Mean Spirit Part 50

This was the death sentence.

His stomach hurt when he walked. Also when he breathed. He saw the concern in Grayle's eyes and was moved almost to tears. He'd discovered that he cried easily since his death. Not very policemanlike. Would disgust Norman Plod.

They stopped outside a fat oak door. 'Hands, please,' the Forcefield man smiled thinly, 'boss.'

'Oh, b.u.g.g.e.r.' Maiden recognized slim, narrow-eyed, felt-pen moustached DC Ballantyne, stationed briefly at Elham about four years ago. Ballantyne handcuffed him, hands behind. They weren't police issue cuffs, more like s.e.x shop, but they worked.

'It's Matthew, isn't it?' Maiden said.

'It's sir to you, you f.u.c.ker,' said Ballantyne.

'What's the pay like,' Maiden said, 'sir?'

Ballantyne looked into his eyes. 'Ever had your legs kicked from under you when you're cuffed? Scary.'

Grayle was watching, concern for Maiden giving way to blank fear for them both, as she was cuffed, too. By the bearded guy who'd worked Maiden over behind the Portaloos. The cuffs looked like medieval manacles above Grayle's small hands.

'Actually, this particular a.s.signment', Ballantyne lowered his voice, 'is a farce. But the money ...' he winked '... the money's great.'

The oak door opened and a man slipped out, closing it behind him. He wore an evening suit: white jacket, with one of those Sixties-style bow ties that fitted under the collar making an inverted V. It was almost an anticlimax to discover who he was.

Older than the pictures; they always were. More wizened, corruption lodged in every line that the camera lenses had blurred. Bags under the eyes, but the eyes were shrewd and bright and merry and cold as a mortuary.

'Bobby Maiden!' Both hands gripping Maiden's shoulders. 'Heard a lot about you, c.o.c.k.'

'From my old boss, that would be?'

'You signed out a short while back, yeah? How long was it? Three minutes?'

'Four.'

'f.u.c.king amazing.' The eyes never blinked. 'Where you get to, Bobby?'

'Wherever it was, Gary, I was glad to get back.'

'You must be an immature soul, my son. But no matter ... you was there ... you was over the fence. It's the experience what counts, know wha' mean?' He turned away from Maiden. 'And Grayle ... Underwood.'

'Hill,' Grayle said. 'Underhill. I believe we, uh ... met.'

'Nice of you to remember the occasion, Grayle. You also remember what I said to you that night?'

'I guess.'

'Don't guess, darlin',' he said breezily. 'Tell me.'

'You are dead,' Grayle said tonelessly.

'Good girl.' Gary Seward put out a hand, held Grayle's chin gently between thumb and forefinger. She didn't move her head, but Maiden saw her swallow. 'Heat of the moment, sweetheart.' Seward let go of Grayle's chin. 'Heat of the moment.'

Maiden saw former DC Ballantyne smirking in delight at this dear old underworld character from a lost era, as if this was cabaret. He wondered if Ballantyne knew what Seward had done to his colleague, Jeffrey Crewe. He wondered what Seward had told Riggs about the incident.

'But having said that, Grayle, it's incredible how things what comes out in the heat of the moment do turn out to be quite prophetic. I believe in all that stuff.' Seward swivelled, spreading his hands. 'I mean, let's be frank about this, a short time from now, the two of you will have died three times between you.'

The fluorescent tube in the ceiling zizzed and popped along with the famous monotone laugh.

'I mean, you know, how else is it supposed to end? What else can I do, the position you put me in? It's your own fault, innit?'

Grayle looked at him, frozen-faced, her skin blue-white under the strip light, her hair tangled on her shoulders. Maiden wondered desperately how he could get her out of this. Being nice to Seward didn't seem an option.

'I mean this is an omen, yeah? The two of you here: a young lady what was recently told she was dead and a geezer who was dead.'

'Mmm,' Maiden said, 'that is really uncanny.'

'What can I tell you? You're gonna die. You are gonna die. We all die. Your time has been brought forward, that's all. How I always look at it. Bringing forward the inevitable. That's all it is.'

'I never thought of that before,' Maiden said tonelessly. 'That's amazingly profound.'

Gary Seward tucked a fast fist into Maiden's undefended stomach.

'That the spot, Bobby?'

Maiden retched, folded in agony.

'You sc.u.mball!' Grayle screamed. 'You knew he was hurt!'

'But I digress,' Maiden heard Seward say, across the pain. 'What I was about to say is, by the time you check out I hope we'll all know more about the actual business of death and what follows. The reality. You ever meet Clarence Judge, Bobby?' Seward bent to him. 'Eh?'

