Silencing the Dead

by Will Harker

  “So, Darrel, you’re here to tell us about the Ghost Seekers Halloween Special,” the female host began.

  Everwood sat up, suddenly alert. “Miles, Rosanna, this is gonna be the biggest séance we’ve done yet,” he said, in a Cockney accent about as convincing as Dick Van Dyke’s in Mary Poppins. “I kid you not, this Purley Rectory gaff is wall-to-wall spirits. Even sitting here, I’m getting vibes from the place.”

  The male host seemed to be lapping it up. “So you’re expecting fireworks on the night?”

  “Fireworks, Miles, my man? Forget Guy bloody Fawkes, this is gonna be a psychic nuclear detonation! But look, I have to be serious and level with you for a minute. Which camera am I on?” Miles pointed and Everwood stood and approached the screen, his hands pressed together as if in prayer. “Viewers at home, this All Hallows’ Eve, we are going to be opening channels of paranormal energy never experienced before. I cannot guarantee there won’t be push-back from the spirit world. As some of you know, Purley Rectory has a long and bloody history. So I’m begging you, for your own sake, if you’ve got young kiddies or you have a heart condition, anything like that, please don’t watch this once-in-a-lifetime TV event.”

  I had to hand it to Everwood, he might be peddling some premium bullshit, but he peddled it with all the showmanship of a modern PT Barnum.

  Rosanna visibly shuddered as the psychic took his seat. “Sounds thrilling! Now let’s have a little look at you in action from an old episode of Ghost Seekers.”

  The screen switched to a grainy, night-vision shot of Everwood stumbling around the corridors of some ancient building. Dust motes spiralled in his wake while his eyes stood out, stark and luminous in the pitch darkness. A caption read: Morstan Keep, 3:13 am. Suddenly there came a hollow groan, the kind of structural fart a medieval castle probably gives off every five minutes. Still, Everwood staggered back against the nearest wall, as if the afterlife had reached out and personally insulted his fake tan. In the next instant, his mouth dropped open and a high-pitched keening sound came from the back of his throat. Then his entire body started to shake, shoulders jigging up and down, arms thrashing, making me wonder if someone had accidentally plugged him into the mains. The whining stopped abruptly, and turning his head from side to side, he shrieked at the camera, now with a vaguely Glaswegian twang:

  “Get out! Get out of my hooose!”

  The clip ended and the transmission switched back to the studio. Miles and Rosanna stared at their guest with frank admiration.

  “And that was back in series twelve when you were—”

  “Possessed by the spirit of Matthew McDowell, Laird of Morstan Keep.” Everwood nodded. “Quite a ride, but it’ll be nothing compared to Purley.”

  “All right, Darrel, now there’s one thing we should address before we let you go,” Rosanna said, her Botoxed brow actually finding a crease, so the audience knew she was serious. “As you may be aware, celebrated sceptic Dr Joseph Gillespie—”

  “Celebrated by who?” Everwood laughed. “His mum?”

  “Dr Gillespie will be showing his documentary, Ghost Scammers, on the same night on a rival channel. He claims that he will expose the ‘tricks’ you use to fool people into—”

  “Fool people, Rosanna?” Everwood leaned forward and touched his middle finger to his temple. “OK, so can I just ask, was it annoying when your car—your BMW convertible with the custom paint job—didn’t start this morning? And was it any compensation when the bloke from the RAC turned out to be such a babe? Nice brown eyes and a very cute bum, am I right?”

  “But how on earth did you…?” Rosanna gawped.

  “Anyway,” Everwood grinned, waving aside her amazement. “You were saying something about that old dinosaur, Gillespie? You know his problem? Jealousy. Well, he was never going to pull the girls by talking about quadratic equations and pulsars, was he? So he decides to come after me to increase his street cred. It’s sad, really.”

  “But can we ask about the recent bad press you’ve experienced?” Miles put in. “Your fiancée–?”

