Veneer, obviously shrieking inside with ambitious glee, projected an exaggerated disdain that would come across on screen as woodenness. Gaye bubbled delight and enthusiasm, and kept bumping into things— either because the sudden career jump undid her spatial sense or she usually wore thick glasses that were left at home so she could dazzle with her Barbara-like eyes.
The quartet of interchangeables posed together. Veneer and Gaye wore Richard and Barbara’s original clothes. Richard and Barbara made do with Tara’s dupes.
“With my producer’s hat on, I have to say these are perfect.”
Squiers looked from the originals to the copies, meek but smug. From him, Richard sensed a species of hurt resentment that his racket had been tumbled, but also a belief that Marcus Squiers was the aggrieved and persecuted party, that he had every right to call on the Saturday Man for aid against those who would thwart his killing business. This was interesting, but beside the point—Richard was curious about the conjurer’s motives, but knew they weren’t important. Squiers thought he was home safe and the interlopers doomed. He was arrogant enough to play the “I know you know that I know you know” game and loiter to enjoy the show as his enemies were supposedly drawn deeper into his trap. Richard hoped that was a mistake.
Richard pinched his wrist and saw Veneer rub what he thought was a gnat bite.
The writing pack had also turned out and were circling, admiring the casting. As several photographers took thousands of exposures, writers tossed questions at Richard and Barbara, which often bounced off onto Veneer and Gaye, who were bewildered but kept up the mysterioso brooding and glossy smiling that were their single-note performances.
“Richard, do you get enough exorcise?”
“Barbara, what crept into the crypt and crapped?”
“Richard, have you ever laid a ghost?”
“Barbara, what’s the best recipe for ectoplasm omelette?”
Mama-Lou watched, from a distance. Richard caught her eye, and she winked. Blessings of Erzulie Freda. That was a comfort.
After an age, it was over. Lionel shooed away the photographers, and Veneer and Gaye were ushered off to the Makeup Department.
“They have to get head casts made,” said Lionel.
That was a significant clue as to what Squiers had in mind for Roget and Canberra. A brace of severed heads should be ready for the episode to be broadcast tomorrow week.
Richard’s neck itched. It was thewrong collar.
The props department were calling in axes from the warehouse, to give Gerard Loss a selection to choose from.
Next, Richard had an important interview. In June O’Dell’s trailer.
* * * *
XIII
Tuesday’s episode climaxed with the Bleeds Bogey manifesting a full-on telekinetic storm in Mavis Barstow’s lounge. Objects were hurled through the air on dozens of fishing lines, and Ben sank to his knees pleading for mercy as invisible forces lashed his face.
For a brief shot that took longer to set up than the rest of the episode, Dudley Finn had makeup scars applied, with flesh-coloured sticking plasters fixed over them—when the plasters were torn away by fishing lines, Ben had claw marks on his face. Then, as Mavis shouted defiance at her late husband, the doors were torn off their hinges, a flood of dry ice fog-smoke-mist-ectoplasm poured onto the set and cleared to show Leslie Veneer and Gaye Brough posed in the doorway as if hoping for a spin-off series. Loss needed a dozen takes before he was browbeaten by Marcus Squiers—with his producer’s hat on, tapping his watch as the shoot edged ever-nearer the dreaded and never-embraced “Golden Time” when union rules insisted the crew’s wages tripled—into accepting Veneer’s reading of Roget Masterman’s introductory line, “Avaunt, Spirit of Evil ... we’ve come about your bogeys, Mrs. Barstow, and not a moment too soon!”
Having been on set during the taping, and even smarmily consulted on the finer points of psychokinesis by an unctuous Squiers, Richard felt he could skip the transmission. His associates were back at the guest house, watching the programme for him.
Inspector Price had said it would be easy to break into the Bank of England while The Northern Barstows was on the air. It was certainly easy to slip into the studio where the show was made. Almost everyone connected with the programme was at home in front of the telly, fuming about the way June O’Dell had stepped on their lines or taking notes for the 7.00 a.m. postmortem in the writers’ pit the next morning.
Wearing Marcus Squiers’ producer’s hat and a long drab coat, Richard felt like a walking manifestation of the Bleeds Bogey. He stalked through the car park and approached the stage door, which should have been accidentally left unlocked. No lozenge-filching had been required.
When the door gave at his push, he was relieved. Mama-Lou was off her fence. The revelation about Tara, who was after the top job in Wardrobe, had fully committed the woman to their cause.
She was a believer, not a priestess—but belief was what this was all about.
Barbara reported that the writers had been forthcoming in discussing Thursday’s episode, asking her parapsychology questions she had to invent answers for, but reticent when it came to next Tuesday’s, confirming to Richard’s satisfaction that Roget and Canberra were due for the chop then. Leslie Veneer, who now had an agent again, and Gaye Brough, who was hoping for the cover of the TV Times, didn’t yet know how short-lived their stardom was due to be.
