Ghosts Know (2 page)

“Never mind your figures. You want to come and walk along the street here. You’d love it. It’s full of the lot of them.”

“You still haven’t said which lot you mean.”

“The Sicks and the Shites and the rest of their sort. You can’t hardly move round here for refugees.”

“It’s Shiite, Bob, and how can you tell by looking? It’s a religion, not a race.”

“Don’t talk to me about religion. That’s their excuse for everything they get up to. I ought to tie a curtain round my head and then I could ride a bike without a helmet. Or I could say I’m an Islam or a Mohammed or whatever they like to be called and then I’d be able to tell the wife and the girl to hide their mugs and shut their gobs because Allah says so. Mind you, that’d be a blessing.”

“Haven’t you any faith of your own, Bob?”

“I’ve got plenty of that and it’s all in myself. And I’ll tell you what else I believe in, this life and that’s your lot. The life these Islams and the rest of them want to rob off us.” He’s interrupted by a screech that puts me in mind of a butcher’s circular blade. “I’m on the fucking radio,” he shouts. “Close that fucking door or I’ll fucking—”

“I’m sorry, you can’t talk like that on the air. Gussy from Prestwich, you’re live on Wilde Card.”

“The things you have to deal with, I think it’s time they had Presenter Awareness Day.”

“I’m not going to argue with you about that.”

“Sometimes what you think shows through, Graham,” Paula says as she stops the playback.

I have the disconcerting sense that my voice has returned to me. “I wouldn’t want to think I’m just controversy for hire.”

“What do you think the new bosses would say if they heard all that?”

If she’s decided I don’t fit in now that Waves has become part of the Frugo empire, I’m glad. I almost retort that I may have had a better offer, but instead I say “What do you?”

“That you could have been sharper with him. You let him get away with those comments about women. Your show isn’t called Gray Area any more. Remember your slogan.”

“It’s a phone-in, not a drone-in.” I’ve played it so often that it starts up like a recording in my head. It was among my more desperate attempts to impress her with a brainstorm, and I barely managed not to laugh when she said it was the one she liked. “You want me to go on the offensive,” I say but don’t necessarily hope.

“If you feel it say it, Graham. Don’t go too far but as far as you can. You know what Frugo tell everyone who works for them.”

“I don’t believe I’ve heard it,” I say without wanting to know.

“Everything you do and say at work should be an ad for where you’re working. Just do everything you can to make certain you’re one, Graham. They’ll be listening to our output before they come to visit. Let’s make sure they know we’re the ones making waves.”

She sits back to end the interview. As I stand up, drawing a sound that might be a sigh of relief or resignation from the chair, she says “It’s about time Bob was on your show again. Tell Christine to put him on next time he calls.” This halts me long enough for her to ask “Was there anything else?”

I won’t mention Hannah Leatherhead until we’ve had more of a word. I’m turning away when Paula says “Aren’t you having your sweet?”

I’m reminded of visiting the doctor’s as a child or of being rewarded with a sweet for some other unpleasant experience. Wrappings rustle as I rummage in the bowl and find a lemon drop. “Thanks,” I say, mostly for the sweet, and hear Paula’s keyboard start to clack as I reach the door.

Nobody in the newsroom seems to know whether they should look at me. I unwrap the sweet into my mouth and drop the cellophane in the bin beside my desk on the way to the control room. Christine spins around in her chair as I ease the door out of its rubbery frame. “Was it bad?” she murmurs.

She’s enough of a reason for me to keep working at Waves—the eternal valentine of her gently heart-shaped face framed by soft spikes of black hair that’s cropped to the nape of her long neck, her slim lithe body in a black polo-neck and matching jeans, her eyes alert for my answer, her pink lips parted in anticipation. “It isn’t going to change my life,” I say, which makes me aware that I’ve yet to mention Hannah Leatherhead.

