by Gareth Otton
“Well it’s because your life is weird, Tad. Every time I speak to you, you throw some new concept at me that wants to break my mind.”
“I’ll try to dial it back.” He looked at Miriam again and then up to the clock. “If I know Miriam, and by now I do, she'll be at this for hours. Want to grab a coffee while we wait?”
“Not to be rude, but we’ve employed you, not Miriam. As much as it was funny to see the Chief Inspector nearly mess himself when you showed her to him, it’s your eyes he wants on this case.”
“I know. But there’s no point us both looking over this. I’ll know it all in the morning.”
Stella felt a headache coming, and had to resist rubbing her temples for real. “I know I'll regret asking this, but how is it that you’ll know it all in the morning?”
Tad tapped his head. “This is where they live during the night. For a day after we merge, though I swear it’s getting longer, I get their knowledge and they get mine.”
Stella groaned. “You’re weird, Tad. You’re just so damn weird.”
He grinned at her again. “Coffee?”
“Oh God yes. How close do you need to be so she can do her thing?”
Miriam had finished with the files and moved onto Stella’s personal notes. Stella would be glad to leave. She never liked it when people looked through her notes. It didn’t matter how careful they were, they never left them how they found them.
“A couple hundred feet”
“There’s a break-room downstairs. We can get a coffee there.”
Tad winced. “I was hoping for a Costa or something?”
“No Costa, only instant.”
He rolled his eyes. “I suppose that’ll have to do.” To Miriam he asked, “You going to be okay on your own?”
She didn’t answer, so he repeated the question. Stella recognised Miriam’s expression from when she used to work with the woman. It was impatience at being interrupted for no good reason.
Tad held up his hands in surrender and backed out.
Stella led him down the corridor towards the stairs and was unnerved by the looks they received. Being looked at went hand in hand with her appearance, but she was not used to people staring past her to the person she was with, nor the varying expressions.
There’s nothing harder to keep down in a police station than gossip, and Tad’s performance with the Chief Inspector was certainly gossip worthy. By now he was probably infamous in police circles throughout the city, if not the country.
When she reached the door to the stairs, Tad rushed ahead to hold it for her. He stared at that door, refusing to make eye contact with anyone.
“Are you okay?” she asked as they walked down the empty stairway.
“I will be. Just having flash backs to secondary school. I’ve seen those kind of looks before.”
“What kind of looks?”
“The ones people give someone they catch talking to themselves. It ranges from pity to hatred. I’m not a fan of either extreme or anything in between.”
She nudged her shoulder against his which forced him to look at her. “This isn’t school. They aren’t children who pick on the weird kid and no one will steal your lunch money. You’ll be fine.”
He held the door for her to exit the stairwell.
“Spoken like the pretty girl at school. Trust me, bullying doesn’t stop at the playground.”
“A tough Proxy like you? I can’t imagine you lost many fights.”
“You forget, until the other night I’ve never been in a proper fight. I’d call those other altercations, uncontested beatings.”
They arrived at the break-room. Stella led him inside, insisted on getting him a coffee and then joined him on the table he chose for them.
He accepted the drink, sipped from it, and grimaced. “This is terrible,” he said as he put his mug down.
“It’s one of those unbranded blends that come in bulk from the wholesalers,” Stella said. “I drink it because it makes you appreciate the good stuff. I suppose to a coffee snob like you then—”
“Hey. I’m not a coffee snob. I just know what I like.” He pushed the mug further away and said, “This is not it. Is there any more sugar around here? I need to kill that coffee taste.”
Stella laughed and nodded to where the kettle was stowed by the plethora of mismatched mugs. Tad excused himself and came back with six sachets which he opened and slipped into his drink one after the other.
“How you’re not diabetic I’ll never know.”
“One of the side effects of Proxying, the ghosts keep me healthy. The more ghosts I have, the stronger I get. When I had Maggie, I was healthier than ever.”
“When you had Maggie? She’s not with you anymore?”
She regretted asking when the look on his face soured.
“No. She’s not.”
It didn’t look like he would expand on his answer and she was tempted to let him get away with it. However, a mixture of curiosity and police instinct got in the way. She found that one of the best ways to get people to talk is to stay silent. Most people need to fill silences. Tad was no exception.
Reluctantly at first, but with increasing passion, Tad told her about what happened with his strange family on Saturday. At first she didn’t understand what was so bad about Jen being Maggie’s Proxy, but when he explained the details she was suitably horrified.
“You can’t let that continue,” she told him. “What happens in childhood affects who you are as an adult. No child should be forced to grow up too quickly.”
He laughed bitterly. “Oh, I know that. This is what Jen doesn’t understand. I’m talking from experience. Charles had no choice but to use me as a Proxy, and it wasn’t a good situation for either of us. But there’s nothing I can do and Jen knows it. My only options would be to force Maggie to move on or destroy her. I do either of those and I lose both of them forever. I’m stuck.”
