Mean Spirit

by Will Kingdom

  But Kurt was smiling out of a young hunk’s face. That well-washed tawny hair. And, down below, the tight tawny jeans.

  ‘Oh hi,’ Grayle said. ‘Listen – this is awful; I’m really … you know, I’m really not that kind of journalist – but we saw this door open and we just had to take a peek, I mean, this place … this place is so awesome. Like, real… like Mervyn Peake … like Gormenghast, you know? I’m a big … big Peake freak. You know? I …’

  ‘Alice …’ Kurt raised a hand to stop the flow. ‘You’re excused.’ Using the hand to introduce the woman at his side. ‘This is Persephone Callard, by the way.’

  Those amber eyes met Grayle’s. So she was doing it. Ms Persephone Callard in from the cold to climax a phoney Victorian seance full of dry ice and ectoplasm.

  ‘Oh …’ Grayle widening her eyes. ‘Hi!’ Lurching forward, hand out. ‘I’m Alice D. Thornborough, representing the New York Courier and The Vision magazine. Wow. Hey. Persephone Callard. I can’t believe this. You’re looking so … good.’

  Stupid thing to say to someone you weren’t supposed to know, but maybe OK for a journalist who’d read all the stuff about Callard being washed up. And she was looking good. Looking, in the simplicity of black – the long skirt, the simple, scoop-necked top, no make-up, no jewellery – like the queen of this place.

  And she nodded, like a queen does, and she said nothing, like a queen does to journalists.

  However – a whole lot worse – Kurt was looking intently at Cindy, like there was something about this tall bottle blonde in the glasses and the country tweeds that he couldn’t quite identify. Oh, Jesus.

  ‘Kurt,’ Grayle said quickly, ‘this is Imelda Bacton, of The Vision magazine. She’s here to run the magazine’s stand in place of her brother, Marcus, who …’ flicking a swift glance at Callard, ‘… had a heart attack.’

  Seeing the quiver, quickly stilled.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ Callard said steadily. ‘I once met Mr Bacton. How is he?’ There was shock in her eyes, and Grayle intuited that she was thinking this must have happened the night she brought Clarence Judge into Castle Farm and then ran out on them, that it was her fault.

  Which was OK. It might just as easily have happened then.

  ‘Weakened but recovering,’ Imelda Bacton said powerfully. ‘Needs more than a cardiac blip to take that old bastard out.’

  At the sound of the voice, so abruptly different from Cindy’s syrupy south Wales, Kurt Campbell visibly relaxed.

  ‘I was showing Seffi to her room. The problem with this place is that it has about twenty-six bedrooms and, so far, less than half of them’ve been refurbished. It’s an ongoing operation, this house.’

  ‘Like the Forth Bridge, I imagine.’ Cindy gazed up at the ceiling from which paper hung in shreds. ‘You must’ve spent hundreds of thousands on this place already. What the hell possessed you to take it on, Mr Campbell?’

  ‘I like challenges,’ Kurt said. Grayle saw that he now had no interest at all in Imelda Bacton – too old to screw and probably a royal pain in the ass. ‘Look, Alice … I’d like a word with you. If you want to wait in the main hall – that’s just along this passage – I’ll be down in ten minutes. That’s next to the main door, so if Miss Backley wants to get back to her stand, that’s the quickest way.’

  ‘Well,’ Cindy murmured as Campbell followed Callard through a Gothic-shaped doorway with no door, ‘that’s me in my place, isn’t it? We have two options, little Grayle. One, I stay with you and Kurt gets suddenly called away again. Two, I disappear.’

  ‘Has to be two, I guess. We’re lucky he didn’t spot who you really are.’

  ‘I was careful to keep looking away from him. A hypnotist always recognizes your eyes. Grayle, the more I think about this, a third option might be wiser – we both disappear.’

  ‘No, I’m gonna wait for him. See this through.’

  They walked to the end of the passage and when they came out at the other end the architecture appeared to have shed about six centuries. They were in the main entrance hall and you could see this was where most of the money had gone so far. It was the full baronial: a stone staircase, high stone walls with coats of arms and crossed pikes and deerheads on shields and a gigantic wrought-iron chandelier with flickering electric candles.

