Slow Motion Ghosts

by Jeff Noon

  ‘And yet they killed him?’

  She nodded. ‘They had to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Lucas wouldn’t say. He didn’t tell me.’

  ‘What is King Lost’s real name?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Hobbes brought his clenched fist down on the tabletop.

  Nikki flinched and cried out, ‘I don’t know. I don’t! Leave me alone.’

  He started to speak, but Nikki interrupted him: ‘Edenville is not a peaceful place. At its heart lies great pain, and loss, and the buildings and streets and parks all radiate out from that centre. And this is why …’

  ‘Why people are killed?’

  ‘I only know what Lucas told me that night. That’s all. We made love. He was wearing the mask throughout, and he told me that taking up the mask was an act of contrition, and a celebration and continuance of the spirit of poor King Lost, God rest his soul.’

  Hobbes watched her every facial expression. ‘So when Bell destroyed the mask on stage, the next evening?’

  ‘He desecrated that memory, as created by the founding members. And for that he had to be punished. This is what I believe.’ She paused. ‘But Lucas had had enough of the mask by then. He needed to escape its confines.’

  Hobbes asked. ‘Is there anything else Lucas told you about the Minerva group, about the people in it?

  ‘I’ve told you everything. But I do know this: the killer sees herself as a guardian. The guardian of the mask’s power.’

  Nikki looked at Hobbes with an intensity that scared him. He returned her stare.

  There was a dark connection between them. They had both looked into the eyes of the murderer, and lived.

  A Face in the Crowd

  Hobbes arranged a car to take Nikki Hauser home. He walked back to the incident room and stood at the board, looking at the list of names. He was alone.

  Footsteps echoed down a corridor, and then faded.

  It was half past three in the morning.

  A telephone rang in another part of the building, unanswered. And then silence.

  If Hauser was telling the truth, then King Lost was dead, a young man or teenager killed by the other founders of Edenville back in the sixties. He also knew that Lady Minerva was not the murderer: the woman he’d seen in Valentine’s flat was too young, in her thirties, he estimated. Because of this, he had to assume that Eve Dylan had drowned in the sea at Hastings. Yet the adoption of Dylan’s facial blemish probably indicated that the perpetrator had taken on the identity of Lady Minerva. This tied in with the letter for Simone Paige left next to Brendan Clarke’s body.

  He made a few changes to the Edenville list.

  LADY MINERVA – Eve Dylan (Drowned)

  KING LOST –? (Murdered?)

  LUNA BLOOM – Lucas Bell (Murdered)

  BO DAZZLE – Gavin Roberts

  MISS CALIBAN –?

  MOOD INDIGO –?

  Which meant either Miss Caliban or Mood Indigo was the adopted name of the murderer. She killed because of an oath taken many years before, to protect the memory of the boy hiding behind the King Lost persona. A boy the members of the Minerva Club had killed. A thought came to him: perhaps these killings were punishment for the murder of the King Lost boy? Perhaps the killer was the sole member of the group who had not taken part in the murder of King Lost, who disagreed with what they’d done?

  But something didn’t quite gel.

  The pledge that Lucas Bell had told to Nikki Hauser, and which she had quoted during the interview, seemed to be a group undertaking. They were all part of the ritual. And now one member of the group had taken it too far, believing the damage of the mask was worthy of murder. It was twisted, a horrible motive. The human mind at its worst, creating a terrible reverse morality from psychosis.

  Hobbes rubbed at his eyes. He thought about going home, calling it a day, or a night, or whatever it was, and starting afresh in the morning.

  The lonely rooms where he lived, the empty bed, the string tied around his ankle.

  No, not yet. He would keep working.

  Think it through. A young teen was so troubled that he chose to hide behind a mask, to create a persona for himself. And then to create an entire fantasy land to hide within. The other kids helped him, they supported him. Perhaps he was the weakest of them all, the most damaged? Yes, that made sense. Yet they had killed him, or so Nikki Hauser claimed. Why? Why would they do that? Had he offended them in some way, or broken the rules?

  The group was everything. The rules must not be broken.

  Hobbes imagined Lady Minerva saying such a thing to them, insisting on the sanctity of the group above all else. They were of an age – no longer children, and not yet adults – when a strong-willed, charismatic leader could take charge. Impressionable, that was the term. Easily formed. Easily controlled. He knew as much from Gavin Roberts’s continued attempts to build Edenville in Tobias Lear’s house. But that was a fairly benign influence, as were the songs of Lucas Bell. Yet the same circumstances had also given rise to a murderer.

  It was as if they’d been members of a religion, a cult.

  Hobbes thought again of the killer’s face, as he’d seen it in Valentine’s bedroom. That look of sheer hatred. Only belief could fuel such anger.

  Anyone who damaged the mask had to be punished.

  To be killed.

  The mask, that bloody goddamn mask!

  The one subject, the only subject. The mask. A mask so powerful someone thought it worth killing to protect it.

  Now he stopped moving.

  Waited.

  A tingle on his neck.

  He was staring at the board, but his eyes were unfocused. His thoughts elsewhere.

