Soul Mate (Book One)

by Richard Crawford

  I think of the gun, no longer cold through my shirt. There's no way Anna will be expecting anything like that. I'm worried for her. But I'm praying there's some way she can help me.

  The ghost takes another couple of biscuits and finishes the coffee.

  I wonder what Anna is doing. What would I do if I was her. I don't think she'll call the police. I have a horrible thought. I shove it way back; bury it. I've got to keep this stuff out of my head. She's been gone a while and the ghost is getting restless. He knows her background. Even if he doesn't know all of it, he's not a trusting sort of guy. He reaches round and resettles the gun. The feel of it freaks me out.

  I hear the house door bang. When Anna comes in a few moments later, the ghost smiles at her. She has a few leaflets in her hand. She drops them on the table without getting too close. I can feel the ghost watching her every move now. He's suspicious. I try hard to stay blank, hidden.

  Anna's back at the desk. That's not smart. The way the room's laid out the ghost is nearer the door. She's effectively trapped if he tries anything. And I know it's coming. I can feel the change in him. I don't know what he wants from her. If it goes bad, I'll have to try and distract him. But I'm not sure if I can pull that off again. I might give her some sort of chance to get away from him. For the moment, I play dead.

  The ghost crosses his legs, gets comfortable. He's suspicious but not threatened. "Mrs Lanson, I'm afraid I haven't been altogether frank with you." He watches Anna but she doesn't give anything away. "You may remember Geoff Crick. You helped them send him to prison for a murder he didn't commit?"

  As soon as he mentions his name, Anna's face changes. She goes sort of grey. Her hands are hidden beneath the desk and I wonder if she has some sort of weapon. But she doesn't move. She doesn't answer him.

  "I'm going to give you a chance to explain your part in what happened," the ghost says. "And to help me find the man who murdered Kylie Martin. After that we'll have to see."

  Anna still hasn't moved. "Who are you," she says. I can hear the fear in her voice.

  The ghost frowns at her. "I told you who I am, just not why I was here. Now I want you to stay calm and do exactly as I say, Mrs Lanson. Do you understand?"

  Anna's scared. I can see it in her face. But there's something else going on too. I wonder what she's done. The ghost sits up, like he knows something is wrong.

  The ghost starts to reach behind his back for the gun. But there's something weird happening. I can't see properly. The ghost loses his balance, slumps sideways. She's drugged us. I feel the ghost raging as he realises. But it's too late he's losing control. Moments later we hit the floor; the last thing I see are grey carpet tiles up real close.

  I come to after the ghost. I can hear Anna shouting at me. But mostly I can feel the ghost's fury. We're sitting on a hard chair. Hands tied behind our back. There are ropes round my ankles too. She's got us tied to a chair. I feel a sort of terrified relief.

  Anna's standing close, but not touching us. She's calling my name, saying something. But I can't make it out. My head feels thick; the darkness is pulling at me. I have to concentrate really hard to understand what she's saying.

  "Tommy, you have to help me. Together we can drive him out. Tommy!" She sounds desperate. I know she's worked out what's happening. Who the ghost is.

  The ghost laughs. I'm guessing this has been going on for a while.

  "Tommy's not in the game anymore, Mrs Lanson," the ghost says it softly. "What a strange coincidence that you should know him." He doesn't sound worried.

  Anna ignores the ghost. "Tommy," she doesn't give up. Her hand hits my face, hard. The ghost laughs.

  Anna backs off. She's breathing hard and I can tell she doesn't even want to be in the room with us. She knows about Crick, who he is. I guess she can feel what a crazy bastard he is. Whatever he intended for her she's raised the stakes by drugging the coffee. She takes a breath. "Tommy," her voice is softer, soothing. "Tommy, I know you can hear me."

  Somewhere outside a car door slams. Anna freezes. She looks to the window. I have a terrible feeling but I dare not even think about it.

  "Expecting visitors?" the ghost asks. "Customers perhaps?"

  "Shut up." Anna goes to the desk and rips open one of the drawers. She searches, throwing papers onto the floor. Finally she comes up with a roll of brown parcel tape. I can see how hard it is for her to come up close to us, but she gets the tape wrapped over our mouth. I can hear footsteps outsides.

