Ghosts Know (7 page)

“He says somebody here was talking to Kylie.”

“He didn’t name anyone,” I point out to the listeners as well.

Wayne looks ready to shove Kylie’s father aside. “Which fucker else is he going to mean?”

“You mustn’t say things like that,” Margaret Goodchild pleads. “You’ll be getting us thrown out.”

“What doesn’t he want folk hearing?” her husband demands just as. Jasper says “He saw her recently. That’s what I’m getting now.”

I won’t let this go unchallenged. “I’m sure that’s true of somebody in here.”

“Sounds like he’s fucking talking about you,” Wayne shouts and glares at the book, which Jasper appears to be pointing at me. “Is he in her fucking album?”

“I’m sorry, that’s got to be all,” I say and interrupt the broadcast with a Frugohome insurance advert. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Please look in Kylie’s album first,” Margaret Goodchild begs. “See if you’re there.”

“Forgive me, Mrs Goodchild, but I can tell you I’m not without looking.”

“Then you won’t mind fucking doing what she wants,” says Wayne, “will you?”

No doubt he’s concerned for his girlfriend, but his aggression seems a little studied. I suppose he’d feel unmanly to let his actual emotions show. Paula strides out of the control room, and I think she’s off to call security until she halts at Trevor Lofthouse’s desk. Meanwhile Margaret Goodchild takes a small framed photograph out of her handbag. “Here she is,” she says as if she’s trying to pretend she has no reason to sound anything but proud. “Please don’t be sure till you’ve had a proper look.”

The photograph shows the head and shoulders of a slim pretty teenager with long hair not nearly as red as her mother’s and a smile that looks as though the camera had to take it by surprise. I take time to scrutinise it before saying “I’m really sorry, Mrs Goodchild, but I’ve never seen her that I can remember.”

I don’t see what else I can do besides looking sympathetic, no easy task while I’m furious with Jasper for offering her hope that’s no better than a trick. The advert is coming to an end, and I’m finding another to keep Wayne off the air when Paula ushers Lofthouse into the control room. “Take everyone outside, Graham,” she says. “Trevor will sit in for you.”

I’m not far from feeling driven off the air. As I let Trevor have my place at the console, Kylie’s mother hustles Wayne and her husband out of the studio. She’s still displaying the photograph, which Christine gives more than a glance. “Here’s Trevor Lofthouse filling in for Graham,” Lofthouse says as I follow Jasper out, and Paula is about to speak when Jasper halts. “Wait, there’s something else,” he says.

He’s facing Trevor’s desk. The hubbub of the newsroom subsides to not much more than a murmur. Now that he has his audience’s attention he says “I’m nearly seeing her.”

Kylie’s mother swallows so hard that wrinkles dig into her throat. She’s barely able to ask “Is she here?”

“Not now.” For a moment I take him to be urging silence, and then he says “She’s under something, or she was.”

Kylie’s father drags his nails across his forehead. Before the marks can fade he mutters “Don’t say she’s under the ground, for God’s sake.”

“I’m not seeing that. I feel she was under a bridge.”

Is he playing with the possibility that she has run away from home to sleep rough? Kylie’s father stares at him, but the performance seems to be over. He takes the photograph none too gently from his wife and holds it above his head. “Come on, some of you saw her. You must of been here when she came.”

Everybody gazes at the photograph, and then heads begin to shake. Once they all have Paula says “You might try asking Shilpa at Reception.’”

“She’s the girl I was talking to before.”

I suspect Paula hoped to ease him and his companions out of the newsroom, but she isn’t as skilful as Jasper with tricks. Goodchild is still elevating the photograph when his wife gives Jasper a beseeching look. “Can you see anything else, Mr Jasper?” she says with not much of a voice.

“I don’t believe I’m going to be told any more just now”

“She’s all right, right?” Wayne insists. “You told Marg she wasn’t here like the ones you reckon you talk to.”

“She wasn’t speaking to me, no.”

As I refrain from commenting that he’s told the truth twice on the run, Kylie’s mother says “Then could we see about her album?”

“It’s all yours, ma’am.”

Patterson is trying to sound more American than ever. When he passes her the album Kylie’s mother holds out both hands as if to cradle it. He seems to think she wants it opened, and he spreads it wide at two pages near the middle of the book. The left one is occupied by a childish drawing of a bearded leering fellow in a turban—I suspect he’s meant to be Mohammed—and its neighbour bears an inscription framed by cartoon flowers. A sheet of paper that marked the place slips out and flutters face down to the carpet. “I’ll get it, Marg,” says Wayne.

