Phil Rickman [Rickman - Mean Spirit

Who is stalking Seffi Callard, the worlds most fashionable celebrity medium, now a paranoid recluse at her fathers home in the Costwolds? Her old mentor, Marcus Bacton, editor of an ailing journal of the paranormal, sends his assistant, Grayle Underhill to find out - unaware that hes thrusting them both into a nightmare and the attentions of a vicious career-criminal for whom getting rich is less important than never getting dead. [add quotes here]Who is stalking Seffi Callard, the worlds most fashionable celebrity medium, now a paranoid recluse at her fathers home in the Costwolds? Her old mentor, Marcus Bacton, editor of an ailing journal of the paranormal, sends his assistant, Grayle Underhill to find out - unaware that hes thrusting them both into a nightmare and the attentions of a vicious career-criminal for whom getting rich is less important than never getting dead. [add quotes here]Who is stalking Seffi Callard, the worlds most fashionable celebrity medium, now a paranoid recluse at her fathers home in the Costwolds? Her old mentor, Marcus Bacton, editor of an ailing journal of the paranormal, sends his assistant, Grayle Underhill to find out - unaware that hes thrusting them both into a nightmare and the attentions of a vicious career-criminal for whom getting rich is less important than never getting dead. [add quotes here]Who is stalking Seffi Callard, the worlds most fashionable celebrity medium, now a paranoid recluse at her fathers home in the Costwolds? Her old mentor, Marcus Bacton, editor of an ailing journal of the paranormal, sends his assistant, Grayle Underhill to find out - unaware that hes thrusting them both into a nightmare and the attentions of a vicious career-criminal for whom getting rich is less important than never getting dead. [add quotes here

Mean Spirit

Phil Rickman

Copyright 2012, Phil Rickman

Contents

TRUST NO-ONE, SEFFIs TELLING HERSELF, AS SHE DOES SO OFTEN lately. Trust none of them. This has been a mistake, this is very wrong even by my strangled standards.

Despite all the people, a party going on, she feels something hollow in the room. Sometimes, in her head, theres the sensation of a bright white, penetrating light, turning to grey, turning to black.

And then, suddenly, Kierans here. A boy of eighteen or nineteen. Instantly she trusts Kieran, hes so messed up and full of shame. Hes sending her a faintly fogged picture of himself: bare feet no more than three inches above the hay?

No rushes. Rush matting. On the floor of light through slats, no glassgreenery bars of sunlight a kind of rough, rustic summerhouse. A gazebo.

Kierans hanging there. Seffi, sitting very still on her straight chair, in her claret-coloured velvet gown, hands enfolded on her lap, is aware of Kieran hanging.

How does she know his name? She just does. Reticence is rare unless youre dealing with a personality for whom formalitys an obsession or a way of life say a former army officer, or a butler.

OK, Kieran, hold on, Seffi murmurs, nodding. Hes pressing her, innocent as a big puppy. Just wait Well get to it, yah?

Miss Callard?

Sir Richard Barbers buffed face is tilted to hers. Behind him all those half-pissed, crass, glassy smiles. When the drawing-room lamps were first dimmed, it was like facing the rows of skulls in those catacombs under Rome or Paris or somewhere: nothing behind the smiles but dust no grief, no sorrow, none of that hopeless yearning which one often perceives as a kind of sepia mist.

Also, no discernible respect. Shes the entertainment. Half of them think Im a phoney, she realizes, with a bright flaring of rage. And the other half want excitement, spectacle. Theyre here to have fun.

One particular man seems to be laughing all the time now, in an irritating, rhythmic way, atonal and repetitive like a tape-loop. Seffis seething. She might as well be a hired pianist or a stand-up comic. That fucking Nancy.

Give me a minute, she tells Barber. All right, Kieran, I do know youre there. Who is this for? Who do you want to reach?

A hush is spreading in the room now like steam. They didnt know it had begun. Christ, she didnt realize at first usually, theres a thickening of the atmosphere, a sense of the essences gathering around her like a cloud of summer midges. Kieran, in his fuddled desperation, that awful dismay at what hes done, has fallen through. Like a small, thrashing fish through a net.

Glasses are accumulating now on side tables, cigarettes being crushed into ashtrays. Seffi finds herself under the gaze of one of the obvious unbelievers, a woman. Shes sitting in a wing chair about seven feet away; she has short hair dyed dark red, vulgar trophy earrings, a wide, carnivorous mouth.

And shes saying sharply, Did you say Kieran?

Seffi doesnt blink.

A big, broad-faced man in a white tuxedo turns at once from a conversation with a younger woman, hissing, Dont be stupid, its just a name.

OK. So its the red-haired woman. Shes the one.

She isnt going to like this.

If this means anything to you, Seffi says coolly, Kieran tells me he killed himself.

Dead silence in the room.

And then the poor bloody womans rising up as though electrically jolted, her big mouth falling open.

God!

Seffi finds herself smiling slightly. Yes, obviously, its wrong to enjoy the shattering of disbelief in such circumstances, but shes only human.

The man in the white tuxedos staring hard at her, several expressions chasing across his face. One of them: hunted? He converts it quickly into anger, softening this to exasperation. Speaks through tightened lips.

Dont make a fool of yourself, Coral.

In Seffis head, Kierans pulsing hard. OK, calm down, theres a good boy. Were getting there, yah?

Nobodys talking now; she can hear the music playing softly out of hidden speakers: Debussy, Nocturnes. She brought the CD with her more for them than for her; musics no longer essential. All right, let him come. Talk to Seffi, Kieran.

Ah. She nods, very slightly. Just a boy whos done something impossibly stupid. He was twenty years old it was the day after his birthday. His mother persuaded his father to buy him the sports car, the black Mazda? Finding out about Kelly is that the name? on his birthday compounded the sense of injury and blinding humiliation.

Finding out what, Kieran? Come on, what did she do? What did Kelly do to you?

Kieran is hanging from a thin, plastic-covered washing line. Its bright red; from a few feet away it looks like a wound around his neck, as though hes slashed his throat.

In a garden summerhouse, a gazebo-thing. Kierans body half-revolving then swinging back. His tongue out.

Revolting.

This is what Kierans thinking now. The manner of his dying disgusts him.

So what exactly did you find out, Kieran? What did you find out to make you do this?

Please The red-haired womans half out of her chair; shell be on her knees soon, poor bitch. For Christs sake, tell me

No! I dont do this sort of thing. Im not a bloody nightclub act.

Ten days ago. An outraged Seffi snarling at Nancy.

Who simply put on her glasses, reread the letter on notepaper as crisp and creamy as her own and then nodded, all mild and motherly. Well, of course, Nancy knew exactly what Seffi was. Nancy, the agent-manager, wise and discreet, sculptor of ones brilliant career.

And this guy, Barber hes not even an MP any more, is he?