by Lauren White
1. Gail Martos, petite blonde, florist, 30 years, single. Failed abduction after her car broke down four years ago (June 5th). Attack takes place on a country road, outside Leicester. Attacker is driving a blue van. He describes himself as a mechanic, and offers assistance. He grabs her from behind, and tries to drag her into his blue Renault van. She has identified him as being Gordon Richards. The description issued to the media at time of her attack also matches Gordon Richards.
2. Jackie Brand, petite blonde (dyed), fitness trainer, 27 years, engaged to be married. Abducted one year after Gail Martos was attacked ( June 6th) after breaking down due to running out of petrol. Gordon Richards is the breakdown mechanic sent out to help her. He drives her to a country road, accessed from the Leicester turn off of the M1. There, he attacks her and takes her to the cellar of his home where he moves her about like a doll and when he gets fed up with this he strangles her. Her car was left on the M1, then moved to a service station, and later dumped near the Humber Bridge. Her body was kept in a deep freezer, for up to 3 days, and then driven to London in the back of his blue van. It was buried in Oxley Woods.
3. Kerry Doughton, petite blonde, geography student, 20 years old with an American boyfriend. Abducted a year after Jackie Brand went missing, (June 1st), from a country road, on the outskirts of Leicester, while on her way back to Durham University. Gordon Richards follows her in his blue van from a parade of shops where she has stopped to buy a snack. He flashes his lights to make her stop and when she pulls over, he offers her his help, before drugging her and taking her to the cellar of his home in Leicester. He dresses her in Jackie Brand's wedding dress and shoes, plays the Simon Says game and then strangles her. She is driven somewhere else. I think it is possible her body was refrigerated for up to a year because the decomposition was less advanced than the date of her murder would imply. She was found buried on the edge of a golf course in London. Some of the bones in her hands appeared to have been broken.
4. Gertrud Weiss, petite blonde, language assistant, 24 years, Austrian, lived with boyfriend, Karl Grüner. Abducted a year after Kerry Doughton (June 3rd) in unknown circumstances. She remembers driving around London after a domestic row. She also visited a garage somewhere in South London, where a mechanic checked over her car for her, before she drove off. She has identified Gordon Richards as her killer - despite not being able to remember what happened to her. He was no longer working for the recovery service, at the time of her murder, and was supposedly travelling abroad. She was drugged and strangled. Her car was missing for a week before being discovered outside the flat she shared with her boyfriend. The car had no mechanical fault. She was found in the boot, naked except for a pair of Reebok trainers (possibly Kerry’s). According to the pathologist, who examined her body, she was raped post mortem. She also had post mortem puncture wounds through both her hands, consistent with being nailed to something. The only physical evidence on her body belonged to her boyfriend however and he was convicted of her murder.
5. Belinda Montgomery, petite blonde, PR executive, 30 years old, with a secret lover, Reece Baxter. Abducted a year after Gertrud Weiss (June 7th) in unknown circumstances but she was driving from Greenwich to Bayswater on her way to an office party at the time. Her car was found abandoned in New Cross, the following day, with no mechanical fault. I was seen talking to the driver of her car, in the same road at about 8.00 pm on the night of her abduction. And, a tall blonde male was filmed driving the car, several minutes earlier. The same or a similar man was also recorded in the passenger seat of my car at about 8:15pm. According to her post mortem report, Bim was drugged and strangled. She was raped post mortem too and had the same post mortem puncture wounds through her hands as Gerte. Her body was buried, wearing Gertrud Weiss's shoes, in Oxley woods.
6. Kate Madding, tall, dark, Detective Inspector, 29 years old, and single. Killed on the road that runs past the George pub on the same night as Belinda Montgomery was abducted (June 7th). It was a hit and run involving two vehicles – a truck and the same car Kerry Doughton was driving, when she disappeared 2 years before. Seen talking to the driver of Bim’s BMW, and filmed with a tall blonde man in her car, shortly, before she died; possibly the same man who was seen driving Bim’s car, earlier the same night.
QUESTIONS: Did I know something about Bim’s disappearance that got me killed? Who was driving the vehicles which ran me over? Did they know each other? Was it an accident or murder?
I want you out of here! Do you hear me? Out of my life! You're not supposed to be here. You’re dead! So go away and be dead, somewhere else!
Carrie is stomping through the house, screaming at me. First, she tries my office. Then, she goes to the living room. Next, she takes a look in the kitchen. And, finally, she goes back to my office again. She is livid because Phil’s lawyer has found out about her dinner date with Nigs, which has put her case for assault against him in jeopardy. I'm pretending I'm not here until she calms down. It is not my fault. It has absolutely nothing to do with me.
You're here. I know you're here. You're always here! I can't keep you out! Kate? Kate? She picks up the computer. I am going to smash this onto the floor, I swear, if you don't answer me. One, two, three...If I get to five, it’s Mechano.
I think she is serious and it is so unfair because I've only just finished inputting all that stuff about my investigation. I have no choice but to break cover.
You have no right to hold me to ransom like this. I'm working on a very important case, you know.
I don’t care, go and work on it somewhere else, she snarls at me, unpleasantly.
