“I’m praying for her and her parents. I feel in my heart they’ll find her now Frank Jasper’s helping them.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He’s meant to be marvellous, isn’t he? One of my neighbours went to see him last night at the Palace and she said he was.”
“Did he tell her what she wanted to hear?”
“He most definitely did.” She’s either unaware of my irony or ignoring it. “He was in touch with her father.”
“I take it the gentleman’s no longer with us.”
“He died a couple of years ago. Mr Jasper knew that and he knew his name was John.”
“That’s unusual.”
“He told her a lot more than that.” By the sound of it Margaret has spotted my skepticism. “He knew she used to worry about her father but he says she needn’t any longer,” she insists. “And he knew her grandchild’s having some problems at school but they’ll be sorted out before long. And her father’s glad she’s been able to have some work done on her house and take a holiday she’s been wanting to take.’”
I’ve found Jasper’s web site. Frank Jasper—Your Psychic Friend, the opening page calls him. He’s holding out his hands as though to bless his audience or to offer them an invisible gift, unless he’s inviting donations. His ingratiating chubby face is topped with a shock of hair so pale that it may have been bleached by the sun that bronzed his skin, or else all this is as artificial as his wide-eyed look. I think he’s trying to appear alert and welcoming and visionary too. His denim shirt is almost the same watery blue as his eyes, and its open collar displays a bright green pendant nestling among wiry golden curls on his chest We’re told he has advised police on investigations in America and helped recover stolen goods. His customers are promised that he’ll tell them the name of their spirit guardian; supposedly we all have one of those. All this makes me angry, and so does Margaret’s account, though not with her. “Did she really need her father to tell her any of that?” I ask as gently as I can.
“That wasn’t all. He said her father was standing by her shoulder.”
“Don’t say he said her father was her spirit guardian.”
“That’s exactly what he did say. How did you know?”
“Maybe I’m as psychic as he is.”
One reason I’ve grown confrontational is that Paula has appeared in the doorway of her office. “Did he say what the lady’s father looked like?”
“Just like her favourite memory of him.’”
I don’t want to risk destroying this, even if there’s no reason to assume Margaret’s neighbour is listening. “And he doesn’t only tell people what they want to hear,” Margaret says with some defiance. “He told one couple their son killed himself when they thought he died in an accident.”
Paula is advancing across the newsroom, but I don’t need her to tell me how to feel. “Well,” I say, “that must have done them some good. Cheered them up no end, I expect”
“He has to tell the truth when he sees it, doesn’t he? He said their son had found peace.”
“I hope the parents have despite Mr Jasper.’”
“Why do you say that? It was because of him. He said now their son is always with them.”
“He’s never turned into their spirit guardian.”
“Wouldn’t you want him to? Don’t you believe in anything?”
Paula has come into the control room to stand at Christine’s shoulder like a parody of the subject under discussion. “I believe Mr Jasper is a stage performer,” I inform anyone who wants to hear.
“If you think you’re as good as he is,” Margaret retorts, “why don’t you have him on your show and see who’s best?”
I’m close to declaring that I hope I’m better in several ways when Paula grabs Christine’s microphone. “That’s what you need, Graham. Let’s have him on.”
“Excuse me a moment, Margaret. I’ve got our manager in my ear.” I take myself off the air to ask “What are you saying I should do?”
“Bring him in and question him as hard as you like and let your callers talk to him.”
“Margaret, we’ll see if I can grant your wish. Keep listening and you may hear Mr Jasper.”
“I’ll tell my friends,” she says, not entirely like a promise.
Christine’s microphone is still open, and I’ve been hearing Paula say “See if you can book Graham to watch him on stage before he comes in.”
I play a trail for Rick Till Five so as to speak to Christine. “Don’t say who you’re booking for. Just reserve a seat as close to the stage as you can and I’ll pay cash.”
“All right, Mr Devious. You sound as if you’ve already made up your mind about him.”
“Haven’t you?”
“I’ll leave it till I’ve seen him.”
“Go ahead, book two seats. I expect Waves can stand the expense.” I should have asked if she wanted to come, not least in case she might notice details I overlook. “The more eyes the better,” I say and go back on the air.
4: An Act At The Theatre
“Now there’s a Jay down here in the stalls,” Frank Jasper says and advances to the footlights, which intensify the golden glow of his tanned face. “I know they mean a lot to someone. I’m getting a sense of some unfinished business. Is it J for Jo? Somewhere in these first few rows? Jo something, is that what I’m being told?”
He’s stretching out his hands in an appeal you could take for an offer. His intent gaze passes over Christine and me in the fourth row, and I’m tempted to respond. If I claim to be Joe, how will he carry on? Perhaps Christine guesses my thoughts, because she rests one hand on my thigh before giving me a tiny frown and an equally private shake of her head, at which point someone speaks—an elderly woman in the aisle seat beyond Christine. “Is it Josie?”
“You’re absolutely right. That’s what I’ve been hearing, Josephine.”
“We mostly called her Josie.”
