'Well, he isn't now,' Fay said testily. Maybe he thought she was making it all up about the Canon going batty. Maybe she ought to produce medical evidence.
'No, I'm sorry. It must be difficult for you.'
Oh, please, not the sympathy. 'What do you want, Guy?'
'I want to help you, Fay.'
No comment.
'I'd like to put some money in your purse.'
Fay began to smoulder. Purses were carried by little women.
'As you may know. I'm currently on attachment to BBC Wales as senior producer, features and docos.'
Guy had been an on-the-road TV reporter when she'd first known him. Then a regional anchorman. And then, when he'd realized there'd be rather less security in on-screen situations after he passed forty or so, he'd switched to the production side. Much safer; lots of corners to hide in at cut-back time.
'And I've got quite a nice little project on the go on your patch,' Guy said. 'Two fifty minute-ers for the Network.'
'Congratulations.' But suddenly Fay was thinking hard. It couldn't be…
Guy said, 'Max Goff? You know what Max Goff's setting up?'
Shit!
'He's developing a conscience in his middle years and putting millions into New Age research. Anyway, he's bought this wonderful Elizabethan pile not far from you, which he plans to
restore.'
'And where did you hear about this, Guy?'
'Oh… contacts. As I say, we'll be doing two programmes. One showing how he goes about… what he's going to do…how the locals feel about him, this sort of thing. And the second one, a few months later, examining what he's achieved. Or not, as the case may be. Good, hmm?'
'Fascinating.' The bastard. How the hell had he pulled it off? 'And you've got it to yourself, have you?'
'Absolutely. It means Goff will have this one reliable outlet to get his ideas across in an intelligent way.' Fay seethed.
No Radio Four documentary. Not even any exclusive insider stuff for Offa's Dyke. So much for Rachel Wade and her promises. All the time, they'd been negotiating with her ex-husband – obviously aware of the connection, keeping quiet, leading her along so she wouldn't blow the story too soon.
'So what I was thinking. Fay, is… Clearly we're not going to be around the whole time. We need somebody to keep an eye on developments locally and let us know if there's anything we should be looking at. I was thinking perhaps a little retainer for you – I can work it through the budget, we producers have full financial control now of a production, which means…'
Black mist came down. The smug, scheming, patronizing bastard.
When Fay started listening again, Guy was saying, '… would have offered you the official researcher's contract, but one of Max Goff's conditions is that we use the author of some trashy book which seems to have inspired him. Goff wants this chap to be the official chronicler of the Crybbe project and some sort of editorial adviser on the programmes. Of course, that's just a formality, I can soon lose him along the way…'
Fay put the phone down.
Screwed again.
The clock ticked. Arnold lay by her feet under the table. The chair where, in her mind, the smug, spectral Grace Legge had sat, was now piled high with box files. Nothing could sit in it now, even in her imagination.
Fay picked up the phone again and – deliberate, cold, precise – punched out the number of the Offa's Dyke Radio News desk.
'Gavin Ashpole, please. Oh, it is you. It's Fay Morrison. Listen. I can put you down a voice-piece for the lunchtime news. Explaining exactly what Max Goff intends to do in Crybbe.'
She listened to Ashpole asking all the obvious questions.
'Oh yes,' she said. 'Impeccable sources.'
Fay put down the phone, picked up the pad and began to write.
CHAPTER IV
The police station was at the southern end of the town centre, just before the road sloped down to the three-arched river bridge. Attached to the station was the old police house. Murray Beech strode boldly to the front door and rapped loudly with the knocker, standing back and looking around for someone he might say hello to.
He very much wanted to be seen. Did not want anyone to think there was anything remotely surreptitious about this visit, indeed, he'd been hoping Police Sergeant Wynford Wiley would be visible through the police-station window so he could wave to him. But he was not. Nobody was there.
As a last resort Murray had been round to Alex Peters's house, hoping to persuade the old man lo come with him as adviser, witness and… well, chaperone. There'd been no sign of Alex or his daughter, no answer to his knocks.
But Murray didn't have to knock twice on the door of the old police house. She must have been waiting behind it.
'Good afternoon, Tessa,' he said loudly, putting on his most clergymanly voice.
Tessa Byford looked at him in silence. Eighteen. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale-faced. Often seen leather-jacketed on street corners with the likes of Warren Preece.
But not an unintelligent girl. A talented artist, he'd heard. And more confident than most local girls. Born here, but brought up in Liverpool until her mother died and her father had dumped her on his parents in Crybbe so he could go back to sea.
Murray could understand why she'd never forgiven he father for this.
He thought: sullen, resentful and eighteen. Prime poltergeist fodder… if you accept the tenets of parapsychology.
About which Murray, of course, kept an open mind.
He smiled. 'Well,' he said, 'I'm here.'
Tessa Byford did not smile back. Without a word, she led him into a small, dark sitting-room, entirely dominated by an oppressive Victorian sideboard, ornate as a pulpit, with many stages, canopies and overhangs.
Murray felt it was dominating him, too. He was immediately uncomfortable. The room seemed overcrowded, with the sideboard and the two of them standing there awkwardly, an unmarried clergyman and a teenage girl. It hit him then, the folly of what he was doing. He should never have come.
She looked down over his dark suit.
'You've not brought any holy water, have you?'
Murray managed a weak smile. 'Let's see how we get on, shall we?'
It occurred to him that, while she might be an adult now, this was not actually her house. He'd allowed himself to be lured into somebody else's house.
'You should've brought holy water,' she said sulkily.
Murray tried to relax. His plan was merely to talk to the girl, say a helpful prayer and then leave. He found a straight-backed dining chair and sat on it squarely – always felt foolish sinking into someone's soft fireside furniture, felt it diminished him.
'I still wish your grandparents were here.'
'Gone shopping,' she said, still standing, 'in Hereford. Won't be back until tonight. I only stayed to wait for you. I was going to give you another five minutes. Wouldn't stay here on me own. Not any more.'
Why did he think she was lying?
'I wish you'd felt able to discuss this with them.'
She shook her head firmly. 'Can't. You just can't.' Her thin lips went tight, her deep-set eyes stoney with the certainty of it.
'Have you tried?'
Tessa's lips twisted. 'Me gran… says people who are daft enough to think they've seen a ghost ought to keep it to themselves.'
'So you have tried to talk to her about it.'
Tessa, grimacing, went through the motions of wiping something nasty off her hands.
Murray tried to understand but couldn't. Neither Mrs Byford nor her husband appeared to him to be particularly religious. They came to church, if not every week. He'd watched them praying, as he did all his parishioners from time to time, but detected no great piety there. Just going through the motions, lip movements, like the rest of them. A ritual as meaningless as Sunday lunch, and rather less palatable.
There was no Bible on the shelf, no books of any kind, just white china above a small television set. No pictures of Christ on the wall, no framed religious texts.