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

lass.
An idealised portrait of the very late Da Barstow, in Day-Glo on velvet, cap on his head and miner's pick over
his shoulder, had pride of place above a shaped fibreglass marble mantelpiece where his ashes supposedly
sat in a silver urn to which many of Mavis' most vehement or nostalgic speeches were addressed. The
cremains had once been "kidnapped" by Cousin Dodgy Morrie and held to ransom. Since their return, Mavis
often got close to the polished urn to talk to the departed, usually after one too many Funzinos, and the
camera had to focus on her distorted, wobbly reflection as she reminisced about how much happier everyone
was when they were dirt poor. Jeanne Treece stalked the set, putting odd little folded cards like
place-markers in ashtrays, on the magazines, hanging out of Finn's blazer pocket, around the mantel, and
under light fittings.
When the floor manager had finished distributing the cards, she gave Dudley Finn a once-over as if checking
for dandruff and nodded to Squiers, who signalled to Loss, who made a gun gesture at the Twins, who lifted
June O'Dell up by her arms as if she were part of their circus acrobatic act. The actress was propped on two
eight-inch blocks with wheels. One Twin steadied her while the other knelt and fixed clamps from the blocks
to her calves.
"The Mavis Glide," exclaimed Barbara. "That's how she does it. Platform roller skates."
While her undercarriage was checked and fiddled with, a makeup girl made last-minute adjustments to June's
white mask. Then her pit crew stood back. Suddenly, with a girlish giggle, she set off at a wheeled stride and
did a figure eight around the set, skirts billowing. Applause was mandatory, but Richard conceded that it was
a good act. She lifted one heavy skate off the floor and rolled on elegantly, leg out like a ballerina, then twirled
and came to a dead stop.
She was next to Dudley Finn. Thanks to the platforms, June O'Dell was now taller than him.
"If a word of the risers leaks out, you'll be killed," Lionel told them. "No question about it."
The recording light went on again, and June and FinnтАФMavis and BenтАФwent through a scene which had
evolved from yesterday's script meeting. June floated about the set as she spoke, picking up phrases or
single-word cues from the tiny cards Jeanne Treece had distributed, skating through speeches with the aid of
these prompts. The scene built up to the revelation that Mavis knew all along that Priscilla was the Bogus
Brenda returned. Richard accepted the sad inevitability that he was now a follower of The Northern Barstows
like everybody else in the country. He knew who all these people were and how they related to each other,
and suffered a nagging itchy need to know what they would get up to next. This must be what it was like to
be a newly body-snatched vegetable duplicate and click in sync with the collective consciousness of the pod
people.
"She's an old ghost, Ben," said June, in a line Richard hadn't heard yesterday. "There've bin too many bloody
old ghosts round hereabouts lately. Spectre horses, headless spooks, all manner o' witchcraft and
bogeyness. I'm beginning to think this family's bloody haunted. An' somethin' should be done about it or my
name's not Mavis Barstow."
Ben weakly put in a line about what was to be done.
"Get me a bloody ghost-hunter," said Mavis. "Someone to put a stop to t' haunting. Or else someone t'
haunting will put a stop to."
June's face froze. Richard had assumed the effect was a camera trick, but she really did just stop still and
stare at the lens for long seconds.
Loss called "cut" and June was applauded again.
"What was that about?" Barbara asked Richard. "The ghost-hunter bit?"
"I wouldn't say it came out of nowhere," he replied. "I'm rather afraid we've been noticed."
June, who had perspired through her pancake, was wheeled off the set by the Tank-Top Twins and repaired
by the makeup girl, who applied what looked like Number Two gloss from a bucket with a brush. Then June
was trundled toward Richard and Barbara, with Squiers hopping along in her wake. From her artificial height,
June O'Dell looked Richard in the eye.
"So, you've come about the mystery?"
Her natural voice would have suited her to play Lady Bracknell if she could ever be persuaded to admit she