The Unhappy Medium, page 22
‘Shock?’
‘Yes, total and complete shock. Ironic with professional mediums, don’t you think? They’re happy enough to pretend these things are true but you should see how they react when a real ghost turns up. Hysterical. The nuthouses are full of those. Well if they survived the madness stage, they then had to be willing to make themselves available to us and be capable of keeping a secret. And if they passed all those barriers ... well, the next problem was that mostly, they just weren’t any good.’
‘They weren’t?’
‘No, they had the skills set of a circus performer, that’s if we were lucky – not even slightly up to speed in an office sense. Many of them were so anti-technology that they refused to use computers, dressed like wizards and couldn’t do any task for us that didn’t involve divining rods. So ...’ Jameson continued, ‘this new directive has come after some considerable rethinking. Some of the greatest minds in history have pondered long and hard about these issues and this is why we have decided to start recruiting the people who are least likely to believe in us. That’s right. Scientists. It’s a radical departure, as you can imagine, and you, Dr Barlow, are the first of the new intake.’
‘Ah, I see where you’re coming from. Surely, though, there’s a risk that you’ll give too much away to scientists isn’t there? I mean, they’re inquiring, probing people – I could really do something with the small amount I’ve got wind of already.’
‘You could indeed, Dr Barlow, but you won’t. You’re something of a godsend for us because you have two unique qualities that serve our purposes admirably. Firstly,’ Jameson took a deep breath, ‘you are a full-blown analytical scientist with the ability to make clear and incisive judgements based upon purely observable phenomena, then to make rational decisions based on those without resorting to traditional belief systems, emotional considerations and mindless superstition.’
‘True,’ said Newton, proudly. ‘What’s the second quality?’
‘Well,’ said Jameson, ‘you are an utterly discredited fraud, and no one with any sense would believe anything you said.’
‘Oh,’ said Newton meekly, ‘thanks a lot.’
‘Nothing personal, Dr Barlow, but I’m sure that you’ll see why, compared to many other scientific professionals, you have qualities that are perfect for us. You have a ready-made cover story that keeps you off the main scientific radar and you are available for full-time employment. You’re still young enough to get out there in the field where you’ll be of most use and you have good communication skills, which can be helpful. I gather from Dr Sixsmith, however, that you have a liking for sarcasm. You should know right now that I’m not a great fan of such a style of humour, so I would ask you kindly to refrain from inflicting it on me.’
‘Err ... OK, if you say so,’ said Newton, for whom sarcasm was as familiar and as natural a trait as yawning.
‘Yes I do say so. Now, with that issue understood, it’s time to start my presentation.’ With that, Jameson placed a transparency on the overhead projector. On the screen above, a single word was projected in big bold red letters.
EVIL
‘So Dr Barlow, what can you tell me about ... “evil”? ’
‘Evil?’ Newton hesitated. As a scientist, he was used to objective concepts and far from comfortable around moralistic issues. ‘Well, it’s a bad thing?’ he offered.
‘A bad thing?’ said Jameson slowly. ‘That’s it, is it? A bad thing?’
‘Well, it’s certainly not a good thing, is it?’
‘Well, I suppose it could be reduced to such a simplistic level. But, Dr Barlow, evil is indeed a real issue and from the point of view of our friends in Purgatory, it’s something of a bloody nuisance. It leaves a moralistically unsightly stain all over the place, induces others to duplicate its characteristics and it has a nasty tendency to stop everybody having a nice time. It will play a big part in your day-to-day work, so listen up. Right then, your responsibilities can be roughly divided into three sections.’ He replaced the word ‘evil’ with a new transparency.
