Lady of the Shades (3 page)

I took part in an internet chat-room session that turned out to be a damp squib. Several people lodged questions about the new book, but Joe was the only one who seemed familiar with my past
work. I sent him a signed copy of
Soul Vultures
and the reprints of the other pair, and we became Facebook buddies. A few months ago, I told him about the start I’d made on my next
novel, mentioning the fact that I was exploring the field of SHC, and he talked me into setting it in London.

‘This city’s spookier than a graveyard,’ he vowed. ‘Plus I know people in the field who could be helpful.’

It didn’t take him long to persuade me. I’d been to London a few times, but years ago, before I established myself as a writer. I’d never explored it with a creative eye. My
other novels were set in rural towns – two in America, one in Canada – but a city was vital to the framework this time, and London seemed as good a place as any. Besides, I was looking
forward to meeting Joe. I’m a loner and don’t have many friends. I thought it would be good for me to team up with an assistant. My agent keeps telling me that I come across too stiffly
in interviews. I was hoping that time spent with Joe might loosen me up and help me talk more freely about my work.

Joe leans forward and taps my knee, interrupting my reverie. His dark brown eyes are wide. He points towards the opposite wall. As I turn, a wind gusts through the room and the candles blow out.
Fortunately there are numerous holes and cracks in the boards covering the front windows, and enough light seeps in from the street lamps to see by.

Mist is rising from the bare brick wall. No, not rising . . .
emanating
. It doesn’t drift like normal mist would. It’s bubbling out, as if blown from an invisible pair of
lips. Dirty grey mist, coming from within the wall.

‘Shit,’ Joe gasps, getting to his feet. ‘It’s real.’ He’s trembling. This is his first time. Nothing can prepare you for that initial encounter, that moment
of confirmation that there really
is
more to the world than what most people ever see.

The bubble has reached its limits. About three feet in diameter, two thirds visible, one third obscured inside the wall. The mist eddies within the translucent boundaries, thick and thin
tendrils overlapping, blending into one another. I lay my camera on my lap. According to the landlady, a flash frightens the apparition away and nothing develops, but I’ve got to try.

‘Can you hear popping sounds?’ Joe asks, leaning towards the bubble, face aglow, eyes wide with wonder.

‘Yes.’

‘What are they?’

I shrug. ‘Ghosts forming. The mist reacting with the atmosphere. Exploding air bubbles inside the wall. Take your pick.’

I rise from my chair, walk around the ball of mist and study it from the sides. I can see through it, but only barely. Cold air radiates from it.

‘Ed,’ croaks Joe, and raises a trembling finger. ‘
Faces
.’

I return to my chair and stand by it. Within the mist, faces – or eerie simulacra – are forming. They aren’t clearly defined, but they seem to be human. Glimpses of eyes and
ears, open mouths, teeth. I think of the figures hovering behind me but I don’t look back to compare their faces with those in the bubble. I don’t need to. Those six faces are as
familiar to me by now as my own.

I don’t show it, but I’m excited. Apparitions are rarely this vivid. This is one of the most astonishing encounters I’ve yet to experience.

I turn towards Joe. ‘Describe what you’re seeing.’

He gulps, tugs nervously at his beard, then whispers reverently, almost afraid to speak. ‘A woman’s face, maybe twenty years old. Long hair. The face is changing now. Losing its
shape. Gone.’ A few seconds of silence. ‘Now another’s forming.’

‘A boy’s,’ I interrupt. ‘Plump. Short hair, badly cut fringe, what looks like a bruise under his left eye?’

‘That’s it,’ Joe agrees.

‘Great. We’re seeing the same thing.’ It’s important to establish that fact. People don’t always interpret apparitions the same way.

The faces so far have been small, embedded within the heart of the mist. Now one forms closer to the surface of the bubble, larger than the rest. An old man. We’ve been told that the other
faces vary, but this one always returns.

‘This is unreal,’ Joe moans as the man’s gaze sweeps the room. Joe is shaking badly. He glances at the door and I expect him to run. But then he bunches his fingers into fists
and forces himself to stand firm.

‘Do you see his pupils?’ I ask. Joe stares, then nods. ‘I couldn’t see any on the others. Their features were blurred. This one’s less ethereal.’

‘They’re real,’ Joe mutters. ‘Ghosts are real.’