He’s still in the last of his crouch, which makes him look ready to lunge at someone, when he mumbles “What the fuck.” As he straightens up he trains his raw gaze on me and turns the page away from him almost violently enough to tear the cheap but glossy paper. It’s a photograph from one of the stacks on the reception counter, pictures of the station personnel. It’s of me, and I’ve signed it to Kylie Goodchild. “Seen it before, have you?” Wayne says so fiercely he sprinkles me with saliva.

“Somebody has.” The rage I’ve been withholding is nearly uncontrollable now. “What’s the trick this time, Frank?”

“There’s no fucking trick,” Wayne shouts and swings around to exhibit the photograph to my colleagues. “See what it says? “Have a good life, Kylie,’ and it’s him saying.”

“Mr Goodchild, Mrs Goodchild,” Paula murmurs. “I’m going to have to ask—”

“Don’t try getting rid of us,” Wayne warns her. “We’re not on any fucking show now.”

“Give me a moment, Paula.” I don’t want them to leave until I’ve exposed Patterson’s trick to everyone. “Mrs Goodchild, you must have seen what happened,” I say as gently as I can. “Your friend Frank made it look as if he was being led to me when he knew that was there all the time.”

“He didn’t, Mr Wilde.”

“I really do find that hard to believe.”

“Don’t you fucking call Marg a liar.”

“Wayne,” she pleads, but he looks unwilling to be calmed, and Paula lifts the phone on Trevor’s desk. “Will you send someone up to Waves, please?” she says. “There’s a disturbance.”

“Mr Wilde.” Kylie’s mother seems as anxious to resolve the situation as I am. “Mr Jasper didn’t know your picture was in Kylie’s album,” she says. “Nobody did.”

“Kylie had a rubber band round it when we got it from her room,” her husband says. “Mr Jasper wanted something she’d had a long time.”

“There’s no band on it now,” I have to point out

“It snapped in my bag.” Mrs Goodchild seems to grow aware of the caricature of Mohammed, and hurriedly closes the album. “It was shut like this when I gave it to Mr Jasper,” she assures me, “and he never looked inside.”

I’m sure she must believe this. Her husband plainly wants me to, but Wayne looks eager for me to deny it. Instead I say “I’m sorry, I honestly can’t remember her at all.”

“If you ever met her you’d remember,” Wayne protests, “and you fucking did.”

“Mr Wilde,” Kylie’s mother says, “could you have sent her your picture?”

“Nobody’s ever asked for that, I’m sorry.”

“I knew you hadn’t,” says Jasper—says Patterson.

This is so blatantly opportunistic that I turn on him. I’ve clenched my fists and opened my mouth before Paula hurries to let in two uniformed security men. I could almost feel they’re here to restrain me—that’s the effect they have, so that I succeed in saying only “If I remember anything about your daughter I’ll be in touch.”

“Fucking make sure,” Wayne mutters.

Paula watches the security men usher him out, followed by Patterson and the Goodchilds. As soon as the door closes she says “Better not keep the listeners wondering what’s happened to you, Graham.”

“I’m sorry if I was responsible for any of that.”

“I expect Waves will survive,” she says and waits until I hurry into the control room. Did Trevor or Christine see the photograph of Kylie Goodchild? I haven’t time to ask, and perhaps this isn’t the place either. “Thanks for filling in, Trevor,” I say to the microphone as well as to him. “I’ve just been trying to help Kylie Goodchild’s parents. I wish I could have done more, but I’ve nothing to be ashamed of.”

We’re crossing the road by the Palaces when Christine says “Can you still not remember her, Graham?”

“That’s right, I really can’t remember.”

“No need to shout at me.”

I’ve only raised my voice to be heard over the howl of a police car. I don’t even know why she was reminded of Kylie Goodchild, since Jasper’s posters have been replaced by advertisements for a production of
Carousel.
The police car overtakes on the wrong side of the road, spattering my feet with a remnant of this morning’s rain, as I say “I said I remembered the class from her school. There was nothing to single her out, that’s all.”

“Slim and getting on for my height with long hair.”

“How many girls would that be? Anyway, you don’t need to tell me what she looked like.”

