The Cold Calling Part 32

Cindy smiled and helped himself to another vol-auvent.

'Well, n.o.body ever spoke to Edna Cadwallader like that before. A headmistress commanded respect, see. So the strap never came off the nail, but Edna never spoke to Tommy again for the rest of his life. The farmhouse was divided into two. They say you can still feel the change in the atmosphere to this day when you walk from Tommy's half into Edna's half.'

'Well, well,' Cindy said. No need to guess which half Mrs Willis's Healing Room was in. Or was it? Perhaps she'd healed the house too.

'And the two halves ... well, that happened in the village as well. Those who supported Tommy ... and the so-called G.o.d-fearing half who were on Edna's side. Or didn't dare not to be. It was like a feud. A silent feud. A ... what's the word?'

'Schism?'

'Prob'ly, aye. Family against family. Hard to credit, but this is a tiny little village.' Amy looked up. 'Are you trying to threaten me, Ruthie Walters?'

'Get out of it, woman,' an old man in a flat cap said. 'It was somethin' an' nothin'.'

'Oh, there was a truce,' Amy told Cindy. 'And the terms were that the whole thing was forgotten. So, to this day, n.o.body mentions Annie Davies's vision.'

'Weren't her fault, though,' the old man said.

'That's why there was such a turn-out this afternoon,' Amy said. 'No hard feelings, Annie.'

'Now, you can say that, Fred,' Ruthie Walters said. 'But whatever powers that old woman had, I'm telling you, it wasn't Christian.'

'Course it was Christian, woman. Look at Lettie Pritchard's shingles. You go an' ask her if it wasn't Christian to have her shingles took from her, her as sung in the church choir for forty-five year.'

'See,' Amy said. 'Can of worms.'

'No!' Marcus said. 'Whatever it is ... no! I'm going to get p.i.s.sed in my study and then I'm going to bed. The only person I want to speak to is a b.l.o.o.d.y decent estate agent, and as that's probably a contradiction in terms it doesn't arise.'

Maiden blocked his way to the study. 'I just think you should speak to this person. Big Mysteries are involved.'

'I'm sure,' Marcus said sourly.

'Her name's Grayle Underhill. She's from New York. She-'

'York?'

'New York.'

'A b.l.o.o.d.y American. Had a b.l.o.o.d.y American woman on the phone last week. Insane. Gabbled.'

'That was me, Mr Bacton.' Grayle Underhill came out of the study, carrying a tumbler with an inch of Scotch, looking very small inside the borrowed sweatshirt. 'I called you about my sister. In the dreaming experiment? At Black Knoll?'

'High Knoll.' Marcus glared at her. 'Is that my f.u.c.king whisky?'

When Marcus Bacton pulled out this leather-bound photo alb.u.m, Grayle got cold feet.

'Listen, say I ... Just say I do recognize her. I could be lying. How would you know I'm not lying?'

'I'll know if you're lying,' Marcus said. 'Thirty years of interrogating b.a.s.t.a.r.d schoolboys. World's most adroit liar, the schoolboy.'

It was nearly six p.m., going dark early. In the lamplight, Marcus's study was like something out of The Wind in the Willows. Flames in the gla.s.s-fronted woodstove. Shadows leaping up columns of books and everything misshapen and kind of organic, as if the furniture had grown out of the thick walls.

She took the alb.u.m onto her knees. Part of her didn't want to do this.

'OK.' She opened the alb.u.m.

'Fortunately' Marcus poured himself more whisky 'the pictures aren't captioned or anything, and there are a lot of little kids in there, as you'll see.'

'I'm kinda scared to look.'

'Where did you get this?' said the guy with the eyepatch Marcus called Maiden.

'Mrs Willis's. To be honest, I pinched it in case any of the relatives tried to claim it. It's all we have, you see. The only picture.'

'I can't believe I'm doing this,' Grayle said. 'All these years of writing about people claiming they saw ghosts. I just can't believe I saw ... Did you ever? Mr Bacton?'

'Sore point,' Maiden said.

'I mean, I read hundreds of books, interviewed all these psychics and mediums. I knew if ever I saw a ghost, no way was I gonna be scared because of course a ghost is just a trick of the atmosphere, a memory imprint. Like, you see an old movie on TV and it's Errol Flynn and you know he's dead, you don't go, Waaaah! That's a dead guy! Because although I personally cannot imagine how a plastic box can bring a dead guy into my apartment, I know there are people who can, so that's all right. And so I think ... I think I lost the point. Am I burbling here? Am I gabbling? '

Turning the stiff card pages, peering back down a sepia century. Past men in wing collars, ladies in droopy hats. Men in baggy pants tied up with string, standing under haystacks. A line-up of small children.

Both of them watching her. Marcus with his soft bow tie and his gla.s.ses on the end of his nose. The comical dog called Malcolm watching too, through misaligned eyes. Everything completely still except for her hands turning the pages.

