Mean Spirit

by Phil Rickman

  He’s in Justin’s garage, rich with the smell of oil and fear, and Justin is sobbing, ‘Please … I don’t know … I’ve told you … for fucksake, man, I don’t …’ There’s a silent, gloating presence suspended in the vault of grimy light from the roof.

  ‘Nice one.’ A low and guttural sigh. A rasp. Rapture.

  Seffi Callard screams. ‘He’s touching my face!’

  Maiden jerks at once to his feet, the pad and pencil falling to the floor, and moves towards her, but it seems a long way, like swimming through dark, muddy water, his hands clawing at the soup.

  Hearing Cindy, sharply, ‘Bobby, sit down.’

  Maiden feels frustration. Anger. An old resentment running as deep as a sewer. Hate. Then Seffi—

  ‘He’s touching me—’

  Seffi draws in a huge breath and her body rears back, shuddering, and then it goes still and tight and Maiden waits for her breath to come out, but it doesn’t. She’s frozen, arched and rigid, an abandoned sculpture in bronze.

  Maiden throws himself at her, but there’s something in between, something that hones the air, makes it vicious like a blade. Far away, Malcolm’s howl is close to a scream.

  ‘The smell!’ Grayle blurts. ‘Oh Jesus, it’s coming … it’s coming off of her.’

  Maiden tries to touch Seffi but his hands don’t reach, and Seffi, though still rigid, starts to vibrate, as though there’s electricity forking into her, and there’s sweat forming like a second, bubbling skin on her face, and when Maiden’s hands hover over her shoulders he expects the electric charge to go through him like a sizzling knife, and he doesn’t care.

  ‘Please,’ he whispers.

  And they’re all dead, the stupid irresponsible bastards!

  ‘Not now!’ Cindy shouts. ‘Leave me alone, can’t you?’

  The drumming has lost its rhythm and the seventeen small stones from High Knoll have lost their lights, and – despicably – all Cindy can think about is his own predicament, the dissolution of his brilliant career. In a sick, dispiriting moment, he finds himself looking at the sixth chair.

  It is empty but, above it, he would swear he sees Kurt Campbell’s sharp face projected into the window, in the light of the oil lamp.

  And then the window itself collapses, a waterfall of glass.

  XXXIV

  THE BULKHEAD BULB CAME ON, AWAKENING SHADOWS IN THE castle walls, as if the explosion had summoned to the surface all the violent drama locked into its eight hundred years of history. Grayle stood in the yard in the rain and the irritable wind, hugging herself to squash the shakes. Feeling the banging of her own heart, like an iron bucket against the sides of a deep, deep well.

  Marcus stumbled out through the fan of light, slivers of glass shining like snow crystals in his hair, an open cut on his forehead.

  ‘Just don’t say it, Marcus!’ Grayle’s voice rising like an elevator out of control. ‘Just like the old days. Just like the old freaking school. Only difference is, this time it’s you got to explain to the insurance guys.’

  And then she was sorry because Marcus, barely free of the flu, looked like shit. Looked like he’d been beaten up on.

  ‘Should be some … chipboard.’ He was looking around vaguely. ‘In the old pigsty, round the …’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘To board up the window. Got to keep … keep the rain out.’

  A fog behind his glasses. The sour chill in the air, the smell, the sound, the taste of it, and all of it right there in his own back yard, within his own castle walls. The shock of invasion.

  Grayle took his arm. ‘We’ll deal with it, Marcus. Bobby and I will handle it. You come back inside. Let’s get you a big glass of something strong. Get that cut cleaned up.’

  ‘Cut?’ A nerve tweaking his cheek. ‘Where’s … where’s Persephone?’

  ‘I guess she’s still in there, with Cindy and Bobby. Leave it, huh?’

  ‘I have to talk to her. She’ll be distressed. She needs reassurance.’

  ‘No, Marcus,’ Grayle said patiently. ‘That was last time. That was twenty years ago. She grew up. She knows precisely what she did.’

  Cindy came out, followed by Malcolm the dog, loosed from the study. Then Bobby.

  ‘Marcus? You OK? Grayle?’