(1) To help eradicate the manifestation of evil upon the earth
(2) To preserve the manifestation of good upon the earth
(3) To prevent the transfer of evil from Purgatory back to the earth
Jameson paused for a second and paced thoughtfully before continuing. ‘So, Dr Barlow, let us first look at point number one. Eradicate the manifestation of evil upon the earth. So what do we mean by this? Well, evil, Dr Barlow, just like good, is kept alive by memories. In Purgatory, the good and the evil both exist side by side, sustained by the memory that each has left on earth during the extent of their mortal lifetimes. This memory exists in everyday objects, human remains and history. It can be found lurking in art, in deed and in tradition. As there is no way to switch this process off or prevent it occurring, there is much that is helping to sustain evil in Purgatory where quite frankly, it’s a pain in the arse. A good example is the Nazis.’
‘I was going to ask about the Nazis,’ said Newton.
‘Of course you were!’ snorted Jameson derisively. ‘Everyone always asks about the Nazis. They really are the Rolls-Royce of evil aren’t they? People have such a morbid fascination with them, and that’s exactly why they won’t just fade away and be forgotten. The afterlife is crawling with the mean-spirited little buggers, goose-stepping around like they own the place. We can get rid of a certain number of the minor Nazis, the second in commands and the third Oberleutnants – so far so good, after all there were so many of them that even the most die-hard neo-Nazis can’t keep reviving interest in them all. So thankfully, they’ve got the numbers down. The big guys though, well, it’s like the Nuremburg rallies every day up there, I gather. All the big bad names. All wanting to come back and get stuck in all over again – you can see the problem.’
‘Can they come back? How?’ asked Newton. ‘Hauntings? Possession?’
‘Well possession can be a bit of a problem, though to be fair, it’s a bit old-school. The evil spirits who like that most are the ones from periods up to the 17th century, max. Modern villains tend to prefer planting ideas all over the place for new earthly villains to pick up – idea transference, that kind of thing.’
‘They can transfer ideas?’
‘Sure. Via dreams is the preferred option. You know the sort of thing – you go to bed at peace with the world and then next day you wake up in a foul mood hating altruism. Ayn Rand was doing that a lot recently, until we caught her. But it’s important to define “evil” properly first in order to fully understand the concept. You see, evil is in everyone to some extent. Sadly, it’s actually a very mundane feature. People always make the mistake of turning the likes of Hitler, Vlad the Impaler or Ivan the Terrible into full-blown almost supernatural monsters, beasts or demons. But that’s all far too grandiose – hell, it even helps them to some extent. In reality, evil is just an exaggeration of common human traits like mean-spiritedness, selfishness or jealousy. You can find the roots of evil in a school playground, a team-building exercise or a wine and cheese party, just as much as you can find it on a battlefield, in a torture chamber or a prisoner-of-war camp. In people we define as evil, these basic traits are just turned all the way up to the maximum setting, so high that the said individual has trouble acting in anything like a normal manner. You could almost feel sorry for them if they weren’t so horrible. Hitler, for example, he may have laid waste to a continent and caused a global conflagration that sucked in some 56 million souls, but deep down, he was primarily an arsehole.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘An arsehole, a creep,’ said Jameson. ‘Other words could be dickhead, twat, cretin, scumbag ...’ He took a breath. ‘Punk, sonofabitch ...’
‘OK OK! I get the picture!’ said Newton, taken aback by the abrupt change in language. ‘So are you saying that all you have to do to be classed as evil, is to be ... an arsehole?’
‘Technically yes, though modern psychiatry likes to burden us with a million ways of saying the same thing. Narcissistic personality disorders, psychopaths, crazy mixed-up kids to name but three. Essentially, the big thing to watch out for is uptight control freaks with no sense of humour who can’t empathise with, forgive or understand the rest of us poor saps.’
‘I think I may have met a few of those. I may even have married one.’
‘Quite possibly, Dr Barlow. They are simply everywhere.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Newton. ‘That’s a bit of a blow to the concept of something like say ... the devil.’
‘Well quite. Human beings just can’t stop putting the bad guys on a pedestal, I’m afraid, and that merely encourages them. It gives them an even bigger complex than they had in the first place. Look what it did for bin Laden. And, once they’re dead, they’re often so obsessed with status and revenge that they will do all they can to come back and give their detractors a good kicking. Very annoying.’
‘You said we can clear them away though – how?’
