Ghost Girl (39 page)

As before, there was no note – the wife of an insurance agent, her mother knew better – although she had no life insurance. They would pump her stomach to find the truth. A note would have been helpful. Why today, for example?

The powers that be would conclude that, still stricken by her boy’s death, Mrs Thornton could no longer live with the pain. Mary thought it a shame that Jean Thornton had died before Myra Hindley. She would have appreciated knowing about that. Or perhaps she had known.

‘That woman deserved to die.’

Her father’s brown leather briefcase dangled from one finger. It would only contain the local newspaper. He had been in the library all day. They kept up the fiction that he went to the office.

His raincoat was buttoned to his neck, the collar flat on his shoulders. He had combed his grey hair recently; the tooth grooves were visible. Before going to work he would rinse his metal comb under the kitchen tap and smartly make a straight side parting, flattening it with his palm. He would pass it to Michael. Michael’s hair would not obey the comb. Her dad never used Brylcreem; he said his clients would not trust him. She was a girl so she didn’t join in.

Mary could not see her father’s eyes behind his wire-framed spectacles, the lenses flashed in the kitchen light and it was herself she saw, worn and weary. Time had passed and Michael had been dead longer than he had been alive.

‘She didn’t mean to do it,’ she had said that last time, meaning to comfort.

‘Of course she did. She was evil. She never atoned for her crimes, or helped that kiddie’s mother. She never put her out of her misery. Now she will die never knowing the truth about her son. Hindley only cared about being released. She didn’t atone.’

‘Dad—’

‘We changed your name because of her. Myra was my mother’s name.’ He put his briefcase down. ‘She destroyed families. She destroyed our family.’

‘You never told me why.’ There, she had said it. He wasn’t listening. She had thought she had done something wrong. Mary. She had hated the name, but now it hardly mattered. Names, like people, came and went. She found she could change her name at the drop of a hat. She picked up the kettle; her mother had filled it. She switched it on.

Next to the saucer for spent tea bags was a scrap of paper. She unfolded it. The writing was her mother’s. She could only make out a ‘10/11’, which might be a date. The tenth of November. She knew that date, the pushy woman from the paper was on at her about that. ‘Do you know what this is?’ she said without thinking.

He snatched it off her and tossed it in the swing bin.

‘Dad, I don’t think you should…’ It was the nearest thing they had to a suicide note.

‘It’s rubbish.’

She could retrieve it later. She lifted down the Brooke Bond tea caddy from the cupboard. She would rather have a gin and tonic. ‘Have you been to the lounge?’ To some this would be a needless question. If he had been to the lounge he would have found her mother and his shock would say it all. Not her father – his feelings came out in other ways.

‘Dad, come and sit down, I’ll get you a cuppa.’ She unbuttoned his coat and lifted it from his shoulders. ‘There’s some people coming. I have bad news.’

‘Nothing can be bad with her dead and gone. What’s for tea?’

The bell was shrill and insistent. Like the day when the police came to tell Bob and Jean Thornton that their favourite child was dead.

This time it was the woman her parents called Mary who answered the door.

52

Thursday, 3 May 2012

Stella slotted the van into the last bay on Margravine Road behind Barons Court Underground station and let herself into the redbrick mansion block. She pressed against the grille and peered up the dust-furred shaft. The lift was out of sight. Most residents – young couples and single professionals – were at work. Again she bit back frustration that Suzanne Darnell would not move to a place where she might meet people, be taken out of herself. Stella took the stairs. The flat door was ajar, she pushed it open.

She was in a brightly lit hall. So preoccupied had she been with the morning’s events that she had exited the stairwell at the wrong floor and wandered into the wrong flat.

The layout was identical to her mum’s, but instead of the fusty passage that no amount of cleaning could cheer, sunlight splashed through open doors on to a crimson runner. No flecks of paint or blackened varnish. The hallway, with no newspapers, was spacious and made more so by white-painted walls that, though yellowed with age, appeared fresh. Stella traced this impression to beeswax polish and a new non-toxic multi-surface lavender cleaner she was trialling. Whoever cleaned here knew what they were doing. A wild notion of recruiting them was interrupted when she came face to face with the drawing of the dog.

