Ghoster

by Jason Arnopp

  “Why would Scott want to leave the phone here? What if…” Here, Izzy hesitates. Oh, how acutely I feel her walk the thin line between doing what’s best for me and finding herself drawn into the puzzle. Her puzzle-lust wins – the urge to take this Rubik’s cube one twist closer to completion. “What if the phone has some kind of bugging device, babe? What if it’s listening all the time? Or… I mean, you said you’ve felt watched…”

  My vision goes woozy, making the tiny camera lens at the top of the phone wink at me. When will I learn to trust my gut? I felt watched from the moment I moved in here.

  No. That’s not true, not exactly.

  I felt watched after I discovered the phone.

  The demon face taunts me from that sliding door, victorious. Those eyes, that cruel smile, they say, Ah, you finally figured it out, huh? Well done, baby. Lovin’ life.

  I spring up to haul my boxes around. I’m searching for certain words I scribbled on the side of one of them roughly ten thousand years ago, when my head swam with endorphins, hope and love. In the background, Izzy is asking what I’m doing and if I’m all right, even though she knows I’m very much not.

  I rip the duct tape off the top of the box marked Handy Stuff. Inside, there’s an ever-so-handy holdall full of stuff I’ve lugged from flat to flat during my renting life.

  Maybe, Izzy’s saying, we’re overthinking this whole thing. Maybe the phone isn’t really Scott’s surveillance device. Maybe I should calm down.

  Scott Palmer hacked his way into my heart, then sleazed his way into my life. He stripped away my privacy, including my right to not be fucking filmed while I sleep.

  I meet the demon face’s grin with my own, then rummage around inside the holdall, disregarding the cordless power drill, the spirit level and the battery-powered box that detects the presence of wires in walls. All of these tools are handy for home DIY, there’s no denying that, but I’m searching for one item in particular.

  Again, Izzy asks what I’m doing. Then, when she sees what I’ve taken from the holdall, and where I’m going, she yells at me to stop. But not even my best friend, the pal who I owe big-time, can stop me committing this act.

  My jaw is locked tight. Every cell in my body is ablaze. Doubt I’d stop marching towards this sliding door even if someone levelled a gun at me.

  “Oh yeah?” I bark at the face on the window. “How funny is it now?”

  My hammer creates the most gorgeous arc from way back over my shoulder, all the way through to the demon’s nose.

  The face ceases to exist. Bashed through onto the balcony, it skitters out across the decking in bright, darting shards.

  There follows a pause, while the rest of the window comes to terms with what’s happened. Two strong arms wrap themselves around my chest, exert a firm grip, then haul me two steps back. Oh God, Izzy must’ve staggered over to grab me, to save me, without using her crutches.

  An almighty waterfall of broken glass cascades down over the spot where I’d stood. The noise is both horrific and so very pretty.

  Izzy is the first to get her words out. “Feel better now?”

  “Yep. But nowhere near as good as I’m gonna feel. Tell me how I can find Scott.”

  Together, we wend our awkward way back across the room to the garden chair and her crutches. She’s shaking her head, but I’m a dog with a bone. “Izzy, seriously: tell me how I can use the phone to find him. If you don’t tell me, I’ll find out anyway.”

  As I settle her down in the chair, she wipes sweat from her eyes and says, “Fuck off, mate. It’s not happening. You can come back to Leeds and—”

  Spit flies from my mouth as I say, “Fuck that.” I know I’m directing my rage at the wrong person, and am still holding the hammer’s handle, but I’ve become a car without brakes. “I’m not walking away. I’m so sick of trying to see Scott through this phone. I’m going to look him straight in the eye and I’m going to do it tonight, with or without your help.”

  “Tonight? You’ve gotta be kidding. What if he really is dangerous, Kate?”

  “Do I not look dangerous right now?”

  She glances at the hammer, then mutters, “A danger to yourself, yeah.”

  I kneel beside the small mountain of broken glass, then place the hammer to one side. Silence reigns, as the energy in the room dissipates.

  “I’m sorry, Izz. You’re my best mate in the world, but I really am going to find him. So please, please tell me how.”

