Ghoster

by Jason Arnopp

  She tries and fails to register the news. “You sure about that, mate?”

  I give her the firmest and most sincere nod I can manage, then lower my voice even further. “And Scott’s ghost was here. Why here? All his stuff is in the garage. I mean… what if Ray killed him? What if Ray’s been making all these people disappear?”

  Scott screaming, his face contorted in disbelief, as Ray steals his life away. The image makes me want to get my skull trepanned, so that I can never see it again.

  Izzy squints at the door and concentrates, trying to detect Ray standing right outside. “I don’t know, Kate. I don’t know what to make of any of this shit. I’m so tired. But if Ray’s a killer, then why didn’t he kill me and leave you halfway up that hill to die?”

  I chew this over, grateful that the pain in my head has eased. “Because he doesn’t want to kill a copper?”

  “Hmm, okay. I guess that might have struck him as a bad move.”

  “How did you even manage to convince him you were police?”

  “Flashed my ambulance ID at him in the dark. And I’d found an app that makes random sounds like a police radio. The rest was, er, I don’t know. Showbiz.”

  “You are beyond awesome, you know that?”

  She shushes me. Side-eyes the door. “Whatever we think Ray may or may not be, this ain’t the time or the place to ask him. We absolutely have to take this to the…” She mouths the words real police.

  “I need Scott’s password book,” I tell her. “It’s in this box in the garage marked OFFICE, I know it is. Can you find a way to sneak out there?”

  Izzy pulls a face that makes her answer obvious. “Sorry,” I say. “Forgot about…” I nod at her crutches.

  She sighs. “You’ve had a bang to the head, so I’ll let you off.”

  “How am I looking, doc?”

  “Amazingly well, considering.”

  “Good. Then you won’t protest too much when I talk to Ray. Properly talk to him. Right now.” Izzy tries to speak, with her eyes all big, but I cut her off. “And before I do that, I need you to go to the kitchen and find the sharpest knife you can.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  6 October

  “Kate, you really are fucking nuts. This is harassment and I want you both out of here.”

  This feels like another authentic reaction from Ray. Now with a bandage across his nose, he’s on the other side of his kitchen table from Izzy and me, wreathed in cigarette smoke. Now I’ve broken the news that I believe Scott to be dead, he’s gripping the handle of his coffee cup so hard that it may snap off at any moment. For my part, under the table, I’m gripping the handle of the eight-inch bread knife that Izzy passed me. Pure last-resort self-defence.

  When neither Izzy nor I move a muscle, Ray hikes the volume of his voice. “I said, I want you both out of here. And you,” he says, jabbing a finger at me, “are gonna get sued to shit for breaking into my land.”

  “You know,” I say, “I’m pretty confident there’s a really unfair law that states you can’t punch intruders, in the head or anywhere else. And if there isn’t, there’s bound to be one that states you can’t set potentially lethal dogs on them.” I turn to Izzy. “I’m sure you can help me out here, detective.”

  Ray shifts uneasily in his seat as Izzy pretends to consult her extensive memory of law. “Yes, if you deliberately set your dog on an intruder and they do suffer injuries…”

  “… including psychological harm,” I chip in.

  “… then you may be liable for prosecution, Mr Palmer. Your dog may be placed under official control, or even destroyed.”

  The word destroyed takes a bite out of Ray’s resistance. “That’s… That is not going to happen.”

  “Doesn’t need to happen,” says Izzy, doing so brilliantly, “provided you co-operate with my investigation that Miss Collins has instigated.”

  Trace levels of scepticism linger on Ray’s face. To Izzy he says, “I told you – I want a lawyer present before I talk about anything besides the weather.”

  “Fine. By all means, I’ll be happy to come back and do this later today, with your lawyer and several more officers present. Oh, and a search warrant.”

  Ray squirms in his seat, which feels telling in itself. Why would he fear a search warrant? “Listen, my brother ain’t dead. He broke up with this nutter… and that’s all. He might not have done it in the kindest way, but as far as I know there ain’t no law against that.”

