Atmosphere

by Robert Innes

  “Because yours had something the first one didn’t have,” Blake said. “A back door. There was no need for one on the original cabinet, because Sebastian liked to show his audience how impossible his illusion really was and had a mirror showing the back at all times. That was where I started to join the pieces together. What was the point in the back door? We’d be able to see. Unless, of course, the audience on the night of your great disappearance, wasn’t seeing what we thought we were. Unbeknown to Sebastian Klein, there was another magic trick going on right underneath his nose. The thing that really made me start to realise what might be going on was the shoes that my boyfriend found in the bottom of the cabinet when he was doing some amateur detecting of his own. The high heeled ones you were wearing for the performance. Big, clunky, statement shoes, all to match your costume. But they would have made way too much noise when you made your big escape, so they had to be left behind in favour of the black plimsols , the same ones you were wearing in the kidnap videos. Much quieter, and, just as importantly, black.”

  Benjamin and Amelia exchanged nervous looks and nodded.

  Blake just smiled.

  “I said all along that the secrets to magic normally happen thanks to whoever is hidden from view, whether that be in a cabinet, a box, or behind a curtain. And there was a lot happening behind the doors of the cabinet once it had started being suspended in the air. In fact there was a complete costume change going on, because you needed to make yourself look completely invisible once you got out of there.”

  Amelia nodded. “Wow. It’s no wonder Sebastian wanted your opinion on the trick in the first place, but yeah. I had everything hidden in the secret compartment of the cabinet. Black leggings, black hoody, a black balaclava to go over the whole of my head, just in case.”

  “The same one I used when I was being her ‘kidnapper’ in the videos,” Benjamin added.

  “Most of it just went over the top of my costume,” Amelia continued. “Except the shoes, which I had to leave in the cabinet. We didn’t think anybody would really make much of them though.”

  “Except, it didn’t make all that much sense that you weren’t wearing the shoes in the videos,” Blake told them. “You had the rest of your costume on, but why had you changed your shoes?

  “Anyway, against a black curtain, you could sneak out completely undetected once the audience was too distracted by smoke flashes and the question of where the hell you had gone. And then, the pièce de résistance. Even with all that going on inside the box, how do you get out the back without the audience seeing you in the mirror? Answer, because what the audience was looking at wasn’t a mirror for the whole of the trick. Because those videos of you all tied up had more answers in them than I even realised. Firstly, I’m guessing, that you filmed them under the stage?”

  Despite their obvious nerves, both Amelia and Benjamin laughed.

  “Yeah,” Benjamin said. “All at once, on the morning of the first show. We knew what our plan was, we’d send them to Sebastian on an old phone that he couldn’t trace back to us, let him sweat a bit, and then send each one when the time was right. We dressed it up a bit, otherwise it would be blatantly obvious where it had been filmed.”

  “And secondly, and more importantly, the fact that to make videos, you need a camera. And cameras take both videos and still images. And that’s exactly what we were looking at. A still image. Just a photograph that was the same size of the mirror taken of the right angle of the back of the cabinet.”

  “It was a nightmare getting it all put into place,” Benjamin said. “It was worth it though. I had to be at the village hall late at night, early in the morning, just to make sure that it all worked, and then we had to go through it, rehearse it so that the timing of it all was just perfect. It wasn’t easy getting Mel away from him, but we managed it. Of course, there was still a risk on the actual night that it could all go wrong but we kind of had to chance it. I persuaded that parish councillor to give me a spare set of keys for the hall. Took a lot of inner strength not to kick two rounds of crap out of him once I realised that he was another of Sebastian’s clients, but it was worth it.”

  “So, when you were back stage, operating the winch that lifted the cabinet up, you were also operating the mirror and the picture?”

  “They were both on a pulley system so that it could just be flipped over at the right moment,” Benjamin told him. “The first flash of smoke is supposed to make it all just look more dramatic, because that’s the kind of cheesy performer Sebastian is, but it gave me the chance to pull the rope to flip the mirror over.”

