Ghost Girl (12 page)

When she edged out past him, he winked at Mary.

‘Miss Crane, it’s County Hall.’ The woman from behind the typewriter was waving a note. Miss Crane took it, read it and walked away down the corridor with the woman. She must have forgotten about Mary.

The little girl waited until both women were out of sight.

The man came out of the toilets. ‘You OK?’

‘I was locked in.’

‘Those bolts are a devil. There’s a knack: lift as you slide.’

Mary’s sandals squelched on the floor, leaving a trail of damp footprints. Her plan was taking shape.

12

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Stella left the van in St Peter’s Square to avoid Terry’s neighbours, although in over a year she hadn’t met one. The petrol gauge was on empty; she would fill up at the garage on King Street on her way to her flat. She was parked outside a house that had belonged to a client who had died last year. The area was peopled with ghosts; not that Stella believed in them. She observed with disapproval that the new owners had replaced Mrs Ramsay’s 1960s black and white curtains in the dining room with wooden blinds. Jackie had suggested Stella drop a leaflet in for the new owners but Stella was not keen to clean a house when she had known the previous occupant. Jack had said this was because she was fond of Mrs Ramsay. To prove him wrong, Stella resolved now that she would return with a leaflet and put it through the brass letterbox, which even from the street she could see was in need of a buff.

She punched in Terry’s alarm code; the beeping stopped and she caught the chimes of the church clock striking ten.

She opened the basement door, this time switching on the light and, feigning confidence, stomped down the stone steps.

She avoided the photograph wall but still had the conviction that her many faces were watching her. She was haunting herself.

The blue folder was on the table where she had left it. This mildly surprised her, as if Terry might have filed it away in her absence. She sat down and directed the lamp down. She properly examined each photograph. Some were of roads stretching away. She had already fathomed that photographs labelled for example with ‘3a’ or ‘3b’ were of the same road as the first photograph labelled simply with a ’3’. They were close-ups of features in the same street: a tree trunk, a telegraph pole. There were only two prints in the file with one number, these were ‘1’ and ‘4’.

She could see nothing new and was beginning to think there was nothing to see when on the photograph labelled ‘5b’ in Terry’s handwriting she spotted something by the kerb. She looked closer and made out a witness appeal notice. It was an older version of the one in King Street marking where Joel Evans had been killed, but like that one it was anchored by sand bags draped over the cross bars that, with the poor quality printing, looked even more like Jack’s piglets. She tried to read the writing on the notice, but it was too small.

She flicked through the photographs but found no others with boards or anything that gave an indication of the date the picture was taken. It was late and she was cleaning the police station in the morning; she should go back to her flat. Yet she was sure she was on to something. Jack was the one person who she could be sure would be awake at this hour. She had to hope he wasn’t driving his train or he wouldn’t answer. In the subterranean chamber there was no signal. She gathered up the folder and ran upstairs to the hall. In the thin light from the intermittent lamp-post across the street, vaguely aware of Terry in the shadows overseeing her every move, Stella dialled Jack Harmon’s number.

Two rings and then it went to voicemail. The abruptness of the switchover made her suspect Jack had cut the line. Had he broken his promise about his night-time business? This was why she didn’t want him anywhere near a police station. She was about to hang up when she changed her mind and left a message: ‘Jack. Me. I’ve got a job for you.’ She paused, then added: ‘A cleaning job.’ She grimaced; she liked to see a person’s reaction when she was talking to them. She had forgotten to tell Jack about the case.

Still holding the blue folder she went out and double-locked the door. She hurried around to St Peter’s Square and clambered into the van. She turned on the engine and glanced up at Mrs Ramsay’s house – she would always think of it as Mrs Ramsay’s – and thought of Jackie’s idea about the leaflet. She opened the glove box and found the stash of flyers kept in all Clean Slate vans. She was startled by her phone blaring through the van’s speakers. The caller’s name flashed up on the dashboard screen.

Jack Mob.

She pressed the ‘pick up’ button on the steering wheel. She loved her new van’s gadgets.

‘You’ve got a cleaning job for me,’ Jack said in a hushed voice.

‘Why are you whisp— Oh, never mind. Yes. No.’

