Ghosts Know

by Ramsey Campbell

  “That’s kind of you.” The words leave my mouth as if my voice is declaring its independence. The thought was so sarcastic that I didn’t mean to utter it, and I’m driven to add “What did you make of the show?”

  “You did what was asked of you. I wouldn’t have expected any different.”

  “Yes, but what—”

  “As I said, speculation won’t do us any good, and it might even harm the station. We need to present a united front. As far as we’re concerned for now you undertook the test and answered all the questions you were asked without attempting to avoid them. If anyone’s approached for any kind of statement, please refer the matter directly to me.”

  Paula sends her gaze on a tour of the desks before shutting herself in her room. I sense resentment of the strictures she’s placed on everyone, but it’s feeble compared with my rage, which is entangled with confusion—I can’t decide whether she said too little or too much or both. Chairs are squeaking again, and I have the impression that my workmates are trying to find items of interest on their desks rather than look at me or even speak while I’m in the newsroom. This enrages me further, and I make for the lifts as if I’m anxious to outdistance what I might otherwise say. “Off home,” I tell Megan.

  Without glancing up from the switchboard she says “I should be.”

  The desk on the ground floor is deserted, and so I’ve no idea what Vince or his colleagues may think of me now. I know someone who ought to be ready with an opinion, and I’m sweating with the fast walk in the heavy sunlight by the time I reach the Dressing Room. Some of the heat fades from my scalp as the door sends a shadow on my trail. Two men are tapping at laptops in a booth, and Benny’s behind the bar, but I mostly see Jasper’s face. For everyone I’ve read and everyone I have to… Rather than yank the framed poster off the wall and stamp on the glass I head for the bar. “Got a joke for me, Benny?” I never thought I’d ask.

  He looks up from polishing a wineglass but doesn’t offer me a grin. “Can’t think of one just now, Mr Wilde.”

  “It could be something you couldn’t say on the air.”

  The footlights etch a frown deeper in his forehead. “Can’t say what that’d be,”

  “Have I offended you, Benny?” I’m driven to wonder. “Was it something on my show?”

  “I’d never say that, Mr Wilde.”

  I’ve begun to feel he’s learned ambiguity if not slyness from Frank Jasper. “Are you trying to tell me something? Am I being stupid?”

  “I wouldn’t ever say that either.”

  “What would you say, then? Don’t tell me coming on my show has pinched your sense of humour.”

  He deals the glass a final wipe and stands it behind the bar. He doesn’t look at me again until he has picked up another, and his frown and its shadows are back. “Do you need a drink, Mr Wilde?”

  “I don’t need one, no. If I ever did I’d give it up. I just wanted to ask you what you made of my show you were on.”

  “I can’t really talk about it right now.”

  Far too belatedly I wonder if his frown—indeed, his whole demeanour—could be meant as a warning. I jerk my head to indicate the men in the booth and murmur “Should I be able to guess who that is?”

  He just about nods, which is all I need, though it isn’t enough of an answer. Whoever they are, what business was it of theirs if Hannah Leatherhead approached me? No doubt they’ll pass on anything Benny and I say about today’s show, and the notion aggravates my rage. “Fair enough, Benny,” I say without bothering to keep my voice down. “We’ll talk about it next time.”

  I stare at the men on my way to the door. They’re wearing suits but have both removed their jackets and laid them in the corners of the booth. Perhaps that’s in the interests of efficiency, but together with their crouched postures and burly physiques it makes them look ready for a fight. I’m not, despite clenching my fists, but I haven’t passed the booth when the man who’s clacking faster at a keyboard glances up at me. Though he isn’t sufficiently interested to stop typing, I’m sure I glimpse some kind of condemnation in his eyes. He shakes his balding head and turns his attention back to the monitor, and even if this didn’t remind me of Kessler it would be far too much. In two strides I’m at the booth. “Friend of Paula’s, are you?”

  His curly-topped companion looks up, saying “Who?”

  Benny steps out from behind the bar. “Mr—”

  “It’s all right, Benny, you won’t need to throw me out I just want a word with your customers here.” All this is at least equally addressed to the men in the booth. “Don’t you know anyone called Paula?” I ask them.

