by Adams, Guy
He reached for the sack and pulled out a long-bladed screwdriver.
‘So lucky,’ he repeated and went about his business.
‘You wanted to adopt her?’ asked Probert, ‘I would have thought that was the last thing you’d do.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Although I suppose her condition could have advantages in your line of work.’
‘It was what first gave me the idea. Up until then I’d been scratching a living in an office. Town and Country Planning.’
Despite their situation, Probert couldn’t help but laugh. ‘So normal, how you must have hated it.’
‘It served its purpose. It offered just the sort of stability the authorities like to see when considering a foster home.’
‘I dare say they lapped it up.’
‘Honestly? I think they’d have given her to anyone. Considering her mental state and background, she was hardly going to be an easy prospect to live with.’
‘I’m sure she was quite a handful …’
Anna felt as if the dark could smother her. The air was so thin and the absence of light so complete that it was like being trapped inside your own head and that was one place Anna did not want to be. If she was good and practised her voices for Mummy then Mummy would let her out later. Maybe she would even be allowed to stay out all evening.
‘Bad girls get nothing,’ she said in an excellent imitation of her foster mother’s voice.
The older she got, the more precise her voices were becoming. And not just the voices, but the characters that went with them. Some days, down here in the dark, she would spend hours escaping the only way she knew how: into the mind of someone else.
She would become Bad Father, yelling and cursing, pounding her fists into the walls.
Or Soft Mother, singing sweet lullabies and crying and begging for things to stop.
Or Father Legion, seeing the devil in every shadow.
Or Nurse Sleepnow, pushing pills into the mouths of her imagined patients.
There were many of them, all different in tone and posture. Often, she played at them so hard she lost herself and the day went away all on its own. She would wake in the morning, let the voices come and before you knew it night had returned and with it food and the chance to stretch her legs for a while. If only she could learn to control them. That’s what made Mummy really cross. When the voices came they often said whatever they wanted and Mummy didn’t like that at all.
‘That’s no use,’ came an approximation of Aida Golding once more, ‘that gets me nowhere.’
Mummy didn’t understand. It wasn’t that Anna just copied voices, she copied people and people don’t always do as they’re told.
*
‘I managed,’ said Golding. ‘Though I must admit I wasn’t a natural mother.’
There was a tap on the window. ‘Mrs Golding?’
Aida wound down the window to talk to the police inspector on the other side. ‘Yes?’ she asked.
Unbelievable, thought Probert, She owns wherever she find herself in. Has anyone sat in the back of a police car ever seemed more in control of themselves?
‘You can head home now, Mrs Golding,’ the Inspector said, ‘we’ll take a further statement in the morning.’
Golding turned to Probert. ‘We’ll go home and I’ll finish telling you what you need to know.’
She led him through the rain to her car, both stepping automatically to the passenger’s side.
‘For God’s sake,’ Golding lowered her head, the rain plastering her perm almost straight on her head.
Probert, hardly inclined to feel pity for her given everything she had done to him, nonetheless did so. ‘Give me the keys, he said, ‘I’ll drive.’
She handed them over and they climbed in, cranking up the heater until the cabin had the atmosphere of a sauna.
‘Where to?’ he asked.
She thought for a while. ‘I just want to go home.’
‘I can find that,’ he replied and slowly reversed out onto the main road.
The audience had been released and allowed to go home and people were milling around the car. He fought to avoid eye contact, only too aware that most of them were staring inside the car, trying to see Aida Golding. They were lost, he realised, confused and unsure how to feel about the woman next to him. Was she really the spiritual queen she presented herself as or something altogether less wholesome? Whether she was the one to kill Alasdair or not, her proximity to the terrible event made them suspicious. She must have done something to bring such horror to her door. And he was slowly beginning to realise just how much. Had he felt sympathy for her earlier? Yes, he had, but no more. She was a crook and a manipulator of people. What kind of person would evoke the memory of Thana just to line her pockets? Or Douglas Reece, for that matter. The more he thought about it, the more he began to realise that Golding deserved the very worst fate might have in store.
