Maiden concentrated on altering the exposure on his camera. He changed lenses and took a picture of Kurt from floor level, all groin and his head reduced.
‘I, uh …’ Grayle turned over her tape, clicked it into the machine, set it running again. ‘What I have to do at this point, Kurt, is get some nuts and bolts stuff, OK?’ Kurt’s PR woman appeared in the doorway. Severe, business-suited, clutching a mobile phone. Probably no older than Kurt, Maiden thought, except in attitude.
‘Kurt, you have another appointment at-’
Kurt looked up only briefly. ‘Delay them, Francine.’
Francine nodded, scowled at Grayle, disappeared.
‘Sure,’ Kurt said. ‘What do you need?’
‘Well, about the organization of the festival. Like, is it just you putting up the finance, or do you have backers?’
‘I’ve been able to raise most of the finance myself, but sure, there are some people with a strong interest in the subject who’ve given us some … padding.’
‘Anyone we’ve heard of? Like anyone famous?’
‘Shouldn’t think so, Alice. I mean … look, this is not a political movement collecting supportive celebrities. This is in the nature of a serious inquiry.’
‘Right. Uh, the medium you’ve got for the seance. Who’s she … or he … gonna be? I’ve heard a few names on the grapevine … Betty Shine, Eileen Drewery, Persephone Callard …’
Kurt sat back. ‘What I should say here, Alice, is that the name of the medium is not important. It’s the event itself. And the location. We believe there’s a resonance at Overcross because of its history and its actual situation — whether you’re talking about the juxtaposition of so-called leylines or the geophysical properties of the site itself, the rocks the castle’s built on-’
‘But this is not the actual castle, is it?’
‘It’s a Victorian house built in the castle grounds, in the neo-Gothic style. Built on the site of a medieval chapel, we understand.’
‘So, the house itself doesn’t have what you’d call an extensive history.’
‘It has what you’d call a concentrated history.’
‘It’s haunted?’
‘There’s evidence of that, certainly. For instance, a gamekeeper accidentally shot himself with his own gun and his ghost is said to prowl the grounds.’
‘John Hodge, right? I, uh, read the booklet. Is your medium gonna try to contact him?’
‘He’s one of our projects, yes.’
‘Cool,’ Grayle said. ‘You worked a lot with mediums before, Kurt?’
‘To an extent.’
‘Which brings me back to my question of a few moments ago … which, uh, kind of got lost … What is the connection between hypnotism and mediumship?’
‘Well, trance, Alice. They have trance in common. Mediums operate in trance, and the huge interest in hypnotism — which began in your own country, of course — happened to coincide with the Victorian spiritualist boom. Hypnotism was also used for healing, as Mesmer himself did back in the eighteenth century, and this began to be tied in with spiritual healing. What it comes down to is that, at the time, these were two fields of study approached in the same spirit of adventure, and I think the fusion of psychology and spirituality is a good, solid base from which to explore the human condition.’
‘So, do you possess mediumistic powers yourself?’
Kurt smiled. ‘Sadly not. Obviously, I’ve practised self-hypnosis but I’ve never been approached, while in trance, by … outside influences.’
‘You’ve been a … friend of Persephone Callard. I think that’s widely known.’
Kurt shifted.
‘Not so widely,’ he said.
‘Yeah, well, we — the magazine — have connections.’
‘Evidently. Sure, yeah, Seffi and I were close for a while and we still have a professional liaison going from time to time, but that’s all.’
‘But she’s not one of the festival’s backers?’
‘Certainly not. You’re pushing here, aren’t you, Alice? Look, the backers are entitled to their anonymity. There’s still, unfortunately, a stigma attached to spiritualism.’
‘But you’re clearly not afraid of that yourself.’
‘I’m not afraid of anything,’ Kurt said. He glanced down at Maiden, like he’d noticed a bluebottle on his trousers. ‘That’s enough pictures, OK, matey?’
‘Bloke thinks he’s a god,’ Bobby Maiden said, unlocking the truck.
‘Well, you know,’ climbing in, Grayle hid a small smile, ‘he undoubtedly has — to use Mesmer’s own term — a certain animal magnetism.’
Bobby switched on the lights, pulled away from the parking area into the centre of Cheltenham. ‘I’m not entirely sure about you going to this seance.’
‘Oh, you’re not, huh? The little defenceless female walking into the dark castle?’
‘We don’t know that he hasn’t realized who you really are. That he wasn’t bluffing.’
‘Oh, he wasn’t bluffing, Bobby. Women can tell this kind of thing.’
Smiling into the darkness.
Bobby said nothing.
‘It’s a real shame they won’t allow photographers in, but you can understand that — all those flashes.’
She decided not to bring up the question of whether they should doorstep Seward — she had no idea where he lived, guessed Bobby did but that he’d had enough for tonight.
They headed out of town through sparse traffic.
‘Curious Callard never mentioned Kurt.’
‘Why should she?’
‘No reason, I guess. Unless there’s still something between them.’
‘Blokes try to use her’, Bobby said, ‘in all kinds of ways.’
‘Aw, poor kid,’ Grayle said.
They approached the roundabout in the area known as the Rotunda, where Chatterton Mansions was.
‘You worked it all out yet about the apartment, Bobby?’
What with talking to the removal guys and getting to look around the place, then dashing directly over to Kurt Campbell’s hotel, they hadn’t had much opportunity to discuss what they’d found out at Chatterton Mansions.
‘If it wasn’t even his flat,’ Bobby said, ‘it’s just further proof that Seward was using Barber as a respectable front to get Seffi to do the seance.’
‘We established that. But why not use Barber’s own apartment if it’s in the same building?’
‘Probably because he didn’t want all those people — people like that — in his home.’
‘But if Seward was in a position to put the bite on Barber, was Barber in a position to argue over details?’
‘What other reason could there be?’
‘I don’t know,’ Grayle said. ‘Hey, you get a whiff of the dope in that bedroom?’
‘Tart’s boudoir,’ Bobby said. ‘Wardrobe full of handcuffs and rubberwear.’
‘You looked?’
‘I’m guessing, Grayle.’
‘What did those guys call the apartment?’
‘A show flat.’
‘Like, an example of what you could expect if you bought an apartment in the block?’
‘It’s bollocks, isn’t it? But why are they moving the furniture?’
‘Somebody actually bought the place?’
‘One room only?’
‘You’re right,’ Grayle said. ‘That doesn’t add up. It’s like they were getting rid of all the stuff in there on account of it was messed up or something.’
‘Tainted by bad vibes,’ Bobby said.
‘You’re spending too much time with Cindy.’ She leaned back, watching the lights of the town receding in the wing mirror. ‘I guess we’re no further forward, Bobby. We’re just collecting more questions. Maybe some of it’ll hang together with whatever Cindy and Marcus discovered at Overcross.’
When they got back to St Mary’s — around nine p.m., this would be — the wind was up again and a branch had snapped from one of the old trees which clashed like antlers over the mountain road.
The heater in the truck didn’t work. Grayle had on her raincoat, and it was too damn thin.
She thought Kurt Campbell was slick and arrogant and, for all his mastery of the techniques of hypnotism and his knowledge of the history of spiritualism, probably dangerously superficial. She wanted to go to this expensive Victorian seance tomorrow night about as much as she wanted to revisit the place where Ersula’s body had been found.