DANCING with the UNINVITED GUEST

J. Wallis Martin

PROLOGUE

Claudia entered the room to find her son crouching in a corner, his knees to his chest, his hands across his eyes.  He heard her come in, and yet, he didn’t move.

She spoke to him, her voice unsteady, “Nicholas, come away—”

He stepped over debris that once comprised a table, its legs snapped, its top scratched as if by the claws of a bear.  Books lay beside it on the floor, their pages torn, the covers ripped from the text, but because experience had taught them not to clutter his room with items that could be broken, the damage on this occasion was less than in the past; just a light shade ripped from its fitting in the ceiling, and small, round wall-lights torn from their sockets.  They dangled on the ends of flex like eyes still fixed by the optic nerve, and the sight of them offended her, made her stomach lurch.

“Take me outside,” he said.  “But please—don’t leave me.”

The garden was divided from the bleak, Northumberland moors by granite walls.  Trees formed a bower above their heads, and as they walked beneath them, Claudia said, “Perhaps if we got you away from here?” 

“What would be the point?” 

True enough, thought Claudia, for whatever it was, this thing, it followed him.  Even when he left the house, it couldn’t be persuaded to abandon him.  “I am it’s prey,” said Nicholas.

The path curved, and Lyndle came back into view.  It dropped its walls clean into the waters of a moat, the parapets of a stone bridge leading the eye to a courtyard, its towers and gables deserted, the undergrowth closing in. 

From this angle, and at this time of day, the house was at its most bleak, its fortifications a reminder of savage times.  It had fallen to her to preserve it, to keep it intact for future generations, but for two pins she would happily have put a torch to it.  Perhaps, in the end, torching it would prove to be the answer?

“I’m not sure how much longer I can stand it,” said Nicholas, and in looking at him now, it was difficult for Claudia to remember him as the bright, happy boy who climbed in these trees, and played on these lawns, and ran to her with sprigs of fern or tiny, fragrant flowers. 

He suddenly winced in pain, and brought his hand to his neck, relaxing only to repeat the action a moment later, and as she watched him, livid welts rose up on the skin of his throat.  It took a moment for her to understand what caused them, but once she realised, she backed away in horror.

“What is it?” he said, and, still backing away, she raised her hand and pointed:

It’s biting you,” she said.  “Dear God, Nicholas – it’s biting you.”

* * *

1
 

`There is a type of fish that lives three miles down in the Western Atlantic.  It spends its entire life in the pitch dark.  It can neither see nor be seen by others of its kind.  And that is its world.  That is all it knows.  If you were to ask it what lies above the surface of the water, not only would it have no conception of what the surface was, it could not possibly imagine the world of light and air that exists above it.  And perhaps there is a comparison to be drawn between the existence of that fish and our own existence, for we are in the business of finding out whether there is a world, an existence, beyond that which we know, and whether certain of those who have passed over into that world are capable of diving three miles down to communicate with us, to tell us what it is like up there in the world of light and air’. 

Such was Audrah Sidow’s introduction to the course in Parapsychology at the British Institute for Paranormal Research, and few of her students ever forgot the analogy.

She coined it at a time when she was still prepared to consider the possibility of unimaginable worlds just waiting to be discovered.  But that was before she realised there was nothing on earth for which there was no rational explanation. 

Having reached this conclusion, she questioned whether anyone could justify spending their entire professional life looking for something that didn’t appear to be there.  It was a question she occasionally put to her students, and it invariably produced the response she expected.  She might have grown cynical, but they were prepared to keep an open mind.  After all, there was always the chance of being the one to prove there was a spirit world, and that the concepts of a parallel universe, time travel, the ability to conceal or move objects at will or communicate with the dead were not merely the stuff of science fiction.

She supposed it might be her very cynicism that prevented genuine paranormal phenomena from manifesting in her presence.  After all, it was well-known that a bias towards or against belief in the paranormal had the ability to taint the results of any research.  Those who wanted to believe that a psychic had just moved a rubber ball a fraction of an inch along a table were perfectly capable of neglecting to note that there was a slight slope to the table top.  But equally, it would be impossible to convince someone such as herself that the ball had been moved by the power of telekinesis. 

The problem was, she had yet to come across anyone who had managed to convince her they were psychic, and years of research had convinced her she never would.  Therefore, she had let it be known that she intended to resign.

Leaving the Institute would mean leaving Edinburgh along with this elegant building, and the rooms that she had come to regard as home.  They looked out onto a quad, and at certain times of year, tourists came to photograph it.  Few people saw it like this, when daggers of ice formed on the walls that surrounded the Master’s Garden.

She turned from the window to face a room in which two comfortable sofas were divided by a long low table.  Space was at a premium at the Institute, and it was common for her to give tutorials here.  Consequently, she currently had one of her students with her.  Of all that years intake, he was the one who interested her most, because he was one of few parapsychology students who claimed to have seen a ghost, though what he meant by a ghost, and what other people meant were often two very different things. 

During the interview that got him onto the course, he described the experience to her:

“Some months after my partner died, I was at the Chelsea Flower Show of all places.  Natalie never missed it, and I went more for her than for myself, though don’t ask me what I mean by that – I’m not sure.  I was walking round the displays, wondering what I was hoping to achieve by being there.  And suddenly…there she was, looking at some fabulous succulent – a protea.

