Ghoster

by Jason Arnopp

  Okay. Videos, do your worst.

  A chirrup from my Nokia heralds the arrival of a text from Izzy. Even though she’s the only person in the world I wouldn’t ignore right now, I’m still tempted to look at the videos first. Then I remember her broken and screaming on a stairwell landing in Leeds, so I place Scott’s phone aside and grab the Nokia.

  IZZY

  hey im outside

  KATE

  You’re outside what?

  IZZY

  ur flat… well scotts flat… whoevers flat this is

  KATE

  WTF? You’re kidding right?

  IZZY

  r u in the flat

  IZZY

  hun its raining out here

  KATE

  Sorry, I’m just in shock. I told you not to come!

  IZZY

  yeah and as u know i always take orders really well… is ur buzzer not working

  KATE

  I’m not there but I will be in five minutes!

  CHAPTER FORTY

  6 October

  Talk about a conflict of emotions.

  I positively itch to look at these videos. But at the same time, the thought of having company – someone who actually knows and likes me in Brighton and might help fend off a ghost – is incredible. As is the killer hug Izzy administers outside the Van Spencer. My emotional dam cannot help but burst.

  “See?” she says, walking on her crutches as I carry her ginormous travel bag out of the lift on Floor Five. “Tears! I knew you needed me. I bloody knew it.”

  Dabbing my runny nose, I’m determined to keep these waterworks in check. “God, I can’t believe you drove all the way down here, with your leg and everything. Where’s Jared?”

  “He’s with Shit For Brains till Thursday,” she says, referring to Dwayne. “Wow, this place is awesome.”

  As Izzy takes in the living room and kitchen, I feel so useless. She and Jared should have been visiting me and Scott in our perfect love nest, so they could have a whale of a time in the arcades on the pier and playing crazy golf.

  She says, “I mean, more furniture would be cool, but it still rocks. Look at that fuckin’ sea, man. And hey, look inside my bag. I borrowed this thing from Survival Dave, a couple of doors down. Paranoid apocalypse people really can come in handy.”

  I tug open the zip on Izzy’s bag to unveil a chunky ghetto blaster. She explains how it’s a radio and lamp, powered solely by a brilliantly retro hand crank. No juice required.

  When we plonk the radio onto my box mountain and press a button, an astonishingly bright light exterminates every shadow in this room. Oh fuck, so much for holding back my waterworks. I’m forced to hug Izzy all over again, but her selfless mission of mercy only intensifies my guilt. Not least because I’m already thinking about how I can steal a good private look at those videos on Scott’s phone.

  A new spasm of excitement grips her. “So whereabouts did you see the ghost? Oh yeah, you were sitting on the bog.”

  On our way to the bathroom, I show her the gouge marks on the front door.

  “Bloody hell,” she says. “Some really big dogs must’ve lived h—”

  I interrupt, brimming over with the need to help her grasp the weirdness of this place. “But these holes are still happening. There’s more and more of them, every day.”

  Like a forensic scientist, Izzy uses her own phone torch to take a long, hard long at all these marks. Finally, she says, “This is so cool…”

  In the bathroom, I flick on the mirror light and re-enact the Gwyneth attack for Izzy’s benefit. She even sits on the closed toilet seat, like a detective keen to establish the sequence of events. She can’t get enough of this, and I can’t get enough of her. How I’d love some of her laid-back attitude towards ghosts to rub off on me.

  “That’s dead mad, that,” she says. “Wish it had happened to me and not you.”

  “Me too,” I say, hugging my arms. Hate being in this room. “Thanks for coming, honey.”

  Still on the toilet, she says, “So what’s the latest? And what’s going on? I can only tell so much from texts. I’ve really wanted to look you in the eye and make sure you haven’t gone mental.”

  Oh Izzy, please don’t do that. “I’m fine. Just been trying to work out what the hell happened with Scott, that’s all. While getting terrorised by a ghost for no apparent reason, obvs.”

  My laugh rings so very hollow.

  “But you know who this ghost is? The missing person? Gotta tell me all about it.”