  It’s all about the mask …

  Hobbes switched on a desk light and placed the copy of the New Musical Express directly under its beam. Johnny Valentine’s eyes stared back at him from the mask’s half-concealment. The blood ran down the singer’s cheek.

  Hobbes turned to the interview and reread it. He was looking for a certain passage, something that was said about the mask.

  Yes, there it was. A single sentence. He read it a few more times, and was reminded of Simone Paige’s journals. DS Latimer had brought them back to the station. Hobbes found the volumes on the detective sergeant’s desk.

  After a few minutes of searching he found the entry he wanted to read again.

  Yes, the same person was mentioned, by both Valentine and Paige.

  It’s all the about the bloody mask, of course it is …

  A number of photographs fell out of the journal: the snapshots taken by Paige on the night of the King Lost cover shoot. Hobbes studied one image in particular. Lucas Bell was there, next to his manager, Tobias Lear. But Hobbes wasn’t interested in either of them, not this time. Instead his eyes focused on a young woman standing to one side. He lowered the desk lamp directly over the photograph.

  He stared at it until his vision blurred.

  Well, he wasn’t one hundred per cent certain, because some eight or nine years had passed since the photograph had been taken. But he saw a likeness, enough to make him shiver. The same long dark hair; the same narrow nose and the rounded eyes.

  She was staring directly at the camera.

  Was this the murderer?

  The Specialist

  They met in a cafe in a passageway off Carnaby Street, a police detective with forty-four years on the clock and a young man barely out of his teens. His name was Vinny Spires. He stood up from the table and shook hands: a polite lad.

  ‘I like it here,’ Spires explained. ‘It’s quiet usually, and I can think. Sometimes I bring a notepad with me, to jot down ideas.’ He called out to the woman behind the counter, ‘Gladys, get my guest a cuppa, will yer? Cheers. Tea all right?’

  Hobbes nodded. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So this is about Johnny Valentine, yeah?’

  ‘It is. You’ve made quite a splash with that cover and the interview.
’

  ‘I know, I know.’ The young man’s eyes sparkled. ‘No one else was interested in him, but I had a hunch, don’t ask me why. I thought he’d have an interesting take on the whole Lucas Bell anniversary thing.’ His smiled broadened. ‘You know, some of these old guys have brilliant stories to tell.’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

  Spires’s face darkened. ‘Why? Has something happened? He’s not complained about me, has he?’

  ‘It’s more than that, I’m afraid.’

  Hobbes was about to explain when the waitress came over and clunked down a cup of tea. He thanked her and waited until she’d gone. And even then he spoke quietly.

  ‘Valentine’s dead. Murdered. Last night.’

  Hobbes studied the other man’s reaction.

  Spires was neatly dressed in jacket, jeans and button-down collared shirt, with carefully styled hair that was spiky on the top and gelled flat at the sides. He was stylish but not in any way a typical rock and roll figure; he might almost have a been a bank clerk except for a badge on his lapel. Now the man’s eyes widened. Hobbes could see the hunger in them.

  ‘Pissing hell,’ he responded. ‘Who … I mean, why … who did it?’

  ‘That’s under investigation.’

  ‘Right, right. Absolutely …’

  Hobbes could see the journalist’s fingers twitching, already tapping at some imagined typewriter keyboard.

  ‘Let’s talk about the Johnny Valentine interview.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘It took place last Thursday?’

  Spires nodded. ‘That’s correct. The paper goes to press on Monday, so everything has to be delivered by then, words and pictures.’

  ‘I see. And who was present for the interview?’

  ‘Just myself, and the photographer, Jo Jo. That’s er … Joanna Yates.’

  ‘Do you know Joanna well?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s good, been in the game for years. Takes a nice picture. Well, you saw the cover? She totally caught the mood.’

  Hobbes nodded. ‘So it was just the three of you in the room?’

  ‘Yes, Valentine was very specific about that.’

  ‘And this took place at the magazine’s offices.’

  ‘It did. In a separate room, the door closed.’

  ‘So, Vinny, did you have any idea at all that Mr Valentine was going to act as he did, that he was going to cut his own face?’

  Spires closed his eyes momentarily, reliving the moment.

  ‘No. It was horrible. I mean, he’d promised us some exclusive details about Lucas Bell’s life, some juicy gossip. But this was incredible. There was blood! Blood all over his shirt. And you can still see the stain, on the office carpet.’

  The journalist fidgeted with his empty coffee cup.

  Hobbes gave him a moment, before saying, ‘Did you bring the photographs I asked for?’

  Spires pulled a large envelope from a shoulder bag and handed it over the table. Hobbes flipped through the shots, one by one. He saw Valentine alone, his face covered by the painted mask. He saw the knife in his hand; he saw the knife cutting into the flesh. But these didn’t interest him.

  ‘You don’t have any from before, from when the mask was being painted on his face?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no. Jo Jo turned up later, when we were ready to go.’

  Hobbes took a drink of tea, to concentrate his mind. The most important questions were about to be asked.

  ‘So you were there when the mask was painted on?’

  ‘I was.’ Spires licked his lips. ‘Why, is this important?’

