by Guy Adams
'I thought there was no such thing as ghosts,' she said, trying to take her mind off the journey.
'There's not…' Jack replied, using the gears to slow him down enough to take a roundabout without sending the SUV into a roll. 'Not in the traditional sense anyway. That doesn't mean there aren't phenomena that have given rise to the belief in ghosts over the years.'
'Residual haunting, right? The stuff that Bernie Harris's ghost machine picked up on.'
'Not quite. That machine was a quantum transducer that allowed you to see images outside your own temporal fixed point. That's actually more of a Time TV than a ghost machine.'
'Time TV?' Gwen raised an eyebrow.
Jack smiled. 'Residual haunting is the idea that emotional events of sufficient potency give off a wave of energy that is stored in solid matter — an old house, a murder weapon, a site of historical violence — and are then picked up later like psychic radio and re-experienced by someone sufficiently attuned to those frequencies. It was put forward as a theory in the early 1960s. It's been a popular explanation for ghosts ever since.'
'Popular? Not correct?'
'Not quite. Matter and energy just don't work that way. Taking for granted that emotional outbursts can be stored in physical matter — which they can, but in a such a weak and fragile form that most dissipate quickly — the human skull exists as an insulator against stray electromagnetic fields bombarding the brain. We'd be freaking out every time someone turned on a mobile phone otherwise.' He shut up for a second, concentrating on avoiding a group of teenagers crossing the road. One of them stuck their middle finger up at him as the drag from the vehicle sent him off balance and into the gutter.
'You missed,' Gwen said.
'Better luck next time.'
'So… skull as an insulator…?'
'Yeah, basically we pick up on the vaguest of emotions: déjà vu, maybe a sense that you're not alone in a room… nothing concrete, nothing visual. For that you'd need one hell of an amplifier. Cardiff's sat on one with the Rift, of course, but even then it would take an incredibly focused burst of energy to visualise something without some pretty nifty equipment.'
'But it's possible?'
'Oh yeah … and not just in Cardiff. Most hot spots for ghost sightings have some kind of external influence at work — Borley Rectory, the Treasurer's House in York… both the sights of some pretty major temporal fallout. It's not always natural, though. I remember this old museum in Stratford-upon-Avon, built its whole reputation on the amount of supernatural sightings within its walls… The owner was bombarding the place with hallucinogenic theta waves, hoping to summon up Shakespeare. People were tripping their rocks off the minute they crossed the threshold.'
'What did you do?'
'Locked him in his own gift shop for four days. Poor guy was convinced he was Oliver Cromwell by the time I let him out. He's probably back to eating solids by now… Anyway …' He turned into Penylan Road. 'The point is: it takes a lot of factors to come together in order to provide an actual physical manifestation, and even then it's worth checking it's not something altogether different…'
They were distracted by the flashing lights of a police car and an ambulance. The woman that Ianto had seen killed earlier was being zipped into a body bag and carried away from the scene.
Jack wound down his window and called to one of the police officers. 'What happened?'
The policeman looked him up and down. 'You lot, is it?' He checked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was listening. 'Looks like hit and run, woman was knocked over coming out of the shop over there, dragged halfway up the road, right state she is. No bugger saw anything, of course, but it doesn't take Quincy to piece it together. Unless you know different?'
Jack smiled. 'Of course not.' He shoved the SUV back into first gear. 'Just passing by. See you around.'
'Bloody hope not.'
Jack wound the window back up. 'Let's hope that's a coincidence, shall we?'
'Violent death? Coincidence? Us?' Gwen didn't believe it for a moment.
'Ianto's the priority. Everything else can wait.'
Around the corner, Jack swung the SUV off the road and into Jackson Leaves' small forecourt. He was out of the vehicle before Gwen had so much as unclipped her seatbelt. She joined him at the door as he rapped insistently on the wood.
'Can you smell onions?' she asked as they waited for someone to answer. When nobody had after a few seconds, Jack opened the door and stormed inside.
'You don't still own the place, you know,' Gwen said, following awkwardly.
