Denied to all but Ghosts (27 page)

“Holmcourt Bear, dummy. Come on.” She took
his arm and led him off towards the marquee as he stuffed Holmcourt
Bear into one of the outside pockets of his parka.

A Ceilidh band was performing in the music
marquee. A set of tables stood at one end, whilst at the opposite
extremity the band played on a raised stage. A dozen or so people
danced along to the vivacious music whilst men of varying ages
stood around the periphery of the tent clutching plastic pints of
beer, taping their feet or nodding along to the music. The
atmosphere within was heavy with a dankness induced by the damp
night air and warm moist clothing.

“Ever done the Gay Gordons?” asked Emily.

“Never, but I knew a Gordon at school who was
definitely odd,” shouted Beckett, his words smothered by the melody
of fiddles and accordions.

“Well now’s your chance!” she cried as she
grabbed his hand and led him to the centre of the wooden decked
floor.

Quite what they danced or how they danced was
beyond the reckoning of Tom Beckett. Nevertheless, dance they did,
well certainly Emily danced. They spun, they twisted, and they
bounced as Beckett clung on gamely. At the end of ten minutes, an
exhausted Beckett stumbled to the side of the tent where he stood
staring devotedly at Emily.

He was unaware that Mary the clairvoyant, who
he had met earlier that day, was standing next to him.

“She is not yours is she, duck?” suggested
Mary, “but I’m working on it.”

Beckett glanced at petite girl, who was
dressed in a green smock and wore a garland of entwined green
leaves in her hair, identical to the mobile, which had floated
above their restaurant table. Mary’s garland was beginning to wilt
at this late hour of the day.

“You work bloody miracles as well as tell
fortunes then,” lamented Beckett miserably as he fought a losing
battle to suppress his guilty yearning.

“Yes, you might say that. Would you like her
to be yours?” asked Mary teasingly. Beckett stood mesmerised; his
attention fixed on the cavorting Emily.

“Yes,” he whispered through clenched
teeth.

“When the Spire strikes the first chime of
midnight, you will belong to her,” Beckett heard Mary’s words but
they sounded far-off and he turned to face the enigmatic
clairvoyant to confirm she was not a figment of his imagination.
However, Mary was nowhere to be seen. Beckett shuddered as if
waking from a dream, the music suddenly seemed harsh and caustic
following his apparent trance.

Emily was in great demand and danced for a
further five minutes before the band took a break and she was
applauded off the dance floor. Her red woollen coat remained
fastened and her face shimmered with light perspiration.

“Tom, that was great! I want to and see the
Wiccans next, watch them doing their thing!” Beckett glanced at his
watch.

“And what exactly is their thing?” Beckett
asked

“I don’t know, let’s find out!” Emily tugged
at his arm like a child demanding ice cream. As they walked out of
the music tent, Beckett dug his heels stubbornly into the wet
grass.

“Hold hard, Emily. Before I do anything, I
must go to the loo. You wait here, I shalln’t be a tick.” With
these words, Beckett headed off in the direction of the beer tent.
Emily stood quietly catching her breath, her eyes drawn towards the
leaping flames of the bonfire.

“What the hell have you been up to?” Emily
recoiled from Paul Slingsby as he shouted into her right ear. She
felt his left hand take hold of her waist and found herself being
tugged sideways towards the journalist so that they were joined at
the hip.

“You’re supposed to be stealing the bloody
sword from him, not going out for a night on the piss! What the
hell are you thinking of?”

“Let go of me!” protested Emily angrily,
“He’ll be back in a minute.”

“I don’t think so, have you seen the queues
for those loos? Shocking, they never lay enough on,” laughed
Slingsby. Emily failed to appreciate the humour in his
statement.

“Have you been following us?” demanded Emily
furiously.

“Course, someone’s got to keep an eye on
little Em. I’ve got a lot invested in you. About time you took him
back isn’t it?”

“Listen Paul, there’s something I want to
tell you, you see...” Emily was silenced by Slingsby’s right index
finger, placed firmly to her lips.

“Emily, I think before you say anything you’d
better remember how much this project means to us.”