  Not quite tacky, not quite tasteful. More filmset than authentic haunted house. There were five or six people waiting around. Two wore suits, carried briefcases. One was leaning against a wall by the stairs, talking down a cellphone. Overhead, a black heating outlet pumped out warm air.

  There was a big reception desk with wrought-iron legs, three phones on top. Next to a woman with glasses on a chain sat one of the Forcefield guys, looking half-cop, half-paramilitary and wholly bored. A noticeboard leaning up against the desk advertised festival events including an illustrated lecture on Friday evening by the authors of The Golgotha Manuscript: the Truth about the Crucifixion and a session by Ronan Blaine, the revered hands-on healer from Ireland.

  ‘This is the real thing, isn’t it?’ Grayle said despondently. ‘It isn’t a front for anything. It’s gonna build up year by year, become an institution and make piles of money. Turning Kurt into some kind of New Age Bill Gates.’

  The original Victorian Gothic castle door, twelve feet high, hung open. A smoked-glass conservatory had been built on the front, and there were people sitting at tables with computers, selling tickets to events like the Golgotha guys. New Age big business. Exploitation of the seekers after truth.

  Grayle suddenly felt angry.

  ‘We’re wasting our time. If Campbell has anything to hide, he’s got a million places here to hide it. And Callard’s looking all cool and distant and fully in control.’

  ‘I wonder how.’

  ‘Hypnotherapy?’

  ‘Grayle …?’

  ‘Anyhow, not our problem. I don’t even know what we’re doing here any more, now Marcus isn’t part of it. In fact, unless Bobby has anything meaningful to tell us, I say we close up the stupid stall, go over to Worcester, try to cheer Marcus up and tomorrow we don’t come back. Marcus is our problem now.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  Cindy was standing looking up the stone stairs. A window on the landing was long and churchy, with stained glass depicting two knights in armour. The guy leaning up against the wall by the stairs put away his cellphone and walked off smiling, and Grayle half-recognized him from someplace. He was in baggy jeans and a grey polo shirt with a short row of black battlements and Overcross Castle printed on the pocket.

  ‘The notorious Gary Seward, as I live and breathe,’ Cindy said mildly.

  ‘Oh, shit, you’re right!’

  ‘Don’t look, child. Might be as well if he didn’t remember us.’

  ‘Are we sure it’s him?’

  ‘A few more lines than the face on the cover of the book, a little less hair, a little more jowl. So unless he has a slightly older brother …’

  ‘Shit, we gotta tell Bobby.’

  ‘It doesn’t prove a meaningful link, him simply being here.’

  ‘The fuck it doesn’t!’

  It was like a psychic experience. The manifestation of Seward by the stairs changed everything – made the great hall darker, full of shadows, turned the electric candles in the iron chandelier from sparkling orange to a menacing blood-red.

  Cindy appeared unmoved, squinting out through the conservatory. ‘No sign of the furniture.’

  She remembered what Cindy had said before they met Campbell and Callard. About egos and survival. Huge and cosmic, it is, and yet also so terribly small and sordid. She looked up at the window and the walls and decided she really hated Victorian Gothic. She needed fresh, cold air and trees and sky. She pushed her hands into her raincoat pockets, kept her eyes fixed on the stairs.

  Cindy said, ‘I wonder if Miss Callard knows what she’s really here for.’

  ‘You mean you do?’

  … yet also so terribly small and s
ordid.

  Grayle saw Kurt Campbell come around the landing and start descending the stone stairs. ‘You were right,’ she said. ‘We shoulda gone while we had the chance.’

  Arriving back at The Vision’s stall, Bobby Maiden found it deserted. A few copies of the magazine had been blown away and were stuck in the mud, pages fluttering miserably like seagulls in an oilslick.

  ‘I’ve been trying to keep an eye on it,’ a woman called from the next tent. ‘I don’t know where they’ve gone.’

  The sign on this tent said,

  Lorna Crane, Etheric Massage.

  Lorna was fiftyish and fit-looking. She had close-cut red hair and lip rings. She wore apple-green sweats.

  ‘They – is it your wife and her mother? – they went off with the dog, must be nearly an hour ago. I mean, I can understand them not wanting to hang around here. We’ll do bugger-all business if the weather doesn’t improve. Bloody stupid idea starting midweek, this time of year, but if you’re getting four days for your money you think it’s worth it, don’t you? You want a cup of tea, love? I’ve got a big flask inside.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks.’ Maiden followed her into the tent, which was bigger than The Vision’s, better carpeted inside. There was a table with leaflets on it, a couch covered with Mexican blankets, a Calorgas heater. The polythene window was tinted red, putting a warm blush on the canvas walls.

