by Lauren White
Bim reappears, rousing me from my thoughts. I have been with Reece a great deal of the time since I died, she informs me, archly, and I'm a witness to the FACT this man is totally devastated by my disappearance. There's no way he could have killed me. Absolutely none.
She is so resolute about it I don't have the energy to argue with her. Let's see if there's anything on the News about it, I suggest, instead.
I switch on the portable television Carrie has donated to my basement office. It is tuned to Bim's favourite current affairs channel. Having worked in public relations she uses twenty four hour news broadcasts like dialysis. We sit through a sixty minute cycle of stories without there being anything about her or Reece. Then, Kerry shows up to watch a soap she has started to follow. But, if we turn over, Bim is going to expect me to do something much more taxing than watch television to prove I'm helping her. We are still bickering about it as a banner headline - Missing PR: Breaking News - flashes across the bottom of the screen.
This is it, this is it, Bim exclaims, excitedly.
There is a police search under way in some woods in South East London which is believed to be connected with the disappearance of Public Relations Executive, Belinda Montgomery, the presenter, an attractive brunette, whose hair is so lacquered it doesn't move with her head, reports. The woods, known locally as Oxley Woods, are close to the home of her boyfriend, Reece Baxter, who was driven away in a police vehicle earlier today. Detectives hunting the missing woman have confirmed that he is helping them with their enquiries.
I round on Bim. Why would they be searching the woods near his home, if he didn't have anything to do with your disappearance?
Because they're cretins!
As a former cretin I take umbrage at that. It's so typical of the general public. You want us to do something about it when you get yourselves murdered but the moment we do, we are vilified. The police wouldn't waste time and money mounting a search of the woods near Reece's house unless there was a reason to suspect him.
She disappears in a huff, again, and while we wait for her to calm down, Kerry flicks over the channel to the soap she wants to watch.
Okay, if you really want to know, he was accused of aggravated rape when he was a student, Bim volunteers when she reappears ten minutes later.
Yep, that would do it, I say, dryly, as Kerry turns the television back to the news channel, before anyone can tell her to.
It was done out of malice. The charges were dropped because the woman retracted her statement. She told the police she couldn't bear the thought of being raped again by the judicial system. She made the whole thing up, more like. She was some kind of balm pot, apparently.
And, how do you know that?
Reece told me.
Oh, well, it must be true, then!
Don't be so unpleasant! He didn't have to tell me about it. I would never have found out otherwise.
Somehow that doesn’t console me.
She has made a habit of this kind of thing, Kate.
Of course she has! Her gullibility is astounding.
No, it's true. She made a similar accusation against a professor at the same university, before Reece even graduated.
Says who? Reece?
She ignores the remark and ploughs on with her defence of him. There was a story in one of the newspapers, recently, about her doing something similar to a work colleague too. That's why he told me about it. He showed me the cutting. He was debating whether he should contact the police. He didn't want her to ruin this man's life the way she'd tried to ruin his.
Bim, this is a tricky subject, you must see that. It's so easy to accuse a woman of making this kind of thing up. Most rapists do. And, it does happen that some women get picked on time and time again. That DOES happen, you know! Now, I want you to think very carefully about the question I'm now going to ask you, before you give me an answer. Okay? Have you ever considered the possibility she was telling the truth?
Of course, I have. I'm not so much of a fool not to. And, I can see how he could get himself misinterpreted.
Misinterpreted? We're talking about aggravated rape, Bim!
I know that! Why don't you let me finish? I was just trying to tell you he has that tendency men sometimes have to over-sexualise things. But, MY experience of him is that he is absolutely clear no means no. I've felt embarrassed once or twice by his sexual innuendos but I have never ever felt sexually threatened by him. He likes women too much to physically hurt one.
I don't want to be argumentative but frankly I doubt her judgement. What kind of woman has a relationship with a man who has been suspected of aggravated rape? Well, let's hope your body doesn't turn up in Oxley Woods or his goose is cooked.
It won't. Reece had nothing to do with whatever happened to me. He was already at the restaurant where the party was being held when I set off from home that night.
I pounce again. How do you know that?
He rang me before I left the house.
And, what? Told you he was at the restaurant?
Don't say it like that. The other people there must be able to confirm his whereabouts.
Kerry, who is flicking back and forth between the news channel and her soap, pauses to ask: If Bim's right and Reece really can prove where he was, why would the police be bothering to interview him?
Bim gives her a ferocious glare.
He is her boyfriend, Kerry. They have to talk to him. He is going to be a useful source of information about her. But, if they're digging up Oxley Woods because they suspect him, either there's a hole in his alibi or they think he paid someone else to murder her.
Why are you doing this? You're supposed to be my friends, Bim whines, miserably.
More Breaking News in the missing PR woman case, flashes across bottom of the television screen, putting an end to our argument.
Police searching in a South East London wood for the missing Public Relations Executive, Belinda Montgomery, have cordoned off an area from public view, the presenter reports. They haven't confirmed whether or not they've found human remains yet, but we are expecting a statement from a police spokesperson shortly.
The finding of human remains in Oxley Woods is confirmed on the front pages of the early editions of the next day's newspapers, which actually hit the streets in London at around 11pm that night. We know by then from visiting the site ourselves what the media do not. It can’t be Bim. The body that has been found is even more decomposed than Kerry’s. It must have lain there for some time. On the inside pages of the same newspapers, every salacious detail that can be wrung from the life of public relations playboy, Reece Baxter, aged 41, has been printed. The fact he has been released without charge doesn’t seem to count. Bim is wretched on his behalf. She has us all staked out at his house on suicide watch. (Well, that's her intention. Mine, if I'm honest, is to see whether I can find any hard evidence against him.) It is a particularly cheerless place: all style and no personality - minimalist modern, with a hint of Japanese for entertaining the easily impressed. Very expensive too, I shouldn't wonder, but completely soulless. I'd top myself too if I had to spend any amount of time here. Despite his lamentable taste in décor, the man himself is a dish. I can see why Bim fell for him. With his brown wavy hair, pallid complexion, Mediterranean blue eyes, a high patrician forehead, and fine boned nose, he pushes the barrier of handsome into something closer to beautiful. He dresses well too, even in distress, which makes him vain, perhaps, but I'm prepared to admit, after only a short time there, Bim's instinct is correct. Reece is no murderer. He is too devastated by the unfurling events - by Bim's disappearance most of all and now by the possibility it is her in that grave; that she really is lost to him forever. And, even if he is faking this, from the moment she went missing none of his behaviour points to him being the killer. He has even hired a private detective and on his advice offered a reward for any information leading to her recovery. That doesn't seem like the action of a murderer to me. Unless he is an extremely clev
er one...No, the longer I observe him, the more I believe in his innocence. Bim is right to worry about his mental state too. He is dangerously depressed. For hour after hour, he sits on a stool in his kitchen with several bottles of tablets on the gleaming work surface in front of him, while we take turns to talk him out of joining us.
You will only confirm in the mind of the public that you really are Bim's killer, if you do this, I try.
And, all investigation into her disappearance will cease, Kerry follows up, to the accompaniment of Bim whimpering, dramatically, in the background: Don't do it Reece. Don't do it, darling. Live for me. Live for us.
I am prepared to send the bottles flying from the table, before he ever has a chance to reach for them, if only to shut her up. But, mercifully, as dawn breaks, he voluntarily places them back in the medicine cabinet himself from where they inexplicably fall into the toilet, and are flushed away. He is a PR man, whose reputation will be in ruins ahead of his business, if he isn't quick to act. He has realised this from the moment the police first took him in for questioning but thanks to us (who would have thought three dead people would turn out to be such brilliant life coaches) he is finally ready to fight for himself using what he understands most – how to manipulate public opinion. He calls in several favours from the journalists he knows and persuades his ex-wife to talk to them about his gentle character and his love for Bim, whom he was apparently planning to ask to marry him. (This produces more whimpering from his intended.) The owner of the restaurant where the cocktail party was being held, agrees to make public the fact that, not only was he there on the evening Bim disappeared, but he was also there most of that afternoon too; from before the time when she left the office to go home and get changed, which means his alibi is as solid as they come. The police have nothing. Trumping all of this, the private detective he has hired reveals a piece of evidence, hitherto undiscovered by the police, (what an almighty cock up). Bim's car was recorded on a security camera, at seven minutes before eight, on the evening she went missing, being driven by a man in the same vicinity, but not the actual street, where it was later found abandoned. The picture quality is so grainy it is difficult to make out the driver clearly but it isn’t Reece. They are possibly about the same height but Reece has dark hair and the man in the car is fair.
I've promised to babysit my nephews while Carrie goes for a job interview at a local supermarket. It is a part-time position as a cashier so she'll be able to fit it around the boys’ school hours when Caleb starts full time nursery in the autumn. She is not doing it for the money. She received a large payout from my life insurance as well as inheriting my flat. But, now she is a separated woman, she needs to get out of the house and make new friends. She is in a state when I go upstairs to check on how her preparations are going. She is already dressed, in a blue polka dot skirt and a summer weight short-sleeved blue jacket, but she is feeling upset because Sam hasn't returned home from the game of football he is supposed to be playing with his friend Ryan in the park.
I knew I shouldn't have agreed to them going out on their own. They're only nine years old. Anything could have happened to them.
Calm down! He'll be fine. He is probably on his way home right now. You just go to your interview and I bet he'll arrive back two seconds after you leave.
But, what if something has happened to him?
Nothing has happened to him. He is just doing what nine year old boys do. They play football and forget the time.
This conversation is carried out without having to write anything down. Carrie's psychic skills are coming on a treat. She still can't see me but she can hear me in her head.
Her eyes are glistening with tears. What if he has been run over?
Part of me is angry with her for making my death the cause of her continued suffering. It is me who's dead, not her. But, I can also recognise it must have, genuinely, shaken her universe. The one thing we know with any certainty when we're born is that one day we're going to die but we live our lives as though that day, probably, isn't today or tomorrow. Thanks to me, Carrie can no longer make that assumption. The worst has already happened and it is going to take time for her to ignore the fact it could quite easily do so again.
Carrie, if anything bad had happened to him, I'd know. Go to your interview, and you'll see, he'll be here by the time you get back.
Are you sure?
Carrie!
Okay, okay, you win, I'll go.
She rushes about, collecting her essential interview anxiety relieving items - paper, pens, antiseptic wipes, plasters, and lip salve - until there's no more space in her handbag.
Boys do what your Auntie Kate tells you, she calls to Jethro and Caleb who are watching television in the living room.
They don't answer.
Wish me luck, she says to me, as she hurries out the door.
You don't need it. The job's yours, I call after her.
I sit on the arm of the sofa next to the boys as soon as she leaves. They're lying in a heap, Caleb's head resting on one of Jethro's calves, Jethro's foot on Caleb's stomach.
Jethro looks up at me. Has she gone?
Who's she, the cat's mother?
Has Mummy gone, he rephrases, begrudgingly.
Yep.
Oh. He goes back to watching his programme.
Where's your brother?
He kicks Caleb, making him yelp. There, he says.
Your other brother.
This causes him to look at me, briefly. Carrie has finally trimmed his fringe and I catch a flicker of something I can't quite pin point in his eyes.
He is playing football in the park with Ryan.
Pull the other one.
He looks back to the animal programme he is watching to avoid my penetrating gaze. He told Mummy he was playing football in the park.
And, what did he tell you?
Nothing.
Jethro?
I gave him my word I wouldn’t tell anyone?
I'm not anyone. I'm a ghost so you're safe.
He considers the loophole I've offered him. He has gone down the mall with Ryan.
To do what?
I don't know. Nick some computer games, probably.
I feel shocked which is nothing to how Carrie will react if she finds out about this. You say that as though it is a normal family pastime. Is it?
He shakes his head. Not with me, it's not.
And, never will be?
He doesn't answer.
Promise me Jethro because if you ever pull a stunt like that I'm going to know.
I promise, okay? Don't have a go at me, Auntie Kate. I haven't done anything. Sam's the deli- quent.
Mmm. We'll talk about this, later, when you're not glued to that screen.
I take myself off to the kitchen to have a ponder about all of this. I've no idea why some rooms are better for thinking through emotional quandaries than others. It is not like I was much of a cook in life but I feel closest to my mother here. Before she died from cancer, six years ago, I'd hang around her when something was troubling me. I didn't need to talk. Her presence alone was enough to help me sort things through. What I'm trying to decide now is whether I should go and get Sam before he robs a shop - possibly the same shop where Carrie is hoping to work as a cashier - or abandon him to his fate and stay here with my nephews of six and three who are far too young to be left on their own. Fortunately, Kerry shows up in time to rescue me from my deliberative loop. She has been to check on the CCTV camera footage of the man filmed driving Bim’s car the night she went missing to make absolutely sure it couldn’t be her killer. But, the picture quality is so bad his own mother wouldn’t be able to recognise him.
I want you two to stay here while I go out to look for Sam, I brief my two youngest nephews. You're to do as Kerry tells you. And, you're not to answer the door to anyone except your mother, okay?
Okay, they repeat, flatly.
Look at me when you say it so I can see you've understood, I comm
and.
Okay, they repeat more loudly, turning to face me.
First I go and search Sam's room. I'm looking for evidence and I soon find some. He seems to have accumulated more games than I remember him having, a few weeks ago. I'm furious with myself about this. Why didn't I notice these earlier? Apart from Sam, I'm probably the most regular visitor to this room. I'm the only one he can't keep out in truth. He can't see or hear me but he does talk to me, usually just before he goes to sleep. It is touching. He asks me for little favours like I was God. Most of them are beyond my control. Some of them show me how sad and confused he is. I never expected this, though. To demonstrate I'm here for him, I've taken to putting a few pieces of his jigsaw in place whenever I'm in his room. He loves the things. He always has one on the go. This might not seem like much of a relationship to anyone else but I think he likes me doing it. And, it is the best I can do under the circumstances of being dead. Apparently, he needs more.
I locate him in the mall without difficulty. I can always home in on Carrie and the boys. I've arrived too late, however. He didn't come home at the agreed hour because the store detective from a mega media store has apprehended him and Ryan for shoplifting. It is the first time I've met Sam's best friend because at their age they seem to change them with their clothes. This one was promoted after my demise which is a pity because I might have tried to steer my nephew away from him, if I'd seen him coming. He is a parchment-skinned, mousey-haired type, who even at nine I can tell will suffer from acne the second he reaches double figures. He even has a hint of that shifty embarrassment which sometimes arrives in boys at adolescence because they know the rest of us know about puberty too and are very probably monitoring them for signs of it just so we can laugh behind their backs. I feel sorry for the poor kid. One look at him tells me he is too off-putting to have been loved enough but shoplifting sure as hell isn’t going to be the way for him to scrape his self-esteem off the floor. He and Sam are trying to talk their way out of it but the manager is on the point of calling the police. He is a well-scrubbed sort in his thirties and he has heard it all before. He doesn't care about the age or personal circumstances of these tea leaves, as his cockney dad would have called them, or thieves as he prefers to think of them himself, rather than the more modern shoplifter which, in his opinion, rather misses the whole point of this being a crime. Stealing is stealing and anyone caught doing it in his store is going to feel the arm of the law, limp-wristed though this appears to have become nowadays. Carrie and Ryan's parents will have to be summoned before the boys can be searched. I don't want that to happen. I don't want any of this to have happened. And, if I hadn't died maybe it wouldn't have. I feel responsible so I decide to do something about it. I set off the fire alarm. The manager and the store detective haven't seen the movie. They, immediately, run out of the office to take a look at the shop floor while the boys dart down the back stairs like harden criminals and out through a rear door, which has been mysteriously opened, into the car park. They're full of bravado about having gotten away with their petty larceny, until they check their bags, and find the games they'd slid inside them are missing. They can't believe their eyes but I can see from Sam's face, he has an uncomfortable notion who might be behind this magic.