‘So they’d have us believe,’ I say sourly, then press closer to the bubble. ‘Tell me your name,’ I whisper. ‘Prove you are what you appear to be.’

The ghost doesn’t respond. None of them ever has.

We spend a couple of minutes watching the old man’s face as his eyes roam. When there are no further developments, I decide to try a snap. ‘Seen all you want?’ I ask Joe as I
produce my camera.

He nods reluctantly. ‘Yeah.’

I take a quick shot. The face dissipates instantly and the bubble loses its shape. Most of the mist is sucked back into the wall. A strong sulphurous stench fills the room. I cover my mouth with
the mask I always bring along. Joe also has one – I gave it to him on our first night here – but he seems to have misplaced it. While he fumbles in his pockets and coughs, I take him by
the elbow and guide him out into the corridor. Once the coughing subsides, he wipes tears from his eyes and grins weakly. ‘Must have left the mask at home.’ He stares through the open
door at the last of the mist vanishing into thin air. ‘You see shit like this all the time?’

‘No two apparitions are the same, but yes.’

‘Fuck.’ He shivers. ‘They’re really real.’

I arch an eyebrow at him. ‘You reckon?’

‘After what we’ve just seen? Of course.’ He squints at me. ‘Are you saying you don’t believe?’

‘I want to,’ I say softly. ‘More than you could imagine. But . . . ’ I check the camera. Nothing in the picture except the wall and some mist. I show it to Joe.

‘So?’ He frowns. ‘You said ghosts are almost impossible to photograph.’

‘Yes. That’s why I’m sceptical.’ I put the camera away, disappointed as I often am after a sighting, even one as spectacular as this.

Joe is staring at me uncertainly. ‘If that’s not enough proof for you, what is?’

I pull a face. ‘I want one of them to
tell
me it’s real. If that was truly the shade of a dead person, I want it to talk with me, answer my questions, confirm that it is
what it seems.’

‘That’s never happened?’ Joe asks.

I shake my head. ‘I’ve spoken with the dead many times through mediums and Ouija boards, but how can you trust a source like that? I know most of the tricks that fakes use to fool
gullible customers. Even on the few occasions when I’ve been surprised, when I’ve not been able to explain what has happened, I haven’t found concrete, one hundred per cent
proof
.’

‘What about what we saw tonight?’ Joe challenges me.

I smile bitterly. ‘It was incredible. But what does it prove? People used to think that the Northern Lights were dead spirits shimmering across the sky. Who’s to say there
isn’t a scientific explanation for what we’ve just seen?’

Joe scratches at his beard. ‘But in your books, you claim that ghosts are real.’

‘And I want them to be. But I haven’t found proof yet.’

‘What would prove it to you, Ed?’ Joe asks.

‘A genuine encounter,’ I reply. ‘A ghost who’ll address me directly, tell me its name, answer questions. One with a verifiable history, who can prove it’s every bit
as real as you are.’

‘That’s a big ask,’ Joe notes.

‘Not if they’re real,’ I laugh, then smirk at Joe. ‘What do you reckon? Has that put you off ghost-hunting? Do you want to leave it here and not push on?’

‘Are you shitting me?’ Joe gasps. ‘That was amazing! It scared me but I loved it. Back out now? Not on your nelly.’

‘Not on my what?’

He waves the question away. ‘I’ll explain later. Where next? I’m hungry for more.’

‘That’s enough for tonight,’ I tell him. ‘Let’s go home. It’s late.’

Joe checks his watch and whistles. ‘We’ve missed closing time. Fancy coming back to my place for a few drinks?’

‘Thanks, but no. I want to write this up while it’s fresh in my mind.’

‘No problem. Are we returning tomorrow?’

‘No. This house has revealed all of its secrets. It’s time to move on. There’s a guy I’m trying to arrange a meeting with. Pierre Vallance. He’s a medium but he
doesn’t believe in ghosts.’

‘How can a medium not believe in ghosts?’ Joe frowns.

‘That’s what I want to find out,’ I say drily, then lead Joe back to the security of the safe, boring, normal world. Behind us, my six shades glide along after me, as silent,
observant and condemning as always.

