.

  ‘Now he thinks he’s this big man. Likes to hang out. In Gloucester and places. Gives you all these stories. How he used to go round Cromwell Street and shag Rose West when Fred was out fitting somebody’s bathroom. All this shit you know he’s made up. And how he’s got all these hard friends.’

  ‘How hard?’

  ‘Got to be harder than Justin. Comes over tough, but you lean on him, he’ll fall over.’ Scott stood up. ‘Look, I said enough, all right? He ain’t a mate, but I ain’t a copper yet, neither.’

  Maiden stood up. ‘Good luck then, Scott,’ he said. ‘Might see you around.’

  Again, behind the screen of conifers it was a different world, a different season – the old petrol pumps sad sentries under the white sky. The only colours were the oily rainbows in the old puddles which defined the forecourt’s cracks and hollows. There was no car outside, no truck, only the sombre remains of a disembowelled van at the side of the garage.

  Behind the grey building, a fence of corrugated metal sheets divided the garage from a field. Picked up this American tart and she was all over him, and so he give her one in the grass round the back of the garage.

  Lying bastard. Hopefully.

  Maiden shouted, ‘Justin!’

  A crow flew up, protesting, from behind the building. He tried the doors.

  One opened a few inches. A padlock fell from a hasp. Maiden widened the gap enough to squeeze through.

  Inside, the garage was cobwebbed and derelict, the concrete floor slippery with old grease. Rags of grey light trailed from slimed-up, cobwebbed skylights.

  ‘Oh hell,’ Maiden said.

  He’d smelled the smell.

  There were two vehicles in here, an ancient VW Beetle and a red Mini. Maiden walked around the Mini.

  It had an exhaust pipe but not a new one. Maiden bent down and saw that the silencer was held in place by a length of wire, wound round twice. Justin had failed to obtain a new system – or hadn’t even tried – and had simply tied the old pipe back the way it had been before it fell off.

  His shoes sliding on a grease slick, Maiden walked over to some workbenches. Under dusty grey drapes of light dangling from the roof-panes, he saw the tools on the workbench gleaming blue. Very few of them, spanners and stuff, nothing as sophisticated as welding equipment.

  Justin must have sold most of the gear. There was about enough here to change a wheel and that was it. Yet he was still leaving cards in phone boxes in rural areas. A way of picking up women?

  Maiden went back to the car, tried the door. It opened. The key was in the ignition. He looked over into the back and on the floor. He took out the key and opened the boot. Spare tyre, tools, three copies of The Vision. He closed it quietly, got into the car, pulled out the choke, turned the key. The engine fired first time. Good. Because he’d need to get Grayle’s car the hell out of here.

  He switched off. Went over and put his shoulder against the garage door and opened it wide. No need for both doors to get a Mini out of here.

  He took some breaths of fresh air, then he went back into the garage.

  With the door open, white light fanned through cobwebs dotted with mummified flies. It lit up the old Volkswagen and the splayed fingers in the grease.

  ‘Maiden? Is that you? Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in the car park of a roadside diner. Marcus, is Grayle there?’

  ‘Did you get the car?’

  ‘Yes, I’m in the car now. If you could just
put Grayle on.’

  ‘Excellent. Underhill! No problems, I assume, Maiden?’

  ‘Well, we can talk about that.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to …? Yes, it’s Maiden … hold on a second.’

  ‘Bobby?’

  ‘Hello, Grayle.’

  ‘You got the car?’

  ‘Yes, I—’

  ‘You saw him? You saw Justin?’

  ‘Grayle, what does Justin look like, exactly?’

  ‘He’s, uh … quite a solid-looking guy. Dark, crinkly hair?’

  ‘Moustache?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, big black moustache.’

  ‘Earring?’

  ‘One earring, quite large. Kind of showy. Bobby, didn’t you talk to him?’

  ‘Look, I’m bringing the car over now, Grayle, so don’t go anywhere, will you?’

  ‘Bobby?’

  ‘Should be there in about…’

  ‘Oh, Jesus.’

  ‘… an hour? Just over?’

  ‘Oh Jesus freaking Christ.’

  ‘Don’t say any more, OK?’