  “Doesn’t everybody?” says the balding man.

  “Not the one I’m thinking of.” I’m infuriated by their visible amusement and by the notion that I’m asking questions like Jasper’s. “The one you like to keep informed,” I say and show my teeth.

  “What’s that about?” the curly fellow says.

  “About people’s jobs, the way I hear it. You’re pretty concerned with where some of us work.”

  “As a matter of fact,” says the man crowned with bare skin, “we are.”

  “That’s your idea of fun, is it?” I’m even more infuriated by having heard a threat as well. “Does it make you feel powerful, interfering in people’s lives? Christ, at least Frank Jasper does it in public. He’s another character who likes to eavesdrop.”

  “Mr Wilde.” Benny has crossed the floor as fast as I did. “They’re from the brewery,” he says, apparently unsure what tone to use when he’s nowhere near making a joke. “They’re visiting their pubs to see how they’re being run.”

  “My God, I’ve been the one cracking jokes and I never knew,” I declare with the kind of laugh I usually reserve for his. “Or maybe I’m one myself, would you say, Benny?”

  “I wouldn’t like to, Mr Wilde.”

  “That’s Benny for you, the soul of discretion. Whatever else I’ve said, I take it back.” Since this only appears to bemuse his employers, I try saying “I should tell you Benny and I are old friends. I’m often in for a drink and a bit of a giggle.”

  My reflection above the booth makes my performance seem as separated from me as my voice sounds, but I oughtn’t to stop yet. “Forgive me for getting you wrong. The light must have blinded me,” I say the instant I think it and wave at the bulbs around the mirror. “Anyway, I gave you some free publicity. Let’s hope that brings the drinkers in.”

  I shouldn’t have drawn attention to their absence, but I’m distracted by Jasper’s poster; I could almost imagine he’s spying on my efforts. “How did you do that?” says the curly individual.

  “On my show. On Waves.” When they both look almost insultingly blank I say “Our leading radio station here in Manchester. I present the lunchtime show. Wilde Card. I’m Graham Wilde.”

  The first man’s scalp gleams as he turns his head to glance along the walls. “We don’t see you anywhere.”

  “I keep meaning to sign you one, Benny. Next time, I promise.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  It’s the curly character who says this, though Benny doesn’t seem too keen either. Without knowing how much of my rage can be contained I say “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “We were telling Benny we’ve got enough locals on show. Just major stars from out of town in future. This place wants a wider appeal. There’s too much stuff that doesn’t mean a thing an hour’s drive up the road.”

  “I’ll be in for my usual soon, Benny.” This is a bid to suppress my ire and take it outside. “Just let me say I nearly always come in here for a drink or two,” I tell the men in the booth. “Today I need to be somewhere else, that’s all.”

  “Somewhere important,” the balding fellow says, “we hope.”

  “It is to me.” A hint of skepticism in his tone provokes me to add “I have to go home and work on a novel.”

  “Is there anything you don’t get up to?” the curly party says.

>   “Plenty.” Of course he wasn’t accusing me; he seems even more incredulous than his companion, and I mustn’t let them make me lose my temper when it might threaten Benny’s job. “In fact, that’s all,” I say and turn my back on the booth.

  I’m met by Frank Jasper—not the faker I’d happily punch in the face, just his image. All the lights around the mirrors seem to flare with fury, and I see myself dodging across the walls as if I’m making an escape. I have to open my fist to close it on the handle of the door. It might give me some satisfaction to twist the handle as though I’m wringing a neck or grabbing an arm to force it up the owner’s back or even gouging an eye, but the handle isn’t the kind that moves. I have to content myself with hauling the door wide and stepping onto the pavement without a backward glance.

