by Lucy Lawrie
Elliot was standing around looking uncomfortable in a dark overcoat. He visibly relaxed when he saw us, and came up to us offering his hand.
‘Thanks for coming, Cassie . . . and . . . Malcolm, isn’t it? Well, as we discussed, I really just want you here to keep me right, as far as what’s reasonable or not.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Malkie. ‘I think it’s best if we just keep a low profile for now, and let them get on with it.’
It was the first time I’d heard him speak in a professional context, and I noticed that he smoothed out the Glasgow edge in his voice, carefully rounding off all his ‘t’s’. I wondered if this was something he did on purpose, had perfected over the years, or whether it was unconscious. I felt a twinge of tenderness for him, editing himself to play the successful lawyer.
Malkie and I watched at a distance as Elliot and the employees went into the house along with Madame Sinistra, the psychic, and Father Pritchard, the priest. For some reason, the sceptic, Brian, stayed in the van eating a packet of crisps. The format, we’d been told, was that the employees would point out the areas where they’d witnessed ‘activity’. Then, for the vigil, the professionals would leave the employee in the room in question, with all the lights turned out, and retreat to the van whilst the night vision cameras recorded every breath, blink, tremor and flinch of the poor soul locked up in the dark room.
During all this, we stood outside in the freezing cold, with Elliot coming out every so often to report what was happening or to ask for our opinion on something. We’d made it a condition that, although the employees were allowed to say what they’d experienced in the house, they weren’t allowed to comment on how it had caused them to experience stress-related problems or comment on any aspect of their employment with the company.
We knew from Elliot that much of the ‘activity’ in the house had been centred on a particular turn in the stairs. One employee called Donald had reported seeing a figure hanging from the light fitting, although it had disappeared by the time he’d run to fetch help. On another occasion he’d complained to Elliot that something had thrown him against the banister, and that he’d nearly lost his footing and fallen down the stairs.
Elliot was anxious about whether Donald should be allowed to mention this on film, given that a fall might be a health and safety issue. I deferred the question to Malkie, expert on stair accidents. He hazarded an opinion that a narrowly escaped fall could probably be mentioned without attracting too much liability.
‘I’m a bit uneasy about it all,’ said Elliot. ‘They keep leaving him to sit on the stairs in the dark, with a night vision camera to film his reactions. But they’ve had to do it four times so far, because there’s a problem with one of the night vision cameras. He’s getting rather distressed.’
‘But that’s progress,’ said a throaty Glaswegian voice behind us. It was Madame Sinistra, sweeping past us on her way to one of the vans. ‘Malfunctioning equipment is a classic sign.’
‘Look,’ I said, trying to still my chattering teeth. ‘Things don’t seem to be moving very quickly. We might as well make ourselves useful while we’re here. Do you want us to look over the notes of the grievance hearings? Or even any employment policies that might need updating?’
It was a desperate ploy to be allowed to go inside into the warm, and it worked. Elliot showed us the way to a cramped office, filled with filing cabinets, in the modern extension at the back of the house. It was out of the way of the filming and could be accessed through the garden by a back entrance. Malkie and I sat there for what must have been an hour or two, reading through the documentation as slowly as possible.
Eventually he scraped his chair back from the desk and stretched his arms. ‘Well, this is just too much excitement for me. I’m going out for a fag. Will you be okay here on your OWN?’ He did a comedy eyebrow waggle.
Twenty minutes later he hadn’t returned. Where had he got to? Honestly, Malkie and his cigarettes. I remembered how, when he lived on the top floor of the tenement, he’d been too lazy to go up and down the stairs to buy cigarettes, and had set up an arrangement with the young lad from the corner shop below. He would phone him and wait five minutes before leaning out of the back window and lowering a small empty paint tin down on a long piece of string. Rashid would appear in the alleyway, remove the money from the tin, and replace it with the cigarettes and a neatly folded till receipt. One drunken night Malkie even attempted to buy a bottle of vodka this way, but it didn’t survive the ascent, plinking onto the cobblestones below.
