Soul Food Page 8

  'She's now a medium, whom Ms. Mortimer was visiting,' I say.

  'To contact a fictitious husband,' says Jake. Maybe a bit too confrontational a tone, and giving away too much. I'd sooner have done it slower, to get a better read of each statement's impact. Not that he's necessarily revealing much.

  Jake's never been as good at interviews, and seems to be getting impatient with this one.

  'How...' Carlisle glances between us, using a justifiable confusion to give himself a moment to plan his response. '...odd. Marcy? A medium?'

  'How do you know her?'

  'We were post-graduate research students together. When she was a scientist. A medium? Really?'

  'You were unaware of her presence here?'

  'We lost touch years ago,' says Carlisle. Which doesn't answer the question.

  Jake's impatience gets the better of him again. 'So it's coincidence that one of your employees was seeing her on a trumped-up story?'

  What does he think he's doing, confronting the suspect like this? It'll just give him a reason to lawyer up. Not that he necessarily will. He's the type who believes he can control any situation. And he can use Jake's reactions against him, compromising the interview.

  'Am I a suspect here?' asks Carlisle. His eyes are calm, unreadable. 'Do I need a lawyer?'

  A calculated question, and one I don't want Jake getting near. I send him a hard stare, which I'm not sure he registers.

  'You're a person of interest,' I say. 'I'm sure you understand your link to two involved parties raises questions.'

  'I understand. Anything I can do to help.' I'm sure.

  'Are you in the city long?'

  'At least a few days. I see my staff as family.' That's not at all creepy. 'I want to be here for them.'

  How many of them have actually met him before? But my avenues for further question, such as more detail on how he knows Marcy, seem to be closing. I should get Jake out of here before he draws a gun, or gives Carlisle an excuse to be hostile to further questioning.

  I thank him for his time, and say we may need to ask him more questions. He promises to make himself available. Neither of us believes a word of it by this point.

  'You should've pushed harder,' Jake says as we leave the building. There's a sullen edge to his tone.

  'You nearly had him lawyering up.'

  'He's guilty.'

  'Of something, probably. Of murdering Mortimer?' I shake my head. 'I can't see any reason.'

  'He probably sent her to spy on Marcy.'

  'It's likely.'

  'And she failed,' says Jake.

  'Killing her for that is a bit extreme.'

  'He's a cult leader,' says Jake.

  'Who seems very controlled and calculating. So why kill her where it could draw attention to her link to Lyons? It'd be smarter to reassign her elsewhere, do it there. And why in the hotel? Does he even know much about the city?'

  'Could have hired Stone or one of his guys.'

  'One of his men, maybe. But Stone seemed genuinely surprised. And again, that seems more planned than losing his temper at her failure, so why here?'

  'Maybe he's just not as smart as you think he is,' says Jake.

  'Possibly. In which case, he'll be easier to catch. But safer to assume he is smart. And keep looking.'

  Jake exhales deeply, but keeps any further arguments to himself. He's getting to be a problem. I've got a good idea what's causing it, but I'm not sure how far it'll push him. Or me. At least while I'm worrying about him, I'm distracting myself. Jake just has the case to distract him, and is obviously holding it a bit too tight. I'm not sure what he'd do without it, but I'm also not sure he's safe to continue working it.

  20

  I leave questioning Marcy until the evening, convincing Jake to go home. He needs some rest, and I don't need him alienating another witness. He's still jumpy, and this needs handling with care.

  She's leaving when I arrive, about to lock up the front door.

  'Detective. I'm sorry I'm on my way to an appointment.'

  'It'll wait.'

  There's a slight frown as she stares at me, but she suppresses most of her irritation. She purses her lips, trying to think of an argument.

  'Ian Carlisle,' I say.

  With a half-suppressed sigh, she lets me in and we take seats in the waiting room.

  'You used to work together.'

  She crosses her legs and nods.

  'And he was Mortimer's employer,' I say.

  'Apparently,' she says. 'Though I didn't know that until today.'