“I know you did. She wasn’t older than you, was she? Pardon the personal question.”
“She was our aunt, mine and my sister’s.”
“I need you to know I wasn’t saying you were old. Now don’t tell me, didn’t she have a lot of grey hair?”
“There was still a bit of red in it.”
“Sure, that’s what I’m saying it was mostly grey. Okay, don’t say anything, let me hear this now. I’m getting something about glasses. Some glasses that were broken.”
“We did have a pair mended for her.”
“She didn’t always wear them, though.”
“Sometimes she forgot and we had a big argument about it.”
“She wants you to know you mustn’t blame yourself for anything you said, because now she can see fine. We all will when we’re where she is. Wait now, I’m hearing something else. She likes to talk, Josie, doesn’t she?”
“She didn’t say a lot. Half the time if we asked her anything she’d just sulk.”
“That’s why she’s talking so much now. She wants to pass on all the stuff she didn’t get to say. Don’t you think she was like that because of her illness?”
“I suppose that must have been part of it.”
“I guess she suffered some, didn’t she? But she wants you to know how much you helped. Now what she was saying before, is she going to be concerned about a will?”
“She didn’t leave one.”
“That’s what Josie’s telling us. There’s no need for anyone to be concerned about it. You should all share whatever she’s left for you.”
“There’s only me and my sister.”
“She seems to think there’s a partner as well.”
“My sister’s married. I’m not.”
“That’s what Josie’s saying. She won’t mind if they share with your sister.”
“Are you sure? Josie didn’t get on with him at all.”
“That’s why she’s saying this now. She’s at peace with it and she wants you all to be. Wait, there’s so
mething else she wants you to know. What was it that was very valuable to her? Don’t tell me, she’s trying to show me. Something bright. Are we talking about jewelry?”
The elderly woman nods once more. “It was a brooch her mother gave her for her twenty-first.”
“That’s it, her birthday brooch. And then was it lost? Josie thought it had been stolen, didn’t she? She accused someone of stealing it. She said you had.”
The elderly woman dabs at her eyes. “She accused all of us.”
“That’s right, her very words. Well, now she knows you didn’t take it, and she wants whoever finds it to have it. You haven’t yet, have you?”
“To tell you the truth, we’ve been too upset to look.”
“Believe me, Josie doesn’t want you to be. She’s promising to do her best to help you find it. She’ll always be with you. She’s at your shoulder now.
“Well,” the woman says and for a moment seems unable to continue. “Thank you, Mr Jasper.”
“Call me Frank. That’s what I am.”
If it weren’t for the contents of my pocket I don’t know whether I’d be able to keep my anger to myself. Jasper has begun to range along the edge of the stage, so slowly that I’ve time to wonder what he’s looking for. “We’re still down here at the front,” he says, and I glance about for clues he might plan to build on. He’s only holding out one hand now, which could mean he isn’t so sure of himself, but more likely he’s devising his next trick. His face lights up as he steps closer to the pit and extends his other hand. “I’m getting an uncommon name.”
The more specific he is, the more it will betray he’s obtained the name beforehand. “Is it Delbert?” he says and frowns at someone, presumably himself. “Or Hubert? No, wait, I’m getting it now. Is there a Herbert here?”
I wouldn’t be surprised. Surely others in the audience have noticed that the names are growing less unusual. When nobody reacts he tries another ploy. “It’s his grandfather who wants to get in touch with him, an old man with a stick.”
Does he really expect anyone to think this is out of the ordinary? Too many of his fans will believe what they’ve paid to believe, but the price of the tickets is simply inflaming my rage. “He wants you to remember he was on your side,” Jasper says as if this isn’t true of any number of grandparents and their grandchildren. “Was it when you were in some kind of trouble as a child? He’s telling me it involved the police.”
I’d like to glance around and see how many people are finding this applies to them, but I don’t want to draw his attention. “Was it your father who called them?” he’s saying “He accused you of something and your grandfather put them right. Didn’t your father say you’d attacked him?”
It’s becoming uncomfortably personal. I can’t imagine that most of his listeners would want to claim it for their own, at least until Jasper says “You were only standing up for your mother.” I expect some of the audience would be happy to have that said about them, but Jasper carries on. “Your grandfather was always defending you both, wasn’t he? Otherwise you’d have been treated worse.”
I grip the edge of the seat with both hands to ensure I don’t inadvertently shift and catch his eye. “You were still treated bad, weren’t you?” he says as if it’s practically unknown for anyone to think that of their childhood. “Didn’t your father lock you and your mother in the flat when he went out for a drink?”
I’m unaware of shaking my head until Christine turns to look at me. As I shake it more tersely and fiercely to warn her against singling us out, Jasper says “He didn’t like your grandfather visiting, did he? Wasn’t there something he used as an excuse to tell him not to? Wait, he’s showing me. He used to smoke a pipe and your father said it made him sick. Didn’t you think it looked like a pipe in an old magazine?”