It’s Walk To Work Day, but every workday is for me. As I step out of the apartment building, where the massive lintel over the tall thick door still sports the insignia of a Victorian broker, the gilded name-plate of Walter Belvedere’s literary agency glints above my handwritten cardboard tag. Perhaps he can place my novel if I ever finish it. A train swings onto the bridge over the street with a screech of wheels on the curve of the track, and I’m reminded of the noise that made Bob from Blackley lose control. Though the sun is nearly at its peak, the street is darkened by office blocks—you could imagine the shadows are their age made visible, more than a century of it. Sunlight meets me on Whitworth Street, where a man in shorts with a multitude of pockets is parading the biggest and certainly the bluest poodle I’ve ever seen. Along Princess Street girls are cycling in the first-floor window of Corporate Sana (“We mind if your body’s healthy,” says the slogan), but Christine isn’t in the gym; she’s producing the food and news show, Currant Affairs. As I pass her flat on Whitworth Street I glance up at the windows, but there’s no sign of an intruder.

Where Oxford Street turns into Oxford Road a Palace faces a Palace. The one that isn’t a hotel displays posters for an American psychic, Frank Jasper. Early lunchers are taking sandwiches or sushi down the steps to eat by the canal. They make me feel later than I am, and I hurry along the western stretch of Whitworth Street to Waves. The guard at his desk nods to me as the automatic doors let me in, and a lift takes me to the fourth floor, where Shilpa at Reception is on the phone, attempting to explain that there’s no prize for solving Rick’s Trick. My badge on its extending wire unlocks the door to the newsroom, where Trevor Lofthouse is playing back a television newscast on his computer. I’m making for my desk when I see the name Goodchild on the screen.

It’s a press conference with Kylie Goodchild’s parents and a teenager. At least it isn’t using any music. Mrs Goodchild is a redhead, rather too plump for the unbuttoned jacket of her grey suit. Her husband is even broader and a head taller, and resembles a pugilist despite his tie and dark suit, mostly because of his large flattened nose. To judge by the name tattooed on the teenager’s neck, he’s Kylie’s boyfriend. He’s warning anyone who may have abducted her, in language so ferocious it blots out his mouth—censorship does, at any rate. Mr Goodchild jerks a hand that isn’t quite a fist at him, and a journalist takes the chance to ask “Is it right you’re bringing in a psychic?”

As Goodchild gives a nod so fierce it looks defensive, his wife says “We’ll do anything we’ve got to that will bring our Kylie back.”

In the control room Christine meets me with a smile and a wave as if we didn’t part just a few hours ago. The news gives way to my signature tune, and a girl’s even brighter voice chirps my slogan as I don the headphones and read the screen. “First up is Margaret from Hyde,” I say. “You’re calling about Kylie Goodchild, Margaret.”

“I’m praying for her and her parents. I feel in my heart they’ll find her now Frank Jasper’s helping them.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He’s meant to be marvellous, isn’t he? One of my neighbours went to see him last night at the Palace and she said he was.”

“Did he tell her what she wanted to hear?”

“He most definitely did.” She’s either unaware of my irony or ignoring it. “He was in touch with her father.”

“I take it the gentleman’s no longer with us.”

“He died a couple of years ago. Mr Jasper knew that and he knew his name was John.”

“That’s unusual.”

“He told her a lot more than that.” By the sound of it Margaret has spotted my skepticism. “He knew she used to worry about her father but he says she needn’t any longer,” she insists. “And he knew her grandchild’s having some problems at school but they’ll be sorted out before long. And her father’s glad she’s been able to have some work done on her house and take a holiday she’s been wanting to take.’”

I’ve found Jasper’s web site.
Frank Jasper—Your Psychic Friend,
the opening page calls him. He’s holding out his hands as though to bless his audience or to offer them an invisible gift, unless he’s inviting donations. His ingratiating chubby face is topped with a shock of hair so pale that it may have been bleached by the sun that bronzed his skin, or else all this is as artificial as his wide-eyed look. I think he’s trying to appear alert and welcoming and visionary too. His denim shirt is almost the same watery blue as his eyes, and its open collar displays a bright green pendant nestling among wiry golden curls on his chest We’re told he has advised police on investigations in America and helped recover stolen goods. His customers are promised that he’ll tell them the name of their spirit guardian; supposedly we all have one of those. All this makes me angry, and so does Margaret’s account, though not with her. “Did she really need her father to tell her any of that?” I ask as gently as I can.

“That wasn’t all. He said her father was standing by her shoulder.”

“Don’t say he said her father was her spirit guardian.”

“That’s exactly what he did say. How did you know?”

“Maybe I’m as psychic as he is.”

