Ghost Girl

by Thomson, Lesley

  ‘How else would I look? Where are you going?’ Stella was dismayed.

  ‘To bed.’

  Jack scaled the garden wall and melted into the night.

  Stella waited on the patio, half expecting him to reappear. Eventually she turned the key in the lock and returned it to the drawer. She washed up Jack’s mug and, casting about for her own, saw the notes she had stuck on the photographs.

  Charles Hampson was killed on 15 March 2009. She had written ‘15/3/2009’. Seven digits counting the zeros, and seven for ‘16/3/1977’ for Paul Vickery. Jack said seven was a special number. Seven was number of stones he had found at each crash site. Seven was the number of cakes Jennifer Barlow had made for her husband before she died.

  Stella reached for her mobile to call Jack. The date for Jamie Markham was 10/11/2002. Eight digits. She put down the phone. Dead end.

  There was a message.

  Fancy a meal at mine with Stanley and me? Sat eve after last sesh of dp clng? Dx

  Yes, she wrote and was about to add a kiss, but decided against it. Then, before she pressed ‘send’, she changed her mind and typed a lower-case x. David was right, it was the last deep cleaning session, she would make the most of it.

  Stella had planned to go to Richmond Park with Suzie on Saturday. She would cancel.

  42

  Saturday, 2 July 1966

  ‘This will be nice and tidy when we finish, Daddy,’ piped Mary. She was helping pack up Michael’s room because her mum would not come in there. Her daddy was using two gigantic boxes. If Michael was there and she was not grown up, they would have hidden inside them. Instead she was doing as she was told and filling them with Michael’s comics and cars, his toys and his Andy Pandy books.

  Mary had expected to enjoy the task. Michael would be cross she was touching his things and even crosser that they would be given away. But being dead he couldn’t spoil it and stop her. She kept forgetting all the things that being dead meant. Some of them were not fun. She did like helping her dad. She would do anything for him, and was waiting for the moment to say so.

  She heaved Michael’s shoebox of lead soldiers out of his toy cupboard. A headless sentry fell on to the floor. ‘He was broken already,’ she said quickly. ‘Where shall I put it for mending?’

  ‘In the box, no need to mend it.’

  Michael’s marbles filled an enormous glass sweet jar to the brim. Mary grasped the jar and lifting it, staggered to the boxes. The jar slid from her grasp and crashed to the floor. The afternoon they had moved in she had dropped a box and broken china and glass.

  The jar landed on Michael’s sheepskin rug and did not break. The lid burst off, scattering marbles among the tufty wool. Her dad had gone. Mary tiptoed to the window. Grass grew around the legs of Michael’s swing. She stepped on a marble and, stooping, picked it up. It did not have the pattern of the others – single twisting leaves of blue, white, red or yellow. This one had fiery orange snakes coiling around each other. It was Michael’s champion marble. She had confiscated it from him. He must have stolen it back from her. She heard voices and ran to her place on the landing.

  ‘Jean, we have to get it done. The room’s a mausoleum.’

  ‘You never wanted her.’

  ‘Don’t go over this again.’

  ‘You blame me.’

  ‘That woman said it, the one you allowed in and blabbed away to. Children need mothers, especially boys.’

  ‘Blame me, go on.’

  ‘You’re not to blame.’

  Mary stumbled up the stairs and into her room. She barricaded the door with a chair and like a snake slithered under the bed and found her duffel bag.

  She laid the Angel’s hands on the bedspread, palms uppermost, the ends of the wrists white and sharp. She touched the left one.

  That’s my blood.

  She dropped Michael’s champion marble into the hand; it made a chinking sound. She tried to close the cold fingers around it, but they were too stiff. ‘You won it, it’s yours.’ She spoke into the room.

  The bedroom door slammed into the chair but didn’t open.

  ‘Open up, girl. What are you playing at?’ her dad shouted. ‘What’s that mess in Michael’s room?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She stuffed the hands into the bag and kicked it under the bed. She moved the chair. The door flew wide. Her dad was on the landing.

  ‘Did you do this?’