  'You didn't look happy to see him.'

  That draws a suspicious gaze. 'Were you watching me?'

  'We were waiting for him, spotted you.'

  'Did you talk to him?' she asks.

  'We did.'

  'And?'

  'You know I can't tell you that. Why? Did you expect him to confess to it?'

  She snorts. 'If he'd told you what you wanted, you probably wouldn't be here. You're checking his story.'

  A reasonable assumption. 'Why would he want to spy on you?'

  She sighs, glancing longingly at the door. She doesn't want to be here, but knows she has little choice. She's trapped in the middle of this. 'I really have no idea. Not sure I would understand his reasons anyway. Not from any sane perspective. I'm not sure he's seen the world from that kind of perspective in a long while.'

  'You think he's crazy?'

  'Have you spoken to him?'

  'Yes. He seemed entirely rational.'

  She raises an eyebrow. 'And behind that?'

  'Crazy as a bag of rats. Possibly sociopathic.' Which would be fine without the crazy. 'And he's likely interested in you.'

  She pulls her coat closer, but doesn't quite shiver.

  'What work did you do together?'

  'Scientific experiments,' she says with a dismissive air. More I wouldn't be interested than I wouldn't understand. But deflecting all the same.

  'What kind?'

  She frowns at me, taking time to prepare her response. 'Vibrational technology,' she says. 'Stuff he probably now uses in his company.'

  I've no doubt it's true, but it's also far from a complete answer. And she's reluctant to go there. 'Will you be more specific?'

  She's increasingly uncomfortable, shifting in her seat. 'Not without getting technical.'

  She's afraid. Which means whatever they did is interesting. But she's probably also planning out a believable cover story. Of course, the longer she takes, the more it needs to explain her evasion. Some reason that maybe explains why a scientist now pretends to believe in the supernatural.

  Maybe even the same reason that for the last couple of days I've had to couch the truth in a reality my audience will accept.

  Do I want to risk tipping my hand with the truth? It's not like many people would believe a medium anyway, but it's still a vulnerability. And she's still a suspect.

  But I need someone to talk to.

  Ah, hell.

  'Anything that could explain an apparition that seems to feed on souls.'

  She stares at me, frozen. But I'm sure there's also a hint of recognition. The shock passes slowly, suspicion edging it out. 'You've seen one?'

  One? Implying there're others. Which I suppose I should have expected. But one step at a time.

  Although if she knows more, this could well be more than the one step. But I've taken the first, so there's no backing away from it.

  'I've seen something. And I'm guessing your experiment showed you something similar.'

  She nods, exhaling. There's actually a hint of relief to her expression. Still guarded, but I suspect she's happy to have someone to talk to about it. 'It wasn't intended. Not really. I don't think I expected anything from it.' She takes a breath to calm her thoughts before continuing.

  'It started as a drunk students' dare. Whether we could prove or disprove the existence of the soul. Ian, Pierre and I were determined to win.'

  'Pierre?'

&
nbsp; 'Pierre Bancroft.' She glances away. 'He's... no longer well. His mind never recovered.' She's quiet for a while. Obviously the memories are as traumatic as mine. And undiminished by time.

  'I don't think I actually believed in the soul,' she says, her voice distant. 'Pierre kind of did. He was a theoretical physicist, and amateur philosopher, so he was always carrying out thought experiments. I could never tell whether he really believed something, or was forcing himself to believe it for the sake of his current experiment.

  'He seemed convinced though, that a soul of some kind was necessary to explain consciousness. Self-awareness. Personally, I'd always thought it more a result of the growing complexity in communication and language. The increasing regimentation of your thoughts by the structure of language forcing our minds to begin seeing us within the world, rather than simply seeing the world around us. But when you're drunk you start considering all kind of ideas.

  'So Pierre argued that if the soul was eternal, was it gestated in the mind, or did it exist prior to us. Ian wondered whether it was atemporal, but his reasoning often floundered on the theoretical stuff. Building stuff, he was good at. And I kind of straddled the two, working out how to build an experiment to test out the ideas.