  “When did you last speak to Scott?” I ask again, deriving pleasure from trying to butterfly-pin him to the wall.

  Glowering at me, he pulls out his phone. “Tell you what, I’ll call him right now, how’s that? Don’t give a fuck if I wake him. He’s brought all this stupidity down on my head…”

  “Stay calm, Mr Palmer,” Izzy says.

  By the time Ray hits speed-dial, I realise what’s about to happen, but am powerless to prevent it.

  Sure enough, Scott’s phone vibrates in my pocket. In this otherwise silent kitchen in the dead of night, the buzzing sounds like a chainsaw.

  I try to talk over the noise, telling Ray that Scott won’t answer at this hour, but he follows the sound to my pocket and his eyes narrow.

  “Gone to voicemail,” he says, ending the call. The vibrations in my pocket stop, too, and a long pause sucks the air out of the room. “Bit of a coincidence, that. Have you got my brother’s phone or what?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Ray. How could I?” If this doesn’t satisfy him, then we’ve got a major problem. He’ll have to prise this phone out of my cold, dead hands.

  My angel of mercy sweeps in to prevent the carnage. “Mr Palmer. Can you explain why your brother’s possessions are in your garage?”

  Ray’s rueful gaze stays fixed on me as he replies. “All right, yeah, fine, I can explain that perfectly well. Scott owed me a shitload of money.”

  “How did that happen?” Izzy asks. “IT guys earn well enough, don’t they?”

  Ray shrugs and lights a fresh cigarette. “He never should’ve taken on that fancy flat. Couldn’t afford the bloody rent. Over the summer, he got into the red with a bunch of lenders, so I got him out of all that shit. And then Scott’s payments to me dragged on for months. I mean, we’re talking ten thousand quid, total. Me and Scott, we’ve never got on all that well.” He hesitates, as if realising that he’s assigned himself a killer’s motive. Then he adds, “I’ve always been the one who’s had to bail him out of trouble, ever since school. Over the years, that takes its toll, okay?”

  “So you took all of Scott Palmer’s things.”

  Ray nods at Izzy, unrepentant. “I told him it was time for him to take responsibility and not expect a free handout all the time with no consequences. Then, about a week ago, he came over here with a pitiful amount of cash to offer me, and I s’pose I wanted to teach him a lesson – one he’d never forget. So I said I wanted everything he had of any value. Told him to box it all up, then help me load it onto a van.”

  “Or,” I say, quaking inside, “did you kill Scott, then take everything? Did the two of you argue and things got out of hand?”

  Ray looks like he wants to lunge across the table and throttle me. I squeeze the knife handle. “My brother ain’t dead. Stop talking like that.”

  “Hopefully you’re right, Mr Palmer,” Izzy says. “I will, of course, need to corroborate your story. So I’m going to take a box of your brother’s possessions, which I believe will be key to achieving that. You’ll get it all back afterwards.”

  Ray shrugs, exasperated. “Knock yourself out.”

  Oh, Izzy Clarke, I would lean over and kiss you right now, if you weren’t supposed to be a cop. Also, if I wasn’t secretly holding a great big fuck-off knife.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  I Am Possessed

  TrooSelf diary entry one of seven

  Dated: 9 February

  Filed by: SPalm123

  Okay then, here goes nothing. I am going to give th
is app a try, and see if I can get some thoughts down. I’m still sceptical about the supposedly hyper-secure nature of this thing, because if my job has taught me one thing it’s that nothing is truly secure these days when it’s connected to the internet. If JP Morgan Chase, the Sony PlayStation Network and eBay can get hacked, then how safe can a relative minnow like TrooSelf trooly – sorry, TRULY – be?

  It is my belief that files were always safer in physical form, locked up in an actual box. Why are we putting everything precious online, where there’s no such thing as an impenetrable digital wall? We load confidential data into a cloud that has the potential to be linked to every other computer in the WORLD, and then all of a sudden that data may as well have been projected onto the sky and we all act all surprised.

