Ghost Frequencies (NewCon Press Novellas Set 4 Book 1) Read online

  Ghost Frequencies

  NewCon Press Novellas

  Set 1: (Cover art by Chris Moore)

  The Iron Tactician – Alastair Reynolds

  At the Speed of Light – Simon Morden

  The Enclave – Anne Charnock

  The Memoirist – Neil Williamson

  Set 2: (Cover art by Vincent Sammy)

  Sherlock Holmes: Case of the Bedevilled Poet – Simon Clark

  Cottingley – Alison Littlewood

  The Body in the Woods – Sarah Lotz

  The Wind – Jay Caselberg

  Set 3: The Martian Quartet (Cover art by Jim Burns)

  The Martian Job – Jaine Fenn

  Sherlock Holmes: The Martian Simulacra – Eric Brown

  Phosphorous: A Winterstrike Story – Liz Williams

  The Greatest Story Ever Told – Una McCormack

  Set 3: Strange Tales (Cover art by Ben Baldwin)

  Ghost Frequencies – Gary Gibson

  The Lake Boy – Adam Roberts

  Matryoshka – Ricardo Pinto

  The Land of Somewhere Safe – Hal Duncan

  Ghost Frequencies

  Gary Gibson

  NewCon Press

  England

  First published in the UK by NewCon Press

  41 Wheatsheaf Road, Alconbury Weston, Cambs, PE28 4LF

  June 2018

  NCP 156 (limited edition hardback)

  NCP 157 (softback)

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Ghost Frequencies copyright © 2018 by Gary Gibson

  Cover art copyright © 2018 by Ben Baldwin

  All rights reserved, including the right to produce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  ISBN:

  978-1-910935-79-8 (hardback)

  978-1-910935-80-4 (softback)

  Cover art by Ben Baldwin

  Cover layout by Ian Whates

  Minor Editorial meddling by Ian Whates

  Book layout by Storm Constantine

  Prologue

  She woke in the night, her skin clammy despite the warm summer breeze coming through the half-open window. She tried to move, to reach for the lamp by her bed, but her muscles remained locked in place. Night-terrors, the doctors called it – a fugue state somewhere between sleep and waking, as if giving it a name made the experience any less dreadful. They insisted on giving her endless pills, but they were useless. Every now and then she took the accumulated bottles and flushed their contents down the toilet.

  She felt the presence. Imagined, rather than saw, a girl half-hidden in the shadows past her bed. She pictured hair that was stringy and unkempt.

  Clara?

  She tried to say the name, but her tongue remained as still as if it were locked inside her mouth. Please, she tried to say, willing her body to respond. You’re hurting me. Please...

  All of a sudden, she felt control return to her limbs. She jerked upwards with a lurch, an iron vice squeezing her heart, her breath fast and panicked.

  She looked around, but there was nobody there. No one who could be seen, at least.

  ‘Clara?’ she managed to say. ‘What is it?’

  A whisper seeped up the stairwell, dense with static and just on the edge of audibility – a woman’s voice. Not Clara. You.

  Not Clara. That meant...the other, the one whose name she could never bring herself to say.

  She clutched her nightgown close around her neck, catching sight of her shadowed reflection in the mirror atop her dressing-table. For a moment, she barely recognised the woman peering back at her – old beyond her years, her face lined like that of someone twenty years her senior.

  A wren trilled its dawn-song. She swung narrow feet onto cold floorboards and lifted a cheap dressing-gown down from its hook before pushing her feet into slippers. She went downstairs to her cramped kitchen, the transistor radio next to the microwave hissing with static as it did every hour of every day.

  Once, when her boiler had failed and workmen came to install a replacement, she had unplugged the radio for the first time in years, pushing it to the back of a cupboard. She still remembered her horror when the workmen had found the radio and turned it to some music station while they went about their trade. She remembered their expressions of perplexed amusement as she quickly unplugged it again before running upstairs with it. It had taken her weeks to rediscover the precise spot on the dial where the voices were strongest.

  And so it had been for many years, bar the occasional power outage.