I decided to go and look for him and made my way out to the back garden. It was quiet out there, except for the wind sighing through the trees and the crunch of gravel under my feet. A prickle crept down my spine as I glanced towards the rooms at the back of the main house, dark behind Victorian sash windows.
It was then that I heard the noise – a very faint banging noise coming from the direction of the house. I stepped off the gravel path and began to approach the window nearest to me. My heels sank into the damp lawn but I kept walking. A strange feeling had come over me, a sense that somebody needed my help. I walked right into the flowerbed and put my face to the window, cupping my hands around my eyes.
A hand on my shoulder.
‘Jesusssss! For fuck’s s-ssake, Malkie.’ My teeth were chattering uncontrollably now and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.
‘What’s up?’
‘There’s s-ssomething in there, banging.’ But even as I spoke I realised that the banging had stopped. The silence was so complete it almost seemed to buzz.
Malkie stepped forward and peered into the window.
‘Hmm. I can’t hear anything now. It was probably one of the ghosthunting lot setting up a piece of equipment.’
‘But Malkie,’ I said. ‘Can we check? Have you got a torch or something in the car?’
‘Okay,’ he said in a sing-song voice, ‘I’ll get a torch. But if this is a wind-up . . .’
He came back a minute later and handed the torch to me. I clicked it on and shone it into the room. I couldn’t see much, but it appeared to be a meeting room. I could make out the edge of a table, the back of a chair, in the weak, wavering beam.
‘I can’t see anything,’ I muttered. ‘Here, you have a look.’
But as I pulled back the torch to hand it to Malkie, the pale disc of light dropped downwards and fell on something just on the other side of the window.
The gleam – the merest flicker – of a small, white face.
I dropped the torch.
‘Did you see that, Malkie? Did you see that?’
‘No – what?’ Malkie was scrabbling around in the flowerbed for the torch.
‘Fuck’s sake, Malkie. For fuck’s sake. It was a child.’
*
‘Elliot, can I have a word?’ I had peeped my head round the front door. He looked pleased to be called away and led me into a cramped office just off the reception area. The employee, Donald, was sitting on the stairs looking uncomfortable while a man with a camera hovered around him, and three investigators were crouching on the ground fiddling with a piece of equipment wired up to a laptop.
‘Elliot – the meeting rooms at the back of the house?’ My words were falling over each other, slippery with panic.
‘Yes?’
‘I think I just saw a child in one of them. I heard a noise, and looked through the window. Is there a child on the premises? Have any of the investigators brought a child?’
He frowned and shook his head. ‘No, definitely not. You must have been mistaken.’
‘I think she might have been trapped. I think she might have been trying to get out. Could you just go and check?’
‘Okay, I’ll check.’
‘Don’t say anything, will you. I mean, to the investigators?’
‘Oh. No, all right.’ He seemed distracted – or maybe just weary of matters paranormal.
Malkie was waiting by the car when I came out.
‘There are no children,’ I said. ‘It was a ghost.’
It sounded so ridiculous, spoken solemnly in the dark. Malkie’s mouth twitched and my fear buckled into laughter. I laughed so hard that I had to lean backwards against the car.
‘I hope you didn’t tell the investigators?’ said Malkie. ‘Tell me you didn’t.’
‘I didn’t tell them,’ I said, finally catching my breath. But when I looked up at him, somehow the laughter had turned to tears. I choked back a sob, and wiped my cheek with the back of my hand.
Malkie looked at me appraisingly. ‘You okay?’
I smiled and nodded, causing one more tear to spill down my face.
‘I think it’s time to call it a night. Just wait here a second.’
He strode into the house, but came back a few minutes later shaking his head. ‘Elliot wants us to stay till the bitter end.’
I glanced uneasily at the house. ‘No children, I suppose? In any of the meeting rooms?’
‘No children,’ said Malkie lightly.
