The Secrets of Ghosts (14 page)

Gwen dug her fingers into her palm to stop herself from screaming ‘shut up, shut up, shut up’ into Amanda’s face.

Amanda drained her mug and stood up. ‘Well, I’ll let you get on. You must be so busy. I saw that piece in
The Guardian
. We’re going to try and make it to your launch-party thing. If we can get a sitter. If not, me and Kev are going to go into Bath this weekend. We’ll take a look, then.’ She laughed a little nervously. ‘Won’t be able to buy one, though. Out of our price range.’

Gwen smiled. ‘Don’t worry about that.’

‘I won’t keep you,’ Amanda said again and, miracle of miracles, she actually headed towards the door. Amanda never stayed for just one mug of tea. It was unheard of. At the door she hesitated. ‘Is it true you’re doing one of your box things for the Bath City of Culture thing?’

Gwen nodded.

‘Fancy,’ Amanda said, approvingly. ‘You’ll be too famous to talk to us little folk soon!’

Gwen waved and closed the door. Amanda had never asked her about her work before. Not in detail. She felt a creeping pride and realised that one of the best things about the magazine coverage and the exhibition was that her friends and neighbours actually believed that she was working now. She’d just been dabbling before. Being eccentric. Making funny little boxes. Now, it was a proper job. Nothing had changed except people’s perception, which meant, of course, that everything had changed.

Chapter 8

The Grange was filled with MOPs determined to have a good time, many of them ignoring their children while they did so. Katie dodged several toddlers and even a crawling baby on her way to and from the kitchen.

She’d just dumped a tray of empty glasses on top of the bar and told Anna that she was taking her break, when Max took hold her elbow. ‘Let me buy you a drink.’

‘Don’t you mean steal a drink?’ Katie said, trying not to be pleased.

‘I’m working now. I pay when I can.’

‘Really?’ Katie said. ‘Where’s your name badge?’

Max gave her a look. ‘I’m willing to talk about what you believe is going on here. With an open mind. Can’t you lay off just for a bit?’

‘Sorry,’ Katie said. ‘I don’t know you. I don’t know your life. I’ve got no right to judge.’

‘That’s okay.’ Max looked surprised.

‘You’re staff now, right?’ Katie said.

‘I guess.’

‘That means you can enjoy the Costa del Sol.’

Katie led the way round to the back of the hotel. A screened-off area hid the bins from MOP view and there were a few straggly deck chairs arranged around an old picnic table. ‘It’s the summer staff room. Fag-break area. It’s grim.’ She gestured to a faded pink plastic chair. ‘Sit.’

Katie fetched a couple of Fabs from the kitchen. Something had tried to knock him out with a ceramic urn, he’d been de-hexed by Gwen and menaced by Cam and he was still speaking to her. He deserved an ice lolly.

His eyes lit up when she returned. ‘God, I haven’t had a Fab in years.’

‘When you said you were a con man,’ Katie began, after a few minutes of companionable lolly-induced silence, and then stopped. She realised that there was no good way to finish that sentence.

Max didn’t help, just lowered his eyes and concentrated on finishing the rapidly melting lolly.

‘Have you been travelling around for long?’ She wanted to ask where home was. What he really did for a living. Just how black his heart truly was. But how did you do that? How did you say ‘are you dangerous?’ without sounding unhinged? Without inviting the truth she didn’t want to hear or the lie she expected?

‘Couple of months,’ Max said. ‘I’ve been feeling sort of dissatisfied for a while and then something happened. It made me want to take some time off.’

‘From conning?’

‘Sort of. From that life, yeah. But it’s not that simple.’

‘It is. You just stop stealing from people.’

‘Send me a postcard from where you live some time.’

‘What?’

‘Where everything is so black and white.’

Katie nibbled the sprinkles and chocolate that covered the top part of her lolly. It was black and white. Stealing and lying equalled bad. Max was a bad person. She should walk inside and talk to Jo, instead. She shouldn’t speak to him ever, ever again. ‘So, what happened? What made you reassess your life of crime?’

‘I was already taking it easy, having some time away. I was moving around, playing lots of poker tournaments. Nothing dodgy for once, not really gambling.’