'If you don't find her,' Marcus said, 'it doesn't invalidate your experience. If any of this was simple ...'

But she could tell his tone was forced; Marcus was trying to keep emotion out of his voice. And Grayle was scared to look into the eyes of the children in the alb.u.m. Although she knew, anyway, that the eyes were unlikely to help her, on account of none of them would be either wet with tears or flat and dead.

Lights shone in the window. Car sounds outside. Maiden stood up.

'Probably b.l.o.o.d.y Lewis back,' Marcus said. 'Don't let her in.'

And just then Grayle turned over a page and her hands sprang back from the alb.u.m.

'Red BMW. Oh my G.o.d, it's ... Oh, Christ.'

'Oh G.o.d,' Grayle said.

'Underhill ... ?' Marcus leaning urgently towards her.

'Oh Jesus. I can't believe this. This is, like ...'

Marcus staring hard at her, searching her face for any sign that she was lying.

XXIX.

Below them, St Mary's was a smudge on the bronze evening sky. How could he possibly have forgotten about this?

'I can't believe you're living in a place like this,' the blonde said.

Not having rushed out to embrace him or anything like that. Or left the car at all. Hardly looked at him, in fact, as the red BMW spurted dirt getting them out of the farmyard.

'Well, I like places like this,' Bobby Maiden said. 'Quiet, lonely places.'

'Very weird.' She relaxed, checked her speed. 'Wouldn't want to get stopped by your little Welsh colleagues.'

'We're still in England.'

'Not for long. Always safer to go abroad, I tend to think.' She pulled up at the junction outside the pub. 'I'm confused now. How do I get back on the main road?'

'Just carry on through the village, turn left, keep going. This is possibly a naive question, but what's with the blond wig?'

'You don't like it? A bit Marilyn, maybe? Nah. Maybe not. Truth of it is, I've been tailed, Bobby.'

'You sure?'

'Of course I'm b.l.o.o.d.y sure.'

'Who?'

'Well, it didn't have a blue light, but ...'

'b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.'

'Pa would've gone berserk. Straight to Riggs. That would never do. So I didn't tell him. Anyway, you start taking this seriously, you lose your b.l.o.o.d.y marbles.'

'Too late,' Maiden said.

'For you maybe. Nothing wrong with me, sunshine.' Emma Curtis drove slowly down into the village. 'Gawd, you forget there are still places like this. That a Black Cat cigarette sign over the shop? This is not my car either, by the way. Hired. Mate of Vic's. A gem, that guy. Takes an almost paternal interest.'

'Good,' Maiden said.

A silence. Nightfall nuzzled the high hedges on either side.

Em put the headlights on. 'It's not good, actually, is it, Bobby?'

'Shows they're worried, not sure which way to jump. What's Tony's position?'

'Saying nothing. But I suspect, in the blackness of his heart of hearts, even he wants you popped now.'

'Popped? '

'Killed, then. Killed. All right?'

'Absolutely fine.'

'You know what I really wish? I wish he'd retire to Spain like any normal ... businessman. He's looking old. Not well.'

'That an option? Some contingency plan there?'

'Not for me to say, Bobby.'

'You can say what you like to me, love, I'm out of it now.'

'Or perhaps,' Em said, 'just biding your time until you can come back with enough to screw down Riggs and Pa in the same coffin and cover yourself with commendations?'

'You'd like that?'

'Riggs? Sure. Stake through the heart, whatever. Pa retirement, don't you think? I mean, he hasn't done anything really bad. '

'What? '

'Well, he hasn't!'

'So, you'll tell the junkies, then. And the dead junkies' parents. And the small-timers who were fitted up to get them out of the picture. How they all seriously misjudged Father Tony of Calcutta Street. Em, you ever think maybe your old man lies to you a lot?'

She trod on the brakes so hard the BMW stalled and a Land Rover coming up behind had to swerve into the hedge.

'All right.' Hands flying off the wheel. 'No more. Change of subject.'

'You want us to be ordinary people?'

'We can do that, can't we? One night?'

He saw her face in the headlights of the Land Rover behind.

In the silly blonde wig.

'Course we can,' Maiden said.

Almost believing it.

Confirmation.

Even the G.o.dd.a.m.n dress was the same, with the print flowers. Looked faded, worn-not blue, sepia in the picture, obviously, but it was the G.o.dd.a.m.n same dress. The hair wasn't in plaits, but it looked like the same hair, and the eyes ...

The eyes weren't dead, but they weren't laughing either. Weren't laughing, even then.

Grayle felt as if she'd been attached to some kind of emotional vacuum pump.

'Listen,' she said earnestly, straw-clutching. 'This could be a delusion. Like that explanation they have for deja vu? Like, you see something and your mind does this kind of double take so that the first image, even though it happened only a fraction of a second ago, it's become part of your memory and you recall it like it was years ago or maybe in another life. Yeah?'