Hotel Midnight (21 page)

Picture a house on a cliff that overlooks the sea. Mix in your own soundtrack: REM’s
Nightswimming
works, but you might choose another. Perhaps a gently haunting piano piece by Debussy:
Clair de Lune
or
The Engulfed Cathedral
– take your pick.

With the sun setting behind the trees I find Katrice as she opens the bottle of wine we’ll share over supper. I tell her I’ve finished writing about what happened to us all those months ago. She smiles and kisses me, then we walk out into the garden to watch as day becomes night. The secret we share has driven us together in more ways than one. As well as being survivors we have become lovers. With no one else to turn to we cling to each other at night with all the fierce desperation of children lost in the wood.

Far in the distance are the lights of London; my city of no return. They are lights that, I suspect, only I can see. Composed of a million separate strands they beat with flashes of purple, indigo and blood crimson. Each night they become a little bit brighter, a little bit nearer. Something from that old Goblin City is looking for us. I only hope by the time those lights reach out to touch our door we have found, at last, a place that lies beyond its grasp.

But I know, in my heart of hearts, it has a long reach – a very long reach indeed.

The Dead got in the way of finding the body. They streamed across the meadow, whistling, jeering, shrieking as only the Mad Dead do.

Detective Chief Inspector Victor North shook his head. This was a sorry spectacle. There was nothing for it but to wait for this flood of lost spirits to pass by. ‘Why do they do that, sir?’ asked the young detective. ‘What makes them cry out like – like they’re in agony?’

North glanced at the young man who stood beside him. Detective Constable Chadwick had only crossed over six months ago. He still had much to learn.

‘They’ve refused to adapt,’ North told him. ‘Only when they accept who they are … or rather what they have become … will they be as rational as you or I.’

Chadwick rubbed his jaw. There was as much a look of fear in his eyes as curiosity. ‘Some people don’t take to being dead, do they sir?’

‘They do not, Chadwick.’

‘But how on earth do we find our man in that lot?’

‘We don’t.’ North was a gruff old soul, but his voice could be surprisingly gentle at times. ‘We just sit it out, Chadwick. Don’t worry they’ll pass soon enough.’

‘But what are they looking for?’

‘A way back to their own bodies of course.’

‘But that would be against – against….’

‘Nature, Chadwick?’

‘Yes sir. I suppose so, sir … once you’re dead, that’s it.’

‘You’re not wrong, Chadwick.’

‘But what I don’t understand is why part of us – our spirit, or soul, whatever they call it – is here on Earth yet other parts have gone on to … well, wherever it is they’ve gone to?’

North felt for the young man. Clearly, this existence was still very much new to him. New, strange – downright perplexing. Painfully so, in fact. But then he, North, had had more than seventy-five years to become accustomed to this way of being. Something which he now regarded as a reward after forty years service to the force, the last fifteen of those being at Scotland Yard. Then, of course, there’d been twenty years of a healthy, happy retirement with his wild flower studies. Shame about not seeing his book in print, though; well, beggars can’t be choosers and all that. Chadwick, here, was a different kettle of fish. Died young, poor chap, at the wheel of his high-speed pursuit car. Left a pretty young wife and children … sad, so much to live for … the transition would be hard for the poor devil.

North watched the young man struggling to express the little he’d learnt about his new existence here in the meadows outside the small town of Tudor-Le-Street.

‘I mean, sir … you said a little while ago that the ancient Egyptians had got it just about right; that humans have more than one soul … or … or was it one soul that’s actually a number of different components? And that when we pass on—’

‘Die, Chadwick, die: plain and simple. Don’t give death euphemisms.’

‘I know, sir, but, where do the other parts go? Didn’t you say that part of our soul might be reincarnated? But why am I
standing
here in this field. And I feel like me … well, the me that I’ve always known. I can see my hands, my feet, sometimes I feel hungry, and sometimes I could murder a pint of lager, yet I know my body was cremated more than six months ago. And right now I’m scattered all over the crematorium’s bloody flowerbeds—’

‘Chadwick—’

‘Excuse my French, sir.’

‘Chadwick, listen to me, you’re questioning too much.’