  “That’s the subject of ongoing legal proceedings.” A hint of genuine colour bloomed under that unlikely tan. “But let me remind everyone of something. I grew up on a council estate in Peckham. Had to drag myself up, in fact. I didn’t get everything handed to me from birth like the Joseph Gillespies of this world. I’ve had to make a living from the talents God decided to bless me with. And you know, despite all my success, I’m still like any ordinary, working-class geezer out there. As Charles Dickens said, ‘If you prick me, don’t I bleed?’”

  “Shakespeare,” I groaned at the trailer ceiling.

  “And you know what else? Every bit of my success, I owe to you.” He thrust out his arms towards the viewers. “The great British public, and I love you for it.”

  I switched off the TV and turned my face into Haz’s pillow. Then, rolling onto my back, I stared up at the weak autumn daylight shivering against the ceiling. Something Darrel Everwood had just said chimed strangely with the nightmare that had woken me. A half-remembered fragment of my childhood, some Halloween story of my mother’s linking the two. Not from a book she’d read to me but a tale passed between her and Aunt Tilda as they sat on their trailer steps. Some gruesome history recalled to entertain a morbidly-inclined child…

  It was no good. The memory wouldn’t come. Anyway, I was still exhausted from a troubled night and there were hours yet until I was needed on the fair. Turning onto my side, away from Haz’s half of the bed, I tried to go back to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I moved among the ghosts and goblins, the monsters and blood-spattered corpses, an ordinary man in a sea of carnival freaks. The word had gone out first thing via social media and virtually every punter seemed to have heard the call. Halloween had come early to Jericho Fair, and it was half-priced tickets for anyone who showed up in costume. This I knew was the brainchild of George Jericho, a man who knew more about pulling in the trade than any marketing guru alive. My guess was that it was an early counterattack against Dr Gillespie and his demonstration.

  There was no sign of the doc just yet, however, and it was already after seven. No sign of Darrel Everwood either. After spending most of the day in bed, I’d finally hauled my carcass into a pair of faded blue jeans and a black polo neck only an hour before opening time. It was then that I realised I hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Usually, Haz could be relied on to ply me with a wholesome meal at regular intervals, and it felt pathetically ridiculous that I was already slipping back into old neglectful routines. Anyway, a hotdog from Layla Jafford’s truck took the edge off my hunger.

  I glanced again at my phone. Nothing. On Sal’s advice, I’d resisted sending any more texts.

  “He’ll come round in his own time,” Sal had said as we set up the carousel. “But if you push him now, then he might just stay away for good.”

  I looked up. “Sounds like you know more than you’re telling.”

  “I swear, I don’t,” she promised. “But I’ve got to know Harry these past few months. Whatever you’ve done or not done, he’s hurting right now, and he doesn’t need you and your questions poking away at him. When he comes back, just be patient and listen. You’re a good listener, most of the time.”

  All showpeople are detectives at heart—observation combined with a deep knowledge of human nature is how they ply their trade—and so it didn’t surprise me that, without Sal uttering a word, the news got around. I guess it was kind, how many of them came over and asked how I was doing. Big Sam even looked like he was going to burst into tears. Most surprising of all was my dad’s reaction when I ran into him five minutes before opening.

  “You heard from the joskin?” That word for a non-Traveller spoken more gently than I’d ever heard it. When I shook my head, he sighed. “Your mother and I used to have a lot of rows, if you remember. She’d disappear for a few days and then come back, right as rain. Or right as she ever was. We’re a hard breed to rub alo
ng with, us Jerichos, but that boy’s a good ’un. Don’t lose him if you can help it.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” I murmured.

  “Anyhow,” he went on. “I’ve got a chap minding your ride tonight—” When I tried to protest, he cut me short. “I’ll pay his wages. I want you patrolling.”

  “Is this to do with Aunt Tilda?” I asked.

  “No. I have a man watching out for her. But you saw that uppity gorger Gillespie on the box last night? Well, I don’t want him bringing his circus onto my ground. I know you’re leery about us working with these telly people, but we need this event to be a success. Winter’s coming on, and if we don’t take some posh over the next few days, we’ll feel it soon enough.”

  Despite Dad’s reassurances, I kept a special lookout on Tilda’s tent during my patrol. The chap was always at his post, sizing up each punter as they passed through. Once I caught sight of the old mystic herself, poking her head out of the flap.

