Looking Good Dead

32

The clumsily handwritten poster Sellotaped to the glass pane of the door said: brent mackenzie. world-famous clairvoyant. here tonight only! A large fluorescent yellow strip across it read: sorry, sold out!

Outwardly the building did not look that promising. Grace had been expecting a fairly spacious hall, but the Brighton Holistic Centre appeared to occupy nothing grander than a small corner shop, with its exterior painted a rather garish pink.

A woman in her forties, wearing a black smock over a grey leotard and with slightly mad hair, stood on the other side of the door, collecting tickets. Grace took his wallet out of his pocket, dug his fingers into it and retrieved his ticket, which he had purchased several weeks earlier.

He felt nervous. A disconcerting jangling deep inside him seemed to strip away his natural confidence. It was always the same before he saw a medium or clairvoyant, or any other kind of psychic. The anticipation. The hope he held in his heart that this one might be different, that this one finally, after close on nine long years, would have the answer.

Either a message, or a location, or a sign.

Something that would tell him whether Sandy was dead or alive. That was the most important thing he needed to know. Sure, there would be all kinds of other questions that would then follow whichever answer he got. But first, please, he needed that answer.

Maybe tonight?

He handed over his ticket and followed three nervously chatting girls up the narrow staircase. They looked like sisters, the youngest in her late teens, the oldest in her mid-twenties. He passed an unpainted door marked quiet, therapy in session, and entered a room that had about twenty assorted plastic chairs squeezed in, forming an L-shape with a gap where he presumed the clairvoyant would stand. There were blue blinds, pot plants on the shelves, and a print of a Provençal landscape on one wall.

Most of the chairs were already taken. Two young girls were with their mum, a pudding-faced lady in a baggy knitted top, who seemed to be fighting back tears. Next to them sat a long-haired earth mother of about seventy in a floral top, denim skirt and glasses the size of a snorkeller’s mask.

Grace found a free chair next to two men in their late twenties, both wearing jeans and sweatshirts. One, grossly overweight, with ragged hair that reminded Grace of the comedian Ken Dodd, was staring blankly ahead and chewing gum. The other, much thinner, was sweating profusely and brandishing a can of Pepsi Cola in his hand as if it afforded him some status. Grace overheard some of their conversation; they were discussing electric screwdrivers.

Another mother and daughter entered the room and took the remaining two chairs, next to him. The daughter, thin as a rake and dressed to party in black trousers and red blouse, reeked of a scent that smelled, to Grace, of lavatory freshener. The mother, equally dolled up, looked like a computer-aged image of the daughter twenty years on. Grace was familiar with the technique; it was used frequently in the search for missing persons. A year ago he’d had a photograph of Sandy put through the process and been staggered by how much someone could change in just eight years.

There was an air of expectation in the room. Grace glanced around at the faces, wondering why they were all here; some because they were recently bereaved, he guessed, but probably most were just lost souls in need of guidance. And they had each forked out ten quid to meet a complete stranger with no medical or sociological qualifications, who was about to tell each of them stuff that could alter their entire approach to life.

Stuff that the spirits channelled through Brent Mackenzie, or so he would claim. Grace knew; he’d seen it all.

And yet he kept coming back for more.

It was like a drug: just one more fix and then he would stop. But of course he would never stop, not until the day he found out the truth about Sandy’s disappearance. Maybe the spirits would tell Brent Mackenzie tonight; maybe the clairvoyant would do what all those before him had failed to do, and pluck it out of the ether.

Roy Grace knew the reputational risk he ran by pursing his interest in mediums and clairvoyants, but he was not the only police officer in the UK to regularly consult them, not by a long way. And, regardless of what the cynics said, Grace believed in the supernatural. He had no option. He had seen a ghost – two ghosts, in fact – many times during his childhood.

Every summer he used to go and stay for a week with his uncle and aunt, in their cottage in Bembridge on the Isle of Wight. In a grand town house opposite two very sweet old ladies used to wave at him from a bay window on the top floor. It wasn’t until years later, revisiting Bembridge after a long absence, that he learned that the house had been empty for over forty years – the two old ladies who waved at him had committed suicide in 1947. And it hadn’t been his imagination; other people had seen them also, including his uncle and aunt.

The audience were quietening now; the two men beside him seemed to have finished their discussion about electric screwdrivers. It was 7.45 p.m. exactly. Behind him he heard the hiss of a ring pull being tugged on a can of drink. A mobile phone beeped an incoming text message, and he saw the earth mother delve into her macramé handbag, pull the phone out and switch it off, her face reddening.

Then the medium sauntered in, with all the presence of a man looking for the door to a pub urinal. About forty years old, standing a good six foot four inches tall, he was dressed in a baggy orange T-shirt with a string of beads around his neck, fawn chinos and shiny white trainers. He had buzz-cut hair, a few days growth of stubble, a prizefighter’s broken nose and a massive beer belly, and, Grace noticed, he was wearing a very expensive-looking watch. For some moments he appeared not to notice that he had walked into a crowded room. Grace even began to wonder whether this actually was the clairvoyant.

