Ghosts Know (26 page)

It seems even more detached than it used to sound in the headphones.

I can’t be bothered to decide whether I’m speaking aloud, since there’s nobody else to hear. I’m more interested in learning what it means, though I’m not too concerned about that either. It falls silent as I duck under the Oxford Street bridge, which is so low that I feel as if it’s forcing my head down to focus my attention on the section of canal beyond the arch. That’s where I found Kylie Goodchild.

A ripple so gentle it looks surreptitious passes through the water as I straighten up. I don’t see how it can have started at the drain in the wall, where the sodden litter has grown restless. Wads of newspaper are plastered against the bars like a pathetic substitute for the bouquets people leave at the scene of a tragedy. A crumpled can and an empty bottle of another kind of lager sway against the drain and rear up from the water as if they’re proposing a toast, unless they’re suggesting one reason why Kylie was knocked into the canal. How can they be so active? The water pouring through the bars doesn’t seem violent enough. Why am I continuing to loiter now I’m opposite the drain? It won’t show me anything I’m not already sure of; I know who must have killed Kylie, whatever the police believe. Am I hoping that the culprit will return to the scene of his crime so that I can alert the police? I’m not convinced that criminals behave as obligingly as the media would like the rest of us to think. Perhaps I’m simply lingering out of respect for Kylie’s memory, but the sight of all the litter doesn’t help me feel respectful; it adds to my frustrated rage. When a pale limp hand bobs up from the depths, fumbling at the garbage in an attempt to clear it away from the bedraggled head—the depths of my mind, not of the canal, but just now it feels as if there’s little difference—I retreat towards the bridge. I don’t know why I went this way beside the canal.

I’m increasingly uncertain why I left Christine at all. If there are issues we need to resolve, I can’t on my own. Perhaps I had to leave her alone so that we’ll both be ready to talk. Surely that’s what I meant was enough: the argument. I raise my head on the far side of the arch and am picking up speed—I don’t want to return to my flat only to find she’s not there— when I see people blocking the towpath ahead.

Wherever they’ve just come from, there are four of them. Perhaps they’ve been leaning against the wall of the office block that looms over the canal. They’re all wearing studded denim singlets, but they remind me somehow of shadows on the loose, and when they advance into the light from an upper floor I see they’re black. The thought feels like a trace of racism. I’m ashamed of it but secretly amused by my own unpredictability, and glad I never let it slip on the air. I mustn’t hesitate in case this looks prejudiced, and as the largest of the youths mutters something I walk not too aggressively nor with too much caution towards them. We’re several yards apart when the man who spoke says “What you looking at, boy?”

‘I don’t know. What am I looking at?” This is always my reaction to the question, but perhaps it’s unwise in the circumstances. “Nothing much” seems ill-advised too, and so I say “I wasn’t looking.”

“Took his fucking time about it, Si,” says the youth who’s nearest to the water.

I don’t know if he means my answer, which sounds infuriatingly feeble now it’s out, or the look. “Just finding my way home,” I confine myself to saying.

“That’s fucking funny, in it, Si?”

“Fucking right, Jay.” Si sounds irritated, possibly with him. “What wasn’t you looking at?” he demands of me.

I’ve had enough. I’m not going to feel like a coward, and I can’t keep up the performance. “Why don’t you tell me,” I say, “since it means so much to you.”

“We know, in it, Si?”

“Shut it, Jay.”

They’ve all halted on a dark stretch of the towpath. I’m about to do without an answer and walk forward when Si enquires “Was you going to swim home?”

If this is a threat I’ll make sure at least one of them ends up in the canal—and then I grasp that they’ve been wondering why I loitered near the drain. “Don’t tell me,” I say with a version of mirth, “there’s someone in this town who doesn’t know who I am.”

“We fucking do, and what you’re after.” Perhaps to head off another rebuke from his leader, Jay says “Evidence.”

At once I suspect who they are and why they’re here, which provokes me to ask “What do you think I might find?”

“You don’t want to fucking know, boy.”

“Fucking shut it, Jay,” Si says and turns his ire on me. “Looking for some of it now, is you?”