Maiden shook his head.

'We can fix that.' He turned and pushed open the oak door, stepped back. 'Go through, would you, please?'

Ballantyne and his colleague blocked the pa.s.sage in each direction. Ballantyne signalled Maiden into the room.

Where Maiden saw what he expected to see. A richly carpeted area with a red sofa and five chairs around a table. A little bit of Cheltenham.

What he didn't expect to see, in one of the chairs, was Ron Foxworth.

LI.

THE TABLE WAS OF CREAMY, POLISHED YEW, THE SEATING AROUND IT an inelegant mixture: two straight-backed wooden dining chairs, three red brocaded Edwardian fireside chairs. In one of which sat Foxworth.

He barely glanced at Maiden. He still wore his old black anorak with the rally stripes. He looked slightly absurd in this opulently furnished cellar.

But then the island of opulence itself looked absurd. All around, it was still a cellar. The walls had been patched up with cement. A strip light buzzed and flickered near the top of a wall. A dusty unlit bulb dangled from a brown Bakelite rose in the centre of the low, grey ceiling.

It was this hanging bulb, more than anything, which made it look less like a filmset than a display hurriedly flung together in a furniture warehouse.

'He holds this very much against you, Bobby.' Seward tilted his head to peer at Foxworth as though he was a child in a pram. 'Don't you, Ronny?'

Maiden saw that Foxworth was also handcuffed but with his hands in front. He saw a tall, expensive Chinese vase on a table pushed against the furthest wall. On either side of it, two oil heaters faintly smoking below a jacket on a hanger on a hook in the wall.

'All this talk of the Festival of the Spirit, you really whetted Ron's appet.i.te, Bobby. Thinkin' about you and me and how we all fitted into the picture. Had to come over and check it out, didn't you, Ronny?' Seward smiled at Foxworth and then at Maiden. 'It's his obsessive personality.'

Ron Foxworth didn't speak. Ballantyne directed Grayle and Maiden into the red chairs on either side of Ron.

'Course Ron sticks out a bit. Not very New Age. Not like you, Bobby, by all accounts. Now, you tell me what was I supposed to do? It's one of those moments, one of those signs. Detective Superintendent Ronald Foxworth visits the Festival of the Spirit. Life's too short to ignore it. You know you got to react quick or you miss it. So ... soon as we established he was on his tod, we had him. Lifted him clean, banged him up.'

Ron cleared his throat, didn't look up. Maiden thought he'd never seen a man look so destroyed.

'Surprised?' Gary Seward slid into a wooden chair, crossed his legs, did his one-tone laugh. 'Very surprised indeed, wasn't you, Ronald? I mean, it don't happen, do it? A senior officer, a distinguished detective? Should have heard the bl.u.s.ter, Bobby. You really done it this time, Seward. Big, powerful detective, this. Spent half his life trying to pull Gary Seward. Now I've pulled him. Exquisite. But it goes deeper, don't it, Ron?'

Foxworth looked up. His eyes were pale and bloodshot. He didn't look at anybody, his focus point seemed to be in a haze about eighteen inches from his face. But, at some stage since he was lifted, Ron had learned about the consequences of failing to answer direct questions.

'Gary thinks I was once uncivil to Clarence Judge.'

'Masterly understatement, Ron. What happened was ... there was a siege situation yeah? Late Seventies, Ron? Seventy-nine, eighty, around then. Clarence, I think he done a post office for pocket money or alimony, some minor cash-flow thing. Course, Ron looks at Clarence, sees Gary Seward, know wha' mean? Obsessive. Goes in mob-handed, SAS-style. Absolute overreaction, utterly uncalled for. Poor Clarence thinks he's for the jump, killed trying to escape, some'ing like that. Thinks he's fighting for his life. Well you would, wouldn't you?'

Ron rallied. 'He had a copper's ear between his teeth. DS Earnshaw. Took four men to tear his b.l.o.o.d.y face away. Had half the ear in his mouth and if they hadn't made him cough it up he'd have eaten it.'

Seward ignored him. 'So, back at the station, what does Ron do but invite three of DS Earnshaw's colleagues to pay their respects to Clarence in his cell.'

'He was smas.h.i.+ng up his cell,' Ron said to his chest. 'He was also in danger of injuring himself. Judge had no pain threshold.'

Seward half-turned, pointed the finger. 'You, Ron, are a lying toerag. What are you?'

Maiden closed his eyes. Don't make him say it.

