A Game of Ghosts

by John Connolly

  If she had a name, then she clearly wasn’t in the mood to share it. She looked at Parker with faint surprise, as though he had just suggested something mildly inappropriate.

  ‘This,’ said Philip slowly, ‘is Mother.’

  Parker decided he now knew how Alice felt when she stumbled into the Mad Hatter’s tea party.

  ‘I can’t call her Mother,’ he explained to Philip, in almost the same tone.

  ‘You don’t have to call me anything at all,’ said the woman herself. ‘You just have to answer the question.’

  ‘I’m working on behalf of a client.’

  ‘The name?’

  ‘I’m not in a position to reveal that.’

  ‘And does this client sanction burglary?’

  A twist of the mouth; a moue of disapproval.

  ‘You might be surprised at what my client is prepared to tolerate.’

  Mother took a sip of tea.

  ‘I once watched a man being skinned alive,’ she said, when she was done. ‘Very little surprises me.’

  If Mother expected anyone in her present company to look shocked, she was destined to be disappointed.

  ‘You appear to lead an interesting life,’ said Parker.

  He was wondering about the nature of Mother’s relationship with Caspar Webb. Obviously the existence of Philip suggested a sexual component at some point, but he got the feeling there was more to it than that. This woman now appeared to be taking care of Webb’s affairs, even if her son chose to regard his late father’s influence, even existence, as ongoing.

  ‘I spent many happy years with Mr. Webb,’ she replied, as though picking up on Parker’s thoughts.

  ‘Sitting around the fire,’ said Louis, ‘skinning folk.’

  Mother smiled indulgently at him.

  ‘I know all about you three,’ she said. ‘You have a lot of blood on your hands.’

  She raised her little finger at Louis, singling him out.

  ‘You may be interested to hear,’ she continued, ‘that this is the first time we’ve had one of your race in our house.’

  ‘That’s certainly progress,’ said Louis.

  Mother’s eyes remained fixed on Louis. Parker began to wonder if, like Philip, the woman ever blinked. As far as he could tell, she had not done so once since joining their company. It might have been genetic.

  ‘Did you ever have any dealings with Mr. Webb?’ Mother asked Louis.

  ‘No, Mr. Webb didn’t hold with us coloreds, as it seems you know.’

  ‘I don’t believe he had ever seen a black man until he came to the United States,’ said Mother. ‘He was a product of his time and his environment.’

  ‘And what environment would that have been?’ asked Parker.

  ‘Mr. Webb was from the Baltic region. He was very private about his origins.’

  ‘Shame?’

  ‘Discretion. He left enemies behind.’

  ‘He left enemies in the ground, if the stories are true.’

  ‘Such tales, if indeed they are true, are all in the past. Mr. Webb is in the next world, and beyond such concerns.’

  If even one-tenth of what was whispered about Caspar Webb was accurate, Parker thought, then his precise location in the next world was probably very much a matter of concern for him. Wherever he was, it would certainly be hot.

  ‘He created a considerable operation down here,’ said Parker. ‘I hope someone is keeping up the family tradition. Pity to see all that hard work go to waste.’

  ‘Actually, we are currently in the process of divesting ourselves of his business interests,’ said Mother, and Parker detected a response to this from Philip, a minute change in his posture.

  There’s disagreement here.

  ‘Really?’ It was Louis who spoke. ‘And how does Vincent Garronne feel about that?’

  Vincent Garronne, from the little that Parker knew of the operation, was Webb’s enforcer and the public face of his master’s enterprises while Webb was still alive. Garronne was violent when necessary, and both intelligent and ambitious. During the period of Webb’s decline, Garronne was believed to be responsible for the day-to-day running of the empire.

  But Garronne hadn’t been seen in a while.

  ‘Vincent Garronne is dead,’ said Mother.

  ‘Ah,’ said Louis. ‘Was it sudden?’

  ‘It was when he hit the ground,’ said Philip.

  ‘He fell from a tall building,’ Mother elaborated.

