Slow Motion Ghosts

by Jeff Noon

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She was moving strangely.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘She was staggering a little.’

  ‘Like she was drunk? Or on drugs? Or injured?’

  ‘No, not like that.’

  ‘How then?’

  Mrs Newley was looking worried as Hobbes put the pressure on her. ‘She was moving slowly, and swaying.’

  ‘Was she scared? Nervous? In shock?’

  ‘Yes, that was it! Scared. And I saw that clearly later.’

  ‘When you went outside?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She opened the back door and walked outside. Hobbes and Mr Newley followed. The garden was immaculate, with well-ordered flower beds and a perfectly mown lawn.

  ‘I usually come out here early on, anyway,’ she said, ‘to feed the birds.’

  There was a wooden bird table in the centre of the lawn. Hobbes walked over to the fence that separated the two gardens; it was low enough to give a clear view.

  ‘Where was the woman by then?’

  ‘She was heading for the back gate. But then she stopped. I think she must’ve heard me.’

  ‘So she turned round?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mrs Newley’s face took on a troubled expression as she remembered the details. ‘I was suddenly frightened.’ Her husband took her hand in his and squeezed it.

  ‘Why were you scared?’ Hobbes asked. ‘Anything in particular?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘No, not really. But she was there. And I was here, and she was looking at me, directly at me. And like I said, she looked scared herself.’

  ‘Did you recognize her?’

  ‘I would have to answer no. But Brendan did have a lot of people round. There were parties, and suchlike. And people often ended up in the back garden.’

  ‘It could all get a bit rowdy,’ her husband added.

  Hobbes nodded. ‘Was she carrying anything?’

  ‘I’m not sure. A bag, maybe.’

  ‘What kind of bag?’

  She couldn’t answer. Her eyes blinked repeatedly.

  Hobbes paused, waiting for her to settle before putting the crucial question.

  ‘Mrs Newley, you saw the young woman’s face. What did she look like?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Average height.’ Her brows creased. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

  ‘What was she wearing?’

  ‘A black coat.’

  ‘What kind of coat?’

  ‘A black one.’

  Hobbes tensed up. Mrs Newley hurried on. ‘A black coat and a black hat. There was talk of rain on the radio, so that seemed normal.’

  ‘Could you see her hair at all?’

  ‘A few strands hanging down, that’s all.’

  ‘Colour?’

  Mrs Newley shook her head.

  ‘How old was she?’

  ‘Oh dear, I’m sixty-eight this year. So they all look young to me. A teenager, I would say.’

  ‘What about her face?’ Hobbes asked. ‘Was there anything about her features, anything at all? You must remember something!’

  Mr Newley drew close, saying, ‘Excuse me. Please don’t talk to my wife like that. We’re trying to help.’

  The vision of Brendan Clarke’s sliced-up face came back to Hobbes. The mask of blood. It was a reoccurring dream in the daytime.

  ‘This is serious,’ he said. ‘A serious crime. A murder.’

  Nothing was said in return. The three of them were still standing around the wooden bird table. It seemed absurd, like a scene out of a play.

  Mrs Newley relented. ‘I only saw her for a glance, like I said. A few seconds.’

  Hobbes sighed. Maybe there was nothing here, nothing of note.

  Then he heard Mrs Newley whisper.

  He stepped closer. ‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’

  ‘A mark.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I’m trying to think.’ Her eyes were scrunched up as she concentrated.

  Hobbes pressed on. ‘You have to tell me. Anything at all.’

  She tried to relax. ‘There was a mark on the woman’s face.’

  He felt a stab of hope. ‘What do you mean by that? What kind of mark? What colour?’

  ‘I don’t know. Dark, maybe.’

  ‘Blood?’

  The thought obviously scared Mrs Newley. She shook her head vigorously.

  ‘Show me where it was on your own face.’

  Her hand came up slowly to touch at her left cheek, just below the eye.

  Hobbes felt a surge of hope. ‘Could it have a been a birthmark, or a tattoo? Or face paint?’

  She nodded eagerly to all three options.