I sighed. ‘You know, I thought it was Milly, for a second. The last time I came here I met a little girl. She was here with her mother, who was dying. They were planning her funeral. Milly was acting it out, with a little white carriage, and horses with pink ribbons. It’s silly, though. Why would she be here at this time of night?’
‘Maybe she was just at the back of your mind, because you were back here again. That’s pretty heavy stuff, planning your mother’s funeral when you’re only – what?’
‘Six or seven, I’m guessing.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
He closed his eyes for a second. I recalled Jonathan’s reaction to the story, his face crumpling in disgust, his fork clattering onto his plate.
We stood there for a moment or two. Then Malkie opened the boot and pulled out a black cable-knit jumper.
‘Put this on. You’re shivering. I’ve got a blanket in the back there, too. Why don’t you lie down and doze for a bit.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I was just going to sit here in the front and keep an eye on things from here.’
‘Will you put some music on?’ I asked.
He scrabbled in the footwell for a minute or two.
‘Best Hits of the ’90s okay for you?’ He put it on and it must have been the neurological effects of all the excitement or something, but I fell asleep instantly.
When I woke up it was around half past three in the morning. Malkie was standing outside having a cigarette. I rubbed my eyes and got out of the car to join him.
‘Did I miss anything?’
‘Nah,’ said Malkie. ‘They’re saying there hasn’t been much to go on. Not much EMF activity, nothing on camera. Nobody saw anything.’
‘Oh well,’ I said softly. ‘Just as well I didn’t say anything. They would have insisted on interviewing me for the programme! Radcliffe would’ve been really pleased about that – a loony lawyer getting freaked out on Workplace Phantoms!’
‘Two loony lawyers,’ said Malkie with a smile. ‘You had me pretty freaked out, too.’
On the car stereo, a new tune started playing – the first, hesitant, achingly sweet notes of the Verve’s ‘Drugs Don’t Work’. The plaintive, sweeping melody that spoke of love, and loss – well, it just undid me.
I looked up at Malkie to find his gaze resting on me.
‘I must look a mess,’ I said, searching for something to say. ‘Have I got mascara all over my face?’
‘I’ve never seen you look more stunning.’
I stood still, barely daring to breathe. ‘Do you remember this song?’
‘Come here,’ he said, pulling me towards him, as if to comfort me. He held me close to him and I laid my head against his shoulder, near to his heart. I could smell the cold night air on his clothes. Our bodies fitted together again as if they’d never been apart.
We swayed ever so slightly to the music, pressing our bodies closer at the hips.
‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t let anything happen. I know you can’t.’
But it had happened. It had happened already. It was as though all the cells in my body had loosened, shifted, and aligned themselves towards him like iron filings to a magnet. I don’t know how I summoned the strength to finally push him away and say that we should be getting back. Malkie clutched my head against his chest, briefly, his fingers tangled through my hair. Then he released me, and drove me home.
17
When I got home, at around half past five, Sophie had just woken up for the day and Jonathan was crashing around the kitchen trying to heat up her bottle.
‘Hello!’ He came over to give me a stubbly kiss. ‘How’s my favourite wife this morning? How was the vigil?’
I’d decided in the car on the way home that I had to tell Jonathan about what had happened with Malkie, and immediately, before I lost my nerve. Once there was one lie nestling in the space between two people, there was always just enough room to tuck in another one, and then another.
I followed him into the living room and told him while he gave Sophie her bottle. The extreme tiredness helped. It made me feel distanced from myself, as though I was telling somebody else’s story, as though that tangled mess of emotions didn’t really belong to me.
Jonathan kept his eyes on Sophie throughout my account. His eyebrows went up and the left corner of his mouth went down. When I’d finished he paused, as though assessing the evidence.
‘So.’ He rubbed his nose with the back of his free hand. ‘A litigation lawyer and an employment lawyer dancing to “Drugs Don’t Work”, one of the most depressing songs of the last century, in an undertaker’s car park.’