  Sunlight grabs me by the scalp as the door shuts with a muffled thump like a punch in someone’s gut. The top of my head is already crawling with heat and rage, but the insubstantial pressure of the light is worse. I sprint across the road, cursing a furious screech of brakes, into the shadow of the hotel. All the people I encounter on my way home give me more than a glance or try to avoid looking at me. If I look half as enraged as I feel I’m surprised they don’t run for their lives. A train adorned with posters squeals across the bridge near my apartment, and the parade of outsize faces puts me in mind of photographs being drawn through a viewer by someone conducting a search.

  Walter Belvedere is with a client if he isn’t listening to a newscast. I can’t tell what’s being said as I unlock my door, which I almost slam in my haste to shut away the mumbling voice. In the main room I sit in the windowless corner and switch on the computer. I’ve been trying to think like Glad Savage all the way home, and I seem to have at least a chapter in my head. The reporter is expecting a promotion, but at the interview she finds she’s being fired for knowing too much about her employers: the editor likes illegally young girls, and his deputy is prone to uncontrollable fits of rage, which is why the woman’s partner keeps going back to hospital—Glad knows all this just by looking at the culprits. “You haven’t got rid of me,” she tells them as she leaves the newspaper.

  It takes me hours of furious typing to write the chapter, until I feel close to trapped between the walls by the plastic chatter of the keyboard. At last I’m able to scroll through what I’ve typed, and then I stare at the screen, which seems to have betrayed me as much as Kessler’s monitor did. The chapter feels like a revenge, but I can’t tell what kind or on whom. It’s too much like a guilty secret, and I don’t believe I’d care to make it public. When I hear Christine’s key in the lock I delete the entire chapter and switch off the computer.

  Christine looks ready to raise my spirits if she can. She’s carrying today’s Manchester Clarion, though she rarely buys a newspaper, since we can read them in the newsroom. “What have you been up to?” she says as she leaves the hall.

  “Just hacking away at my novel.”

  “Oh,” she says eagerly, “can I see?”

  “Nothing to see, as the police say when they’re moving you on.”

  “How can’t there be, Graham? You’re really writing one, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, and that’s positive. Even Mr Kessler would have to say so. It just wasn’t any good, and so I’ve put it out of its misery.”

  I’m surprised to see the newspaper begin to crumple in her hands. “What do you mean?” she pleads.

  “I’ve wiped it out. Killed it off. Destroyed it beyond any hope of resurrection, and believe me, that can be bloody satisfying.”

  Christine looks too distressed to cross the room to me. “You haven’t deleted all your work without letting me tell you what I think. Say you’ve kept a copy.”

  “We’re only talking about today’s chapter, and it was no loss.” I’m amused as well as touched by her concern, but I shouldn’t laugh except affectionately. “I’m sure you’d have wanted me to get rid of something that stupid,” I say, “if you’d known what it was like.”

  “Don’t do that to anything else, will you? At least let me see first”

  “I will when there’s enough to be worth seeing.” When this doesn’t appear to placate her I say “Soon.”

  “I just want to help, Graham. I’m certain you can make it work. Maybe it’ll be what you’ll do in future.”

  “I’m not out of my other job,” I remind her, and then I’m reminded myself. “Did Paula talk to you?”

  Christine seems oddly wary of the question. “Why should she have done that?”

  “She was advising everybody not to talk about my show. You were busy with Rick.”

  Christine looks relieved, though I don’t understand why. “She didn’t mention it. I expect she thought someone else would.” Christine hesitates and steps forward, holding out the newspaper. “She didn’t mention this either, and she hasn’t been in touch with you, has she?” With some kind of hopefulness Christine adds “Or you’d have told me by now.”

  “Of course I haven’t heard from her.” The suggestion makes me obscurely angry, and then my anger finds a focus as my fist clenches on the newspaper. “Is that supposed to be me?” I don’t really need to ask, because there can’t be any other reason why she has brought the paper. The front-page headline, which looks so black that it might only just have been printed, says SUSPEND SUSPECT PRESENTER.

  29: The Switch

  As the lift doors open Megan glances at me and instantly down at the switchboard. I think she’s simply avoiding my eyes, unless she dislikes the sight of me or the idea that I’m still working at Waves, until she picks up the phone. “He’s here.”

  “That’s conclusive and no mistake. Who are you warning about me, Megan?”