He took another sip of his coffee, grimaced again, then put it down with finality. When he looked back, he was forcing a smile.
“You know, everything with me has been doom and gloom recently. Let’s talk about something else.”
She didn’t want to move on. The conversation fascinated her and it was close to a subject she had a serious interest in. The trouble was, it was a subject she didn’t like to talk about. It was probably best that they move on.
“Fair enough.” She put her next question down to the madness that possessed her of late. “So, how come you’re single? I’d have thought girls would line up around the block to snap up an eligible Proxy like you.”
He grimaced. “Yeah. I wake up every morning and have to beat them away with a stick. Come on, be serious. I’m not a prize catch anyway, when I come with literal ghosts as a package deal it scares people away.”
“You’re too harsh on yourself. The right girl could look past that.”
He looked at her as though she was mad. “Really? Because except for Maggie, no friendship I’ve ever had has made it past the I see dead people speech, yet alone relationships.”
“What about Maggie? She’s cute. Why didn’t you two hook up?”
His hesitation told her everything she needed to know. She could see by his shifty look that whatever he said next would be a half truth at best.
“She was my best friend, a sister. It wasn’t something either of us wanted.”
Stella translated that to, I loved her but she didn’t feel the same way. She wondered if he still felt that way. The thought annoyed her.
“You know, I think we need to change the topic again. I don’t like where this one’s going either.”
Stella shook her head. “No, you can’t keep doing that when things get interesting. I’m sure there’s more to tell.”
“Oh yeah, well lets see how you like it. Why are you single… uh… you are single, right?” She nodded. “See. You have less reason to be single than me. You’re a beautiful woman that most guys would give their right arm for a shot with.
How come there’s no Mr Martin?”
It was the second time he’d called her beautiful, and she was annoyed with herself for keeping count. What really annoyed her was that she liked the compliment. She never liked it before. From anyone else it felt like yet another pickup line from some new asshole who wanted to see her naked. It was shallow and said nothing about her as a person. But from Tad it felt different, and it made her blush.
“I’m not interested in relationships, I’m married to the job.”
“You sound like you read that answer from a card. Isn’t that a standard line from all bad cop dramas?”
“Maybe. But in my case it’s true. I like my job and I don’t have much interest in anything outside work.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t push her on it. “Alright then. Why’d you become a cop in the first place?”
She hesitated, then wondered if that hesitation was as telling to him as his had been to her.
“Pretty much my whole family have been police for generations. It runs in the blood.”
“That doesn’t sound like the whole story,” he guessed. She was surprised at his sombre tone and concerned eyes. Had she been that transparent? She was normally better at hiding her feelings.
“It’s not. It’s a long story.” Her comment made him awkward, and she added. “I don’t want to—”
“Stella. It’s alright. It’s your business. I don’t need to know it.”
He meant it. He could see how hard this was for her and was giving her an out. It had a surprising effect. It inspired her trust.
She looked around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear, then after another pause, she spoke.
“The thing with a family of police officers is that there’s no one to call when you’ve got a problem with them,” she started. She held her mug in both hands, staring at it and not looking up. This story was hard enough without making eye contact.
“Police have a tradition of dealing with things in-house. You don’t escalate a problem by taking it up the chain of command if you can help it, and you don’t air dirty laundry in public. What happens in-house, stays in-house. My family took that attitude home with them.”
She took a breath as memories washed over her and she thought of stopping there, but her mouth betrayed her.
“I was younger than Jen when my father first took notice of me. He told me I was special, said I was prettier than mum ever was and that I was her gift to him. My mum died when I was young, so it was just me and him. He was never what you would call a good father. Between the pain over losing mum, pressures at work and having to look after me, he turned to drink. After that it’s a bit cliched. It escalated, he grew depressed and got abusive.
“At some point he decided I was old enough to earn my right to live in the house. I was too young to work, so he said my beauty was his payment. He said he needed… company. When I refused, he beat me harder.”
“Jesus Stella. I’m so sorry.”
She could hear his discomfort. He wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how. It was for the best. People she spoke to in the past tried to hug her, or hold her hand, or some other empty gesture. Their touch made her cringe when she was lost in these memories.
“When I was fourteen, he came home drunk and was pissed that I wasn’t waiting up. He yelled about how I was the woman of the house, how I had duties. I already cooked and cleaned, but he was talking about something else. Again I refused. Even drunk, he never forced himself on me. Instead he made his disappointment clear with his fists.
“This time he forgot to keep the bruising to places I could cover up. It was impossible to hide, and though he kept me home, my uncles found out. When they asked me about it, I told them everything.
“Like I said, my family deal with our problems in-house. They didn’t turn him into the police, they took him out back and kicked the living hell out of him. They told him not to touch me again, and it worked for a few weeks. It was just long enough for him to recover and go out on the drink again.
“When he came home, he was just as abusive, but was more careful about it. I’m sure he broke something that night, it was hard to breathe for a while.
“I never went back to my uncles. What would be the point? It only made things worse. So I took another way out.”