'Now's not the time for formalities,' Jack replied, looking around the hall. 'Hasn't changed much… Hello?' he shouted. 'Mr Wallace? Ianto?'
There was a sound of movement from behind one of the doors and he ran forward, storming into the lounge and narrowly avoiding the poker Rob swung at him as he crossed the threshold.
'Rob Wallace, I presume?' Jack said, pulling the poker from the panicked man's hand and holding up his own in a gesture of surrender. 'The door was open…'
TWELVE
The knocking on the door, coming so soon after the noise that had surrounded them, wasn't the relief to Rob and Julia that it was to Ianto, still barely able to move as he lay on his back in front of the unlit fire.
'What did he say?' Julia asked, looking at Ianto and fully expecting another onslaught of apparitions to attack them.
Rob grabbed the poker from beside the hearth. 'Nothing that makes me feel any better.'
'It's all right…' Ianto whispered, his chattering teeth cutting the words into brittle sounds as they tumbled from his mouth. 'Let them in…'
They heard the sound of the front door opening, and Rob turned to face the lounge door, poker in hand. 'So you say…' he whispered, tightening his grip on the brass handle. He was sick of being on the receiving end of the night's many impossibilities.
He heard the intruder shouting his name.
The door opened, and Rob prepared to fight his way past whatever was behind it. The poker was out of his hand before he had even been truly aware of swinging it.
'The door was open…' said the intruder.
'I saw you before.' It was Julia, putting her hand on her husband's shoulder as she spoke to the newcomer. 'You were with the police.'
'Sort of,' Gwen stepped into the room. 'We work with them occasionally.'
Jack pushed his way past Rob and Julia, dropping to his haunches by Ianto.
'Hi there, frigid,' he said with a smile.
'Sod off,' Ianto stuttered, 'and get something to warm me up.'
'Now may not be the time or place…' Jack turned to Rob and Julia. 'Got any alcohol?'
'No…' Rob was struggling to maintain any feeling of being in control. 'I was lighting a fire…'
'So light it.'
Rob stepped forward before anger stopped him. 'Look! What's going on here? You say you're with the police?'
'Not as such,' Gwen tried to force her face into the most reassuring shape she could manage, used to being the politician among them. 'We're independent of them. But yes, our paths cross from time to time. Why don't we sit down and go through what happened?'
'I'm not staying here a minute longer,' Julia said.
'We saw a woman appear out of thin air…' Rob shouted. 'Killed herself in the bath… not in our bathroom you understand, no, in the spare bloody bedroom…'
'There's a fat man…' Julia added, 'in an old suit… he smells…'
'Banging on the walls, voices in the TV…'
'Your friend, appearing out of nowhere in our airing cupboard…'
'Our bloody airing cupboard!'
Their voices were getting louder and louder, blending into one another.
Gwen knew if they carried on she'd never get them under control. 'Please!' she shouted. 'One at a time… We can handle this, but we need to know what's been going on.'
'Handle it on your own,' Rob said, grabbing Julia's hand. 'We're not staying…'
They marched out of the door, and Gwen turned to Jack.
'One thing at a time,' he spat. 'It's not as if I can shoot them. Though it is tempting.'
The walls shook as the front door slammed closed behind the terrified pair.
Jack struck a couple of matches and touched them to the dry newspaper in the hearth. 'All the home comforts…' he muttered, biting his lip as the words brought a memory to mind…
***
The agent wore his suit as if it were for a wedding or funeral, alien to its woollen threads. Whenever he thought Jack wasn't looking, he pulled at the white collar of his shirt, the starch irritating his skin.
'All the home comforts, Mister Harkness,' he said. 'Modern fixtures and fittings for both fashion and convenience.'
Jack ran his fingers along the patterns in the Lincrusta wallpaper. 'Yes, it's all very cutting edge.'
'Excuse me?'
'An American expression, probably,' Jack replied, brushing the comment away and also, with his finger, a light covering of dust from the Dado rail.
'Oh,' the agent laughed gushingly. 'Of course! America must be so exciting…'
'Especially if you live in San Francisco,' Jack replied. The agent looked bemused. 'Earthquake trouble,' Jack explained.