  Lorna Crane said, ‘Buggered if I’m forking out what they’re asking for a cup of tea in the restaurant. You been in there? Ridiculous! And we’re expected to pay the same as the punters. Ye gods, the stall fees were enough, they never told us there were gonna be surcharges and overheads.’

  ‘Market forces.’

  ‘Dark forces. I never liked the look of Campbell.’ Lorna grinned. ‘I’m quite fond of The Vision. It’s quirky. What do you do?’

  ‘Take pictures.’

  ‘They pay you?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘That older woman,’ Lorna said. ‘You know, for a minute, I thought that was Cindy Mars-Lewis. Because he did used to write articles for you, didn’t he?’

  ‘Cindy Mars-Lewis is my mother-in-law? No wonder I never have any luck.’

  ‘It’s a load of crap, isn’t it?’ Lorna said. ‘All that Lottery hoodoo. Papers must be desperate for something to write about.’ She poured tea from a chrome flask into two white china mugs. ‘It’s Earl Grey. Got no milk or sugar, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  Lorna handed him a mug. ‘Not your mother-in-law then?’

  ‘A friend.’

  Maiden sipped his scented tea. He felt reality receding again. The police at Gloucester were saying simply that Superintendent Foxworth was unavailable. They’d offered to put him through to someone else. He’d asked when Foxworth would be available. They couldn’t tell him. He assumed there’d been a development on one of the two murder inquiries. But what development?

  ‘What’s etheric massage?’

  ‘I work with the aura. Healing and relaxation. Does it work? Yeah, course it works. Sometimes. Can I see auras? Too bloody right, and it isn’t always a blessing, when you look at people and see they haven’t got long.’

  ‘Can you see mine?’

  ‘Yep.’ She bit off the word, held out a packet. ‘Ginger biscuit?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re hungry. Take two.’

  ‘What do you charge?’ Maiden asked.

  ‘When I’m working, twenty-plus for fifteen minutes. I’m not doing you, though, you’ll never relax long enough. I’ll just give you some advice. Stop thinking about it, you’ll not work it all out on your own. Go home. Lock the door. Go to bed.’

  ‘What will I not work out?’

  ‘I dunno. Seriously, go home.’

  ‘What colour is it? My aura.’

  Lorna shook her head.

  A voice outside shouted, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Sounds like it’s from your place,’ Lorna said. ‘Could be a wholesale newsagent wants to place an order for ten thousand copies a month.’

  Maiden handed her his cup, stuck his head outside the tent.

  ‘Excuse me, sir …’ One of the Forcefield men, standing by the fallen Visions. ‘The little blonde American lady? You with her?’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘You might want to come with me, sir.’ Big, stolid-looking bloke, greying beard. ‘She’s had a bit of an accident, nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Accident?’ Maiden stumbled out.

  ‘She’s just over in the first-aid tent.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘This way, sir.’

  He led Maiden around the side of the toilet block, where a second Forcefield man was peering nonchalantly at the grass around his boots. He looked up when Bobby Maiden appeared.

  ‘Shit,’ Maiden said.

  The bearded man hit him in the gut. As Maiden doubled up, the other man hit him in the face. At the same time, Maiden felt a foot pulled from under him.

  He was lying, hurting, with his face in the cold mud. He couldn’t move; there was a heavy boot on his neck. Something which felt both hard and sharp, like an axe, went agonizingly into his back.

  He felt very cold. I’ve been stabbed, he thought. I’m going to die.

  It was as quick as that.

  XLVI

  ‘YOU WANTED TO LOOK AROUND,’ KURT WORE A BAGGY, COLLARLESS shirt – snow-white but creased up, to show how loose and expansive he was, ‘so I’m going to show you around.’

  ‘You sure you can spare the time?’

  ‘Hey, I’m touring the States in the summer. A little advance publicity in the New York Courier will do no harm at all.’

  Cindy had melted away as Kurt approached. Kurt acting like this was to be expected – what did he need with an old broad?

  ‘Well, I’ll sure do my best to get you some space,’ Grayle lied.