  ‘Might it have been a teardrop? A painted teardrop? Mrs Newley …’

  She spoke clearly. ‘Yes. It could’ve been. Now that I think about it.’

  Hobbes fell silent. His mind clicked through its paces, the machine reactivated.

  A few spots of rain began to fall on the well-kept garden.

  The Six Wounds

  DS Latimer collared him as soon as he got back to the station.

  ‘I was waiting for you.’

  Hobbes shrugged off the remark. ‘I prefer it that way. Working alone.’ Before she could respond to this, he handed over the contact details for the parents’ friends and asked her to ring them, to check the alibis. Looking around the incident room, he asked, ‘Where’s Fairfax?’

  ‘Running down Brendan’s band.’

  ‘Good. I need to talk to them.’

  ‘A lead?’

  ‘Brendan’s mum named the keyboard player of Monsoon Monsoon as a possible suspect. Nikki Hauser.’

  ‘On what grounds?’

  ‘Intense dislike.’

  Latimer made a smacking sound with her lips. ‘Mothers and sons. The usual story.’

  ‘Apparently, they were engaged to be married.’

  ‘Brendan and the keyboard player?’

  ‘Yes. And it ended badly. And another man may be involved, a lover.’ Hobbes looked over at the incident board.

  Latimer nodded. ‘I’ll let Fairfax know about Miss Hauser, ask him to bring them both back here.’

  ‘Both?’

  ‘The band’s a trio. Vocals, keyboards, drums.’

  ‘I also called in on the neighbours,’ Hobbes told her. ‘Mr and Mrs Newley.’

  ‘Oh yeah, you checking up on me?’

  ‘You missed something.’

  ‘Christ, you’re really trying your best to be liked.’

  ‘You missed something, Meg.’ It was a fact, nothing more.

  Latimer sighed. ‘Let’s hear it.’

  ‘The young woman seen in the back garden had a mark below her left eye. Possibly a black teardrop shape.’

  ‘Like the mask? The rock star’s mask.’ Latimer was excited.

  ‘Exactly. Lucas Bell.’

  ‘Well, this is no ordinary burglar then, if that’s even what she is. She’s a fan.’

  Hobbes considered. ‘I’ll bet you a month’s salary that Miss X was at the Monsoon Monsoon gig that night.’

  Latimer thought about it. ‘Maybe Nikki Hauser was the woman leaving the house in the morning?’

  ‘Possibly. But wouldn’t the Newleys know her by sight, if she was close to Clarke?’

  ‘I can take a photo round to them, see if there’s a match.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘PC Barlow brought in material on the group.’

  She showed Hobbes a few photographs of Monsoon Monsoon, the three musicians posing in a cemetery. Nikki Hauser looked to be older than the other two. She was dressed in dark clothes offset by a plethora of silver rings, brooches and necklaces. Her hair was cut in a short, feathery, manly style, and her eyes were enhanced by a fog of make-up. She was a mysterious presence, almost ghostlike, like a figure superimposed on the image. A thin young man, presumably the drummer, slouched next to her. Brendan Clarke stood to the side, one arm draped over a h
eadstone. He was dressed like a beat poet: fifties-style jacket, white shirt, skinny black tie. He was the only person staring at the lens. His face, artfully devoid of any emotion, held the world at bay. And then Hobbes saw the name and dates on the gravestone they were posing against: LUCAS BELL 1948–1974. And below that a carved inscription: Fear no more the heat of the sun.

  Hobbes asked, ‘What else have we got? Anything new?’

  ‘No sign of a discarded weapon. We’ve searched dustbins, alleyways, the usual places.’

  ‘So the perpetrator took it with them.’

  ‘Looks that way. And here’s the autopsy report. Just in.’

  He took a grey folder off her, flicked through it. Latimer summed it up for him. ‘A serrated blade, quite small. A steak knife would do it. The neck wound killed him, severed the jugular. But it wasn’t a professional job. A lucky slice.’

  ‘The facial cuts?’

  ‘Straight after, we think. Before the blood had a chance to stop pumping.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Not much. The perpetrator’s right-handed.’

  ‘What order were the cuts made in?’

