Mean Spirit

XLII

‘Is he harmless?’ Kurt Campbell caught the question with both hands. ‘Well, of course he is, Alice. How anyone could think otherwise is entirely beyond me.’

White-suited Kurt leaning back in the leather chair, dropping his left ankle on to his right knee, throwing his arms out and his head back as though it was surrendering to the pull of his lion’s mane of golden hair. Bobby Maiden went down on the soft pile carpet of Kurt’s hotel suite and took a picture of him like that, like he was intended to, with arms out, expansive St Kurt.

‘Look … Yes … all right … on one level he’s this absurd anachronism, an old-fashioned mumbo-jumbo man. Do you know anything about Shamanism, Alice?’

‘A little,’ Grayle said, her tape machine spinning on the low yew table between them. She’d told Kurt she was doing a major article for The Vision and filing a shorter piece to the New York Courier.

‘The shaman used to “contact the spirits” on behalf of his tribe,’ Kurt said. ‘Shaking bones and banging drums and all that rubbish.’

‘You think it’s rubbish?’

‘It was for effect, it was to overwhelm people, it was saying, “Hey look at me, I’m a big magic man and you’d better be scared of me, you’d better be in awe, because I’m different.” So, what you had was this funny, unbalanced, psychologically screwed-up guy who, instead of skulking on the fringes of his society, was projecting his skewed sexuality and his strange fetishes upon an ignorant and superstitious public only too ready to-’

‘So you think this is what Cindy Mars-Lewis is doing, with the cross-dressing and stuff?’

‘Oh, hey,’ Kurt said good-humouredly, ‘I was talking about the primitive old tribal shamans. Cindy’s a modern-day entertainer, a comedian, this is part of his act. For many people, he’s just a very funny guy, and when I was on the Lottery Show with him I was expected to play along with that, play the straight man, and I was happy to do that and pretend to hypnotize him …’

‘Yeah, but aren’t you-?’

‘Alice …’ Kurt raised a forefinger, fixed Grayle with that relaxed, pellucid blue gaze. ‘I really don’t want to talk about this guy any more, if that’s all right with you. He’s having a hard time and I don’t want to compound that. I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that he’s been using some kind of black magic to darken the image of the National Lottery.’

‘I don’t think anyone’s actually …’

‘The only point I’m interested in making is that the so-called Way of the Shaman was a primitive way, in that it was a smokescreen designed to prevent ordinary people discovering the truth about life and death and what may lie beyond. The shaman was saying, “Listen, ordinary people, this is my secret world and you’d better stay out of it for your own good.” Now I’m a mesmerist, a hypnotist, and what I do is scientifically proven, and I’m anxious to sweep aside all this mystic nonsense in favour of a more scientific approach … and that’s really what the Festival of the Spirit is about.’

‘But you know you’re gonna attract the New Age crowd.’

‘Absolutely. And maybe they’ll learn something. Yes, sure we’re going to have a few fortune tellers and alternative healers and people selling crystals. But I’m interested in finding the scientific truths behind all this. Which is how it all began at Overcross, with Barnaby Crole, who rebuilt the castle, and Anthony Abblow. The whole point about Victorian spirituality is that it was science-based.’

‘So perhaps you could explain how hypnotism ties in with spiritualism?’

‘Yeah. Right. Absolutely. That’s a very good question, Alice. You know, it’s really great to be interviewed by someone who knows enough about these things to ask the right questions.’

‘Well, thank you,’ Grayle said and Bobby Maiden, down on the floor with the Nikon, decided his initial dislike of Kurt had been far from misplaced.

Kurt dropped his ankle from his knee, leaned forward. ‘Hey, Alice, you are coming to the festival, aren’t you?’

‘Well, I hadn’t…’

‘Alice, you’ve just got to. You’d find it so enlightening. You’d be able to see for yourself that… You’ve got press tickets, yeah?’

‘Well, not yet, but-’

‘And you’d like to come to the first Victorian seance tomorrow night?’

‘Oh, gee,’ Grayle said.

‘You would. You would like to come.’

Kurt’s head very still. Like he had her in a trance, Maiden thought, quietly impressing his enormous will on her. Kurt was young and confident of his powers.

Grayle said, ‘Well, uh … I’m not sure The Vision is gonna be able to run to five hundred pounds.’

Kurt waved a boyish hand. ‘Hey, that’s not what I meant. You can come as my guest,’ he smiled, ‘Alice.’

Which was when Bobby Maiden realized there was more to this than spreading the charm like soft honey.

Kurt Campbell actively fancied Grayle.

Which was … understandable. Grayle was extremely fanciable. In her little red dress. With her hair up, fastened by one of those Indian-type things with a stick through it. With her small face and the sparkle in her eyes and that loose, easy smile, the quick, nervous gestures, the animation of her.

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.

And there was the problem of Callard. She’d need to get in fast with the Alice D. Thornborough if they came face to face. Be kind of interesting, she supposed, to see how Callard reacted to Kurt’s guest.

For reasons of perversity, Grayle had allowed Bobby to go on thinking she’d found Campbell intriguing, attractive, magnetic, all of that.

They drove through the castle gate. Cindy’s Honda was parked in the yard. She was relieved they’d gotten back.

Then she spotted Cindy himself waiting under the bulkhead light with Malcolm the dog.

Cindy looked bedraggled in his twinset and tweed skirt, truly the maiden aunt fallen on hard times. The truck’s headlights threw his face into hard relief: deep lines and no make-up, the mauve hair blown on end by the wind.

‘Something’s wrong,’ Bobby said.