“But...,”

“Shush now,” whispered Slingsby; he tightened
his grip on her waist, pinching her skin. He pushed his upright
finger more forcefully against her frightened lips; she could smell
the nicotine that stained his finger. “We’ve come too far to back
out now. There’s a lot riding on this one so we don’t want any fuck
ups at this stage, do we?”

Even though Emily heard him speaking for the
both of them, she knew very well that he was referring to himself.
She wondered how much he did have riding on the procurement of this
sword. For her it was all about prestige, kudos and career
advancement. Yet now she realised that Slingsby must have had far
more at stake.

“I can’t have you back tracking now, Emily,
remember all the things I know about you,” accused Slingsby through
clenched teeth as he squeezed her waist aggressively. Emily began
to wince with the pain. “Paul, you’re hurting me!” she cried.

“Not as much as I will if you don’t get that
fuckin’ sword!” snarled Slingsby.

Emily grimaced as his grip tightened even
more. “I just thought I had better make our position clear,” he
hissed. From his pocket, he took out a voice recorder and pressed
the play button as he held it to her ear. She appeared distraught
as she listened and assimilated the implications of the damning
recording.

“Just bloody well get on with it!” he said
with slow and measured menace. Emily had not realised how hard she
had been resisting his clinch and as he suddenly relaxed his grip,
she staggered away from him, falling inelegantly on the sodden
grass. She squatted on her hands and knees in a bid to control her
hysterical breathing before slowly pushing her way back to her
feet. She looked furtively around but no one took any notice of
someone falling over on a night like this. In the meanwhile,
Slingsby had departed leaving Emily to stand transfixed, terrified
by Slingsby’s words and actions.

Beckett finally returned but he might as well
have found a complete stranger. Emily’s joie de vivre had
vanished.

“Are you alright, Emily?” he asked placing
his hands enquiringly on her slumped shoulders. She brusquely
ducked away from his hands as she avoided eye contact, hiding her
tears from him. Beckett stepped back, smarting from her rebuff.

“Yes, I’m just tired,” she replied
dispassionately. Beckett sighed and checked his watch; it was
approaching eleven o’clock, where had the time gone?

“It’s time we should be going, Emily,”
Beckett said reluctantly.

“Fine,” replied Emily’s lethargically.
Beckett sighed again and drew his hand through his wet hair. He had
been right; there was an air of enchantment in the air, it had been
Christmas Eve for grownups and he and Emily had become caught up in
the contagious good-will hysteria that pervaded the town. It was
now time to return to the real world. He guessed in ignorance that
Emily felt the same, so explaining her abrupt mood swing; that the
enchantment for her had also melted away with the April rain.

Beckett attempted to take her arm but she
snatched it away and stepped away from him. He was reflecting upon
his own wounded pride as he stared at the standoffish Emily. It was
as if a switch had been thrown, she had fallen silent and moody,
her smile replaced by an anxious frown.

For Emily the evening had been an unexpected
delight, she had not enjoyed herself so much for many years, and
she genuinely relished the company of Tom Beckett. For that, she
blamed not the moonlight nor the music but the heady, magical
atmosphere that Chesterfield had fashioned. Paul Slingsby had
changed all that. His threats had left her in no doubt that she was
now utterly compromised. She had been deluding herself all evening
and it was with a terrible sense of foreboding that she reconciled
herself to what she must do, even though she had no idea how she
could bring herself to do it.

As they drew near the Holmcourt Hotel, Emily
spoke up for the first time since leaving the park.

“Fancy a night cap,” she asked quietly. His
immediate reaction was to decline the offer, but on reflection, he
realised that he was on the verge of sulking. What he really wanted
was to restore the bonhomie of the evening. He was and always would
be a dreamer.

“Sure thing, Emily. Order the drinks, I’m
nipping to wash my hands, the soap in those toilets was really
sticky.”

He smiled his most disarming smile in the
hope of appeasing the troubled Emily, showing her his hands and
wiggling his fingers to emphasise the point. As they entered the
hotel, they went their separate ways and Emily stalked into the
busy bar and ordered two large whiskies, then found a quiet seat in
the corner of the lounge.

