Gethsemane Hall (5 page)

James Crawford didn’t wake up, because he wasn’t asleep. He was pulling an all-nighter, finished up a damned article because he’d let the damned submission deadline creep up on him like a damned fool again. He was putting the references together when a premonition passed over him like an oil slick. He stopped typing, startled. The slick receded, and he went back to work, just that little bit rattled. Just a little.

Gray didn’t go back to sleep. The mere thought was ice in his gut. He got up and moved through the flat, turning on all the lights. Then he sat in the living room, TV turned on to a broadcast of
Sink the Bismarck
. He waited for day, and for the first time since receiving the news of his family’s death, his dominant emotion wasn’t grief. It was fear, but, he thought, and almost smiled, a change was as good as a rest. Bit by bit, he came to believe that. He felt the first hint of relief.

He settled more comfortably into his chair. On the screen, Kenneth More was looking stern and enforcing discipline in the situation room. Gray thought about his hallucination. He put the experience down to that, dismissing the inconsistencies as sleep confusion. As the immediacy of the terror passed, he tasted something like nostalgia. As a child, he had never enjoyed the pilgrimages to see Aunt Gloria. But they were now so far on the other side of the barrier of his bereavement that the memories had an appealing glow. They had a pull. So did the Hall. The room he had thought he was in beckoned, untainted by adult memories. Adams’s death didn’t seem like a deterrent any longer, just an irritation.

The dream bothered him more. The laughter was what did it. Reason told him the vision was his own subconscious at work. Emotion said otherwise. Emotion moved him to anger. And when a course of action presented itself, when he saw a petty but satisfying bit of retaliation, he smiled. He was so out of practice with the gesture that he didn’t know, at first, what he was doing.

Everything was part of God’s good plan. The trick was to remember that. Some days, the trick was harder than others. Hudson had sensed this was going to be one of those days the moment he’d woken during the night. His intuition was handed bad karma confirmation when he reached the office. Deborah Culberth, who ran admin for Ties of Hope, was wearing a kicked-puppy face when he walked in. Culberth was the queen of indomitable. The hit had to be a big one to rock her back on her heels.

“I’m sure I don’t want to know,” Hudson said as he sat down. Ties of Hope’s new digs were temporary, and they felt it. The office was a single open room, devoid of furniture except for tables, chairs, and couple of phones. The space was a ridiculously expensive rental in Croydon, but it was the best they could do on short notice until they found something more permanent back in London. Its windows looked out onto a rail line and a construction yard big with industrial noise.

“I was just talking to Richard,” said Culberth.

Now he was sure he didn’t want to know. “And?”

“He’s pulling his funding.”

Hudson didn’t answer right away. He was listening to a dream die. The sound was disappointingly banal: no clap of thunder, no ominous chord, not even a click, just the uncaring background growl of the machine grinding and grinding beyond the office window. A train rattled by, and the world moved on. Hudson tried to imagine a way of picking up the pieces of the dream. Couldn’t be done. Gray was the financial foundation of Ties of Hope, and he’d just triggered a demolition charge. “Did he say why?” Hudson asked.

“He said he’s shifting everything to Oxfam.”

So he wasn’t giving up on humanitarian efforts. Hudson saw some glowing embers of hope amid the ash. “Was he calling from home?”

“I think he was on his mobile.”

Hudson picked up the phone and punched in the number.

Two rings, then Gray answered. “Hello, Patrick,” he said. There was a lightness to his tone that surprised Hudson. He sounded almost cheerful, but the sun in his voice was still overlaid by steely bitterness. Hudson could hear a background static murmur of motorway traffic. He pictured Gray in his car, speeding into the distance, pulling further and further away from him. The image hit him with a sense of final loss and of efforts too little and too late.

“Why, Richard?” Too many questions, so he asked them all at once.

“Revenge.”

“Against whom?”

“God, I suppose.” Harshness in his voice. He wasn’t supposing at all.

“Don’t. You mustn’t.”

“Why not? The money’s still doing its work. What’s the problem? Too attached to your hobby horse?”

Hudson flinched at the truth, pushed it away. There were greater truths at issue. “That’s unfair and unworthy of you.”

“I’m not feeling very fair these days, for some reason.”

“Please don’t turn away from God. Now, more than ever, you need —”

“Haven’t we already had this conversation? I think we have. Unless you have anything new to add?”

Hudson fumbled in the pause. Gray’s hostility was so out of character, it was derailing his train of thought.

“I didn’t think so,” Gray continued.

“Please ...” Hudson heard himself plead, and he knew he had lost.