  It’s almost time, the same voice whispered from out of the static. We’re waiting for you.

  She stared at it, her thin gown clutched close around her neck. ‘No,’ she said, her face stricken with terror. ‘I can’t. I...can’t.’

  She will bring you a gift, without knowing it.

  ‘Who will?’ she asked, more weary than scared now. ‘Bring me what?’

  You must come back.

  She stood there, listening to the dull roar of the radio, but heard nothing more.

  You must have patience, Arthur Melville had once told her. The spirits cannot be hurried. They have all eternity, and we do not. He, at least, believed her. It had been his idea to write down everything the voices said.

  She sighed, and pushed open the back door before stepping out into the small garden that lay behind her house, a red-brick semi that overlooked Wardenby. Rain pattered down onto the concrete and grass. When she looked across to the far side of the valley, she could see Ashford Hall, rising up where only a few years before had been nothing more than blackened ruins.

  The voice hadn’t said where she must go, but it hadn’t needed to. Ashford Hall was the place she had long ago sworn never to return to. But the voice was insistent that one day she not only would, but must return there.

  Even if it killed her.

  She sighed, then stepped back inside, pulling open a drawer and retrieving her notebook and pen. She sat at the kitchen table and noted down the date and everything she remembered the voice had said to her while the first rays of morning chased shadows across the kitchen floor.

  Wednesday July 1st 2020

  ‘See what I mean?’ asked Rajam, his upper body curled into a comma before the computer monitor. ‘Noise in the signal.’ He made a sucking sound with his teeth. ‘I can’t figure it out any more than you can.’

  Susan, who had been standing behind his shoulder in order to study the histograms that crowded the screen, turned at the sound of the office door banging open. Andrew came stamping in, water dripping from the tip of his nose, his tweed jacket dark with rain. He dropped a shopping bag on a counter along with his car keys, then pulled a jar of instant coffee out of the shopping bag and switched on the kettle. ‘You’re here,’ he said, nodding to Susan. ‘I didn’t see your car outside.’

  ‘It’s in for repairs.’ She nodded at the computer. ‘More bad news, I’m afraid.’

  ‘More interference?’ He came over, peering at Rajam’s monitor.

  ‘Same as before,’ said Rajam, a faint rumble of techno issuing from the earbuds hanging around his shoulders. ‘Regular radio and other communications with Beauty are fine, but as for anything spooky – nada.’

  Andrew frowned. ‘“Spooky”?’

  ‘Spooky action?’ said Rajam with a roll of the eyes. ‘At a distance?’

  Andrew stared at him for a moment, then shook his head and turned to Susan. ‘So just to be clear, we’re officially no further on than we were two weeks ago?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, no,’ she admitted, hearing the defeat in her own voice. ‘I’m open to suggestions.’

  ‘Such as?’
asked Andrew, stepping back over to the kettle and spooning coffee granules into a mug.

  She shrugged. ‘Witch doctor? Lucky charms? Because right now, I swear, I’m ready to try just about anything.’

  ‘Well, first of all, don’t panic,’ said Andrew. The kettle clicked off and he made himself a coffee, carrying it over to the arched stone window to the left of Rajam’s workstation. Outside, the wind stirred the trees lining the road to Wardenby, while farther away, ageing red brick homes stood along a road leading out of the valley. ‘Is it the equipment, something in our measurements, or something else we haven’t thought of that might be the source of our troubles?’

  ‘Well,’ said Rajam, looking sideways at Andrew, ‘assuming for the moment everything’s working the way it should, I don’t see how our equipment could generate that much randomness without something affecting it from the outside. What if there’s something that causes the quantum information to decohere before it reaches its destination?’

  Andrew nodded, his gaze fixed on something outside. ‘Like someone’s reading our mail. But that still doesn’t explain how they’d do it, even if there was someone else out there who could do it.’

  ‘But we know there isn’t,’ Susan reminded him. She glanced towards the anteroom wherein the Beast resided. ‘They’d have to have a quantum communications array matching ours, and apart from Beauty, there’s no one else with a set-up like it.’