‘Ours is not to reason why and that kind of thing?’ Chadwick sounded a tad bitter.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so, Chadwick. Accept what you’ve become. If you don’t you’ll become one of those damned lost souls across there. Moping all over the country, yelling, shouting. Pulling those dashed stupid faces. You wouldn’t want that, would you?’

‘No, sir. I suppose not.’

‘Good man! Brace up, then.’

‘But it’s the little things that bother me, sir. I know being dead is bad enough. But I bought our Jason a computer for Christmas. I hid it in the loft where he’d never find it. The little tyke looks high and low for his presents. Of course, before I had time to tell Jackie where I’d put it – booofff – wet mud on the A64 and here I am. Poor kid’ll probably be as old as I am – was – before he stumbles on it all covered in cobwebs and crap….’

‘Chadwick, that’s enough.’ North held up a finger. ‘Listen, old fellow, life will go on for your family.’

‘But, sir—’

‘No. You must let go. Your first responsibility is to yourself. You have to shape a new life here.’

‘Life?’

‘Well, after-life then. But it seems as real as the life you left behind, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, but, damn it all, sir.’

‘And if you don’t hold onto yourself; if you don’t occupy this.’ North tapped his temple. ‘You’ll lose mental definition. Once that happens you’ve lost yourself and you’ll become one of those.’ He stabbed a square-ended finger at the Mad Dead streaming across the meadow. They were nothing less than a tidal wave of psychosis; a purpling mass of bruised ego, id and memory; the spirits of men and women fusing, separating, fragmenting; a wash of demented spirits that had yearned so hard for something they could never reclaim they’d lost every shred of sanity they’d once possessed.

North watched a chain of maybe a hundred men holding hands. They were running along a dirt track. The saying ‘the blind leading the blind’ was familiar enough to North. But this was the mad leading the mad. Every second or so one in the chain would call, ‘This is the way! This is the way!’ Then the line would break, then reform with the one who’d shouted the words in the lead. Then another would shout: ‘It’s this way! I know it’s this way!’ The line would break, reform, break, reform, and so on; each demented spirit believing it knew the way back to life. And each man in line holding onto his neighbour’s hand with a fierce, grip, terrified lest he should be left behind. And so the Mad Dead formed into these herds that roamed the country. Dead, mad … lost.

North cast a knowing eye over Chadwick. The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat; his eyes had turned glassy as he watched the Mad Dead sweep by. North knew that the raw
excitement
of the mob was exerting its grip now. In a moment Chadwick would feel that same mad fire in his heart: that desire – that impossible desire – to make the homeward journey to life. The emotion would blaze within him; it would carry him away, shrieking, laughing, wailing, crying.

Leaning forward, North gripped Chadwick’s arm just above the elbow.

‘Why are we here this morning?’ North asked, in firm Yorkshire tones. ‘What has brought us to this rather pleasant meadow?’

Chadwick blinked, as if bringing himself out of a daydream. He blinked again, took a deep breath and looked round.

‘Chadwick? Why are we here?’

‘The body, sir. We’ve had a report that a body’s been found?’

‘Good man, Chadwick. Now. Whereabouts exactly?’

‘Down by the river.’

‘Are our informants reliable?’

‘I believe so, sir.’

‘Who are they?’

‘The shepherd boys. They were looking for a lost lamb and – sir, why do the ghosts of dead shepherds pretend to still mind their sheep?’

‘Now, now, Chadwick. I didn’t want to go into this again.’

‘But there are no lambs; no sheep come to that.’

‘If you’d pay a little more attention to what I have to say, Chadwick, you’d find your life here easier and a lot more
rewarding
.’

‘I know, sir, but it doesn’t make sense, does it?’

‘What doesn’t?’

‘Dead shepherds pretend to look after sheep; dead doctors treat the sick; dead teachers teach make-believe children….’

‘Then it must be obvious to you, isn’t it? In life our professions define who we are. So why not in death?’

‘Sir …’ Chadwick looked shaken. ‘I’m sorry, but I think it’s all those people … their screaming that’s unnerved me this
morning
.’

‘Don’t worry, Chadwick. You’ll get use to it. And you’ll see queerer sights than that, mark my words. Now, to business. Our informants?’