He paused again, narrowed his eyes and shook his head. ‘You know, I just can’t get excited about that.’
A giggle bubbled up. ‘It’s not the most cheerful song in the world, is it?’
‘A dirge, definitely.’
‘I’m sorry, Jonathan. I wasn’t myself. It was just a really odd night.’
But he was already getting up out of the chair, holding Sophie against his chest.
‘Why don’t you go to bed for an hour or two?’ he said. ‘Mum can look after Sophie. Do you definitely have to go into the office today? It’s not one of your usual days.’
‘Unfortunately, yes,’ I said to his retreating back. I’m doing a lunchtime seminar which Radcliffe wouldn’t let me out of. And I’ve got to finish a report too, because the client’s going on holiday on Friday.’
I went back to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. My confession hadn’t damped down the adrenalin that was coursing through my body, jerking me awake every time I started to drop off.
Possibly because that confession hadn’t been quite complete. Wrong-footed by Jonathan’s low-key reaction to my story, I’d lost my nerve to tell him the last thing. When Malkie had pulled up at the house to drop me off, he’d grabbed my hand and asked me to meet him for a drink after work tomorrow. ‘Just to talk everything through,’ he’d said.
I told myself now that it was irrelevant, as far as Jonathan was concerned – Malkie just wanted to clear the air, to make sure things weren’t awkward around the office.
But something about the look in his eyes, and the feel of his hand as he’d grabbed mine, rather tended to suggest otherwise.
*
‘Hah!’ exclaimed Annabel Masters, as though she were executing a particularly devastating karate move.
I jerked awake, realising with horror that I must have nodded off over the age discrimination case report I was reading. I had successfully delivered the client presentation over my lunch hour, but now I was flagging. My body ached as though I was coming down with flu.
Annabel, who’d been out at court all morning, tossed her coat onto the back of her chair and slammed her briefcase onto the desk.
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘Has anybody told you yet?’
‘Told me what?’
‘I was at the Project Manhattan complet
ion dinner last night.’
‘Oh? And?’
‘We’re standing there having canapés, right – Radcliffe, and the clients, and a whole bunch of lawyers from other firms – and . . . oh God, it’s so funny. Poppet McCrae suddenly appears beside Radcliffe and me. She tells him that she’s not being stretched enough at Prentice’s, that she’s looking for a new challenge, and that she’d be the perfect person to head up our Paranormal Services Team. He says, “What?” and she tells him how she’s got ideas for growing this side of the business, tackling it as a multidisciplinary approach, with lawyers from construction, litigation, employment. He asks what on earth she’s talking about and she says she’s been speaking to someone from McKeith’s – couldn’t remember the name.’
Here, Annabel gave me a pointed look, but I merely shrugged.
‘And apparently this McKeith’s lawyer told Poppet she’d been involved in advising about a haunted construction site. So then Poppet tells Radcliffe this story about somebody being thrown off scaffolding by a ghost, and McKeith’s arranging a team of experts to sort things out. According to this mysterious source, McKeith’s could hardly keep up with the instructions that were flooding in – and that’s where she, Poppet, would come in.’
I wasn’t in the least surprised that Poppet would try to steal my job.
‘What did Radcliffe say?’
Annabel laughed. ‘He said, “I don’t know who has been making up ludicrous stories about the firm, but Paranormal Services is not one of our practice areas, nor likely to be. When I get to the bottom of this, heads are going to roll, believe me. I’d thank you not to besmirch the name of McKeith’s by referring to this again.” And then he walked off. You should have seen Poppet McCrae’s face. Absolutely priceless!’
‘Oh God.’
‘I wonder whose head will roll,’ said Annabel, with an arch smile.
When Radcliffe’s secretary phoned down later, asking me to go up to his office, Annabel looked up and raised her eyebrows, her mouth twitching with amusement. With wobbly knees, I got up from my desk and embarked up the three flights of stairs that would take me to my doom.