by Jason Arnopp
‘All that matters is my client being content with my work,’ she says defensively. ‘If I banish or even destroy a negative presence in their home, am I really dealing with a dead person? Gotta tell you, I have no idea. A ghost is a useful model, which fits sometimes. And when you meet that model, you treat it with the respect it deserves.’
I sigh. ‘As if it really is a dead person? Just in case?’
‘Exactly that. And the same should go for this video of yours. Your head is way too black and white. Start thinking in greys, Jack. Trust me, you’re gonna need ’em. And read my lips: I do believe in hauntings. But the cause of a haunting? That’s a different matter. Most of ’em feel like emotional events imprinted on the energy of certain spaces.’
‘Then why was this ghost on a new-build boat? Makes no sense.’
‘Like I said, I felt it was stuck there for some reason. Maybe my psychic seal wasn’t even needed.’
‘How can you say “psychic seal” with a straight face?’
‘How can you keep a straight face while saying science knows everything? You’re not even a normal atheist, mate, you’re a weirdo.’
Oh Christ, not the gaps in science’s knowledge again. The prospect of us spiralling back into that debate propels me in for the kill. ‘Does no part of you feel bad that, by working for the Lengs, you may have helped one or both of them cover up child abuse?’
Chastain may have just swallowed a wasp. ‘What?’
‘Oh come on,’ I say. ‘The story’s ridiculous: a ball of smoke that makes footsteps? Did it not strike you as strange that the Leng kids only got knocked about when they were with Jiao?’
She tries to speak, but can’t stop me. I am Hercule Poirot with my fingers linked behind my back, circling a room full of suspects. ‘Guiren couldn’t face reality. His conscious mind thought he was hiring a live-in bodyguard for that temp apartment in case someone tried to kidnap his family, but really it was to keep an eye on his stressed-out, slap-happy wife. Then he became so set on a supernatural explanation that he mistook a bit of shore mist for a violent ghost, or just made up this story about the spook attacking him. He even broke his own arm – anything rather than contemplate his wife abusing their daughters. And then he hired you, the cherry on the cake. The mother of delusion, who happily went along with it. Sucking all that hideous, unpalatable truth into your world of fairy-tale fluff.’
Chastain stares at me in disbelief. ‘So tell me, Sherilyn,’ I conclude. ‘What do you really care about: those kids, or cold, hard cash? Because it can’t be both.’
Wham, bam, fuck you ma’am.
She bares her teeth. ‘How fuckin’ dare you. I would never leave kids high and dry, if I thought . . .’ Her eyes glisten and she firmly reins herself in, voice brittle. ‘You’re unbelievable, y’know that? Do you realise you didn’t say “maybe” once during that whole bullshit version of events? Just said it like it was fact. Certainty. Stupid, blind certainty.’
She pulls her so-called spirit bottle from her bag and slams it down on the table between us.
‘All right, you arrogant prick, I’ve had enough. Let’s see how certain you really are. This is by far my least favourite part of my job. Because I now have the burden of deciding whether to keep this thing imprisoned or to destroy it.’
‘Eh?’ I say. ‘How can you destroy a spirit, or a demon, or whichever model it fits today? It’s already dead, right?’
‘Anything that’s made from energy can be torn apart. So, Big Man. Here’s my challenge to you. You get to choose its fate. If you’re so very certain I’m full of shit, then just say the word.’ She nods at the sea. ‘I’ll wash the bottle’s contents in salt water and destroy the spirit. On the other hand, if you’re not a hundred per cent sure, then spare its life and I’ll try to help it move on.’
She leans back in her chair, arms folded, awaiting my reaction.
I look at the bottle.
At its asymmetrical hand-made curves.
At the rough texture of the red glass. The assorted bits and bobs inside.
I see a face: just my own reflection distorted by the glass. No sign of any smoke cloud.
‘Last chance,’ I say, holding steady eye contact with Chastain. ‘Have you ever seen an actual ghost?’
‘I can’t answer that. The things I’ve seen could be labelled—’
I point at the bottle. ‘Kill it.’