  ‘He’s dead, isn’t he? He’s fucking dead. Bobby you have to … Oh God, no. Bobby, lis—’

  Maiden cut the line, put the Mini awkwardly into gear. Over the city of Gloucester the clouds were closing in for rain.

  Part Three

  From Bang to Wrongs: A Bad Boy’s Book,

  by GARY SEWARD

  I suppose I better watch what I’m saying, ’cause the fact is – and any professional will tell you this – that you only go down for a small fraction of what you actually done.

  Course some people is not so fortunate as others – like my old mate Clarence. Clarence has done over twenty-five years all told, I reckon. But I have always been ‘lucky’, and there are still some senior policemen grinding their teeth every time they think of me, but that’s the way it goes. Bar a couple of messy bits, I have had what you might call a charmed life, and now I have returned to my roots and live among the rural nobs in one of the ‘big yellow houses’ that I remembered from my childhood. One of my neighbours is Prince Charles and, although I have not yet received an invitation to dine with him and his lady at Highgrove, I am sure it will happen one day.

  Yes, my life is pretty good and I live it the way I have always done, taking great big bites out of the pie but always aware of the signs and omens. Signs and omens are very important and why I have been lucky. This is not superstition, far from it. It is recognizing that there are times to move and big pickings if you get it right. You see the signs and you have to react; you got to have the nerve to go for it, no matter what other people say. The older I get the more I am aware of signs and omens, but if you call me a mystic I’ll still break your bleedin’ arm.

  XX

  RAIN AND A PHONE CALL DROVE THE INHABITANT OF THE PINK caravan indoors.

  The phone call was from London. ‘It’s me,’ Jo said. ‘I’ve found out why he did it.’

  The rain was from Ireland. Normally it would not have bothered him, for there was something energizing about rain billowing in over the sea. But it might not be terribly good for the little mobile phone and so he carried it back into the caravan, sitting on the edge of his bed-settee.

  ‘So’, he said, ‘there was a reason. Other than the humiliation of a creepy old man.’

  He was looking down the field to the other caravans. Four there were, in all, in the field above St Bride’s Bay.

  What have I told you about going near that creepy old man?

  The three green ones would be uninhabited until Easter, when the owner of the pink one would be obliged to wear ladies’ clothing nearly all day for the benefit of small children who had no reason to suspect he was not of the female gender.

  The false eyelashes could be a soupçon problematical, but generally one didn’t mind. Who could resist such warm acceptance? It was, after all, no more than a year since he’d heard, through the caravan window, a mother dragging a child away – What have I told you about going near that creepy …? Etcetera.

  Last autumn, however, the very same woman: Now, I’m sure if you go and ask Cindy very nicely, you can be introduced to Kelvyn Kite.

  Creepy old man to cosy celeb in a matter of months, through the magical power of television. Soon it would be the impromptu weekend matinées again, Cindy and Kelvyn at the top of the field recycling the old Bournemouth Pier routines for a handful of holidaymakers and Ifan Williams’s brood from the farm. A little tiring, but it had its compensations. And – who could say? – such was the transience of television that this time next year it could all be over. And the following year, back to …

  ‘Creepy!’ Jo said. ‘You’re not creepy, for heaven’s sake. Certainly not compared with him.’

  ‘Kurt?’

  ‘Well … his obsession with this haunted castle, all that cheesy crap. It’s not healthy, is it? Anyway, that’s beside the point – well, not entirely, it partly explains why he wanted the money.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘From the Lottery.’

  ‘He especially wanted to win the Lottery?’

  ‘He wanted to present the bloody show, Cindy! Kurt Campbell wanted your job. In fact, he virtually had the job. Look, after they dumped Alison, you – me too, come to that – we were supposed to be strictly temporary, right? Fill in for a few weeks until they appointed a new presenter and an innovative new producer.’

  ‘Yes, yes, girl, I know all that.’ Sad, it was. Even at twenty-eight, little Jo had no illusions about the expendability of her production talents in the eyes of the BBC hierarchy. I’m only here as long as you are, Cindy; we were a lucky fluke. Well, yes. Who wanted liver-spotted hands on their big-money balls?