‘Yes, the shepherd boys. They called me at around eight this morning to say they’d seen the body of a young man lying face down in long grass down by the river. They think he’s been murdered, sir.’

North nodded. Now he let Chadwick speak. The young man’s mind was safely rooted in sanity once more. They had a murder to investigate. That would deflect the young man’s attention from the Mad Dead. Making a church and steeple from his fingers, a characteristic ‘contemplation’ device of North’s he gazed over the meadow. The stream of revenants had almost passed. Occasionally, one would break away from the rest, race across the grass to North, then stare fiercely into his eyes. There was expectancy there. That silent agonized stare. North knew they were asking the same question. Which way back to life?

The trick was to ignore them. After a moment they’d break that nightmarish eye contact and run on. Eventually they’d rejoin their own kind. Then resume their quest, which would undoubtedly continue until the end of time itself. North was an old hand now. The Mad Dead didn’t bother him. If anything, now it was the songs of the prehistoric dead that moved him. As they sat on their mounds up on Jackdaw Ridge and hallelujahed the rising sun, or wove beautiful melodies around the moon. By Jove, that did have the power to send a silent shiver thrilling through his old bones.

But great heaven, what a pleasant day it was (once you’d discounted the Mad Dead and their shenanigans, of course). There was a blue sky lined with the purest white jet trails. The church spires amid the rooftops of the town shimmered in
heat-haze
. Wild flowers added dashes of yellow and blue to the expanse of grassland rolling out before them. Butterflies flitted to and fro. And meanwhile a bumblebee got busy with a wild rose. Along the road behind him boys on bicycles raced by laughing. Real, living breathing boys. No doubt they were headed for the dam. There they’d swim and shout their heads off all day long.

Presently the Mad Dead passed by.

Then there was only one figure racing madly to and fro across the grass.

He was shouting out in a high voice, ‘What’s happening! What’s happening-what’s-happening!
Woss-’sappening!’

Chadwick awarded North a quizzical look.

North nodded. ‘That’s our man.’ He set off across the meadow. ‘Come on, Chadwick. We’ve a homicide to investigate.’

North wasn’t going to get any sense out of the dead man. He saw that straight away. The dead man’s ghost rushed backwards and forwards across the grass. His eyes were wide. His face was the image of sheer fright. He babbled over and over: ‘What’s
happening
, what’s happening!’

Chadwick said, ‘He’s not going to be much use to us for a while, is he, sir?’

‘A long while at that.

‘What’s-happening-what’s-happening!’

‘Quoth the dead man,’ North added weightily.

Now the recently dead man rushed up to his own lifeless body sprawled there in the meadow. He stared down at it. The man clapped a hand over his mouth as if he’d vomit. Not that there was any chance of that again. The man had traded the physical for the incorporeal.

‘What’s happening?’ Again the useless question. A moment later the man ran away from his own corpse as if it would bite him. When he was halfway across the field he stopped to look back. A faint cry came to the two dead detectives: ‘What’s happening? What’s happening?’

North rubbed his jaw. ‘No, I think it’ll be a long time before we can get any sense out of him, Chadwick. A common enough symptom with the violently killed. Right, Chadwick, down to business. What do you make of it?’ North nodded at the corpse.

‘Well, sir. Mid-twenties. Recently killed. Casually dressed in jeans and a T-shirt.’

‘Expensive clothing?’

‘Not at all, sir. The jeans are pretty old, not a quality make. And the T-shirt looks as if it’s been through the washing machine a good many times.’

‘But note the shoes. Expensive footwear is easy to spot in any day and age.’

‘Yes, that’s odd, sir … I’d have expected him to be wearing trainers, but these are brogues. Probably hand-made. Look, leather soles.’

‘So how does a young man in cheap clothes wind up dead in rich man’s shoes?’

‘Nicked them, sir?’

‘Possibly, Chadwick. Now to cause of death?’

‘Well … without being able to turn the body over, I’d say these two’ – he indicated two bloody holes in the man’s back – ‘are exit wounds from a small calibre weapon.’

‘That’s a fair deduction. Instantaneous death?’

‘Impossible to say, sir.’

‘But there’s a trail of blood across the grass as far as the body here.’

‘The corpse might have been dragged.’