‘Fired?’ Joe raised his white eyebrows in surprise. ‘No, you’re not being fired, Sam. Far from it. With all those director’s awards cluttering up your mantelpiece you’re obviously far too brilliant for your own good.’
‘I take it this is where you give me the choice of whether to hear the bad news or the good news first. Am I right?’
‘Something like that, Sam.’
‘Okay, shoot.’
Joe took a seat opposite Sam and looked round the lounge to make sure that they were alone. Then he leaned forward in a way that suggested he was going to share a secret. ‘The lady upstairs,’ he began in a low voice, ‘needs someone to plug a hole in our ranks… our directorial ranks, that is.’
Sam leaned forward, head tilted slightly, listening hard, trying to detect any sign he was being sidelined, or demoted into directing weather bulletins or some other low-grade programming.
Joe continued in the low voice, not wanting to be overheard by station staff passing by in the corridor. ‘Danny Trepinski’s taking a little vacation.’
‘Danny? He never goes on vacation. Why, his butt might be nailed to the director’s chair for all the times he leaves it.’
‘Ah, well, there was a melodramatic scene in the station manager’s office this morning. Danny Trepinski was called to the office just before lunch to find not only the lady upstairs herself there but also his wife and sister. Can you believe that?’
‘I think I’m starting to get the picture.’ Sam mimed drinking from a bottle. ‘Glug, glug?’
‘Spot on, Sam. The management and his own family ganged up on Danny and forced him to go dry out at Tranquillity Meadows or whatever crapola name they call it. They got him into a hospital car so fast he didn’t even have time to collect his jacket. In short, he’s got three weeks to kiss the vodka bottle goodbye or he’s out of here on his bony ass.’
Sam nodded, half guilty, half relieved that the bad news didn’t involve him. ‘Poor Danny. There but for the grace of God…’
Joe pointed a finger at Sam’s coffee. ‘So, you stick to that stuff… you’ll be all right. Savvy?’
‘Aye, aye, captain. But where does that leave me? Danny Trepinski doesn’t cover sports. He’s strictly light entertainment.’
‘Well, here comes the good news, Sam. You’ve been promoted. And your first assignment is something your colleagues here would kill for.’
Again, Sam felt a surge of suspicion. ‘And that assignment is?’
‘You’re going to direct a live rock concert!’
‘A rock concert? Be serious, Joe. I’ve never handled anything like that before. What if I make a hash of it?’
‘You won’t. The lady upstairs has every confidence in you.’
‘But Joe—’
‘But Joe nothing. It’s outside-broadcast work just like football or athletics or baseball. You can sleepwalk through it.’ Joe’s smile faded. ‘You’re not going to walk away from an opportunity like this, are you, Sam?’
Sam shook his head and smiled. The only way he could walk away from this assignment was to walk away from the building and never come back. ‘No way,’ he said, injecting a note of confidence into his voice. ‘As you say, it’s a great opportunity. When is it?’
‘A week on Thursday. Some big stars, Sam. Pull this off and you can write your own ticket. Any questions?’
‘Only one: where is it? Carnegie Hall?’
‘Out of town.’
‘Boston?’
‘A little farther east than that.’ He paused, enjoying keeping Sam in suspense. ‘England.’
‘England?’
‘Sure, a little island across the Atlantic. You can find it in any atlas. And don’t worry, you can drink the water and they speak the same language – more or less, anyway.’ Chuckling at Sam’s wide-eyed expression, he climbed to his feet and dumped his cup in the bin. ‘Oh, you best move quickly. You’re booked on a flight that goes in precisely…’ He looked at his watch. ‘…Precisely 12 hours. Bon voyage. And don’t forget to send us all a postcard and a Beefeater doll or two.’
Outside, thunder rumbled like the stirring of ancient gods.
3
Ben Middleton made his last check of the evening. He strolled round the kennels, murmuring gently to the dogs that were his paying guests, reassuring them that their owners still loved them and that they would soon return from holiday to take them home.
Ben was 60 years old, short, stocky, with a full head of baby-fine blond hair and with big, baby-blue eyes to match. He was a kindly man, well liked by his staff.
He ambled slowly along the gravel paths that linked the kennel buildings. The dusk air was warm, still. Swarms of midges hovered above the lawns. The 50 or so dogs were settling down for the night, making barely a sound as they turned round and round on their beds as their ancestors had done for the past 20 million years before them.
Ben paused to gaze back at the house of honey-coloured stone. It looked warm and comfortable in the last lingering rays of sunlight and he found himself relishing the prospect of sitting in front of the television with a glass of wine and his own dogs sleeping at his feet.
Already the light sensors had tripped the power on the big sign on the gable end wall. Bold letters spelt out the name of the business to which he, Ben Middleton, had devoted his life:
For a moment or so, he dead-headed flowers in the hanging baskets that hung on the wall of what had once been the old barn.
Two years earlier he’d had the barn’s hayloft converted to a records office, but Mrs Newton, whom he employed as a secretary, flatly refused to use it. Perhaps he should have seen something like it coming, because Mrs Newton moonlighted as a clairvoyant, holding ‘readings’ at her home in Casterton.
‘What’s wrong with the office, Mrs Newton?’ he’d asked her politely. ‘Is it the stairs?’
‘What do you take me for, Ben Middleton? A geriatric? No, of course it isn’t the stairs.’
‘But the—’
‘I could manage twice as many stairs as that, thank you very much.’
‘But it seems such a comfortable-looking—’
‘No… well, you see, Ben, the building has bad vibes.’
‘Bad vibes?’
‘Yes, something happened there that wasn’t quite right.’
‘Oh, a death?’ Ben Middleton knew of her part-time clairvoyant work. He nodded good-naturedly. He’d seen enough of a dog’s sixth sense not to disbelieve in the paranormal entirely.
‘Oh, no.’ Mrs Newton had looked the old barn over with wide, knowing eyes. ‘Not a death. But when I’m alone in the office, especially when it’s getting dark on winter’s afternoons, I can hear noises.’
‘Noises?’
‘Yes, banging, sawing, hammering, shouting as if a whole army of people is working.’
‘Well, this was a working farm once, so I imagine farmhands and the like would have worked in the barn to repair ploughshares and—’
‘Oh no, it’s nothing like that. These people are working because their lives depend on it. Oh, I get so cold, Ben, when I hear it. It’s like an icy hand just gets a-hold of me. I can hardly breathe, I shiver from head to foot, and do you know why?’
‘No. Why, Mrs Newton?’
‘Fear. Pure fear. Not mine, but theirs. The people who are working in the barn are terrified for their lives. Something horrible has happened to them and they’re working, working, working. Because they know if they don’t finish whatever it is they’re doing they’ll be… well…’ She took a breath. ‘They’ll suffer in a way that doesn’t bear mentioning.’
‘Perseverance is a very old farm. I understand it was occupied by Cromwell’s forces after the battle of—’