  ‘Page five.’

  Hobbes found the relevant section. Left eye, left side of mouth, right side of mouth, the two cuts on the brow to make the cross. It was a best estimate, he knew.

  Six wounds altogether, including the one to the neck. The mask in place. But why? For what purpose?

  ‘The eye was the vital wound,’ he murmured. ‘The main target.’

  Latimer said, ‘The killer really wanted to make him cry. I mean, that’s one hell of a teardrop.’

  He scanned the rest of the report. Time of death was confirmed as being somewhere between midnight and two. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘Fingerprints.’ Latimer held up a sheaf of papers. ‘The victim’s. A few from Simone Paige. And plenty of unknowns. The band members, I imagine, in the main.’

  Hobbes shook his head in worry. ‘What about the bedstead?’

  ‘Only Clarke’s.’

  ‘So he pushed the bed himself.’

  ‘Yes, looks like you were right on that one, guv.’

  He nodded. It was good to have the theory confirmed. ‘So Clarke set up the bed, and the record player with the Blu-Tac, and everything. He set that fragment of song playing.’

  Latimer nodded. ‘What the hell was he doing?’

  They were both silent for a moment.

  Hobbes handed back the fingerprint file and stepped over to the board, where numerous photographs of the body and the crime scene were pinned. There was a cheap-looking record player on a table next to the board, with a bunch of albums and singles propped up beside it.

  Latimer said drily, ‘PC Barlow’s been studying the songs.’

  Hobbes looked at the sleeves. Most of them showed the real face of Lucas Bell, with the singer seen in various locations. The inner sleeve of the first album revealed a portrait of Bell in what looked to be a tiny bedsit. He was reading a copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

  ‘Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’ Latimer said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘How come such a pretty boy needs to hide behind a mask?’

  Hobbes shrugged in reply. The singer was certainly unique-looking. ‘I wouldn’t exactly call him handsome, Meg. I mean, if he wasn’t famous, would you even look twice?’

  ‘What’s your point?’

  ‘I’m trying to work out just why so many people idolize this guy, so many years after his death, and why one of them is now drawn to the act of murder.’

  ‘The mad-fan theory?’

  Hobbes’s face creased up in thought as he studied the singer’s face. ‘There’s something about Mr Bell, about his looks, his manner. His eyes. It’s easy to imagine that he’d been bullied, as a kid. Beaten, even. Maybe that’s part of his appeal?’

  ‘Spot on, I reckon.’

  ‘And maybe that’s why a certain kind of fan goes loopy for him. They’re identifying with his weakness, not his strength. And …’

  ‘And if we can identify that weakness in the fan, we’ll have our killer?’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’

  He smiled. The mood had relaxed slightly. ‘Tell me, Meg, do you recall seeing a doll in Brendan Clarke’s house anywhere? A model figure of Lucas Bell – pop memorabilia. Mrs Clarke told me it was missing.’

  ‘Nothing like that, no.’

  Hobbes rubbed at his eyes. He fell silent. And then in a mumble, almost to himself, he said, ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Hobbes looked at her. ‘Meg, listen … about earlier …’

  ‘Save it. We have to get on, like it or not.’

  ‘We do. I’m aware of that. But what happened back in Soho …’

  She was looking at him. He felt the words were trapped in his mouth.

  ‘Meg, I know you’ve heard the story …’

  ‘Sure.’ Latimer’s gaze was unrelenting. ‘A cop killed himself.’

  ‘I didn’t string him up.’

  ‘You handed him the rope.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means that you brought DI Jenkes down, you got him sacked.’

  ‘Now look, I don’t need to justify myself to you, or to anyone.’

  Hobbes’s raised voice cut through the babble of the incident room. The other officers present looked over at him.

  He added in a softer voice, ‘It pains me to say it, but Jenkes was a racist. And he paid for it.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Latimer whispered, close to him. ‘The Brixton riot had just happened. We were all racist back then, for a couple of days at least.’

  Hobbes didn’t know how to answer that. He didn’t like to think about it, but there was some truth in her statement. He remembered his own anger.