  ‘There’s always the Chinese,’ suggested Andrew. ‘Lord knows they’re secretive enough.’

  ‘I think that’s a stretch,’ said Susan. ‘I keep thinking there’s something right in front of us we’re missing.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Maybe we need a fresh pair of eyes to take a look at the Beast.’

  ‘I already checked everything thoroughly twice in the last fortnight,’ said Rajam, a note of defensiveness creeping into his voice. ‘Everything works the way it should.’

  ‘Nobody’s saying you’ve been anything but an enormous help to Susan, Rajam,’ said Andrew, still peering out the window. ‘By the way, there’s a van parked outside that doesn’t look like it belongs to the builders. Any idea whose it is?’

  ‘Ask the security guard,’ Susan suggested. ‘He’d know.’

  ‘I meant to do exactly that,’ said Andrew, ‘except I couldn’t find him anywhere. I’ve a mind to make another complaint to the recruitment agency.’

  ‘Now that I think of it, the front desk wasn’t manned when I came in this morning either,’ said Susan. ‘I thought he’d gone off to use the toilet or something.’

  Rajam tapped his keyboard and a mail program popped up over the histograms. ‘I forgot to tell you,’ he said. ‘Apparently the day-shift hire quit. We got an email from the recruitment agency this morning.’ He shrugged. ‘Sorry. I guess he must have handed in his notice just last night.’

  Susan stared at him. ‘How many security guards has this place had since we started here? Three, in just two months? Or is it more?’

  ‘Well, that’s just bloody marvellous,’ said Andrew, stepping back from the window. ‘I suppose that means just anyone can come wandering in the building while people are working? Did they give a reason why he quit?’

  ‘’No,’ said Rajam, glancing back at the screen, ‘but his replacement gets here this afternoon. Oh – and I know why that van’s here, but you’re not going to like it.’

  Andrew glowered at him. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, I saw some people unloading the van when I got here this morning, and I recognised one of them – a guy called Angus Moone. He got his Masters from Leith University about the same time I did. Anyway, we got talking, and it seems Christian Ashford hired them to carry out a study of Ashford Hall.’

  Andrew looked perplexed. ‘Christian was quite specific we’d have the place to ourselves for at least another couple of months. What kind of study?’

  Christian, thought Susan. As if he and their billionaire benefactor were old friends and comrades, when in reality Andrew had never even met the man in the flesh.

  ‘Apparently,’ said Rajam, his mouth twisted up in an impish grin, ‘they’re ghost hunters.’

  ‘Ghost –’ Andrew’s face flushed pink. ‘I don’t have time for this nonsense, Rajam.’

  ‘It’s the truth,’ Rajam insisted in an aggrieved tone. He pulled out his mobile phone, his fingers moving rapidly across its screen. ‘This guy is in charge of them,’ he said, holding up the phone so they could see a still photograph of a grinning, portly man with a beard and a thick bush of hair that looked like it had been caught in a gale and then frozen in place. ‘His name’s Maxim Bernard. I remember him from when I was at Leith. They’ve got a whole department for perceptual research, which is a fancy way of saying the supernatural. Bernard’s in charge of the department, and Angus is here to help him.’

  The pink in Andrew’s cheeks took on a darker hue. ‘That’s utterly ridiculous,’ he spat. ‘I’m sure they’re nothing of the kind. Your friend was having you on.’

  Rajam looked to Susan for help, then back at Andrew. ‘I did actually speak with them,’ he said. ‘I’m not making it up. He didn’t say specifically what they were here to look for, but he definitely used the words “haunted” and “Ashford Hall” in the same sentence.’

  ‘Ghost hunters?’ Susan asked him. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Andrew spluttered. ‘Whatever they’re doing here, the fact remains we were supposed to have this entire facility to ourselves until our work was completed.’

  Susan raised an eyebrow. ‘Our work?’

  ‘I meant your work, of course,’ said Andrew, stepping towards the main door of the office, his mouth pinched up in an angry scowl. ‘I’ll go talk to them and sort out what’s really going on. I’m sure there’s a misunderstanding somewhere.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t –’ Susan began to say, just as the door banged shut behind him. She listened for a moment to the sound of his shoes moving rapidly down the hallway.