  “I still don’t know if this really was a ghost,” I say, “but I’ll tell you more once we settle down.”

  “I’m already settled, right here on the loo. So what’s been your approach to investigating Scott? What have you got to work on?”

  Can’t tell her about the phone. Really can’t deal with her thinking badly of me. Not tonight. I need one person in my life, only one, who doesn’t see me as a loser or a soft target.

  “Oh, I’ve asked around the building,” I say, “trying to find someone who saw him move out. Stuff like that.”

  Why haven’t I done this, for real? Hardly the worst idea. Still, Izzy looks dubious. “Is that it, Miss Marple?”

  “Pretty much. I’ve been crap.”

  “To be honest, hon, you don’t look great. I only saw you a few nights ago, but you’re proper pale.”

  “Thanks. Uh… listen, do you want a shower or anything?”

  Oh, I am such a bad person. I’ve offered this shower in order to (a) temporarily halt Izzy’s questioning and (b) give me a chance to look at the videos. And Satan rewards me for my cunning ruse, because she says, “I wouldn’t mind, to be honest. Meant to get here two hours ago, but the traffic was a proper bitch. Won’t it be cold, though?”

  Damn. “Ah, yeah, sorry. I’ve been grabbing showers at work.”

  “I like a cold shower. Good for the lymph nodes.”

  Phew. I only have the one towel, but Izzy doesn’t mind that either. Of course she doesn’t, because she’s awesome and I’m a total shit. Soon as I hear the shower start to hiss, I hurry off along the hall, then head through the gorgeous wash of light from Izzy’s radio-lamp, while dragging the garden chair out onto the balcony.

  Finally! I reactivate Scott’s phone and tap the Videos folder.

  I’m fully prepared for my cache-clearing remedy to have made no difference whatsoever, but no, we have lift-off.

  Here are the videos, for one single second… and then another second… and then several more. A whole damn matrix of them, and the phone shows no sign of another crash.

  My triumph fades fast, now that I’m able to take in these still thumbnails.

  What are they?

  What the hell are they?

  Most of the videos look regular enough. The thumbnails show animals, drinks, meals, pleasant views, starlings around the pier. I watch a few seconds of one video in which a cat walks around oh-so-comically on its hind legs. Which is strange, because as far as I’m aware Scott doesn’t own a cat. Could be a friend’s cat, or Maureen’s cat, but none of the people laughing uproariously off-camera sound like Scott or Maureen. Frankly, I doubt if Maureen’s ever laughed this hard in her life.

  Anyway, forget the other regular-looking videos. There’s no time for those, even though Izzy always spends ages in the shower. Because dotted throughout this grid are thumbnails that share a rather unsettling theme.

  Only now do I notice that each of these dodgy-looking videos has a running time of between one and two hours. That’s seriously long, for a video filmed on a phone.

  Each thumbnail shows a different person’s face and chest, dimly lit. Some are female and some male, and it looks to me as though… as though…

  Yep. Gwyneth Cooper in one of them.

  A blood-curdling scream rings out, from inside the flat.

  The bathroom.

  I leap to my feet and charge towards the balcony door.

  Here’s a second scream, followed closely by
another, and only now do I skid to a relieved halt. These so-called screams are actually whoops of hilarity, as Izzy braves the cold shower. Praise be. I can sit back down and resume work on the phone.

  This thumbnail image shows Gwyneth’s face, clear as day, with her eyes closed. Also her bare top half.

  Finally, I’ve uncovered the secret connection between Scott and Gwyneth. They did have a thing, after all. I feel oddly gleeful about discovering this, because it feels as though part of the puzzle has neatly dovetailed together.

  But… uh… what exactly am I about to see in this Gwyneth video? Probably sex.

  Well, poor Gwyneth’s dead, remember? So for all you know, this could be a snuff video.

  The thought makes me baulk. And yet the threat of Izzy’s inevitable reappearance forces me to play the video.