  Mary looked into Michael’s room. Marbles were strewn like petals all over the rug. ‘No.’ She was firm. ‘Maybe the jar fell.’

  ‘Nobody likes a liar.’ His eyes were like marbles. ‘Clear it up.’

  Mary scooped up the marbles and dropped them into the jar. Since Michael was dead, nothing belonged to him. Nobody had said so.

  That night Mary sat up in bed. The woman was in her lighthouse. Mary imagined she was painting the Angel.

  She shut her eyes, put her hands together in prayer and in a lullaby voice like her mum, sang herself to sleep.

  ‘Mary had a little lamb,

  Little lamb, little lamb…’

  43

  Tuesday, 1 May 2012

  The church clock was striking ten as Stella locked up Terry’s house and, annoyed by Jack’s warning to behave normally, cursorily checked the street. She did keep her keys spiked between her fingers ready for attack.

  While trying to shut the gate she dropped her keys. She scrabbled at her feet for them. The faulty lamp-post went out.

  ‘Here you are.’

  About to yell for help, Stella gasped. She recognized Marian Williams in the lights from traffic on the Great West Road.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she heard herself snap, and then exclaimed less gruffly: ‘What a surprise!’

  ‘Did I scare you?’ Marian handed Stella the keys.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you. Or anyone.’ Stella leant against Terry’s gate.

  ‘I brought you these.’ Marian thrust a bundle forward.

  Instinctively Stella flinched.

  ‘Flowers.’ Marian spoke as if she guessed Stella had expected a weapon. ‘A token.’

  ‘Why?’ Stella grappled with a generous bouquet. She peered over the top of the paper and recoiled at the heady fragrance of lilies. Funerals.

  ‘For this morning.’ It was Marian Williams’s turn to appear awkward.

  ‘Anyone would have done it.’ Stella disliked cut flowers. They were pointless and lilies in particular made a mess. She remembered Marian had an abusive husband. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  ‘Thanks to you. I spent the day on the settee drinking tea.’

  Suddenly it occurred to Stella: ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I didn’t. I was passing and saw lights in Detective Chief Superintendent Darnell’s house. Call me zealous, but I like to keep an eye out, especially now he’s gone.’ She described a circle on the ground with her foot.

  ‘That’s good of you, but not at all…’

  ‘We look out for each other in this job. We’re family.’ Marian Williams gave a tight smile.

  ‘I’m selling the place.’ Stella was curt. Had Terry looked out for Marian Williams too? She thought of the condoms in the bathroom.

  ‘It’s what he would have wanted…’ Her face stiffened and she glanced above Stella’s head as if she had seen something.

  Stella looked too. The blinds in Terry’s bedroom were twisted to open, the slats in position. Had she left them like that? Of course she had.

  ‘It’s very late.’

  ‘I’m a bad sleeper. Something I had in common with Terry.’ Marian smiled.

  ‘I’d better be going.’ Stella jiggled the bouquet.

  Marian Williams did not move.

  ‘His house is fine. I was just there,’ she said gratuitously.

  ‘I was grateful you were there this morning. DCS Cashman is kind, but no match for… Terry.’ She whispered his name as if it was illegal to use it. ‘I’m glad I caught you.’

  Just what Mart
in Cashman had said. No one was a match for Terry. If he had found Marian Williams on a dark street he would have made her come in for a cup of tea, whatever the time. After he retired, Marian was a connection to the police station. She worked on traffic: maybe she had alerted him to the pattern in the blue folder. ‘Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’ Stella heard herself say.

  ‘That would be lovely.’

  Holding the bouquet away from herself, Stella fumbled with the key and opened the door. She was taken aback when Marian reached past her into the hall and turned on the light. She knew where to find the switch.

  It would be her luck if a neighbour appeared now and Stella had to introduce Marian. Then it dawned on her. The person at the door earlier was not following Jack; it was Marian. She had been watching the house. She must reassure Jack. It was weird to be checking on the house of a dead colleague at any time of day, but not that weird if you were in love with the colleague.

  In her tightly belted mackintosh Marian trotted ahead of Stella down the passage to the kitchen. Stella hung up her anorak and followed. Marian was more at home in Terry’s house than she was.