  She gives me a look that’s worse than blank and then lowers her bovine head. Perhaps that’s just meant to convey indifference, but it feels like contempt and a challenge too, as though she’s daring me to respond. I clench my fists, and my skull feels as if a similar process is happening in there. As I take a step towards her I have the impression that I can’t quite see what I’m doing, unless it’s what I’m about to do. Am I blinded by the rage that has flared up from my guts? I’m nearly at the counter before she deigns to acknowledge me with a blink that hardly even bothers to look bored. I haven’t raised my fists above the counter when I lurch aside, past a puny heap of photographs of my face, and head for the newsroom at speed. I don’t know what I was thinking of, and I’d rather not. I lift my badge to the plaque on the wall and see Paula striding across the newsroom.

  Her face looks grimly resolute, stiff as her hair. So Megan called her, not security at all. I let my badge dangle on its shrinking cord and step back. Paula might almost be on her way to swat an insect, since she’s holding a rolled-up newspaper—I’ve no doubt which. She pulls the door open and brandishes the paper. “Don’t run away, Graham,” she says as the door shuts behind her. “I take it you’ve seen this.”

  She plants the Clarion on the counter, where it unfolds jerkily beside the photographs of me. I’ve already subjected myself to its contents more than once—not just the front-page story that transcribes Kessler’s questions and his verdicts on my answers, but the editorial that says I shouldn’t be allowed to work at Waves until I’ve been thoroughly investigated, though the writer stops short of saying by whom. “I’m sure a lot of people have,” I retort.

  “Have you, Megan?”

  “I glanced at it.”

  She doesn’t now, and seems to resent being made to own up. I’m close to demanding how her opinion counts when Paula says “Don’t let it bother you, Graham. It won’t bother us.”

  I’m as uncertain whether Megan is included as she appears to be, but it’s more important to establish “That’s Frugo as well.”

  “I rather think I can say that, yes.”

  “You’ve heard from them.”

  “I expect to very shortly.”

  I sense she’s vexed by having to say so. If she dislikes being overheard, why
didn’t she take me into her office? Before I can propose it she says “I think they’ll share my view.”

  “Do you mind if I ask what that is exacdy?”

  “Why should I mind?” Paula lifts her chin, and the tips of her cropped hair rise precisely as much. “We’re independent radio,” she says, “and that means we don’t let other media dictate policy to us.”

  Even if it sounds stupid I need to say “About me, you mean.”

  “About any managerial decision.”

  I take this to mean yes. Megan’s face has grown as blank as Kessler’s, which is a comment in itself. Yesterday I was distracted by the antics of the polygraph, and now she’s providing the unspoken judgments I’m unable to ignore. As I struggle not to turn on her Paula says “Megan, Wilde Card will be going on as usual. If anybody calls about that, put them through to me.”

  As she holds the door open I grab the newspaper, not wanting Megan to have it. “Shall I bin this?”

  “Do what you like with it, Graham,” Paula says.

  I’m tempted to rip it to shreds, but I wouldn’t like Megan to see, and so I hold it between a finger and thumb as I follow Paula. Some of my colleagues glance up at me; some even take the time to look encouraging.

  I flourish the Clarion at them and hurry into the control room. “Was Paula talking to you?” Christine wants to know.

  “That’s why I’m here,” I reassure her and hurry to put on my headphones, having dropped the newspaper on the console. Today is Elderly Excellence Day, but I suspect I won’t be hearing much about that. “Let them all on,” I tell Christine and read the monitor. “Kicking off is Les from Swinton. What do you have for us, Les?”

  “Why are you still here?”

  On some level I’m delighted with the question. If Paula wants confrontational broadcasting, I’m more than angry enough. “Where would you like me to be?”

  “You wouldn’t want to hear it. I’m asking why you are.”

  “Somebody must want me.”

  “And a lot of us don’t, only we don’t matter. We just have to put up with everything the likes of you and your friends in high places inflict on the rest of us. It used to be if you were under a cloud you’d do the decent thing and resign without needing to be told.”