Free Ghosts Know by Ramsey Campbell Page B

your listeners has been in touch.”
    “Should I guess which one?”
    “Cheryl Needham from Droylsden.”
    “She’s changed her mind, then. She said she wasn’t going to bother you, bother speaking to you, I mean. She thought you’d just be on my side.”
    “I listened to your show.” Paula lets this and her gaze gather weight before she says “You’re getting edgier, Graham.”
    Is she referring to how I feel just now? I do my best to match her ambiguity by saying “So long as it’s what’s wanted.”
    “Cheryl was right, I’m afraid.”
    I’m hearing Hannah Leatherhead’s invitation as I say “Right about what?”
    “No need to go for me, Graham. I’m not one of your contestants.” She pauses as if she’s searching for a more accurate term and says “She was right that I’m on your side.”
    “Oh, I see.” This seems inadequate, and so does “Well, thank you.”
    “I told her it’s the style you’re known for and I didn’t think you’d actually been rude to her, but obviously it’s her privilege to take it further if she really wants to. I think whatever you said to her about Frank Jasper would have been wrong.”
    “You won’t hear any argument from me.”
    “So long as I do when I switch you on.” Paula lets me glimpse a smile that can hardly signify a joke and says “It’s true he never said he was local. He does his best to sound as if he’s not.”
    “He’s saying he is now on his web site.”
    “I expect you must have made him. Anyway, he should be proud to admit it.” Paula leans forward, which doesn’t disturb so much as a strand of her cropped glossy hair, to murmur “You knew each other, didn’t you?”
    “That’s it. The whole truth.”
    “I don’t know if you should give it away on the air. Keep people guessing,” she says and sits back. “It’s just a pity you didn’t remember signing Kylie Goodchild’s photograph while you had Jasper on the air.”
    “I might have except for dealing with her boyfriend. You couldn’t have known what he was going to be like.”
    “I don’t suppose Jasper did either.”
    “Patterson,” I can’t help saying. “Too busy talking to my nameless grandfather again, maybe.”
    Paula lets out a sound that falls short of a laugh. “What was his name, by the way?”
    “My grandfather? Wilfred.”
    “Not that unusual,” Paula says as the phone shrills on her desk. “Yes, he’s here,” she says after listening to someone as inaudible as Jasper’s sources and extends the receiver to me. “It’s somebody about your show.”
    “Do you want me to take it here?”
    “Why, would you prefer not?”
    “It’s your office,” I say and lurch almost onto all fours in my haste to seem eager instead of defensive. The leather cushion sends a whoopee in my wake as I grab the receiver and step back. “Hello,” I mutter. “Graham Wilde.”
    “Gosh, I can barely hear you, Graham. It’s Hannah Leatherhead.”
    “Oh, hello.” I need to find somewhere to look other than at Paula—along the canal beyond the window behind her desk. “Wasn’t I going to call you?” I say not much louder.
    “Hold on just a second.” In little more Hannah says “Is that better?”
    It isn’t for me. She has switched her phone to loudspeaker mode, rendering her voice close to painful in my ear. I can’t hold the receiver at a distance in case Paula hears something she shouldn’t—I want to be sure of the situation before I reveal it. “We ought to talk soon,” I tell Hannah.
    “We should. I was just calling to say I’m back in town sooner than expected.”
    I don’t know if Paula is watching me, but I can sense her attention, which feels as if a security camera is focused on me. If psychics existed, perhaps this is a taste of how they’d feel. It seems to turn the rest of my surroundings less substantial, especially a line of figures standing on a footbridge against the glitter of sunlight on the canal. The best response I can give