She could not believe that Beckett had left
her alone with the drinks. The Fates seemed to be conspiring
against her, as if controlled by Slingsby. Had Beckett not
disappeared again she would not have been given the opportunity to
carry out what she realised she must now do,

What choice did she have? Slingsby had enough
dirt to ruin her career and she naively conceded to her fate.

She began to cry as she took a small plastic
bag from her inside coat pocket, which she fervently wished she had
dropped whilst dancing.

She stared at the contents for several long
seconds. Her hands shook violently as she steeled herself to drop
one tablet from the packet into Beckett’s drink before hurriedly
adding a second.

She felt a surge of panic as the two tablets
effervesced in the glass.

“Stay away a bit longer please, Tom,” she
muttered to herself as she willed the bubbles to stop rising in the
glass.

Beckett entered the lounge and she nervously
watched him scan the room as he tried to locate her amid the crowd.
She pretended not to see him and hastily wiped the tears from her
eyes as he approached their table.

“Sorry about that, a busy night in the loo.
It seems as if the men in Chesterfield have synchronised their
bladders for last orders,” grinned Beckett. Emily smiled wanly as
she handed him his drink.

“Cheers, Emily!” he said with forced
enthusiasm and took a large swig of the neat spirit. He cringed as
he swallowed. Again, Emily panicked as she thought he detected the
drug.

“Wow, that’s a fiery brand you chose there.”
He paused as he put his glass down. He looked at her.

“Are you alright?” he asked with genuine
concern. He could hardly miss the tears rolling over her flushed
cheeks.

“No, I’m not, Tom”, murmured Emily almost
inaudibly.

“What have I done?” asked Beckett in a sudden
surge of disappointed anger.

“Please don’t hate me,” replied Emily,
clutching her tumbler to quell her shaking hands as she stared into
the depths of the glass.

“Please don’t hate me,” she repeated.

“I don’t hate you, Emily, what the hell makes
you think that, have I done something to upset you?”

As he completed the question he felt an
internal kick to the back of his head, he swooned and shook his
head.

“Christ, I’m going to have to give up the
booze,” he gasped. Beckett stood up, his right leg buckling, and
reached out to the wall for support. Emily appeared horrified as
she watched him stumble.

“Tom, are you okay?”

“No Em, I think the whisky has done me in,
I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Shit...”

Fear seized Emily Spelman. She had no idea
what the drug was that Slingsby had procured and she had no inkling
that it would take effect so quickly.

She sprang to her feet and went to his side.
He raised his hand to ward her off but in doing so, he lost his
balance and staggered against her. Somehow, Emily caught him and
held him upright as best she could whilst their fellow drinkers
followed Becketts drug induced dance around the floor. A few
tut-tutted with disapproval, others smiled knowingly.

The barman watched Beckett’s antics and
quickly came to her aid.

“Do you need a hand, miss?” he enquired, yet
instantly grasped Beckett as Emily struggled to prop up the
maladroit man.

“What the hell am I to do!” she demanded
despairingly of the barman, who had no idea of the true meaning of
her wretched words.

“Don’t worry. Hold on a sec and I’ll get a
pass key, I know Mr Beckett.”

The barman swiftly returned and together they
helped Beckett up the two flights of stairs, the Bristolian
apologising profusely all the way. Beckett’s seemingly drunken
insistence that his physical state was inexplicable fell upon the
barman’s discrete ears. The barman passed Emily the key and
together they helped Beckett into his room and on to the bed. Had
Slingsby been watching he would have considered that the plan was
proceeding extremely well.

From Emily’s point of view there was no plan,
she felt utterly distraught. All that concerned her now was the
well-being of Tom Beckett, for he seemed to have lost all motor
coordination yet appeared to be far from unconscious.

“Will you be okay?” asked the Barman
tenderly.

“Thank you,” said a flustered Emily, keen to
be rid of the man for fear that he would detect her guilt if he
stayed a second longer.

Emily struggled to remove Beckett’s sodden
coat, he alternated his protests with apologises as she rolled him
over to extricate him from the garment. She threw the coat on the
floor by the door and laboriously unlaced his hiking boots, letting
them fall to the carpeted floor at the foot of the bed.