“She had a lot to say for herself.”

“Give me some examples.” When Christine shakes her head I say “There you are, you don’t remember as much as you think.”

“I know she had plenty to say to you. She seemed to want to talk to you more than anybody else.”

“If I didn’t know better I’d say you were jealous.”

“You should know better.” Christine falls silent while a second police car races past, flashing its disco lights, and then she says “I expect her boyfriend would have been.”

“The thug with one word on his mind?” The thought of Wayne prompts me to add “He wasn’t with her class that day that you remember.”

“I don’t believe so. He’d have seen you sign the photo for her, wouldn’t he?”

I don’t seem to have wanted this answer. As we reach Waves a train worms its way around an elevated bend, so that the photographs below the windows look as if they’re being folded up. The lobby doors sidle aside, and the guard at his desk gives me a sharp look—perhaps he’s more on the alert since he had to deal with Wayne. I’d show him my badge if he didn’t know me well enough.

It’s Obesity Obliteration Day. The jingle and the slogan for Wilde Card shut me into my headphones, and then my voice does, never quite conforming to how it sounds inside my head. It’s flatter, more Mancunian, and is that what everybody except me hears when I speak? “Just water for my lunch today,” I’m saying. “That’s my gesture for the occasion. I hope nobody thinks it’s a rude one…”

This is my bid for the style Paula thinks our new owners would prefer, and I think it makes me sound like a Frugo cashier chatting at a checkout. The callers want to argue, though not about this. Dave from Mostyn objects that the name of the day is offensive—that we ought to say overweight, not obese. Julie from Withington thinks it isn’t offensive enough—that the greedy are offending the rest of us by eating too much of our food and expecting us to pay for their bad health and just by making us have to look at them. Hilary from Whalley Range maintains that parents of corpulent children should be required to wear T-shirts saying I’m A Fat Kid’s Mam or Dad. It’s time to play an ad for Frugoliath exercise equipment, after which we have Peter from Didsbury. He’s so outraged by all the comments he calls weightist that he sets about broadcasting his glandular history at length. I’m about to cut this short, since I think he has more than made his point, when Christine says in my headphones “Do you want this next call? It’s about Frank Jasper.”

“I don’t need protecting from him, Chris.”

“Only it’s the lady you recorded at the Palace. Cheryl from Droylsden.”

I gaze hard at Christine, not least because I didn’t mention that the woman came to Waves. “Let her at me,” I say and go back on the air. “Thanks for all that, Peter. Now here’s Cheryl from Droylsden on quite another subject, aren’t you, Cheryl?”

“You didn’t tell me you were going to invite Mr Jasper back.”

“I didn’t invite him, he came unannounced. Anyway, you had another chance to hear him.”

“I didn’t.” Just as resentfully she adds “My friend says you wanted to get rid of him.”

“Not for a moment, Cheryl. If he’d like to get in touch I’ve a few more questions for him.”

“My friend says you only have him on to make him say what you want everyone to hear.”

“I don’t think I could force Frankie to say anything. That’s his trick.” I nearly lost control there—Frankie was the name he disliked at school— and so I don’t pause before saying “When he was on yesterday—”

“My friend says you cut him off”.”

“Somebody he brought was using language we can’t broadcast.”

“She thinks you used that for an excuse.”

“Is she there, Cheryl? By all means put her on.”

“I’m on my own.” This reminds me she’s recently widowed, but before I can apologise Cheryl says “She wouldn’t talk to you anyway. She says you won’t let people have their say if you don’t agree with them.”

“I really don’t think—”

“See, you’re doing it now, and she says you did to Mr Jasper. She says you didn’t want anyone to hear what he had to say about you.”

I can’t let rage make me speechless. “By all means tell everybody what that is.”

“He was saying you were mixed up with the girl they’re looking for.”

“Her name’s Kylie Goodchild, Cheryl. Everyone should keep a lookout for her, but I don’t think there’s any use looking round here. At me, I mean, or anybody else here for that matter.”

“Mr Jasper wouldn’t have come without a reason.”

“I signed a photograph for her, that’s all. I did for half her class when they came on a school visit.”

I think Cheryl had no answer to that until I hear a muffled sound. She has put her hand over the mouthpiece. I feel as if I’m being forced to believe in an unseen presence—as if Jasper has brought off one of his tricks. In a few moments she declares “My friend says—”