Ghosts Know (8 page)

“I thought she wasn’t supposed to be there.”

“She’s just come in.” As I refrain from wondering aloud if the friend even exists, Cheryl tells everyone “She says you said you never saw the girl at all.”

“Honestly, nobody needs to be scared of me,” I say with all the calm I can produce. “Your friend’s more than welcome to speak up for herself.”

“I told you, Mr Wilde, she won’t come on your show. It’s a pity you didn’t mention the photo while Mr Jasper was there.”

“Frank knows all about it, trust me, and so does everyone else who was here.”

“Maybe you should hope that’s all he knows.”

That’s at least one innuendo too many, and my rage breaks loose. “Unlike our Frankie, I’ve nothing to hide.”

Christine blinks at me through the window, but I’m glad I said that. At the end of a silence sufficiently intense to belong to more than one person Cheryl demands “What are you saying about Mr Jasper?’”

“For a start he was brought up in Manchester, and he’s gone to some trouble to see his public doesn’t know.”

“He’s never from round here.” I can’t judge whether Cheryl is proud that he’s local or far too belatedly skeptical about him, even when she objects “How would you know?”

“Not from the Internet. He’s covered his tracks there. Your friend heard me read his past, though, didn’t she? The scar I was talking about, he got that in Hulme.”

Cheryl muffles the mouthpiece again before retorting “She wants to know how you can say that.”

“Because it’s true. If anybody thinks I played some kind of trick by recognising him you’d have to wonder if he—”

“Graham.” Christine is holding up a hand as well. “Look at his web site,” she says urgently in my headphones. “Go to the sidebar.”

I type Patterson’s false name in the search box and bring up the site. There he is, baring a sample of his bronzed chest and opening his eyes wide as if they’re as guiltess as ever. I find the sight not much worse than irritating, even when my gaze shifts to the sidebar—and then I have an unwelcome suspicion. I click on the button that says LIFE, and up comes his biography. Frank Jasper, born Francis Patterson in Hulme, Manchester. I know that wasn’t there last week, but now the site spells out details of his boyhood.

“It isn’t as new as you think, Graham.”

“Believe me, it is.”

“But if you look at the date—” Christine says and brings up the properties of the biography page on her monitor.

“I nearly fell for that myself. All it says was that the page was made a year ago. I’m telling you it wasn’t on his site last week.”

“What was, then?”

“It must have said the page was under construction. Don’t you see what he did? He made the page and stored it till he had to put it on his site.”

Wilde Card has just ended, and we’re at her desk. Before bidding me a sad farewell Cheryl from Droylsden hoped I’d open my mind long enough or wide enough to see the truth. I thought she might have attracted more of Patterson’s supporters onto the air, but the next caller thought obesity should be taxed and the parents of the roly-polies in particular, which provoked enough arguments to fill up the rest of the hour—all of it that wasn’t occupied by ads for Frugold jewellery and Frugoggle spectacles and the Frugodsend charity card. Now Christine says “Why would he want to do that?”

“So he could put it up if anybody found him out and say he never hid the information in the first place.”

I’m attempting to keep my voice down, but perhaps it reaches further than it needs to, because Paula Harding says across several desks behind us “Are you two conducting a post mortem?”

“I think the subject’s dead,” I say, “and I’m the murderer.”

Perhaps she wasn’t joking as much as I took her to be, if at all. “Let’s continue it in my office,” she says, and when Christine makes to follow me “I’m talking to Graham.”

I overtake her just in time to hold open the door of her office. She perches on the cushion that adds stature to her chair and switches off Rick Till or at least hushes the computer. Her head sinks—she might be miming some kind of confirmation—as I lower myself onto the flatulent leather chair. “Well,” she says, “this is getting to be a regular event. One of your listeners has been in touch.”

“Should I guess which one?”

“Cheryl Needham from Droylsden.”

“She’s changed her mind, then. She said she wasn’t going to bother you, bother speaking to you, I mean. She thought you’d just be on my side.”

“I listened to your show.” Paula lets this and her gaze gather weight before she says “You’re getting edgier, Graham.”

Is she referring to how I feel just now? I do my best to match her ambiguity by saying “So long as it’s what’s wanted.”

“Cheryl was right, I’m afraid.”

I’m hearing Hannah Leatherhead’s invitation as I say “Right about what?”