  ‘A man has to be careful on high ledges,’ said Louis.

  ‘I don’t think being careful would have helped him,’ said Mother, thereby putting an end to any further speculation on the nature of Garronne’s demise.

  Philip offered her more tea. She declined. He didn’t bother offering it to anyone else.

  ‘Mr. Webb left a considerable bequest,’ said Mother. ‘He had certain charities he wished to support, some galleries and museums of which he was fond.’

  Mother paused.

  ‘He also had a brother.’

  Parker waited. They were coming to it now.

  ‘They were estranged. Mr. Webb’s brother did not approve of his lifestyle. He had a wife and son, and believed that if the connection between himself and Mr. Webb were to become known, it might put his family at risk. He changed his name – he then took his wife’s name after marriage, placing a further degree of separation between his brother and himself – before breaking off all contact with his sibling and living a blameless life.’

  ‘I notice you’re speaking of him in the past tense,’ said Parker.

  ‘He vanished almost a year ago. Mr. Webb engaged investigators, and called in favors from law enforcement, but no trace of his brother was ever found.’

  ‘What about his wife?’

  ‘There was no reason to suspect her of any involvement in the disappearance. In fact, it was she who approached Mr. Webb to seek his help in finding her husband.’

  ‘But Mr. Webb checked on her anyway, just to be sure.’

  ‘Of course. He came up with nothing, as he had anticipated.’

  ‘And did he have any more success in establishing the fate of his brother?’

  ‘None, but Mr. Webb was already busy dying by then. Had he been in better health, he might have been able to take a more personal interest in the investigation.’

  She examined her nails. They were unvarnished, and cut so short that the tip of the nail bed was visible on each finger.

  ‘I’ll ask you again, Mr. Parker: Who are you working for?’

  ‘And I’ll remind you that I can’t divulge the name.’

  Mother’s right hand tightened into a claw. Parker knew he was antagonizing her, but this was an exchange of information, and he didn’t wish to be short-changed.

  ‘But,’ he added, ‘I can tell you that I was engaged by someone who is interested in finding Jaycob Eklund and wishes him no harm.’

  ‘You’re certain of that?’

  Parker considered Ross: Not entirely.

  ‘Yes, I am,’ he said. ‘I assume you know that Eklund’s missing, or else why would you be watching his home?’

  ‘Mr. Webb acquired the alarm company that monitors the house. When the alarm was activated earlier this evening, our people went to check. They found the jammer. Your car was picked up by the cameras trained on the house and street.’

  ‘Cameras.’ Parker gave Angel a look. ‘Call yourself a professional.’

  ‘Don’t blame your friend,’ said Mother. ‘They’re small and well hidden. Once we had the make, model, and license plate number of your vehicle, it wasn’t hard to track you down. We made calls, accessed surveillance cameras. By stopping in Massachusetts, you saved us a trip to Maine.’

  ‘Why go to all this trouble for Eklund?’

  ‘Because when he went missing, we anticipated that someone might take an interest in his property.’

  They were entering dangerous ground. Parker didn’t want to ask her outright if she’d been responsible for Ek
lund’s disappearance. He didn’t want to go the way of Vincent Garronne, or the unfortunate who was flayed in Mother’s presence.

  Mother understood his concerns.

  ‘We didn’t do anything to Mr. Eklund,’ she said. ‘But we are eager that he should be found. His disappearance may be connected to what happened to Mr. Webb’s brother and his family.’

  ‘His family?’

  ‘Mr. Webb’s sister-in-law and nephew both died in the last twenty-four hours. Their names were May and Alex MacKinnon. They were stabbed to death in their home in Millwood, New Hampshire.’

  The mention of the MacKinnon name brought Parker back to the contents of Eklund’s basement, and the most recent of the disappearances added to the map on its wall.