  “I’m inside the cabinet, doing the trick as it’s meant to be done,” Amelia continued. “The front doors open, the audience sees its empty, and Sebastian gets his round of applause. Then, as soon as the front doors were closed, I climbed out the back, hung onto the edges and then jumped down once it was low enough for me to be able to just slip away through the black curtains.”

  “Then she just ran for it, out the fire exit, went to my house and waited,” Benjamin concluded. “The rest was easy. Everybody in the audience, and Sebastian, was too busy thinking she had really disappeared to notice the mirror flipping over again. All I had to do then was come and sort it all out when the coast was clear. I forgot about the shoes though. Ultimately though, I guess it was all done with smoke and mirrors, just ten times better than he could ever have done.”

  Blake smiled. For a few moments, they sat in silence, the only sound coming from the rain hammering down on the windscreen.

  “We’re sorry we’ve caused you all this trouble,” Amelia said. “But I had to get out. We figured, five grand, which I knew he had, we could split it and get far away from here.”

  “You might not have got the money,” Blake said. “Let me assure you though, that it’s all over now. Sebastian Klein is never going to be able to get to either of you ever again, and neither are any of his friends.”

  “How much trouble are we actually in then?” Benjamin asked.

  Blake glanced at Amelia through his rear-view mirror as he started the car and they began driving back to Harmschapel. She had leant back in her seat, watching the countryside fly by the window. For her, the nightmare was over and she had Benjamin to thank for it.

  “Did you kill anybody?” Blake asked quietly.

  “No,” replied Benjamin.

  “Did you attack anybody?”

  “No.”

  “Did you actually kidnap anybody?”

  “No.”

  “And did you actually manage to get any money out of anybody?”

  “No, unfortunately.”

  Blake nodded. As Harmschapel came into view, he looked at the pair of them once more through his rear-view mirror. They were smiling, Blake suspected, for the first time, properly, since this hell had begun.

  “Then maybe some of the potential charges you might have could disappear.”

  Amelia frowned at him. “How?”

  Blake just shrugged. “Magic.”

  Two Days Later

  Harrison looked up at Blake as he climbed back into the car.

  “Thanks for waiting,” Blake said as he put his seatbelt on.

  “Like I wouldn’t,” Harrison replied. “How did it go today?”

  Blake shrugged. “Not bad. Linda reckons I’m making progress. She’s convinced that I need a break from work, which, let’s be honest, I do. She thinks all these dreams have been triggered by the traumatic events I keep facing at work. I might not have had to deal with any murders recently, but a creepy magician running his own sex ring basically comes under the category of stress.”

  Harrison nodded as they began driving back towards Harmschapel.

  “Yeah, I’d say it probably does. But listen, it’s your last day tomorrow, then you get two weeks off.”

  Blake exhaled in relief. “Yeah. I cannot wait to see Sally. Her birthday can not come quick enough. You’ve seen the amount of gin she puts away. You think that’s going to be any
different just because she’s hitting thirty? I don’t think so.”

  “Good,” Harrison replied. “I just wish I could come with you.”

  Blake put his hand on Harrison’s thigh and squeezed it. “I know. Linda thinks that the break will do us both good though. You won’t have to be worrying about me all the time, you’ll probably sleep better without me tossing and turning next to you. I’ll be around my old stomping ground for a couple of weeks, I’ll come back a new man. That’s the plan anyway.”

  Harrison nodded, holding back the comment he was going to make that he did not mind Blake keeping him awake if it meant that they were communicating more. He knew that Blake was fully aware. Deep down, Harrison was confident that no matter what Blake was dreaming about, together they could get through it.

  As they arrived back in Harmschapel, Harrison pointed at the bus stop near the entrance to the village.

  “Isn’t that Matti?”

  Blake sighed. “Yeah. What the hell is he doing at the bus stop at this time of night?”

