A Ghost in the Machine (28 page)

“That is correct,” replied Ava. “I saw and heard him very clearly. He gave me his name and described the scene of his death in great detail. The strange machines, the towering walls. The person who killed him was present but only as a shape surrounded by mist. Unfortunately, just as it was beginning to clear there was a disturbance in what is laughingly called the real world—a child crying—and the spirit of Mr. Brinkley vanished.”

“Just like that?”

“They like quiet. Human sounds put them off. I suppose it reminds them of what they're missing.”

“I can see that it would.” Fatally Corey glanced across at the control booth. Jim, his face completely covered with a white tea towel, was looming over the panel, arms wide, fingers hooked into claws.

“But he will return.”

“How…how can you…so sorry…excuse me…” Corey drank some water, carefully. “How can you be sure?”

“Top mediums – and it's no secret we can be counted on the fingers of one hand – have special powers of clairvoyance.”

“Could you bring him up now then?”

“This isn't a game, Mr. Panting.”

“It would be a first for radio. And I know our listeners would be absolutely thrilled to discover ‘whodunnit.' Of course if you can't—”

“It is not a question of can't. It is simply not possible to speak from the angelic octave at the drop of a hat. One has to vibrate in a much higher frequency, which needs intensive preparation. Also the person the spirit wishes to contact must be present. I can't imagine anyone wanting to talk to you.”

When Corey got his wind back he said, “I know there have been cases where mediums have helped the police considerably during a murder enquiry. Are you in touch with them at all?”

“I expect to hear from them momentarily. Though we must remember that only half the story has so far been told.”

“And we shall hear the conclusion, the unmasking, as it were, this coming Sunday?”

“That is absolutely correct.”

“At the Church of the Sleight of Hand?”

“Near at Hand,” snapped Ava.

“You'll have a full house,” said Corey.

And they did too, though not for quite the reasons he expected.

 

Andrew Latham heard
Corey's People
almost by default. When Gilda went out she always left the radio on, having heard, via the Neighbourhood Watch committee, that it was common knowledge this deterred burglars. It seemed to Andrew that if the knowledge was all that common any burglar worth his salt would be inclined to think, on hearing a radio play, that the householder was out.

He spooned coffee into the cafetière and, waiting for the kettle to boil, studied Gilda's wall calendar. It had a square for every day and August was nearly all scrawled over, which was great. Whenever his wife was out Andrew came home, and so far she hadn't twigged. Right now Gilda would be at her art class. This meant another insipid watercolour Blu-Tacked to her study wall. God alone knew why she called it a study. The only serious academic effort made was an Open University Foundation Course a couple of years earlier. A month had been enough. After a warning from her oculist that further intensive study could seriously damage her eyes, pens, folders, set books and stacks of virgin paper were hurled into the dustbin.

Andrew made the coffee and returned to the calendar. Tomorrow night: play reading at Causton. Friday a.m.: massage, Shoshona, though how the poor girl ever found her hands again was a miracle. Friday p.m.: hair, eyebrows, manicure. No expense spared to keep madame entertained, intellectually challenged and
ravissante.
Whereas poor monsieur…

Andrew poured the coffee, hot and strong. He needed it. After leaving the office he'd gone into the Magpie and spent the last of this week's allowance on several large glasses of red wine and a large dish of moules marinières. Eating at Bellissima would not have been an option. Gilda would want to know why the missing food and what he'd been doing at home in the middle of the day devouring it.

She'd be back around five but that was all right. He'd explain that everyone had knocked off early for a bit of a do after hearing about their collective windfall. He wondered how she'd take the news. Torn two ways, was his guess. Hovering between delight at his discomfiture and annoyance at the sudden existence of a splinter group. He wouldn't put it past her to try buying some of them out. One sale would tip the voting balance her way. It would certainly be worth her while. The business was thriving and already worth double Berryman's original stake.

