The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

I can’t promise, other than to say I’ll do my best. I’ll try not to let my gaze linger.

THE SHOW Priya Sharma

The camera crew struggled with the twisting, narrow stairs. Their kit was portable, steadicams being all the rage. They were lucky that the nature of their work did not require more light. Shadows added atmosphere. Dark corners added depth. It was cold down in the cellar. It turned their breath to mist, which gathered in the stark white pools shed by the bare bulbs overhead.

Martha smiled. It was sublime. Television gold.

Tonight there’d been a crowd. Word had got out. She’d have to find out who blabbed. There had been only a few fans at the start but now they needed security to keep them back.

She’d joined the presenter, Pippa and her producer-husband Greg at the barrier. The three of them had posed for photographs and signed autographs. Pip had been strict about that. Be nice to the public. The audience would make or break the show, not studio executives.

Martha laughed out loud when a woman produced a photo of Pip and Greg in their previous incarnation as chat show hosts.

“Nice haircuts,” she said as they both signed it. Their fashionable styles dated this period of fame but Martha was careful when she joked about their pasts. It was Pippa’s new idea that had reinvented their careers.

Pippa was popular but it was really Martha the crowd wanted. She

recognised the faithful amid the curious locals. The ones who wanted to touch her hand, as if it were a blessing. To ask her help to reach the dead, to say what they’d left unsaid.

A man reached out as Martha tried to leave, snatching at her coat sleeve.

“Good luck,” he said. “May God keep you through the night.”

Martha leant against the cellar wall to watch Pippa in discussion with the team. She could tell Pippa was well pleased. The first part of the show comprised of interviews. The bar staff had been verbose in their remembering. The tall tales of the spooked. The cellar had fallen fallow. Too many broken beer bottles. Boxes overturned, alcopops leaking on the floor. Too many barmaids emerging with bruises flowering on their arms. Too many accusations. Too many resignations.

Yes, it was horrible down here. Its history appalled. The chill seeped from the floor, through her boot soles and crept into her feet. She fastened up her coat. Red cashmere. She’d decided to live a vivid life. She wouldn’t exist in shades of grey. She’d no longer bow or obey. She’d promised herself good money. In the bank. Not tatty fivers from someone’s housekeeping, like the ones her mother would take with embarrassment and stuff into the chipped teapot on the dresser. Iris never asked for more. Only barely enough. You can’t abuse the gift. Cheap meat on Sundays as a treat. For Martha and her sister Suki, white knee socks gone grey, but still too good to throw away.

The second part of the show was a vigil. The team were busy setting up thermometers and motion sensors to add the illusion of science but it was Martha that added the something special to the mix.

“Don’t forget,” Pippa would say, face tight into the lens, “Martha, our psychic, doesn’t know our destination. She’ll be brought here and do a reading, blind.”

Martha stamped her feet to expel the cold. Pippa was busy with her preparations. Vocal exercises. Shaking her limbs. If Martha channelled spirits, then Pippa channelled the audience. With the cameras on, Pippa (like Martha) became a true believer. Her range spanned from nervous to hysterical. Her tears of fear turned her heavy eye makeup to muddy pools. Her performance heightened suggestibility and atmosphere.

“Have you destroyed them?” Greg sidled up to Martha. He was talking about the copy of his research notes that he always gave her.

“Don’t treat me like I’m an amateur. You know I learn them and then burn them.”

These were hot readings, as they were called within the trade, when a medium was already primed. Martha would reveal the memorised histories of suicidal serving girls, murdered travellers and Victorian serial killers.

Martha’s key was subtlety. She was frugal with the facts. Too direct and the show would be a pantomime. Too detailed and she’d be reciting by rote. And what couldn’t be confirmed couldn’t be denied, which was useful when the truth wasn’t juicy enough to appeal. All Martha needed was a name, a date, a hard fact around which to embroider her yarns. Greg, who also played on-screen researcher, would fake surprise with widened eyes, saying such as, “Yes, Martha, there was a third son here by the name of Walter, but we can’t corroborate there was a maid by the name Elaine whom he killed on Midsummer’s Day.”

“New coat?” Greg’s fingers stroked her collar.

“Keep your paws off.”

“Watch it. Pippa will think we’re paying you too much.”