All Things Undying (11 page)

Alison's eyes caught mine in the rear-view mirror. ‘How sweet to see he's still looking after me.'

‘Devon might be starring in another segment of
Dead Reckoning
, Mr Bailey, if Cathy Yates has her way.'

‘That American?' Bailey snorted, apparently forgetting that I was an American too.

‘As you know from when you talked to her, Mr Bailey, Ken Small's book got Cathy all fired up. So she delivered a copy to Susan's flat the other day, with Post-it notes stuck in all the relevant places. Cathy hopes Susan will be able to locate that farmer's field where Small said the bodies had been buried in a ruined air-raid shelter.'

‘Good luck to them, then,' grumbled Alison's father. ‘There were thirty thousand acres of farmland in the area that was evacuated in 'forty-four. She can't tramp over all thirty thousand with that daft cow and her camera crew.'

‘I imagine she'll start at the Sherman tank and seek direction from any spirits she finds hanging around there,' I said sweetly.

Bailey turned to face me, nose twitching. ‘Not you, too!'

‘The jury's still out, Mr Bailey. I like to keep an open mind.'

‘Drop me off at the nearest pub,' he harrumphed. ‘That's where they've got spirits I can relate to.'

When we reached Paignton, we tucked the Prius snugly away in Artillery Lane, had a quick bite at a little Chinese restaurant, then walked back to the Palace Theatre, a lovingly restored red and white brick structure overlooking an elliptical park.

‘And here I thought we were so early,' Alison observed as we trudged up the hill. ‘People are already queuing!'

‘I think they're Susan's groupies,' I said when we got a little closer.

And so they were. A man dressed like a missionary in dark pants and a white short-sleeved shirt stood on an upturned milk crate next to a red pillarbox, holding a Bible out in front of him. Sparse strands of yellowish-gray hair were combed over his pink skull, and sideburns crawled along his cheeks. His eyes flashed with the zeal of the book of Revelation, from which he appeared to be reading, raining fire and brimstone down on all who dared enter the theater doors.

The other members of his team carried picket signs that, on closer inspection, proved to be constructed of two pieces of foam board taped around a dowel. One was the quote from Deuteronomy I recognized from Alison's video, carried by a young man this time, while
False Prophets Shall Bring in Damnable Heresies. Peter 2:1
was being waved back and forth like a windshield wiper by a woman who was probably the young man's mother, considering the similarity of their profiles.

Next to her, a dark-haired young woman wearing a red headband and an ankle-length flowered dress held aloft a sign that said
Exodus 22:18
in black gothic letters.

‘Are we supposed to know what that means?' Alison wondered. ‘John three:sixteen I know. The twenty-third Psalm, ditto. Exodus twenty-two:eighteen doesn't exactly roll trippingly off the tongue.'

‘I'm usually good with chapter and verse, but I'm not familiar with that one,' I confessed. ‘Hold on.' I whipped out my iPhone, touched the Google icon and began tapping letters. After a few moments, I had the results. ‘Jeesh.'

‘What's it say?'

I showed Alison the screen:
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

I'd rarely seen rage bubble up so quickly. It started in Alison's shoulders, stiffened the tendons in her neck, reddened her cheeks and the tips of her ears then exploded from her lips. ‘What's the matter with you people?' she shouted at the Stepford Wife who was holding the offending sign. ‘Don't have the
balls
to say it out loud? That is a
threat
! Someone ought to report you to the police!'

Bailey grabbed his daughter's arm and pulled. ‘Come on, girl.'

I lagged behind, staring at the object of Alison's anger, the woman with the headband, who stared back with about as much emotion as a mannequin in a shop window. ‘I honestly can't see your objection,' I told her. ‘As a Christian, don't you believe in life after death?'

The woman didn't say anything at first, and I wondered if the guy standing on the milk crate had trained his minions to keep their mouths shut, no matter what the provocation, like the guards at Buckingham Palace. ‘Alf!' she shouted, to my utter astonishment. ‘You got any brochures left in the boot?'