Why are you taking this out on me? I haven't done anything. All you have to do is claim you agreed to meet Nigs because he wanted to ask you some questions about me and my death. That should do it. It's pretty much the truth, anyway.
I knew it! You were there, weren't you? How dare you spy on me! Get out, right now. Do you hear me?
We seem to have gone full circle. I don’t see why you are being so nasty to me, Carrie.
I'm not. This is my house, not yours. I have a perfect right to sling you out of it.
But, I'm dead, you can't keep me out! I realise this is a mistake, the moment I say it. A red blotch has appeared on her neck, the tell-tale sign she is about to go into meltdown.
And, don't I know it! It was bad enough having to put up with you interfering in my marriage when you were alive. But, this! This is unbearable! I WANT YOU OUT!
Arguing with Carrie is like playing tennis. All I have to do to win the match is keep her running about the court, chasing the balls I bat back to her, until she is exhausted.
Interfere in your marriage? Why, because, I let you cry on my shoulder?
You were always coming between Phil and me, you know you were. You were jealous, that much was obvious.
All I have to do to lose an argument with Carrie is get sucked into the fray, emotionally. That is what the word jealous has just done. It sucked me in. Suddenly, winning the match isn't important, just as long as I can pulverise the witch.
Listen to me, you traitor. The only reason I came between you and Phil was to save your neck. And, this is the thanks I get. Who do you think got Nigs and Fester here, that night? You know the night your wonderful husband tried to kill you because you told him you wanted a divorce.
But, that was when you were already dead. What about the things you did to interfere, when you were alive? You fancied him, didn't you? Go on, admit it. A wife can sense these things.
A wife can sense these things? Oh please. You've been paralysed above the clitoris since the day you met him.
Were you having an affair with Phil?
Was I what?
You heard. Were you having an affair with him?
I am not going to dignify that with an answer.
That proves it. You were.
You're mad. If you want me out of this house, I'll go, but you're going to have to rent me an office somewhere else, first.
I'm what?
You heard, I parody. You inherited a lot of money from me. The least you could do is use some of the life insurance payout to rent me an office - my own space where I won't be subjected to your silly whims.
I am not renting an office for a ghost. You're dead! Dead people don't have offices.
I'm not a ghost I'm an earth bound spirit. And, what would you know about it, anyway?
Dead people really have offices? I can tell from her voice, curiosity has punctured her outrage. If I do rent you an office...I can't believe I'm even entertaining this idea. But, if I do, would you move out of here for good?
If that's what you want.
You would only come here when you were invited?
By you, or one of the boys, I qualify. Yes.
By me, she corrects.
You are not keeping me away from my nephews, I warn her. And, if you try, I shall tell them.
You would too wouldn't you? You were always telling tales to Mum and Dad.
I can see this is about to degenerate into a list of every narcissistic slight she has ever suffered at my hands and I want to spare us both the tedium of that. Rent me an office and I'm history.
I want to know whether you were having an affair with Phil, first.
I already told you, I am not going to dignify that with an answer.
Is that because you were, or you weren't, having an affair with my husband?
This is so insulting, Carrie. How can you even think it of me?
Nigs said there was a man, a passenger in your car, who was filmed on a security camera, the night you were run over - a tall, fair haired man. That sounds like Phil to me.
Oh, for Heaven's sake, woman. How many tall, fair haired men do you think there are living in this part of London alone?
You phoned him that night.
I did? I feel shocked by this. How do you know that?
I checked his mobile the night you were killed.
You must have been really devastated by my death to make time for that.
It was a habit. I didn't think. Whenever I came across his phone, I used to check his incoming calls. You spent your last moments phoning my husband and I'd like to know why that was.
I've no idea.
She narrows her eyes at me.
Honestly, I haven't. I can't think of a single reason. I despise him. You know that. Whatever the reason I rang him that night, I can guarantee there was absolutely nothing going on between us.
If you don't remember, how do you know?
For the same reason in your heart of hearts, you know, you idiot. It is impossible. Even if I did fancy him – which I didn't – I would never have acted on it. Never! You're my sister.
I can sense from her grudging acknowledgement, the storm has blown itself out, but now I'm feeling resentful. I never realised she had such a low opinion of me. She is judging me by her own standards, obviously! It is she who is after my bloke, not the other way around. That is the real reason she wants me out of this house. So she can carry on here with Nigs, behind my back.
Apparently, sisterhood doesn't mean as much to you as it does to me. I have no intention of staying where I'm not wanted. Goodbye.
I hang around long enough to listen to her begging me to come back.
Don't go off like that Kate. Not in a huff. I didn't mean it. I didn't. Come on, talk to me. You can stay here as long as you like. Do you hear me? Kate, Katie?