‘You think you’ll be next?’ he asked, intentionally wanting to make her feel uncomfortable.
‘Who knows,’ she replied giving him a distinctly cold glance, ‘it could even be you.’
‘Me? What have I got to do with anything?’
‘You were there on the night he came back. Douglas Reece.’
‘You think you’ve brought his spirit back to life? With the seance?’
‘In a way. Anna is a very complicated girl, I never really understood how deeply those personalities of hers ran.’
‘Good evening, my loves, sit yourselves down.’
On hearing Mummy’s voice, Anna settled her back against the wall and tried hard to control her breathing. There wasn’t much space beneath the small table but she knew that the foliage of the large pot plant above her covered the rear of the table from view, so she could lean back and not worry about being seen. The main thing was to find a position she could maintain for as long as it took. Once Mummy’s friends were gathered it was very important they didn’t know she was there. She mustn’t make a noise. Well, no noise except those she was supposed to make …
‘What we do tonight is different to my large demonstrations,’ Mummy was saying. ‘The connection will be stronger, more pure. We should be able to hear the voice of the spirits themselves.’
‘I say,’ announced a jolly-sounding old lady, ‘how thrilling!’
Anna smiled, the woman sounded nice. The sort of sweet old lady that was big and round and smelled of flowers.
‘Sounds positively terrifying,’ came a man’s voice, pinched and nasal. Anna imagined him as the opposite to the old lady, thin and rigid, a skeleton of twigs, brittle and dusty. ‘I do hope they don’t appear. I’m not sure my heart could stand an actual apparition.’
‘You’ll be quite safe,’ Mummy promised; ‘I’m only clairaudient: we will hear the spirits but not see them.’
‘I’m sure we have nothing to fear,’ said another voice, a man again but one so vague it was hard for Anna to picture its owner. He talked in the same way she expected a cloud to, a voice that would be knocked away by the slightest breeze. A ghost’s voice, perhaps. But no, she realised, he’s not the ghost … I am!
‘If we could all link hands,’ Mummy said, ‘that would help build a focus of positive energy. In order to achieve this I need as much energy as you can provide. I want you all to think the most positive thoughts, happy thoughts of love for the spirits that have passed, for those that are still dear to us even though they are now lost to us physically.’
‘Ah, my dear Justine,’ the cuddly woman announced ‘I know you’re still with us.’
‘Erm …’ the thin man seemed uncomfortable with this idea. Aware that the cuddly woman had set a precedent he couldn’t ignore he struggled on: ‘Joe, be good to talk to you again.’
The cuddly woman tutted, clearly unhappy with the thin man’s effort.
‘Beryl,’ announced the dreamy man, before the woman could complain any further, ‘come and see us, my dear. I miss you terribly.’
‘Lovely,’ said the cuddly wo
man, glad that at least someone was able to summon up enthusiasm for what lay ahead.
‘Now,’ said Mummy, ‘let us picture them in our minds. Let us imagine them as they once were, happy and full of life. Let us see Justine, Joe and Beryl. Let us fix an image of them in our minds.’
Anna had already done so based on what Mummy had told her earlier that evening. She brought Joe to mind first, imagining the small black and white photo she’d been shown.
‘He worked on the council,’ Mummy had said, ‘a grey man, a man of numbers and dust. He liked to smoke a pipe, his voice is low, quiet, used to the peace of libraries and empty offices.’
Anna lifted her hands to her mouth, cupping them just as Mummy had shown her, distorting her voice.
‘Ah …’ Mummy sighed and the darkness was complete, the candle blown out. ‘They come!’
‘Philip,’ said Anna, her voice low and masculine, the image of dead old Joe fixed firmly in mind, ‘is that you, Philip?’
‘My God!’ the thin man, said, ‘is that …?’