Then, facing the blinds, Brent Mackenzie spoke. His voice was thin and reedy, far too small for such a large man, but very earnest. ‘I’m not using my memory tonight,’ he said. ‘I want to do my best for all of you. I will have a message for each of you tonight; that’s a promise.’

Grace glanced around; just a sea of silent, rapt faces, waiting.

‘My first message is for a lady in here called Brenda.’ Now the clairvoyant turned and scanned the room. The pudding-faced mother put her hand up.

‘Ah, Brenda, love, there you are! If I said there was a move imminent in your life, would that be right?’

The woman thought for a moment, then nodded enthusiastically.

‘Yeah, that’s what the spirits are telling me. It’s a big move, isn’t it?’

She looked at each of her daughters in turn, as if for confirmation. Both of them frowned. Then she looked at the medium. ‘No,’ she said.

There was an awkward silence. After a few moments the medium said, ‘I’m being told it is a bigger move than you realize at the moment. But you are not to worry about it; you are doing the right thing.’ He nodded reassuringly at her, then closed his eyes and took a pace back.

Grace watched him, feeling uncomfortable about the man. This was a typical ploy of a medium – to manipulate what he said when it did not resonate.

‘I’ve got a message for a Margaret,’ Brent Mackenzie said, opening his eyes and scanning the room. A rather mousy little woman in her late thirties who Grace had not previously noticed put up her hand.

‘Does the name Ivy mean anything to you, darling?’

The woman shook her head.

‘OK. What about Ireland. Does Ireland mean anything?’

Again she shook her head.

‘The spirits are very definite about Ireland. I think you will be going there soon even if you don’t realize it at the moment. They say you will go to Cork. There’s someone who will change your life who is in Cork.’

She looked blank.

‘I’ll come back to you, Margaret,’ the clairvoyant said. ‘I’m being interrupted – they are very rude sometimes in the spirit world; they get very impatient when they have a message for someone. I’m getting a message here for Roy.’

Grace felt a jolt as if he had plunged his finger into an electrical socket. Brent Mackenzie was stepping towards him, staring hard at him. He felt his face burn and all his composure went; he stared back at the medium now towering over him, feeling confused, helpless.

‘I’ve got a gentleman with me, I think he might be your father. He’s showing me a badge he used to wear. Does that mean something?’

Maybe, Grace thought, but I’m not giving you any clues. I’m paying you to tell ME things.

Grace stared at him blankly.

‘He’s showing me his helmet. I think he was a police officer before he passed. He has passed?’

Grace gave him a reluctant nod.

‘He tells me he’s very proud of you, but you are having a difficult time at the moment. Someone is blocking your career. He is showing me a woman – with short blonde hair? Is her name Vespa, like the motor scooter?’

Now Grace was mesmerized. Alison Vosper? He desperately wanted to speak to the man, to tell him the name Sandy. But his courage had deserted him. And he did not want to lead him. Was Brent Mackenzie going to tell him something about Sandy? Some message from his father about her?

‘Your dad’s showing me something, Roy. It’s a small insect. Looks like a beetle. He is quite agitated about this beetle. He’s not very clear-’ The clairvoyant cupped his head in his hands, turned round once, then again. ‘I’m sorry, I’m losing him. He said it could save something.’

Grace, staring up at him, suddenly found the courage to speak. ‘What exactly did he say it could save?’

‘I’m sorry, Roy, I’ve lost him.’ The medium looked at someone else. ‘I’ve got a message for Bernie.’

Grace barely noticed. He was thinking. The man had got two hits. His father and the beetle. He said it could save something.

He would grab the clairvoyant at the end of the session, no matter how tired he was, and pump him for more.

What did the man mean? What the hell could it save? His career? Another life?

But he did not have to worry about getting hold of Brent Mackenzie when the evening ended. The clairvoyant, wearing a long anorak over his T-shirt, was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Roy, isn’t it?’ he said.

Grace nodded.

‘I don’t normally do this, but could we have a word in private?’

‘Yes, sure.’

Grace followed him into a tiny consulting room containing a desk, a couple of chairs and several dozen white candles, and the clairvoyant closed the door behind them. In this room he seemed even bigger, towering over Grace.

Remaining standing, Mackenzie said, ‘Look, I’m sorry; we didn’t have a very satisfactory session. I didn’t want to say too much in there, in front of everyone, you know. Some things are private. This doesn’t often happen to me, but I picked up some really bad feeling about you. I’m talking about this beetle thing I saw; I can’t get it out of my head. Like one of those you see in ancient Egyptian writings.’

Tilting his head up at him, Grace said, ‘A scarab?’

‘Yeah, exactly. Scarab beetle.’

Grace nodded. ‘Yes, that makes sense.’

The medium gave him a strange look. ‘Makes sense?’

‘It’s to do with work. I can’t really talk about it.’

‘You’re a copper, aren’t you?’

‘Does it show?’

The clairvoyant smiled. ‘I was a copper myself, for ten years. Manchester CID.’

‘You were?’

‘Yeah, well. Long story. Save it for another day. The thing is, mate, they’re telling me you are in real danger. Something to do with this scarab beetle. You need to watch your back.’