So, it all came down to next Tuesday’s episode—which had already been written, in semisecret, by Marcus Squiers, independent of the pack. Barbara had asked around tactfully and discovered this was standard procedure for shows with major plot developments—and, also, obviously, when Squiers was using his video voodoo to kill people. The floor taping was due on Friday, with special effects pickup shots (decapitations?) scheduled for Monday morning.
That gave Richard a weekend to counter the spell. He trusted making television was as easy as it looked. After a few days hanging round the production team, he thought he could wear all their hats. But he still needed help from inside the enemy camp.
It was dark on the stage. His night-senses took moments to adjust.
Someone clapped and lights came up.
He was in the middle of Mavis Barstow’s lounge. Prop objects were strewn everywhere, tossed by the Bogey. Cards stuck to them warned against violating continuity by moving anything.
“Mama-Lou,” he called out.
His voice came back to him.
He sensed something wrong. Other people were here, whom he had not expected, who weren’t part of his deal.
Strong hands gripped his arms. Two sets.
He bent over and threw one of the men over his shoulder with an aikido move, then sank a nasty knee into the other’s goolies. Thanks to Bruce Lee and David Carradine, everyone accepted what British schoolboys used to call “dirty fighting” as an ancient, noble and religious art form. Richard realised he had just floored the Tank Top Twins. They rolled and fell and groaned and hopped, but had enough presence of mind—or fear of the consequences—not to disturb any labelled props. They got over their initial hurt and came at him, more seriously. Richard brought up his fists, and thought through six ways of semipermanently disabling two larger, younger, stupider opponents within the next minute and a half.
“Leave them alone,” said a woman. “They’re expensive.”
The instruction was for him, but it made the twins stand down and back away. Richard opened his fists and made a monster-clutch gesture while doing a ghost moan. They flinched.
“Was that necessary?” he asked the woman.
“Now I know you can take care of yourself,” said the woman. “Good.”
June O’Dell, Mavis Barstow, stood on the set as if it were really her home. In slippers, she barely came up to the mantelpiece, but still seemed to fill any spare space. Richard fancied she looked younger tonight, with a little colour in her cheeks that might have come from digesting Emma. Ghost-eaters could do that, often witho
ut even knowing how they retained their youthful blush. She wore a filmy muu-muu with mandarin sleeves, diamonds at her ears and around her throat. Mama-Lou was with June, wearing a white bikini bottom augmented by a mass of necklaces, armlets, anklets, bracelets and a three-pointed tiara surmounted with the skulls of a shrew, a crow and a pike. Maybe she was more than just a believer
The twins faded into the shadows.
“I’ve been thinking about what you suggested to me the other day about Marcus’ sideline, Mr. Jeperson,” said June. “It was hard to believe.”
“Was?”
“It answers so many questions. I knew Marcus was up to something sneaky. I just didn’t imagine it could be sounusual. Such a betrayal of the sacred trust between creative artist and the audience.”
“It’s dangerous to use the Saturday Man,” said Mama-Lou. “Be times, the Saturday Man wind up usin’ you.”
“Don’t make excuses for the wretched clot, Louise. He was always a worm!”
Richard took off the cap Mama-Lou had given him.
“Ugh. Ghastly thing,” said June.
Mama-Lou took the cap back, reverentially. It had to become a sacred object.
Richard went to the mantelpiece. All the framed photographs and trinkets had been distributed across the set by the poltergeist, save for Da Barstow’s urn—which issued green smoke when it became obvious who the Bogey was. The eyes of the portrait had burned like hot coals. Richard saw where red bulbs had been set into the picture.
He took the urn and twisted off the top.
Screwed up inside were dozens of used cue cards.
“Marcus’ words,” said June. “This is where he gets to choke on them.”
The twins came back, stepping cautiously. They had fetched a rusty barbeque from the props vault. It usually sat on the obviously indoor set of Ben Barstow’s back garden.
Richard lifted the grille and poured the cue cards into the pan.
“You bring what I tol’ you?” Mama-Lou asked June.
June snapped her fingers, and a twin handed over a brown paper bag.
Mama-Lou looked inside and smiled.
She emptied the bag onto the crumpled cards. Nail clippings, a still-damp handkerchief, bristles shaved off a toothbrush, blood-dotted Kleenex.
“Obviously, you can’t get hair from a bald man,” said June. “But Marcus never learned to shave. I think his Mummy did it until he married me, and he expected I would take over. No wonder it didn’t last. Blood is better than hair, you said?”
“Blood is good, Miss June,” said Mama-Lou.
“Will you do the honours, Mama-Lou?” Richard asked, bowing.
