Thicker Than Water

He put his hand on my shoulder, gripping hard enough to hurt.

‘Your sins are forgiven, you drunken, selfish bastard,’ he said. ‘Go in peace.’

When I looked up, he was gone. Or maybe it’s fairer to say that I didn’t look up until I was sure: until his footsteps had faded into silence. The music and shouting rose to a peak and then fell to a rumble again, announcing the opening and closing of a distant door.

I sat breathing whisky fumes like profane incense, still feeling the weight of his hand on my shoulder.

I didn’t feel like I’d been absolved: it was more like I’d had my collar felt by some holy constable of the spirit. I knew two things, and two things only: that Matt’s vocation was real, and that as far as absolution went, a few soggy prayers weren’t going to cut it.

Pen heard me out in silence. When she spoke - pagan gods bless her infallible instincts - it was to change the subject.

‘So this thing that you’re feeling when you’re over there at the Salisbury. Do you think it’s a geist of some kind?’

Pen speaks the argot, and she was using the word in its technical sense.

To an exorcist, a geist is a human spirit that takes no visible form but can still have powerful - almost always destructive - effects.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, stating the obvious. ‘But I don’t think so. Most geists move things - physical things. They break bottles, throw furniture around, blow candles out, fling people through windows. This is . . . intangible. It’s just a feeling. And it seems to be really pervasive - I mean, it spreads across the whole estate, where a geist would tend to stick to one small locus.

’

Pen inhaled the steam from her coffee cup, eyes closed, like Nicky drinking the wine breath. Then she downed it in one swallow. I waited patiently, knowing she was thinking it through.

‘The people on the estate,’ she said, when she finally opened her eyes again. ‘Do they know this thing is there? I mean, obviously it’s changing the way they feel and the way they behave, but are they aware that it’s happening or are they just submerged in it?’

‘The second, I think.

I’m aware of it because—’

‘—Because of your built-in radar.’

‘Exactly. But to anyone else I think it would be like a sound that’s been in your ears for so long you can’t hear it any more - you just hear the silence when it stops. It’s subtle. Powerful, but really subtle. To tell you the truth, I’m starting to wonder if there’s a demon mixed up in this somewhere.