She pulled her sleeve back and took off her watch, turning her wrist upward so Tad could see the scar. It was thin thanks to the sharpness of the blade. It was also horizontal which had been her mistake. She should have gone up the arm to do the job right.
“I did it when he wasn’t home, but as luck would have it he forgot something and came back. He had no choice but to get an ambulance. When I got to the hospital people asked questions.
“That was it. He didn’t go away for anything, he was a cop and the scandal would’ve been too great. His buddies kept him out of jail, and he didn’t even get a kick-in this time. My uncles turned on me. They said I should’ve gone to them if I needed help. My aunties turned on me too. I was too pretty, they said. I tried too hard to look good. I could have stopped it if I stopped dressing like a whore. It didn’t matter that he bought my clothes…”
That was about all she could say. She kept those memories locked away for a reason. The pain that accompanied that much rejection welled up again. For everything her father had done, it was her family turning on her when she needed them most that really hurt. Tears filled her eyes, and she turned away, wiping at them angrily. She refused to cry in front of Tad.
“Shit. We were supposed to be changing the topic to something less doom and gloom.”
“Jesus Stella. Don’t worry about that. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Yeah, well it’s done now. He got away with it and is off living somewhere scot-free. I joined the police so I could stop anything like that happening to another little kid.”
Her words were harsh, and she regretted them. She daren’t look up because she would either see pity, or a man looking for an excuse to run away. All of her relationships, even ones she thought were serious, never lasted past that conversation. Men wanted Stella for her looks, not her baggage.
Just like her dad.
“He didn’t get away with it.”
Tad’s words were softly spoken, but strong. She looked up. Tad stared at her and yes, the pity was there, but not like she expected. She saw sympathy, but there was also anger. It wasn’t the expression of a man looking for a chance to leave.
“I don’t speak of this much, even to my ghosts. It’s not a comfortable topic for us, but you might find it interesting.”
He paused as though figuring the right words to say.
“I don’t know much about religion. It’s not that I don’t believe, I’ve seen so much it’s hard not to believe in something. The thing is, religions are too neat. Life isn’t a series of black and white absolutes, and from what I’ve seen of death, that’s not either.
“But one thing I’m sure of is that what we sow in this life we reap in the next. Whenever a soul moves on in my presence, there’s a… feeling. It’s hard to describe. Some move on and I feel warm, accepted and comfortable. Other times a soul moves and there’s just icy cold and dread.
“I’m not saying there’s a heaven and hell. I don’t know what it means. But I know some people go to a place of warmth which is somewhere I’d be happy to go. Others are so scared of where they’re going that they stay bound to this world without a Proxy and go mad.
“These are the rogue ghosts I spoke of earlier. To deal with them, I force a moment of sanity on them. Making them sane permanently is not within my power, but I can give them a moment to decide whether they want to move on be destroyed.
“Those ghosts that refuse to move on, who choose destruction over making that final step, are always the evil ones. They’re the killers, rapists, and abusers of the world. Even faced with madness or destruction, they’d choose either rather than go on to that cold place.”
He paused
and shook his head. “It won’t make you feel better, I just thought you should know. You choose the kind person you’ll be in life. Those choices take you to either one place or the other.”
She’d heard it before. From priests with their versions of heaven and hell, to those who believed in karmic justice. However, none of them were Tad. None of them had spent most of their life dealing with death. If anyone should know it was him.
He was right. It didn’t make her feel better. It wasn’t supposed to. He had just repaid her trust with a story of his own. He had shown her his view on the world and in doing so he revealed a personal fear. She sensed that he was terrified of going to that cold place. He was doing what he could to make sure that when his time came, he went to the warmth.
She was saved from having to think of something to say when the sound of startled screams caught her attention. She spun towards the door in time to see Miriam step through it as though it wasn’t there.
The few people in the break room got the fright of their lives. Miriam ignored them and strode right to their table.
“Tad. Come quick. We’ve got her.”
“What?” Tad asked. “Got who?”
“Her. Cleopatra.”
“What?” he asked again, looking at Stella as though she might know what Miriam was talking about. Stella didn’t have a clue. Cleopatra? Was her old boss becoming one of these mad ghosts Tad just told her about?
Miriam looked at Tad like he was a slow child.
“Cleopatra. Remember. You said James Tanner’s ghosts saw a woman that looked like—”
“Cleopatra,” He nearly knocked over the table in his excitement to get to his feet. Stella was about to ask what they were on about, but they were already walking away.
The people sitting by the door scrambled away from the ghost and her Proxy. Tad and Miriam ignored them, and were already out the door when Stella thought to follow them. They made it to the stairwell by the time she caught up.
“Anyone fancy filling me in?” she asked.
“Remember I told you about my dream?”
“Dream? Wait. You mean the one with James Tanner, the shared one with Jen?” She frowned and struggled to remember what he had said. He’d told her so many things that blew her mind that it was hard to remember every little detail.