  “Heard about the pretty joskin,” she croaked at me. “Never you mind. I read your cards special this afternoon: after dealing the Tower—upheaval, broken pride, disaster—came the Star and the Lovers combined—faith, hope, and rejuvenation. All will be well, my darlin’.”

  I thanked her and moved on.

  About half an hour later, I ran into the preacher. I found him by Tommy Radlett’s ghost train, handing out his pamphlets to a group of bewildered-looking teenagers. He was just as my dad had described him—a gangly figure with a bad haircut, dressed in a raggedy charity shop suit. His face was almost emaciated and those broken Cartier glasses kept sliding down his long nose, making me wonder if they’d once fitted a larger, more well-nourished head.

  “That’ll do,” I said to him, taking the pamphlets from the teens and handing them back. “On your way now.”

  The kids appeared to think I meant them and scuttled off gratefully. Meanwhile, the preacher nodded over his pages before looking up at me with a sort of ingratiating intensity.

  “‘Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.’” He closed his bulging eyes, his smile becoming almost orgasmic. “So said the Lord, our God.”

  “And what are your words, Mr…?”

  “Pastor.” He inclined his head. “Christopher Cloade. And may I have your name, brother?”

  “Scott Jericho. Are you willing to shake hands with a filthy sinner, Christopher?”

  He juggled his pamphlets and gripped my hand with surprising force, especially for a man who looked like the breeze might take him at any moment.

  “Jericho like the biblical city, whose great walls fell at the trumpet blast.” He glanced around himself, at the hoopla and hook-a-duck stalls, at the welcoming faces of the Travellers. “If you stand with the heathens of your race, Scott Jericho, you too shall fall.”

  “Right.” I sighed, taking one of his tracts and flicking through the pages. “So you’ve got a hard-on for that Old Testament bully boy, have you? That blood-soaked maniac who insisted that, once the walls fell, every Canaanite in Jericho must be slaughtered—man, woman, and child. I know my Bible too, you see? And before you say it, yes, the devil can quote scripture. I’ve seen it done, more than once. In a former life, I was a detective and you’d be surprised how many holy monsters I put behind bars. Or…” I glanced down at the title page—The Church of Christ the Redeemer: REPENT BEFORE ME AND SEEK SALVATION. “Perhaps you wouldn’t.”

  “We are all monsters,” he replied evenly. “And the worst of us can be saved.”

  “Even the ones I’ve seen?” I asked. “The killers, the torturers, the child molesters.”

  He lifted rapturous eyes to the heavens. “Should they ask His mercy, they will be the most exalted.”

  “I can see that idea is a great comfort to you,” I said, leaning in. “Two years ago, was it? About then anyway. Yes, the wear on those glasses and the studied way you’ve starved yourself, all in search of penance. Well, maybe it was that at first. Now you enjoy the suffering, don’t you? The daily denials and the howl of your stomach. I bet you’ve forgotten all about the child.” I gripped him by his frayed collar and shook the smile from his lips. “I know a convicted pervert when I see him. So get your scrawny arse off my ground, or I’ll take those pamphlets and force each and every one down your throat. Understand?”

  I released him and he staggered back, clutching his works to his chest.

  “I am needed here,” he practically shrieked at me. “This is an evil place. Not only the celebration of this pagan festival, not only the gambling and debauchery of your carnival, but in the very earth.” He turned towards the silently watchful house. “A rectory, a haven for men of the Word, now corrupted. A house fit only for demons and those who seek their counsel. Like the witch of Endor, whom Solomon sought out and—”

  “Exodus chapter twenty-two, verse eighteen,” I said. “You know it?”

  “Of course.” His Adam’s apple bobbed in that scraggly throat.

  “Tell me then, are you into scaring old ladies as well as little kids, Pastor?” I asked. “Because if you are—”

  I stopped mid-threat. The mix of fear and defiance had drained away from Christopher Cloade. Now a new and starker terror appeared to take hold of him. A bright blue vein sketched itself along his temple while those bulbous eyes grew even larger in their sunken sockets. Most of the pamphlets fell from his grasp and were taken up by the wind, promises of hellfire set to dance. I turned and glanced over my shoulder to where I believed his gaze was focused. Just the usual bloody-lipped vampires and white-sheet ghosts, and a little distance off, Nick Holloway escorting a dowdy-looking couple from the site. The same couple I’d seen last night—the small, weary man and the harassed woman in her green anorak.

