Reality Bites Page 3

  Afterwards, I not only talked Jeremy into signing up Arthur to do four more programmes, but got him to agree that we could revisit locations used in the first series, telling viewers we were re-examining them with the new, ground-breaking technology.

  I thought I’d made a clever move, giving myself a whole month’s break from the tedious chore of hunting down new guest presenters and locations. It was only when I was watching the edited footage of Arthur’s fifth programme that I started having doubts. Every week, Arthur had been telling viewers about his improvements to his scanner technology, and the occasional dark flickers had gradually turned into fleeting shadowy images that you could, if you stretched your imagination a bit, interpret as being people. One of them was especially realistic, looking like a girl with her hair caught back in a ponytail.

  I replayed that clip two or three times, frowned, and then played some footage of the previous programme as well. The images on the scanner weren’t nearly as clear in that, but one of the figures seemed to have a ponytail too.

  I headed down the corridor to talk to Jeremy, and found him colouring in the squares on a crossword puzzle. “I think the novelty of Arthur and his scanner is wearing off,” I said, “so we should use a different guest presenter next week.”

  Jeremy shook his head. “The viewers love Arthur’s scanner. It’s getting better images every programme.”

  “Which is exactly what’s worrying me,” I said. “Arthur’s been putting on a fine show, playing around with the flashing lights on his scanner and making the flickering shadows look more ghostlike, but he got carried away in the last programme. The images look too much like real people now.”

  “Looking like real people is good,” said Jeremy.

  “No it isn’t.” I tried to explain the problem in such simple terms that even Jeremy could understand. “The scanner showed a ghost in this programme that looks exactly like one of the ghosts in the last programme. They were recorded in two different places. Once viewers see Arthur keeps using the same ghost images, they’ll realise the whole scanner thing is a fake. They won’t just blame Arthur for cheating them; they’ll blame us as well.”

  Jeremy shrugged. “We always include a legal disclaimer at the start of our programmes, explaining they’re made in good faith but we can’t be held responsible for any fraud perpetrated by guest presenters.”

  “Legal disclaimers may stop us getting sued, Jeremy, but they can’t force people to keep watching our programmes.”

  Jeremy pulled a face. “I’ll have a word with Arthur. Tactfully mention the problem. Tell him I’m sure his scanner is perfectly genuine, and there’s a logical reason for the similarity between the ghosts, but I hope it won’t happen again.”

  “That isn’t enough,” I said. “Arthur’s been careless once. He’ll be careless again. We have to get rid of him!”

  Jeremy shook his head. “We can’t get rid of Arthur. Viewer numbers have risen for four consecutive weeks!”

  Jeremy signed Arthur up for three more programmes. I hoped that would be the end of it, but then the idiot decided Arthur should join Celia as a regular presenter! Jeremy made the announcement just before we headed out to film a programme. As everyone was milling around the camera van and minibus in the car park, I grabbed my chance to talk to Celia.

  “If we both go and tell Jeremy that hiring Arthur is a dreadful idea, then perhaps we can make him change his mind.”

  She carefully tied a lemon and white silk scarf round her neck before shaking her head. “You can talk to Jeremy if you want, Mark, but you’ll do it alone. I like and respect Arthur, and I’m delighted to have him joining me as a regular co-presenter. Now get out of the way while we film the car park scene.”

  I moved aside, and Arthur wheeled up the trolley carrying his precious scanner. There was a pause while he connected the battery unit, then the lights started flashing and the screen showed a shadowy image standing by the minibus. Celia nodded to the camera crew, and they started recording.

  “I see our regular ghost, Ponytail Girl, plans to come with us again,” said Arthur.

  “Ponytail Girl has come with us on four trips in a row now,” said Celia. “Do you think she’s chosen to be our special spirit guide, Arthur?”

  “She certainly seems to have taken on that role,” said Arthur. “It’s quite fascinating. When I first built the scanner, I didn’t think etheric echoes would be capable of original thought or behaviour, but on the last trip Ponytail Girl was definitely interacting with the local ghosts, helping them understand what the scanner does.”