  “Do you promise not to break any more glass, you fuckin’ madhead?”

  “I promise. Well, unless it’s over Scott’s skull.”

  Izzy considers Scott’s phone on the box beside her, then lets out a heavy sigh.

  “I’m guessing you already checked GPS tracking, right?”

  Feeling stupid and excited at the same time, I lean forward, all ears.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  6 October

  Now that we’re out of the city and into the wild, there are fewer vehicles to contend with but the roads have become way harder to navigate. My headlights illuminate one tight bend after another.

  Izzy has Scott’s phone on her lap. Paranoia has driven us to wrap both of the handset’s cameras and the mouthpiece with several layers of duct tape, in case Scott really has been keeping tabs on us. We have, of course, kept the screen visible. “Next left,” she says, consulting Google Maps.

  “I’ve really missed driving on ridiculous missions with you, Izz.”

  “Focus on the road.”

  I am way out of Izzy’s good books. You can practically hear her teeth grind. On her express instructions, I’m going slow, despite having gulped down two strong coffees on the way. I’d argued that I’d drunk far less of the vodka than Izzy, but she rightly beat me down until I agreed to approach our journey like a Sunday driver. Even then, if we get pulled over, my career will be over. On the face of it, then, this is far from the most ingenious plan, but I know I wouldn’t sleep tonight without having found Scott. Especially now that we have a pretty specific idea of where he might be.

  I’d been so focused on the actual content of Scott’s phone – the words, the media – that GPS tracking never even occurred to me. Yet, as Izzy reminded me, a phone seizes every given opportunity to store the locations visited by its user.

  “Left down here,” she says. “No, not this one, the next one. And slow down.”

  When we’d opened the list of places Scott had been, not only could we see his footprints across Brighton, Hove and beyond, but each journey bore an ever-so-handy date marker. Before disappearing from the flat and leaving his phone behind, the last place Scott travelled to, on 30 September, was out here in the sticks. In Pulborough, roughly north-west of Brighton, Scott had seemingly visited a spot beside a prehistoric hill fort called Chanctonbury Ring.

  Comfortingly, Wikipedia informs us that the Chanctonbury Ring was supposedly created by the Devil himself. Oh yeah, can’t get enough of that, especially seeing as it’s almost midnight. But apparently, as long as we don’t run seven times anti-clockwise around the clump of trees up on that looming peak, we’ll be all right.

  A turn-off sign bears the words CHANCTONBURY RING. As I swing left into the lane, I can’t help also noticing the “dead end” sign.

  This lane is little more than one vehicle wide. Rustic homes flash past, most of them with handmade signs out front, telling visitors to stay well clear of their property. Shotguns spring to mind.

  The effort required to persuade Izzy to let me come here has stolen vengeful wind from my sails, leaving me drained and edgy. Now that we’re here in the thick of the countryside, and potentially heading straight for Scott’s hidey-hole, everything feels all the more real. When Izzy wasn’t looking, I smuggled the hammer along with me, hiding it under my jacket, but what might I actually do with the thing? And weaponry aside, what am I actually going to say to Scott if I find him?

  Dear God: if you really do exist, somewhere up there in all these thick, bl
ack clouds, please let Scott be a sad little pervert who hasn’t actually hurt anyone, let alone murdered them. Please let him cower before me and beg to be forgiven, so that I may comprehend the full extent of his weakness.

  “I’ve no idea how long this road will carry on for,” Izzy says. “The map gets seriously vague from this point.”

  “Do these even qualify as roads? They’re more like lanes.”

  “You’re skating on thin ice as it is, Collins, without bringing pedantry into the equation.” She peers out through the windscreen. “Ah, okay… here’s the end of the line.”

  When I had Google Street View, I would see unfamiliar destinations long before I physically reached them. And yet here’s Izzy and me, parking up at a dead-end turnstile that Street View cameras failed to document. Walking into a territory where even robot cameras didn’t fancy going? Oh yeah, baby, where do I sign?

  My headlights blast through the turnstile, then smear themselves weakly across the united front of trees the footpath leads into.