At first, I didn’t know what to think.  I knew I had to be wrong, but the curve of her neck, the way her hair fell forward—I had to go up to this woman if only to get a proper look at her face.  And as I walked towards her, she saw me, and smiled.  And then she kind of…evaporated, I suppose.

“How did the experience make you feel?”

“Initially, I was frightened.  I’d had a bad time since Natalie died.  While she was ill, I was fine, I was kind of holding it all together somehow, but after I lost her…”  He paused,   and then went on:

“It was six months since she died, but I wasn’t getting over it. I still couldn’t ever see myself making a new life for myself – not one I wanted to live, put it that way.  And I couldn’t imagine ever meeting anyone who made me feel…  I think what I’m trying to say is, when I saw her, well, to be honest, I thought I was losing it.  But after the shock wore off, I found the experience comforting.”

“Had you and Natalie ever discussed how you felt about her dying?”

“We’d talked about it, sure.  Not a lot, but enough. And we talked about whether or not we believed in an afterlife.  I don’t think either of us did.  Not really. We were what you’d probably call fingers-crossed-Christians.  But Natalie said that if it turned out we were wrong, she’d try to make some kind of contact.  So when I saw her…well…I felt that was what she’d done.  And I felt…I felt I hadn’t lost her.”

“What you’re saying is, you believe you saw her ghost.”

“Yes—at the time.”

“And now?”

“And now I no longer believe it.”

“Then how do you explain it?”

After stating that he couldn’t, but that he hoped one day to be able to, he was offered a place to read for an MA.

The notes relating to his proposed dissertation rested on a long low table in front of him.  He picked them up as Audrah turned from the window and asked him to talk her through them.

“Essentially,” he said, “I intend to propose that the manufacturing of what is perceived to be supernatural phenomena might be a psychological response to emotional trauma.”

“What kind of supernatural phenomena are we talking about?”

“Apparitions.  Premonitions.  And anything else that looks as though it might be relevant.”

It was part of her job to advise the students with regard to whether or not the idea they had in mind for their dissertation was suitable.  Often, what they came up with had already been covered, in which case, they needed to find a fresh angle if the work was to be regarded their own.  What this student was suggesting sounded like a subject that had been covered by the scientific community, in which case, she had to be sure he wasn’t just going to regurgitate information gleaned from medical journals, but was going to provide fresh material.  Also, she wanted to know what he meant by the term, `manufacturing’.  She asked him, and he replied that the `manufacturing’ of supernatural phenomena was something a person might do subconsciously:

“I don’t mean they start making ghosts out of cheesecloth without knowing they’re doing it.  I’m talking about people experiencing something they can’t explain without realising it’s come from their own subconscious.”

“You mentioned emotional trauma,” said Audrah.  “Are we talking about the trauma of bereavement?”

“Not exclusively.  I intend, for instance, to include the transcript of an interview with the wife of a man who was taken hostage in Iraq.  There were uncorroborated reports that he’d been executed, and she’d gone to church to pray.  While she was there, she suddenly saw her husband kneeling beside her – a momentary thing, but enough to convince her the reports were true. In fact, he was freed some months later, but the news that he’d been executed caused her to produce what I believe was a crisis apparition.”

It sounded as though this was going to be quite an interesting dissertation.  “Have you thought about what purpose these experiences might serve?”

“Only in so far as the fact that they always seem to have one.  They never just occur without there being an apparent benefit to the person experiencing them.”

“Such as?”

“Sometimes the apparition offers advice.  Sometimes, as was the case when I thought I saw Natalie – it’s a comfort in itself.”

“And what if the apparition or vision is demonic?”

“That usually only occurs when the individual concerned is suffering from some sort of recognised psychiatric illness.”

After thinking it through for a moment, Audrah said, “Assuming we go with that.  Assuming we accept that the manufacturing of phenomena might be a psychological response to trauma – are comfort and advice the only purposes they might serve?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure at this stage, but I suspect that in extreme cases, it provides far more than that.”

“Can you expand?”

He replied, “What if, in cases where a person’s life is at stake, but where the odds against survival are overwhelming, some mechanism kicks in to motivate them into doing something radical to survive?”

Audrah played devil’s advocate.  “What if logic dictates that the odds can’t possibly be overcome?”

“Then maybe this `mechanism’ gives people the courage to face death calmly.  Maybe it convinces them that death is not the end—”

Death, thought Audrah, most certainly was the end. If nothing else, years of researching alleged paranormal phenomena had convinced her of that.

For once Professor Mallory Wober had forsaken his tweed jacket in favour of a fleece-lined coat.  “Walk?” he suggested.

It wasn’t the kind of weather people chose to walk in, but Audrah felt she could guess what this was about.  Her resignation had come as a blow to Wober, who was bound to try to persuade her to reconsider.

She grabbed a skiing jacket, tucked a mass of auburn hair into it, then zipped it tight as they stepped out into the corridor.  Moments later, they crossed the quad to a gate that led to the park.  In the distance, trees divided them from an ornamental lake.  On the other side of it stood buildings similar to that in which the Institute was housed, the winter sun glancing off the windows.