  Spirit guide! Hah! When I first met Arthur, I’d thought he was naive and honest, but I’d learnt the real truth now. Arthur was a very devious man, cunningly explaining away the similar images of ghosts by a dramatic, on-camera realisation that the same ghost was travelling with us each time. Celia had backed him up of course, because it was part of her job to act as if ghosts were as real as canned dog food, and Jeremy . . . Well, Jeremy was so gullible that he probably still believed in the tooth fairy.

  After they’d filmed the car park scene, Arthur packed his scanner for the trip, then the camera crew loaded their van and the rest of us piled on to the minibus. I sat alone on the back seat, trying to think of a plan to get rid of Arthur, and preferably Celia as well. I still hadn’t come up with any good ideas when we arrived at our location, a boring semi-detached house in a quiet side road. Last time we’d filmed here, it was being rented out to a group of four students. They’d told us earnest stories about chilly draughts, strange smells and china breaking in mysterious circumstances. My own theory was they’d had a wild party, broken a lot of stuff, and made up the ghost to explain the damage to the landlord.

  The students had apparently left now, and the place was empty. Arthur set up the scanner, and we started filming. I watched sourly as Ponytail Girl appeared, and was joined by a much fuzzier looking ghost.

  “The location ghost seems to be male, and an older etheric echo than Ponytail Girl,” said Arthur.

  “You mean it’s longer since he died?” asked Celia.

  Arthur nodded. “Watch what happens when I change the focus on the scanner to further in the past.”

  Ponytail Girl grew indistinct, and the local ghost came into focus. I didn’t know how Arthur was faking these images, but they were scarily convincing.

  “Definitely male,” said Celia, “and stooping slightly as if he was elderly when he died. Ponytail Girl seems to be communicating with him, pointing at our scanner. If we could only hear what they’re saying . . .”

  We moved on into the house, and set up the scanner ready to film in the largest ground floor room, but Arthur’s ghosts were in an awkward mood and kept wandering off upstairs. Eventually we had to cart the scanner and trolley up to the front bedroom. The ghosts were fixated on an area by the window, so Arthur insisted on taking up the carpet and examining the floor.

  The camera crew got drafted in to help move furniture, and then the carpet was rolled back. Arthur’s ghostly images seemed very excited by the boring-looking floor, so the next move was obviously to borrow a screwdriver from the camera van and take up a loose floorboard. Celia gave a running commentary, building up the tension as Arthur went to work with the screwdriver, then she bravely knelt down on the grubby floor to help him lift the length of floorboard and peer into the hole.

  “Oh shit!” Celia’s professional image shattered as she looked up, white-faced. “Mark, if this is your idea of a joke, I’ll kill you!”

  “Me?” I shook my head in bewilderment. “I didn’t do anything. What’s down there?”

  Celia looked down into the hole again. “It looks like a mummified body sealed in plastic,” she said in an unnaturally calm voice. “If you rigged a dummy body here, Mark, you’d better say so right now, because otherwise . . .”

  “I told you I didn’t do this.” I looked at Arthur. “It must have been him! I told you he was getting carried away with his fake scanner.”

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nbsp; “My scanner is not fake!” said Arthur. “Our location ghost has led us to where his body was hidden.”

  “All right,” said Celia. “If nobody is going to admit this is a joke, then the standard rules apply. Whatever happens, we keep filming and react as if it’s genuine. We’ll have to pick up the action from just before we lifted the floorboard.”

  Celia took a deep breath, smoothed her hair, and carefully put the floorboard back into place, before lifting it up again. “Oh no! I think we’ve found a body.”

  Arthur hesitated for a second, before speaking in a stilted voice. “Our location ghost must have led us to where his body was hidden.”

  “We mustn’t touch anything,” said Celia. “We have to call the police at once.”

  She turned to look straight at me. “Someone give me a mobile phone.”