‘Who is worthy to open the book and loose the seals thereof,' Alf proclaimed breathlessly from atop the milk crate. ‘Two boxes of 'em, girl . . . and no one in the heaven, or on the earth . . .'

‘Come with me,' the young woman said. She propped the offending sign against the wall and led me around the corner to a car park and a dark blue vehicle so covered with window decals and bumper stickers that I would have been hard pressed to come up with its make and model.

‘This your car?' I asked.

‘Nah. It's Alf's.' She balled her hand into a fist and gave the lid of the boot a solid thwack. It popped open obediently, revealing a jumble of boxes, oily rags, jumper cables and empty one-liter beverage containers. She stripped the packing tape off one of the boxes, pried up the lid, and peered into its depths. ‘Keep it,' she said, and handed me a glossy brochure entitled
WTL Guardians.
The group was represented by a logo that superimposed images of a cross and a book over the rising (or it could have been setting) sun.

‘What are you guardians of?' I asked, tucking the brochure into my handbag to read later.

‘Way, Truth and Life,' she replied. ‘WTL. Get it?'

I got it. ‘What's WTL's problem with Susan Parker, then?' I asked.

‘S'plains in the brochure,' she said, slamming the lid of the trunk closed. ‘My name's Olivia Sandman, by the way. What's yours?'

‘I'm Hannah.'

‘You from Canada?'

‘Vancouver,' I lied. ‘Well, thanks for the brochure,' I said, patting the side pocket of my handbag. ‘I'll give it all the attention it deserves. Right now, though, I'd better hurry to catch up with my friends.'

I hustled back up the hill, passed Olivia's colleagues, keeping my eyes down, and joined Alison and her father in the queue of early arrivals, snaking up the handicapped ramp toward the entrance doors. Eventually we were allowed into the lobby where we joined still another line waiting to be let into the theater proper.

To our right, groups of theater-goers clustered around long, cloth-covered tables selling
Dead Reckoning: Season One
DVDs, copies of Susan's autobiography,
I'm Not Dead Yet
, and souvenir T-shirts in a variety of pastel shades. While Stephen Bailey held our places in line, Alison and I joined a clot of fans milling around the T-shirt table.

After carefully considering how it would go with my sister's prematurely white hair, I bought a blue ‘I'm Not Dead Yet' T-shirt for Ruth. I thought she might enjoy reading Susan's book, too, but decided to buy it from my friendly, neighborhood independent bookseller once I got home to Maryland. I was ounces away from the weight limit already. No way I was going to pay British Airways an additional £30 for an overweight bag.

‘Watch me rattle his cage.' Alison positively twinkled as she held up a green T-shirt for her father's inspection. ‘Want one, Dad? Birthday coming up.'

Bailey folded his arms across his chest and scowled.

Alison selected a yellow T-shirt for herself, paid for it with cash, then joined me back in line. We moved along slowly, amusing ourselves by listening to the conversations going on in the line around us:

–
This is the third of her live shows I've been to. I'm hoping Lucy will come through.

I wondered about that last one myself.

Our seats, when we found them, were primo, on the aisle and only four rows back from the stage. ‘I need the seat on the aisle,' Stephen Bailey insisted, standing to one side as we passed by him into the row. ‘Might have to leave in a hurry.'

‘Bladder,' Alison whispered as we eased into the plush velvet seats, the red upholstery as yet unbaptized by food spots, bubblegum, or hair oil.

‘How did you get these seats?' I was impressed. ‘Susan told us the show has been sold out for weeks!'

‘I called the number on Susan's card,' Alison said as she sat down. ‘But the waiting list was a mile long, so I went to Plan B.'

‘Which was?'

‘Jon has friends in high places.' Alison smiled enigmatically.

‘Old school tie?' I asked.

