Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black

She kicked the divining rods away from her feet, and went downstairs; clattering, tread by tread. They were gathered in the kitchen, turned to the foot of the stairs and awaiting her arrival. “Anything?” Mandy said.

“Zilch. Nix.”

“What’s that? That paper?”

“Nothing,” Al said. She crumpled the paper and dropped it. “God knows. What’s seven shillings and sixpence? I’ve forgotten the old money.”

“What old money?” Cara said.

Mandy frowned. “Thirty-three pence?”

“What can you get for that?”

“Colette?”

“A bag of crisps. A stamp. An egg.”

When they went out, pulling the front door behind them, Mandy stood aghast at the sight of her car. “The sneaky bastards! How did they do that? I kept looking out, checking.”

“They must have crawled,” Silvana said. “Unless they ran up on very little legs.”

“Which, sadly, is possible,” Alison said.

Mandy said, “I cancelled a half day of readings to get here for this, thinking I was doing a favour. You try to do a good action, but I don’t know. Dammit, where does it get you?”

“Oh well,” Cara said, “you know what Mrs. Etchells used to say, as you sow shall you reap, or something like that. If you have done harm you’ll get it back threefold. If you’ve never done any harm in your life, you’ve nothing to worry about.”

“I never knew her well,” Mandy said, “but I doubt that, with her long experience, Irene thought it was that simple.”

“But there must be a way out of it,” Al said. She was angry. “There must be a route out of this shit.” She took Mandy’s arm, clung to it. “Mandy, you should know, you’re a woman of the world, you’ve knocked about a bit. Even if you have done harm, if you’ve done really bad harm, does it count if you’ve done it to evil people? It can’t, surely. It would count as self-defence. It would count as a good action.”

Colette said, “Well now, Mandy, I hope you’re insured.”

“I hope I am too,” Mandy said. She freed herself from Al. Tenderly, she passed her fingers over her paintwork. The triple lines were scored deep into the scarlet, as if scraped with a claw.

Tea, tea, tea! said Colette. How refreshing to come into the cleanliness and good order of the Collingwood. But Colette stepped short, her hand on the kettle, annoyed with herself. A woman of my age shouldn’t be wanting tea, she thought. I should be wanting—I don’t know, cocaine?

Alison was rummaging in the fridge. “You’re not eating again, are you?” Colette said. “It’s coming to the point where I’m getting ashamed to be seen with you.”

There was a tap on the window. Alison jumped violently; her head shot back over her shoulder. It was Michelle. She looked hot and cross. “Yes?” Colette said, opening the window.

“I saw that stranger again,” Michelle said. “Creeping around. I know you’ve been feeding him.”

“Not lately,” Alison said.

“We don’t want strangers. We don’t want pedophiles and homeless people around here.”

“Mart’s not a pedophile,” Al said. “He’s scared to death of you and your kids. As anybody would be.”

“You tell him that the next time he’s seen the police will be called. And if you don’t know any better than aiding and abetting him, we’re going to get up a petition against you. I told Evan, I’m not too happy anyway, I never have been, two single women living together, what does that say to you? Not as if you’re two girls starting out in life.”

Colette lifted the steaming kettle. “Back off, Michelle, or I’m going to pour this over your head. And you’ll shrivel up like a slug.”

“I’ll report you for threatening behaviour,” Michelle said. “I’ll call PC Delingbole.” But she backed away. “I’m going round right now to see the chairman of the Neighbourhood Watch.”

“Oh yes?” Colette said. “Bring it on!” But when Michelle had ducked out of sight, she slapped the kettle down and swore. She unlocked the back door, and said, “I’ve had enough of this. If he’s in there again I’m going to call the police myself.”

Alison stood by the kitchen sink, swabbing up the hot water that Colette had spilled from the kettle. Out in the garden there was seething activity, at ankle height. She couldn’t see Morris, but she could see movement behind a shrub. The other spirits were crawling about, prone on the lawn, as if they were on some sort of military exercise. They were hissing to each other, and Aitkenside was gesticulating, as if urging the others forward. As Colette crossed the grass they rolled over and kicked their legs; then they rolled back and followed her, slithering along, pretending to nip her calves and slash at them with spirit sticks.

She saw Colette push at the door of the Balmoral, and step back. Step forward and push again. Her face turned back towards the house. “Al? It’s stuck.”

Al hurried down the garden. The spirits edged away and lay in the verges. Dean was whistling. “Cut that out,” Morris said, speaking from within his bush. “Watch and observe. Watch how she goes now. Now she says to string-bean, well, what’s sticking it? Is it swollen up wiv damp? Stringbean says, what damp, it ain’t rained for weeks. Watch ’em now. Now she pushes. Watch how she breaks out in a sweat.”

“There’s something heavy behind the door,” Al said.

Dean giggled. “If she was any good at predictionating, she’d know, wouldn’t she? What we’ve done?”

Al crouched down and looked in at the window. It was dusty and smeared, almost opaque. Behind the door was an area of darkness, a shadow, which thickened, took on form, took on features. “It’s Mart,” she said. “Stopping the door.”

“Tell him to get away,” Colette said. She banged on the door with her fist, and kicked it. “Open up!”

“He can’t hear you.”

“Why not?”

“He’s hanged himself.”

“What, in our shed?”

There was a spatter of applause from the margins of the lawn.

“I’ll call nine-nine-nine,” Colette said.

“Don’t bother. It’s not an emergency. He’s passed.”

“You don’t know. He might still be breathing. They could revive him.”

Al put her fingertips against the door, feeling for a thread of life through the grain of the wood. “He’s gone,” she said. “Goddammit, Colette, I should know. Besides, look behind you.”

Colette turned. I still forget, Al thought, that—psychically speaking—Colette can’t see her hand in front of her face. Mart was perched on the top of the neighbours’ fence, swinging his feet in their big sneakers. The fiends now roused themselves, and began to giggle. By Al’s feet, a head popped up out of the soil, “Coo-ee!”

“I see you turned up, Pikey Pete,” Al said. “Fresh from that little job of yours at Aldershot.”

“Would I have missed this?” the fiend replied. “Rely on me for a nice noose, don’t they? I had a great-uncle that was an hangman, though that’s going back.”

Dean lay on top of the shed on his belly, his tongue flapping like a roller blind down over the door. Morris was urinating into the water feature, and Donald Aitkenside was squatting on the grass, eating a sausage roll from a paper bag.

“Ring the local station and ask for PC Delingbole,” Al said. “Yes, and an ambulance. We don’t want anybody to say we didn’t do it right. But tell them there’s no need for sirens. We don’t want to attract a crowd.”

But it was school-out time, and there was no avoiding the attention of the mums bowling home in their minivans and SUVs. A small crowd soon collected before the Collingwood, buzzing with shocked rumour. Colette double-locked the front door and put the bolts on. She drew the curtains at the front of the house. A colleague of Delingbole’s stood at the side gate, to deter any sightseers from making their way into the garden. From her post on the landing, Colette saw Evan approaching with a ladder and his camcorder; so she drew the upstairs curtains too, after jerking two fingers at him as his face appeared over the sill.