Caroline Graham - A Ghost in the Machine

Barnaby’s nature was not of the type to be fascinated by the weird and the deathly but now he thought about the church and the people who came there. How lonely they must be, how desperate to be assured that the people they loved had not gone for ever. And what a comfort to be able to believe that one day they would all be together, living in paradise, time without end. Barnaby thought of his parents. Of Joyce still with him, thank God. Of his beloved daughter, just the thought of whose loss could bathe him in a cold sweat of terror. He was too honest to pretend that sometimes, in the dark watches of the night, he too did not long to deceive himself. But he couldn’t, and in the bright rational light of day was not sorry. Happy ever after sounded great until you thought it through, when it began to sound like a fate worse than death. Imagine, thought Barnaby, millennia after millennia after millennia of radiant bliss. Having a nice day not only every single day but every single second of every single minute world without end, and never being able to call a halt. Enough to drive a man mad.

“It’s a forest back there.” Troy came up, flicking black needles from his jacket sleeve. The two men walked on. “Do you think Dennis Brinkley ever went?”

“Wouldn’t have thought so. Not from the way Lawson described him.”

“There’s gotta be a connection though, Chief.”

Though hard to credit, this was undoubtedly true. Somewhere at some time something had happened to forge a link between the shy, stiffly correct financial consultant and the flamboyant, boastful necromancer Ava Garret.

“Did I tell you Cully had met her?”

“At the church?” Troy was amazed. He didn’t know the chief’s daughter well but she seemed to him the last person to go in for such wonky shenanigans. Cully had struck Sergeant Troy as pretty unmystical. A touch cynical, even.

“She rang last night to tell me about it. All to do with research.”

“For what?” Troy could never understand actors. He found it hard enough to be himself. Pretending to be all sorts of other people seemed quite deranged to him.

“She’s playing a medium in Blithe Spirit and wanted to talk to some real ones.”

“But there aren’t any real ones.”

“Don’t try my patience, Troy.”

Oh, brilliant! When he said they didn’t exist that was fine. Now I say they don’t exist I’m trying his patience. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. All he really wants, all any of them really want, is a yes man. Agree with everything, praise whatever they do right or wrong, dumb your mind down, colour your nose brown. Right—I can do that. And from now on I will.

“That must be Brinkley’s house.” Barnaby nodded towards SOCO’s van and the strangely shaped building behind it.

“I expect it is, sir.”

As they climbed the front steps John Ferris, in charge of the SOCO unit, came out and Barnaby said: “You through?”

“Not quite with the flat. But you’re OK with the murder scene.”

“Better have a look then.”

“Be amazed.” Ferris grinned at him. “Be very amazed.”

And they were. The twenty-five-by-twenty photographs showing the body of Dennis Brinkley and its immediate surroundings were no preparation at all for the vast expanse of space and light they now encountered. The towering structures, the great garlands of glowing waxen rope, massive crossbows, a butcher’s hook on which you could have hung a brace of elephants.

Both men were disturbed by the machines, Sergeant Troy the more so. For no reason that he could have put into words, they struck him as deeply shocking. Barnaby quickly shook off this unease and turned his attention to the mechanism of the trebuchet. But Troy, who would have been completely at home at a modern armaments fair, felt his skin crawl and creep. Determined to conceal any weakness, and ignoring predatory shadows that seemed to press against the small of his back, he began to stride about, affecting an interest in the gigantic constructions. There was a hanging metal cage big enough to hold several men and next to this some stocks. Troy spent a pleasant couple of minutes picturing Mrs. Sproat so constrained and himself throwing rotten cabbages, then ambled up to a three-tier wooden tower on wheels. There were long, narrow openings at regular intervals along the sides. Troy came closer and attempted to squint inside. A cool wash of air grazed his eyeball. He jumped back.

“Come and look at this.”

Sergeant Troy was glad to. He moved quickly, hurrying to where the chief was studying the apparatus that held the huge wooden balls. The rack, tilted at an extremely steep angle, was covered with grey powder.

“Blimey,” said Sergeant Troy. “A dinosaur’s bollocks. They go in this catapult thing?”

“Those or boiling oil or red-hot coals. Sometimes the heads of prisoners. They weren’t fussy.”

“How d’you know all this?”

“The notes.” Barnaby indicated the illustration and paragraphs of text in a little frame on the wall nearby. “All the machines have them.”

“So why’s the sling in the wrong place for the ball to fall in?” The trebuchet had been shifted at least a couple of metres to the left of its original position. The drag marks were on the floor.

“Presumably so it would hit Brinkley instead.”

“But he wouldn’t be daft enough to stand there, surely?” said Troy, already shedding his new role as yes man. “How does the thing work, anyway?”

“Very simple.” Barnaby got out a handkerchief and pushed his shirt sleeves back. Aluminium was a sod to wash out. “The balls are held in place by this block of wood. The rope,” he took a loose hanging cable in his hand, “lifts the block and releases them, one at a time.”

“Only if you let it go, surely. Hold on and they’d all roll down.”

“No. There’s a ridge, look – halfway up. It drops down when the block moves then clicks upright again. Let’s have a look at the glossies.”

Troy opened his bag and took out the photographs of Dennis Brinkley’s mortal remains. Apart from the floor the only flat surface was a marble slab balanced on two columns of grey stone in the centre of the room. Troy spread the pictures out on this.

“So. He seems to have been lying exactly…here.” Barnaby walked back, one of the pictures in his hand. “Would you mind, Troy?”

Yes, I bloody would mind, thought Sergeant Troy, already feeling somewhat fragile after his encounter with the spirit of the barbican.

“It would be very helpful.”

Troy got down on the floor. “Just keep well away from that rope, Chief, OK?”

Barnaby walked slowly around the machine, studying Troy’s stretched-out form from all angles.

“Can I get up now?”

“In a minute.” He got out his handkerchief. “Lift up.” When Troy did, Barnaby spread the handkerchief precisely where his head had been. Troy got to his feet and Barnaby gave a tug on the rope. A ball rumbled down and landed almost directly on the linen square.

“That’s how it was, all right.” Barnaby flourished the picture. “See?”

“No thanks. We’re having pizza tonight.”

“I think Brinkley moved the catapult himself. You can judge how far it was dragged by these marks, right?”

“Yes…” Here we go. First a close brush with squelching oblivion. Now an instant hernia. I shall want counselling for this.

“Drag it back, if you would. You can see the original place marks here.”

“Sir.”

But Troy had forgotten that, though skilfully aged and battered, this was but a lightweight facsimile of the real thing. He returned it quite easily to its original position. Then Barnaby again pulled on the rope. A second ball came hurtling down the ramp to fall short of the catapult’s leather holding sack by about two feet.