‘Great that you’re clear. I love that.’

‘I mean it’s not cleaning.’ She paused. ‘It’s a case.’

‘A detective job?’

‘Probably nothing.’

‘But you think it’s probably something.’ Jack’s voice was hardly audible.

Stella stuffed the flyers back in the glove box and picked the blue folder up from the passenger seat. ‘Yes. I think it is,’ she said, opening it at the first photograph.

‘See you in the morning, then.’

The light on the dashboard went out.

13

Thursday, 28 April 1966

‘Hurry up, Michael. We’ll be late and it won’t be you in trouble.’ Mary used her mother’s imperatives.

‘Are we going to the park?’ Michael wrestled his arm from her grasp. ‘Let go, you are hurt-ing me. I’m com-ing any-way.’ His
Lost in Space
robot voice.

‘No. We are going home.’ Mary snatched at Michael but he broke free and hopped and skipped about in front of her.

‘All-firm-ative’, he croaked, in hazy imitation.

Mary snatched his flapping shirt-tail. There was the sound of ripping fabric and both children were brought up short.

‘You’ve torn it,’ Michael wailed.

‘It was your fault, you should have behaved.’ Mary could not see Clifford Hunt; if he was not at the swings she had lost him. She pinched Michael’s arm. ‘Keep up.’

‘This isn’t the way home.’ Michael pointed back towards the first railway arch. ‘It’s that way.’ Then, ‘I’ll have to tell Mummy about my shirt. She’ll see.’

‘You did it playing football.’

‘Then I’ll be in trouble.’

‘Carry on like this and we’ll be late and Br’er Fox will get you.’

This silenced Michael. Mary’s truncated telling of Tar-Baby, an Uncle Remus story read to her class at her old school, had instilled in Michael the vivid possibility that like Br’er Rabbit he would be stuck to his teddy bear coated in strawberry jam and be gobbled up by the fox. Mary knew to use the threat sparingly to maintain potency.

There was no one at the swings. She yanked Michael past the paddling pool and the sandpit where some younger children were playing: all girls, no Clifford. One of them shouted out Michael’s name and he waved enthusiastically at them. Mary pushed him on and veered down the dark path beneath the railway arches.

‘You said we weren’t going to the slide.’ Michael spoke more to himself than his sister.

Clifford Hunt wasn’t at the slide or on the roundabout. He was too old for roundabouts, but Mary had seen him there with older boys in black blazers, smoking cigarettes. The last arch was closed off with a gate. A ring of plastic barriers was in the middle of the path. It surrounded a patch of drying concrete on which was engraved a heart pierced with an arrow. Mary’s own heart was thumping. Letters had been carved into the heart: ‘M. T.’ Clifford had done it. The letters looked new, so he must be hiding in the bushes. She felt the fizzing in her stomach that happened on Christmas Eve or every leap year on her real birthday.

Clifford loved her as much as she loved him.

Michael broke her reverie. ‘Those spell my name.’

‘What?’

‘M. T. means Michael Thornton. That’s me.’ He squeezed between the barriers and before Mary could stop him was scrabbling at the ‘M’ with his fingers. The concrete had hardened so he made little impact. He grabbed a twig and managed to dig at the ‘M’.

‘Leave it.’

The little boy jumped when Mary shook him. ‘You’ve ruined it.’

Michael stared up at her in astonishment. ‘Did… you… write… it?’ He got the words out between shakes.

‘It’s for me.’

‘Who would do that?’ Michael asked the question without malice.

‘They will be very angry when I say what you did.’ Mary stalked back up the path, sure Clifford Hunt was watching. She did not turn at the sound of footsteps or when she felt his hand on her bare arm, but to her horror she felt herself blushing.

Michael put his hand on his sister’s arm. He felt sad, but did not know why. He knew that the girls in his class had drawn the heart; it was like the one they did on the classroom window. He had not known that Mary’s name were the same letters as his; he had hazily supposed that he had his own name and his own letters. He wished that the heart did belong to Mary.

Mary stared at her brother with hatred, then as quickly as it had come the feeling went. Clifford had put a heart in concrete for her. The heart would be there forever and ever.

