‘So they’re not even gonna pretend?’
‘Of course not. It’s to be a civilized after-dinner entertainment, an exhibition of deception and human folly. We see how the magic lantern was used to project phantoms, how sound effects and the deployment of light and shadow would simulate the atmosphere of a haunted house …’
‘Big deal.’
‘Ah, but then …’ Cindy laid down the notebook ‘… what if, at some point in the evening, there is an imperceptible change? What if we shift from simulation to an invocation of … who knows what? What if the obviously fake gives way to the semi-convincing and then — in front of this august assembly — to the terrifyingly inexplicable? And what if afterwards, as the somewhat timid applause dies down, the guests come to realize that what they have just witnessed is …’ Cindy raising his hands, fingers moving like undersea creatures ‘… the reality of it?’
‘This is where Callard comes in?’
‘I don’t know, little Grayle. I won’t be there. Only you will be there, among the dignitaries.’
Grayle moistened her cold lips.
Bobby said, ‘But that’s just what you surmise will happen?’
‘Of course,’ Cindy said lightly. ‘And if nothing happens but the fakery, nothing is lost, no reputations are damaged. But if it does, particularly in front of this distinguished group, think of the kudos for Kurt’s venture.’
‘Hold on here,’ Grayle said. ‘Are we talking about Clarence Judge? Because that’s what they’re gonna get from Callard. Just Clarence freaking Judge and his slimeball smell. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, Cindy.’
‘No,’ Cindy said. ‘Perhaps it doesn’t.’
‘Maybe we put two and two together and made sixteen.’
Bobby said, ‘I don’t suppose Seward was on that guest list?’
Cindy looked disparaging. ‘I know he’s a popular figure now, but is that really likely, Bobby? Even rejected for the Lottery Show once, he was. I think it was the idea of the big money balls in the hands of a known felon … Hush a moment …’
Cindy lifted a finger. There came the unlikely sound of ragged, unaccompanied singing. Bobby stood up, walked over and spread the tent flap. Grayle went to peer over his shoulder.
‘Aw, this always happens.’
Over on the cindered parking lot, a minibus had drawn up, a bunch of people gathered around it. They were singing a hymn. Two of them carried a banner between two poles. In black stencilled lettering, it carried a not unfamiliar appeal.
IN THE NAME OF JESUS, STOP THIS EVIL!
The banner took some holding steady in the wind, but maybe they had support from above.
‘Whenever you advertise any kind of big New Age event, you get these militant evangelicals,’ Grayle said. ‘Happens a lot back home.’
Cindy joined her and Bobby in the opening. Quite a few more New Age stallholders had emerged, so there was some kind of audience — if not the kind likely to be on the side of the protesters.
‘Open your minds, why don’t you?’ yelled this woman in a long, grey woollen cloak. ‘There’s more than one narrow little way to God!’
The evangelicals carried on singing, led by two guys in clerical collars.
‘How long will they keep this up?’ Bobby wondered.
‘Oh hell, Bobby, they’ll be here all day and then I guess another bunch’ll take over. Less, of course, the security guys move into action, but that’s not too likely. Throwing out a Christian on his ass is not what you’d call good PR.’
‘Now there’s interesting,’ Cindy said.
‘Huh?’
‘See the person on the end with the handwritten placard?’
Small guy in a suit and tie, not singing, just standing there holding up his placard.
‘What’s it say? Oh.’
The sign said
THEY MURDEREDJOHN HODGE
‘The gamekeeper?’ Grayle said. ‘The shotgun accident?’
Cindy turned to Bobby.
‘Go and have a word, boy. You are the detective, go and detect. Grayle and I will mind the shop.’ He seemed suddenly alive with an excitement Grayle hadn’t seen in him in such a long time. ‘This is what we’ve been waiting for. The answers always lie in history. Get him out of here, Bobby. Don’t let anyone see you.’
XLIV
He had a long piece of sticking plaster diagonally across his forehead.
‘Oh, yes, they did that,’ he said diffidently in the snug, panelled bar of the Unicorn.
‘The security men?’
‘Well, you see, I landed on a piece of barbed wire. This was when they slung me off the site. I don’t suppose they meant it to happen, but they never came out to help me. I could’ve lost an eye, I suppose, for all they cared.’
‘Just let me get this right. This is the Forcefield men?’
‘Is that what they’re called? Anyway, I came back. I paid my entrance fee and I came back. And when these religious people arrived, I decided to attach myself to them. I explained that this was an example of the kind of evil that resulted from all this meddling. Had to say I was thinking of joining their church, but at least it meant I could make my protest without getting assaulted. Stand there a while and hope someone would come along who’d take a bit of notice. And now here you are, sir.’
He raised his glass to Maiden.
Get him out of here, Bobby. Don’t let anyone see you.
They’d thrown his placard face-down in the back of Marcus’s truck and then Maiden had driven him through the gates, the man’s face turned away from the Forcefield gateman, and four miles to the Unicorn, which was three pubs distant from Overcross and almost empty, thankfully.
‘I’ll go back again,’ he said. ‘Got to keep it up, sir. I promised.’
He was a slightly built man about Marcus’s age, gingery-white hair and a small, pointed face as inoffensive as a hedgehog’s. His name was Harry Douglas Oakley. John Hodge, gamekeeper to Barnaby Crole, was his great-grandfather.
‘You really are the police?’ He spoke quietly, the way informers spoke in pubs, the way Vic Clutton would speak, only a little more refined and with none of Vic’s irony. Mr Oakley had a small bicycle shop in West Malvern.
Maiden displayed his warrant card. ‘But, I’ll be honest, this is not my area. And I’m on leave, anyway.’
‘So, can I ask what your interest is, sir? Do you mind?’
Maiden hesitated. ‘This would be in confidence?’
‘Surely.’
‘I don’t know about John Hodge being murdered, but people have certainly been killed since and I’m looking for connections with some friends. We’re not sure what we’re after. I’m sorry to be so vague.’
‘If you’re sincere, that’s good enough for me, sir.’
Maiden said, ‘Would you mind not calling me “sir”? I have a bit of a problem with it. My name’s Bobby.’
‘Certainly, Bobby,’ said Harry Douglas Oakley.
By early afternoon many more vehicles had entered the site and the tents were taking on a new allure, signs going up proclaiming palmistry, crystal-healing, Tarot readings and a big caravan, where you could attach yourself to devices that altered your brainwaves. There were practitioners of Reiki and a feng shui adviser. An Asian band with a range of hand drums set up in a corner of the field and beat away the cold.
Cindy and Grayle finished laying out the stall. Even with the dramatic colour pictures of the Knoll and one oblique photo of Castle Farm, home of The Vision (silhouetted against the sunset, its location unidentified; Marcus would kill them first), it all still looked a little sparse, even for a cover, a smokescreen.
Grayle had brought a small case containing the long black skirt and the high-necked Edwardian-style blouse she guessed she’d need to wear for the period seance. ‘I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling uneasy about tonight, Kurt Campbell coming on to me and all. And what happens if … when … Callard spots me?’