  ‘It doesn’t excuse what Jenkes did. Or the other two coppers.’

  She glared at him. ‘There were four officers in that room, weren’t there?’

  A pain cut through Hobbes’s left temple, where he’d been bricked during the riot. It still played up, whenever he was pushed.

  ‘Four people,’ Latimer said again. ‘And you joined in.’

  ‘I didn’t!’

  ‘That’s what the others said … It’s common knowledge.’

  ‘Common knowledge? Christ! You’re meant to be a detective …’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘They lied.’

  Latimer kept on: ‘You joined in and then turned tail and rang the bell on them. Any way you measure it, that stinks.’

  She glared at him. Hobbes held his tongue for a moment, and then said, ‘I was there. I know what I saw.’

  ‘And you didn’t do anything?’

  Now he couldn’t speak at all. Latimer took a step back. She could see that he was troubled. ‘Inspector,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry, but it’s your word against the three other officers. You were attacked. You had to defend yourselves. You all did!’

  Hobbes looked at her. What could he say against such an argument? It was useless. The ranks had closed up in support of each other. Only one thing came to mind, a fact that still filled him with anguish, even after these months had passed. He spoke quietly.

  ‘Charlie Jenkes was my friend. My best friend.’

  That was all. A simple statement. But even as he said it, he wondered at his own knowledge: why hadn’t he seen the truth about Jenkes? Or perhaps he had, all along, and chosen to ignore it.

  His voice softened. ‘Right now, I can’t trust anyone.’

  There was a slight pause and then Latimer said, ‘The thing is, sir, a number of our officers were shipped over to Brixton for the riot.’

  ‘I can guess that. All the London stations were called upon.’

  ‘One young constable was injured. Badly injured. Pete Gregson. He’s still hasn’t come back to work. He might never make it back, we don’t know yet.’

  Hobbes frowne
d. He was beginning to understand why there was such resentment towards him, here at Kew Road. ‘So what are you saying, Meg, that an eye for an eye is a good thing?’

  ‘It’s a war.’ She sighed. ‘That’s what it feels like.’

  ‘I felt the same, on the night. But now, thinking back—’

  Latimer’s frustration overtook her. ‘They’re all against us. The press, the public, even our own top brass. We’re figures of hate.’

  Everyone in the room was now staring at the two of them. Hobbes was about to order them to get back to work, but instead he let the moment play out, the unease. He spoke clearly so they could all hear him:

  ‘There’s only one way forward, and that’s to tell the truth. And that’s what I did. It’s painful. Yes. But what else can we do?’

  ‘Right now, honestly, I feel like jacking it in.’

  ‘Don’t do that. Please, Meg. This is your job, your life.’

  Latimer relented. ‘Let’s work this case together, find the killer.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then we see how it feels.’

  ‘What about Fairfax?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll never get him onside, you know that. It’s too personal.’

  Hobbes looked away for a moment, lost in thought. Then he turned back and asked, ‘Where’s that record cover? The last album.’

  She handed him the King Lost sleeve. He opened up the gatefold and stared at the painted face. The teardrop, the X, the widened lips.

  ‘What’s your memory of all this,’ he asked, ‘from the time?’

  ‘Well, like I said, I wasn’t a massive fan. But I recall the mask, the character he’d invented. Lucas Bell actually started calling himself King Lost in interviews, I remember that much.’

  ‘But what does it mean, in terms of the murderer’s act, the desecration of the victim’s face? What’s the killer doing? What’s he feeling?’

  Seeing the autopsy report, Hobbes had automatically gone back to thinking of the perpetrator as male. The nature of the wounds swayed him.

  Latimer pondered. ‘This face, this mask … it means something to the killer.’

  Hobbes tried turning the problem on its head. ‘Maybe it’s not an act of hatred?’

  ‘What else can it be?’

  ‘I don’t know. An act of love.’

  ‘You’re losing me.’

  ‘It’s meticulous. The work of an artist.’ Hobbes frowned. ‘You see, that’s what I keep coming back to. The deliberate nature of the work. The set-up of the room. The light through the window.’