It was a mere six years since she first saw those buildings, and a lot had changed since then.  The days of sitting someone behind a screen and asking them to try to guess what shape was being drawn on a piece of paper were long gone.  The Parapsychologists of today were more interested in identifying what parts of the brain were responsible for producing the hallucinations that people perceived as supernatural experiences. Wober, for instance, was an authority on religious visionaries, and there were enough people out there experiencing everything from visions of Christ to premonitions of the apocalypse to keep him in research funds from now `til the crack of doom. “Let me guess,” said Wober.  “You’ve been head hunted—”

Audrah was now a Doctor of Parapsychology.  It made her an attractive proposition.  “If I’d been made an offer I couldn’t refuse, I’d have said so.”

“They why are you leaving?”

Like Wober, Audrah specialised in an area that had more to do with pure psychology than with the supernatural. It related to the nature of psychic fraud with specific reference to Pseudopsychics who courted media attention when a missing person or murder investigation became high-profile. Defrocking them had once seemed a worthwhile occupation. Not anymore.  “Let’s just say I feel I’ve achieved everything I can.”

“Not quite everything,” said Wober.  “What about John Cranmer?”

The comment didn’t register, because the trees had parted to reveal the ornamental lake.  It was frozen, bewildered Mandarin ducks waddling over its surface like lacquered, clockwork toys.  They tottered onto the snow-covered grass as a man in a buckskin jacket strolled towards them.   He was too far away for Audrah to see him clearly, but something about him reminded her of someone she once knew.  She had no desire to go down to the lake and have her fantasy shattered, for he looked so very like him that she wanted to savour the image for a moment.

He, and what had become of him, had cost her a very great deal, and it was time to let go.  Time to stop the constant hunt for something that couldn’t be found, for a voice that would never be heard, a face that would never be seen, and a mystery that, in all probability, would never now be solved.   

* * *

2 

Late October was no time to be driving across the moors, but Tate didn’t have much option.  Police business had brought him to Lyndle, deep in the heart of Northumbria’s National Park.

The sky above, though overcast, was currently keeping its cargo under wraps.  But it wouldn’t hold back for long.  Over the past few days, flurries of snow had fallen intermittently.  Soon it would start in earnest, and he wanted to be off the moors by the time it came.

Even so, when he came to a low stone wall at the top of a crag, he stopped the car.  Then he sat there for a moment, debating the wisdom of what he proposed to do.  Those who miscalculated the risks sometimes died out here, their bodies found a few hundred yards from cars that were stuck in snow. 

The events leading up to their death followed much the same pattern: engines were kept ticking over to keep the heater going; but after the petrol ran out, the temperature inside the vehicle plummeted.

People who were dying of hypothermia became confused.  It was then that they tended to leave their vehicles and wander onto the moors only to collapse, sink into a coma, and die.  Tate had no intention of being one of them.

He got out of the car, struggled into the kind of outdoor gear that was the choice of the professional, then reached into the back for a rucksack. 

In it were a survival blanket, maps, compass, chocolate, flares,
a torch, matches, a candle, a mobile phone and a first aid kit.  As an added precaution, he’d made sure there was at least one person who knew where he was going.  That person was Detective Sergeant Fletcher.  Like Tate, he was a voluntary member of Northumbria’s Mountain and Moorland Rescue Service.  It formed a bond between them.  If I’m not back by six, and if I don’t phone to say what’s keeping me, I expect you to come looking—

He slipped his arms through the slings, then walked towards the low stone wall that divided him from a drop of two hundred feet. Beyond it was one of the most spectacular views in Northumberland.  But Tate wasn’t there to look at the view.  Not today. 

A gap in the wall led to a path fenced in such a way as to stop kids from squeezing through and plunging to their death.  It ziz-zagged down the crag and came out at the foot of a forest of pines.   None of the trees were growing as they should.  They were planted too close together, and because the light and air that sustained them was at a premium, some were almost entirely without foliage.  They had, however, grown tall and fast in their fight for life, and the end result was a crop of telegraph poles. 

A road wide enough for lumber wagons dictated the way, and he followed it until he left the pines.  They had sheltered him from the wind, but the minute he left them, he jammed a pair of goggles over his eyes.  Although they gave some protection, they dimmed the world around him, and he found the effect both depressing and unnerving.

A short while later, he was walking down a slope to the valley floor.  Below him, ancient woodland spread away to the north, the trees that comprised it as densely packed as the pines.

He knew this woodland existed, but until very recently, he hadn’t known there was a house down there, largely because it wasn’t visible from the road.  But it was listed, and as recently as fifty years ago, the architectural historian, Bischel, mentioned it in a letter to a colleague. Some days ago, an excerpt appeared in the press:

Despite that it has a moat, Lyndle cannot be classified a castle.  It is, in fact, the earliest known example of a Medieval English Manor House.  I wished to see it but, access from the road having been denied me, I approached it from a village on the other side of the wood.  It was derelict, the cottages abandoned, but behind them was a sunken road that once linked the Hall to the village.

 

The trees now towered above me, their branches entwined and blocking out the light, but just as I began to fear that perhaps I’d lost my bearings, she rose up out of the waters of the moat…’

Tate took the same route as Bischel until he came to the track that ran through the wood.  There would once have been a time when it was wide enough for livestock, but over the years, it had narrowed with neglect.  Centuries of use had worn it to a depth of several feet and it now resembled a ditch as much as anything, water having collected at the bottom.  Bischel had made no mention of the water, but he came in summer.  This was winter.  Even so, Tate felt he had the advantage, because Bischel had come upon the house quite suddenly, whereas he could see it taking shape through the trees.

