Peter Lovesey
A Case of Spirits
CHAPTER 1
It’s all absurd, and yet
There’s something in it all, I know: how much?
No answer!
Four pairs of hands were pressed palm downwards on the mess-room table at Paradise Street Police Station, Rotherhithe. A uniformed sergeant, pale and gaunt behind a magnificent moustache, was exhaling evenly and audibly, as if at a medical inspection. But his eyes were closed, in the proper manner of a medium in trance.
‘By George, I can hear something rapping!’ whispered a young constable to his right.
‘That’s the buckle of his belt knocking against the edge of the table,’ pointed out an older officer, facing him.
‘The table moved!’ insisted the constable. ‘I felt it move!’
‘Lord help us, you’re right! The blooming thing’s coming alive!’
The medium had grown noticeably more pink. His eyes remained closed and his hands stayed firmly on the table, which was unquestionably mobile. The vibrations seemed to originate at the opposite end, where a stoutly-built sergeant was seated. The table looked like shortly achieving sufficient momentum to overturn altogether, but a timely stiffening of the medium’s arms restored stability. At the same time he emerged sufficiently from his trance to glare across the table.
‘Spirits are agitated tonight,’ said the fat sergeant, in justification.
‘Perhaps they’ve got a message for us,’ suggested the young constable.
‘Wait a bit,’ said the medium in a strange voice. ‘There’s something coming through.’
The officers round the table peered expectantly at him as he began to moan. At the far end of the room a large, bearded detective-constable continued unconcernedly with the report he was writing.
‘Is there someone there?’ asked the medium, addressing his remark to the ceiling.
The flame in the gas-lamp above the table might have leapt a quarter-inch higher, but there was no other appreciable response.
‘Are you trying to get through?’
Three faint knocks were heard from under the table.
‘Did you hear that?’ demanded the young constable.
‘That’s one of ’em for sure,’ confirmed the sergeant, shuffling in his chair, ‘It’s their way of communicating. Three knocks for yes, one for no.’
‘Do you have a message for one of us?’ the medium asked the spirit.
The three knocks were repeated, more boldly.
‘Is it for the sergeant, here?’
One knock indicated that it was not.
‘The constable on my left?’
One knock.
‘The one on my right, then?’
The young constable sighed in relief as the spirit excluded him, too.
The medium frowned. ‘Is it for me, then?’
One knock.
‘Well, who the hell is it for?’ the fat sergeant demanded.
This time the spirit disdained to reply.
‘Can’t make up its blooming mind.’
‘Stop your jaw a moment,’ said the medium. ‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. You can ask the questions, and we’ll invite the spirit to use my voice to answer ’em. That’s how all the regular mediums work. Give me a moment first to clear my mind of worldly thoughts.’ He closed his eyes again, and presently slumped forward on the table with his head between his hands.
With a glance at his companions, the fat sergeant put the first question: ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes,’ intoned the voice of the medium, a shade thicker than before.
‘Do you have a message?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who is it for?’
‘One what is present, but not at the table.’
The fat sergeant turned in his chair to look at the only other occupant of the room, still diligently writing his report. ‘Well, of all the. . It’s for you, Thackeray!’
Detective-Constable Edward Thackeray wiped the nib of his pen and put it down. ‘Eh? What did you say?’
‘The message. It’s for you.’
‘What message?’
‘From the spirit.’
‘Oh,’ said Thackeray, without much interest. ‘I don’t hold much with that sort of caper.’
‘Wait. We’ll see who it comes from.’ He addressed the spirit in a solemn voice. ‘Who are you?’
‘Charlie,’ said the medium.
‘I don’t know anyone called Charlie,’ said Thackeray, and picked up his pen, as if that settled the matter.
‘Charlie Peace,’ boomed the spirit voice, unsolicited.
Thackeray wheeled round. Everyone at Paradise Street knew that he owed his place in the Criminal Investigation Department to the part he had played in arresting the notorious Peace in 1878. It was his principal topic of mess-room conversation.
‘Would that be Charlie Peace, the Banner Cross murderer?’ queried the fat sergeant, with a wink at his companions.
‘The same,’ said the voice.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Thackeray, in a tone suggesting the opposite.
‘Swung for me crimes at Leeds Prison seven years back,’ added the spirit voice, by way of amplification. ‘And might ’ave been walkin’ the earth today, robbin’ and murderin’ me fellow-creatures if it wasn’t for Constable Thackeray.’
‘That’s a fact, at any rate,’ said Thackeray. ‘Haven’t I always told you blokes as much?’
‘Why, so you have,’ said the fat sergeant. ‘As much, and a sight more sometimes, wouldn’t you say, mates?’
There were nods and winks all round.
‘Let’s find out what the message is, then,’ he continued.
‘If Charlie Peace has come voluntary into a police station, it must be important.’ He looked at the ceiling. ‘What do you want to say to Constable Thackeray, Charlie?’
The bowed figure of the medium did not move. ‘I ’ave come with a summons for Constable Thackeray.’
‘A summons?’ repeated Thackeray.
‘Well, that’s a change,’ said the sergeant. ‘Charlie serving a summons on one of us.’
‘Are you there, Thackeray?’ asked the voice.
Thackeray got to his feet like a schoolboy named in class.
‘Why, yes. I suppose I am.’
‘Then you must prepare yourself. I ’ave come to tell you that you are shortly goin’ on a journey.’
‘A journey? Where to?’
There was a pause. ‘To the Other Side.’
Thackeray’s jaw dropped open. ‘The Other Side?’
Quite without warning the medium discharged himself from his trance and sat upright, a broad grin across his face. ‘Yes, Thackeray, the Other Side. Of the river, of course. Message from Great Scotland Yard came in by despatchcart this evening. You’re commanded to report to Sergeant Cribb at nine o’clock sharp tomorrow morning.’
With satisfying slowness, the realisation that he had been hoaxed dawned on Thackeray’s face. The others were laughing too much to escape the bombardment of bound volumes of the Police Gazette that presently hurtled across the room.
Although it was several months since they had worked together, Sergeant Cribb wasted no time on cordialities when Thackeray reported next morning.
‘Keep your coat on, Constable. We’re not staying here.’
No offer of a mug of Scotland Yard cocoa to revive a man’s circulation on a frosty November morning. Lord no, that wasn’t Cribb’s style at all. Instead, a rapid inspection with the gimlet eyes.
‘You look older, Thackeray.’
‘That must be the frost on my beard, Sarge. I couldn’t get a place inside the bus. Had to travel on top.’
‘You’d keep in better shape if you walked.’
Thackeray grimaced at the thought. ‘Have a heart! It’s over three miles from Rotherhithe, Sarge.’
‘You’d do it under the hour, easy. I don’t like to see a man go soft just because he’s taken off the beat to do detective work. Now trot downstairs and stop a cab, will you? We’re off to Burlington House.’
‘The Royal Academy? We can walk that in twenty minutes,’ Thackeray volunteered. ‘It’s under a mile. I ain’t that decrepit.’