'Really? How awful. Mind you, we have the odd tremor here in Cardiff.'
Jack smiled. 'There must be a rift here or something.'
'Do you think so?' The agent looked genuinely concerned by the idea. 'I do hope not…'
'I'll take the risk.' Jack laughed and patted the agent on the arm. 'And the house.'
'Oh!' The agent was quite beside himself, and Jack began to suspect this was his first sale. 'How splendid!'
'Yes,' Jack replied, smiling at the man's enthusiasm. 'One thing though.' He stepped out into the hall. 'Might you be able to have a lock fitted to the study? I'm often involved in rather… delicate work.'
This made the agent almost purple with excitement. 'Aha! Secret work, is it, sir?' he asked. 'I thought you carried that look about you. One can always tell a man that might be involved in our country's more "specialised" services.' He winked.
'One would hope not,' Jack replied.
The agent went into a panic. 'Oh… I wasn't meaning to suggest you were in any way deficient in your… ah…'
Jack patted him on the shoulder before he had a fit in the hallway. 'Don't worry, I'm not a spy, and I'm pulling your leg. But yes, my work does often involve the safety of the nation. Sometimes even beyond it!'
The agent nodded and mopped at his sweating forehead. 'Sir, it is an honour then to assist you.' He tried a smile but he was still too nervous, so it gave the impression he was simply exhibiting teeth. 'Perhaps we should return to the office, where we can begin to make arrangements with your bank…'
'Bank?' Jack shrugged. 'I'll just pay cash if that's all right.'
The fire began to curl around the kindling, a cracking sound like a rifle shot bringing Jack out of his memory.
'Lovely,' Ianto stuttered, his teeth still chattering. 'Now if someone would just fetch me a mug of cocoa and enough brandy to knock out a horse, I'll be right as rain.'
'What happened?' asked Gwen.
'I was out on the street,' Ianto replied, 'grabbing some food and keeping my head down for half an hour.' He tugged the blanket tighter around him. 'There was a chronon surge… huge… and this woman… this is going to sound ridiculous… it was as if she was hit by a tram, except there was no tram. I could hear it, the wheels on the tracks, the smell of the ozone. I could even sort of feel it, the heaviness of it coming towards me. It hit her square on and sent her flying towards me. Still you couldn't see it, just this mangled woman, bones snapping but with no… reason.' He looked up at Jack and Gwen and rolled his eyes. 'And if you think that's unusual, just wait until the bit where I vanish into thin air and reappear in the airing cupboard upstairs.'
'Covered in ice,' Gwen added.
'Yes…' Ianto shivered. 'I bet things are going to fall off with frostbite.'
'If they do, I'm keeping 'em,' said Jack.
Gwen ignored him. 'What did you see?' she asked Ianto.
'Not much, to be honest. I've been a bit out of it. I heard the pounding on the walls and the TV turning on by itself.'
'Power surge…' Jack commented.
'And the walls?' Gwen asked.
'That'll be the ghosts.' Jack grinned. 'I'm going to take a look around.'
He marched out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
For a minute he stood in the hall, listening to Gwen as she told Ianto the history of the building. Around him the beams and joists of Jackson Leaves creaked under the weight of the memories they held for him.
He stroked the off-white banister.
'You need a cleaner,' he said, blowing the dust off his finger.
'What?' Jack asked from the first floor.
'"Pardon",' Alison replied. 'Not "what", you dreadful colonial.'
Jack's head appeared from over the banister above her head. 'Do forgive my lack of breeding, madam,' he joked. 'Might I enquire as to what it was that you said previously? My dull foreign ears struggled to catch your regal tone.'
'I said you needed a cleaner, the banister is filthy.'
'Just like its owner, then,' Jack replied.
She sighed but couldn't hide the smile on her lips. 'There's no hope for you.'
'Agreed, none whatsoever. So, do you like the house?'
'It could be lovely,' she replied, 'with a woman's touch.'
Jack smiled down at her. 'I say again: just like its owner, then.'
