The Dead of Winter Read Online Free Page B

Leeds this last week; some of the delegates are decamping here tomorrow for the lectures. I think Melissa would have loved to stage a full-scale convention, with all the delegates on-site, but the accommodation really isn’t ready. So, we’re bussing people in for tomorrow . . .’
    â€˜We?’ Rina enquired.
    Toby grinned at her. ‘Guilty,’ he said. ‘No, actually, I got dragged into this by David, that’s Professor Franklin. He’ll be master of ceremonies tomorrow. I got to know him about eighteen months ago. He’s written quite widely on the use of early photography and also what you could term magic tricks in a religious context. He’s supervising Gail Perry, who’ll be our medium at the seance. Gail is a PhD student writing about the various quasi-scientific movements that sprang up in the North of England particularly, and it was her research that uncovered the strange events here in the winter of 1872. That’s what tomorrow’s reconstruction is all about. Hopefully without the subsequent insanity and violent death.’
    He took a bite of his sandwich, and Rina glared at him, so obvious was his enjoyment in making them wait.
    â€˜Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Viv said. ‘They had this seance one night – in fact, the anniversary is tomorrow, which is pretty good timing, don’t you think? They’d had loads before, everyone seems to have been at it back then, but this was different. Everyone involved had spent Christmas and New Year together, and during that time they’d invented a ghost.’
    â€˜Invented one?’ Joy was amused. ‘Why?’
    â€˜Well,’ Toby butted in, taking his story back again. ‘It actually prefigured a thing called the Philip experiment in Toronto about a hundred years later. A group of Canadian researchers under the direction of a Dr Owen and his wife got together and created a persona called Philip. Over several months they discussed who he might have been, decided he was a seventeenth-century English aristocrat with a string of mistresses.’
    â€˜No, just one mistress. She was burned as a witch, they decided, which of course is terribly inaccurate,’ Viv interrupted again.
    â€˜Inaccurate?’ Joy asked.
    â€˜We hanged our witches,’ Rina told her. ‘Burning was for heretics.’
    â€˜That’s right.’ Viv nodded enthusiastically. ‘They did it different in Scotland, but in England it was the hangman who dealt with convicted witches.’
    â€˜Anyway,’ Toby laughingly reasserted, ‘in essence, the modern group created Philip, but the Philip they invented and then tried to contact in the seance room behaved pretty much the same way as any other ghostly presence reported in the literature. The table they used was rapped on and moved and even performed on the television in front of the cameras. Of course, it could all be a bit of clever camera trickery and a lot of manipulation—’
    â€˜Or it could be that they accidentally stumbled on something real.’ It was the first time Robin had contributed to the conversation. He blushed, Rina noticed, noting too that Viv reached out and grabbed his hand and glared at Toby as his laughter exploded.
    â€˜We’re all entitled to our opinions,’ Viv told their professor sternly.
    â€˜I’m not saying I believe that.’ Robin was defensive. ‘Just that we should keep our minds open as well as our eyes.’
    â€˜Which saying is, I believe, a direct quote from our dear David Franklin.’
    Rina looked sharply at Toby, noting the hardening of his tone and the increased pressure of Viv’s hand on Robin’s. Ah, not so happy families, then, she thought.
    â€˜So, you’re saying this Philip behaved as though he was real and not something they’d made up?’ Joy was intrigued.
    â€˜Appeared to, yes. There’s a lecture on it tomorrow. I think