Kissing Toads (21 page)

‘From what I've read, that's in the best tradition of Dunblair,' Nigel said. ‘Some of the lairds ruled with a rod of iron, but if they were unjust the locals wouldn't take it lying down. It wasn't unheard of for the incumbent priest to have a go at the laird from the pulpit, and once a band of tenants actually marched on the castle and camped outside the door to make their landlord hear their complaints.'

‘And did he?' HG asked.

‘Eventually. But he shot one man dead, another got him in the leg, and two went to gaol before talks got under way.'

HG and I both laughed, and Nigel allowed himself the satisfied smile of someone who has scored a double, being erudite and witty at the same time.

Then Morty came in, followed shortly by the others, and HG bowed himself out to go and dine somewhere away from the crowd. I noticed Brie looked annoyed, but she turned her conversation on Alex – they seemed to be getting very chummy – and paid little attention to anyone else for the rest of the evening.

‘I asked about Harry,' I told Delphi in an aside. ‘He's been here just over half a year – too long for an undercover hack, I'd have thought. Anyway, his track record includes an earl and a baronet.'

‘Fake,' Delphi hissed. ‘How do we know they exist?'

‘I don't know about the Earl of Grantchester,' I said, ‘but Sir Gordon Chisholm of the Manson Trust definitely exists.'

‘Forged, then.'

‘Difficult. HG's bound to have contacted the referees.'

Delphi looked frustrated and turned away, her notice claimed by Nigel just as Harry himself walked in to announce dinner.

I found myself sitting between Mortimer, who was still determined to find me sympathetic, and Ash, who wasn't. Morty began to talk about the weather, which had shown signs of spring that day, and how we ought to do some filming of work in the garden while the sun shone, and Ash informed me coolly that if we weren't using the old hall he was going to perform some tests there, measuring temperature changes and other factors relating to unexplained phenomena.

‘So if you record a sudden chill,' I said, ‘that proves there's a ghost around?'

‘Of course not.' Ash chose to ignore my sceptical tone. ‘Evidence is never conclusive, but it can be suggestive. Besides, the public like the scientific approach, even though it's largely irrelevant to genuine manifestations. People like your viewers feel much less credulous believing in something if there's physical proof on offer.'

‘That seems logical to me.'

‘Ghosts have nothing to do with
logic
. That's the trouble: you don't trust your own feelings. You'll believe in a thermometer which tells you it's getting colder, or a glitch in the earth's magnetic field, when you should have more faith in instinct and intuition. We were given those qualities to use them: unlike scientific knowledge, we've refined them over several millennia, yet we persist in doubting ourselves. We're a species of one idea. We've discovered science, and now we want it to explain everything. Stupid.'

‘But you go along with it,' I said. ‘After all, you've brought your thermometer.'

He shrugged. ‘It's part of my job. Just not the important part.'

‘So the ghost-buster's going into action,' Alex said from across the table. ‘Does that mean there'll be fluorescent green slime-monsters crawling out of the woodwork playing the bagpipes?'

‘I think it's really exciting,' Brie said. ‘The castle feels, like,
so
creepy – all that death and tragedy and stuff in the past, you can sort of sense it. Ash is right: you have to go with your intuition. I'm a very intuitive person about things like that.'

At this point an idea presented itself to me, so diabolical I could feel the smile spreading on the inside of my face.

‘We don't really need you two tomorrow,' I said to Brie and Alex. ‘Perhaps you'd like to help Ash with his experiments? I'm sure he could use some assistance.'

‘Brilliant!' Alex said instantly. ‘I saw the movie when I was a kid: I've wanted to be a ghost-buster ever since. We'll get the castle spooks by the short and curlies – if they
have
short and curlies.'

‘I work alone,' Ash said. If there had been a thermometer anywhere in his vicinity the mercury would have dropped out of sight.

‘No man is an island,' I declared. ‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls. We none of us walk alone.'

‘I said, I
work
alone . . .'

‘We'll do whatever you say,' Brie promised him. ‘I know we'll be a big help. I've always been really sensitive to the supernatural.'