  Stella collected up the mugs from her drink with Jack from the draining board, hoping Marian wouldn’t notice there were two. If she did it should not matter. She opened the box of tea bags and took out two.

  ‘Terry said that brand had flavour. I used to get it for him.’ Marian settled in the chair with the cushion at the head of the table. ‘I’ll bring you some, if you like.’

  Stella shook her head. ‘I’m hardly ever here.’ If Marian was passing by regularly she’d know that wasn’t true. She would have seen the van.

  ‘You must find it hard to bear that he’s not with us.’ Marian looked around her as if checking this fact.

  David had asked her this the night they found the dog. Stella had said that she did. A new thought. Now the question horrified her. She said that life goes on and fled to Terry’s living room to find a vase for the lilies. Terry did not have a vase. Marian probably knew this. Stella stopped at the doorway. She dismissed the impression that someone was in the armchair.

  In the kitchen, she found an ice bucket branded with Veuve Clicquot – since when did Terry drink champagne? – and filled it from the tap, stuffed the lilies in and put it on to the table. Their heavy scent increased the nagging ache above the bridge of her nose. She opened the fridge and shut it again.

  ‘How long have you been at the station?’ She brought the mugs over to the table. ‘Sorry, Terry hasn’t got any… There isn’t any milk.’

  Marian flapped her hand at this. ‘Since the eighties. Hammersmith Station is a second home.’

  She looked about the kitchen again, as if about to add ‘after here’. Stella sat down at the table. ‘You seem to like your job.’ Without milk the drink was scalding and put paid to her plan to down it and leave.

  ‘Your dad used to say, “Marian, love, if we can make the world a little better it’s worth it.”’ She leant forward. ‘He was proud of you.’ She smiled with kindly eyes at Stella. ‘I’m an only child too. You are very like him.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Stella gulped her tea and blinked as it burned her throat.

  ‘You clean up and restore order. DCS Darnell wanted bad people off the streets. We have to listen to criminals moaning how their lives are ruined because they’re going to jail and demanding victim support when they’ve wrecked other lives.’ She looked about her again. ‘“You have the patience of a saint, Marian, love,” Terry told me.’

  ‘What do you do at the station?’ Terry had been Marian’s knight in shining armour. Stella glanced out at the garden. If Jack climbed over the back wall, it would be hard to explain it to Marian. This thought was cut short by Marian talking.

  ‘…assign crime numbers for crimes I know didn’t happen. I ensure statements are obtained and filed and liaise with victims’ families. I used to process road traffic accidents before they moved it centrally. Terry’d say: “We couldn’t do without you, Marian.” So does Cashman, but it’s not the same.’

  Stella had to stop herself asking about David Barlow. He had not falsified his claim. She trusted him. Perhaps she could ask about the photographs in the blue file. Marian had helped Terry; this was sort of the same thing. Marian hardly drew breath. Stella supposed that with the violent husband, she didn’t get much opportunity to let off steam.

  ‘…not speaking ill of the dead, but that Mrs Hampson was a time-waster. She didn’t spare a thought for the dead child.’

  ‘You must get that a lot.’ Stella sat up. Here goes. Marian had been handed to her on a plate. Affecting nonchalance she sipped at the scalding drink.

  ‘I do.’ Marian was grim. ‘Carelessness kills more than the child. It affects everyone. It affected Terry.’

  Stella remarked airily: ‘Odd Mrs Hampson saying her husband passing the advanced driving test was fresh evidence. She struck me as sensible.’

  ‘Did she?’ Marian Williams rounded on Stella. ‘Of course, you knew her.’

  ‘I never actually met her.’ Stella was hot with discomfort. Marian hadn’t missed Cashman’s comment that Mrs Hampson was a client. She did not remark on Stella failing to mention this. Stella was no good at economizing with the truth.

  ‘She relied on your father being a soft touch. I will say this: he could be too nice. “Everyone deserves a second chance,” he’d say.’ She got to her feet. ‘He was a good man, Stella.’