14

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

The house was a rectangular monolith with little to recommend it in terms of elegance. The spindly lamp over the porch wanted a jet of gas to cast light on the sweep of drive, once a turning circle for barouches and phaetons; weeds flourished through the gravel. Jack spotted an alarm box on the wall, although nothing signified it was active. This time he kept out of the range of the camera, although he doubted it functioned either.

Mallingswood House had a tired air. Jack was familiar with boys’ boarding schools that limped along on a shoestring, dependent on parents who, saddled with unwanted children or living abroad, were perhaps less concerned about educational standards than with snatching at privilege. His father had deposited him in just such an establishment.

He had walked from the Great West Road and was on the south side of Weltje Road. His rucksack, packed for his stay with his new Host, was light. She wasn’t a proper Host; he would be her guest only for as long as it took to get back his street atlas. He had been tempted to go in from the front: a bold move, certainly, but people seldom saw what was under their noses. His most effective hiding places had been in plain sight. Except that the woman who had picked up his book had seen what was under her nose. He walked slowly back along Weltje Road, looking for a means of entering without breaking.

The back was even more featureless than the front. The few windows were in darkness; trade gates, warped on their hinges, were secured by a chain. He looked again and found the chain was looped around a bolt: he could just unwrap it. Casual intruders might be fooled, but not him. His Host had issued him an invitation. He hitched his rucksack on to his shoulders and eased open the gate; then he replaced the chain exactly as it had been.

Jack found himself in a dark concreted yard and, wasting no time, flitted over to the building and immediately found his point of entry. The putty in a rotting box sash came away in strips when he ran his hand along it. Methodically Jack arranged these on the ground in order like a jigsaw. Gently he levered the pane out and rested it against the wall.

In one movement he vaulted on to the sill and, twisting, insinuated himself through the opening. Inside, he took a moment to gauge whether he had been heard. Nothing, but he would not make himself at home yet. Efficiently, his movements economical, he lifted the snib on the door. Outside he replaced the glass and the putty, regretful that his Host could not appreciate his care. He retrieved his rucksack and slipped inside, closing the door. He could come and go as he pleased.

His torch revealed a long passage, the ceiling lowered by tracking that supported heating and water pipes; he dipped his head to avoid them. He passed closed doors either side, which he would explore once he had his bearings.

One door was open. Jack crept inside and, certain now that he was alone on this floor, tried a switch by the door. A warm comforting glow from a yellow fabric shade gave all the feel of a friendly sitting room but what he saw was mundane. A black plastic bin bag, cardboard boxes spilling out brown and white envelopes of different sizes. One step and he kicked a stack of filing trays; one cracked when it hit the stone floor. He turned off the light and went behind the door and counted to ten.

When no one came he risked the light again and saw a plastic crate filled with cellular blankets like the ones at his school, the initials MHPS stitched along a hem. The room swooped. Jack grabbed a swivel chair and kept his balance. He was a seven-year-old boy devising his escape in the basement of his school.

The air was still and deathly cold; sunlight never reached this room. Jack was an Underground train driver: he preferred the tunnels, bricks coated with centuries of dust, to the daylight. But here a sense of evil was suddenly palpable. He forced himself into the present and, keeping to the wall, stole along the passage.

The heating was not on or the pipes above his head would be hot. Basements in institutions generally housed the generator and the boiler and were stifling and stuffy. Mallingswood House was saving on heating bills; this too was familiar.

At intervals a green ‘Fire Exit’ sign affixed to a cross beam confirmed his direction. The silence was unremitting and Jack almost wished to hear some sound, even if it signalled danger.

At last his torch picked out a flight of steps. The trick was to enter the bones of the house and build up an affinity that made it more likely he would be invisible to his Hosts. He had noticed that however alert they were on the street, even they tended to relax in their own homes. On the top step he was enveloped by a smell he knew well: stale rice pudding and polished parquet floors. He was surprised to find it reassuring.

There was the front door of studded wood. The diamond lights that framed it projected shapes across black and white tiles. To his left rose a grand staircase not diminished by worn brown lino. A curving balustrade ended with a volute newel supporting by six balusters thickened by layers of faded cream gloss paint.