The black Labrador retriever sat beside a bowl half its size and a huge pot with a red flower, petals sticking out in an uneven circle. The background was a strict division of green for grass and blue for sky. The moulded picture frame was too grand for the child’s crayon drawing. Stella read the words, written in rounded lower case, ‘trixy and tulip. stella aged 6’.

That day the fat waxy crayons had done her bidding and recreated the dog exactly. She had a good feeling in her tummy when her teacher pinned it on the classroom wall. The good feeling went when Stella explained to the children at her table that Trixy was best at sniffing for bodies underwater. She was sent to the headmistress. Her mum had been cross with Terry. Soon after – and so in the seven-year-old’s mind linked – her mum and dad divorced. Why was ‘trixy and tulip’ here?

Stella was in her mother’s flat. It was clean last time she visited; this was a transformation. She paused by the open door to her bedroom. The tiger fleece bedspread from her adolescence was draped over the bed; the rabbit knitted by her nana was propped on the pillow. Bunny had gone to charity, how come he was back?

Stella drifted into the room. No dust on the venetian blind. On the shelves above the bed were the boxes of stationery with the original Clean Slate branding and files bulging with Clean Slate’s first invoices and receipts. Her mother’s electric typewriter was next to them. Gone were the mounds of fabric and the heaps of suppliers’ catalogues that Suzie had collected.

‘Stella, is that you?’ her mum trilled from the living room.

‘Yes.’ The door swung wide when Stella pushed it and banged against the wall. This was because the carton of clothes Suzie refused to let her chuck had gone.

‘You’ll dent the plaster!’

House-proud now.

Suzie was perched in her armchair; she too seemed spruce and to have grown in stature. The plaster ceiling rose of carved blooms and cherubs was free of London grime.

Stella did not need to inspect for vacuum marks on the carpet pile, she could see them from where she stood. The scent of carpet shampoo stung her nostrils. The curtains in the two windows were tied back with coloured lengths of material, presumably from the fabric collection. The panes were so spotless they were invisible. Free of its protective plastic cloth, sunlight brought up the finish on her mother’s pine dinner table. It was no longer laden with objects. Gone was the box of cleaning samples, along with the ‘Bag for Life’ bulging with bargains brokered in junk shops, regardless of need. There was no chipped crockery or postcards from forsaken seaside resorts. Surfaces gleamed.

The room was restored to the room of Stella’s childhood. The rag mat on which she had played with her dad’s Meccano was spread in front of the gas fire.

‘I got your message, Mum.’

‘We’ve made you tea.’ Jack gestured to the familiar diamond of coconut matting on the coffee table. Stella might be seven; time could be turned back. She took the mug and went into the kitchen. Strategically positioned appliances on the deeply cleaned counter made it a showcase for what is possible in a tiny space.

‘What are you doing, love?’ Suzie called.

‘Sticking it in the microwave. I like it hot.’

‘It’s hot,’ Jack joined in.

‘It won’t be enough.’ She took a sip to prove it and fanned at her mouth. It was hot. She came back and sat on the edge of the sofa, now by the window.

On the Saturdays her mum had her – which was most Saturdays – she let her have a bar of chocolate. Sitting here, Stella ate it too quickly, flicking through the
Beano
and later
Jackie
. She had sat here, washed and dressed, waiting for Terry to collect her. Sometimes he could not come.

‘See what a good job your Jack has done?’ Suzie tapped on the obligatory cushion; something had not changed. ‘Take your jacket off, you’re always in a rush.’

Stella shook her head. She was in a rush.

‘We have a proposal.’ Jack lifted his glass of milk to take in Suzanne Darnell.

Stella sniffed an ambush. Jack was inclined to be sentimental about families. ‘Suz, you tell.’ He looked at her mother.

‘I want a job.’ In her effort to get the words out, Suzie Darnell’s intonation was aggressive. Her fingers thwacked the cushion. This provided her daughter with the justification she needed to wrest control of the situation.

‘You’re retired, Mum, you don’t need a job. Your finances are healthy and will be even better if you move. The landlords are desperate, they’ll give you a lump sum and I’ll top it up. We could get a cottage in the country. With a garden. Or sheltered accommodation, maybe by the sea.’

‘I’m only sixty-six and I feel thirty-six. I don’t want to moulder in a henhouse.’

‘Anyone over fifty can live in those places if their partner or husband is older.’

‘My husband is dead.’

Stella’s tea was exactly the right temperature. Although Jack only drank milk, he made perfect tea and coffee.