  Stella was trying to think where she had heard this phrase before. She took a moment to realize Marian was holding her hand. Her fingers were cold, her grasp strong. ‘Yes, he was…’ she faltered.

  ‘We’re like family in the force,’ Marian repeated and set off up the passage. She was going.

  Stella’s rucksack was by the front door where she had dropped it, the zip undone. One of the photographs, loose from when she and Jack had looked at them, lay face up on the parquet.

  Marian Williams picked up the picture. ‘This is Tolworth Street. Why have you got this?’

  ‘Oh, I sometimes take photos…’ Stella’s mind went blank. Her only reason for taking pictures was to capture stains – before and after – for flyers and brochures.

  ‘David Lauren committed suicide here in 1989,’ Marian intoned.

  ‘David Lauren?’ Stella felt the nettle stings tingle on her knuckles. Her subtle approach was paying off, she told herself.

  ‘Little Billy was killed soon after I started with the police. Terry warned me the first ones stay with you and how right he was.’ She opened the front door. ‘I was standing here – it could have been yesterday – I told him they all stay with me.’

  Elated by the sniff of success, Stella made a snap decision. She would tell Marian about Terry’s folder. Marian would know the street. Stella didn’t want to talk to the police, but Marian Williams was not strictly the police and, it being Terry’s hunch, she would be eager to help. Jack had advised they keep it a secret. He had also suggested she speak to Cashman. Pulling it out from her rucksack, Stella could see no harm in showing Marian. Her phone rang.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Stella, is that you? It’s Jackie. Sorry to call this late.’

  Stella shot Marian a look of apology and signalled she should wait. ‘You OK?’ Something had happened to Jack. She went cold.

  Marian Williams was mouthing: ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘Yes, love, all quiet on the Western whatsit.’

  ‘Can I call you back?’ Before Stella could stop her, Marian had trotted down the path and out of the gate.

  ‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow, no problem,’ Jackie agreed.

  ‘It’s OK, go ahead.’

  ‘Do you want the good news or the good news?’

  ‘The good news,’ Stella obliged. Jackie shouldn’t be working for Clean Slate at this time of night.

  ‘Your nice policeman rang to confirm that Mrs Hampson tripped. She’d had a drink, but not over the odds. Poor love, any of us
could do it. You be careful on your dad’s path.’

  ‘What nice policeman?’ Stella was staring at the path; there was a tile missing. In the rain, she might trip. Jackie had a knack of knowing what Stella was doing. Unlike Marian she would not be checking up on her.

  ‘Earth to Stella! Martin Cashman, your dad’s mate? He tried you earlier, but got your voicemail. He wanted you to hear in person so asked me to tell you. What a sweety! Turns out I was at school with his big brother, a cool kid, not like Martin. Will you tell Jack or shall I?’

  ‘I will.’ Stella could not remember the name of the man Marian said had died in Tolworth Street.

  ‘Want to hear the other good news?’ Jackie did not wait for an answer. ‘Amanda Hampson’s cousin wants us to clean her house. The police left it in a state and recommended us. They want a deep clean!’

  ‘That’s good,’ Stella said. At least she had another street name.

  ‘I’ve settled it with the woman who’s handling our contract with them. Mary-Anne Thing.’

  ‘Marian Williams.’

  ‘She brought in the signed forms as I was leaving, bless her. You could have fetched them next time you were there. Funny stick, isn’t she? Can’t look you in the eye.’

  Stella’s own experience was that Marian fixed her with a stare. Jackie would have a fit if she told her about Marian bringing flowers; she was protective of Stella’s private life. Marian had said she had lain on the sofa all day. Against Cashman’s instructions she had worked. Stella would have done the same.

  ‘She looked familiar, but she didn’t know me. She has one of those faces. Unremarkable. Anyway, don’t you get ideas, I’m giving the job to Jack.’

  ‘It makes up for losing the client,’ Stella said. The man was killed in Tolworth Street in 1989; she must keep that in her mind. Since Terry’s death her memory was flaky. Surely it was Jackie who said when a parent dies, there’s no buffer, you’re next.

  ‘Stella, for goodness’ sake! Go home and go to bed. You are tired.’ Jackie ended the call.