  Anna hurries to the door. She flips the lights off and goes out. I hear the key turn in the lock. I hear Suki's voice and everything stops. I feel the ghost tugging against the ropes. The ropes. That's all I think about. I can't let him know about Suki. But the ghost's too busy working on the ropes to notice anything. I can't stop him.

  I don't know how long it is before I hear the key turn in the lock again. The ghost freezes. He settles back in the chair. But I know he's worked the ropes pretty loose. Anna comes in. She closes the door and locks it. But she doesn't turn the light on. There's a fair bit of daylight from the window. She stands just inside the door and stares at us. I don't think she sees what the ghost has done. I try to send some sort of warning, but when I go against the ghost the darkness drags at me.

  The ghost is very still, waiting, eager. When she moves I scream inside my head, trying to tell her. The ghost smothers my screams, pushing me down till I'm drowning in the darkness. Anna comes close. I can see by her face how much she hates doing this. She puts her hands either side of my face.

  "Tommy." Her eyes close. I feel her reaching out for me but the ghost is too strong. The darkness clings and I can't get away. I can hear Anna's voice it's a long way off. I push towards it. I try to warn her. Then I feel the ghost tug the ropes free.

  Anna screams as the ghost reaches for her. Our feet are still tied but he can move. The ghost grabs hold of her. I batter at him with everything I have. It stops him, but only for a moment. He lets go of Anna and she falls backwards out of his reach. She scrambles towards the desk. The ghost swats me down. I'm sucked back towards the darkness leaving the ghost free. He goes after her, dragging the chair with us. Anna crawls round the desk. She reaches for one of the drawers. We scramble towards her; as she gets the drawer open I see the gun. No! The gun won't stop the ghost. The ghost isn't scared. He has nothing to lose.

  Anna lifts the gun but the ghost is on her. Our fist hits her back. I try to help but the ghost doesn't even notice me now. The gun drops onto the floor. Anna makes a grab for it but the ghost catches her by the leg and pulls her into his grip. We throw her against the wall. The ghost picks up the gun and starts to turn.

  I resist him with everything I can find. It's enough to halt him. He gives a wordless roar. His anger batters me. But I don't stop. Better he shoots me than Anna, or Suki. A last hope, I scream for Danny.

  I feel the shock of impact almost immediately. It's like when the kids were knocked out of me. But it doesn't work with this ghost. I think Danny tries again. But the ghost's laughing and I'm drowning in the darkness. I am only vaguely aware as the ghost tightens his grip on the gun and raises it to point at Anna. She cowers back against the wall.

  The ghost climbs to his feet. Watching her all the time. I wonder if Danny's still here. I'm screaming for him to help me. Then another force rips through me. Like several ghosts at once. Crick's ghost is frantic. I feel other ghosts come for him. I'm thrown across the room. I hit the wall hard and the chairs splinters.

  The darkness closes over me. It's like in the police station. I can't breathe. Everything slips away.

  I think I hear Danny's voice calling me. I open my eyes. The ghost is gone. I'm lying up against the wall tangled in bits of broken chair.

  "Tommy?" Anna's voice is shrill with fear. She's standing a few feet away, pointing the gun at me. Her face is scary.

  I reach to pull the tape from my mouth. "It's me," I say. I don't move. She looks crazy with fear. "It's me, Tommy."

  "Wh
at happened to the ghost?" she asks. I don't think she truly believes it's me.

  "Danny drove him out," I say. "And some other ghosts I think." The pain in my head spikes and I roll to my knees and puke. Blood drips from my nose. When I stop puking, she's still pointing the gun at me. "Please, he's gone."

  "How do I know he's really gone?"

  "I don't know. You're the fucking expert."

  She's still not convinced.

  "Do you think the gun would stop the ghost?" I ask. I'm shivering now. "He was too crazy to give a shit what happened to my body. Threatened to blow my head of himself." My voice sounds weird and my head hurts so bad I can hardly think. "Please, Anna."

  Something gets through to her. She puts the gun in the drawer and locks it. "Stay there. Give me your hand." She takes my hand and I can sort of feel her. Like Suki with the ghosts only with Anna the feeling is much more powerful. She sighs. "Come on, let's get you up from there."