Katie made to interrupt but he pointed at her with his empty lolly stick. ‘Playing poker isn’t gambling. Well, it is. But if you have skills then you have a good chance of winning. You can influence the outcome to some extent.’

Katie licked some strawberry that was threatening to run down her wrist. ‘Right, so—’

‘One place, I had a bit too much to drink and got knocked out of the game early. You know what it’s like when you’re already drunk and you just keep drinking?’

No, Katie thought. Not really.

‘I don’t know how much I’d had, but I ended up seeing Greg Barton’s act.’

‘You must have been really slaughtered.’

Max nodded. ‘It wasn’t exactly my intention. I wasn’t thinking clearly.’

‘To say the least.’

‘Exactly. I had found a comfortable seat and fallen asleep for a while. When I woke up the show had started and my head was pounding so I just stayed put. I got sucked in, though. The man is a real pro,’ Max said, his voice full of admiration. ‘I mean, you should see his cold reading.’

Katie felt sick. ‘So, what, he’s like some kind of hero to you?’

Max’s eyebrows drew sharply down. ‘Hardly. I think he’s scum. He preys on people when they’re vulnerable, grieving. He breaks all the rules. No scruples whatsoever. But, you know, sometimes you gotta admire technique.’

Katie wasn’t sure about that, but she didn’t want to stop Max talking.

‘But then he spoke to me. Called me out in the audience. I mean, I didn’t even have a ticket. I definitely hadn’t been at the meet and greet before the show, when the runners pump people for info, which they can feed back to Barton for the show. I’d stumbled in there, dead drunk, passed out in an empty seat.’

‘What did he say to you?’

Max’s smile vanished. ‘It’s personal.’

‘Fair enough,’ Katie said. ‘But it shook you up?’

‘It got to me,’ Max said. ‘I know all the tricks and I know it’s a kind of con, but the things he said... Put it this way. I’d really like to prove he’s a grifter.’ He smiled a little. ‘I’m going to prove it.’

‘You should be careful. I read about a medium. Got accused of faking in a newspaper and he sued them for a load of money.’

‘I know,’ Max said, his smile fading. ‘But I’m hoping I can catch him out, anyway. I would love to ruin his sordid little career.’

‘Sordid career? Pots and kettles spring to mind.’

Max shook his head, deadly serious now. ‘He’s violating the code.’

‘There’s a code?’

‘Of course.’ Max counted off on his fingers. ‘Only steal from the crooked, only scam the dishonest, family’s off limits.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you,’ Max said, standing up. He held out his hand for Katie’s lolly stick, which, she now realised, she’d been mangling while they talked. She passed the twisted bit of wood to him and stood up. ‘Back to work, I suppose.’

‘Are you really working here?’

‘Just temporarily.’ Max smiled. Not his usual small one, but a wide, loopy grin. ‘I quite like bar work. An honest day’s work and all that. I could get used to it.’

‘You’d better not.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t outstay my welcome.’

‘Bit late,’ Katie said, automatically, and was rewarded by Max’s smile growing even wider.

‘I know you don’t mean that,’ he said, pointing at her with the remains of his Fab. ‘But don’t worry. I think Patrick only hired me because he’s desperate. As soon as he finds a permanent replacement, he’ll chuck me out.’

Katie felt an alarming mix of feelings. Terror, because he wasn’t joking about being a con man and that was bad. That was really bad. And sympathy because he seemed genuinely sad about something, and Barton had upset him and she could see it had shaken him in some fundamental way. And arousal because, well, because Max just seemed to have that effect on her. Which brought her neatly back to terror.

*

That night, Katie sat cross-legged on her sofa and fired up Google on her laptop. Gwen might be convinced that seeing Violet was some terrible curse, but Katie felt properly awake for the first time in months. The magical world that she’d always known was there, hiding in the shadows of the mundane world of toast and television, had finally come into sharp focus. She was linked to it and she wasn’t about to hide under her duvet until it went away. If Gwen wasn’t going to help her, she was going to do it herself and she was going to start by helping Violet.

Katie typed Violet’s name into the search engine. She paid for a subscription to
The Times
so that she could search the past issues and was rewarded by a scanned-in story from the beginning of August, 1937.