She’s astonished as I stand to leave. This woman truly expected me to give credence to her make-believe world.
‘Jack, I’m sorry I lost my temper, okay?’ she blurts, suddenly desperate now that her precious allotted time in my book has come to an end. ‘Listen, there’s something you should know about that video. Something about the words.’ But there’s nothing I need to know about that video – at least not from Sherilyn Chastain.
Trudging off along the sand, I steal one last look back. There’s Chastain in the water, head bowed, soaking those suit trousers up to the knees. She dunks her uncorked spirit bottle under the surface. A burdened mother drowning kittens.
A pathetic sight.
I’ve done as social media suggested. Toto visited the Wicked Witch of the East. But it’s time to move on.
I don’t know if you’ve ever woken up and felt watched.
It’s not an experience I can recommend.
After a day of tearing around a houseboat with two madheads, followed by a boozy beach barney, even a hardened party warrior needs a nap. As the afternoon sky begins to bruise, I take the metro system back to Hong Kong Island, wanting my hotel bed. To keep myself awake, I figure out this afternoon’s bathroom cloud incident to my satisfaction. It was purely and simply the last hurrah of Tuesday night’s mushrooms. Yes, yes, I had a Hong Kong drug blip, for one night only. No big deal.
Guiren’s story seeded the smoke cloud image in my head, which my body’s final vestiges of psychotropic juice distorted reality in order to create. For a second or two. In a mirror. Crucially, a mirror as opposed to reality. The SPOOKS List need not even be troubled by this ripple in the Matrix.
When I finally reach the fortieth floor of the Jade Star Hotel, I’m fit to drop. Wandering through the suite, I shrug off my jacket and stumble out of my jeans, chuckling at the memory of Sherilyn Chastain weeping over a bottle of seawater. Since the whole suite measures 850 square feet and I’ve barely been here during my stay, I hit a couple of dead ends before finally locating the bedroom. Golden twilight paints the walls as I crash face first on to the plush king-size bed, consciousness flooding happily out of me.
I don’t usually remember dreams. So who can say whether some nightmare, sunk forever in the mind’s murky waters, informs my mood when I’m woken by someone clearing their throat.
My fogbound brain tries to make sense of that noise. Did I make it myself, or was it someone in the dream?
I only consider a third possibility when the feeling of being watched beds itself in.
As much as I don’t believe in some cat-like sixth sense of feeling someone’s eyes on you, that’s the sensation I get. Strong enough to make me roll on to my back, pull myself up to lean against the headboard, then scan my surroundings.
No one’s in this bedroom but me. Those wardrobe doors are shut tight. The twilight is long dead, the walls slathered with blacks, dull greys, electric yellows and an isolated patch of rainbow light cast by a neighbouring tower.
If I really did have a nightmare, it left an unusually strong impression on me. I feel nervous, which I could well ascribe to that terrible moment of the day when last night’s alcohol wheedles its way out of your system. Silly as it sounds, the rainbow light comforts me as I run a hand over my face and knuckle the sand from the corners of my eyes. I try to get my head together but find only fuzz. The bedside clock’s big red retro LED numbers testify that it’s two minutes to midnight.
Here comes that sound again. And this time, I know it’s not me.
Someone clears their throat, as if I’ve somehow fallen aslee
p in their suite.
When I jerk my head in the direction of the sound, it leads my focus out through the open bedroom door, along a short corridor and into the lounge.
Through there, in that big room – maybe twenty strides away – there are no rainbows. All is black. Those heavy curtains must be fully drawn.
I sit up, adrenalin dripping into my system, and gaze along that corridor into the lounge. I consider that, in my exhausted state, I may have left the suite’s door open. Could a maid have come in? Did I miss her knock? And is midnight any kind of time for housekeeping?
‘Hello?’ I say, managing to slur even this word.
My suite has a European-style energy-saving system. These overhead lights won’t work until I stick my room’s keycard into a slot. As you’d expect, the slot is on the far side of the suite by the entrance door, and the keycard’s in my jeans, also somewhere over there. Useless.