For quite some time, he stood at the edge of the wood, just looking at Lyndle, because this was what Bischel had done, and he wanted to compare his own impression with that of a man regarded as one of the great authorities on England’s historic houses.

My friend, it was an obscenity, an offence to all that is right, and good, and clean.  And yet it was possessed of a sinister beauty’.

A sinister beauty.  Tate hadn’t  known what he meant by that until now.

Bischel had mentioned lawns that were `meticulously kept’, but these were gone.  All that remained were undulating meadows dividing the house from the trees. He walked across them, making for a bridge that spanned the moat.  It led through an arch to the courtyard. Then the solid oak doors of Lyndle’s Great Hall stood before him.

The wings to either side were built of the same black stone, their windows high and plain, many of them broken.  But hard times, or perhaps just the fashion of the times, dictated that the wing behind him should differ.  Its walls were wattle and daub around a solid timber frame.  For this reason alone, it had faired less well than the rest of the property. The glass had long since fallen from its delicate, latticed windows, and it leaned towards the moat, its great wooden beams having warped beyond redemption.

This was what happened to this kind of construction.  The frames began to poke through the skin like bones.  One day, there would be nothing left to show for it.  But the Hall itself would stand for another thousand years.  The roof would go, and lichen would cover the walls.  But the walls would remain. 

No point knocking on those great oak doors.  No point calling out. He had no intention of allowing whoever was in that house the satisfaction of knowing he had failed to make them answer.  Better to let them realise that he could bide his time.

In the last half hour, a warning tinge of purple had come to the sky.  Tate knew what it signified.  He took a last look round, then started to head back.

By the time he reached the car, snow ploughs were coming out of the darkness, their headlights casting a dim yellow light on the road.  He used the remote to open the central lock, and felt a stab of apprehension when the indicators flashed, but the locks stayed frozen.  He tried again and this time, he  heard the welcome snick; then he opened the door, pulled out his shoes, and kicked out of his boots.

He wasn’t quite sure of the point at which he felt he was being watched,  but it wasn’t unusual to feel you were being watched up here.  It had something to do with the loneliness of the place, the certainty that at any moment, anything might happen.

He picked up his boots, then slung them in the back.  And as he turned round…

…someone was standing a matter of feet away, the hood of his coat throwing his face into shadow.

Over the years, Tate had dealt with any number of villains, and his first reaction was to wonder whether this was someone who had deliberately set out to find him in as lonely, as remote a place as possible.  If so, then they’d picked the right place. At this time of year, fewer than two cars an hour passed this way. 

“Detective Inspector Tate?” he said, and the fact that he knew his name increased Tate’s conviction that this was some face from the past.  When he reached into a pocket, Tate took a step back, but he didn’t pull a gun.  What he pulled was a business card.  “John Cranmer,” he said.

Tate knew the name. Over the past few days, Cranmer had tried to contact him at the station claiming to have information about the situation at Lyndle.  He would have returned the calls if not for the fact that the copper who passed him the messages said, “I wouldn’t hold your breath…he say’s he’s psychic.”

Cranmer was persistent.  When Tate didn’t call him back, he phoned every hour, on the hour, until he got a warning.  He was a nutter.  Not that the realisation did anything to lessen Tate’s unease.  It was a relief to know he wasn’t about to be shot by some face from the past, but it was wisest, for the moment at least, to regard him as potentially dangerous.

“You didn’t return my calls.”

“I’m a busy man.”

“Well,” said Cranmer.  “Now that you’ve put me to the trouble of finding a way to attract your attention, the least you can do is take my card.”

He held it out again, but Tate wasn’t about to risk getting too close to him, and when Cranmer realised he had no intention of taking it, he walked over to the car and pinned it under a wiper.  “It gives the name and number of someone who can vouch for me,” he said.  Then he turned away, and melted into the darkness.

Tate stared after him.  And within a matter of moments, he found it hard to believe he’d ever been there.  He stayed where he was for maybe thirty seconds, then pulled the card from the wiper and got in the car, locking all four doors with the central lock.

The experience had shaken him, because although there was no violence involved, the seriousness of what had just happened couldn’t be underestimated.  Cranmer must have followed him when he left the station that morning.  Either that, or he’d found out what his movements would be that day.  And if he’d gone to the trouble of finding out what his movements were going to be, who was to say he hadn’t also found out where he lived?

His home on the outskirts of Hexham was less than an hour’s drive away.  What if Cranmer was heading for his house….

Tate used his mobile to phone the station and ask for a patrol to be sent to his home.  He then phoned his wife and told her what had happened.

“Where are the kids?” he said.

June was a calm, intelligent woman who taught in the local school.  She wasn’t given to panicking, but she didn’t like the idea that someone had followed her husband onto the moors any more than he did.  “Becky’s in her bedroom, finishing her homework.  Steven’s on the Play Station .”

“Bring them downstairs,” said Tate.  “Keep them with you until I get home.  And try not to worry too much.  Any minute now, you’ll have two whacking great coppers dripping snow onto the kitchen floor.  They’ll stay with you until I get back.”

