Innocent Blood

Twenty-Four

The next morning he was on his way to Nevile’s house when his cellphone rang.

‘Frank. It’s Margot.’

‘Oh, yes? What do you want?’

She hesitated, deterred by his aggressive response. But then she said, ‘I just wanted to tell you how sorry I was about Lizzie and Mo. You must be devastated.’

‘Yes, well, thank you. It was a miracle they didn’t get me, too.’

‘If you want to meet me, Frank, and talk about it . . .’

‘No, thanks. But thanks.’

‘Frank . . . I don’t want things to come to the point where we’re not even speaking to each other.’

‘No, me neither. I’ll call you later, if I get the time, OK?’

‘All right, then.’

He was still thinking about Margot as he overshot the entrance to Nevile’s house. The truth was, he was beginning to miss her, in a way. She might have taken herself way too seriously, with her Eastern philosophy and her paintings and her macrobiotic diets, but that was one of the things that had first attracted him, because it had brought stability and order into his life, whereas he had always been susceptible to sudden enthusiasms, and to rush off and do things before he had thought them through – followed by deep depression because they hadn’t worked out.

Even her paintings didn’t seem so bad, in retrospect. They were calm; they were peaceful. And, as Mo had once remarked, they were no more objectionable than a blank wall, after all.

He U-turned outside the Earth Mother Juice Stand, his tires squealing, and doubled back. Further up the road a hitch-hiker, his thumb already half lifted, frowned at him in annoyance, as if his future had suddenly changed in front of his eyes.

Nevile was sitting in his study, laying out picture cards on his polished black marble table.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked. His black shirt was buttoned up to the neck but he wasn’t wearing a necktie, so that he looked like an ascetic priest.

Frank eased himself down on the opposite side of the table. ‘I feel like I’ve been over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Twice nightly, with an extra performance on Saturday afternoons.’

Nevile looked up. ‘How about mentally?’

‘Sad. And very angry. Revenge? Jesus . . . if I could lay my hands on those bastards . . .’

‘When are the police going to talk to Charles Lasser?’

‘Today sometime, they told me. It probably won’t do any good.’

Nevile dealt more cards, then frowned.

‘What’s this?’ asked Frank. ‘Fortune-telling?’

‘No, it’s a game. Cats and Moons. It’s like solitaire except that you play it with a spirit.’

Frank couldn’t help looking around the room. ‘You mean you’re playing with somebody now?’

‘A very old spirit. He was one of the first who ever came to me when I moved to California. His name’s Erasmus and he used to own a fruit farm near Bakersfield. He died at the age of ninety-seven.’

Frank watched Nevile picking up cards and placing them one on top of the other. ‘How does Erasmus, like, play his hand?’

‘He gives me instructions,’ said Nevile, tapping his forehead with his fingertip. ‘And in no uncertain terms, too. “The Dog Star card next to the Siamese card, you moron!”’

Frank sat back. Now that he had seen spiritual manifestations for himself, he didn’t find it at all unbelievable that Nevile was playing a game with a man who was long dead. In fact, he wished that he had known about spirits years ago, especially how close they like to cluster to the living.

‘Do you think it was Charles Lasser who sent those men to kill you?’ asked Nevile.

‘I don’t have any proof apart from that news broadcast, but I’m pretty sure of it.’

‘Three cats!’ said Nevile, triumphantly. ‘Beat that!’

‘I’m just wondering how they knew that I was waiting for the cops to show up.’

Nevile began to gather up cards. ‘I hate to say this, but your prime suspect seems to be Astrid. You told her, didn’t you, that you suspected Charles Lasser of bombing your office, and you told her that you were going to call the police? Not only that, she made sure she left before they arrived.’

‘I don’t know. The police thing could have been a coincidence. I mean, if you want somebody to open up their hotel room door for you, then shouting “police!” is a pretty logical thing to do, isn’t it? You’re not going to say “hitmen!”, are you?’

‘There’s something very unusual about Astrid,’ Nevile mused. ‘It’s not just the fact that she won’t tell you what her name is, or where she lives. Do you think she’s still seeing Charles Lasser?’