The case of missing heiress Violet Beaufort took a sinister turn today with the news that some personal effects of the young lady have been recovered from the Beaufort estate in Avon. Lord Beaufort maintains that his daughter was away at the time of her disappearance, visiting friends in Norwich, and until now the search has been centred upon the route. The alarm was first raised on 7th July when Violet Beaufort did not arrive as expected and there have been no clues to her whereabouts and no statements released by the police regarding the investigation since the initial appeal for information
.

Katie blinked. Why would it be odd to find ‘personal effects’ of Violet’s in her home? Maybe they were items that no young lady would leave behind when planning an extended trip away. Or, perhaps, they’d been hidden. Another thought popped into Katie’s mind: perhaps they had blood on them.

It would’ve been so much easier if Violet had just told her what had happened. Katie felt bad for her frustration. Violet was bored and had, most likely, suffered some horrible fate all those years ago. She probably deserved some excitement and happiness in her afterlife. She rubbed her grainy eyes and drained the rest of her coffee. Perhaps if she read about the Beauforts as a family she’d stumble across something.

An hour later, Katie was none the wiser. The Beauforts were an ancient and moneyed family, connected closely to the royals — although not as close as they’d like. Apparently they’d tried all kinds of manoeuvres to get close to the throne back in the day.. Katie liked that. Amoral, but ambitious. At least they’d known what they’d wanted in life.

She researched The Grange, too. It’d been a family home of the Beauforts for many years before, although the family moved out en masse in 1987. The house was left empty for a number of years before Patrick got hold of it. He turned it into a hotel six years ago.

Katie rang Patrick and got the name of the person he dealt with when buying the hotel. ‘You’re not going to ask them any strange questions, are you?’

‘No,’ Katie lied. ‘Just investigating. You know.’

Patrick had bought the house through Strakers solicitors and the seller was a Mr Roberts who, it turned out, had only set foot in the place once. He had bought it on behalf of his client, a Texan oil magnate called Boon who wanted an unusual anniversary present for his fourth wife. Katie couldn’t find a contact for Boon, although she did find him listed on the board of several companies.

Katie searched for news stories about the house or surrounding area during 1987 but didn’t find anything. Of course, Violet would know. It would be simplest to just ask her. She didn’t know why Gwen was so against her talking to ghosts. It was fun.

*

The next day, Katie went into The Plum Suite and called Violet. There was nobody there, no cold spots and no sign of Violet’s doll’s house. Katie tried not to feel disappointed. She tried to tell herself that it would be a good thing if she turned out to have had a dose of heatstroke after all.

As she locked the door the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stood up.

‘Oh,’ Violet’s voice said. ‘It’s you.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t jump out like that,’ Katie said, forcing herself to look at Violet. When she wasn’t with Violet, she couldn’t stop thinking about her, hoping to see her again, but the first few moments were still alarming. She was looking at a dead person. A ghost.

The alarm wasn’t helped by the fact that Violet was looking particularly spook-like today. She was floating a foot or so above the hall floor and looked cross. ‘I would say “boo” but you’re no fun,’ Violet said.

Katie swallowed her panic; the fear made her snappy. ‘I’ve been reading about your family. What made them all leave in eighty-seven?’

Violet shrugged elegantly. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘Okay. What were they like, the people who lived here? After you, I mean.’

Violet looked at her oddly. ‘I don’t know. I died, you know.’

‘But you’re here now.’

‘I died and the next thing I know I’m waking up to the sound of the world caving in. A loud, grumbling, roaring.’

Katie frowned. ‘What—?’

‘It was machinery, of course. Not a dragon or an earthquake, but everything felt very odd and fuzzy for those first few months. It might’ve been a digger. That man. Mr Allen. He’d hired one to tear up the vegetable garden. If my father had been alive, he would have had him shot.’

‘You don’t remember the years in between?’

‘I didn’t know there had been years, not at first.’

Katie tried to digest this. ‘Were you frightened?’

‘A little bit, perhaps.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s hardly your fault,’ Violet said, suddenly sounding a lot more grown up. ‘Besides, the fear was small and didn’t last. It was almost as if I felt fear because I thought I should. As soon as I stopped forcing it, it went away.’ Violet looked sad at this memory.

Another question had been bothering Katie. If Violet couldn’t touch things, who had tipped the urn off the balcony? ‘Are there other people like you here?’

‘Ghosts?’ Violet said. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’