Andrew was trying not to dwell on this unpleasant example of Sod's law (to her that hath shall be given) when the Corey Panting interview began. He couldn't not listen. The whole business was connected to Dennis, after all, as well as sounding really weird. Could this woman be genuine? Impossible. They were all fakes, necromancers. Be a funny old world if they weren't. Pretty scary, too. Andrew's spine felt suddenly tingly and cold. He shook his head and shoulders, shrugging off such a ridiculous notion. And laughed aloud, a cheery sound in the quiet kitchen. Then he drew a bentwood stool up to the worktop, took a deep swig of Lavazza's Crema e Gusto and settled down to be entertained.

 

Standing in the larder at Rainbow Lodge Karen was fretting about her tea. Nothing had changed since breakfast time. The same curling remnants of Kingsmill lay in the bread bin. And there was still a coating of peanut butter sticking to the otherwise empty jar. Karen scraped it on to a piece of bread, folded it over and crammed it into her mouth. Dry and stale, it almost choked her. She swallowed some water, then filled the kettle, plugged it in and wandered into the lounge.

“D'you want a drink, Ava?”

Her mother was lying on an old put-u-up, feet draped over the arm, eyes closed. Pressing the palm of her hand to her forehead she gave an exquisite moan.

“Are you all right?” Karen hated picking up her cue so promptly but years of habit were hard to break.

“Just exhausted, darling. The press are so demanding.”

“I expect they are.” Karen's face and voice were expressionless. “Did you do any shopping while you were out?”

“
Shopping?
”

“Only Roy'll want to eat when he comes in.”

The terms of their lodger's agreement supposedly covered his room, breakfast and supper. Fairly quickly his supper, which had started off in a quite hearty way with sausages or faggots or a little chicken curry in the microwave had dwindled, first to beans or an egg on toast and then to a piece of cake or a biscuit and a cup of tea. Ava calculated, rightly, that he would not complain. Where else would he find such comfortable accommodation so near London for seventy-odd pounds and no extras? And it was not as if he had fares to find. Roy travelled to and from Tesco each day on his moped.

“How did you think the broadcast went?” asked Ava.

“Brilliant,” said Karen, who had lost herself in a book and forgotten to switch on.

“They've asked me back. Want me to do a regular ‘slot,' as they call it. Not strictly mystical.” She laughed in a light, merry way. “I'll be talking about the theatre generally, reviewing new plays, probably interviewing stars.”

“In Uxbridge?” muttered Karen, now back in the kitchen and staring into the small, nearly empty freezer. There was a greyish-pink burger and a few frozen peas. Plus a tin of spaghetti in the cupboard under the sink. “But if I give that to Roy,” pondered Karen, “what'll I have?” She went back to the lounge, hovering in the doorway.

Ava gave an exaggerated wince and closed her eyes. Sometimes she found it hard to believe Karen was actually her child. Apart from the dreary plainness of her appearance she was just not intelligent. Bottom of the class in almost everything. Incredible to think her father had been to a public school. Sometimes Ava wondered if he had lied about that. God knows, he had lied about everything else. She turned her attention back to the television but was not allowed to enjoy it for long.

“Ava?”

“Look at him.” Ava shook her head, laughing. “That Richard Whiteley.”

“Could we have some fish and chips to celebrate?”

“I must make contact. Get him on my show.”

“It's the Rumbling Tum, Wednesday.”

This mobile chippy came to Forbes Abbot once a week. It did only modest business in the village proper, where people were a bit shamefaced to be seen queuing at the counter and hurrying home with greasy parcels. But almost everyone in the Crescent would be buying. The fish and chips were excellent. Crisp and hot with little triangular boxes of tartare sauce for only twenty p extra. Roy had treated Karen one time and she thought she had never tasted anything so delicious.

“Ava?”

“Celebrate what?”

“Your new spot.”

“Slot.” But a little celebration was not a bad idea. She could afford it And it would stop Karen doing her starving waif act. Though Ava had to admit, grudgingly, that she did it very well. She was her mother's child and appeared to have inherited her remarkable acting talent. But, alas, none of her unstoppable drive. Bit of a waste really.

