She’d blossomed beautifully over the last six weeks, independence giving her a seasoned self-assurance. There was very little left of the timid, uncertain girl he’d seduced that night in the Wheatsheaf. Easy youthful enthusiasms had given way to measured assessments. Eleanor voiced her own opinions now instead of quiescently accepting other people’s, and she no longer watched over her shoulder, fearful of past shadows. If her father ever showed up again, he would be in for the shock of his life. Greg almost wished he would come.
The real foundation of their relationship was the level of trust, which was total. That was unique to Greg. He’d never escaped the habit of letting his espersense sniff out the faults and insecurities of anyone in his presence. It was a behavioural reflex, one of the psychologists assigned to the Mindstar Brigade had told him, establishing your superiority over everyone to your own satisfaction. Don’t worry about it, we’d all do it if we could.
With Eleanor it wasn’t necessary. He knew her too well.
The phone jarred his mind away from introspection. He ignored it. Push. Relax. Perhaps the caller would give up. Push, slop of water overhead. Relax. His belly was like steel now, flat and hard; legs solid, arms powerful. He’d never been fitter, not even as a squaddie. It made him feel good, confident, capable of tackling anything.
The phone kept on shrilling. There was a dump facility in the terminal for messages, but the caller wasn’t using it. Push. Relax. Someone must want him urgently.
He let the bar fall and walked over to the new Event Horizon terminal. The chalet was all kitted out with Event Horizon gear now. And he’d left a whole lot more in the delivery van, there simply hadn’t been room for all the stuff that Julia had sent. Eleanor had had a ball picking out what they could use.
The fee money had been good as well. He’d paid off the outstanding instalments on the Duo, then went to town refurbishing the chalet-new carpets, curtains, restoring the furniture; stripped the roof down and replaced the tiles; tacked on a second solar panel to power the new air-conditioner. There hadn’t quite been enough cash to replace the shaky walls, but the money ordinary cases brought in should see to that before the end of the year. He’d already worked on a couple since the memox skim, both corporate, sniffing out dodgy personnel.
The phonescreen swirled and Philip Evans’s face appeared. “Hello, Greg. I need your help again, boy. Someone is trying to kill me.”
Greg suppressed a smile. Ten years in the business, and nobody had ever phoned in a cliché before. “Bodyguard services aren’t really my field, sir, wouldn’t your own security…” He trailed off and stared at the screen, stared and stared. Small muscles at the back of his knees began to twitch, threatening to topple him.
When he looked back on it, he blamed his exercise-induced lethargy for putting his mind on a ten-second delay to reality, that and intuition. It wasn’t just the voice and image which convinced him, any animation synthesizer could mimic Philip to perfection. But this was Philip Evans, grinning away at the other end of the connection. Both the natural and neurohormone-boosted faculties squatting in his brain forced him to accept it at a fundamental level.
The black-clad funeral procession wending its way through Peterborough’s rain-slicked streets occluded his vision.
“You’re dead,” he told the image.
“Gone but not forgotten.”
That malicious chuckle. Perfect. Him.
“Sorry to give you a shock, m’boy, but I’d never have called unless it was absolutely vital. Can you come out to Wilholm? I really can’t discuss too much over the phone. I’m sure you appreciate that.”
The tone mocked.
Greg’s skittish nerves began to flutter down towards some kind of equilibrium. Shock numbness, probably. “I…I think I can manage that. When?”
“Soon as possible, Greg, please.”
The image wasn’t perfect, he realized. This was a Philip Evans he hadn’t seen before, flesh firmer, skin-colour salubrious. Stronger. Younger by about a decade.
“OK. Are you in any danger right now?” At some aloof level, he marvelled at his own reaction. Treating it as just another prosaic problem. Spoke volumes for Army training.
“Not from anything physical. The manor is well protected.”
Physical. So what was a ghost afraid of anyway, being exorcized? Should he stop off to buy a clove of garlic, a crucifix, a grimoire? “I’m on my way.”
He pulled on his one decent suit, barking a shin on that idiotically oversized bed in the scramble to shove his feet into a pair of black leather shoes. Thought about taking the Walther, and decided against.
The Duo bounced along the estate’s gravel track and lurched on to the road. He set off towards Wilholm Manor coaxing a full fifty-five kilometres per hour from the engine, rocking slowly in the seat. The Duo had thick balloon-type tyres, made out of a hard-wearing silicon rubber. They were designed to cope with the country’s shambolic road surfaces without being torn to ribbons. A typical PSP fix, he thought, adapting the cars to cope with their failure to maintain the roads.
There was a white watchman pillar standing outside Wilholm’s odd cattle grid. He wound the side window down, and showed his card to it.
“Your visit has been authorized, Mr Mandel,” a construct voice said. “Please do not deviate from the road. Thank you,”
The manor’s spread of ornate flora was in full bloom, a spectacular moiré patchwork of sharp, primary colours. Big jets of water were spurting across the parched lawns. He could see the two gardeners working away amongst the rose beds. They leant on their hoes to watch him walk up to the front doors. However did that idle pair manage to keep the grounds in such a trim condition?
The butler opened the door. Morgan Walshaw stood behind him, his face drawn. A quick check of his mind showed Greg he was labouring under a prodigious quantity of anxiety.
“Mandel.” Morgan Walshaw greeted him with a curt nod. “This way.” A stiff finger beckoned. Greg followed him up the big curving staircase. The butler shut the doors silently behind them as they ascended.
“What the fuck is going on?” he asked the security chief in a low tone. “Did he fake his death, or what?”
Walshaw’s face twisted into a grimace. “Explanations in a moment. Just ride it out, OK?”
They arrived at the study and Walshaw opened the door, giving Greg a semi-apologetic shrug as they went in.
The interior was almost the same as it had been on his last visit. Big table running down the middle, stone fireplace, dark panelling, warm sunlight streaming through small lead-lined panes of glass, dust motes sparkling in the beams.
In the middle of the table was a circular black column: seamless, a metre tall, seventy-five centimetres wide. It rested on a narrow plinth which radiated bundles of fibre-optic cables like wheel spokes. They fell over the edge of the table and snaked en masse across the Persian carpet to a compact bank of communication consoles standing by the wall.
Julia was seated at the head of the table where her grandfather used to sit, wearing a rusty-orange coloured cotton summer dress, with a slim red leather band around her brow holding back her long hair. One of the two gear cubes in front of her was showing tiny editions of himself and Walshaw walking up the stairs together; the other had his Duo driving up to the manor.
Her mind was beautifully composed. Greg recognized the state; the kind of tranquillity which follows a severe emotional jolt.
His skin crawled with rigor, an animal caution awoken. There was something deeply unsettling about walking into the study.
Her tawny eyes never left him.
He looked at the column, ghoulish images creeping into his mind. Frankenstein, zombies, the undead, brains in glass tanks…