  She gets me sitting in one of the other chairs and then untangles the ropes and bits of wood. I can't stop shivering. "Do you think he can come back," I ask.

  She shakes her head. "No, I don't think so."

  "But you don't know?"

  She shakes her head.

  "Was Suki here? Is she gone?" I need to know she's safe from all of this.

  Anna nods. "Yes, I called her when you turned up. I didn't realise…." She shivers. "I knew there was something. How could I be so stupid?" I'm guessing she called Suki to give her a fright, show her what she was messing with. Suddenly Anna looks as if she might cry. That's a scary thing to see. I wonder if I should do something but I feel like I'm in a minefield, one wrong move, I don't know what she'll do. And there's the ghost to worry about. I try to think it through. Make some sense of it, but that's not easy. Something else nags at me.

  "I think Danny came to help me," I say. "He stopped the ghost."

  That gets her attention. "What happened?"

  "He sort of shoved the ghost out. It happened once before but I think he had help from other ghosts this time." I hesitate. "Does that mean…."

  "That he's forgiven you?" she says, but not nasty.

  I nod.

  "I don't know, Tommy. The things he said before." She shrugs. "He might be angry but that doesn't mean he wants to see you hurt." She sees my face, probably guesses how desperate I am. "But I don't know. If he helped you before then perhaps he's sorry for what he did to you."

  "You mean the ghosts? You really think he did this?"

  Again she shrugs. "Perhaps. I'm sorry, Tommy, it's clear you're not a medium."

  "What does that mean?"

  "You don't have control. You can't communicate with the ghosts and it seems Danny only hears you when it's desperate. But beyond that I really don't know."

  "If he's sorry," I can't look at her face when I ask, "Will it stop?"

  She doesn't answer. I know I shouldn't ask again. I guess she thinks the ghosts are not going anywhere. She won't even say perhaps, or she doesn't know. I want to leave it but I can't.

  "Why not? Why can't it be over?"

  "He's opened a way for them. I think it's like a weakness now, Tommy; they'll always find it. If it was just one ghost maybe, but after so many…."

  I can't deal with that now. We sit for a while longer. I keep thinking about Crick. Unless it worked completely differently with him, then he had a reason to return. I have to believe the ghosts come for good reasons.

  I keep coming back to the same thing. I have to ask her. "The little girl. What happened?"

  Her face gets blank and she just shakes her head.

  "The ghost, I don't think he killed her," I say. "And if that's why he came back."

  "Just leave it, Tommy."

  "But if that's why he came back…." I don't want to say it. "If he's not done, he might come back again. He might go after Suki." That's not something I can live with. "You have to help me. You have to tell me what happened so we can find the killer. Take away the ghost's reason to come back."

  I know she wants to refuse. I can see it in her eyes and the hardening of her mouth. But I know she can't refuse.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Anna can't refuse to help, but she doesn't make it easy. We go back to the house and sit in the kitchen by the Aga. It takes me half an hour to persuade her to talk about it at all, and then she insists that I start by telling her what happened with the ghost. I don't want to, but I go through it; everything the ghost did, robbing Ally's wallet, Mrs Crick, the solicitor. I tell her about Joel Hunter. Her face gets even greyer and her mouth gets tight. It's not the nicest thing to tell her but I figure she needs to know.

  Even though the ghost's gone, and she tells me it's for good, Anna's really on edge. Like there's something that scares her more than the ghost. But I'm still way freaked by the ghost. Perhaps that's why I'm so brutal with what I tell her. I feel bad because I want to scare her so she'll help me.

  When I've finished about the ghost, I wait for her to tell me what happened twelve years ago, but she asks, "What did Crick find out?"

  I shrug. "I was trapped with a psycho. You think I was paying attention to that stuff?"

  "You were there all the time. How can you not know?" She looks at me like I'm an idiot.

  She's right. I was there, but it's not that simple. "He didn't find out much," I say. "Investigating wasn't his priority. He was more into trying to kill people." I'm getting fed up with her attitude, as if this is all my problem. Like she's angry with me for putting it on her, but I don't say that. "The investigating was mostly for show."