Her revelation has unnerved me. In spite of loathing Phil, in the first years of their marriage, before his unpleasantness ripened, he was apt to produce the faintest stirring in my ovaries. My treacherous eggs weren't bothered by how boorish he was. Why, I've no idea. They were moist with lack of clarity on this point. But, I think it may have had something to do with him being outrageously physical. The man is so much in his own body it is positively unseemly and he is far too comfortable about this for it to be quite decent. Anyway, whatever the anatomy of it, without regular injections of reason, his Eau de Neanderthal was all the charisma he would have needed to get his sperm on my eggs. I lied to Carrie. I can see the attraction of Phil, I always have, but I really wouldn't put it any more strongly than that. I can see the attraction but I've never actively desired the man; although I might have wondered what it would be like, once or twice. He did try to kiss me, a couple of times, though he claimed he'd made a mistake, afterwards. This happens when you are an identical twin. Carrie and I are used to being confused. Sometimes, we've played on it. But, the people closest to us were never usually fooled. They recognised some difference in us that others couldn't detect. Shouldn't Phil have had same knack for distinguishing us? I've long suspected he did. That he hid behind the pretence he couldn't, in order to try it on with me. I never responded. I pushed him away. So why was I phoning him on the night I died? Could Phil be the Weasel’s accomplice or is that too much of a leap? If it was him that Gerte saw me talking to at the wheel of Bim's car, if I’d run into him unexpectedly and could identify him, wouldn’t he have had a pretty good motive for wanting me out of the way?
I hold Carrie to her agreement to rent me an office. All the time I'm doing it, I believe I shall back out at the last moment. I just want her to feel wretched for turning on me the way she did. Then, when the last moment finally arrives, I discover I'm going to go through with it. I really would prefer my own space away from her and the boys. Absurdly, it is because I have a life; well, an afterlife, technically speaking. I never had much time for friends outside the job while I was living, but since I died, my social circle has expanded. We're interesting folk us earth bound spirits. We all have a different take on afterlife and we share a determination not to go into the Light. If you go into the Light, you don't come back. That much is common knowledge. You go to another dimension; a higher plane, possibly. But, it is a ladder, with no snake. It is permanent. And, the whole point of being an earth bound spirit is that we don't want to go anywhere else. I'm slightly miffed I haven't been offered the choice, though. Why haven't I seen it? Aren't I sufficiently evolved? It is disturbing. This is one of things I talk about with the other spirits, I meet: Have you seen the Light. I know so much about it - little though that is – I’m tempted to lie. And, I am beginning to wonder whether this is what everyone else is doing too. Could the Light be nothing more than a dead person's urban myth?
Carrie has set aside half the money she was awarded from my life insurance policy to cover my business expenses. I have to admit this is generous of her. It should be enough to keep my detective agency going for some time, which - given I don't have a single paying client, and I am never likely to - is essential. The office we decide upon is on the top floor of a Victorian pile, tall and narrow, with four floors, in Greenwich. On the street level, there is a Spanish restaurant; on the first floor, a solicitor; on the second level, an accountant; and, right at the top of the stairs, there's me. It is the attic, so it is small, but with views to die for. (Well, the odd snatch of the Thames, between the roof tops, opposite.) There is a tiny reception area, a back office, a toilet, kitchenette and a large cupboard.
I can't believe I'm actually renting an office for a ghost; is my sister's mantra, throughout the process of signing the lease.
I'm not a ghost! How many more times? I'm an earth bound spirit, I protest, but it’s useless.
Well, whatever you are, we can agree you're dead, can we? That's the real point I'm making here.
It is so unfair. We have nothing against the living. Why are they so prejudiced against us?
I put a small sofa in the reception area and, in the back office, a large round meeting table and some chairs. This prompts from Carrie: Explain it to me, again, why a ghost needs a sofa, and a table, and chairs?
A computer, telephone, and fax are also purchased and installed, but only after I have to endure several variations on the theme of: And, what exactly are you planning to do with your telephone apart from look at it?
The cupboard, I decide, should be used for storing fi
les and miscellaneous items of which, mercifully, there are none as yet, limiting the scope of my sister's barbs. She puts the remainder of the money into two accounts. They're in her name but I will be able to manage them, using the internet, which will at least obviate the need to secure her cooperation for every fiscal move I make. The first account contains enough money to cover the rent and basic costs for a year. The second contains what's left over. We hum and ha about whether to put a plaque by the front entrance, eventually coming to the conclusion that we have no choice because even though my business technically doesn't exist, there is bound to be post if only from the landlord. The Madding Agency is the name we hit upon. It is vague enough to discourage the casual visitor but sufficiently specific to be a postal address. The letterheads I have printed bear a different name: The Madding Detective Agency.
We import and export art materials; Carrie tells my neighbours in the building, through clenched teeth because before I died she liked to believe she never lied. But, we trade across the dateline so we keep rather odd hours. You're unlikely to come across any of us, during the normal business day. In fact, it will probably seem to you as though nobody is ever here.
She gives the landlord an alternative version. I’m renting the office to write a book away from the intrusion of my family. The plaque by the door was placed there by some friends as a joke. There is no Madding Agency, as such. There is only me, Carrie Madding, the would-be writer, beavering away on my masterpiece into the wee small hours.
When I finally get rid of her, I sit in my office trying to figure out how I can make my phantom business pay. The life insurance money won't last forever. I will need to make enough to cover the rent, and other costs, after the first year has passed. Clients, I will have no shortage of. Word has gotten around about me, already. But, how on earth am I going to turn a waiting room full of spirits into an income stream?