“No need to go for me, Graham. I’m not one of your contestants.” She pauses as if she’s searching for a more accurate term and says “She was right that I’m on your side.”

“Oh, I see.” This seems inadequate, and so does “Well, thank you.”

“I told her it’s the style you’re known for and I didn’t think you’d actually been rude to her, but obviously it’s her privilege to take it further if she really wants to. I think whatever you said to her about Frank Jasper would have been wrong.”

“You won’t hear any argument from me.”

“So long as I do when I switch you on.” Paula lets me glimpse a smile that can hardly signify a joke and says “It’s true he never said he was local. He does his best to sound as if he’s not.”

“He’s saying he is now on his web site.”

“I expect you must have made him. Anyway, he should be proud to admit it.” Paula leans forward, which doesn’t disturb so much as a strand of her cropped glossy hair, to murmur “You knew each other, didn’t
you?”

“That’s it. The whole truth.”

“I don’t know if you should give it away on the air. Keep people guessing,” she says and sits back. “It’s just a pity you didn’t remember signing Kylie Goodchild’s photograph while you had Jasper on the air.”

“I might have except for dealing with her boyfriend. You couldn’t have known what he was going to be like.”

“I don’t suppose Jasper did either.”

“Patterson,” I can’t help saying. “Too busy talking to my nameless grandfather again, maybe.”

Paula lets out a sound that falls short of a laugh. “What was his name, by the way?”

“My grandfather? Wilfred.”

“Not that unusual,” Paula says as the phone shrills on her desk. “Yes, he’s here,” she says after listening to someone as inaudible as Jasper’s sources and extends the receiver to me. “It’s somebody about your show.”

“Do you want me to take it here?”

“Why, would you prefer not?”

“It’s your office,” I say and lurch almost onto all fours in my haste to seem eager instead of defensive. The leather cushion sends a whoopee in my wake as I grab the receiver and step back. “Hello,” I mutter. “Graham Wilde.”

“Gosh, I can barely hear you, Graham. It’s Hannah Leatherhead.”

“Oh, hello.” I need to find somewhere to look other than at Paula—along the canal beyond the window behind her desk. “Wasn’t I going to call you?” I say not much louder.

“Hold on just a second.” In little more Hannah says “Is that better?”

It isn’t for me. She has switched her phone to loudspeaker mode, rendering her voice close to painful in my ear. I can’t hold the receiver at a distance in case Paula hears something she shouldn’t—I want to be sure of the situation before I reveal it. “We ought to talk soon,” I tell Hannah.

“We should. I was just calling to say I’m back in town sooner than expected.”

I don’t know if Paula is watching me, but I can sense her attention, which feels as if a security camera is focused on me. If psychics existed, perhaps this is a taste of how they’d feel. It seems to turn the rest of my surroundings less substantial, especially a line of figures standing on a footbridge against the glitter of sunlight on the canal. The best response I can give Hannah is “Glad to have you back.”

“So whenever you feel like a chat, I’ll be around.”

“Well, not right now.”

Do I need to avoid using Hannah’s name in front of Paula? Before I can decide Hannah says “Am I being slow? Can someone hear?”

“She might.”

“Oh, what a clot.” A silence leaves me thinking Hannah has ended the call until she returns unamplified. “There, I’ve turned myself down,” she says. “Shall I wait to hear when you’re ready?”

“Whenever you’re free.”

“I am today if that’s any use.”

I feel driven by the situation, but I don’t see how this can be bad. “What about now?”

“Now would be stupendous. Where?”

“Where we met?”

“Nowhere better. When?”

“As soon as I can walk to it if you like.”

“I’ll be there,” Hannah says and rings off.

The identity parade on the bridge has disappeared along the towpath, beside which fragments of ripples resemble a digital message. I take a moment to prepare a neutral smile for Paula before handing her the phone. “Thanks for that,” I feel bound to say.

“Any time, Graham.” This seems unlikely, and she takes the receiver so loosely that I’m afraid she’ll drop it. I have to keep hold while she says “Was that someone anybody shouldn’t know about?”

I feel as if she’s using the receiver to capture my hand. “Anybody such as who?”

“Graham.” She shakes her head—I could imagine she’s testing her hairdo for stiffness. “Christine,” she says very much in the tone of a rebuke.