‘As I said, it’s all about memory. We have to keep an eye out for traces that can be wiped from the collective memory. Here’s an example. Imagine you have a bad guy who left a number of portraits of himself about the place. Well, we find them, discreetly dispose of them and then, hey presto, no more bad guy. He just fades from his little corner of Purgatory and that’s that. Job done. But it’s a lot harder with one of the big hitters like Idi Amin or Vlad the Impaler because the memory of those toss-pots is spread all over the historical record, like sand on a beach towel. They just have to be trussed up and left to sulk for eternity.’
‘So are all these bad guys the famous ones then?’
‘No, not by any means, Dr Barlow. Remember, normal average people are being evil all the time. Some of the really bad ones have yet to carry out their evil potential. Right now, the most evil person on earth is a human resources manager in Wisconsin, a ghastly woman of such hideous malignancy that she makes Stalin look like a children’s entertainer. ’
‘I’m confused!’ said Newton. ‘If you know this woman’s so evil, why don’t you stop her? Stop her before she gets out of hand? Nip them in the bud? I mean, why didn’t they stop Hitler, Pol Pot, Simon Cowell?’
‘Protocol, Dr Barlow, protocol. Think about it. How would it look? Innocent-looking babies getting snuffed out all the time? You’d scare the living daylights out of everyone.’
‘But you could have if you wanted to?’
‘We could, but we’re not allowed.’
‘Not allowed? Not allowed by who?’
‘Ah, that’s where we drift onto forbidden territories, Dr Barlow. As you have been told, there are some things we are entitled to tell you and some we most certainly are not.’
‘But you know?’
‘I know more than most. I have a very high level of security clearance for a live human being, yet I know but a fraction of what I suspect may be the case. I must be content with that.’
‘What do you suspect?’
‘Now that , Dr Barlow, is not going to work. Desist. I can assure you that I shall not be drawn upon the matter any further. It is not professional so that is an end to it.’
‘But surely ...’
‘An end, Dr Barlow, an end!’ said Jameson, staring fiercely at Newton. ‘It is better that we concentrate on the points above. So, we shall return to the matter at hand. You, Dr Barlow, will be going after the relics and memory of what can be described as secondary evils. These are typically your lesser-known personalities who have to some extent already been eradicated from the historical record. However they are still “vivid”, so to speak, and that means they have left behind them certain objects, relics, that enable their malignancy to continue on the other side. So we’ll look for these in museums, antique shops, car boot sales and on eBay.’ Jameson sipped his tea. ‘Now, that brings us to the second part of your job Dr Barlow, namely to preserve the manifestation of good upon the earth.’
‘OK,’ said Newton. ‘What’s that all about?’
‘Well, as we have noted, the living have a morbid fascination for evil, often at the expense of the good. The Nazis we have discussed, but what about the never-ending passion people seem to have for serial murderers? Or gangsters, warlords and terrorists? Bastards, people can’t get enough of them. But let’s say that you’ve had a life of total benign charm. What if you’ve lived a life that has helped humanity in innumerable ways? Quite frankly, you’ll be lucky if they’re still talking about you by the end of the wake.’ Jameson sighed. ‘It’s a sad fact that humanity focuses on the bad guys, and the good guys, as the saying goes, they always finish last.’
‘So I’ve noticed.’
‘But, not always,’ Jameson continued. ‘Some people have invented stuff that keeps their memory fresh forever just because they have their name attached to something benign, something good that stays alive forever in the public consciousness. Thomas Crapper, for instance – no one is going to let him rest in peace, he’s always getting his cord yanked. But Crapper is an exception, sadly. Many very good people are getting overlooked and we need to strike a balance down here if evil is not to triumph – up there. Keeping the good guys alive and well in the afterlife, Dr Barlow, will be one of your primary tasks.’
‘OK, so how do we do it then?’
‘You’ll have to help us dig out preservable relics for these benign individuals. You will be directed to their location and you’ll have to find a way to ship them back to somewhere safe, somewhere we can keep them out of harm’s way, but sufficiently in the public eye that they can be remembered. Your friend Sixsmith, for instance, he’ll need to be sorted out soon if he’s to continue in his current position.’