“I couldn’t say what I’m looking at.” This is too close to the rejoinders I was trying to suppress, which makes me angrier still. “Don’t you boys have anything to say for yourselves?” I ask the silent pair, and then I find a better question. “Can I guess one of you is Levi?”

“Don’t you fucking call us boy, nigger,” says the youth nearest to the silent office block.

I’m not sure whether he has just inadvertently confirmed he called my show after Kylie Goodchild’s funeral. Before I can learn whether they’re Wayne’s gang and in that case where Wayne is, the fourth member says “Let’s give the cunt something to look at, Si.”

“Stick your fucking eyes on this, boy,” Si tells me and reaches inside his singlet to produce a knife.

I find myself trying to think it’s as childish a gesture as Jasper’s schoolboy trick, but the blade is serrated and close to a foot long. When Si takes a deliberate pace towards me his cronies copy him, and the blade glints like all their eagerness made visible. “I’m sorry if anyone feels insulted,” I say and hold my ground. “I didn’t call you anything you hadn’t already called me.”

Their only response is another step forward. I’d like to think they look as if they’re rehearsing a musical routine in the dark. I retreat a pace and then, with furious reluctance, another. “Look, this is pointless.”

It sounds like a bad joke about the knife, but saying so won’t help. How far do I have to back to Oxford Street? I won’t glance around—it would look too much like fear. “You don’t want to use that,” I say instead. “There’ll be witnesses.”

Some must be close, even if I can’t hear them. They’ll be on the far side of the arch. From this side of the bridge the towpath isn’t visible from the street, which is walled off by a block of shops. Si glances beyond me and shows his teeth, then takes a stride that leaves his companions behind. He must mean to catch me before I reach the bridge—and then I’m thumped so hard on the back of the head it turns me sick.

I think someone else—Wayne—was skulking behind me until I swing dizzily around to see I’ve backed into the headstone of the bridge. Si and the others burst out laughing, if with little humour. At least my blunder should placate them, and I duck beneath the arch. I’ve stumbled a couple of paces when I hear a rush of footsteps, and Si shouts “Get the motherfucker.”

The bridge nearly clubs my skull again as I stagger around to look. Jay is racing towards me with a knife at least as long as Si’s. His swiftness seems to drag his lips back from his teeth. Though I want to stand and fight him, I can’t deal with the knife. I crouch lower than the bridge and dash beneath. I feel as though it and the gang are forcing me to bow to the site of Kylie Goodchild’s death—and then I see what I haven’t taken into account. The steps to the street aren’t immediately beyond the bridge.

They’re about fifty yards ahead, leading to a railed-off walkway. The railings are too high for anyone to vault over, and you have to follow the walkway back to the bridge before you can reach the street. I’m sprinting so fast to the far end of the walkway that my head throbs with every pounding step when I hear Jay and the rest of them run out from under the bridge.

At least they can’t get onto the walkway. My lungs are aching almost as fiercely as my head by the time I reach the steps. I’m stumbling upwards when I see that Si and another of the gang have followed me while Jay and the fourth member are staying by the bridge. The next moment Jay’s crony squats and cups his hands, and Jay uses them to help him vault over the rail.

Before I can retreat the youth who’s outdistanced Si runs up the steps behind me. I haven’t time to think—I feel as if my clenched fists are swinging me around to punch him in the face. His lips split and squash wetly against my fist, and his chin bruises a knuckle. I would hit him again, but he flounders down a couple of steps until Si thumps his shoulders with an arm to steady him. They’re blocking my retreat, and Si lifts his knife as if I’ve given him another reason to use it. Jay’s helper has run to prevent me from jumping down onto the towpath, even if I could without breaking a leg. My only chance is to take Jay on.