“Indeed I will. This is my religion, an’ I despise what’s been done wit’ it.”
She had a box of Swan Vesta matches caught between her thigh and the tie of her bikini bottom. She took the box and rattled the matches.
“Erzulie Freda, we call you to the flame,” she said, looking up.
Mama-Lou was dancing to unheard music. Her necklaces—which were strung with beads, feathers, items of power, bones and tiny carvings— rattled and bounced against her dark, lithe torso.
The set lights went down—it wasn’t magic; one of the twins was at the dimmer switch. June snapped her fingers, banishing her familiars—who had orders to stand guard outside. In the darkness, Mama-Lou struck a match. The single flame grew, swelling around the match head, burning down the matchstick, almost to her enamelled nails. She dropped the match onto the pile of combustibles, humming to herself. The flame caught.
“Hocus pocus mucus Marcus,” improvised June.
Mama-Lou slapped her shoulders, breasts, hips and thighs, with gestures Richard had seen performed by warlocks, witches and morris dancers. She added certain herbs to the fire, filling the studio with a rich, pungent, not-unpleasant musk. Mama-Lou shook herself into a trance, channelling her patron, Erzulie Freda. She invoked others of her island pantheon, reciting the “Litanie des Saints.” Damballah Wedo, Lord Shango, Papa Legba.
And Baron Samedi. The Saturday Man.
When the barbeque was fully alight, Richard laid the producer’s hat into the bed of flames.
They watched until everything was burned down to ashes.
Then they filled the urn.
Richard fastened the lid.
“Now, the seal of Erzulie Freda,” announced Mama-Lou. She surprised June O’Dell with a deep, open-mouthed kiss and then applied herself to Richard with nips and an agile tongue. The Wardrobe Mistress’ personal loa was the Haitian goddess of love and sensuality. He would have to admit he knew how ceremonies performed under the patronage of Erzulie Freda were traditionally concluded.
Mama-Lou pulled him and June towards Mavis Barstow’s enormous Fresian cowhide three-piece suite, elbows crooked around their necks, lips active against their faces. She had a lot of strength in her arms. This development came as something of a shock to June, but Mama-Lou whispered something to her in French which made reservations evaporate. The actress became as light on her feet as she was on her platform skates and slipped busy fingers inside Richard’s shirt.
He remembered the star’s hunger, and the consequences for unwary ghosts. He must be careful not to let her leech away too much of him. She had used up the best part of her husband, literally. But Mama-Lou was strong too, with a different kind of hunger, a different kind of need.
Two bodies, one very pale, one very black, wound around him and each other. And two spirits, burning inside the bodies, pulled at him.
When he told Barbara about the evening, he would tactfully omit this next stage of the ritual.
He checked the cameras with quick glances. They were hooded. The red recording lights were off.
Which was a mercy.
June and Mama-Lou impatiently helped him off with his trousers. Richard thought of England, then remembered he wasn’t actually English.
* * * *
XIV
Vanessa, of course, saw what had happened in an instant, and held it over him all week, exacting numerous favours. She obviously told Fred, and he went around looking at his “guv’nor” with envious awe. Richard was not entirely comfortable with his own behaviour, and took care to be exceptionally solicitous to Barbara, which—later on the night in question—involved a fairly heroic effort in their shared bedroom. He put his evident success down to the lingering effect of Mama-Lou’s voodoo herbs rather than the strength of his own amative constitution. Now he was glad, not only that he had not been found out by the Professor, but that a night spent with her had followed his hour or so under the spell of Erzulie Freda.
Being open to the feelings of others often led him into choppy waters, and he was not about to excuse himself on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He accepted the less admirable, very male, elements of his makeup, and determined to rein them in more effectively. The Swinging Sixties were over, and this ought to be the Sensible (or at least, the Sober) Seventies. Besides, he could self-diagnose the symptoms and knew he was falling in love with Barbara Corri.
It was his gift to know how other people felt. All the time. Without fail. But with one exception. He could tell when a woman was attracted to him. He could tell when she was infuriated with him and performing a supernatural feat by concealing it from the world. But he could not tell if a woman he loved even liked him. If Barbara was in love with him, she’d have to come straight out and say so. Even then, he was no more able to tell if she meant it than anyone else in the world could. It struck him that this blind spot was probably the one thing, along with his unique upbringing under the aegis of the Diogenes Club, that prevented him from becoming a monster.
Too many people with talents went bad.
Look at Marcus Squiers. Obviously, the fellow had some raw abilities, or he’d never have been able to co-opt the arcana to a criminal venture. He could have used the influence ofThe Northern Barstows over the viewing public for good. Or he could have left well enough alone and concentrated on making better TV pr
ogrammes.
The Man from the Diogenes Club - [Diogenes Club 01] Page 28