Phil Rickman - The Smile of a Ghost

‘Bit of a silence so far,’ the Mayor said. ‘Apart from taking the obvious steps to ensure it don’t happen again – plans to get that window barred, that kind of measure. It’s a question of what other steps might be taken. On what you’d call a spiritual basis.’

‘We’d have to go carefully, George.’ Bernie took a hurried sip from his brandy balloon.

‘Let me put it to you directly,’ Merrily said. ‘Do you personally really believe that the two deaths at the castle are in some way connected with a paranormal presence dating back to the twelfth century?’

George Lackland grimaced at the stupidity of the question.

‘Top and bottom of it is, it don’t matter what I believe, Mrs Watkins. I’m the Mayor. My role is to go along with the will of the people. And among the older residents there’s a strong sense that something’s very wrong. Very bad.’

‘Is there a history of suicide here?’

‘Well, obviously—’

‘I mean in the rather lengthy period between the twelfth century and a few weeks ago.’

The Mayor didn’t reply. Bernie Dunmore shot a warning look at Merrily, to which she didn’t respond.

‘I mean, what actually happened, do you think, to make two teenagers take—’ She bit off the sentence: no suggestion of suicide in Robbie’s case, although after last night… ‘ Lose their lives in a place that had been the scene of just one suicide, over eight hundred years ago?’

George Lackland looked at the Bishop. ‘Am I supposed to be able to answer that?’

‘George, I think what Merrily’s saying is that we have levels of response. Perhaps in the old days, the – let’s get the word into the open – the rite of exorcism was enacted without many preliminaries. Today, with the, ah, levels of bureaucracy within the Church…’

‘Is this lady going to help us, Bernard, or not?’

‘Of course she is,’ the Bishop said.

Help us? Merrily had the sense of being woven into someone’s fabric. It was time to tease out George Lackland’s agenda. This was the man to whom the traders and tourist operators had gone when Mumford had started questioning them about Belladonna. This was the man who, as vice-chairman of the police committee, had leaned on the head of Shrewsbury CID, who in turn had contacted Annie Howe to get Mumford warned off.

Right. She took a sip of tonic. ‘Erm… the strange people gathering around this yew tree below the Hanging Tower. With their candles, and their chanting. Who are they, Mr Mayor, do you know?’

‘Not local.’ As if this was all that needed to be said about them.

‘What did they look like?’

‘Oh… stupid. Horror-film clothes. You know the kind of thing.’

‘What I heard,’ Merrily said, ‘was that there’d been quite a few of them around the town recently. Possibly before the deaths.’

The Mayor spread his hands. ‘It’s possible. We get all sorts comes and goes.’

‘And there was a bit of a fight with some local boys.’

‘More of that than there used to be, regrettably – street violence. Too much drink about.’

‘And someone got stabbed?’

‘First I’ve heard of that, Mrs Watkins.’

But she’d seen the twitch of a nerve at the corner of an eye.

‘Perhaps people like this were… attracted here by the ghost stories?’

‘I wouldn’t know about that.’ He smiled apologetically and shook his bony head. ‘To be honest, I feel a little bit daft sitting here in this day and age talking about ghosties and ghoulies and things that goes bump.’

‘Oh, I get used to it,’ Merrily said. ‘But the thing is, before we can organize any kind of remedial action, we have to eliminate all the possible rational explanations. For instance, somebody told me that these kids in fancy dress are probably just fans of… one of your rich settlers? A singer?’

George Lackland said nothing. Nothing twitched this time, but she was sure that she saw a quick glitter of anguish in the hollows of his eyes, and he planted levering hands on his thighs as if his instinct was to walk out.

‘Can’t remember her name… used to sing these mournful songs all about death and… and things like that.’ Merrily smiled ruefully at George. ‘Not your cup of tea, really, I suppose.’

The flame-effect gas fire gasped, the Bishop’s brandy glass chinked on an arm of the sofa as he sat up, and she felt his curiosity uncurling in the air.

‘No,’ the Mayor said at last. ‘Not my cup of tea at all.’

He came to his feet, screwing his eyes shut for a moment and swaying slightly, rubbing a hand wearily over the back of his neck.

‘Ah, that’s the trouble with public life,’ he said. ‘Always some malcontent ready to shoot his mouth off.’

‘Something here you should be telling us, George?’ the Bishop said.

THE BISHOP’S GAZE swivelled back to Merrily, and in it was incomprehension… and suspicion.

Well, she could understand it. The hour-long journey here had been filled with an explanation of her bruised eye and everything that had led up to it: Jemmie’s sordid e-mails, Mumford and Robbie’s computer and the history books and Jason Mebus. Not reaching the Departure Lounge until they were leaving the bypass at the Sheet Lane entrance into town, with the moist blue night dropping over Ludlow like the lid on a jewel box.

And so not quite getting around to Belladonna.

‘I’ve got nothing to hide about this,’ George Lackland said. ‘Nobody could possibly expect me to like the woman.’

He was standing up now, behind his cream leather chair, both hands gripping its wings. One of the bulbs in the chandelier had blown and was hanging there like a bad tooth, making the room seem just slightly tawdry.

‘When the boy came home with this girl, Susannah, she was everything you’d want for your son – respectable, steady, nicely spoken. And a solicitor, too, of course. Always useful to have a solicitor in the family, especially with a firm like Smith, Sebald and Partners.’

Merrily glanced at Bernie, both eyebrows raised to convey that she had no idea what the hell the Mayor was talking about.

‘Sorry, George,’ Bernie said, ‘I’m a bit out of touch – which boy is this, Douglas, or, ah…?’

‘Stephen, the younger one. The one who went to university. Like Nancy said, when you think of the girls he might have brought home from that place…’

‘He’s, ah, engaged, is he?’

‘To this girl from Smith, Sebald, as I say. Very well established firm, as you know – offices in Ludlow, Bridgenorth and Church Stretton. She’ll be a partner one day, Bernard, no question of that.’

‘I’m sorry, George – who exactly are we talking about?’

‘Susannah,’ the Mayor said. ‘Susannah Pepper.’

‘Ah,’ Merrily said.

Of course.

Bloody hell.

‘Your… future daughter-in-law… her father would be a record producer called Saul Pepper?’

The Mayor looked at her with keen interest. ‘That’s quite correct, Mrs Watkins. But how could you—?’

‘I have a friend in the music business. I gather Saul Pepper lives and works in America now, since the break-up of his marriage to… Mrs Pepper.’ She turned to Bernie. ‘Who lives in the renovated farmhouse at the bottom of The Linney – and was seen in the castle with…?’

The Mayor’s hands tightened on the chair wings, and then he turned away. Merrily could tell that getting the story out of him was going to be like dredging a pond – a lot of discoloured water and sludge, and the bottom never quite exposed.

But enough had now been clarified – particularly the warning-off of Andy Mumford – to make the exercise well worthwhile, no matter how long it took.