  ‘You’re enjoying every second of this, aren’t you?’ she said, glaring at Rajam.

  Rajam grinned broadly. ‘Honestly, can you blame me?’

  Susan hurried after Andrew, afraid he might make a scene. She stepped out of the office and saw him moving ahead of her in long, determined strides. She followed in his wake, passing unfinished and unoccupied labs with loose clusters of wiring still poking out of holes in their walls. She came to the top of the grand staircase -- a steep wash of cut steps that descended to the ground floor – in time to see Andrew hurrying down them.

  At first glance, someone unaware of Ashford Hall’s turbulent history might have thought the building to be centuries old, rather than a twenty-first century reconstruction in keeping with English Heritage’s rigid specifications. The outside had been designed to resemble as closely as possible the original mansion built in the 1730s by Christian Ashford’s ancestors, while his architects had rebuilt much of the interior based on old photographs from a pre-war collection. Yet it somehow felt as if it had stood undisturbed for centuries. Oak floorboards creaked beneath Susan’s tennis shoes as if they had borne generations of feet, and dusty spider-webs clung to shadowy eaves that had only recently been rebuilt.

  She hurried down the steps, seeing Andrew stride across the expanse of floor towards two men and a woman standing amidst a sea of crates and boxes. One of the men was in his mid-twenties, about Rajam’s age – Angus Moone, presumably. The woman was older, perhaps in her thirties, with a short, brushy haircut above loose jeans and a sweatshirt. The second man was clearly Maxim Bernard.

  ‘My name’s Wrigley,’ said Andrew, striding towards them. The woman glanced at Susan as she came hurtling up behind Andrew. ‘Doctor Andrew Wrigley.’ He turned to Bernard and extended his hand. ‘You must be Maxim?’

  ‘Ah!’ Bernard replied with gusto, pumping Wrigley’s hand up and down. ‘Mr Ashford told me a research project was already up and running here. All very hush-hush, I gather.’

 
‘Doctor Susan MacDonald,’ Susan said quickly, moving to shake Bernard’s hand as well. ‘Andrew’s my project funding manager.’

  ‘I apologise for being blunt,’ Andrew broke in before Susan could say anything more, ‘but I wondered if perhaps there’s been some mistake? Chr –’ He paused and cleared his throat. ‘Mr Ashford informed me we’d have the building to ourselves until at least the end of August. That’s two months away.’

  Susan saw something shift in Bernard’s eyes. ‘I don’t see why –’

  ‘Our work is of a commercially sensitive nature,’ Andrew continued before Bernard could finish speaking. ‘There’s a risk that potential competitors might try and beat us to the punch if they got wind of what we’re developing.’ He smiled tightly. ‘You can see why it’s better if we have sufficient privacy to finish our work without risk of compromise.’

  He glanced at Susan as he said this, and pretended he didn’t see the hard glare on her face.

  ‘Metka, Angus,’ said Bernard, ‘if you would be so kind as to start moving everything upstairs? We’re in the West Wing, second floor. I’ll be right up.’

  His assistants got to work moving the crates over to the newly-installed elevator beneath the grand staircase, next to a door leading to the South Wing and the gardens.

  ‘Mr Ashford mentioned you were working on some kind of prototype,’ said Bernard, turning to Susan. ‘I’m afraid he’s already apprised me of the basic outlines of your work, although much of it went over my head. He wouldn’t have shared that information if he wasn’t already assured of my ability to maintain a professional confidence.’

  Andrew made a pained sound.

  ‘We signed NDA’s,’ Susan said to Bernard. ‘I’m afraid we’re really not allowed to talk about it to anyone.’

  ‘Oh! Well, perhaps Mr Ashford spoke out of turn,’ said Bernard, ‘although it’s clearly a matter of considerable enthusiasm to him.’ He turned back to Andrew, whose face was full of stricken horror. ‘I promise we’ll be as quiet and unobtrusive as the proverbial church mouse, Doctor Wrigley,’ he added, touching a finger to his lips.