Tate disconnected, and fired the engine, but he didn’t pull away immediately.  There was a light in the car.  He turned it on and read what was on the card.  On the front, it bore the emblem of the Los Angeles Police Department and the name Lieutenant George Iwanowski.  On the back, Cranmer had scrawled his name.  Beneath it, he had written, `The Grange Hotel, Hexham’. 

The Grange was one of Hexham’s better hotels, but he doubted that was Cranmer’s reason for booking in to it.  It was almost directly opposite the station.

Tate did a three-point turn and headed in the direction Cranmer took as he melted into the darkness.  There was no sign of him, or of a car. 

It had taken a few minutes to phone June, and the station.  If Cranmer was parked up ahead, those few minutes would have been enough to give him a good start.  Not that it mattered. He had no intention of trying to catch up with him.  This was a B road that wound its snakelike way through rocky outcrops, and it was dangerous enough at the best of times.  Besides, he had plans for Cranmer, and none of them included confronting him out here.

When he reached the station, he got hold of Fletcher, who assured him he hadn’t told anyone what his movements would be that day.  Tate had thought as much, but to have it confirmed was a relief.  And although it didn't explain how Cranmer knew where to find him, that wasn’t insurmountable: Tate intended to bring him in, and get it out of him.

Fletcher had the deceptively lazy eyes of a mountain lion.  He yawned, and said, “Where is he?”

“He’s staying at The Grange.”

“Millionaire then,  is he?”

“He’d have to be—” said Tate.

The Grange catered for people who wanted gourmet food and an Elizabethan four poster at the end of a day spent slogging up and down Hadrian’s Wall.  At this time of year, it operated on a reduced scale, but it was still the best place to stay for miles around.

He decided to phone to check that Cranmer was in fact staying there before turning up in reception and embarrassing the owners.  Fletcher, at 33, could just about pass for something other than a copper.  Tate, at 44, tended to wear suits, or the kind of casual walking gear that didn’t look out of place down the local pub.  But he still looked like a copper.  And the owners of The Grange wouldn’t welcome a visit from the police without good reason.  They didn’t get the kind of guest that warranted that kind of embarrassment.

The receptionist checked the register and confirmed that Cranmer booked in five days ago.

“Is he around?” said Tate, and she said she’d try his room.

Moments later, Cranmer picked up the phone, which told Tate all he needed to know.

He cut the connection, then flipped the business card over.  Coppers carried business cards, same as anyone else.  They came in very handy.  If you think of anything, love, just give me a ring.

He had no idea whether or not it was genuine.  It looked it, but that meant nothing.  Cranmer could have had it printed up.  There was only one way to find out, and that was to phone the number, so he dialled it.

A few moments later, a mechanical voice told him he was being put through to Lieutenant Iwanowski’s voice mail, but that if he needed to speak to someone urgently, he should dial another number…

Tate was surprised to find that Iwanowski existed.  But the fact that there was a Lieutenant Iwanowski serving with the LAPD meant nothing. It didn’t prove that he’d given his card to Cranmer, or that he’d be able to tell him anything about him when they spoke.

Tate would have preferred to have spoken to Iwanowski before pulling Cranmer in, but since he wasn’t there, it looked as though it was going to have to wait. He left a message asking Iwanowski to return his call, then disconnected.  “Let’s go see what Cranmer has to say for himself,” he said, then he and Fletcher left the station together

* * *

3

Tate and Fletcher walked into The Grange, showed their IDs to the girl on reception, and asked her to put a call through to Cranmer’s room.

“Don’t let him know there are police down here wanting to speak to him,” said Tate.  “Just ask him to come down to resolve some minor query on his account.  We’ll do the rest.­­”

When he realised she wasn’t listening, but was looking beyond them, Tate turned round to face a couple of sofas arranged around a coffee table.  As he did so, someone rose from one of them and approached him.

“Inspector Tate,” he said.  He held out his hand.  “John Cranmer—”

Back on the moors, Tate’s impression had been that Cranmer was big.   He was now obliged to reconsider, because Cranmer wasn’t as big as he’d first thought.  He was maybe five foot ten or eleven, no more than that, and his strong facial features, his solemn, half-hooded eyes weren’t what Tate would have expected to find behind the scarf and hood he was wearing earlier.  The clothes he wore now couldn’t have been further removed from the mountaineering gear that had made him seem twice the size and concealed his features so effectively.  Now, he was dressed in a slate grey suit and cashmere turtle neck jumper.  The belt was Italian leather, a darker grey than the suit, and the shoes were a match for the belt.  They looked hand made.

When Tate ignored his offer to shake hands, Cranmer withdrew it, and said, “Let me guess – you’d like a word about what happened earlier?”

The accent was that of someone who had been privately educated, but there was the suggestion that Cranmer might have lived in the States for a while.  It would fit, because Cranmer looked American.  The clothes, the grooming, even the mannerisms.  It was going to be interesting to find out what a man like this was doing in Northumberland. 

Cranmer nodded towards a doorway that opened out onto a well-stocked bar.  “Why don’t we find a quiet corner?”

“There are plenty of quiet corners down the station,” Tate replied.