As I start along the walkway he jerks up his knife exactly as Si did. I want to think that all he can do is imitate his leader; it makes him seem less of a threat. Si is tramping after me, and his companion looks determined to prove he’s at least as dangerous, wiping his bloody grin with the back of one hand while he pulls out a knife with the other. The elongated window of a restaurant overlooks the walkway, and diners are frowning at the spectacle, but that’s as much as they seem prepared to do. No, several have produced their mobile phones, and some are speaking into them, though more than one diner is using a phone to take photographs of me and my pursuers. The people who are phoning may be in touch with the police, and perhaps the others mean to record some evidence, but why isn’t anyone coming to my aid? One man makes to stand up, but the woman at his table seizes his arm. Another diner doesn’t quite leave his seat but thrusts his hands at the window as I come abreast of him, and I think he wants to ward off the sight of me until I realise he’s urging me to jump over the railing and make my escape. Other customers are brandishing their phones to reassure me that help is on the way or to warn off my pursuers, but I don’t know if Si and his injured crony are even looking; their deliberate footsteps don’t falter. They must think Jay’s enough to stop me, but he won’t, whatever I have to do. The sight of people passing on the street above the steps behind him lends me courage, and so does my rage at the stupidity of the situation. “Everyone’s watching you, Jay,” I call to him. “You don’t want to do anything you wouldn’t like people to see.”

He grimaces like a child who’s been rebuked and lurches forward. I wonder if he’s forgetting the knife, which looks close to drooping in his fist. It’s just inches from the handrail, and at once I see what to do. At a moment like this you can only follow your instincts. “He can’t help you,” I say almost before I’m aware of meaning to speak, and nod at his crony on the towpath.

He glances down, which is all I need. I dodge towards the restaurant, where one diner has put down her knife and fork in order to cover her eyes while the woman beside her mouths some incomprehensible advice at me. If I haven’t time to dart past Jay I’ll knock the weapon out of his hand, over the edge of the walkway. I’m within inches of the gap he’s left when he swerves towards me. “Fucking watch this,” he shouts and jabs the knife at my face.

I jerk my head back and punch his arm with all my strength. It isn’t enough. He grunts, but the knife scarcely wavers. The point of the blade swells into an enormous close-up, and for an instant it’s all I can focus on except for his grinning face. He looks triumphant, proud of himself. I haven’t even time to gasp before the point goes out of focus, and I feel it penetrate my eyeball.

The shock of the pain is so great that all the skin around my eye winces as though it’s desperate to help me blink. In a moment I can’t see the blade at all. I seem to feel my eye bulge helplessly, and liquid streams down my cheek. I have a random nightmare thought that it’s about to trickle into my mouth. I see the blade as Jay snatches it back, but only with my right eye—the left one is an aching absence where no light can reach, since I’ve closed its trembling lid in an attempt to keep in what
ever’s left of it. Jay stares at me in disgust, then shoves me aside so violently that I almost topple over the handrail.

I cling to it with both hands while his running footsteps and the others fade into the distance. I’m supporting myself for fear I may pass out, but I’m trying to hope that if I don’t move it may give my injury more of an eventual chance to heal. The world looks flattened and darkened, and the left side of my face is the focus of a dull ache that feels like the threat of far worse. I’m willing it not to develop when I hear someone run down the steps from the bridge. “Keep still,” he says so calmly that it has to be his professional tone, “keep it still.” His last words come too late. I barely glance towards him with my right eye, but the left one moves in unison, and I feel the eyeball tear against the lid.

“And that’s the news from Trevvy here on Waves, your tuned-in
chum. I’m your pal Derry and I hope we’ll all have major fun together for the next two hours. You don’t want me in your ear if I can’t put a smile on your face…” He plays the jingle for the Derek Dennison Show—“Listening to you. The listener’s the winner”—and then he’s back. “That’s the ticket, if you listen you’re a winner. Do you know, we forgot to tell you the weather. What’s it going to be, Chrissy? Just don’t use any of those long words the rest of us won’t understand.”

“Hot and humid and it could be thundery.”

“Hot and human and it could be blundery. A bit like me, were you going to say? I thought you were here to produce me, not reduce me. No joking, folks, she’s the best producer I’ve ever had on Waves.”

“The only one.”

“Well, now you mention it, don’t. Coming up in the next hour we’ll be talking about Twin Town Day. That’s me and you at home, not Chrissy, she’ll be out there slaving over a hot switchboard. Are there any twins listening? Do you fancy telling us what it’s like? And if any of you, that’s not just twins, if anyone’s been to our twin town and you’ve got any stories about it, we’re all ears. What do we think of the whole idea, anyway? What’s the point of being twins with a town in another country? What do we get out of it? Stop there, Chrissy.”

“I suppose we get—”