‘There you are,' Alex said. ‘Brie's sensitive, I'm a ghost-buster,
and
we'll have Fenny. He's such a clever puppy, I bet he can sniff out any spooks. Can't you, honey-poo-poo?' The dog, who was sitting in his lap being fed morsels of unsuitable food, peered hopefully over the edge of the table.

For the first time since I'd met him, Ash was losing his cool. ‘I honestly don't think—'

‘I've got you
three
helpers for the day,' I said brightly, assuming an expression of shining innocence. ‘Isn't that great? You were talking about the importance of intuition – I'm sure Brie will be invaluable. And animals are much more tuned in to the paranormal than people.' Hadn't he told me something of the kind once?

‘Maybe.' Ash spoke with a suggestion of clenched teeth. ‘However . . .'

But Alex and Brie, oblivious to his reaction, began to make enthusiastic plans. Watching Ash, I allowed the smile to transfer itself to the outside of my face. He might be able to handle teenage poltergeists and phantoms from the dark side of human nature, but I'd teach him to mess with me. In the cut-throat world of TV makeover shows, I was learning fast how to play dirty.

Thanks to my plot, the next day's filming was relatively trouble-free. Even Delphi, out of period costume and back in presenter mode, seemed more relaxed, the only hitch occurring when she discovered her Matthew Williamson jacket was trimmed in real fur not fake. ‘I didn't know!' she wailed. ‘My image is supposed to be eco-friendly! I'll have to find something else to wear –' this could take hours – ‘and do the shoot again.'

‘It's rabbit,' I said desperately. ‘You said it's okay if it's rabbit.'

‘It's awfully fluffy for rabbit . . .'

‘You get long-haired rabbits. It's probably angora. You've heard the phrase
fluffy bunny
, haven't you?' The fur didn't look at all rabbitty, but I had no intention of scrapping our morning's work.

Russell came over to join in, looking irritated, met my gaze and backed off tactfully.

‘Supposing viewers don't realise,' Delphi was saying. ‘I've got a reputation to maintain. Perhaps we could put something in the credits. “
Miss Dacres will only wear fur that has been . . . has been environmentally approved, such as sheepskin or rabbit. She does not wear endangered species or . . . or animals killed for their skin
.”'

I was well aware that some rabbits are bred, and killed, for their fur, but didn't say so. I was too busy visualising the lawsuit when Matthew Williamson objected to having his mink or chinchilla or whatever it was libelled as bunny. You walk a tightrope with environmental ethics, and it's all too easy to fall off.

‘We can do something like that,' I lied.

In the evening, when work was over, I fled to the kitchen to recuperate. It had become my regular retreat: Cedric's quixotic unpleasantness meant the rest of the team avoided it, and I could always get a cup of tea, a quick snack (I invariably missed lunch) or alcoholic refreshment as required. This was a cup of tea day, with fruit soda bread on the side.

I swallowed violently when Ash came in, scalding my larynx. At the sight of me, his slim mouth clamped into a tight line and his elf-eyes glittered.

(I learned later he too used the kitchen as a haven, being on Cedric's shortlist of approved visitors, though normally earlier in the day.)

‘I hope you're pleased with yourself,' he all but snarled at me. Elves don't snarl, but he came close. ‘Thanks to you, today was a total waste of time.'

‘Rather yours than mine,' I said cheerfully.

‘You employed those two: they're your responsibility. You had no right to palm them off on me.'

‘We're all supposed to be working together. If you were more of a team player—'

‘Well, I'm not. I'm not part of your team, in case you've forgotten. I work alone.'

I was getting sick of that phrase. ‘Who do you think you are – Garbo?' I blazed. ‘You're in a castle full of people, and you vant to be alern – is that it? So do I, but I've got a job to do, just like everybody here. We can't afford to go around being supercool and above it all. You said I have no compassion, but you're the one who goes around despising people, thinking you're too grand and lofty to work with anyone else. It's easy to meddle with the dead – they can't answer back. If you had any humanity, any . . . any real
kindness
, you wouldn't act like we're all dirt.' I was being unfair, but I didn't care. I didn't care what he thought any more.

‘Dear me,' said Cedric. ‘Aren't we in a tizz?'

Neither of us paid him any attention. Ash was frowning slightly. ‘Did I say that?'