TWO

It’s been a long time since I last visited London. The city has changed in many ways, become more American with its new high-rises and franchised chains of stores and cafés.
It’s still a different world to mine, with its old grey buildings and its polite but oddly stiff people, but it’s not as out of sync with the States as it used to be. There was a time
when I felt completely alien here. Now it’s almost like visiting any city Stateside. Globalization has a lot to answer for.

Having said that, you can’t find a chippy like Super Fish on Waterloo Road anywhere in the States. Or a van parked down a side street that serves jellied eels, like Tubby Isaacs in
Aldgate. And I’ve never seen anything like the Hunterian Museum, where you can find the bones of an Irish giant, pickled penises, old surgical instruments that look more like tools of
torture, and a whole lot more. They’re all places that Joe has introduced me to, steering me clear of the usual tourist hotspots, giving me an insider’s taste of the city.

The other thing I’ve really noticed this time is that London’s landscape is smudged with the fingerprints of the dead. I trudge the streets, lined with houses that date back hundreds
of years, built on plague sites and Roman burial grounds, their foundations teeming with history, and it’s as if I’m taking a stroll through the largest mausoleum in the world, where
phantoms jostle for space with the living. The hairs on my arms stand to attention, shapes flicker at the periphery of my vision and the air crackles with the whispered conversations of the dead.
Whether they’re imagined or real, it’s an amazing place to visit, but I wouldn’t be able to live here. A few months of this and I’d be fit for Bedlam.

I’ve been exploring the city, either with Joe – he runs a small electrical repairs shop on a part-time basis, so has plenty of free time on his hands – or by myself. I use
cabs, buses and the Tube more often than not, searching for shades of the dead among the detritus of the living.

I didn’t always believe in an afterlife. In truth, I’m still not convinced. But I’m open to the possibility of it now, and have been since I attracted my own coterie of
other-worldly spirits.

My ghosts follow me everywhere, four men, one woman and a nine-year-old girl, haunting my every waking step, standing guard while I sleep, ever vigilant, spitefully waiting for a chance to catch
me unawares and shock me. I know they’re probably delusional projections. The six are shades of people I knew, whose deaths darkened the corridors of my mind. The spectral figures are almost
certainly products of a guilty subconscious. But I wanted them to be real. I
needed
them to be real. So I opened myself up to the possibility that there’s a life after death, and
I’ve been searching for proof of that ever since. The quest for answers has helped keep me sane. Or as sane as someone who sees ghosts can be!

All of my novels focus on where ghosts come from, how they form, why they exist. In my first three I looked at how souls could be bound to this realm by magical or spiritual forces. This time I
want to take a more scientific approach. I’ve pretty much exhausted the mystical angles, at least for the time being. Time to travel down another route in search of something that might
explain how and why
my
ghosts came to haunt me, that might provide me with the means to banish them from my line of sight, back to whatever dark holes the army of the dead rest up in.

I really am vague about the plot. That wasn’t a lie. I know I’m going to focus on spontaneous human combustion – because it lets me explore the concept that ghosts might be the
result of a violent, unnatural death – but I’m not sure where I want to go with it. I’m relying heavily on research for inspiration and direction. Right now I have no idea where
it’s going to lead me.

We meet Pierre Vallance in his local Starbucks. At first we chat about the States. I’ve noticed that lots of people here like to discuss America with me when they hear my
accent. The media keeps telling us that the US has lost its standing as the world’s foremost superpower, that China, India and Russia are taking over, but from what I’ve experienced in
my travels, America is still the place that everyone wants to talk about.

When Pierre’s had his fix of Stateside tittle-tattle, he tells us about his life as a sceptical medium. Pierre has heard voices all his life. He doesn’t believe in ghosts, but became
a medium so that he could explore (and exploit) his talent. Over time he came to the conclusion that his brain acted as an amplifier for electromagnetic signals which the people close to him were
transmitting.

‘When people think, their brains generate waves,’ he explains, sipping an espresso. ‘I somehow pick up on those signals and convert them into voices.’

‘You mean you can read minds?’ Joe asks, squinting nervously — I guess we all have dark secrets we want to hide from the world at large.

Pierre shrugs. ‘To an extent. I always explain to my clients that I’m using science to help reveal the workings of their subconscious, but many choose to ignore me. They’d
rather believe in an afterlife and ghosts whispering through me. And since the customer’s always right, I don’t argue with them too strenuously.’