  The camera crew turned their cameras to film me as I reluctantly handed my mobile phone to Celia. I knew exactly what was going on here. Celia had never liked me. She was deliberately setting me up to take the blame if the body was a fake.

  The cameras concentrated on Celia again as she called the police, and then we all moved downstairs and filmed the arriving police cars. Once the police had established the body was genuine, they dragged us all back to the police station, and spent hours questioning everyone and studying all our film footage.

  I wasn’t surprised the police were treating Arthur as a murder suspect, but I wasn’t expecting them to treat me as a suspect as well. I phoned Jeremy to ask him to send us some legal help, and he gave a cry of delight. “You can’t buy this sort of publicity!”

  The body turned out to be a man who’d lived in the house twenty-one years ago. Allegedly he was now 93 years old, alive and well, and living with his son in Milton Keynes. The son was dragged into the police station and caved in under questioning. His father had died in his sleep at the age of 72, and the son had tidied him away under the floorboards so he could keep claiming his pension.

  The police grudgingly let me and Arthur go after that. We arrived back at the office to a hero’s welcome, and Celia filled us in on the latest news. Arthur and his scanner were now a headline newspaper story, a major TV channel was going to show our last seven programmes in a special ghost night marathon, funding for series eight had just been confirmed and Jeremy was locked in his office having secret talks with a police officer.

  I frowned and went to knock on Jeremy’s door. There was a shout from inside. “Who is it?” I yelled through the door. “It’s me, Mark. Arthur and I are back.”

  There was a pause before the door opened and Jeremy peered out. “Where’s Arthur?” I turned to wave at Arthur, and he ambled down the corridor to join us. Jeremy beckoned

  him into his office, and I tried to follow, but Jeremy held up a hand to stop me before firmly closing the door in my face. I was left standing there, open mouthed with disbelief and outrage. Who did Jeremy think he was, treating me like that? Whatever our job titles said, I was the one who held this place together. Without me, Jeremy wouldn’t have a programme. Without me, Jeremy wouldn’t . . .

  “Something wrong, Mark?” Celia’s voice came from behind me.

  “No!”

  I stalked off to the coffee machine that had a strategic view of Jeremy’s office. Three coffees

  later, Jeremy, Arthur, and a policeman with a face like a depressed horse came out of the door. Horse-faced man hurried off down the stairs, and Jeremy waved his arms and shouted. “Gather round everyone!”

  Those people who hadn’t already been lurking nosily around the corridor instantly popped

  out of their offices.

  “Brilliant news,” said Jeremy. “We’re going to make some special programmes where

  Arthur uses his scanner to help the police find the bodies of missing murder victims.” “What!” I stared at the idiot. “Aren’t you forgetting that Arthur’s scanner is just a

  microwave oven with added flashing lights? We’re going to look awfully silly when we don’t find

  anything.”

  Jeremy pulled an apologetic face at Arthur. “Our last trip proved Arthur’s scanner works.” “No it didn’t!” I said. “All our last trip proved was that if you spend enough time wandering

  round empty houses pulling up floorboards, you’ll eventually find a body!”

  Jeremy sighed. “Stop shouting, Mark. The forces of law and order have called on us for aid in solving some terrible crimes, and we’re going to do our duty as citizens and help the cause of

  justice.”

  I could tell from the heroic tone of his voice that Jeremy was picturing himself as Batman

  saving Gotham City. There was obviously no way I could talk sense into him. “Well, if you’re

  determined to make us all look totally ridiculous . . .”

  “But we won’t look ridiculous,” said Jeremy, joyfully. “The police insist that there should be

  absolutely no publicity if we don’t find anything. This is a win-win situation!”

  The police had eight bodies they wanted us to look for, and we found three of them in one day. That evening, I went back to my apartment, and poured myself a large glass of whisky. In the beginning, Arthur and his scanner had seemed quite comical, but then the ghostly images had started making me nervous, and now . . .