“Good heavens no. Not a bit of it. Absolutely not, believe me.”

Is this too much? Paula scrutinises my face for a protracted moment before grasping the phone. I’m turning away when she says “Graham.”

It sounds like the threat of a reprimand. That’s at least one too many, and I’m ready to respond along those lines as I confront her. “Don’t you think you deserve a sweet today?” she says.

“If you do.”

I could have made that less ambiguous, but I feel guilty, all the more so as I reach in the glass bowl like a child taking a reward for having told the truth. I grab a mint striped like a beetle and leave Paula’s office without glancing back. I’m unwrapping the humbug as I reach Christine’s desk. “Can you spare me till tonight?” I murmur.

She blinks at the cellophane I drop into her bin as if she thinks it’s intended as some kind of token. “What’s Paula’s idea now?”

“Nothing to do with her,” I say and lower my voice further. “I’m meeting somebody you know about.”

“Good luck,” Christine says under her breath, “if that’s what you want.”

She means I’m not supposed to be superstitious, of course. A lift is waiting beyond Shilpa’s desk, and I suck the humbug as the floors climb by. As the lobby doors glide apart I step into the sunlight, which is so fierce it almost seems to weigh me down. Then my teeth meet through the carapace of the mint with a crunch that resonates through my skull, and a cold sharp taste fills my mouth as Kylie Goodchild’s boyfriend steps into my path.

Wayne is wearing shorts patterned like a chessboard and chubby trainers and a T-shirt hardly large enough for him. While his broad chest and brawny arms seem designed to impress, his stomach looks like the product of many a Frugoburger. His eyes are even redder than last time, and I smell herbal smoke on his breath as he demands “Where you going, boy?”

I’m about to enquire what this has to do with him when I realise that his lurch at me has reopened the automatic doors at my back. He must think I’m retreating, but I won’t do that from him. “Nowhere at all,” I assure him.

“Waiting for the bouncers to see me off again?”

As Wayne glares past me the guard calls from his desk “Everything all right, Mr Wilde?”

“Nothing I can’t handle, Charlie, thanks.”

When I step around Wayne the doors falter open before shutting with a padded thud. He darts ahead and turns on me, walking backwards. “Don’t want to talk to me, right?” he says not far short of my face.

“I’ll talk to anyone,” I retort, but I don’t need Hannah Leatherhead to see me in this kind of argument. She’s just a few minutes away, and the prospect makes me ask “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“Want rid of me as well, do you?” By way of explanation he adds “They’ve thrown me out of that fucking place.”

“Anyway, I’ve an appointment. You’ll have to excuse me.”

“I won’t be doing that, boy,” he says as if he’s determined to reduce my age to his and glances at a group of office workers who are taking a smokers’ break. “Think I can’t talk if there’s people about? Have another fucking think.”

“I’m sure it would take more than that to shut you up.” At least I’ve thought how to avoid encountering Hannah in the street. “I’m going down by the canal,” I inform him. “Then you can swear all you like.”

“I won’t just be fucking swearing.”

I don’t know if this is a threat or a boast about his vocabulary. As he swaggers down a ramp to the canal I’m made aware how short his legs are. His scalp looks like a translucent dome preserving the black roots of his hair. I don’t know how any of this can have appealed to Kylie Goodchild, and I catch myself wondering how I may have struck her. On the towpath Wayne swings around to demand “Why’d you say you never saw Kylie?”

“With no disrespect to the young lady,” I say, which makes me sound like my grandfather, “I didn’t think I had.”

“You’re disrespecting me as well,” Wayne says and rubs the name on his neck until the skin turns red. “You’re making her sound like any other fucking tart.”

Rather than argue I stride past him. As he overtakes, crowding me towards the water, I say “Tell me what I should remember about her.”

“What’s she got to do with you?”

Is this possessiveness run wild? With an effort I say “We want the same thing as her parents, don’t we? To find her safe and sound. If you tell me what to look for I can put it on the air.”

Ahead the towpath is deserted apart from a small gathering of the homeless, who are sitting on the stone edge with their feet in the canal. While one woman sucks on a bottle of wine her companions glance up as if they think we’re on our way to join them. She looks away when Kylie’s boyfriend narrows his eyes as though he wants to squeeze them redder still. “What stopped you copying her picture if you wasn’t meant to know what she looked like?”