  “How much battery’s left on Scott’s phone?” I ask. “Wish we’d thought to bring an actual torch.”

  “Did we have an actual torch?”

  “No.”

  “That’ll be why, then. The phone’s on thirty-three per cent, but let me ask, one more time – what exactly is your plan?”

  “All I’m going to do is creep over to this place, this house, whatever… and take a look. Scott’s moving boxes might still be piled up inside for me to see…”

  “Mmm, yes, wouldn’t that be convenient. And then what?”

  “Nothing. We’ll just know this is the right place.”

  The back of my skull aches. Am I telling Izzy the truth? Tonight, will it really be enough to just know?

  Does the Pope shit in the woods?

  He probably doesn’t, as a rule. But what if the Pope mobile breaks down?

  Izzy regards the turnstile like it’s a gallows pole. “Can you really picture Scott living out here?”

  “Good question, Loyd Grossman. I’ve no idea. But unless the GPS stuff is way out, he’s been here for some reason. He might secretly be a dogger. I mean, how accurate does this stuff tend to be?”

  Izzy throws her hands up and speaks through gritted teeth. “I’ve known it to be scarily accurate and scarily inaccurate. Look, why can’t we come back here tomorrow in daylight? You know I fucking hate this. Especially as I can’t come with you.”

  Izzy, bless her, she wouldn’t even make it over the turnstile. Which suits me fine, because I categorically refuse to place the girl in further danger. This very much feels like a trip I need to make alone. “Tomorrow morning, I’m back at work. And—”

  “Yeah, you’re back at work if you don’t get murdered.”

  My stomach cartwheels at “murdered”, but I conjure my lightest and most reassuring laugh. “I’m not going to get murdered, Izz! For all we know, Scott might not even be capable of that.”

  “You reckon he is, though, don’t you. And I might be coming round to the idea. Then again, it’s late and we’re in the middle of nowhere and I’m really tired.”

  “First sign of a problem and I’ll be back here like shit through a goose. All you have to do is keep one eye open and get ready to start the engine. This bank’s full o’ cash, Mugsy, I’m tellin’ ya.”

  My crap heist gag, and even crapper Noo Yawk accent, only succeed in making Izzy more doomstruck. “You know who can generally carry out this kind of investigation without getting killed? The police.”

  “True, but they also need a bulletproof reason to visit.”

  Izzy shudders. “Don’t mention bullets. Is there owt I can say that’ll stop you doing this?”

  “No, honey.”

  “Why not, Kate?”

  “Well, because… because, I mean…”

  Clutch at those straws. Go on, grab one.

  “… what if Scott’s kidnapped people, Izz? What if it’s a Silence of the Lambs type deal? He might have people trapped in a hole out here, telling them to… to… uh, what’s that line in the movie?”

  “Put the lotion in the basket,” she sighs.

  “Lotion! Yes. Police investigations take too long. And like I said, we’d need a really bulletpr—Sorry, watertight case for them to come and investigate Buffalo Bill. The lambs are screaming, Clarice.”

  Even Izzy’s seatbelt sounds harsh as she clunks it open. “Okay, okay, I get it, you wanna be the big dead hero. Put Scott’s phone on vibrate. If a car turns up or something, I’ll text you.”

  “Got it. Love you.”

  “Jesus, Kate, don’t say that. You never normally say you love me unless I say it first. Makes it sound like the last thing you’ll ever do.”

  “Nope, the last thing I’ll ever do is walk into these trees.”

  “Right. Best you be fucking off, then.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  6 October

  My first mistake was to overestimate the power of a phone torch in darkness this absolute.

  Well, actually, if we’re being anal about this, my first mistake was talking to Scott in Wales.

  My weedy beam of light barely illuminates two steps ahead on this rough-hewn path, littered with small stones, weeds and chunks of chalk. A dense canopy might hide the moon, but it’s impossible to miss the shadow-hulk of Chanctonbury Hill up ahead.

  My light hits an enormous, towering birch that steals my breath. Serpentine roots sprout in all directions away from the base, each the colour of ash and wide as The Rock’s forearm. My torch briefly catches a small nook beneath these roots, stuffed full of twigs.