“I’m sorry,” Gray said, and his tone became gentler. It bothered Hudson even more to hear his friend speaking now not out of anger, but in the firmness of mature thought. “I know I’m hurting your life’s work.” Another pause, as if he were struggling with a decision. “I’ll do my best to find a replacement sponsor for you.”

“Then why —”

“Because none of my money is going to help spread faith. And tapping a substitute is the last bit of help your god is going to have from me.” He was still speaking calmly. “Anyway, if the money’s there, what do you care?”

“That’s not fair.”

“No, you’re right. Apologies again. But why does my faith matter so much? It doesn’t affect yours.” Long pause, during which Hudson couldn’t answer. “Does it?”

“Of course it doesn’t.” His throat was thick with lies.

“Ciao, Patrick.” Gray rang off.

Hudson stood with the phone to his ear, listening to nothing. He made himself replace the receiver in its cradle, made himself look around the room, made himself concentrate. Faces looking at him, expectant, nervous. “Don’t worry,” he told them. “He’ll help us find someone else.”

“And if he can’t?” Culberth asked.

“He will.” He picked up his coat and unopened briefcase.

“Where are you going?”

“To make sure,” he said.

An hour later he was on the train to Roseminster, rushing to preserve his faith.

the meet cute

James Crawford’s office was the home of a busy man. The books on the shelves were in alphabetical order, each in its place. But the flat surfaces were stacked high with papers. Toppling piles merged in a cacophony of unfinished business crying for attention. Crawford had just enough clear space on his desk for his laptop and coffee mug. He was cradling the cup, though he’d finished his drink several minutes ago. He was in his mid-forties, thinning hair shaved to stubble dark as his perpetual five o’clock shadow. Bullet head, battleship jaw, meat-tenderizer hands, he looked like he would be more at home bashing immigrants in the street than ensconced as a physicist at the University of Kent. There was nothing of the yob in his voice, though. His tones were gentle, his speech a deep, comforting murmur with just enough inflection to keep the listener interested. Meacham thought he was the most convincing speaker she’d ever heard, and they’d only been discussing his work in the most general terms. His was the voice of reason personified. No wonder the true believers hated him. He could make them sound like psychotic cranks by saying no more than “Good morning.”

Meacham was sitting in a chair facing Crawford. He needed new furniture. The chair squeaked whenever she moved. She tried to keep still.

Crawford said, “I appreciate your being candid about who you are. I am, therefore, very curious to know what possible interest my work could be to the CIA.”

“Fair enough.” Meacham laid it out for him: Gethsemane Hall, Adams, the clean-up mission.

After she was done, Crawford looked pensive. “My turn to be honest,” he said at last. “I won’t pretend that the CIA is my favourite organization.”

Meacham shrugged.
Not mine, either
, she thought.

“In fact, I have serious ethical issues with just about everything you do.”

She shrugged again. “We’re not in it for the love. But what are you telling me? That you’re not interested?”

“I didn’t say that. Gethsemane Hall is pretty well known. I’d like the opportunity to investigate it.”

“So?”

“So I want things to be clear between us. My investigation will be independent and will go where I see fit, and I will publish my findings regardless of whether they help or hinder your agenda.”

“Have you ever found evidence of a genuine haunting?” Meacham asked.

“No. Never.”

She smiled. “Then I don’t think we’re going to wind up working against each other.”

“Right, then.” Crawford’s grin was small, but it was a good one. “Tell me something, though. No offense, but your outfit has never worried too much about being rigorously truthful. If you want to debunk the ghost angle, all you have to do is announce that you conducted an investigation, even if you didn’t, and that there is no such thing as ghosts, even if there is. It isn’t as if most people will have their minds changed about you, one way or another. Why bother with me?”

“You implied it yourself. When was the last time anybody believed what the Agency had to say?”

“I see. I’m your credibility.”

There was more to it than that, though Crawford was right. “I want the investigation done properly. It’s important to me.”

Crawford gave her a searching look. “You do sincerity very well,” he said, reluctant optimism in his voice.

“All in the training,” Meacham said, and Crawford laughed. “Do you believe in ghosts at all?” she asked.

“Never seen a reason to, yet. Do you?”

“No.”

Crawford must have seen that she wanted to say more. “But ...?” he prompted.

“I’ve read a few of your articles. This business about magnetic fields ...”

He nodded. “I know. That almost sounds like crackpottery itself, doesn’t it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I did. The thing is, magnetic fields can be measured. And don’t mistake me. I am
not
arguing that the fields are ley lines or any such rubbish. I think the case is fundamentally pretty simple and logical. In locations where there have been consistent reports of hauntings, there are also measurable magnetic field fluctuations. So which makes more sense: presences from beyond or the observers being affected by the fields?”