  ‘Yes, Alice, I’m sure you’ll try your hardest for me.’

  Overcross Castle, when you’d been inside a while, was full of give-aways that it wasn’t awfully historic. One was the efficiency with which the rooms had been linked – no poky dead-end passageways, everything fitted and dovetailed. Kurt led her into a huge oblong room to the right of the entrance hall. It also had bare stone walls and two big wrought-iron chandeliers over an oak table, which looked to be thirty or forty feet long, or maybe it was two tables pushed together. There were also sconces, real ones in iron brackets, which could be lit to send real flames leaping up the walls.

  ‘The banqueting hall.’ The heavy door closing behind them with a thunk-click which spoke of post-Victorian craftsmanship. ‘Now this is exactly how it was in the 1870s. The medieval touch. This is where Daniel Dunglas-Home often appeared.’

  ‘The medium? What sort of things did he do here?’

  ‘Oh … summoned endless spirits, obviously.’ Kurt sounding surprisingly dismissive. ‘Sometimes with manifestation. And on one occasion it was said he levitated from a table, almost reaching the chandeliers. Enterprising guy.’

  ‘Wow. These chandeliers?’

  ‘Similar ones. There were about ten people here at the time – invited guests, like tonight – and several of them swore they’d seen it happen. But some others said that, as far as they were concerned, it had never taken place at all.’

  It had begun to get dark outside now. The two Gothic windows were grey-white and there were no colours in the room. Kurt leaned closer to Grayle. His aftershave was subtly suggestive, like a snuffed-out bedside candle.

  ‘So which do you believe?’ Grayle asked, like she was supposed to.

  ‘Ah. Well. Interestingly, Dr Anthony Abblow was here that night. A medium and also a very powerful hypnotist. For his time.’

  ‘Oh, really.’

  ‘People sometimes see what, under hypnosis, they’re persuaded to.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Neither do I, Alice. Were some of the guests persuaded to see Dunglas-Home levitate? Or
– hey – were some persuaded not to?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You read the little book?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘It says there that Abblow was responsible for discrediting Dunglas-Home in Crole’s eyes, right? Presumably so he could replace him, so that he could become the key man at Overcross, have access to Crole’s millions, yeah?’

  ‘Oh. Right. I get it. You’re saying, did Abblow hypnotize some of the guests beforehand to blank out Home’s act or something?’

  ‘Makes you think doesn’t it, Alice?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘So guess who our medium’s going to be tonight.’

  ‘Well, uh, I just met Persephone Callard. So unless you hypnotized me to like see her when she wasn’t there at all …’

  ‘Oh she was there, all right.’ Kurt grinned. ‘But tonight’s star is going to be Dunglas-Home himself. Come on. I’ll show you the rest of this mausoleum.’

  Grayle tightened the belt of her raincoat. Here we go.

  When Gary Seward left the castle by the main entrance, Cindy followed him. Remaining fifteen to twenty yards behind, studying the man, the way he moved, the art of being Gary Seward.

  From up here you could see that the festival site was bigger than it had first appeared, covering fifteen to twenty acres. Quite a crowd out there now too, despite the weather – an advance contingent for the psychically ravenous multitude. By the weekend, there would be ten, fifteen times as many, thousands having travelled from Birmingham, even London, to catch talks or a promised visit by fashionable psychics and healers.

  Seward walked down the drive towards the three lines of huts and tents, each one a bijou business marketing baubles and trinkets of spirituality like fashion accessories, to be worn and discarded, mixed and matched.

  Cindy felt more in control. Had begun to build a picture of what was happening here – even if, as yet, it consisted only of darkening smudges.

  Seeing Kurt Campbell up close, for the first time since the unfortunate Lottery Show encounter, he realized that bitter circumstance had led him to overestimate the young man. Apart from ambition, greed, lust and the mastery of a particular technique, there really wasn’t all that much to Kurt. Not a profound person, not even a terribly interesting one. His failure to spot the Cindy behind the Imelda suggested that Cindy was, to Kurt, not so much a figure of hate and fear but a mere obstacle to be removed. Hardly flattering – indicative, indeed, of insufficient respect for the shamanic tradition – but at least it reduced Kurt Campbell to something potentially more manageable. And it was to be hoped that the resourceful Grayle would be able to manage him.