‘I don’t have any idea. I can’t follow her everywhere. I don’t have the right.’

‘You have the right to protect yourself.’

‘What do you mean? You think she’s dangerous?’

‘If she called those two men last night, of course she is. But even if she didn’t call them, it seems to me that she’s getting you involved in something very complicated and very risky, although I can’t think what.’

‘Whatever you say, she’s given me comfort, she’s given me reassurance, she’s kept me from falling to pieces.’

‘Of course she has,’ said Nevile. ‘But at the same time, she could have been trying to win your trust, for the sake of her own agenda.’

‘What agenda? I mean, I’m a comedy writer. What else could I possibly do for her, except make her laugh?’

‘Maybe Danny knows.’

‘Danny?’

‘He’s appeared to you twice this week, to save your life. The chances are that he knows who’s trying to kill you. He may also know what Astrid wants from you, too.’

‘So that’s why you suggested another séance?’

Nevile lifted both hands. ‘Not if you don’t want to.’

At that moment, however, the Cats and Moons pack was suddenly knocked off the table and scattered across the floor. Nevile looked around the room and said, ‘Temper, temper! If there’s one thing I don’t like, Erasmus, it’s a sore loser!’

They sat in silence for more than twenty minutes while the sun crept stealthily across the study wall and illuminated a painting of a woman in lilac standing by an overgrown grave, her hair entwined with flowers and her hands covering her face, so that only her eyes looked out. For some reason, the painting was titled The Gates.

Nevile was staring out of the window. His breathing was very deep and slow, almost as if he were falling asleep. Frank’s left nostril began to itch, and it was all he could do not to sneeze.

‘I want to talk to Danny,’ said Nevile at last. ‘Danny, can you hear me? Your daddy’s here.’

‘You got through?’ asked Frank.

Nevile said nothing, but continued to stare at the clouds in the sky outside. Another five minutes went past, and the sun edged even further across the painting. It had the strange effect of making the girl’s hands melt away, so that Frank could see her face, serious and pale, and staring at him directly, as if she recognized him.

‘Danny? Can you hear me?’ said Nevile. He listened for a moment, and then he turned to Frank. ‘He’s here, but he doesn’t think that he can speak to us.’

‘Why not?’

Nevile listened some more, and then he nodded. ‘He says that if he speaks to us, he could get into trouble.’

‘Trouble? What kind of trouble?’

‘He says that there’s a lot of hurt, and that there’s only one way to make it better.’

‘Yes, but what trouble?’

‘I’m not sure, but it feels to me like he’s being threatened.’

‘Threatened? In the spirit world? Who the hell can threaten him there?’

‘Other spirits. He says they’re looking for a way to get over their pain.’

‘What the hell does he mean? Is there any way that I can talk to him direct?’

‘He says he loves you. He says he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you, the same way it happened to him.’

‘Yes, but can I talk to him myself? I want to know who’s giving him such a hard time.’

‘They’re spirits, Frank. Even if he told you who they were, what could you do about it?’

Frank stood up. ‘Danny! Can you hear me, Danny? Come on, Danny, you appeared last night, you saved my life! Let me see you, Danny, please! At least let me hear you!’

There was another silence, and then Nevile said, ‘He says he can’t talk to you, not now.’

‘Danny, I need to know what’s happening. I need to know who killed Lizzie and Mo. I need to know who killed you.’

An even longer silence. A fly settled on the Cats and Moons cards and began to walk across Ursa Major. Somewhere close by a dog started barking.

‘He’s gone,’ said Nevile.

Frank looked at his watch. ‘Five after eleven. Only fifty-five minutes before some other poor bastards get blown up. Dear God, Nevile, we have to find out who’s doing this!’

‘Danny couldn’t have told you, even if he knows. As I told you before, spirits can never tell you who killed them. They can’t break the laws of natural justice.’

‘But for Christ’s sake, so many innocent people are going to get killed! What kind of natural justice is that?’

Nevile collected up his playing cards. ‘The world couldn’t work without secrets, Frank. If we knew exactly was going to happen tomorrow, life wouldn’t be worth living. All that keeps us going is hope, isn’t it? That, and curiosity.’