‘So how do we preserve these good guys?’
‘Well, if there’s a portrait, say, then we’ll try and make sure it’s on display somewhere prominent. The National Portrait Gallery is a good example. We’ve snuck a few very dull but able people in there to keep them going. Anything to keep the ball in the air will do; Dr Sixsmith has some distinctive spectacles, for instance.’
‘OK. What if there’s no relic though, then what?’
‘It’s rare for there to be nothing. We all leave a pile of rubbish behind us throughout our lifetimes. It’s unlikely you can get rid of everything, unless, as in the case of the evil, you are really going out of your way. Which we do, of course.’
‘So is it only physical manifestations of an individual’s life, or do you include electronic media?’
‘Oh good lord no!’ Jameson laughed. ‘Doesn’t matter how much you tweet or blog – no one is ever going to remember that in five hundred years. It’s gone in seconds. Same with reality TV appearances. Here today, gone tomorrow! If you want to be utterly forgotten in this world and the next, enter the Big Brother house.’
‘OK,’ said Newton, looking far from sure.
‘We really don’t expect you to get it all at once, Dr Barlow. You’ve no choice but to learn on the job.’
‘Well that’s reassuring,’ said Newton, who hadn’t heard anything reassuring for some time. ‘So what about part three of the job?’
‘Ah yes,’ said Jameson. ‘Preventing the transfer of evil from Purgatory back to the earth. That’s the really exciting part. Evil, Dr Barlow, it likes to find a way. It creeps, it slithers and it flows. It tries every path it can until it causes mischief, so we have to block it. But trust me, evil wants nothing more than to bridge the gap between the living and the dead. Consider the living who court the twisted expertise of some of Purgatory’s most malignant inhabitants – people who’ll stop at nothing to restore or create dynasties of pure, mind-rotting unpleasantness. And of course there are monsters up there,’ he stabbed his finger upwards for emphasis, ‘just itching to regain purchase upon the earth so they can once again propagate their sick dogmas, pollute all that is good and noble, and plunge the earth back into new dark ages filled with fear and loathing. Our job, Dr Barlow, is to block all these avenues using every weapon at our disposal.’
‘No pressure then?’ said Newton, wondering what he’d got himself into. ‘When do I start?’
‘Well, firstly we’ll get you some simple auction work. I’ve made an account available to you so that money will not be an issue. There’s an auction in Tunbridge Wells on Wednesday – some ivory-handled duelling pistols we need to purchase and then dispose of. Nasty little things. The “ivory” is actually human bone; the owner rather fancied himself as a bit of a cannibal. Caused a bit of a stir in Budapest during the 1760s, killing and eating the daughters of aristocrats. Bit of a charmer I gather, but then so many of these foul people are.’ Jameson handed Newton a slip of paper. ‘Here’s the account details. You’ll have a bank card and authorisation sent in the post to your Crouch End flat. It will be there waiting for you when you get home. I’ll be at the first event, and others from the organisation will be nearby keeping an eye on things,’ said Jameson, as he switched off the projector and tidied away his notes. ‘I’ll leave you to read and digest the sections in your info-pack dealing with holiday entitlement and pensions. Likewise, health and safety considerations.’
‘OK, is that it then? ’
‘Wait ...’ said Jameson, ‘there’s something else. Has anyone mentioned how sensitive you are?’
‘Sensitive?’ asked Newton baffled. ‘What like, tearful? Fond of puppies?’
‘No, I mean sensitive ,’ continued Jameson impatiently. ‘Sensitive to spirits. You might start seeing things.’
‘Things! What things?’
‘Dead things, people ... murder scenes, you might see things.’
‘Are you saying ghosts?’
‘Yes I’m afraid so.’
‘What, like in The Sixth Sense ? Oh, great.’
‘It’s all quite normal, well sort of. Parts of your brain – bits you weren’t aware of before – well, they’ve been switched on, activated.’