  ‘We’re fine, Bobby. Just deciding which of the all-night glaziers in St Mary’s we should call out.’

  A bubbling giggle forming. Here we go, that old hysteria, welcome home. Some glass splinters fell out of her hair.

  Bobby was looking at Malcolm, who didn’t move. Grayle shook her head hard, watching more glass fall around her feet. Bobby bent and patted his thighs. Malcolm looked uncertain. Grayle thought, What is this? Did Bobby collect something in there?

  Malcolm gave a slow wave of his stumpy tail, ambled over. Bobby crouched. He and the dog bonded under the bulkhead lamp.

  Cindy nodded. Whatever it was, it was OK now.

  ‘Where’s Persephone?’ Marcus demanded.

  Bobby looked up. ‘I thought she came out with you.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘She was ahead of you. She ran out of the room. When it happened, she ran out, hands over her ears.’

  ‘Then she’s out here, someplace.’

  ‘Persephone?’ Marcus stumbled out into the yard. ‘Persephone!’

  Stopping and listening and getting no reply. Only the wind against the castle walls. Marcus strode to the dairy. Hammered with a fist on the door.

  ‘Persephone! Are you in there?’ He turned to them, blood oozing down his forehead. ‘What if she’s in there with … with …?’

  He couldn’t say it. But Grayle knew she wouldn’t have laughed at him this time if he had. She breathed in hard to cancel the memory of the feral, male smell.

  ‘Stand back,’ Marcus said.

  ‘Aw, Marcus—’

  Marcus hurled himself sideways at the door. Bounced off, moaning, holding his shoulder.

  ‘Bloody hell, Marcus.’ Bobby putting himself between Marcus and the door. Malcolm started barking, figuring this was a fight.

  ‘She’s in there … don’t you see, Maiden? She’s locked herself in. She’s trying to deal with it herself. Bloody Lewis screwed it up, and she—’

  ‘All right.’ Bobby pulled hair out of his eyes; he was sweating, anxious. ‘Before we kick it in, you’ve got another key to this place, haven’t you?’

  ‘Lost it. Months ago. Persephone’s got the only key. Persephone!’ Marcus kicked the door, under the lock. ‘Please …’ He rattled the handle and the door sprang open. Marcus crashed through like an old bull, flung down on his hands and knees inside the dairy.

  Bobby moved to help him up. Grayle pushed past them both, putting on the light. Marcus was shaking Bobby off, ramming his glasses into position.

  ‘Oh,’ Grayle said.

  On account of there was no-one else in the dairy.

  She saw the bed was half made, the duvet turned back. A lone silk blouse hung limply on a hanger on the closet door.

  But there was no sign of Callard’s bags. Grayle went quickly into the other rooms. She opened the closet: empty. No personal stuff in the kitchen, in the bathroom just a tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush on the shelf over the basin.

  This Mary Celeste feel about the whole place.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Marcus demanded. ‘What’s happened here. Underhill?’

  ‘Looks like she checked out.’

  ‘I don’t understand …’

  ‘Hold on. Let’s …’

  Bobby Maiden had run out into the night, Grayle trailing behind him across the yard, towards the entrance. When they got there, they found the wooden farm gate unlatched, the wind smacking it against the post.

  Grayle looked back, rain in her face. She guessed the Cherokee was also gone. They hadn’t heard the motor start up. Probably on account of the wind.

  Part Five

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

  by GARY SEWARD Preface to
the paperback edition

  CLARENCE JUDGE – A TRIBUTE

  As you may have read in the papers, since this book first come out, my dear old mate Clarence has been taken from us … taken from behind, in cold blood.

  This has gutted me, I don’t mind admitting, like no other incident in my rich and varied life.

  Doing it like that is not only the coward’s way, it’s the only way they’d have got Clarence. Right to the end – and he was nearly fifty-eight years old – this was a geezer people didn’t ever mess with if they could avoid it. You knew where you were with Clarence and if you was on the opposite side, Gawd help you.

  However, he was a decent man.