  'But Pierre tended to get led around by ideas, always moving on to new things.' There's a faint smile, edged by sadness. She catches my gaze and quickly composes herself. 'Anyway. Ian always had all kinds of connections. He came from money. So he got us access to a hospital wing for the dying. It wasn't...'

  Marcy hesitates, obviously uncomfortable. 'It was a bit creepy, I'll admit. But we were young, and full of ideas. Not so much the sense. Or humanity. Those patients with no loved ones, mostly those already out of it, we were allowed to arrange different kind of monitors around them, to scan for all kinds of things when they died. It's callous, I know. But we thought it was worth it.

  'We went through a lot of equipment before we got any readings. A vibrational distortion. Almost too small for even the best equipment to register. But once we had it we could focus the equipment. We managed to duplicate the findings in all deaths we scanned. We had something that happened upon death.

  'So we focussed our energies on building a better way to see it. A way to detect a soul. Maybe even trap one for examination. And we did.'

  Standing abruptly, she strides around the small room, breathing hard. I give her time.

  It takes a minute for her breathing to ease. She sits again, straightening her skirt before continuing. 'We couldn't see it with our eyes, but the sensors told us we'd trapped something. Not sure now whether I actually believed we had. Ian was. Pierre? I don't know what he was thinking. And then... We weren't sure at the time what happened. It was traumatic, but we couldn't stop obsessing over it. And doing more experiments.

  'Pierre was the first of us to accept it. To explain it. Or to put it into words, anyway. I'm still not sure I understand any of this. Half the time I think I went as crazy as him. That it didn't really happen. Then I see them again. The demon fed on the soul we trapped for it.'

  'Demon?' I ask. The use of a concrete name for it feels so certain.

  'The term we fell in to using. Demons and angels. Unfortunate religious overtones, but Pierre loved theorising that these things are the sources of the stories.'

  'Angels?' I avoid sounding too hopeful. A lifetime in this world has shown me that hope's a set up for disappointment.

  'There's not just the thing you saw. It's not all bad. Well...' She shrugs in apology. 'We were obsessed. We worked on finding some kind of explanation for it all, and built up a kind of idea. Not that we have anywhere near all the answers.

  'We don't know where souls come from. We can't even be sure they predate the body, but Pierre argued some kind of mathematical proof. It was too far above us. Maybe it was a sign of his insanity, but we couldn't find a flaw in it. We accepted his word. Then he debated how much of the soul is us. How much does it contribute to who we are? Or is it simply a parasite, feeding off us until we die, then moving on to become prey?

  'One thing we deduced was that we change souls. They get, for want of a better word, flavoured by our lives. A happy life or a sad one. And that determines what kind of predator they attract. A sad life, and it's the demon that hunts them. A happy life, you get an angel. Not that that's necessarily better. But it at least anaesthetises the soul, gives it a sense of bliss as it's being digested forever. Demons increase their agony. As though they're both enhancing the flavour they like.'

  I listen, and kind of understand what she's saying. But I can't accept it. Maybe it's just too big. Do I actually doubt her? No, she seems to believe. Maybe she's insane though. Or maybe I am. Maybe this is all some kind of breakdown. And I have no way of knowing.

  'Are you okay?' she asks, drawing me back to now.

  I nod. 'Just taking it in.'

  'I know. Took us months to come to terms with it. The theory, anyway. The reality... I'm not sure I ever want to accept. It's too big. Too... depressing.'

  'You ran away from it?'

  She nods, glancing away.

  'Do they only feed on souls after death?' I find myself asking.

  'That we know of. They certainly never came after us.'

  The memory of its presence makes breathing difficult. 'Didn't even acknowledge your existence?'

  'No. We don't think they naturally manifest in this world. Ours appeared because we were holding the soul here, causing it increased stress that drew the demon. Others I've found since have been at locations where large numbers of the right flavour types have died. Either together, or over a consistent period. Like the hotel where Fiona died. I assume that's where you saw it?'