  The still image springs into life. Not that there’s a whole lot going on. Here’s Gwyneth, lying on her back… asleep. The camera is being held steady, a good few feet above her. Presumably so that Scott can get her breasts into the frame.

  I can tell she’s asleep, rather than dead, thanks to the gentle rise and fall of her chest and the rapid movement going on behind her eyelids. So that’s a relief, but this woman is almost certainly being filmed without her knowledge, isn’t she?

  Cool it, Columbo. Gwyneth might have wanted to know if she snored, and Scott was helping her out, like the ever-charitable guy he is. Or they may have had some kinky agreement that he was allowed to film her.

  Oh yeah? And all the people in the other thumbnails happened to have the same snoring issue or kink – including the guys? Nice attempt to explain these videos, but you’ve done nothing to lower your heart rate.

  My skin wants to slither off my bones and crawl away. What a true sicko Scott’s turned out to be. Standing there at the side of the bed, filming a sleeping woman for… how long? Two whole hours? Even if she was his girlfriend, that’s utterly deranged.

  Inside the living room, the light from Izzy’s radio-lamp weakens, allowing shadows to grow back like fungus. My skin tingles, but I have to see the rest of this video now. Using the playback slider, I fast-forward through the rest. I am positively unable to breathe, until I know that something terrible didn’t happen to this defenceless woman.

  Well, she’s dead, so don’t get your hopes up…

  On the screen, all sped up, Gwyneth rolls left on her pillow, then right, then lies on her back again.

  About sixty seconds before the end, I resume real-time play. Despite my horrid sense of invading the privacy of Ali’s lost sister, I have to see what happens. I have to understand what this video was all about.

  Gwyneth sleeps on. Oblivious.

  With ten seconds left to go on the counter, Scott slowly lowers his phone, keeping himself cleanly out of shot. Not so much as a finger slips into the frame. As he places the phone down somewhere, the screen goes black.

  As the video ends, so does the light from Izzy’s radio. With my chest tight, I run back inside, taking Scott’s phone with me. When I yank the hand crank to revive the lamp, its potent beam forces the shadows to retreat once again.

  I feel a strange kind of relief about the video. For a while there, I had a terrible feeling that Scott might have been about to…

  To do what? Tip rose petals over her? Ejaculate over her? Murder her? What exactly is Scott Palmer capable of?

  Even though you didn’t see him kill Gwyneth in the video, that doesn’t mean he didn’t kill her.

  Izzy’s shower hisses on. I turn the crank harder and faster, until the lamp burns bright, then scurry back to the balcony. I turn my chair to face the sea, so that she won’t spot the phone in my hands when she does emerge.

  Returning to the Videos menu, I take in another screen’s worth of creepy thumbnails. Men and women, all seemingly asleep while being filmed. Some are every bit as naked as Gwyneth was, while others are in T-shirts or nighties. Puzzled by the presence of the men, I realise that I’d never considered the possibility of Scott being bi. I conduct another quick search of the whole phone, but there’s no sight of the men-only dating app Grindr.

  In another video, I watch a blonde lying on her side, dreaming her little dreamy dreams, her chest thankfully covered by a duvet. Is that Scott’s duvet, the one that used to be here? I can’t even remember, but the bed looks different to the one in the first video. This could potentially be the girl’s own place.

  Blondie’s face doesn’t fit any of those Tinder matches. Once again, I drag the slider forward to sixty seconds before the end, then resume playback. Looks like Blondie is beginning to stir. She frowns, rubs her eyes and senses Scott’s presence. At the first sight of this, he chickens out. Here we go again: the phone gets placed back on the bedside table, his recording ends and Blondie presumably stays none the wiser.

  What is this behaviour? Some kind of obsessive fetish? Is it actually illegal? You’d hope so, but I have no idea.

  How would I feel if Scott had filmed me?

  The moment I ask myself this question, the simple act of breathing becomes difficult.

  Oh. My. God.

  No, no, please no.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  12 September

  Judging by the memory foam mattress and the height of these pillows, I’m not waking up at home in Leeds but visiting my boyfriend in Brighton.