  Anyway. So, um… what am I trying to achieve here? This does feel weird, writing in a cryptic way to myself, but I’m still cautious about this app.

  So, here is the first thought that comes to mind, right now.

  Sometimes, I feel like I am possessed.

  I spiral out of control, like I’m no longer the boss of myself.

  I have to finally, finally STOP.

  I don’t know how I’m going to achieve stopping, but I do know that The Demon is tearing my world apart.

  How am I supposed to ever meet somebody, or form any kind of meaningful relationship with them, when I am so tightly BOUND by all of this?

  This is an endless nightmare. It is a vicious circle that keeps spinning round and round.

  Every morning, when I first enter the bathroom, I look at my reflection in the mirror and say aloud that today I will be myself. My normal self, I mean – the person I used to be.

  Every morning, I look myself in the eye, in that mirror, and I make that solemn promise. And then, usually by midday, I have broken that supposedly solemn promise. Often I’ll do this without giving the matter a second thought. It’s as if somebody else takes over. Somebody else grabs my steering wheel and takes me for a ride into hell.

  Afterwards, when it is all over, I feel desperate. The rest of the day is ruined, and I can make all the renewed promises I like, but deep down I know that tomorrow will be exactly the same as today. Doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself it will be different.

  It is an absolute fucking joke.

  I need someone in my life. I need an anchor to drop, so that the wild sea can do its worst but I’ll be safely tethered out of temptation’s way.

  Who am I trying to kid? The way I am right now, I’m never going to meet that person. Vicious circle. Vicious fucking circle.

  I am pathetic. Hopeless. Weak.

  I am compromised and cursed.

  I am possessed.

  Well. Can’t say I feel any better after writing all this. If anything, it’s only deepened the shame and the misery.

  I may come back and write another entry or I may not. Only time will tell.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  7 October

  Izzy drives with her whole face crying out for sleep. Here on the motorway, open windows help keep us awake. The first rays of dawn highlight all the snow that’s drifted down to settle overnight.

  The pair of us driving like this, tired out of our tiny minds, it might even feel nostalgic if my heart wasn’t so damn heavy.

  On our way out of Chanctonbury, I’d felt like victory was at hand. In Ray’s garage, I’d rummaged around inside the box marked OFFICE and had been psyched to find Scott’s password pamphlet. I even retrieved my lost hammer.

  When we left Ray at his front gate, he’d looked like a guy on the cusp of twigging that he’d been conned. Even as we drove off, I’d half-expected him to come tearing along the base of the hill after us, swinging punches all over again, having phoned the police to check Izzy’s credentials. I’m guessing, though, that a wide boy like Ray might never to want to call them for any reason. Whether that reason could be murder remains to be seen.

  I soon solved one minor mystery, thanks to Ray calling Scott’s phone again, ten minutes after we left. The caller came up onscreen as Idiot. Made perfect sense.

  Flicking through Scott’s pamphlet, I found both of his TrooSelf passwords, which he’d written next to the not-so-cryptic inscription TS. Within seconds, I’d stopped talking to Izzy, unlocked the app, and breathlessly accessed Scott’s first entry. Not least because the battery was on a mere three per cent.

  And now, having read this thing, I don’t know exactly how to feel. I’m a mess. Felt so horrendous to read Scott’s words, knowing he’s dead. And despite my suspicions, it seems he didn’t write like some drooling maniac when it was just him and an empty page. In a crazed kind of way, Scott’s death might have been easier to deal with if he really had turned out to be a murderous psychopath.

  And yet… and yet, what was all this talk of shame – and possession? Surely he didn’t mean literal old-school possession, did he? Having said that, he did also write the word Demon.

  How quickly I’ve adapted to referring to Scott in the past tense. The man who I was so deeply in love with. I can’t bear to think of his body lying somewhere unknown, such as a shallow grave back in Chanctonbury. The thought makes me want to sob forever, but I’m trying so hard to keep myself in check.