  I raise an eyebrow. 'You know where she died?'

  There's a moment of concern, replaced with a sheepish shrug. 'One of my clients died. I was curious. There are web sites that report on police activity around the city. Didn't take much to work out, and the hotel was on my list of places to avoid.'

  Was the flash of concern just fear she'd made herself a suspect? Or something more? Her explanation makes sense. But maybe I'd be better letting her talk without reminding her I'm a cop.

  'They often appear in these places?' I ask.

  'Whenever there's a death of the appropriate type of soul. Not sure if they're stuck there, but we only see them when they manifest. They seem to be geographically limited though. Probably the radius of the hotel, though I don't know how many floors.'

  I nod. That'll be why they had to dump the body up on the sixth floor.

  'I didn't want anything to do with them,' she says. 'I wanted to get away from all of that. But the obsession remains. I try to avoid all of it. But it helps to work out which spots I need to avoid. So I'm always looking into history, and local ghost stories.'

  'And being a medium gives you an excuse.'

  'Pretty much.'

  We fall into another awkward silence.

  'Do all souls fall prey to one or other of them?' I ask.

  'We don't know. But...' She hesitates, looking for the words but failing to find them. 'I don't know if there's any escape. Or what there is to escape to. All I know is they're waiting for our souls when we die.' And that knowledge has obviously haunted her ever since she learned it. I can see it in her eyes.

  'That's why you had to stop seeing Mortimer. Her desperation was bringing misery to your life. You try to bring you clients joy, or at least closure. That's the other part of why you do this.'

  She nods. 'I keep trying to make sure my soul will taste right.' She starts to say something, then stops. 'Are you busy tonight?'

  'Why?'

  'Come with me to my appointment. Let me show you something.'

  Sure. Why not. It's not as though my mind's likely to go anywhere useful in the immediate future.

  21

  Marcy tells me where to drive. The cop in me makes a note to check if she has a car. Just in case it becomes relevant.

  'A hospice?' I'm sure there's a
degree of surprise in my tone.

  'I volunteer there,' she says with a hint of awkwardness. 'Sitting with the dying who have no one else. It frees up the staff to tend to those who'll survive the night.'

  'Leaving you to see what comes for them.'

  'For some. Some of the nurses have seen it, of course. But they prefer not to. Even that. If you don't look at it properly, you can convince yourself it was a hallucination.'

  'An angel?' I ask. The word sounds wrong out loud. Meaning something you can actually see. I've never believed in that kind of thing. But then, I never believed in demons. I remind myself they're just words. Terms of reference.

  Marcy nods. 'I find it therapeutic. Reminds me what I'm working towards.'

  I don't believe it's changing her as much as she hopes. I'm not sure she believes it either.

  'It's generally a happy place,' she says. 'Most of the patients having had happy lives. I'm not sure if that's what drew it there.'

  We're quiet for a minute as we join the freeway.

  'You really abandoned science for this?' I ask. Mainly because the silence feels claustrophobic. 'A life chasing ghosts. Or faking them.'

  She smiles faintly. 'Didn't plan on this. But I guess I lost my faith that we could ever understand the universe.' She's quiet for a moment. 'Or maybe I was afraid we could.'

  'But you discovered a truth.'

  'One we couldn't share. Not after what we saw it do to Pierre. Thinking what the knowledge could do to the rest of society... It'd probably end it.'

  She's probably right. There'd be deniers from every side, growing violently so if they actually experienced it. The certainty that there is something after this life? Everyone would be as desperate as Marcy to secure the right future, no matter the cost. The fabric of life and civilisation, torn asunder.

  'These truths can't be unlearned,' she says. 'I'm not sure my mind would survive learning further ones. Pierre... He always thought too much. He raced ahead of us with all the questions the knowledge raised. I keep worrying I'll run into whatever it was that sent him away. So I don't want to look any deeper into it.' She stares at me. 'As a detective, I imagine you've a similar disposition.'