“That’s a rhetorical question.”

“It is.” Crawford looked sly. “But I believe I detected a need for reassurance in the way you brought up the subject.”

“I guess I find the idea that you don’t have to believe in ghosts to experience something a bit disturbing.”

“You mean the fact that
you
might is disturbing.”

“Hard-core rationalists don’t like thinking they could be susceptible.”

“No, we don’t,” Crawford agreed.

“Have you ever experienced anything?”

“Not often, but yes, I have. I had a few creepy moments at Bromwell, I don’t mind telling you. Knowing what the likely cause for the willies is does rather take the sting out of them, though.”

“That’s what I want to hear. I want to be able to trust my own investigation.”

“Then I can reassure you. If you know what to expect, sensing presences won’t be that big a deal. It will almost be a disappointment if you don’t.”

Meacham liked the logic. Finding out that Adams had his mental train derailed by something real but non-supernatural was the best scenario she could imagine. Debunking, plus the bonus that the CIA didn’t necessarily employ unstable loons. Perfect. “How soon can you make it down there?” she asked.

Crawford swept his eyes over the post-nuke landscape of his desk. “The day after never. Or tomorrow.” He sighed, dismissing deadline nightmares. “Shall we say tomorrow?” He was beginning to sound excited. Meacham had counted on his not being able to resist the biggest debunking target on the current scene. “I take it you have Lord Gray’s permission to investigate the Hall?”

“Working on it.” Her two brief phone conversations hadn’t gone well. Bad timing, what with the funeral of his wife and daughter. He’d hung up before she’d made it past the preliminaries. She had all her other ducks lined up now, so time for direct measures. Gray was letting her in the house, like it or not.

Pertwee and Corderman left the Nelson, stopped at the Tesco to stock up on meat pies for the day, and then mounted their guard at the entrance to the grounds of Gethsemane Hall. Shortly after three, a silver Bristol approached the drive. Pertwee stepped into the middle of the road and waved. The car slowed to a stop. Corderman took Pertwee’s place in the road, and she went to the driver’s side. The tinted window did not descend. “Excuse me,” Pertwee said.

After another few seconds, long enough to signal extreme reluctance, the window went down. Gray looked out at her, his gaze closed and bullshit-intolerant. “You’re blocking my way,” he pointed out.

He was handsome, Pertwee thought, and she very much wanted him not to be angry with her. He had the narrow, refined features that bespoke aristocracy, minus the inbreeding. His tan was deep weathering and experience, not a UV bed’s cosmetic vanity, and the hollows of his eyes were hard grief and deep anger. Pertwee was having a romance-novel reaction, and she hated herself for it. Her knees weakened all the same. “I’m very sorry,” she said. “And I really don’t want to intrude during your time of loss.” Damn it. Her speech had been prepared, revised in her head for hours, and that’s exactly what it sounded like. She saw the clouds gather on his face and gave up on her spiel. It was dead as week-old fish. “Look,” she said. “My name is Anna Pertwee, and I investigate ...” She stopped herself. Her confidence was flooding away the longer Gray looked at her. She tried again. “Your house is so important —”

He cut her off. “No,” he said and started the car.

“You don’t understand —”

“I think I do.”

“The bad things people have been saying about your home. They’re wrong. I can give your house its reputation back.” Oops.

Gray leaned on the horn. Corderman jumped, rabbit-scared by the blast. He dashed to the side of the road. Gray pointed at Pertwee. “Piss off,” he told her. He punched a remote clipped to his sun visor and the gate opened. He drove in, then stopped as the gate closed behind him. Pertwee only just restrained herself from dashing through while she had the chance. Gray climbed out of the car and stood, arms crossed, while the gate clanged to. “Another thing,” he said. “If I see either of you again, I’m calling the police.” He glanced at his watch. “And by ‘again,’ I mean if I can still see you thirty seconds from now. I said piss off, so hop to it.”

No more romance novel thoughts as she and Corderman drove back into Roseminster. She wasn’t thinking about the first tiff that leads to eternal passion. She was humiliated. She was taking Gray at his word: she was pissed off. She parked not far from the church and burned rage-holes into the dashboard with her stare. Corderman had been smart and had stayed quiet during the drive. Now he made a mistake and spoke. “So?” he asked. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan,” Pertwee repeated, flat.