‘It’s hard to hear,’ said Mummy, ‘you’re so faint, Joe … it is you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Anna, a little louder now, ‘it’s me … is that Philip? Can you hear me, Philip?’
‘I can!’ the thin man replied, ‘Oh, Joe … I can barely hear you but it’s so good to know you’re there.’
‘I’m always with you,’ said Anna. ‘What are brothers for if they don’t look after each other?’
‘You always did, Joe,’ the thin man agreed, ‘you always did look after me. I miss you.’
‘I miss you too,’ said Anna before launching into the next bit of pre-prepared material, ‘and Valerie. How is Valerie?’
‘She’s fine, just fine, she’d have come tonight only … well …’
‘She doesn’t believe.’
‘No,’ the thin man admitted, ‘but wait till I tell her! I’ll make her believe, don’t you worry about that.’
‘It doesn’t matter, Philip, as long as you’re here. Family.’
The thin man laughed. ‘Yes, well … you never did quite see eye to eye, did you? She still misses you though.’
Anna continued the conversation for a few more minutes, working her way through subjects Mummy had already prepared. She talked about the recent breakdown of Philip’s car, of the new house he and his wife had bought, of the holiday to Greece they were planning. All information that had been easily retrieved by a quick raid through Philip’s credit card details. A couple of times she had to bite her lip to stop herself from giggling, it was going so well! The thin man really did think she was his brother and it certainly seemed to be making him happy to speak to her. Which was good. Anna liked to make people happy and if the thin man was happy then so was Mummy.
The cuddly woman came next and Anna pretended to be her long-lost friend Justine. This was an easy enough game as the cuddly woman hadn’t seen Justine since she was a child and therefore knew very little about her. Having chanced upon her obituary in a newspaper, the cuddly woman had been filled with nostalgia for sunny childhood summers and set out to renew their acquaintance beyond the grave. It was testament both to the woman’s gullibility and Anna’s performance that the two chatted happily for about five minutes. In fact, the only reason the conversation drew to a halt was because Mummy insisted upon it, claiming that the connection was becoming frail and that they would have to let Justine go for now.
‘Oh well,’ the cuddly woman had said, ‘we’ll catch up again soon, my lovely, now I know I can get in touch.’
Anna thought the cuddly woman was very funny; she acted as if she was calling up a friend on the telephone.
The dreamy man was next, wishing to speak to Beryl, his wife. For all his wishy-washy tones it was clear that the conversation affected him deeply. Anna felt very sorry for the dreamy man and wished she really was his beloved Beryl.
Then it was over and Anna could relax.
The lights came on and Mummy slowly led her guests from the room. Anna stayed where she was just in case they should return; it was no good having played the game so well only to lose at it now.
A couple of minutes later, she heard the front door slam and Mummy came back into the room.
The tablecloth lifted and Anna looked up at Mummy’s smiling face.
‘Mummy’s very pleased with you!’
Anna smiled, she couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy. Now she knew how to make Mummy happy she’d do it all the time!
‘Mummy might even let you have some ice cream as a special treat, would you like that?’
Anna nodded and crawled out from beneath the table so that she could stretch her legs.
As she stood up she felt a little dizzy and had to grab the back of one of the chairs to keep herself from falling over. She must have got up too quickly, she decided, that happened sometimes, it was nothing to worry about,
‘Nothing to worry about?’ asked the voice of Bad Father. ‘I’ll give you something to worry about.’
She looked around in panic. She hadn’t heard Bad Father for a long time. She’d hoped he was gone for good.
‘Don’t start that, my girl,’ said Mummy. ‘We’ve had enough voices for now.’
‘I’ll decide when I speak,’ said Bad Father, ‘or do I have to teach both of you bitches who’s boss?’
‘Right!’ Mummy shouted, ‘that’s that! No ice cream for you.’