  Now I know a lot of moralistic gits out there will be going, What?!!! But I stand by what I just said. There’s no denying this business is full of evil double-dealers what would stab you in the back and lift your wallet in a single move. But Clarence was a man of honour, a staunch ally and a faithful friend. Even his enemies, Clarence done right by them – if you was going to be ‘visited’ by Clarence, he would look you in the eyes in the street and tell you to your face, and that was that, because Clarence believed in being fair and upfront at all times. At least one piece of scum, possessed of this advance information, took the opportunity to top himself first, and you can’t say fairer than that.

  Sadly, Clarence Judge never had much luck the whole of his life. He was too honest. If the filth accused him of a crime, he would put his hands up straight away – usually to damage a couple of them first, but that was Clarence, an angry man sometimes.

  As a result, he spent more than half his adult life in prison.

  ‘A stupid man, too, then,’ some smirking young talkshow host in a shiny suit remarks to me late one night on BBC 2. I felt like redecorating the set with his face in memory of Clarence, and I would have too if my fellow guests Kurt Campbell and Barry Manilow had not been sat between us in nice clean suits.

  Was all the war heroes, the VCs, what went over the top on their own with a rifle, was they stupid men?

  Because this is what Clarence was … a brave foot soldier who would lay down his life for his comrades. He never mugged old ladies for their pension money, nor did he give heroin to eleven-year-old schoolkids. The people what Clarence hurt – and yes, all right, he did hurt them, he hurt them grievously, usually – was the scum: the grasses, the snouts, or the cowards what drove off in the getaway car the minute they seen the filth and left their mates to face the music. Like me, Clarence knew what could and could not be tolerated and he stuck by his principles.

  But, in the end, it seems, one of the scum got at him, in the cowardly way they operate. So far the police have failed to apprehend the guilty party. I do not know how hard they have tried, but as they are unlikely to offer much of a reward for apprehending the murderer of a ‘notorious criminal’, I shall do so myself. If any reader of this book has information fingering Clarence’s killer and would like to write to me, care of my publisher, I personally will pay them the sum of between ten and twenty thousand clean ones, according to the strength of the information. Naturally, as a law-abiding citizen these days, I shall immediately hand over anything of value to the police.

  XXXV

  CINDY ATE A SMALL BREAKFAST IN THE OTHERWISE EMPTY, WOOD-walled bar, the place as quiet as the morning of a funeral.

  The wind had not died with the dawn. Cindy had awoken into cold light and the rocking of the inn sign, with its grim, grey, curly-horned ram.

  Amy collected his dishes. She wore one of her little black dresses, very Juliette Greco. Quite sexy, he thought sadly. Too late now for him to appreciate such qualities. The course was set; whichever way he turned would leave him leaning suicidally over the abyss.

  ‘How can they say those things?’ Amy said. ‘They don’t know you. That brother, he’ve got no brains. Just hit out, they do, without a thought.’

  Cindy was silent.

  ‘You mustn’t let them get away with this.’

  Cindy smiled with a sorrow which, in the gloom of the bar, Amy would be unlikely to discern.

  ‘Not as if they’ve sacked you, Cindy, is it? The BBC would not be so daft! You’re a big star!’

  ‘A big star. Yes.’

  The Sun lay folded by his plate. He poured himself a coffee, picked up the paper.

  ‘Don’t…’ Amy said anxiously. ‘Don’t torture yourself.’

  ‘A little late for that, my love.’

  Cindy spread out the Sun.

  THE CURSE OF

  KELVYN KITE

  The enormous front-page headline displayed like an official public warning.

  Cindy briefly closed his eyes, opening them to the sub-head:

  Brother blasts Cindy as horror

  blaze kills Lotto family

  This angle came from Brendan Sherwin’s brother, Greg, who did not, Cindy judged with unusual bitterness from the photograph, look like a man who might qualify for Mensa.

  Greg, 34, said: ‘My sister in law was very upset when Cindy made that bird come out with all those comments about the new Barrett home and the BMWs.

  ‘Brendan and Sharon were both demoralized. It had got that they were scared to come out of their new house because of the remarks people made.

  ‘One day last week, two little kids were standing at the edge of Brendan’s drive flapping their arms like birds’ wings and shouting, “It’ll all end in tears!”’

