Callard nodded.
‘So what was the tone of the letter?’ Grayle asked. ‘She mention her husband? I mean … nothing to suggest they might no longer be … together?’
‘She just asked for an appointment. What are you getting at?’
‘Just I was thinking, if my marriage had been broken up by a passing remark from a spiritualist medium … if she’d destroyed my life, set me up for a costly divorce, well, maybe I wouldn’t feel too well disposed towards her.’
‘What are you-?’ Callard’s hand shook slightly, had to put down her mug. ‘You think the husband might be behind the attack?’
‘You said he stormed out of the apartment. You said he was an aggressive kind of guy and you were afraid to leave in case he was waiting for you. Could he have been one of them? One of them spoke. Called you a slag?’
‘That wasn’t him. The accent wasn’t the same.’
‘What about the other one?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘In light of that possibility, would you still be prepared to go see that woman?’
‘I don’t know. I’d need to think.’
‘Let’s put it to Marcus. He should be up and about.’
‘All right. I’ll ring Nancy and get the woman’s address.’
‘Good.’ Grayle stood up. This was practical. This was movement. This was getting Callard and her ghost out of Marcus’s space. Although hard into Grayle’s — and this particular relationship still had some way to go before mutual trust was in sight.
‘Persephone, would you tell me one thing? When we were at the lodge, you seemed to get a … a sense of Ersula.’
Callard sipped her tea, eyes watchful over the mug. ‘Perhaps I was getting a sense of you.’
‘Please don’t try and deflect this. You were ready to let Ersula come through, right? Why would you do that, knowing that if you went into trance, the bad thing would come up like shit out of a drain? Why would you take that chance?’
‘Because it wasn’t a sitting. It wasn’t formal.’
‘I don’t understand. What’s the difference?’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Grayle. There’s no logic to any of this or, if there is, I can’t see it. I’m a sensitive, yah? Things come. I may wake in the night and something’s there, on the periphery. Or, meeting someone for the first time, I’m aware of another someone. But never — thank Christ — him. That would be possession, and that’s not what this is. If it was, I’d probably kill myself.’
‘You’re saying it only happens …’ tamping down the incredulity in her voice ‘… when you sit down formally. Play the music, say the words?’
Callard said nothing, didn’t blink.
Always, with this woman, just when you thought you were halfway to connecting, the walls of the old credibility canyon got pushed back again, leaving you with one foot hanging stupidly in space.
But Marcus looked a little better. Not much colour in his face beyond the raw redness of his nose; his body still sagging, rather than plump. But the will to eat and a little mild walking on the hills would maybe deal with both problems.
‘You sleep OK, Marcus?’
‘Some of the time.’ He was sitting at his desk. He had books out. He looked up beyond Grayle at Callard and then beyond her to the door, like she might have brought someone unpleasant in with her.
‘Coffee?’ Grayle said. ‘Breakfast, even?’
‘Give it a try, I suppose.’
‘Try hard, Marcus. Listen, I’ve been giving some thought to the problem of the car.’
‘Sorted,’ Marcus said, eyes directed back to the page.
‘Persephone’s gonna drive me over there and we’re gonna check out the situation. OK?’
Marcus looked up. ‘Don’t you ever listen to me, Underhill? I said it’s sorted. Arranged. Your vehicle will be picked up by lunchtime.’
‘What?’
‘And brought here by tonight.’
‘Marcus …’
‘Yes?’
Grayle facing him, hands on hips. ‘By whom, for Chrissakes?’
‘By the police,’ Marcus said.
XIX
A month short of the tourist season, only one of the three village shops seemed to be open: a newsagent’s and general self-service store. When an elderly man in a pale blue bobble hat came out, Bobby Maiden walked over the cobbled street to intercept him.
‘Garage? Lord, no.’ The old man gathered up his bicycle from the shop wall, stowed a box of eggs in its saddlebag. ‘You want a garage, Stroud’s about your nearest.’
‘Bloke called Justin runs this place.’
The old man laughed, began to push his bike up the street. ‘Sorry, I thought you said a garage.’
Maiden walked alongside, half-smiling.
Peaceful, golden village. Stone footbridge over the little rippling river. A platoon of ducks waddling up the bank. Maiden had come by taxi from Gloucester station. He felt the cool air all around him, a sense of detachment, a strange freedom. With a car, you were always somehow umbilically connected to the place where you’d parked it.
‘Justin Sharpe you’re after, is it?’ The old man swirled his lips, looked like he wanted to spit.
A set-up.
Maiden shouldered his canvas overnight bag. He’d been set up.
Putting it all together, it seemed that Andy Anderson had phoned her old friend Marcus Bacton early this morning. By eight-thirty, Marcus had phoned Maiden. They hadn’t spoken for six months, but Marcus came on like they’d been cut off thirty seconds earlier. Look, word has it, Maiden, that you’re without a car at the present time. As it happens; Underhill needs a vehicle, ah, retrieving … silly cow lost her exhaust in the middle of the Cotswolds. Course, I’d see to this myself if I wasn’t at death’s bloody door …
Well, OK, Maiden accepted that Andy had his best interests at heart, was unhappy at the thought of him being solitary on the Solway Firth.
Marcus, however …
He found the screen of fast-growing conifers on the edge of the village, and what they were concealing: derelict petrol pumps, cracked concrete forecourt, a crumbling grey utility building with big double doors.
Nobody around. He strolled across the forecourt. Saw what the old guy had meant about the definition of the word garage. No way were these working business premises. But when he reached the grey building and peered through a window thick with sagging cobwebs, he thought he saw a small red vehicle in there.
Grayle’s Mini?
Just pay for the car and then get a receipt, would you, Maiden? If the chap’s reluctant to hand it over to you, give me a call and I’ll let Underhill talk to him. Absolutely straightforward.
‘You’re some piece of work, Marcus. How could you do this?’
Marcus put on an innocent, wounded expression. Grayle had seen it too many times.
‘Are you insane? Are you one hundred per cent freaking insane? Bobby’s a cop. Cops operate according to some cop version of the Hippocratic Oath. They learn about a crime, they are obliged to file a report.’
‘Of course he won’t file a bloody report!’ Marcus fished out a bunch of tissues. ‘Man’s on our side now. Stared into the abyss. Eyes opened to the larger truths. Anyway …’ shuffling a stack of notes ‘… if there’s a problem, he could find out for us, couldn’t he? Through the police computer. If there’s anything known on this Justin fellow. If anyone’s been taken into hospital with severe facial injuries and no adequate explanation.’
‘Aw, yeah, great.’
‘And if there isn’t a problem, then … no problem.’ Marcus blew his nose.
‘How much did you tell him?’
‘Told him the address.’
‘You mean you didn’t even suggest that Justin might be a vaguely dubious character?’
‘Should I have?’
‘Bobby’s walking into this blind?’