  "Then you're going to have to go back to the solicitors," she says. "Read the file; make notes, get the details of everyone involved." She says this as if it's no big deal.

  It takes me a minute to process what she actually means. Then I can't believe she's serious. "You want me to go back there, pretending to be the ghost."

  Anna nods as if it's obvious. "This was your idea, Tommy. You want to find the murderer. We need that information."

  There's so many things wrong with that but I just say, "I can't. No way."

  "Why not?"

  "Are you nuts?"

  "You said they were expecting you to come back to look at the file again."

  "They're expecting the ghost to come back."

  "So?"

  "I'm not the fucking ghost." The idea of being him freaks me out.

  "They won't know any different." She actually thinks this is comforting. She so doesn't get it.

  "What if Mrs Crick is there?"

  "Why would she be?"

  "I don't know. He's probably her solicitor too."

  "Tommy," she says, a bit softer, clearly trying not to snap at me. "It'll be all right. You don't have to be him. You don't have to talk to anyone. You can make an excuse, say you have a meeting."

  It's easy for her to say. But I can't do it. I remember the ghost's notebook. "He did write some stuff down. His notebook's in the car. I'll get it." I'm hoping it will have what we need. But when I get it there's nothing much. I watch as Anna flips through it. Her face gets hard when she comes to the page where her and Joel Hunter's names and addresses are written down.

  "This doesn't help," she says. "You'll have to go back."

  "Don't you have stuff from the case?"

  "No, why would I?" For some reason the question makes her angry. She glances at the clock. "You've got time to have something to eat and still get there before the office closes."

  "I'm not hungry." The memory of the ghost's breakfast fry-up still lingers.

  "You should eat," she says. "You look washed out." She doesn't quite say she's worried I'm too pathetic to keep it together but I get it.

  I eat beans on toast and drink tea with sugar: kids' food and the standard remedy for all disasters, but served up by Anna it's a bit weird. Afterwards she walks me out to the car giving endless instructions. "Write down all the suspects' names and information, the witnesses too and any reporters or police mentio
ned. Get a timeline as best you can too."

  "Timeline?" I'm staring at the Merc, too busy panicking about the ghost to take anything much in.

  "What happened when," she says too patiently. "Dates and times."

  I'm still staring at the Merc. I don't think I can get in the ghost's car. It's like an extension of him. I'm afraid something will happen. He'll be waiting for me, like at the house.

  "You can do this, Tommy." She doesn't sound angry, but I know she means, You have to do this, Tommy!

  I get in the car and turn the key. Rod Stewart blasts out of the speakers. I punch the cassette out of the machine. I want to throw the stupid thing out of the window, but Anna's watching me and frowning. So I just put the cassette in the glove box and turn the stereo off. All nice and calm. Like fuck. I can feel the ghost in every molecule of this car.

  I drive slow even though I want to get this over as fast as possible. All the things that never mattered to the ghost lie in wait for me, getting stopped by the police, not having a licence, not having attended at the police station. But I don't have a choice. So I drive slowly and I think about what I need to do.

  When I get to Morthbury I park in a back street and walk to the solicitors. I figure the car might attract someone's attention. Thanks to the ghost's walks, I've got a pretty good map of the town in my head.

  I stop outside the front door. I've got the ghost's holdall. I'm wearing the jacket. I try to remember how he spoke, what he said last time. I go in the door and Julia's on reception. She smiles politely.

  "Good afternoon," I say, for some reason I make my voice deeper. "I'd like to take another look at the files, if that's alright?" Making it a question was not a good idea but she just nods and smiles again.

  She gets up straight away and I'm really relieved.

  "If you'd like to come upstairs. I'll get the files."

  Five minutes later, I'm back in the little room with the files sitting in front of me. There are more than I remember. The ghost's notebook is open and ready but I don't know where to start. I flick through but the files are full of letters and random stuff. I start again and try to go through them in order. I work through, page by page. This is going to take hours so I try to speed up. I look for reports, newspaper cuttings and anything that summarises what's going on. I start making lists like Anna said, suspects, witnesses, reporters.