  Today had gone terrifyingly smoothly. On all three occasions, the minibus, the camera van and two police cars had driven in convoy to the last address of the missing person. On arrival, Ponytail Girl had rounded up the right ghost, and then the pair of them led us to where the body had been dumped.

  What really scared me was the way we’d found the last body. After a lot of ghostly arm waving, we’d got the idea it was quite a long way away. Celia had fetched the road atlas from the minibus, Ponytail Girl had pointed out the right location, and we’d driven the ghosts thirty-three miles to get there.

  Inevitably, some awestruck policewoman had suggested that next time they could bring along a large board with the letters of the alphabet, so the ghosts could point out letters and spell out the name of their murderer. Everyone had said what a brilliant idea that was, and . . .

  This whole thing had gone much too far. I gulped the last of the whisky, took out my mobile phone, and called Arthur. There was a frustrating delay while I listened to his phone ring, but he finally answered.

  “Sorry,” said Arthur’s breathless voice. “I thought my phone was in my jacket, but actually it was under the . . .”

  “It’s me, Mark,” I interrupted what was doubtless going to be a thrilling tale of hunt the mobile phone. “Can you meet me in my office in half an hour? If we’re planning to use the alphabet idea to question ghosts tomorrow, it would be a good idea to have a trial run with Ponytail Girl tonight.”

  There was a short pause. “I can be there in about forty minutes,” said Arthur. “At this time of the evening, the . . .”

  “Forty minutes is fine,” I cut him off again. “See you then.”

  I used my computer to find a child’s alphabet chart on the internet, a nauseatingly cute creation with pictures of apple, balloon, cat, dog, all the way down to the inevitable zebra. I printed a copy, then put on a brand new pair of leather gloves, drove into work and went to Celia’s office.

  Celia wasn’t paid enough to be able to wear a completely different outfit in every programme, but she did the next best thing by having a different scarf. After the day’s filming was complete, she always threw out the scarf she’d worn, so she couldn’t make the mistake of wearing the same one again. I rescued today’s specimen, delicately patterned in pink and grey swirls, from the waste bin, put it in my pocket and headed to my own office.

  Once I’d pinned my alphabet chart on the wall, taking pleasure in sticking a drawing pin savagely through the zebra’s head, I was ready. I sat at my desk, wondering if Ponytail Girl was in here watching me. She must be. Given she was literally haunting the place, she wouldn’t have missed me driving into the empty car pa
rk. I had a creepy moment as I wondered exactly where she was standing right now, and what she was thinking. Not that it mattered, I reassured myself. Whatever she was thinking, it was obvious she couldn’t actually do anything to hurt me or she’d have done it before now.

  I finally heard the familiar squeaking of the trolley Arthur used to carry round his precious scanner. I stood up to open the door for him, and he parked the trolley in the middle of the office and turned the scanner on. One glance at the screen showed me that Ponytail Girl was already in position next to the alphabet chart. She was only a misty outline, you couldn’t make out any face or eyes, but I was sure she was looking straight at me.

  “That chart reminds me of the one at my infant school,” said Arthur. “A is for Apple, B is for . . . Oh, look! Ponytail Girl is pointing at the B.”

  I watched gloomily as the ghostly image kept pointing out letters.

  “Briony!” cried Arthur in a voice of triumph. “Ponytail Girl’s name is Briony!”

  Well, of course it was. I’d had to make perfectly sure before doing anything drastic, there’d been a faint chance that the ponytail was just a coincidence, but . . .

  Arthur was still staring closely at the scanner. “She’s spelled out your name now, Mark. Why has she done that?”

  I sighed. “She’s done that because I murdered her, Arthur. It happened fifteen years ago, in our last year at university. She was going to report me for cheating. When I went round to her room to reason with her, explain that me getting a better class of degree wouldn’t actually hurt anyone else, she wouldn’t listen. She kept ranting on about how I’d stolen her work, I lost my temper, and then . . . I was trying to shut her up, but I must have squeezed her throat too hard. It was really just an accident.”

  “Briony says you’re a murdering . . . rude word,” said Arthur.