  “Judging by the number of bags he’s got with him, I’d say he’s off somewhere himself,” Harrison said. “Do you think Mini has chucked him out?”

  “Yeah,” replied Blake flatly. “I would guess that she has. Nothing that he doesn’t deserve.”

  “Come on, Blake,” Harrison replied. “He’s a friend. And he’s one of your officers. He needs help.”

  Blake rolled his eyes and shook his head, then with a resigned tut and turned the steering wheel towards Mattison.

  He was sitting in the bus stop looking utterly miserable and did not seem to notice them until Blake had stopped the car right by him and wound the window down.

  “Going somewhere?” Blake asked him wryly.

  Mattison shrugged. “I guess. Mini told me to go. I can’t say I blame her.”

  “No,” replied Blake. “Neither can I.”

  Harrison tapped Blake on the wrist and gave him an imploring look.

  “You know, Matti, I don’t think it’s the best idea for you to be hanging around here. You know what this village can be like when there’s a bit of scandal.”

  “I don’t think it’s the best idea for me to be anywhere at the minute,” Mattison said sullenly.

  “Oh, shut up you berk. Get in.”

  Mattison looked up in surprise. “Huh?”

  “You heard. Stick your bags in the boot. You can come stay at ours with Harrison while I’m away. Give the goat somebody new to pick on.”

  “With you?” Mattison asked, looking incredibly touched. “I couldn’t ask you to do that, Sir.”

  “Well, what’s your alternative?” Harrison called.

  Mattison looked at the floor again. “Not a lot.”

  “Well, then stop feeling sorry for yourself and get in the back of this car before I change my mind,” Blake replied curtly. “If you think I’m having an officer of mine sleeping in a shop doorway, you’re very much mistaken.”

  Mattison gave them a small smile, which Harrison took to be an attempt at humbleness and then began loading his bags into the back of the car.

  Harrison linked his arm with Blake’s.

  “Thank you. You’re a good guy.”

  Blake shrugged. “I’m off to Manchester, you’re the one who’s dealing with him. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Harrison said. “Two weeks to sort Matti and Mini out? Child’s play.”

  Blake grinned back at him as Mattison clambered into the back of the car and shut the door.

  “Thank you,” he said in a quiet voice.

  Harrison turned in his seat to face him. “You can drop the poor me act for a start, Matti. You know why you’re here.”

  “I know.”

  “What the hell possessed you, you stupid man?” Blake asked him as they began driving along the road towards Juniper cottage. “You and Mini are great together.”

  Mattison shrugged. “I just got flattered, that’s all. I’m not saying it was Lisa’s fault for a second, she knew it was wrong just as much as I did. And it only happened the once.”

  “The night you were caught in that photograph?” Harrison asked him.

  Mattison nodded.

  “Think that’s what they call karma, my friend,” Blake told him.

  “I’m going to get her back, Sir,” Mattison said firmly. “I don’t care how long it takes me, what I have to do. I love Mini.”

  Blake shrugged as they arrived outside the cottage and stopped the car. Then, he turned in his seat and glared at Mattison intently.

  “I don’t like people that cheat in relationships, Matti. I don’t give a toss what Fox’s involvement is, as far as I’m concerned, this is all on you. You’ve wrecked Mini’s trust, broken her heart and if you really mean it when you say you want to fix things, then you have got one hell of a job on your hands.”

  “I do mean it,” Mattison said, his eyes wide. “I really do. I’ve been an absolute idiot.”

  Harrison nodded. “You said it. You’re more than welcome to come stay with me and Betty while Blake’s away, because you’re a mate. But so is Mini. So don’t think you’ll be getting any sympathy for what you’ve done.”

  Mattison nodded again, looking suitably chastised.

  Blake passed Mattison the keys from the ignition.

  “Front door keys are on there. Get your stuff in the house and we’ll sort out the sofa bed for you.”

  Mattison took the keys from him.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled, then got out of the car and opened the boot.