  ‘You see,’ said Mother, ‘shortly before he passed away, Mr. Webb was approached by Jaycob Eklund. Eklund believed they might have certain interests in common, the disappearance of Mr. Webb’s brother among them. Mr. Webb, naturally, was wary. Intermediaries were employed, including Philip, and eventually a meeting was arranged between the two men in this very room. I was present for their discussions.’

  Philip went to the fire and threw a pair of logs on it. They sibilated as they settled on the embers, like living things consigned to the flames.

  ‘And what did Eklund want to talk with Mr. Webb about?’ asked Parker.

  ‘He wanted,’ said Mother, ‘to speak to him of ghosts.’

  37

  The Collector was parked a discreet distance away from the offices of Agave Associates. He had intended exploring the house that had attracted the interest of both Parker and the late Donn Routh, but then the alarm went off and continued to sound for some time. The ruckus attracted a private security cruiser, followed not long after by two BMWs, one of them driven by a man who was not unfamiliar to the Collector: Philip, the understandably unclaimed offspring of the late Caspar Webb.

  A short discussion took place, followed by a series of phone calls. The security guard remained at the house when the BMWs departed, so the Collector stayed with Philip, a decision that had so far taken him across the Massachusetts border and then back to Providence behind the convoy formed by Parker, Philip, and the others. In the interim, the Collector called his father and asked him to establish the ownership of the Fox Point house. Parker, it appeared, was interested in a private investigator named Jaycob Eklund. Unfortunately for him, so too was Philip; and where Philip went, so went Mother.

  The Collector was aware of the failings of the late Caspar Webb, but they were largely without significance for him. Webb was barely a step above a common gangster, even if he cultivated an air of mystery. His sins were a consequence of his greed and fear, because all powerful men are secretly fearful. Webb was unpleasant, but he lacked the streak of depravity that might have drawn the Collector down upon him, and then death had settled the matter.

  Mother, meanwhile, had a certain core of iniquity, one worthy of remark yet not of immediate action.

  But the son?

  Well, he was really very interesting indeed.

  38

  Kirk was dozing on the floor, stretched out like a dog with his head on a cushion, when Sally eventually emerged from the bathroom with one towel wrapped around her body and another covering her hair. It was probably as well that he was not attentive to the expression on her face, because he would have found no love there: pity, perhaps, and frustration, but not love.

  She nudged him with her foot.

  ‘Wake up.’

  He stirred and opened his eyes.

  ‘You were in there for a long time.’

  ‘I had a lot to think about. Go downstairs and pour me a glass of wine. I’ll be with you in a moment.’

  Sally went to her bedroom. She and Kirk kept separate rooms, coming together only when the urge struck one or the other, although the decision was generally Sally’s to make. Just as she reached the threshold she let the towel drop, giving her brother a brief sight of her body, but there was nothing flirtatious about it. Kirk wasn’t sure if she was even aware of the timing, or the effect.

  He glanced into the bathroom as he passed. The air was misty, but he could see that the bottom pane on the window had been imperfectly wiped with a hand, and he thought he could discern parts of letters at the edges. He was still puzzling over this when the skin on his face and hands began to prickle, and the warmth of the bathroom was infected with a damp cold.

  Which one of them is it? Eleanor, probably.

  He didn’t retreat, not immediately. Instead he stared into the dissipating steam, as if to say I have my place, and my purpose. I am not an insignificant figure. It was a small gesture of defiance.

  Something brushed against his lips, like the touch of an insect, and he tasted rot and dead flowers. He gagged and stumbled back, rubbing his sleeve against his mouth in an effort to remove the pollutant. It was no use, though: it was on his tongue and his palate, and he had just enough time to turn and grab a vase – because he wasn’t going to try to get to the toilet, not through what was standing in the doorway – before he puked into it.

  ‘You fucking bitch,’ he whispered, once he’d finished, ending with a burp that tasted and smelled of marsh gas, but he felt that Eleanor was already gone. The hall was warmer, the bathroom slightly brighter.