‘Say what?'

‘That you had no compassion.'

‘Something like it. I don't remember the precise words. But if you think I give a damn what you said—'

‘I'm sorry.' His gaze met mine. ‘That was unkind, and untrue. You do a difficult job and it seems to me you show a lot of patience with people who don't always deserve it. More patience than I possess. I don't know if that counts as compassion, but I shouldn't have judged you when I hardly knew you. Sorry.'

‘Oh. Oh well – all right then.' An apology you don't expect, from someone who doesn't seem the apologising kind, is always disconcerting.

‘But I still think that was an excessive revenge, dumping those two airheads on me.'

‘How about a cuppa?' Cedric said. ‘If you've done having a go at each other. Or a drink. Looks to me like you need alcohol.'

‘Tea's fine,' said Ash. ‘Thanks.'

‘Much better with a slug of Scotch in it.'

‘Just tea.'

‘Alex is okay really,' I said, feeling obliged to defend Delphi's future husband. ‘He's just not very . . . he's not used to a work situation.'

‘He has the mentality of a fifteen-year-old,' Ash said cuttingly. ‘An immature fifteen-year-old. As for Brie—'

‘Didn't her intuition come in handy?' I couldn't resist it. ‘I was so sure it would.'

‘Oh, she intuited all over the place. Sinister vibes, past sorrows, hatred and murder – you name it, she sensed it. Towards the end, she even claimed she saw something – a shape in the shadows. She got quite worked up about it. It was growing dark, the hall was pretty gloomy: it was obviously apparition time. At least it means I won't be saddled with her tomorrow. She managed to scare herself so much she's through with intuition for a while.'

‘Bugger,' I said. ‘The trouble is, neither of them have enough to do, and as they're both staying here they're permanently in the way.'

‘They could walk the dog,' Ash suggested. ‘It would do them all good. And we're surrounded by beautiful countryside.'

‘I don't think they're countryside people,' I said.

‘You got to be careful out walking,' Cedric interjected. ‘The mountains can be dangerous if you ain't got a guide. Rough going, unpredictable weather – fogs and bogs, bogs and fogs. Jules and Sandy been up here a lot longer than me, they said two people got lost once, few years ago. One bloke fell in the mist, broke his leg. His mate went for help. The search party found the leg-break, got him out in the end, but the other – he vanished for good. They reckon he went into the loch. It's treacherous going round some of the shoreline. Creeks and things. Or a bog got him.'

‘People always seem to be disappearing round here,' I remarked. ‘If it isn't the maze, it's the bogs.'

‘Sounds good to me,' Ash said, dreamily contemplating the middle distance. ‘Let's send Alex and the bimbo for a stroll.'

Cedric and I both laughed.

Chapter 6:

The Basilisk Effect

I'd been so preoccupied with my wedding plans and the problems thrown up by the series that I'd hardly given a thought to promoting Roo's love life. When I'd originally proposed her involvement in
The Lost Maze
I'd hoped there would be some talent for her, someone to take her mind off Kyle Muldoon. Nigel was far too unattractive to fit the bill, Morty was just a standard lech, Russell had been faithfully married for umpteen years, HG, for all his glamour, was way too old, spotty Dorian (though less spotty now) was way too young, the natives were too native, and the psychic researcher, though ravishing in a slant-eyed, pixy-faced way, was far too pretty to be heterosexual. There remained the crew, including the Terrible Trio of sparks, cameraman, and sound, Mick, Dick and Nick, any extras who showed promise, and those locals on the civilised side of Scottish. It wasn't an inspiring selection, and I couldn't help thinking it was just as well none of them were queuing up, since nobody came up to the mark.

I suppose because I had so much on my mind it took me a while to realise I was wrong, at least about the queue. Though Nigel was fascinated by my dramatic imagination, I'd begun to notice a glint in Morty's eye which had formerly glinted at me; Dorian, when home from school, was always dragging Roo off to confide his teenage woes; and even HG, when he emerged from seclusion, seemed to gravitate to her side. Mick, Dick and Nick were overheard speculating on her sexual talents, and Russell revealed that conversation in the Dirk and Sporran often turned on who she was shagging, and whether it was any of those present.