  “So it’s true,” Cloade said, his voice almost a whisper. “What they say about Purley…”

  He didn’t spare me another glance but twisted clumsily on his heel and moved quickly in the direction of the gate.

  Dismissing his ramblings, I headed the same way, towards Nick and the couple I now recognised from the news reports of the time as Mr and Mrs Chambers, parents of the missing child, Debbie. As I followed them, Nick talking firmly but gently to the pair, I wondered if Darrel Everwood had at last found his excuse not to come to Purley. After his baseless assertion that Debbie had been murdered and buried close to the family home, and then Mrs Chambers’ attempted suicide, Everwood had received that mild threat from the father—that if they should ever meet, the medium would be sorry. On TV this morning, a publicity-primed Darrel had been forced to show enthusiasm for the event, but here was his opportunity to call the whole thing off.

  At the gate, Mr Chambers pulled his arm roughly away from Nick. The latter held up his hands while some angry words were thrown at him. Then Chambers looped his arm around his wife’s waist and they both trudged off towards the carpark. Still unnoticed, I stepped a little nearer as Nick took out his phone.

  “Deepal? Yeah, it’s them again,” he said. “They’re practically stalking him now, aren’t they? Although, I can’t say I blame them. If I had a kid that had gone missing and some twat said something like that… Yes, Deepal, I know he’s jittery as fuck, but… No, no sign of Gillespie yet. And you say you’re gonna be here with Darrel in, what, five minutes? Cool, I’ll meet you up at the house. Oh, one last thing, the interview Gillespie did last night on the telly. Remember when the presenter mentioned that medium—the one Gillespie humiliated on the podcast…? That’s right. Well, the funny thing is, I reckon Darrel knew her too. He mentioned her name to me anyway…”

  I’d lost sight of the Chambers but Cloade was still there, lingering by the gate, looking back at the fair with an expression I could only describe as haunted.

  “She didn’t just die, though, did she?” Nick was saying. “I looked it up before I went to bed. The poor cow was murdered.”

  He ran strong, freckled fingers through his hair.

 
; “And not just murdered, neither. Butchered, so they say.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Genevieve Bell. I remembered that tiny, broken voice from the podcast, insisting that her talent was genuine and that the dead had spoken to her since childhood. Something else from the interview then flashed into my mind. Gillespie saying that Genevieve’s death shouldn’t be sentimentalised because in life she had victimised others, and then his boast that he would stop at nothing in his crusade to wipe out superstition.

  Returning to the fair, I followed Nick’s example and used my phone to look up some of the online reports concerning the tragedy. As ever with a murder case properly managed, the Major Investigations Team in charge had fed the media only the barest crumbs. Perhaps twenty years ago, when Genevieve Bell had been at the height of her fame, this would have been different. Then, journalists might have dug deeper for any juicy titbits concerning the killing of a celebrated teenage psychic. But as I read about her life and death, it became clear that Miss Bell had long since retreated into obscurity, and so the scant facts offered up by the police were all that had been reported.

  These amounted to: the battered corpse of a thirty-nine-year-old woman had been discovered by the victim’s frail mother in the early hours of Thursday morning. Due to Mrs Bell’s advancing dementia, there had been a significant delay in contacting the authorities. Evangeline Bell, the victim’s elder sister, was eventually reached by her mother, and following a hysterical and garbled conversation, called a neighbour to check at the house—Cedar Gables, Marchwood. Genevieve had been dead some hours. Burglary was not suspected to be the motive.

  Evangeline, who lived in Edinburgh and had since travelled down to be with her mother, said the family was in a state of complete shock. Her sister hadn’t an enemy in the world. Police would only say that the body was so brutally mutilated, DNA analysis was required for identification. The press had then speculated that the motive may have been deeply personal or else the work of a psychopath.