"Kim Newman - The Serial Murders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Newman Kim)

paraphenomena were overspill from ordinary people's heads, anyway. No ghosts, demons, or
extradimensional entities were required to whip up a mindstorm of maelstrom proportions. Maybe a little
ritual, conscious or unconscious, to unlock the potential, but it could just be a crack in the skull, allowing
boiling steam to jet into the aether.
Of course, Haslemere Studios were haunted. If you knew how to look, everywhere was haunted. Richard had
already noticed three separate discarnates on the premises. Tattered flags planted long ago, incapable of
doing harm in the immediate vicinity, let alone reaching across distances and forcing others to do their
bidding. In an arclight pool, he came across a faded wraith who had been a film actress in the 1920s, almost
a star when talking pictures came in and her mangle-worzel accent disqualified her from costume siren roles.
Pulled from a historical film begun silent but revamped as a talkie, losing the role of Lady Hamilton to a
posher actress, she'd drowned herself in the studio tank, waterlogged crinolines floating like a giant lily
among miniature vessels ready to refight the Battle of Trafalgar. All this he gathered from letting her flutter
against his face, but the only name he could pick up for her was "Emma," and he didn't know if it was hers or
Lady Hamilton's.
He tried to ask about the Barstows curse, but Emma was too caught up in her own long-ago troubles to care.
Typical suicide. She chattered in his skull, Mummerset still thick enough to render her wailing barely
comprehensible. The only spectral revenge Emma might have wreaked would be on Al JolsonтАФand he had
never shot a film at Haslemere. Richard asked if any other presences were here, recent and ambitiously
malevolent. It was often a profitable line of questioning, like a copper squeezing underworld informants. No
joy. If anything floated around capable of hurt on that scale, Emma would have known at once what he was
asking about. Communing with the ghost left his face damp and slightly oily. When he moved on, she
scarcely noticed and went back to exaggerated gestures no one else here could see. She wrung her hands
like a caricature spook, but he guessed that was just silent-picture acting style.
On set, Vanessa was giving the hot-and-cold treatment to Dudley Finn. It was textbook slap-and-kiss,
come-here-but-go-away wrapping-around-the-little-finger business. Richard saw Vanessa was enjoying herself
as Lovely Legs, not so much the acting but the pretending. As she made faces, she let the whirring wheels
show, daring anyone to call her a fake. Barbara was watching critically. Having picked up the connection
between Richard and Vanessa, she was looking for more clues. He should let the two clever women know
they were on the same side or else they'd waste time suspecting each other.
He looked at the faces watching from darker corners. Squiers stood between the director, Gerard Loss, a
toothbrush-moustached military type, and the floor manager, Jeanne Treece, an untidy blond woman with a
folder full of script pages and notes. Squiers wore a stained flat cap that failed to match his guru threads. At
the script conference, Squiers had several times used the expression "with my producer's hat on," and
nowтАФswallowing a bark of laughterтАФRichard realised there really was such a garment and it served an actual
purpose in demarcating his functions on the show.
A great many other people watched, most with reasons to be there, none with a mark of Cain obvious on their
foreheads. Richard picked up many emotions, all within the usual range. Jealousy from Geordie the Security
Guard as "Ben" clinched with "Lovely Legs." Boredom from seen-it-all grips and minders. Frustration from a
cameraman with ambitions to art, shackled to an outdated camera with three lenses that could be revolved
with all the ease and grace of rusty nineteenth century agricultural equipment. Severe cramps from Jeanne
Treece. Concern from a wardrobe assistant who knew there was only one dupe of Vanessa's top and that if
what she was wearing got torn in the tussle, she'd have to match the rip on the back-up. Quite a few people
in the room idly thought of killing quite a few of the rest, but that too wasn't exactly unusual.
So, how did the Barstows reach out and possess people?
It was possible that someone here at the studio was a human lens, a focus for energies summoned in script
conferences and unleashed during production, who could channel malignancies into the actual broadcast. A
talent like that might slip by without disturbing a ghost, like a light which isn't switched onтАФbut would flare as
bright as a studio filament when in use, probably burning out quickly. Raw psychic ability, perhaps not even
recognised by its possessor, amplified and sent out to every switched-on television set in the land. Even if
people weren't dying, Richard would have been troubled by the concept. If there was a person behind this,