'Nah,' Seward said. 'He knows what he is. He humiliated Clarence that day. He stood and watched while those pigs hurt my poor friend in all the places what didn't show. But, worst of all, they hurt his pride, and that's the severest thing you can do to a man like Clarence, and it cannot be tolerated long term. I says, leave it, Clarence, don't do nothing. 'Cause he never had no finesse, see, the poor love. You leave it, I says. But one day I will see to Ron for you, I promise. And Gary Seward keeps his promises, and this is that day and Clarence is going to be here to see it. Matthew ...?'

Ballantyne closed the oak door.

Oh G.o.d, Maiden thought.

'Let's make ourselves comfortable.' Seward bent down the side of his chair, came up nursing black metal. 'We're gonna get cosy. There will be no resistance, otherwise the inevitable gets brought forward, know wha' mean?'

Shotgun. Sawn-off. Maiden estimated that if Seward let that thing off in here he could kill one of them, maim the others with a single shot.

'Stand up, Miss Underwood.'

Seward ambled over, placed the twin barrels against Grayle's temple. 'Oh G.o.d.' Her voice was like a startled bird taking flight from a branch. Maiden began to breathe hard.

'You too, Ron, Bobby. Up. Now, what we do, we close our eyes and we keep the f.u.c.kers closed.'

'I can't,' Grayle said.

'Oh, you can, darlin'. Just consider the alternatives.'

'Oh G.o.d. Oh G.o.d.'

'Thank you.'

Maiden stared into the blackness, telling himself that if Seward was going to execute them he wouldn't use a sawn-off shotgun.

Would he?

A fumbling behind him. For a moment his hands were free. His heart leapt, his body tensed, he wanted to lash out, go for it.

'Stay still, c.o.c.k!' Seward, hard-voiced. 'No resistance.'

Maiden's right hand hung by his side. His left was jerked up. Handcuffs snapped.

'You can all open your eyes now,' Seward said.

Maiden opened his into a grotto-like gloom. The strip light was off, the cellar was now feebly lit by the hanging bulb. Seward was hunched on the hard chair, he and the shotgun fused into the same bulky shadow.

'And you can leave us now, lads,' he said to Ballantyne and his mate. 'Go and find Kurt. Tell him I want that toffee-nosed b.i.t.c.h down here asap.'

A tug on the left wrist told Maiden he was handcuffed to Ron Foxworth. He saw that Ron was handcuffed on the other side to Grayle.

Foxworth glared angrily at Maiden. 'You know why else I came down here, you t.o.s.s.e.r?' Like them being bound at the wrist had unblocked him. 'Because a lad called Scott Ferris was telling us how a bloke with copper's ID was asking after Justin Sharpe. Described you to a T.'

'You had me in the frame for Justin?'

'I had you in the frame for a lying b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Had you in the frame for p.i.s.sing up my leg.'

'Ron, I tried to call you ...'

'Stop bleedin' whingeing, Ron,' Seward said. 'I never took to you, you know that? You was always such a miserable git.'

Maiden said, 'Why the chain gang, Gary?'

'It's a circle, Bobby. Or it will be. Put your hands on the table, palms down, little fingers touching. It's incomplete, but that'll be rectified.'

'It's a seance,' Grayle said softly. 'He wants to hold a seance.'

'Give the little girl a coconut,' Seward said.

Cindy stopped at the edge of the parapet and looked back at the golden light in the tall, Gothic windows, and didn't know how he was going to get back into the house now. Little Grayle was in there alone. He had to find Bobby.

He hurried down into the festival site, lit up below him like a fairground, strings of coloured bulbs between the bare trees. The punters were thinning out, drifting away. Soon the stalls would close, the stallholders returning to their hotels and guesthouses in Great Malvern, some to their camper-vans on a site near the road.

There was an arc of applause from the main marquee, where a writer on alien abduction was concluding her lecture. Or was it the demonstration of pendulum dowsing?

While, inside Overcross Castle ... two spiritualist gatherings: the mock seance in the banqueting hall, some actor-magician performing the stunts of Daniel Dunglas-Home, as he would tomorrow and the rest of the week for paying audiences. And, somewhere in the heart of the house, the secret ceremony over which Persephone Callard was being pressed to preside to preserve foolish Kurt from the wrath of the vicious Seward. Poor Kurt, who lived in such fear of this man. Awakening one morning with the horrific realization that he was in partners.h.i.+p with a still-active dangerous criminal.

c.r.a.p. Kurt was a liar. He was very deeply into this. He needed Persephone Callard here as much as Seward did but, because she would have knowledge of at least one murder, he would be obliged to build up Seward as the dangerously unbalanced instigator.

As he hurried through the lights, Cindy became aware of a few people staring at him, pointing. His blond wig was gone, his gla.s.ses were gone. And even New Age followers watched television.