Cranmer smiled to himself.  “Whatever you prefer—”

He grabbed a coat that was draped on the back of a sofa, put it on over the suit and arranged a cashmere scarf around his neck.  Fletcher watched him do these things as if he were some exotic animal preening itself.  Like most men born and bred in Newcastle, he seemed almost impervious to the cold.  He wore little more than a jacket over the a short-sleeved T-shirt and jeans.  No gloves.  No scarf.  No interest in the fact that outside, snow was beginning to fall in flakes the size of a fist.

He held the door for Cranmer, and as Tate followed both men through and onto the street, he glanced back at the hotel.  It wasn’t large by modern standards.  There were maybe twenty rooms, half of them at the back.  The rooms at the front looked out onto a row of shops.  They were divided from the station by a side road, and although it wasn’t possible for anyone in the hotel to see into the station, it had long been a cause for concern that the station’s main entrance was exposed to the kind of place that would enable a villain to sit at one of those windows with a semi-automatic, waiting for their favourite copper to emerge. 

He pictured Cranmer sitting in one of those rooms and watching out for him.  Not that it was likely to have done much good.  He rarely used the main entrance.  He used it now, however, and as he and Fletcher escorted Cranmer in, Tate was surprised by how calm he seemed to be.  Most people in his position could have been forgiven for getting a little anxious about what was happening.  Cranmer didn’t look anxious.  He didn’t even look particularly put out

They led him down a flight of concrete stairs to an interview room adjacent to the cells.  It stank of disinfectant, because earlier in the day, someone had pissed on the floor in protest at being charged with aggravated burglary.  There was no heating to speak of.  No window. Just a table, two chairs, and a dent in the wall where the piss artist tried to escape by jumping through it.

“Make yourself at home,” said Tate, who nodded in the direction of one of the chairs.

Fletcher closed the door, then leaned against it as Cranmer sat down, the table between them, its legs bolted into the concrete floor.

“Well,” said Tate.  “Now that you’ve got my attention, perhaps you’d like to tell me what you were playing at?”

“Look,” said Cranmer.  “What I did today was out of order, but you gave me no choice.  I kept leaving messages. You didn’t return my calls.”

“Where are you from?” said Tate.

“Originally?”

“It’s a start—”

“Home Counties.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I’m not sure there is an answer – I’ve moved around a lot.”

The character who had pissed on the floor earlier in the day was currently down in the cells, no doubt pissing on his bunk. If he didn’t watch out, Cranmer, in his Italian suit, would find himself keeping him company.  “If you want to spend the night in the cells, you just carry on—”

“I’m merely trying to answer your questions honestly—”

“Where do you live?” said Tate.

“States.”

“How long have you lived there?”

“Almost twelve years.”

“Why the States?”

“I was invited to take part in certain experiments—”

“Who by?”

“The US Government.”

The guy was a fantasist.  “Where’s your passport?”

Cranmer pulled it out of his pocket.  Tate flicked through. It had been renewed within the past five years, but what information there was suggested that Cranmer lived in the US, but travelled extensively throughout Europe.

“You lead a busy life.”

“Then that makes two of us,” said Cranmer.  “And you probably don’t like your time being wasted any more than I do, which was why I stopped trying to phone you and started trying to find you—”

Fletcher smiled and lowered his eyes as Tate weighed Cranmer up. On the one hand, what he’d done was outrageous.  On the other, he didn’t come across as a crank.  He sounded plausible, well educated, and above all, calm, as if he might be accustomed to dealing with the police.

“You say the US Government invited you to take part in some experiments.  What kind of experiments?”

Cranmer looked down at the desk, his eyes passing over the scratches and burn marks that marred its surface, and finally coming to rest on Tate’s drumming fingers.  “Have you ever heard of people who can project their astral selves to places they can’t access physically?”

Fletcher had to stifle another smile.

“It’s a gift,” said Cranmer.  “The US Military asked me to go to the Gulf to penetrate a building, then report back on whether it was a hospital, or a military depot.”

This particular room had witnessed the telling of some extraordinarily tall stories over the years, and it looked as though this one was going to be particularly memorable.  But so far as Tate was concerned, the most interesting thing about what Cranmer was saying was the way he said it.  He sounded so sane.  “Let’s forget about the Gulf for a minute,” said Tate.  “Because what I want to know is, what are you doing here, and why are you following me around?”

“I flew in from the States specifically to help you—”

“What with?”

“The investigation—”

“What investigation?”

“Lyndle.”

“What’s your interest in Lyndle?”

“I was walking through the wood—”

“When?”

“A while ago.  But I didn’t know where I was until I read about it—”

“What do you mean – you didn’t know where it was?”

Cranmer replied, “I mean I was there, but not physically. I projected myself—”

Tate was tempted to do a little projecting of his own, but before he could tell Cranmer what he thought his immediate future might be, a uniform entered to tell him someone from Los Angeles was trying to get hold of him.  It sounded important.

Tate hadn’t taken his eyes off Cranmer.  He did so now.  “I’ll take it in my office,” he said.

*

When he reached his office, Tate pushed the door closed with his foot and lifted the receiver.  No Iwanowski.  Nothing.  Just a dead line.

He replaced the receiver, and as he waited for the call to be put through, he took stock of the situation. He still wasn’t sure whether or not Cranmer he was actually worth worrying about.  He hoped it would turn out that he just happened to get a kick out of tracking people who, in the ordinary way of things, were more difficult to find than the average person owing to the degree of security that normally surrounded their activities. If so, then the act of successfully tracking a senior copper and coming out of the dark at him might have been an end in itself.  He hoped so. 