‘I want a job.’ Her mother was appealing to Jack.

Stella jumped up.

‘Hang on.’ Jack put up a hand. ‘What your mum means is she has skills to offer.’ Without his coat, in his grey knitted sleeveless jumper frayed at the shoulders, crumpled shirt sleeves rolled halfway up his wrists and glasses perched on his nose, Jack had an old-fashioned authority. He was always looking for a home; it seemed he had found one.

Ghost girl. Stella saw herself cross-legged under the table, beneath a tent of fabrics and blankets, dressed in the Red Indian Chief costume her dad had given her but never saw her wear. After she had constructed the wigwam and donned the costume, she hadn’t known what to do next. Nor did she now.

‘Stella, did you hear me?’ It was Jack.

The wigwam vanished. The girl too.

‘What do you think?’

‘I told you she wouldn’t listen.’ Suzie drummed her cushion.

‘Yes, yes, she will!’

Stella had never seen Jack angry before. She sat down.

‘Your mum wants a job with Clean Slate. I thought this was possible. You are looking for another assistant for Jackie.’

‘Doing what?’ At the mention of her business Stella bristled.

‘You tell me. For a start, typing.’ Jack took a long draught of his milk. ‘Suzie’s speed is ninety-five words per minute with a nil error rate.’ He bit his lower lip. ‘That is fast.’

‘We don’t do “typing”, as you call it and Mum hasn’t had that speed for years.’

‘It’s like riding a bicycle.’ Suzie Darnell addressed the electric fire, her fingers skittering over the fabric. ‘The quick brown fox…’

‘Your mum types every day.’ Jack indicated Suzie’s cushion.

Her mother had developed the tic of tapping a cushion when she spoke after Stella had left home. Now she saw what Jack meant. It was a keyboard. Each finger tap was a letter, each beat of her thumb put a space between words. Phantom stenography. Her mum was stressed. If she worked, this would increase.

Stella’s mobile was ringing.

‘Jackie, hello there!’ Timing never better. ‘I’m so sorry about our meeting. An emergency with my mother, as you guessed.’

She went through to the kitchen, the phone tucked between her cheek and her shoulder. She dropped a spot of washing-up liquid in her mug, sluiced it under the hot tap and dried her hands on a crisply ironed towel.

‘No problem. We need to meet to review the short list though.’

‘Yes.’ Stella opened the cupboards until she found where the mugs now went. What shortlist did Jackie mean?

Jackie must have guessed her bewilderment. ‘Six candidates coming in. Three today and three tomorrow, for the post of my assistant.’

‘I’m on my way.’ Too late Stella discovered the phone was on hands free. Her mum and Jack had heard the conversation.

‘I have to go.’ She breezed back. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’ She tipped her head at Jack.

‘I’ve finished here.’ Jack reached for her mum’s mug.

‘Leave that, love.’ Suzie Darnell touched his arm and, looking at her daughter, said: ‘You don’t want to be late for Jackie.’ Her fingers remained still. Stella muttered a goodbye.

Jack was quiet in the lift. He took out a tobacco pouch strapped with an elastic band and, opening it, pinched out a twist, shut the packet and returned it to his coat pocket. Stella hesitated over the lift buttons as if there were any way but down.

Downstairs she wrenched open the gate with a clang and followed Jack. He walked head-down, tweaking tobacco into a thin line, the cigarette paper butterfly-like in his palm.

‘Your mum said, before she had you she worked for the police, typing reports, cases lists, indexing.’ He rolled the paper into a cylinder.

‘We’re not talking yesterday.’ Stella hurried along Margravine Road.

‘She typed for Terry – he couldn’t read his own handwriting. I didn’t know she used to run Clean Slate with you.’ Jack cradled his silver cigarette case.

‘We’re going to see someone.’ The words were out before Stella had formed the idea.

‘Don’t you have interviews?’ Jack slotted his seat belt into the socket.

‘Jackie can do them.’

‘Jackie has a jolly good sense of people,’ Jack agreed, the roll-up bobbing between his lips.

In anyone else the pallid complexion and dark stubble would have been a concern, but Stella guessed this was one of Jack’s good days. ‘Take this.’ She lifted down a street atlas from a compartment above the sun visor. ‘Look up British Grove.’ She executed a six-point turn, crushing a recycling bin against the wall.