  Rolling over, I stretch out an arm to wrap around Scott. Being a contemporary woke couple, we do not conform to rigid big spoon, little spoon ideologies, no sir.

  My arm does not find him. Instead, it carves through thin air and lands on the undersheet. Scott’s side of the duvet has been curled back and vacated.

  When I open sticky eyes, Scott’s standing there fully dressed, right at the side of the bed. He’s staring at me so directly that it makes me reel away, back into the pillow. My reaction is informed by race memory from countless generations back: meeting something’s eyes, feeling like prey and wanting to take flight.

  “Oh God,” he says. “Sorry. I was watching you sleep – but only for a moment!” Now that the rush of self-preservation has passed, I calm down as he sits beside me and strokes my hair, but the impact of the surprise lingers.

  “Morning, stalker boy,” I murmur.

  His laugh feels only a shade awkward. “You would have to wake up in the very moment I was appreciating how beautiful you look while you sleep, wouldn’t you?”

  “Come on, admit it, you’re obsessed with me. You’ve been there for hours, wanking like a sailor at sea. Now get the kettle on.”

  “Yes, cap’n.” He approximates some kind of sailor salute while grabbing his phone from the bedside table. As his footsteps retreat along the hallway, I luxuriate in the sensations of the morning. Scott must have that balcony window-door open, because the flat already feels so fresh and airy. These sheets feel so soft.

  And Scott staring at you felt so weird, didn’t it?

  No, brain, it did not. The man I love was simply passing by when he stopped to appreciate me for a moment.

  There’s only one door in here and it’s not the kind of room you pass by. He was watching for longer than a moment. His phone was on the side table. You came to sense him standing there. That’s why you woke up.

  Okay, how about this? He may only have just got up himself.

  So how come you can feel the living room windows open?

  I demand silence from you for the rest of this weekend. Stop trying to create problems where there are none.

  When something feels too good to be true, it usually is.

  What did I just say?

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  6 October

  My heart is a cocktail shaker full of ice.

  I scroll back down through the video thumbnails, fast, so fast.

  Fucking hell, here’s my face.

  Ah, okay, it’s just a clip of me sitting outside the local Loving Hut restaurant, taken consensually and when I was very much awake.

  Scroll, search, scroll, s
earch.

  A sliding noise seals up my throat, as Izzy drags open the balcony door. She’s wearing only my towel, one of her crutches and the kind of worried look my mother never gave me.

  “What you doing out here? It’s freezing.”

  I have to know. I have to be sure that I’m not in one of these videos. And yet here I am, ramming the phone into my pocket. “It’s actually quite mild out here now.”

  “What’s that screen?” she wants to know. Casual, yet so not.

  “My Nokia,” I blurt, standing. “How was the shower?”

  Damn you, Izzy, for knowing me too well. And most of all, damn me for being such a bad liar. As I come back inside, she’s eyeing the bulge in my pocket. I don’t even have the excuse of just being pleased to see her. Will she let this go?

  Pointedly skipping my question, she says, “So how come you’re back on Facebook?”

  Heading over to crank the radio-lamp, I manufacture a shrug. “Oh, I felt kind of alone down here, to be honest. At least Facebook makes you feel like there’s people around, even if most of them don’t give a shit about you.”

  “But you can’t get Facebook on your Nokia.”

  Without missing a beat, cranking faster, I say, “There’s an internet café down the road.”

  Izzy towels her hair. Our swollen silence is broken only by the whir of the radio-lamp. I ask how outrageously cold the shower was, but she lets rip with a heavy sigh that has profound disappointment written all over it. “Look, mate… if you’ve got yourself a proper phone again, it’s probably not the best idea, but it’s no Nazi war crime either. Why can’t you talk to me?”

  Okay, how the hell do I play this? I need to finish looking through those videos or I’ll die of suspense. But what am I gonna do – pretend I need the loo every ten minutes, so I can take sneaky looks? Izzy’s so right: why can’t I talk to her about this?

  Because you and your phone obsession made her fall down some stairs.