Anna looked around, terrified and surrounded. Where was Bad Father? Sometimes you could see him when he talked, see his pink face, shining with sweat as he roared his law. Sometimes he was invisible, hiding on the inside.
‘Fuck you,’ said Bad Father and Anna could have cried to hear such language being directed at Mummy, she knew it would make her very cross indeed. Maybe even as cross as Bad Father. It looked like she might be, her face turning red as she dragged Anna out of the dining room and towards the cupboard under the stairs.
‘You can spend the night in there,’ she announced, ‘and like it!’
‘Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!’ screamed Bad Father and Anna wondered if he might suddenly appear and make Mummy be quiet. Bad Father liked making people quiet. He had told her often how it was done, whispering to her when she had been bad. Telling her stories in the dark.
Anna fell forwards into the darkness of the cupboard and the door was slammed shut behind her. Her knees were cut, she could feel them burning. They weren’t the only thing that simmered in the darkness.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ said Bad Father, ‘always such an argumentative little bitch. Such a waste of skin and air. I should just beat you until you learn to behave. Beat you until you’re dead. Then you’d be good, wouldn’t you? Dead girls don’t talk back! Dead girls haven’t got smart mouths! Dead girls just sit quietly.’
Anna was terrified and she tried to beat at the cupboard door but the thick soundproofing absorbed her blows.
She cried herself hoarse in the soft, padded prison, Bad Father whispering to her, until eventually, tired from his rages, he fell asleep.
‘Personalities?’ asked Probert, staring intently through the windscreen and trying to keep a clear view of the road ahead through the rain.
‘The shrinks called it multiple personality disorder.’
‘Schizophrenia?’
‘A schizophrenic hears voices; Anna actually becomes different people. She has a whole selection of personalities in her head, most of them based on people she met as a child. The worst of course, the most dangerous, is that of her father.
‘As a child he used to come a lot. She would suddenly stiffen and then that voice, the first voice I ever heard her make, would come out. It would be full of threats – for her as much as anyone else. Details about the things he’d done or the things he’d like to do. For some time I thought we’d never get rid of him.’
‘Then you asked her to dredge him back up to scare Father Goss.’ Probert was at a loss to describe the despair he felt at Aida Golding.
A woman so narrow-minded, so abominably selfish, he was by no means sure she fully appreciated the things she’d done to her foster child, or indeed any of them. ‘And you think that Anna, when under the control of this personality, is doing the killing?’
‘Who else could it be?’
‘Knowing you?’ Probert dug his nails into the steering wheel, ‘it could be almost anybody.’
When the doorbell rang, Sacha was in no hurry to answer it.
‘Let him get wet,’ she muttered to herself. ‘If he’s too stupid to take his keys with him then a soaking’s what he deserves.’
That wasn’t to mention Glen’s other crimes, of course, which were many. Sometimes she had to wonder why she continued to put up with him. Not only did he treat her like she was disposable but the rest of his weird family had no time for her either. It was enough to give a girl a complex. What made them so special?
All right, so Aida could talk to the dead, she supposed that was quite special. Bloody weird, though, and did it mean she was allowed to look down her nose at Sacha? No, it did not. You’d think a woman who could talk to dead people would be glad to talk to someone with breath in their lungs once in a while. You’d think she’d show a bit of politeness! The dead were better company, were they? Aida Golding certainly seemed to think so.
She made her slow and deliberate way down the stairs as the doorbell rang again.
‘I’m coming,’ she shouted, ‘just wait!’
She watched the shadow bob impatiently beyond the glass in the door. She could just imagine the things he was saying about her. The thought didn’t make her move any quicker. Maybe it really was time to ditch him.
She got to the front door and almost decided not to open it, so determined was she that she could do much better for herself without Glen in her life. Still, as she was in his house it was not like she had much choice.
‘What happened?’ she asked, unlatching the door. ‘Forgot your keys?’
It wasn’t Glen.
‘So what are we going to do?’ Probert asked, ‘and why do you need me?’