His eyes strayed from the telephone to the papers on his desk.  Among them was a file relating to Ginny Mulholland, a girl of eighteen who worked at Lyndle Hall for part of the summer.  He pulled the file towards him and opened it.  In it were the usual statements and reports. There was also yet another message relating to Cranmer.  It stated that, at 11.17 a.m. Cranmer walked into the station asking to be allowed to speak to him.  The desk sergeant explained that Tate wasn’t available, and offered to let him speak to somebody else.  Cranmer declined, and left.

None of the previous messages had worried Tate as such, but this was different, because at 11.17 a.m., Tate had been on his way to Durham to talk to Ginny’s father.  If Cranmer walked into the station when he was on his way to Durham, it meant he couldn’t have followed him.  And that just didn’t make sense.

The phone broke into his thoughts by ringing out.  He snatched the receiver from the hook.  “Tate,” he said.

Iwanowski answered with:  “You left a message on my voice mail.”

“Thanks for returning my call—”

“What’s the problem?”

“John Cranmer,” said Tate.  “Does the name mean anything to you?”

Iwanowski confirmed that he knew Cranmer. 

“Tell me about him,” said Tate.

“Where you want me to start?”

“How do you know him?”

Iwanowski replied, “Some years ago, he walked into the station claiming to have information about a woman who’d been missing for several months.  He told us she was dead.  Then he studied a map in my office, drew a circle around a particular area, and told us we’d find her body in that vicinity.  We looked.  We found it.  What can I say?”

After a moment, Tate replied, “If someone walked up to me with a yarn like that, I’d have been inclined to suspect they had something to do with how the body came to be there.”

“The thought occurred to us, believe me—”

“Where was it?”

“In a canyon,” said Iwanowski.  “Turned out her car had spun off the road.”

“How come it hadn’t been found?”

“It was hidden by trees.  Invisible from the air.  And it couldn’t be seen from the road.  If not for Cranmer—well—I doubt we’d have found her.”

Tate had no way of knowing whether or not his picture of Iwanowski was accurate, but he saw him as big, straight-talking, and not at all the kind of man who was likely to have much time for people who claimed to be psychic.  Which only went to prove how wrong you could be, because Iwanowski was full of it:

“Look—” he said, “There are plenty of people prepared to vouch for Cranmer. I could give you names – but what would be the point?  You have to experience the guy for yourself, and make up your own mind.  What do you have to lose? ”

Tate could think of any number of things he might have to lose, like credibility, like the respect of his peers, like his chances of future promotion.  “I didn’t call to find out whether or not you think Cranmer is genuinely psychic,” said Tate.  “I’m more concerned with whether or not he’s ever been known to pose a threat to anyone.”

“A threat—” Iwanowski sounded incredulous.  “What’s he done to make you think he’s a threat?”

Tate wasn’t about to tell him what happened earlier, and when Iwanowski sensed his reluctance, he added:

“What’s it all about—I mean—what’s your interest in Cranmer?”

So far as Tate was concerned, it was more a question of what Cranmer’s interest was in him.  Or more to the point, what his interest was in the missing Ginny Mulholland.

Prior to stopping off to take a look at Lyndle Hall, Tate had spent the morning at a small brick cottage in Durham.  It was within walking distance of the university, where Ginny’s father had lectured for the best part of thirty years.  He invited Tate into a small, book-cluttered room, and told him what he’d told the less senior police officers who had come before him.  “Ginny is missing.”

By the time Mr Mulholland reported his daughter missing, Ginny had been gone for three weeks.

“What took you so long?”

“I didn’t want to be seen to be making a fuss.  And  Mrs. Herrol kept telling me that was what I would be doing if I involved the police.”

Tate decided to take it from the top and find out how Ginny came to be at Lyndle in the first place.  She was eighteen.  She’d left sixth-form college the previous June, and she’d gone to an open day at Durham University, where she hoped to read politics.  Her father said:

“Mrs. Herrol’s son, Nicholas, is also reading politics apparently.  He was given the job of showing a group of prospective students round the campus.  Ginny was one of the group.  She mentioned she needed a summer job, and he had a word with his mother.”

At that point, Tate had yet to see Lyndle for himself, otherwise he would undoubtedly have asked what could have possessed a girl like Ginny to accept a job in a place described by Bischel as `an obscenity’.  As it was, he merely wondered what made her opt for Durham.  It was, of course, one of the top five universities, but it was also on her doorstep, and in his experience most young people couldn’t wait to put as much distance between them and their parents as they could possibly manage.  Nothing personal.  Not usually, at any rate.  It was more to do with the psychology of making the break from home, of striking out as a young adult in their own right.

“Why Durham?” he said, and Mr Mulholland replied:

“There were certain practical considerations.  We live quite close to the campus, and it was essential for her to keep her expenses down.”

Nothing unusual there.  Since grants had been abolished, more and more people were opting to live at home for the duration of their course.  It struck Tate as a fairly sensible option, and then he looked around him.  This small brick cottage with its scholarly artefacts and academic reference works was hardly the kind of place a girl of eighteen would want to bring her friends to.  No television, he noticed.  Just an unobtrusive radio.