  Greg added, ‘I hate that Cindy now for what he’s caused. It’s like he’s sneering at ordinary people’s good luck.

  ‘He tries to blame it all on Kelvyn Kite, but everybody knows it’s what he really thinks.

  ‘Cindy is sick. If you ask me, he should quit now.’

  Oh, how cleverly it had been done. Perhaps some hungry freelance journalist had initially put the words into Greg’s mouth: ‘So how do you feel about Cindy now, Greg? I expect you hate him.’

  ‘Er, yeah.’

  And the use of the beautifully ambivalent line, I hate Cindy for what he’s caused. Causing people to deride Lottery jackpot winners or, in fact, causing their deaths?

  Nobody was suggesting such a nonsense, of course. Nothing so direct.

  The piece continued across pages four and five. Page four referred to the plane crash and the heart attack. The National Lottery death toll. The paper had spoken to a consultant psychiatrist, whose portentous comments began, If people are constantly warned to mistrust good fortune achieved without any effort on their part and told that such luck will inevitably bring repercussions, then …

  Page five was all about Cindy.

  Oh God.

  He could not read it.

  He should leave quietly. What use was he here, having failed Marcus and Grayle, failed Persephone Callard and – what was worse – damaged her equilibrium, driven her away in fear and despair? No, he was not the world’s most popular man this morning. Not at Castle Farm in the parish of St Mary’s. Nor, by the looks of the morning papers, anywhere in this impressionable country.

  Sydney Mars-Lewis, I am arresting you for complicity in the deaths of Gerry Purviss, Colin Seymour, Brendan Sherwin, Sharon Sherwin …

  But let’s not get carried away.

  Leave that to the Sun.

  Around eight-thirty in the morning, Bobby Maiden had the lights on in the editorial room, formerly a treatment room, now a mess. With no window, you needed all the lights all the time.

  He and Grayle had pulled out the jagged glass from the frame, boarded up the space as best they could with chipboard panels from the stable – Marcus shouting instructions, cursing a good deal to cover up how unnerved he was, while Maiden was thinking, She’ll come back. She just wants to drive around for a while, clear her head.

  Only she hadn’t come back. She’d grabbed most of her stuff in a hurry and taken off, just as she’d apparently done from Barber’s party.

  Fled from it.

  Obviously likes to go out with a bang, Grayle had said laconically before she went hom
e around midnight, leaving Maiden to bed down on the sofa. Marcus had offered him the dairy, but he couldn’t bring himself to sleep there. He’d lain awake for a long time, Malcolm sleeping on his feet. Maiden listening for the sound of an engine in the wind.

  All right, she was unpredictable, famously unpredictable, and she owed him nothing, perhaps not even an explanation. But this wasn’t right. He had to find her. How could he not try to find her?

  Marcus came in, still in his dressing gown.

  ‘She hasn’t…?’

  ‘No.’ Maiden picked up a shard of glass they’d missed last night.

  ‘No phone call?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s not like her, Maiden. People don’t change that much, whatever Underhill might say. She wouldn’t leave the way she did, leaving us in the bloody wreckage, if she hadn’t got a good reason.’

  ‘Other than wondering what else she might do to the place if she stuck around?’

  ‘Did you feel anything, Maiden? Did you feel a build up of energy?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe I wouldn’t know what a build up of energy felt like. Not the kind of energy you mean.’

  ‘Last night,’ Marcus said, ‘before we let the damnable Lewis take over, she and I had – I mean, you couldn’t call it a heart to heart exactly, but she did go on about the trouble she was claiming she’d caused. All this about coming between Underhill and me. Which was nonsense. She said she’d made a mistake coming here.’

  ‘She said that to me. She also said she couldn’t stay because she had an appointment to keep.’

  ‘You ask her what it was?’

  ‘Should have, but I didn’t.’

  ‘Don’t suppose she’d have told you. Went on to me about going to a bloody ashram, something of that nature. Bullshit, probably. This has been a total disaster. She was in a state of torment and we probably made it worse. She couldn’t stand it any more. Buggered off.’

  ‘She was going anyway. She was already packed.’

  Marcus waved a dismissive hand, went off to get dressed.