  Blair Witch, Blair Witch, Blair Witch.

  Yeah. Let’s pretend I never saw that.

  Ignoring the fear that wants me for a midnight snack, I rest back on a root-tangle to check the GPS app. Where I’m standing seems pretty close to the spot Scott visited.

  A raucous braying noise pins me to the spot.

  Please let my black hoodie and jeans render me invisible.

  What the hell is that? Some kind of…

  … beast, perhaps a wolf…

  … animal in the undergrowth behind me, and yet I can see nothing back there. Really don’t want to see anything, either, so I press ahead much faster than before, feeling more naked with every step.

  I dread these animal noises trailing me through the darkness, but thank God they stay put. I’m not being trailed.

  Not by anything that makes a sound, anyway.

  There’s no doubt that this little mission rates high on the stupid-o-meter. But if Scott really does have people bound and gagged in a basement, then my trusty hammer and I might be their only hope. This thought, and this thought alone, stops me trudging back to Izzy, steeped in the mire of defeat.

  When the trees finally thin out, the moon kicks down through them to highlight the bungalow cottage ahead. Protected by walls topped with barbed wire, this place backs up against the foot of the hill. Judging by what I can already spy through the wooden bars of the entrance gate, the grounds are expansive but rundown and ramshackle.

  Could this be the place? The GPS thinks so. And I could well imagine Scott allowing this kind of land to deteriorate. His are smooth hands, unaccustomed to hoes. Well, hoes of the garden variety, anyway.

  Christ almighty. Could the elusive Scott Palmer really lurk within these walls? The very idea makes me feel a little sick. What will I say to him? And what the hell will he say – or do – to me?

  I almost muster a laugh when I see how another one-vehicle lane snakes up to this place from around the other side of the hill. If it hadn’t been for the vagaries of the map, we could have driven straight here. Then again, whoever’s at home might’ve seen our headlights. Sometimes, things turn out for the best. Right now, I need to believe this.

  Even my most careful footsteps sound way too loud as I take a closer look through the gate. The house looks dead in every way. No sign of lights within. Two windows flank the wooden front door, their curta
ins drawn tight. An unoccupied front drive swerves out of view around the back.

  As I wait and watch, a pin-drop silence makes its presence felt. One by one, all those woodland sounds fall away, until I can hear my own breath.

  The clock on Scott’s phone flicks from 23:59 to 00:00. Something about this drastic switch, the way that all four digits become zero in the blink of an eye, makes me think about death. Specifically, mine.

  Reasonably satisfied that no one’s home, or at least awake, I bully myself into climbing over the gate before doubt can derail me.

  With an ungainly thump, I land on the gravel of the drive, like some drunkard playing ninja. This would be an idyllic place to live – potentially a family home, in fact – were it not for all the neglect. This front garden, and even parts of the drive, are choked with knee-high weeds. Sections of side wall have eroded and collapsed, leaving half-bricks scattered across what should be a lawn. The dark glass of a discarded wine bottle creates the illusion that someone has managed to bottle the moon.

  Forget the details. I need to keep my eye out for movement, any movement. A light coming on, a door opening, a twitch of curtain. At the very first sign of anything like that, I need to be back over the gate and out of here. No messing about.

  I’m so glad to have this hammer. The harsh metal head rests upside down on my cupped fingers, while the handle hugs my forearm. Thankfully, Izzy failed to catch wind of its presence when I left the car. Guess she never thought to say, Hey Kate, you didn’t bring that potentially lethal weapon along, right?

  Only now do I consider the possibility that security cameras may be dotted around me. The clever money would bet on them being kaput, but I must take no chances. Really hope the hood will conceal my face, even if a light comes on.

  Jesus Christ. If security lights actually do burst into life, I will simply keel over. My adventure will very much end here.

  I take my first uneasy steps towards the house, the gravel scrunching way too loud under my feet. My conscience screams, You don’t normally do this. You don’t normally walk onto other people’s property uninvited, and I have to once again remind myself of the potential stakes here.