‘More like
those who sail together
 . . .' she giggled. ‘He and this chap share a London club. Apparently ITV hold back a certain number of tickets for emergencies.'

‘Like if Charles and Camilla take a notion to attend?'

‘Exactly. Jon's mate calls them “Ooops tickets”.'

Feeling grateful that the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall were otherwise engaged, I settled into my seat and admired the set. Bathed in soft lavender light, it looked for all the world like my late grandmother's living room in Cleveland, Ohio. A round table covered with a lace cloth and an upholstered wingback chair were tastefully positioned on a scrap of oriental carpet. An enormous arrangement of golden daylilies sat in a vase in the center of the table. Giant closed-circuit television screens were mounted overhead on each side of the proscenium which showed the set from different angles. To our right, a long-necked boom camera bobbed and weaved. Nearer the stage, a technician wearing earphones fiddled with a black control box and communicated with someone high at the back of the steeply raked auditorium who appeared to be adjusting the controls at a similar workstation. A second cameraman shouldered his Steadicam, shrugged it into position, and faced the stage. Everything seemed to be ready, but as yet, there was no sign of Susan.

At 8:02 precisely – by the light of my iPhone – a spotlight lit the stage and Susan walked on to it, smiling broadly and waving, wearing a long, dove-gray skirt and matching sweater-coat. A scarf of many colors was twisted into an elaborate knot at her throat.

The applause that greeted the medium's arrival could have drowned out a launch of the space shuttle.

From a position in front of the armchair, Susan bowed slightly to right, left and center, accepting the accolades, then raised both hands for silence. ‘Good evening!' she began, but whatever else she had planned to say was drowned out by a renewed round of applause.

Susan laughed, eyes flashing in the theater lighting. ‘Welcome! It's good to see so many of you here tonight, both new friends and old!' With a sweep of her arm, she appeared to be acknowledging a rowdy group of individuals in a block of seats to our left who were whooping it up like die-hard Manchester football fans. ‘As you know, I am totally governed by spirits, so I have no idea what's going to come through tonight. My job is to convey messages, so if a message seems to be for you, if you can relate to it, don't be shy. Stand up!

‘And here's the first important message. Do you have a mobile phone?' She waited a beat, surveying the audience, then continued. ‘Of course you have a mobile phone! I want you to reach into your pocket, or into your bag, and turn that phone off.
I'm
the only one getting messages here tonight!'

Ripples of laughter accompanied a chorus of chimes, beeps and tweets as those who had forgotten to silence their phones before coming into the theater finally did so.

Including me.

‘Thank you!' Susan said after the commotion died down. ‘Now, some of you out there are skeptics.' She pointed a finger, panned the audience. ‘You know who you are. And right now you're thinking
I'll bet she Googles everyone
.' The boom camera zoomed in for a close-up, and on the screen to our right, Susan rolled her eyes. ‘Like who has
time
? I barely have time to blog let alone Twitter!

‘And I'm the first to admit to you that I'm not always right.' Susan paused, cocked her head. ‘Wait a minute. John's here. Couldn't wait, could you, John?' she chuckled.

At the mention of the name John, hands shot up all around the auditorium.

‘Lights on in the house, please,' Susan said. ‘This John is around fifty, and he has brown hair going just a bit gray, here.' She flicked her temple with her fingertips.

Among the early arm wavers, only four individuals remained standing. From the stage Susan shielded her eyes with her hand and surveyed the audience, like a Cheyenne Indian scout on the lookout for General Custer. ‘He's kind of a nervous guy, our John,' she continued. ‘He's doing this.' She pumped her shoulders up and down.

Behind us, somebody screamed, ‘That's my Jack!'

The boom camera swung around like a giraffe grazing for leaves in a fresh treetop. On the overhead screens, a woman wearing a flowered sundress and a strand of red and green glass beads began to bounce up and down on her toes.

‘This message is probably for you, then,' Susan said from the stage. ‘What's your name?'