  So if Scott didn’t actually believe he was possessed by an evil spirit, then could my original paranoia that he was a drug addict be right? I’m dying to read more, but Izzy keeps asking for directions back to Brighton’s seafront. The selfish part of me wants to ask her to open up a satnav app on her own phone, but she’s Izzy. So I talk her through the journey, while she tries to talk me out of going to work today.

  “You had a really narrow escape last night, mate. You know as well as I do how lucky you are that you don’t have a concussion or need stitches. You also know that you need to call in sick and rest up, so I can look after you.”

  “Izz, I can’t do that. To be honest, I’m sorely tempted, mainly because I really want to read all of Scott’s diary, but I made a pledge to myself.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, if that pledge was to avoid doing fucking stupid stuff, I’ve got bad news for you.”

  “I pledged that I wouldn’t let the whole Scott search affect my work. So I’m gonna go in, get through my shift and then you can nurse me tonight, okay?”

  “Kate, would you want any of your loved ones being treated by a paramedic who’s had no sleep?”

  “Yes – my mum! Anyway, I did sleep tonight. One of the few benefits of being rendered unconscious.”

  I don’t have to look over to know what Izzy’s eyes are doing. “Besides,” I add, “there are ways of getting around sleep deprivation.”

  “Oh no. Please don’t go down the ‘uppers’ route.”

  “Coffee. More coffee. That’s all I meant.”

  “Do not drink from that flask.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  Out, Demon, Out

  TrooSelf diary entry two of seven

  Dated: 14 February

  Filed by: SPalm123

  What in the bloody HELL is wrong with me? A pop-up notification told me I’d been Super-Liked on Tinder, so I took a look to see who it was. Her name is Kate and she is a stunningly beautiful example of womanhood. Her bio comes across as smart and fun and funny – the ideal balance between self-deprecation and confidence.

  So Kate Super-Liked me, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to even Like her back.

  Why, Scott, why? What is WRONG with your ridiculous brain?

  The thing is… I can’t bring myself to Like Kate back, because she surely only hit Super-Like by mistake. If I Like her back, then the outcome can only be really embarrassing, not to mention hugely disappointing, much like me. The fact that this is happening on Valentine’s Day only makes the whole thing even more excruciating.

  Let’s face it: Kate tapped that little blue star by mistake. It’s obvious to me that she did, because she is SO far out of my league it’s hilarious.

  She lives up in Leeds, too. Why would s
he be interested in me, full stop, but also, why would she be interested in me from all these miles away? As it stands, she thinks I live in London, because that’s where I set my Tinder location to be, using the Tinder Gold thing. So I actually live even further away than it appears to her on the app.

  How I hate the idea of forcing this poor girl to admit she has no interest in me, or even worse, blank me or block me. I’ve agonised quite a lot over this, but ultimately feel like it’s best all round to leave it. I’d really rather not know.

  Here’s a question, diary: what happened to my self-esteem? Why am I finding it difficult to even remember a time when the prospect of interacting with women didn’t feel like such a big deal? I mean, blimey, years ago I used to date women, and even had GIRLFRIENDS, without having quite so much fucking anxiety about the whole thing.

  So what’s changed?

  Very obviously, it’s The Demon.

  Yes, over the past few years, The Demon has dug its talons into me, further than ever before, and royally fucked up my self-esteem. This thing never used to be a problem, but now it’s shredding my life and I need to get rid of it. This time, for good.

  And how many times have I said that? But this time I really mean it.

  Valentine’s Day has to be the watershed moment. Yes, I will look back on this day as the moment when I got deadly serious and my whole life changed for the better.

  Out, Demon, OUT!

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  My Sweet Saviour

  TrooSelf diary entry three of seven

  Dated: 2 May

  Filed by: SPalm123

  So it’s been three months of trying to bury myself in work and shake off The Demon’s curse. Also, three months of totally FAILING to do that.

  You know what’s really weird, diary? You know the one thing that’s brought me back to this app, to try and get my thoughts together in some kind of coherent and logical fashion? Try as I might, I simply cannot get this one Tinder woman out of my head.