“I didn’t pressure her to carry on living at home,” said her father.  “It was what she wanted.”

Tate wondered about that.  When daughters had sensitive, elderly fathers, they sometimes found it difficult to tell them they wanted to leave home and live their own, preferably sexual, lives.  And Ginny and her father were very close.  So close, in fact, that they phoned one another on an almost daily basis, so when, at the beginning of September, three days went by without him hearing from his daughter, Ginny’s father started to get concerned.  “What did you do?” said Tate.

“Initially, I phoned Mrs. Herrol and asked if she could let Ginny know I’d called.  She said she’d be delighted to, if only she knew where she was.  But she hadn’t seen her for the past three days, and nor did she expect to, because she appeared to have taken off with her husband—”

In the light of what he’d been told, Ginny’s father hadn’t known what to do.  He couldn’t imagine his daughter running off with a married man.  And then he reminded himself that Ginny was no longer a child.  “It was perfectly possible that she and this woman’s husband were having an affair.  “I couldn’t condone it, but there it was.  I had to face the facts—”

“And how long did it take before you did anything further?”

“I gave it a couple of weeks.  She was, after all, due to start at Durham on 15th September.  I thought she was bound to come home.”

“And when the 15th came and went and there was no sign of her, what then?” said Tate.

“I was upset. I felt she’d let me down, not only in the moral sense, you understand, but academically.  I couldn’t believe she was so besotted with this man that she was prepared to throw away her entire future.”

At that point, he explained, he placed an ad in the local paper asking Ginny to get in touch.  It was a mistake.  A journalist phoned, asking if he could help. “With hindsight, I realise he simply scented a story, and I, like a fool, unwittingly gave him one.”

Tate made a note of the journalist’s name.

“He asked if I could let him have a photograph of Ginny, so I let him pick one out from the family album.”

Tate knew the photo he was referring to.  He’d seen it plastered all over the tabloid press.

“At the time, I couldn’t understand what made him choose that particular photograph.  It’s never been a favourite of mine.  It was so unlike her, if you understand me.”

Tate understood perfectly.  The journalist chose a photo in which Ginny was wearing skin tight jeans and too much make-up.  It was taken a few years earlier when Ginny and some friends were fooling around.  Everything about it was completely over the top, from the ultra-glossy lipstick to the provocative, buttock-thrusting pose.  It was the perfect photo for a headline that ran, Local Toff Runs Off with Girl Half his Age.

“I complained to the editor,” said Mr. Mulholland.  “But nothing was done.”

No surprises there.  “What did Mrs. Herrol have to say?”

“She was angry.  She asked whether I intended to make a habit of dragging her family name through the mud.  I hardly knew what to say.  I could only apologise—” 

Tate felt desperately sorry for him.  He was old, and he was worried, and some reporter had taken complete advantage.

“The worst of it was that Ginny didn’t respond, yet she must have read the article.  She couldn’t have missed it.  Surely?”

Maybe.  Maybe not.  It was surprising what people could miss, just as it was surprising what they could pick up.

“It was then that I started to feel that something might have happened to her, so I phoned Mrs. Herrol again.  Not that it did much good.  She told me I was making a fuss about nothing. After all, her husband was also missing.  Surely it was obvious they were together.”

Tate was beginning to see why he hadn’t automatically called the police.

“She told me Ginny left some of her clothes.  I asked her to send them on.  They arrived in a cardboard box, and I put it in Ginny’s room.  But I didn’t open it.  Not at first.  I didn’t want to invade her privacy you see. But as the weeks went by, I started to feel that I really must do something, so I looked through her things – I don’t know why.  Perhaps I was hoping to find some clue as to where she might be.”

The box contained a couple of pairs of jeans, an old pair of trainers, a novel that looked as though it had been read and discarded.   It was likely, even probable, that Ginny left these things because she no longer wanted them.  But she also left a bag that was a mass of zips and pockets, and in it, he found a letter.  It was this that finally prompted him to contact the police, though the letter was hardly new to him as such.  It was written by his wife, who died some days after writing it.  Mr. Mulholland broke down as he handed it to Tate.

Dear Ginny, by the time you are old enough to read this, I will have been dead for many years…

“I can imagine that she might have left a few old clothes behind, but she wouldn’t have left the only letter her mother ever wrote to her—”

Tate now had different photograph of Ginny. It was one her father gave him, saying, “This was the one I tried to persuade the journalist to take.  Now, of course, I realise why he preferred the other—”

In it, Ginny was wearing a summer dress, her legs brown, her arms wrapped round the neck of the family dog.  She looked like a little girl.  Her hair very long.  Her smile innocent….

A question Iwanowski asked brought him back to the present. “I guess Cranmer must have been in touch with you, otherwise you wouldn’t have contacted me.”

“You could say that,” said Tate.

“Where is he?”

Tate replied that he was currently at the station.

Iwanowski picked up on something in his tone.  Sensing a problem, he said, “What’s he doing there?”

Tate’s response was fairly noncommittal.  “He seems to think he can help me with a case.”

“What kind of a case?”

“I’ve got a missing person—”

Iwanowski replied, “If Cranmer is showing an interest, you don’t have a missing person.

Tate waited for it—

“What you have is a homicide,” he said.

* * *