  “Get you,” Blake said, grinning at Harrison. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “I learnt from the best,” Harrison replied.

  They kissed and then got out of the car, Blake immediately grabbing the remainder of Mattison’s bags and taking them inside the cottage.

  Harrison was just about to follow when he saw Tom walking down the street towards his own cottage across the road. Harrison glanced over his shoulder to make sure that Blake was staying indoors, then took a deep breath and strolled towards Tom.

  Tom raised an eyebrow when he spotted Harrison walking towards him.

  “Evening,” he said. “Come to have another go?”

  “Not at all,” Harrison replied. “I just thought I’d let you know that it didn’t work.”

  “What didn’t work?”

  “Your little plan to call the papers to try and get Blake more stressed. Actually, from what I’ve heard, that ultimately helped to put the whole thing to bed. If anything, you made Blake’s life a lot easier.”

  Tom rolled his eyes, looking irritated. “I’m so glad. Are we done?”

  “How’s ‘F’?” Harrison asked innocently. “Still ringing you every day?”

  Immediately, Tom’s mouth tightened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Harrison. Just remember, I don’t have a problem with you, quite the opposite. Which is why I’ll give you a friendly warning. Back off asking me questions about that. It won’t play out well for you.”

  “Oh, is that a threat?”

  Tom gave him a dark smile. “No. It’s really not.”

  Harrison hoped that he did not appear as unnerved as he felt.

  “You might find out. One day,” Tom said with a shrug. “Until then, try and keep your nose out.” As he had done before, Tom straightened Harrison’s collar.

  Harrison pulled away. “Just leave Blake alone. I don’t know what your problem is with him and I don’t care. He’s bigger and scarier than you’ll ever be, Tom. Whatever weird little thoughts are going on in that head of yours, they won’t do you any good.”

  Tom merely smirked again. “We’ll see. Night night.”

  He crossed the road and walked into his cottage without another word. As he slammed the door behind him, Harrison was left alone, shivering. He was unsure if it was down purely to the cold.

  It was three AM. The whole of Harmschapel was always silent this time of night, only
the sound of whatever weather was passing over at the time and the occasional screech from an owl from one of the trees ever disturbed the peace.

  Tonight, however, a door creaked open and then closed with a snap. Then, the sound of footsteps echoed up the street.

  Tom was walking away from his cottage and strolling down the road, his mobile tight to his ear. He did not want his mother to hear any part of this conversation.

  “He’s going away,” Tom said to his caller. “Back to Manchester apparently.”

  “Excellent,” said a cold voice in his ear. “That couldn’t be more opportune. I take it nobody knows who you are? Everything is still being kept quiet?”

  “No, of course not,” Tom replied as he put his other hand in his pocket. “Nobody has a clue.”

  “Good,” said the voice. “It needs to stay that way. Blake Harte must never know about our connection.”

  “He won’t,” Tom said.

  Then, he quickly turned his head and looked back down the street. For a moment, he could have sworn he heard footsteps coming up behind him. After a moment, he was satisfied he could see nothing and returned to his call.

  “I’m proud of you,” the voice continued. “You’ve done well. I am pleased to call you my son.”

  “Thank you,” Tom said with a smile. “I’m doing everything I can. Every move, anything he does, just as you asked for. You need to be careful with ringing me so much though. His boyfriend, Harrison, he’s getting suspicious.”

  “In what way?”

  “He saw your call screen. Don’t worry, it only says ‘F,’ so he doesn’t have a clue. Maybe we should arrange times to speak though. Surely, you’ve got to be careful too. Prison can’t be an easy place to hide a mobile phone constantly.”

  “I have my methods, don’t worry about that,” replied Tom’s father. “Is he still having his dreams?”

  “Yeah. I reckon you’re probably haunting him, without even doing anything,” Tom said, with a chuckle.

  “I’d hope so.”

  “I’d love to see you soon.” Tom said, hoping for even a grain of affection.

  “Patience. First Harte, then we can do the father, son thing.”