“What time do they come?”

“Oh, oh!” cried Karen, jumping up and down. “Can we get some for Roy as well?”

 

Mallory, having had a brief respite from his paternal anxieties by immersing himself in a truly gripping historical novel discovered in the final post bag, was once more at a loose end. Kate had now started the book. He could see her at the end of the croquet lawn, lying in a hammock strung up between the catalpa trees. In the dappled light her blue and white dress was patterned with reflections from the trumpet-shaped flowers. But there was nothing dreamy about her pose. She was reading quickly, flipping the pages over, her profile alert and concentrated.

Mallory began to wander around the large, three-quarters empty house. The dealer from Aylesbury had returned that morning and most rooms were now practically empty. Everything in the kitchen stayed. Here they planned to replace stuff gradually – a decent fridge, some fitted cupboards, a dishwasher.

Mallory's continued anxiety about Polly quite blunted the sadness he had expected to feel as he watched his aunt's belongings carried away by indifferent hauliers. Beautiful things that he had been familiar with all his life. Furniture that he had slept on, hidden inside, rearranged to make forts or cars or planes or boats. Boxes of games, mirrors, pictures, ornaments, china. He ticked them all off the list with the man from Aylesbury and felt not a qualm.

As soon as the van drove away he went to the phone and rang Polly's number. Knowing how much this continual vigilance annoyed Kate he had taken to using the box in the village if she was in the house. Once or twice during the day and most evenings he would go out “for a little stroll.” Sometimes he would manage to nip out and back before she realised he had gone.

But tomorrow – ah, tomorrow he should be able to go round to the flat in person. In the morning he and Kate planned to make a really early start, driving back to London to sort out any last-minute packing at Cordwainer Road. A final reading of the electricity meter and a telephone disconnection and they'd be all set to move out that day.

He wished they could leave now. He was sick of killing time, poodling about. He wanted to get on with life. To do something definite and practical, showing real results. Moving would definitely accomplish that. But he also believed, for no sensible reason at all, that once they were properly settled at Appleby House all manner of other things would quite suddenly be well. The Celandine Press would be properly set up and begin to function. He and Kate would get to know people and perhaps become involved in village affairs, as his aunt had been. His probably baseless worries about Polly would be resolved. Maybe she had just taken off somewhere with friends. Students do, after all. And now was the time for it. The autumn term didn't start for nearly six weeks.

He and Kate were taking Benny with them to London. They had talked this over and decided it was not wise to leave her alone in her present state. Also they were concerned as to what she might get up to. She had already boasted at lunch of one more visit to the police station and of laying new evidence as to Dennis's death before the CID. Her grip on reality seemed to be slackening by the minute. She didn't want to go. Mallory persuaded her by pretending that there was still so much to sort out at the other end that he doubted they'd be able to cope alone.

Now he wandered the desolate spaces on the ground floor of Appleby House with all these thoughts running endlessly round and round and round like a mouse in his skull. He needed to be with someone. To have a banal, pointless conversation. Benny seemed to have disappeared. Kate was reading. So Mallory came to wondering if the Parnells had got back from their mid-morning appointment at Harley Street. Earlier on they had left some spinach in the porch of Appleby House. He decided to return the basket and say “thank you.”

No one seemed to hear his knock so Mallory just walked in. A furious tapping and clattering was coming from Judith's office as well as urgent wheezes from her fax machine. He put his head round the door and she directed a vivid strained grimace in his direction, which he decided was meant to be a smile. Then he was waved away.

Ashley was in the wicker armchair by the sitting-room window, reading
The Times.
Or rather, holding it in a listless manner while staring out at the raggle-taggle garden. Mallory wondered if the news from the specialist had not been good but hesitated to ask.

Ashley said, “Listen to that.” There was a pause. The racket from Judith's office continued unabated. “She's searching the Net.”

“For?”

“This Harley Street bloke gave us a list of clinics that specialise in treating my disease. France, Switzerland, America, Cuba, would you believe? So Judith's checking them out.”