One reason I’ve grown confrontational is that Paula has appeared in the doorway of her office. “Did he say what the lady’s father looked like?”

“Just like her favourite memory of him.’”

I don’t want to risk destroying this, even if there’s no reason to assume Margaret’s neighbour is listening. “And he doesn’t only tell people what they want to hear,” Margaret says with some defiance. “He told one couple their son killed himself when they thought he died in an accident.”

Paula is advancing across the newsroom, but I don’t need her to tell me how to feel. “Well,” I say, “that must have done them some good. Cheered them up no end, I expect”

“He has to tell the truth when he sees it, doesn’t he? He said their son had found peace.”

“I hope the parents have despite Mr Jasper.’”

“Why do you say that? It was because of him. He said now their son is always with them.”

“He’s never turned into their spirit guardian.”

“Wouldn’t you want him to? Don’t you believe in anything?”

Paula has come into the control room to stand at Christine’s shoulder like a parody of the subject under discussion. “I believe Mr Jasper is a stage performer,” I inform anyone who wants to hear.

“If you think you’re as good as he is,” Margaret retorts, “why don’t you have him on your show and see who’s best?”

I’m close to declaring that I hope I’m better in several ways when Paula grabs Christine’s microphone. “That’s what you need, Graham. Let’s have him on.”

“Excuse me a moment, Margaret. I’ve got our manager in my ear.” I take myself off the air to ask “What are you saying I should do?”

“Bring him in and question him as hard as you like and let your callers talk to him.”

“Margaret, we’ll see if I can grant your wish. Keep listening and you may hear Mr Jasper.”

“I’ll tell my friends,” she says, not entirely like a promise.

Christine’s microphone is still open, and I’ve been hearing Paula say “See if you can book Graham to watch him on stage before he comes in.”

I play a trail for Rick Till Five so as to speak to Christine. “Don’t say who you’re booking for. Just reserve a seat as close to the stage as you can and I’ll pay cash.”

“All right, Mr Devious. You sound as if you’ve already made up your mind about him.”

“Haven’t you?”

“I’ll leave it till I’ve seen him.”

“Go ahead, book two seats. I expect Waves can stand the expense.” I should have asked if she wanted to come, not least in case she might notice details I overlook. “The more eyes the better,” I say and go back on the air.

“Now there’s a Jay down here in the stalls,” Frank Jasper says and advances to the footlights, which intensify the golden glow of his tanned face. “I know they mean a lot to someone. I’m getting a sense of some unfinished business. Is it J for Jo? Somewhere in these first few rows? Jo something, is that what I’m being told?”

He’s stretching out his hands in an appeal you could take for an offer. His intent gaze passes over Christine and me in the fourth row, and I’m tempted to respond. If I claim to be Joe, how will he carry on? Perhaps Christine guesses my thoughts, because she rests one hand on my thigh before giving me a tiny frown and an equally private shake of her head, at which point someone speaks—an elderly woman in the aisle seat beyond Christine. “Is it Josie?”

“You’re absolutely right. That’s what I’ve been hearing, Josephine.”

“We mostly called her Josie.”

“I know you did. She wasn’t older than you, was she? Pardon the personal question.”

“She was our aunt, mine and my sister’s.”

“I need you to know I wasn’t saying you were old. Now don’t tell me, didn’t she have a lot of grey hair?”

“There was still a bit of red in it.”

“Sure, that’s what I’m saying it was mostly grey. Okay, don’t say anything, let me hear this now. I’m getting something about glasses. Some glasses that were broken.”

“We did have a pair mended for her.”

“She didn’t always wear them, though.”

“Sometimes she forgot and we had a big argument about it.”

“She wants you to know you mustn’t blame yourself for anything you said, because now she can see fine. We all will when we’re where she is. Wait now, I’m hearing something else. She likes to talk, Josie, doesn’t she?”

“She didn’t say a lot. Half the time if we asked her anything she’d just sulk.”

“That’s why she’s talking so much now. She wants to pass on all the stuff she didn’t get to say. Don’t you think she was like that because of her illness?”

“I suppose that must have been part of it.”

“I guess she suffered some, didn’t she? But she wants you to know how much you helped. Now what she was saying before, is she going to be concerned about a will?”