Silencing the Dead Will Harker (free ebooks for android TXT) 📖

gaff is wall-to-wall spirits. Even sitting here, I’m getting vibes from the place.”

The male host seemed to be lapping it up. “So you’re expecting fireworks on the night?”

“Fireworks, Miles, my man? Forget Guy bloody Fawkes, this is gonna be a psychic nuclear detonation! But look, I have to be serious and level with you for a minute. Which camera am I on?” Miles pointed and Everwood stood and approached the screen, his hands pressed together as if in prayer. “Viewers at home, this All Hallows’ Eve, we are going to be opening channels of paranormal energy never experienced before. I cannot guarantee there won’t be push-back from the spirit world. As some of you know, Purley Rectory has a long and bloody history. So I’m begging you, for your own sake, if you’ve got young kiddies or you have a heart condition, anything like that, please don’t watch this once-in-a-lifetime TV event.”

I had to hand it to Everwood, he might be peddling some premium bullshit, but he peddled it with all the showmanship of a modern PT Barnum.

Rosanna visibly shuddered as the psychic took his seat. “Sounds thrilling! Now let’s have a little look at you in action from an old episode of Ghost Seekers.”

The screen switched to a grainy, night-vision shot of Everwood stumbling around the corridors of some ancient building. Dust motes spiralled in his wake while his eyes stood out, stark and luminous in the pitch darkness. A caption read: Morstan Keep, 3:13 am. Suddenly there came a hollow groan, the kind of structural fart a medieval castle probably gives off every five minutes. Still, Everwood staggered back against the nearest wall, as if the afterlife had reached out and personally insulted his fake tan. In the next instant, his mouth dropped open and a high-pitched keening sound came from the back of his throat. Then his entire body started to shake, shoulders jigging up and down, arms thrashing, making me wonder if someone had accidentally plugged him into the mains. The whining stopped abruptly, and turning his head from side to side, he shrieked at the camera, now with a vaguely Glaswegian twang:

“Get out! Get out of my hooose!”

The clip ended and the transmission switched back to the studio. Miles and Rosanna stared at their guest with frank admiration.

“And that was back in series twelve when you were—”

“Possessed by the spirit of Matthew McDowell, Laird of Morstan Keep.” Everwood nodded. “Quite a ride, but it’ll be nothing compared to Purley.”

“All right, Darrel, now there’s one thing we should address before we let you go,” Rosanna said, her Botoxed brow actually finding a crease, so the audience knew she was serious. “As you may be aware, celebrated sceptic Dr Joseph Gillespie—”

“Celebrated by who?” Everwood laughed. “His mum?”

“Dr Gillespie will be showing his documentary, Ghost Scammers, on the same night on a rival channel. He claims that he will expose the ‘tricks’ you use to fool people into—”

“Fool people, Rosanna?” Everwood leaned forward and touched his middle finger to his temple. “OK, so can I just ask, was it annoying when your car—your BMW convertible with the custom paint job—didn’t start this morning? And was it any compensation when the bloke from the RAC turned out to be such a babe? Nice brown eyes and a very cute bum, am I right?”

“But how on earth did you…?” Rosanna gawped.

“Anyway,” Everwood grinned, waving aside her amazement. “You were saying something about that old dinosaur, Gillespie? You know his problem? Jealousy. Well, he was never going to pull the girls by talking about quadratic equations and pulsars, was he? So he decides to come after me to increase his street cred. It’s sad, really.”

“But can we ask about the recent bad press you’ve experienced?” Miles put in. “Your fiancée–?”

“That’s the subject of ongoing legal proceedings.” A hint of genuine colour bloomed under that unlikely tan. “But let me remind everyone of something. I grew up on a council estate in Peckham. Had to drag myself up, in fact. I didn’t get everything handed to me from birth like the Joseph Gillespies of this world. I’ve had to make a living from the talents God decided to bless me with. And you know, despite all my success, I’m still like any ordinary, working-class geezer out there. As Charles Dickens said, ‘If you prick me, don’t I bleed?’”

“Shakespeare,” I groaned at the trailer ceiling.

“And you know what else? Every bit of my success, I owe to you.” He thrust out his arms towards the viewers. “The great British public, and I love you for it.”

I switched off the TV and turned my face into Haz’s pillow. Then, rolling onto my back, I stared up at the weak autumn daylight shivering against the ceiling. Something Darrel Everwood had just said chimed strangely with the nightmare that had woken me. A half-remembered fragment of my childhood, some Halloween story of my mother’s linking the two. Not from a book she’d read to me but a tale passed between her and Aunt Tilda as they sat on their trailer steps. Some gruesome history recalled to entertain a morbidly-inclined child…

It was no good. The memory wouldn’t come. Anyway, I was still exhausted from a troubled night and there were hours yet until I was needed on the fair. Turning onto my side, away from Haz’s half of the bed, I tried to go back to sleep.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I moved among the ghosts and goblins, the monsters and blood-spattered corpses, an ordinary man in a sea of carnival freaks. The word had gone out first thing via social media and virtually every punter seemed to have heard the call. Halloween had come early to Jericho Fair, and it was half-priced tickets for anyone who showed up in costume. This I knew was the brainchild of George Jericho, a man who knew more about pulling in the trade than any marketing guru alive. My guess was that it was an early counterattack