As my eyes adjust, the darkness of the living room resolves itself into recognisable shapes.
The shape of a dining table.
The shape of a chair at that table.
The shape of a wide sofa.
The shape of someone sitting on that sofa.
Yeah, someone’s there all right. I can see their head, their shoulders. Long hair?
As I push myself up off the bed, the silhouette on the sofa becomes an animated ink swirl, also rising to its feet. For one fleeting moment, I wonder if I’m gazing dumbly into a full-length mirror.
My mind’s eye replays the moment when Maria Corvi sprang unnaturally up from the church floor. But this can’t possibly be Maria Corvi. Nonetheless, this is either a youth or a short adult.
I grab my battered Zippo from the bedside table, flip the cap and spark the wheel. The flame casts light over my end of the connecting corridor, but can’t even scratch the living room.
Whoever’s through there, they’re not moving a muscle. They’re taut as a spider, waiting for my next move. Not wishing to disappoint them, I stride towards the living room. The Olympic flame of my Zippo rides high, shooting light up the walls. My own shadow makes me jump when it appears beside me, bearing testimony to just how tired and bewildered I am.
I’m halfway along the corridor when my Zippo light penetrates the lounge.
I glimpse a familiar teenage face, framed with long dark hair.
No way. No fucking way . . .
Before you ask: at no point do I consider that I might be dreaming. Only simpletons actually need to pinch themselves in real life.
Every step brings me closer, my halo of light and truth revealing more and more. The intruder’s face, still cloaked in black.
I whip my head to and fro: a dog coming in from the rain. Determined to finally shake off sleep’s residual crap. That’s when I fumble the Zippo. It falls to the ground and snaps shut, plunging everything into impenetrable gloom.
I drop to my haunches and feel quickly around over likely areas. My fingers plough deep furrows in the carpet, finding nothing.
‘Maria?’ I say, despite myself.
No reply.
Cold air licks the back of my neck.
I think of The Good Life, with its open porthole. A maid must’ve left a window open in here.
My left hand brushes cool, smooth metal. I seize the Zippo and flip it back open.
Ignition. Flame. Light.
The intruder is now standing so close to me that I almost set fire to her smock.
Her blue smock. The one she wears for work on the farm.
I scramble back a couple of feet, then the ligaments crackle in my legs as I rise.
The Zippo light flickers its way up the intruder’s body.
I recoil and cry out. Can’t be helped: it’s an animal reflex.
Maria Corvi’s grin is ugly, her face red and inflamed. Those feverishly yellow eyes burn into me, the pupils silver stars, carrying the same shine they had in the church. I know something you don’t know.
I stare at her, throat dry. The air feels thick, like oil . . . or am I imagining that?
Maria raises her arms and assumes a Jesus Christ pose.
‘Enjoy,’ she whispers, her breath rancid.
Then she topples backwards, down, out of the light, her body rigid as wood.
I don’t hear her strike the carpet. When I jerk the Zippo down to illuminate the spot where she would’ve-should’ve landed, I see nothing and no one.
I move the Zippo all around, exposing the whole carpet.
Nothing and no one.
I’m shaking. With anger. Rage, even.
How dare the Catholic Church try to terrorise me?
My blood boils as I snatch a phone from a wall cradle. I tell some front-desk goon that an intruder’s been in my room. No, I don’t need anyone sent up from security, but I do need them to keep an eye open downstairs for a thirteen-year-old Italian girl dressed as a farm labourer trying to sneak out. Yes, keep me informed, cheers, bye.
I run through the dark suite, Zippo flame dancing, until I reach the entrance door.
It’s not only shut, but locked and latched on the inside.
No way could the actress Maria Corvi have got out.
I fish the keycard out of my discarded jeans and jam it down into the wall box. The whole suite floods with light, glorious light.
‘Let’s see how fucking scary you are now,’ I babble. The plan must have been for me to run petrified from the room, allowing Corvi to make her escape. Well, that ain’t going to happen.
I search all 850 square feet in a methodical frenzy. Every inch of every cupboard, every walk-in wardrobe, both bathrooms. Every plush curtain gets yanked up to reveal the wall behind.