  He took the vase downstairs with him and washed it in the sink. He poured Sally’s wine, before emptying a couple of fingers of Four Roses into a glass and drinking half of it to cleanse his mouth. It was a mean trick, what Eleanor had done, the bite – the kiss – of a low dog. There’d been no call for it. All he’d done was stand his ground.

  Suddenly, he found himself weeping. It was, he knew, partly a consequence of contact with Eleanor. It didn’t do a person good to spend too much time in the proximity of the dead: Sally would be like an antichrist for the rest of the night, and wake in the morning with a bitch of a headache. But touching them, or being touched, brought on bad blues, like being offered a brief, profound insight into one’s own inevitable mortality.

  Kirk’s moment of despair was not solely Eleanor’s fault. He didn’t want to end up like them. He didn’t want to spend the next life trapped as they were, his fate in the hands of the living just so he could continue to drift through the gaps between worlds, like a rat hiding in the hollow walls of an old house. Nonexistence would be more desirable than that, but nonexistence wasn’t an option: it was either damnation or concealment, sequestered with the rest of the departed Brethren who were seeking to escape punishment for the sins of generations. And yet he certainly didn’t want to pass eternity, or any portion of it, in the company of Eleanor. Whatever she might have been like in life, death had brought about a serious deterioration in her temperament.

  But he couldn’t stop the cycle. He was afraid even to think about how it might be done while Sally was around. She had always been able to guess the direction of his thoughts. They showed in his face. He would have made a lousy poker player. Then again, he was lousy at most things.

  He heard Sally’s footsteps on the stairs and wiped away the tears just before she got to the kitchen. She was wearing her red bathrobe. It looked like silk, but wasn’t. They lived a parsimonious existence, because all wealth was shared among the extended family. It was important to their continued security that no one should feel deprived or excluded.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I drank too fast,’ he said. ‘Burned my throat.’

  She picked up her own glass.

  ‘You should have had wine.’

  ‘I wanted something stronger.’

  She nodded and took a long draft from her glass. Instantly, the wine stained her lips and teeth. She was standing so close to him that he could smell it on her breath. She reached up and brushed some of the moisture from his cheek.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Eleanor shouldn’t have done that.’

  He didn’t even bother to ask how she knew. Fucking Eleanor. He nearly began crying again. This mess,
this whole sorry mess …

  ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  He did. She took his left hand in her right and squeezed it reassuringly.

  ‘She’s gone,’ she said. ‘It’s just us.’

  ‘She’s mean,’ said Kirk. He sounded like a five-year-old.

  ‘She’s worried. Our Cousin is dead. We may be at risk.’

  ‘So what are we going to do?’

  She released his hand and produced a sheet of paper from the pocket of her robe.

  ‘These are the names Eklund has given me so far, the people with whom he spoke,’ she said. ‘We’re going to call a family meeting—’

  She took another sip of wine.

  ‘And then we’re going to kill some of them.’

  39

  Mother stared at the painting of Caspar Webb above the fireplace for what felt to Parker like an unconscionably long time. He tried to read the expression on her face, but could only conclude that he didn’t detect much love in it. When he turned his attention briefly to Philip, who was following Mother’s gaze, he saw no love there at all.

  ‘As you already know,’ Mother said, ‘Mr. Webb came from a different culture than our own. He was also an intensely religious man, from an orthodox tradition of which I had no real understanding. At the end of his life, he told me that he knew there were those who were convinced he would burn in hell for all he had done, but he believed they were mistaken. For him, heaven and hell were not created realities: he understood that he would look upon God, and perceive his presence as a great fire through which all must pass, the righteous and unrepentant alike. The former would emerge unscathed, but the rest would be consumed. On his deathbed, Mr. Webb repented of his sins. It is in accordance with his final instructions that we are disassembling the structures he created, and putting to good use much of the wealth that has accrued from their operations.’

  There it was again: an imperfectly restrained reaction from her son. Any mention of the winding down of Webb’s business enterprises was like pricking Philip with a pin.

  ‘I didn’t realize that was how salvation worked,’ said Parker.