  ‘But listen to this, Cindy … What you didn’t know and I didn’t know was that they’d been talking to Kurt Campbell for several weeks – very keen to get him for the show, and Kurt knew it, and he was just holding out for more money … I mean much more money – three, four times what they’re giving you. And with the ratings down and the whole deal looking iffy, they were scared enough to hand it over. Signatures were about to go on contracts. Like within the week.’

  ‘When was all this?’

  ‘Like I said, just about the time you came in as a temp. And the rest is history – you turn out to be this enormous and entirely unexpected hit, up go the ratings … and suddenly they realize that they no longer need to spend megabucks on greedy Mr Campbell. Suddenly, everybody’s happy. Especially the accountants.’

  ‘Except’, Cindy said, ‘for Mr Campbell.’

  The rain came down on the caravan roof like the drums of war.

  ‘I’m told that Kurt Campbell’, Jo said, ‘was absolutely livid beyond livid. The job had been his. In the can. For an unbelievable fee. A couple of years and he could have bought a proper castle. Two castles …’

  ‘Who told you all this, Jo?’

  ‘Let’s just say someone in the know. Someone who saw Wednesday’s show and how close Kurt came to …’

  ‘What did he hope to get out of it? Kurt, I mean.’

  ‘I think he just wanted to shaft you, Cindy. Revenge, frustration. Mind you, he has got friends on the inside – maybe he thought there was still a chance, if you were out of the picture. And that if the stunt had worked, he’d have been a folk hero, like Jarvis Cocker the night he took the piss out of Michael Jackson. I don’t know … he’s obviously just extremely vindictive.’

  ‘Well,’ Cindy said, ‘it was good of you to tell me, but I think we should try and forget about Mr Campbell. More to the point, how is poor Mr Purviss?’

  ‘Oh,’ Jo said. ‘Yeah. That’s something I should have told you. We’ll have to mention it on the show. Be in all the papers, I suppose.’

  Last month the podgy, fun-loving Mr Gerry Purviss, aged sixty-one, had won just over three million pounds on the Lottery and within a week had married a Miss Michele Murray, aged twenty-three. Mr Purviss was one of those Lottery winners who just asked for the Cindy t
reatment, indeed revelled in it. It’ll all end in the cardiac unit! Kelvyn had shrieked joyfully, to huge audience merriment, when Mr P and his large fiancée had appeared on the show.

  Well, how was Kelvyn to know that Mr Purviss did indeed have what was considered at the time to be a relatively mild heart condition.

  He had been in hospital for nearly a week.

  ‘Apparently’, Jo said, ‘he had another one in hospital. Died early this morning.’

  ‘Oh dear, dear, such an amiable man.’

  ‘That’s one very rich big blonde.’

  ‘So how am I supposed to react on the show?’

  ‘There’s going to be a meeting about it.’

  Of course. This was the BBC. There would have to be a meeting.

  ‘I’d guess you should say nothing,’ Jo said. ‘It wasn’t a sick joke at the time, Mr Purviss himself had a good laugh, so …’

  ‘Poor man.’

  ‘Let’s face it, Cindy, bloody stupid man.’

  ‘Then again,’ Cindy said, ‘that was probably the very best week of his life. Not many of us get to go out on a real high.’

  When young Jo was gone, he went to the window and watched the mist making white whorls over St Bride’s Bay, wishing Mr Purviss’s jovial soul the smoothest of passages.

  There would be no comeback. They were flying high, Cindy and Kelvyn both. And higher still after the Kurt Campbell incident.

  A true professional, they were saying Upstairs. It took an unflappable, seasoned operator to turn the tables so neatly on Campbell. Such an immaculate piece of double-bluff!

  And didn’t those tabloids love him to death? Yesterday, on his return from London, Ifan Williams had come out to open the gate for him, brandishing the Mirror.

  CINDY’S TRANCE

  OF THE SEVEN VEILS

  But flash Kurt can’t con the Kite!

  And the mobile phone had started to trill its little tune, the offers tinkling in:

  An invitation to exercise his wit on the tricky Clive Anderson’s TV talkshow. (Easy.)