“Yes. Plan B.” He gave her a poke on the shoulder. “Hey, chin up. This was a setback, but we’ll bounce back.” When Pertwee said nothing, Corderman took the hint. “I’ll ... ah ... I’ll see you back at the rooms.” He swallowed. “I’ll try to come up with something.”

“Yes, Edgar,” she spat. “You do that.”

“Right. Right.” Chastened, he got out of the car.

Pertwee watched him go up the road. When he was out of sight, she climbed out of the car. She walked until she reached the church square. She stood beside the Victoria Jubilee monument at the intersection of Wake Street and Charmouth Road. The ground sloped gently down in every direction from here. She stood at the modest peak and heart of Roseminster, took in the town, and resented it. The town should have been perfect. Its potential for that perfection made its failure to meet her expectations a betrayal. With a population of 5,500, Roseminster was big enough to boast one stand-alone supermarket but small enough that it had avoided the plague of large malls. Most of its citizens still did their daily shopping at the stores that rubbed shoulders along Wake Street as it ran by St. Rose’s Minster Church. Newsagent’s, chemist’s, grocer’s, all present and correct, still the traditional high street. Roseminster had its own parish fair at the end of May. Its architecture was traditional, and there wasn’t much to signal the second half of the twentieth century, let alone the beginning of the twenty-first, apart from the day-long crush of traffic down too-narrow and contorting streets.

Roseminster was proud of its history. Little plaques dotted the streets, playing up each cameo the town had played in the Norman conquest, the civil war, or the Second World War. If there were a town, Pertwee thought, that should take pride in its ghosts and protect them from calumny, this was it. She hadn’t expected, on arriving, to be treated as a celebrity. She didn’t rate herself with that much delusion. What she had expected was a certain support for her project, a sense that she and the town were on the same side. No such luck. She’d given up trying to enlist the locals as collaborators after the first half-dozen responded to her overtures with an evasive politeness that stayed just this side of actual coldness. She hadn’t encountered hostility, and no one other than Gray had told her to piss off, but she had met an indifference so studied it amounted to a campaign. She couldn’t understand it. It wasn’t as though Roseminster had been shielded from the media’s lurid gaze. The fuss was dying down a little, but the town had made the headlines in the tabs, and its name meant something now. It had a reputation. Pertwee couldn’t believe the rep was one the residents were happy to let stand. She was here to help them remove the town’s tarnish and restore its shine. They gave her no help. They gave her a brick wall. Well, no more, she thought. Not after today. She was going to force the issue.

She went back to the Nelson and spent the rest of the afternoon marshalling her arguments. Corderman poked his head in her room at one point, mumbled something incomprehensible when she gave him an impatient look, and ducked out. Evening rolled around, and she was ready. She went to find Corderman, and he seemed ready to flinch when he saw her. She had her equanimity back now, and felt guilty. “I’ve been a bitch, haven’t I?” she said.

“Well ...” His tone was playful and relieved.

“Cast iron? Steel-plated?”

“And copper-bottomed.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to be. I understand how important this is.”

“No reason to take it out on you. Anyway, all better now.”

“We have a plan?”

“We have a plan. Part of which might involve my going all copper-bottomed again. If that happens, don’t freak out, okay?”

“Roger.”

“Let’s do this, then.”

There was a pub on the ground floor of the Nelson. Pertwee’s initial thought had been to mount her campaign here. She changed her mind after looking around for a minute. Most of the patrons were having meals rather than simply drinking and were seated singly or in pairs. She was looking, she decided, mainly at visitors. Not enough locals for what she had in mind. Though she would keep this scene in her back pocket. Might come in handy later.

“So?” Corderman asked.

“Let’s eat out.”

The Leaping Stag was at the edge of town, just before the forest that separated Gethsemane Hall from Roseminster. Far from central, it was closer to the residential areas than the Nelson. Pertwee had stopped in briefly the day before, but the pub’s obvious potential hadn’t struck her until now. When she entered, she knew she’d hit paydirt. This was the local. This was where Roseminster came to relax and debrief. All the tables were taken, most by groups of four or more. The bar was packed. It occurred to her that if she wanted to make herself unpopular, this was the place for it. Swallowing was suddenly difficult. Corderman must have noticed. “Is this going to be okay?” he asked.

“I don’t think things are going to become violent.”

“Good.” His posture relaxed.

What now, Genius?
The grand gesture, seductive in the abstract daydreams of glory, lost its appeal now the moment had come. It shrivelled at reality’s touch. She was going to address the pub, was that it? Was that what she was really planning to do? How? Climb up on the bar? Draw everyone’s attention by doing a trick with ping pong balls? Was she insane?