He’s good at his act, I’ll give him that. Until you analyse them some of these details seem uncannily precise. “Hey, you thought it made him look like Sherlock Holmes,” he says. “That’s why you figured he’d sort things out for you and your mother.”
This isn’t going to reach me. I’m not paralysed, I’m just keeping still so as to stay unnoticed. “Now he’s showing me somewhere with a whole lot of tenements,” Jasper says, which could refer to quite a few districts of Manchester. “That’s where all this happened, isn’t it? Don’t tell me what it’s called,” he says as if I would, and I swallow a laugh at the idea that he’s addressing the voice in his head. “It’s Hulme.”
Christine peers at me, although surely I didn’t react. Is that what’s obvious—my determination not to? “He remembers the balcony outside your apartment,” Jasper says. “What happened there, that’s why he made things right with the police.”
I won’t look at Christine, and I wish I didn’t have to face him either just now. I do my utmost not to blink or to display any expression as he says “You were trying to protect your mother. Your father dragged you out and hung you off the balcony by your feet, and the neighbours had to make him stop.”
“No.”
If I say this aloud it’s surely under my breath, but Jasper gazes straight at me. “He knows you find it hard to believe,” he says, “but he wants you to know he’ll be by your side whenever you’re ready to acknowledge him.”
He steps back from the footlights and raises his eyes while Christine keeps hers on me. “Now there’s someone in the balcony,” he says. “Who’s the lady who recently went into hospital? I’m hearing about one of several children…” If he’s even slightly psychic he ought to be able to sense my glare on him. He’ll need a spirit guardian by the time I’ve finished with him. He won’t know what he’s dealing with until tomorrow.
5: Secrets
As I unlock the hefty Victorian door of my apartment Christine says , “What’s actually wrong?”
“All right, that was me. It was all me.”
She waits outside Walter Belvedere’s agency until I turn the knob that brings up the light in my hall. “What was, Graham?”
“The boy with Sherlock for his grandfather and a staggering drunk for a dad.”
“I didn’t know,” Christine says and shuts the door as if she’s making sure we won’t be overheard. “Frank Jasper didn’t just say that, though. Didn’t he say Herbert? That isn’t your name.”
“It used to be.”
W. C. Fields is exchanging looks with Jackie Coogan across the hall. The eyes of all the vintage film posters are easier to ignore than Christine’s scrutiny, which follows me into the kitchen. “You never told me,” she says.
“It was my father’s. I don’t need to tell you why I dropped it”
She looks mostly reproachful. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“Not a thing. We’re done with it That isn’t me any more.” Any guilt I feel is for not having visited my mother or even called her on the phone for weeks. I’ve turned the kitchen light up full, intensifying the blackness of much of the room—the cupboards, the furniture, the work surfaces, the tiles on the floor and walls. “Are we having coffee?” I propose rather than ask.
“If we want to stay awake.”
“I need to think before tomorrow.” Filling the percolator doesn’t seem to help, and as it starts to creak with heat I say “He had to know that name in advance. Someone must have tipped him off.”
“Who are we talking about, Graham?”
“I don’t mean you, not consciously anyway.” Nevertheless as I sit on a spindly chair I say “Are you absolutely sure you didn’t give them anything he could have used?”
“I don’t see how when I didn’t know your name,” Christine protests and sits opposite me at the round black wafer of a table. “I said the tickets were for Francis and you saw I paid cash at the Palace.”
“Maybe the name was a bit too clever. You rang up from Waves, didn’t you? That’s it, of course,” I say and almost take her hand. “That’s where you called from to arrange our interview as well. He’d have traced the number and put
the two together, and he had hours to find out all about me.”
“That can’t be it, Graham.”
I’m disconcerted by how much I resent this. “Why not?”
‘Any calls we make from Waves, the number’s automatically withheld.”
“Then someone must have recognised me at the theatre. That’s why I wanted to get there as near to the start as we could, to give him less time to check up on me, him or whoever’s working for him. I wish I’d sent you to pick up the tickets. You could have given me mine and I’d have got there late.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit too suspicious?”
“No, I think I wasn’t nearly suspicious enough. It’s a good job I was careful with this.” I unbutton my collar and unclip the tiny microphone before lifting the recorder out of my pocket. “If he tries to deny anything he said,” I tell her, “here’s the proof.”
“I didn’t know you had that.”
“I didn’t want you to.” This time I do take her hand. “If you knew you might have given it away,” I murmur. “I know you wouldn’t have on purpose.”
My attempt at gentleness isn’t helped by the need to raise my voice in competition with the robust burbling of the percolator. Christine pats my hand before opening the cupboard above the glass hob to take out a brace of mugs. She gives me Not Drowning, my suggestion for a Waves slogan Paula didn’t like and I suspect didn’t understand, and then resumes her seat with On Your Wavelength, her slogan Paula chose. She sips her coffee until I have to say “Is it my turn to ask if something’s wrong?”
“Are there any more secrets you’ve been saving up for me?”
“Those weren’t secrets, they were just things that aren’t worth knowing. We all have a few of those.”
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