“Think? Non. I know.” André sat forward so he was leaning halfway across the aisle. “Do you know what a telephone is, Detective Chief Inspector?”
Logan didn’t bother answering that one, and instead just fixed the other man with a flat, unblinking stare, assuming it was a rhetorical question. André just sat there watching him, though, apparently waiting for a response.
“Of course I know what a bloody telephone is.”
“And you know how it works, oui?”
“Aye, you talk into one end and it comes out at the other.”
“Non. That is what it does, not how it works,” André said. “écoute. It works with a diaphragm. There is a coil attached to this diaphragm, and a magnet below. Pressure from the voice flexes the diaphragm, and the magnet generates a current that translates your words into an electrical signal and pings them across the whole world.”
Logan blinked slowly. “And?”
“And I am that diaphragm. And that coil. And that magnet.”
He sat back and unclasped his hands, but held them close together like he was presenting the detective with an invisible bowl.
“You’re saying you’re a telephone?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes! The spirits talk through me. They tell me things. They were the ones who told me you were coming.”
Logan sighed, shrugged, then nodded. “Aye. Fine,” he said, not wishing to get into any further discussion on that particular matter. “I’m here about Bernie.”
“Bernie?” echoed André, sitting back in surprise.
“Oh, so the spirits didn’t tell you why I was coming, then? Funny that,” Logan said. “I believe they call him Bernie—”
“The Beacon. Yes. Everyone knows Bernie. We here at the centre better than most.”
“Why’s that? He a…” Logan gestured vaguely down in the direction of the lighthouse. “…patient?”
“These people are not ill, Detective Chief Inspector. They are on a path to enlightenment,” André explained, and the manner in which he said it suggested it was a stock response he’d been called on to use many times before. “Bernie, on the other hand… Bernie was ill.” He tapped the side of his head. “Up here. And probably elsewhere, too, but up here most of all.”
A word. Sometimes, that was all it took. Sometimes, if you were lucky, one word gave you the in that you needed.
“What do you mean…” Logan began, leaning closer, “…was ill?”
André, to his credit, didn’t miss a beat. “I am assuming he is dead, oui? It is a long way for a Detective Chief Inspector of police to travel this late in the evening for any other reason. I assume he is dead, and that you are here to ask me about our feud.”
It was Logan who hesitated, but only briefly. “Well worked out. Tell me about your feud. I’d love to hear your side.”
“I do not have a ‘side,’ Detective Chief Inspector. Merely the facts of the matter.”
“As you see them.”
“As they are,” André insisted. “Bernie required help. Mental care. His mind, it did not work rationally. He believed in… improbable things. Impossible things.”
“Says the man who talks to ghosts.”
André smirked, his pristine white teeth appearing momentarily through a gap in his beard. “Touché. But if you doubt what I believe—”
“I do.”
“Then you must doubt also the things Bernie claimed.”
“I’m not fully up to date on everything he believed, but aye, the lizard people sent alarm bells ringing,” Logan said. “He seemed intrigued by this place, though. He had a lot of cuttings on his wall all about you.”
“This does not surprise me,” André said. “Since I set up this retreat, Bernie has been… difficult. He believed we were servants of his lizard gods. Doing their bidding, converting the unwary to their clandestine cause. Forging an army, with which to rule.”
Logan looked out through the front windscreen of the bus, to where the white robes of Andre’s ‘acolytes’ were just visible in the overspill of light from the lighthouse towering above. They didn’t look like an army.
Well, the Salvation Army, maybe. Definitely not one capable of enslaving the whole of humanity.
“He tried to lead a campaign against us. He would protest at our gates. Hold signs he had made himself. Scream at the new arrivals, try to scare them away.”
“Must’ve been annoying,” Logan said. “Bad for business that, I’d have thought.”
André shrugged. “Non. It made no difference. Those who make the journey here have done so because they have come to a decision, Detective Chief Inspector. A decision that they will not be swayed from, no matter who stands against them.”
“And what decision is that?”
“To be better than they are,” André said. He gestured up and around. “To become one with all this.”
“A knackered old minibus?”
There was that smirk again. “With the Universe. That is what we offer here. That is what I give them.”
“That’s a bold claim,” Logan said.
“Fortune favours the bold, Detective Chief Inspector. That is what they say, non?”
“I don’t know, I tend not to listen to what they say. They, from what I can gather, are a shower of interfering arseholes,” Logan retorted. “Bernie wasn’t the only one with a problem with your place, though, was he?” he asked.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, I mean, close-knit community like this. Older folk, set in their ways, I bet you raised a few eyebrows rocking up with your… I want to say ‘cult,’ but I’m no’ sure that’s the right term.”
“Ha! It is not. It is a retreat, and a commune. A home for the lost, who wish to be found.”
“That sounds a bit culty,” Logan said. “If you listen to that back, you’ll think, ‘Aye, that’s a cult I’ve just described.’”
“I assure you, it is not,” André insisted.
“What about your neighbours? What do they make of it?” Logan pressed. “They can’t be happy having you on their doorstep.”
“We only have one person living nearby, and she is very accommodating,” the other man said. “She comes to visit regularly. Brings baking. Visits the tents to introduce herself to the new arrivals.”
Logan grunted. “I bet she bloody does.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Forget it.” There was a knock at the minibus door, and Logan saw Sinead hovering just beyond the glass. “Aye, in you come,” he said.
It took a moment for Sinead to figure out how the door worked, then she slid it aside and popped her head in. “Sorry, sir. Just had Ben on the radio checking in. Had a bit of a problem he wants to discuss with you.” She looked back over her shoulder. “Also, the people out here are getting cold. They’re asking if they can come in and get their jackets.”
“Tell them to become one with somewhere warm for a few minutes. Spain, or something,” Logan suggested.
Sinead frowned. “Sir?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll be right out.”
He waited until Sinead had retreated, then turned back to the man across the aisle. “I think it’s best if we continue this conversation tomorrow, Mr Douville. Down at the station.”