David Mitchell - Slade House

My phone’s vibrating again. “So the Grayer Twins are a pair of wandering Jews hitching rides in hosts while their own bodies stay dry-frozen in a bubble back in Slade House where it’s forever 1931?”

Fred Pink knocks back his brandy. “1935. It took them a few years — and a few lab rats — to perfect their modus operandi, so to speak. But there’s a catch. This system won’t run off the mains. It runs off psychovoltage. The psychovoltage of Engifteds. Every nine years the Grayers have to feed it. They have to lure the right sort of guest into a … kind of reality bubble they call an orison. The orison’s their fourth breakthrough, by the way. Once the guest’s there, the twins have to get them to eat or drink Banjax. Banjax is a chemical that shrivels the cord fastening the soul to the body, so it can be extracted just before death.”

What do you say to a delusional old man who expects you to be awed by the historic awesomeness of his revelations? “That all sounds very involved.”

“Ah, the Grayers make it look easy. It’s an art form, see.”

It’s batshit crazy is what it is. 8:56. “And how is it connected with my sister?”

“She was engifted, Miss Timms. The Grayers killed her for her psychovoltage.”

Right. I feel like he’s punched me. I want to punch him back. Fred Pink has dragooned my sister into his nutso fantasy.

“I knew it wasn’t Alan, and I’ve met siblings of the other four, but not one had the glow. You do, so I know it was Sally they were after.”

I feel various emotions all too mixed up to sort out, like ingredients flying around in a Moulinex. “You never even met Sally, Mr. Pink.”

“Ah, but her case study leaves no room for doubt. When I read what her doctor in Singapore wrote, I knew her psychic potential—”

“Woah, woah, woah — when you read what ?”

“She had therapy sessions in Singapore. You must’ve known.”

“Of course I knew, but you — you read Sally’s psychiatric reports?”

“Yes.” Fred Pink looks surprised that I’m upset. “I had to read them.”

“What gives you the right to read Sal’s files? And how did you get them?”

He looks at the doorway and lowers his voice: “With a great deal of difficulty, I can tell you: but with a clean conscience, too. If someone’d stopped the Grayers in an earlier decade, Miss Timms, my Alan and your Sally’d still be with us. But nobody did. ’Cause nobody knew this backstory. But now I know, and I ’m trying to stop them. This is war. In war, ends justify means. War is ends justifying means. And believe it or not, I’m a secret warrior in this invisible war. So yes”—a glob of saliva flies from his lips—“I make no apology for combing through Sally’s doctors’ notes from both Singapore and Great Malvern, and by adding two and two—”

Hang on—“Sally didn’t see a therapist in Malvern. She loved it there.”

The pity in the old man’s face is disturbingly genuine: “She was miserable, Miss Timms. The bullying was merciless. She wanted to die.”

“No,” I’m saying, “no way. She would’ve told me. We’re family.”

“Often as not,” Fred Pink scratches his thigh, “the family’s the last to know about the big stuff. Wouldn’t you agree?”

I can’t work out if he’s referring to my complex sexuality. Fred Pink may be sporadically insane, but he’s no fool. I sip my tonic water and find my glass is empty. 8:57. I should just go. Now. Really.

“You’re an Engifted too, see.” Fred Pink gazes at my forehead. “Call it an aura, call it a feeling, but you’re humming with psychovoltage yourself. That’s why we met here and not down Slade Alley. The alley’s where the Grayers’ Aperture opens, into their orison. They’d sniff you out.”

I’ve met enough delusionals to know they have answers for every logical objection — that’s why they’re delusionals — but I ask this: “If these ‘soul vampires’ only wanted Sally, why abduct the other five? Where are Alan and the others now?”

“The Grayers didn’t want any witnesses. Alan and the others, they were just …” Fred Pink clenches his face again, as if in pain. “Snuffed out. Their bodies were chucked into the gap between the orison and our world. Like bin-bags down a garbage chute. The only upside is, their souls moved on while Sally’s was … converted. Eaten.”

Maybe a part of me thinks logic can still save Fred Pink, or maybe I’ve a morbid curiosity about his psychosis, or maybe it’s both. “And why didn’t the police ever investigate this Slade House, if it’s so near to where Sally and Alan vanished?”

“Slade House was bombed to rubble in 1940. Direct hit by a German bomb. Cranbury Avenue and Westwood Road were built over it, after the war.”

It’s 8:59. “So how was Sally ‘lured in’ in 1997?”

“She was lured into an orison of Slade House. A copy. A shadow-theatre. For pre-surgery.”

“And why weren’t the Grayers’ preserved bodies in their attic Lacuna destroyed by the bomb?”

“’Cause in the Lacuna, it’s always a few minutes after 11 p.m. on Saturday, 26 October, 1935. The very second the Lacuna went live, so to speak. If you’d been there watching, you’d’ve seen the Grayers vanish, whoosh, like you’d just glimpsed them from a fast train hurtling by at the speed of time. But inside the Lacuna, it’s that moment eternally. Safer than the deepest nuclear vault under the Colorado Rockies.”

Maggs the landlady downstairs is right. I’m feeding a sad and broken old man’s madness. My phone buzzes again. The clock’s hands move to nine o’clock. I hear Maggs laugh long and hard: it’s a sound like the stabbing violins from the shower scene in Psycho . “Well, it’s certainly a detailed, consistent theory. But …”

“It’s a load o’ codswallop, right?” Fred Pink flicks his brandy glass. It pings.

I switch off my recorder. “I don’t believe in magic, Mr. Pink.”

Fred Pink hums a long wavery tuneless note until his lungs are empty. “Pity, you being a journalist and all. I was hoping you’d write a big exposé for Spyglass . Alert the authorities.” He looks at the dark window. “What proof’d convince you?”

“Proof that is proof; not faith masquerading as proof.”

“Ah.” He idly examines his ink- and tobacco-stained fingernails. I’m glad he’s taking rejection this calmly. “Proof, faith. Those words, eh?”

“I’m sorry I can’t believe you, Mr. Pink. Really. But I don’t, and now my partner’s expecting me at home.”

He nods. “Well, I promised I’d call you a taxi, so that’s what I’ll do. A lunatic I may be, but I’m still a man of my word.” He stands up. “Shan’t be a tick. Check your texts. Someone’s worried.”

It’s over. I feel empty. Avril’s sent no fewer than six messages.

U finished yet honey?

Cooked pumpkin soup

Soup will be perfect before I go to bed. Next up:

last london train from ur end:

twelve past midnite. U on it?

It’s thoughtful of Avril, but it’s a bit odd, considering it’s only 9 P.M. Unless that “U” means “Will u be.” I open her third text:

ok am officially worried, tried to call,

NO SIGNAL message. where r u?

U staying at hotel or wot? CALL xA

A hotel? Avril’s not one of life’s habitual worriers; why do I need a hotel? And if she can text, why can’t she call? Is it the network? The next text reads:

Hon its 3am and I know ur big tuff girl

but CALL to say ur ok or I wont sleep.

Lotta’s wedding 2moro u rmmbr?

3 A.M.? What’s she on about? My mobile’s saying 21:02; the cracked clock agrees. She never gets rat-arsed on drink and she never smokes dope. I call her mobile … and get a NO SIGNAL DETECTED message. Fantastic. Vodafone must have begun upgrading their network after Avril’s texts arrived. I scroll down to message five: