by Lauren White
D. I. Madding?
I'm shocked. I would have sworn she was alive.
D. I. Madding, she repeats, more loudly.
She is alive. I can see her breathing.
You can see me?
She looks about her to make sure nobody can overhear her.
Yes, I can see you.
Who are you?
My name is Margaret Dryer and I don't know why but I've always been able to see spirits, ever since I was a small child. I have a message for you. It was given to me in a dream. She laughs. I know what you must be thinking. I normally dream messages for the living, not the dead.
I am not sure whether I find this reassuring, or not. Bim didn't mention she knew any mediums, I say, suspiciously.
Bim? Oh, the deceased, yes, I mean, no, I didn't know her but her memorial was mentioned in the newspaper and I was told in my dream you'd be here.
I might be the dead one out of the two of us but she is beginning to freak me out.
The message was in German. Do you speak German?
I stare at her in astonishment. Not one word.
Well, that's okay because I looked up the words for you in a dictionary. She takes out a piece of paper from her handbag. I’ve written them down for you. I am not sure if this will make any sense to you but the message appears to be: GET HIM OUT OF PRISON NOW OR ELSE!
The cemetery where Gertrud Weiss's body is buried is a vast jumble of graves, many of them dating back more than a hundred years. Bixby once told me that the quickest way to get to grips with the culture of a foreign country was to visit a graveyard, eat a meal, and watch a television programme. I never travelled enough to put his theory to the test but from the slithers of social history inscribed on the tombs here, I suspect he was probably right. Our ancestors have borne so many trials to get each one of us here, our births are a miracle of endurance, centuries long. Entire families lie in this graveyard obliterated in a matter of months by the flu. Or sometimes solely the children perished, broods of ten brothers and sisters succumbing to the same childhood diseases our children today are sent to parties to catch. And, weaving through all these tombs is the slow march of sons, fathers, and husbands, shipped home from their colonial duties, in wooden boxes, from countries no longer known by the names engraved here. Like them, I have become a full-stop in my family’s history. My children too will never be born.
As I wander through the lichen-covered stone slabs and wind-blasted angels, I don’t see many spirits hanging out here, despite the legions of bodies buried around me. Graveyards aren't the spooky places they are made out to be by the living. It is not us who disturb their tranquillity but their own fear of dying, I suspect. If they only took ten seconds to think about it, it would be obvious. Why would we want to stick around our rotting corpses, when we no longer have any need of them?
I have come here at Gertrud Weiss’s request. She told Margaret Dryer who gave me her message that she would be waiting for me by her grave. I’m not sure she is going to like what I have to say to her. Getting her boyfriend, Karl, out of prison is going to be a lot trickier than getting him in there was. My final resort has been to leave a file on the desks of the detectives investigating Bim's murder, highlighting the links they have to make: the shoes that disappear from one victim and reappear on another; the fact that Gertrud was not only a petite blonde like the others, but both she and Bim – her autopsy report has confirmed this – were raped post mortem. There are also posthumous puncture wounds through the palms of all three women’s hands, as though they had been nailed to something. I’ve laid it out before them, as clearly as I can: THERE IS A SERIAL KILLER ON THE LOOSE AND GERTRUD WEISS IS ONE OF THE VICTIMS. As soon as the message clicks, they will have to take steps to release Karl from prison.
Gertrud is sitting on the bench by her grave, looking about her, impatiently, as I approach.
There you are, at last! You certainly took your time. I have things to do, you know. I want to get to the British Library before it closes.
Her English accent is perfect but there's something not quite right about the inflections in her speech that gives her foreignness away. She seems younger than she did when I saw her last. Well, she was lying on a mortuary slab at the time. There's no hint of the skirt and top she was wearing when she was abducted either. She appears to me in a pink and white tracksuit, with white slip-ons, and a pink bandanna. Bizarrely, she seems the epitome of health.
A confetti of blossom drifts through us, from the trees around the edge of the graveyard, as I sit down beside her on the bench. Two council workers are sweeping the petals into heaps so they can be cleared away.
It is the work of Sisyphus, she comments, when she sees me watching them.
I'm not a complete ignoramus. I have heard of the Myth of Sisyphus. I just haven't got a clue what it is. I’ve no intention of admitting this to her however. She is only in her mid-twenties and she is studying for a doctorate. Or she was. That was her reason for wanting to spend a year in London as a German assistant. Karl too. Brain boxes, the pair of them. Not that I have any reason to feel cowed, I reassure myself. I'm not the one wearing a pink bandanna.
You did a good thing, this morning, she tells me. But, if they don't pick up on it, I will expect you to do more. Karl is important to me. What happened to him wasn't fair. You weren't fair.
I feel myself begin to bristle.
You judged him as a British man, she continues. You never took account of his foreignness, not in a positive way, only as something sinister.
She is the one who isn’t being fair. I bent over backwards to offer him an interpreter, but he refused one. I didn’t come here to argue with her though.
I want to talk to you about your murder. Do you remember what happened?
There's something I have to say to you first.
I leave space for her to go on but she doesn't speak.
Which is?
I have been very angry with you, she says, without a trace of the emotion to which she is laying claim. Destructively so. I have stood beside you and hurled every abuse I can think of. I've wished you dead a million times.
That's okay. It wasn't you who killed me. Now getting ba...
But, I may have weakened you, made you more careless, or less able to protect yourself.
You really believe that’s possible?
We're all capable of that much. We are not supposed to do it but we can influence the living, affect their mood, and even their actions without trying too hard.
I don’t know how to react to this information. It seems far-fetched to me. Forget it, I have, I tell her, lightly.
She smiles, and I notice the peachy skin, the pale blue eyes, and the crown of white blonde curls she had in life. It is the kind of face only truly beautiful in youth. In time, those same features would have slipped into homeliness. Not that this will ever matter to her now.
What is it you wanted to ask me?
What can you tell me about your murder, Gertrud?
Very little, and you may call me Gerte.
Do you have any idea what the person who killed you looked like?
I have a fuzzy image of a man. He was small with thinning, blonde hair and penetrating blue-grey eyes. He must have been about thirty or thirty five.
I show her our computer-generated image of the Weasel, the one I helped Kerry to develop.
That’s him, she confirms, without hesitation. Who is he?
I was rather hoping you would be able to tell me that. Do you remember how he managed to abduct you?
I was in a bit of a state when I left the flat where Karl and I were living. We had a row, that night. He wasn't happy here, he wanted to go back home, but we'd only been in London a few months. I thought we should give it more time and I was desperate to continue my research at the British Library. So I walked out in a huff. I took the car with the intention of driving around until I'd calmed down. Our car, it was registered in Karl's name, but it belonged to both of us which means,
just for the record, Detective Inspector, my body wasn't found in his car, it was found in mine!
This is pretty much what he told me at the time of her murder and I didn't believe him. Bixby always said that getting it wrong went with the job. Did you see the word, infallibility, written anywhere in your job description, Madding, he’d bellow at me. Our job is to collect the evidence. It’s for the CPS to decide whether there is a case to answer and the courts to tease out whether that case stacks up. They didn’t do that with Karl, and despite Bixby’s consoling words, I feel bad for initiating the chain of events that led to this injustice.
Gerte waves her hand in front of me to get my attention. Can we move this along please?
The car was found outside your block of flats. Can you remember where you were attacked?
I’ve no idea. I didn’t really know London. I do remember calling in at a garage, a repair place, at some point. There was a strange knocking sound in the engine and, as I was passing, I saw someone still working there. I stopped and asked for some advice. The guy fixed it. Didn't charge me, either. He said it was nothing.
Are you sure he wasn’t the one who killed you?
No, he was nothing like him. This guy was tall, good looking too; a really nice man.
And, you remember leaving the garage?
Yes, without a doubt.
Do you know where this garage was?
I haven’t a clue.
Why do you think the murderer left your car outside your home? It seems an odd thing to do.
He must have wanted me to be found quickly, for some reason, but I don’t ...
Remember, I say, finishing her sentence.
There's something I do remember. Not from that night but from the night you were killed.
But, you were already dead by then.
Yes, but I still saw you that night. I like to ride the buses, you see. London's such an exciting place. I've explored it quite a bit since I died. I'm not sure, exactly, where it was but it was south of the river, somewhere near Greenwich, I think. That was where the bus was headed anyway. You were talking to someone. I saw you from across the main road. You were up a side turning. I didn’t see who it was you were talking to, but they were driving a BMW, a newish one. Well, it was very shiny, it looked new to me.
And, you're certain it was me?
Beyond a shadow of a doubt. I followed your investigation into my murder with considerable interest. I would have recognised you anywhere. You were standing next to the driver’s window.
Of the BMW?
Yes.
But, you didn’t see the driver?
No, only the number plate. I remembered it because the next day it was all over the newspapers. It was the same car that PR woman was driving when she disappeared.
It is not that I doubt her but I need to be absolutely certain about what she is telling me. So I take her to the road in New Cross where Bim's car was found abandoned. She insists this was the place where she saw me talking to the driver. I have to accept what she is saying, and if I'm reluctant to do so it is no reflection on her. I'm just at a loss to know what to make of it. The only two possible scenarios, I can think of, which explain it are that, either, I was talking to Bim, immediately, before she was abducted, or to her abductor, as he was dumping her car.
What time was this?
It must have been about eight at night.
That decides it for me. If Bim left her house in Greenwich, at seven that evening, she wouldn't have been sitting in her car in New Cross, at eight. Not unless her car had broken down. But, it was newish, as Gerte said, and when it was discovered by the police, there was no sign of a mechanical fault. Besides, even if she did break down, it must have been before seven thirty for her to only have gotten as far as New Cross. She would have had over an hour to phone for help, or warn her colleagues she was going to be late. Yet, there were no calls made from her mobile, after she left her house that night. No, the most likely person to be driving Bim’s car at eight o’clock, that night, is the same tall blonde haired man, who was recorded driving it, several minutes, earlier, on the security camera footage Reece’s private detective unearthed. If Kerry is right and the Weasel is small in stature, it couldn’t have been him. So who was it?
I devote several hours to checking the only real lead we have, the computer generated image of the Weasel that we produced, based on Kerry’s description, against the police mug shots of men, with a history of attacking women, to see whether I can identify him. There are hundreds of faces that could be him. I seem to see him everywhere. But, there is no one photograph which screams, unequivocally: Look no further, I’m the one! If I were a living detective, I would probably follow up on some of these men but, ironically, with eternity stretching out before me, I can't be bothered. I think of delegating the task to Kerry but she wants to spend the weekend at her parents’ place. She feels the need to do what she can to comfort them in anticipation of the publication, in the mainstream media, of a rumour leaked by the police that will link her murder with Bim’s. The term serial killer has yet to be used but it is surely only a question of time. Soon every aspect of the women's lives will fall under public scrutiny and anyone who claims to have known them will be offered money to reveal all. Kerry's former American boyfriend, who managed to hold his peace during the two years in which the police believed she'd run away to be with him, is already preparing to step into the limelight of fame by association. He is to be flown to London from his Chicago home and lodged in a five star hotel with a minder at the expense of a Sunday newspaper. I never realised she was missing, otherwise I would have come forward sooner, he will lie. Well, it sounds better than: I wouldn't have come forward at all, if this Sunday newspaper hadn’t found me and paid me to do so. Bim is taking time off too to go to Italy with a dead friend called Fabian, whom she met a few days ago at her old office. He was killed in a skiing accident in the Italian Alps, the Christmas before last, which curiously hasn't seemed to dampen his enthusiasm for the place. I am so thrilled to have come across someone from my own milieu, she informs me. Neither Kerry nor I could be expected to understand anyone as deep as her, obviously. I am tempted to ask what poor Reece might think about her jaunting off with another man but I feel too miffed about being tossed aside as a class reject to make it sound like a joke.
I eschew the company of Carrie and the boys, when I get back to the house, despite feeling hideously alone. Instead, I make myself even more miserable by staying glued to the old desktop computer that Sam has donated to my office, out of gratitude for my silence over his shoplifting. Every dead person I know - well Bim and Kerry (I don’t count Gerte because riding around London on buses and going to the British Library isn’t my idea of fun) - is having a more exciting afterlife than me. I've remained trapped in the past, whilst they're beginning to move on, I grizzle to myself as I work. But, trying to catch a serial killer has to be worthwhile, even if it doesn’t have the same cache′ as weekending in the Italian Alps, I reason back against myself. Is that why I'm doing it though? Or am I simply too scared to discover what I'd be left with without work? I have wasted my life! Carrie has birthed three kids in the same time it has taken me to rise to the dizzy heights of being D.I. Ghost.
Predictably, I distract myself from these depressing thoughts with yet more work. I believe I have identified another possible lead and I force myself to pursue it despite my wretchedness. If Kerry was wearing wedding slippers when her body was discovered, the odds are these were taken from her predecessor – possibly, Jane Doe, the unidentified bones, the police dug up in Oxley Woods, a few days before they found Bim. What if the wedding dress was this woman's too? There can't be many brides who have vanished into thin air. She has lain in those woods for about three years according to the forensic pathologist so if I check newspapers from around that time, maybe I will come up with something.
I scan the headlines in one of the national newspaper's archives, going back four years, to be on the safe side.
A missing bride is bound to have attracted media attention but, dishearteningly, I find nothing. Surprise, surprise, I’ve hit another dead end!
My disenchantment chases me upstairs to my sister's living room, as night falls, where I find Jethro and Sam fencing each other with plastic wands. Their shrieks of laughter do little to dissipate my self-pitying mood. They are so full of life, it hurts. Carrie is in the kitchen cooking tea - fish fingers - which typically she manages to burn. Neither of us inherited our mother's cooking gene. When she calls the boys to the table to eat them, I sit in Phil’s chair, watching them pick off the black bits, while I bask in their sheer exuberance at being alive, like the pallid heat from a winter sun. They ignore me. I might be a ghost but familiarity still breeds contempt. A few listless hours later - spent watching the box - I read Caleb a bedtime story, and play a game of chess with Jethro, before lights out. Then, I go to check on Sam. We've started a new jigsaw, a 500 piece one, and we're collecting the straight edges to form the outer rim. It is a picture of the universe. It was Sam's choice. I would have preferred something brighter with people in. But, this one is more difficult than anything we have attempted before, which is why he wanted it.
Sorting through a pile of pieces, he asks: What do you think about Mummy having a dinner date with that friend of yours?
I tap into his new laptop: Which friend?
That detective, Nigs.
I can barely contain my rage. I've only been dead for five minutes and she has pinched my bloke. And, as for him! He hasn't exactly gone on holding a torch for me very long, has he? To add to my misery, I remember it was me who brought them together. I never should have written that letter to Nigs. I should have let Phil murder my sister, instead!
Auntie Kate? Are you still here?
I sense Sam is about as happy with this development as I am and I consider joining forces with him to stop it. Or turning him into a gun I can load against my sister. But, he has already been through so much, my conscience gets the better of me. He is finally beginning to settle down. How could his mother do this to him?