No sign of Maria Corvi anywhere.
As I check to see if there’s a connecting door between my suite and an adjoining one – which there is not – the word ‘connecting’ jams inside my mental filters.
I sink into a chair that overlooks the yawning nightscape. I empty two small whisky bottles into a glass. This crazy rush badly needs dampening.
Connections, connections. How seductive they can be.
The scenario of a targeted Catholic Church set-up slowly loses viability. Talk about extreme measures. Shipping an actress to Hong Kong? Breaking into my suite to stage this weird little scene? What would be the goal? Me stating in these pages that I’d been a fool to disbelieve what I saw in the wilds of Italy? Besides: Maria Corvi seemed to vanish as a ghost would, as opposed to a possessed teenager. Unless I’ve missed breaking news, the girl’s still alive. So tonight’s scene doesn’t even match the Italian scenario.
I revisit the idea that Maria Corvi is genuinely disturbed and not part of the Catholic propaganda show. Maybe she came out here of her own free will. This is vaguely possible. In a public post two nights ago, I mentioned the hotel’s name while photographing my dinner in its revolving top-floor restaurant.
But how did she get out of this locked suite? Perhaps Hercule Poirot might have an answer, but I don’t, so this Mad Maria theory crumbles too.
My head spins. I’ve actually become one of those people who’s seen something that on the face of it seems supernatural.
I need to analyse myself. I need to throw SPOOKS at this situation. So I grab my laptop and edit the list.
THE SPOOKS LIST (Sparks’ Permanently Ongoing Overview of Kooky Shit)
People claim to have witnessed supernatural phenomena for the following reasons:
(1) They’re trying to deceive others (I know I’m not lying)
(2) They’ve been deceived by others (By Catholic Church? Unlikely)
(3) They have deceived themselves (?????)
It hurts me to write a third entry on the list. Physically hurts me.
What the hell to write in that last set of brackets? A steadily blinking cursor awaits my verdict as whisky ravages my gullet.
Scientific logic has backed me into a corner I thought I could avoid.
If someone claims to have seen a ghost and they’re not lying, o
r being lied to by others, then they must have somehow lied to themselves.
Hey. Hear that grinding noise? Those are the tectonic plates of belief, shifting under my feet.
The latest email salvo arrives from Astral Way. I’ve ignored his messages for days now, because the man’s become aggressive, bordering on abusive. But tonight I think ‘What the hell’ and open this one.
Astral tells me that the Hollywood Paranormals’ experiment will begin in six days, and that I’m ‘seriously a damn FOOL for missing out on covering it, or even potentially becoming a part of it’. You sense smoke rising from his keyboard as he furiously types, ‘This will be THE most prestigious twenty-first-century investigation into the human mind’s ability to conjure up a ghost.’
The human mind’s ability to conjure up a ghost.
If I believed in fate . . .
Astral goes on: ‘Furthermore, IF you agree to join us for this experiment and give it the full exposure it warrants, we will grant you some VERY valuable information regarding your supernatural YouTube video. After conducting intensive studies, we have concluded WHERE in the world it was shot, narrowing it down to an area of less than FIVE SQUARE MILES.’
I was already sold, but now I’m solder. My fingers are a blur.
‘Hi, Astral. Calm down, mate. I’m coming.’
Alistair Sparks: ‘There follows a transcript of a conversation recorded by Sherilyn Chastain on 7 November 2014. She has claimed the conversation took place with Jack at Lantau Island’s Ooh La La bar.’
(Beach waves and bar chatter in the background throughout.)
SHERILYN: So, Big Man. Here’s my challenge to you. You get to choose its fate. If you’re so very certain I’m full of shit, then just say the word. I’ll wash the bottle’s contents in salt water and destroy the spirit. On the other hand, if you’re not a hundred per cent sure, then spare its life and I’ll try to help it move on.
(Long pause.)
JACK: Last chance. Have you ever seen an actual ghost?
SHERILYN: I can’t answer that. The things I’ve seen could be labelled—