  ‘Just answer the questions, please.’ Hobbes consulted his notebook. ‘In the article you said that Valentine insisted on getting every detail of the King Lost mask correct. He wanted his mask to be “like the original, only better”. Is that a true quote?’

  ‘He really said that. I didn’t make it up.’

  ‘Good, good. You also mention that a specialist make-up artist had been brought in, to do the mask.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did the magazine find her?’

  ‘No, no. Valentine brought her. I don’t know where he got her from.’

  ‘How old was she?’

  ‘Her age?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Old.’

  ‘Middle-aged, you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know, I guess so.’

  ‘Thirties, forties?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Thirties. Something like that. You know, getting on a bit.’

  Hobbes took out his photograph of the King Lost cover shoot and placed it on the table. He tapped at a woman standing next to Lucas Bell and said, ‘Is this the make-up artist?’

  Spires studied the shot.

  Hobbes helped him along: ‘It was taken about nine years ago.’

  ‘Maybe. Perhaps it is her. Yeah, it could well be.’

  ‘And what was her name?’

  Vincent Spires looked confused. ‘Her name? I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know her name?’

  ‘She wasn’t introduced to me. Valentine took her into the room and they got to work. I watched for a while, but Valentine never spoke, and neither did the make-up woman. It was like … like a ceremony of some kind.’

  ‘It took place in silence?’

  ‘In total silence.’

  Hobbes thought about this. Looking again at the photograph on the tabletop, he recalled other images from the King Lost cover shoot, some of them showing Johnny Valentine present. That’s probably where he met the make-up artist.

  He turned his attention back to the journalist. ‘Vinny, what happened after the mask had been applied?’

  ‘She left.’

  ‘So the make-up artist never saw the cutting of the face?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And she wouldn’t know that Valentine had sliced his own face?’

  ‘No way. Absolutely. Andy, that’s my editor, he was strict about keeping it all secret, until publication day.’

  ‘What about the make-up artist’s fee? You must have records of that, back at the office. We can go there now.’

  ‘There was no fee. She did it for free. Andy was well pleased—’

  ‘Damn it!’

  Spires leaned back in his chair. ‘Have I said something wrong?’

  Hobbes stood up and threw a few coins on the table for his drink. ‘Don’t write about this,’ he said. ‘Don’t talk about it, don’t print anything about it, not at all. Not until I say you can. Do you hear me?’

  Spires nodded. Hobbes said his goodbyes and headed back to his car. He drove over to Highgate. Tobias Lear welcomed him as an old friend.

  ‘Still searching for El Dorado, Inspector?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The promised land. Edenville.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  They were sitting in the living room. A large print of a hunting scene hung over Lear’s head, the smoke from his pipe mingling with the dogs and horses in the image. There was no sign of Gavin Roberts, so Hobbes assumed he was still sitting in the room upstairs.

  The summoning bell was quiet.

  Hobbes got straight to it: ‘Do you remember Lucas Bell’s make-up artist?’

  ‘I do, indeed. Her name was Jenny. Jenny Clough. She was with us for the King Lost tour, looked after Lucas every night.’

  ‘And Miss Clough, she painted the mask on his face before every gig?’

  ‘That she did. She was a right old laugh, as well. A good old-fashioned Northern lass. Drank the roadies under the table, and kept shagging the drummer.’

  Hobbes was puzzled; this didn’t correspond to his mental picture of the killer, not at all. And a Northerner? No, that didn’t make sense. He took out the King Lost cover shoot photograph and showed it to Lear.

  The ex-manager looked at the image and smiled. ‘
I remember that night so well; the start of a legend.’

  ‘Can you name the people in the photograph?’

  ‘Sure. There’s me, and that’s Luke. And this is Laura Townes, our publicity manager.’

  ‘What about this woman, here …’ Hobbes touched at the photograph. ‘On the other side of Lucas, isn’t she the make-up artist?’

  ‘Oh, right. Yeah, I remember now. She was. Jenny Clough came on board later, when the album was released.’

  ‘So who’s this woman then?’

  Lear handed the photograph back to the detective. ‘No idea. She only did it for that one time, that first time for the cover. Lucas brought her along. That’s all I know.’

  Hobbes felt his grasp on an answer slipping away.

  ‘What about the publicity manager?’

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘Perhaps she would know the make-up artist’s name?’

  ‘She might. But Laura left for the States some years ago. I haven’t a clue where she is, to be honest.’

  Hobbes sat back in his seat.

  ‘Sorry I can’t be of more help,’ Lear said. ‘But there is one thing …’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think that make-up woman came from Hastings. She was a friend of Luke’s, from the early days. Maybe she’s still living there?’

  ‘Yes, maybe.’

  But without a name, what could he do? He asked, ‘Did Jenny Clough ever meet with the original artist? Maybe they talked about the mask, about how to paint it?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Lear smiled at a memory. ‘We brought Jenny in months later, for the tour, and she was a real professional, worked in the theatres, the movies. But I’ll tell you this, that first girl – whoever she was – she painted Luke’s face better than Jenny ever did. The mask on the album cover, man, that was the business!’