'Anyone's touch will suffice for him,' she replied, an air of sadness to her voice.
'But your touch is the sweetest.'
She joined him on the landing. 'So you say today,' she replied, 'but who will it be tomorrow?'
He took her in his arms. 'Stay the night and find out.'
She shivered in his embrace.
'You all right?' he asked.
She nodded. 'It felt like something touched me.'
'Give me a few moments and it certainly will,' he grinned.
She slapped his arm playfully. 'Really…' She looked around and then, seeing nothing, tried to dismiss her feeling of unease. She smiled. 'Perhaps you've got ghosts…'
'Too many to mention, but don't worry, I won't let them have you!' He lifted her off the floor and carried her towards the bedroom.
On the landing, Jack paused to breathe in the stale air… trying to remember the scent of Alison's perfume, of her skin.
Off the landing, the first room confused him. Where he had expected to see the bath, he found instead a tatty single bed and a brown carpet that he would have burned on principle had he had a match on him.
'Look at the state of you,' he whispered.
'Look at the state of you,' Miles said, running the sponge across Jack's shoulders. The soapy water making gritty, brown rivers of the dried mud on his back.
'I slipped,' Jack replied.
'Clearly… but what would the neighbours think,' Miles asked, 'had they happened to glance out of their window to see a naked man thrashing around in the mud.'
'They'd probably ask me to bring them some coal, too, save them going out in the rain.'
'You could have put some clothes on!'
Jack winked over his shoulder. 'I'd only have had to take them off again.' He reached over the side of the bath for the brandy bottle. 'Another drink?'
Miles shook his head. 'I'm away with the fairies as it is.'
Jack grinned and leaned over to kiss him. 'Indeed you are.'
***
The next room was still the main bedroom. Jack stepped inside, lifted up the collapsed, part-constructed wardrobe and leaned it against the wall. The bed was built but not made, just a bare mattress…
'You buy a house with cash and then seem unable to afford a bed,' Alison sighed, lying back on the mattress that lay in the middle of the room.
'I just keep forgetting,'
Jack replied, rolling onto his front. He blew on her chest and chuckled as her nipple hardened in the cool air. 'Beds are for sleeping, and I don't do much of that.'
'I noticed,' she replied, not unkindly. She twisted to kiss him on the forehead and grabbed the blanket to wrap around herself. 'I'm going to marry him, you know.'
Jack propped himself up on his elbow. 'I know.'
'He loves me very much, and he's a good man.'
'I've never said otherwise.'
She threw him a glance. 'It's not like I have other offers.'
Jack nodded but didn't reply. He'd had that conversation too many times over the years and wasn't inclined to have it with Alison as well. If this was coming to an end — and it looked as if that was the case — then let it at least do so with some grace.
'I'm sure he can make you happy,' he said instead.
She stared at him. 'No you're not, and neither am I. But happiness is overrated. Sometimes you just have to settle for contentment.'
'Story of my life,' Jack said, stepping out of the bedroom and back onto the landing.
The bathroom was new, well, no… new to Jack but it could hardly be called new otherwise. It was a cheap suite with oyster-shell soap trays and a colour of yellow one could never have found outside a plastics factory. Little blue fish swam in circles on the tiles. It was ghastly.
Jack walked back out and made his way up to the second floor.
At the top of the stairs the landing offered two choices, a room to either side.
'What do you need so many rooms for, anyway?' Miles asked, gazing out of the window at the leafy trees of the road below.
Jack watched the muscles in Miles's legs and buttocks tighten as the man went on tiptoes. 'I like variety,' he replied, taking a sip of his drink. 'A room for every occasion.'
'Or guest?' Miles asked, turning around and treating Jack to a change of scenery.
'Sometimes,' Jack admitted. 'That bother you?'
'No. Why should it? I know the rules of our affaire .' Miles topped up his own glass from the decanter on the sideboard. He took a big mouthful. 'I'm going to marry her,' he said, and was then perplexed as to why this should cause so much hilarity in Jack. 'I'm glad my life amuses you so,' he said with some bite.