The House of Lost Souls - F. G. Cottam [83]
* * *
He got into the office early the following morning, determined to book his accommodation at the heart of Brightstone Forest for the weekend without a curious audience. He was in at nine, confident that none of the other lads would get there until ten. Mike Whitehall tended to arrive at nine thirty or so, but his doing so was thought by the rest of the editorial staff a northern eccentricity. The lax hours the NUJ had negotiated on their behalf was the jealously held revenge, after all, for what the printers were being paid in comparison with them.
It was nine thirty before he was able to reach some clueless typist from the Isle of Wight Tourist Board who told him that there was no accommodation whatsoever in Brightstone Forest and no, she wasn’t mistaken.
A brief study of the AA map of Britain told him the forest was National Trust land now. He really needed the close detail of an Ordnance Survey map, but they didn’t have one in the Gazette office, where there wasn’t much call for them and certainly not for one of Wight. When he called them, the National Trust couldn’t help. As far as they knew, there was nobody domiciled in Brightstone Forest. There were visits made to it by forest wardens. And the wardens would have built a shelter. But the shelter would be rudimentary, nothing more elaborate than a hut. And Forestry only manned their phones from eleven until three, and then only on Mondays through Wednesdays.
Thoroughly frustrated, at ten to ten he went to make himself a mug of tea. Mike was in the kitchen, doing the same for himself and Eddie Harrington. ‘Give me your mug,’ he said. ‘I’ll be mother.’
Seaton handed over his mug.
‘How did you find Young Mr Breene?’
‘Picturesque.’
Mike laughed.
‘You could have warned me.’
‘I’m warning you now. You should leave it, Paul. Whatever it is. No good will come of it.’
This was unlike Mike, who was characteristically as inquisitive as they come.
‘You don’t want to know what it’s about?’
Mike stirred sugar into his tea. He raised his cup to his lips and took an exploratory sip. ‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ he said. Which was a phrase Seaton had heard before. Mike didn’t look himself this morning. There were these sullen unfamiliar shadows under his eyes.
‘The boys are going to Hampstead on Sunday afternoon,’ Seaton said. ‘Swimming in the men’s pond. We’re all going. Patrick been in touch?’
‘No,’ Mike said. ‘I mean, yes. What I mean is, I said no. I’m not exactly Mark Spitz in the water. I’m not even Esther Williams.’
‘It’ll be a laugh.’
Mike looked doubtful. ‘Isn’t it a bit homo, though? And a bit deep?’
‘It’s deeply homo. It’s far more Judy Garland than Esther Williams, to be fair. But it’s a lovely place for a swim in the weather. And your virtue will be safe enough among a crowd.’
‘I’ll bring my water wings, then,’ Mike said. He sipped his tea.
Back in the newsroom, on no more than a reporter’s hunch, Seaton rang a number for the County of Hampshire Civic Authority and asked for Social Services. This time, for the first time, he referred specifically to the Fischer house.
‘Just a minute,’ said a clerk.
Seaton didn’t know if he had a minute. He looked at his watch. It was five past ten. But the stairwell outside the office door was still silent. And a spy couldn’t climb through its cold acoustics without making a clatter. A ghost couldn’t do it.
He heard the phone picked up and fumbled. He heard a match struck, tobacco inhaled. ‘Who is this?’
‘It’s London Tonight. We’re doing a piece about Home Counties provision for the elderly. And the infirm.’
‘We’re not the Home Counties, mate,’ the voice said. ‘And the Fischer house was an insane asylum.’
Seaton’s heart thumped. The stairwell was still blessedly absent of feet. ‘Was?’
The voice broke into laughter. ‘If it was still going, I’d call it a place for the mentally challenged, wouldn’t I? I’m fluent enough in the euphemistic new lingo. But it was an insane asylum