by Lauren White
One of the spirits I find in my waiting room, seeking my professional help, is a capable sort, called Denise.
I died on the operating table in a private hospital while I was having a nose job done, she informs me. The anaesthetist was high on cocaine. He lied his way out of trouble, naturally, but I don't think he should be allowed to get away with it, do you? I was only nineteen. I want you to get him struck off.
I have to tell her – and all the others – that until the Weasel is caught, I won't have much time to do anything else.
I'll manage the waiting list while you're pursuing this other case, if you like, she offers. You don't have to pay me, either. I'll barter my work, for yours.
I hire her on the spot.
In life, she was a tall, stringy type, with short cropped afro hair, skin reminiscent of a plump black plum and a mouth that moves up and down at the corners like a wire under pressure. In death, her presence also has a bloody and misshapen nose.
I flick through the files she opens for each of my possible clients. There is enough work here to keep me going, easily, for a year. There are those who've been wronged like her and want justice, but many of the spirits in these files are still touchingly involved with the lives of their loved ones. It is on their behalf and not their own they wish to engage my services. Working for the living is attractive, because they would at least be able to make a donation towards my office expenses. But, how would they know it was me who’d helped them? It is going to be tricky, I can see.
I visit Carrie's house when I am not working but only at agreed times. At the boys’ bedtimes, on Sunday afternoons, and whenever anyone invites me there by thinking about me. It is a better arrangement than before because when I'm there, I'm there for them, and not preoccupied with my murder investigation. In the evenings, after the boys have gone to bed, my sister sometimes uses me as a sounding board about her plans for the future. Her job in the supermarket has made her a few friends and given her back her confidence, but it is not what she wants to do for the rest of her life. Returning to education is the obvious option, but she isn't keen.
I’m thinking about going into business offering secretarial services to companies who don’t want to employ a secretary full time, she announces one evening.
It sounds a great idea. So great I’m a little suspicious. Is it yours?
Yes...well, no, it was actually Denise Boulay who suggested it to me.
Who is she?
Your Financial Controller.
I don't have a financial...what, you mean my office manager, Denise? How the hell do you know her?
She sent me an email and now we’re using Instant Messenger to communicate. She was a small business adviser for one of the banks before she died.
Was she? I had no idea. Are you sure? I thought she was only nineteen. She has never mentioned anything about being a business advisor to me.
Her suggestion is that you rent me some space in your office. I’d front the business but we’d use some of the spirits, on your waiting list, to do the work. She thinks it would be the best way of financing the detective agency.
Is she insane? Who is going to employ a secretary they can’t see?
No, you don’t understand. That’s the point of it. The work is all done remotely by computer. It’s a virtual service. They don’t have to sit in the office so it doesn’t matter whether they’re visible or not. And, it’s not just secretarial services we’ll be able to offer. Basically, any spirit with book keeping, web design, or computer skills will be able to barter their services, in return for the detective agency taking on their case. The money they earn will go to cover the detective agency's expenses.
And, you will be based in my office?
Our office. I’ll be paying half the costs. Or the Madding Agency will. The Madding Detective Agency will pay the other half. It will probably take about three months to set up if you agree, Denise reckons. What do you think?
A virtual secretarial services agency, staffed by spirits, apart from you?
Yes.
In my office?
Our office.
I think I'd like to talk it over with my lodgers first.
Are they the lodgers who can’t see or hear you?
They’re the ones.
Were you always this eccentric?
Carrie, I’m not the one who wants to go into business with a bunch of stiffs! I just want to mull it over, okay?
I disappear to the bar of the restaurant on the ground floor of my office building, before she can say anything I’ll want to make her regret. Eccentric? Me? And, what about Denise? Who is this woman I’ve employed? If I catch her studying a map of Poland, she is definitely for the push. I sit on a stool next to an old man who tells me he is looking for his wife. Maybe she has walked into the Light, I suggest to him. But, it turns out he isn't even sure she is dead. I think of offering him my professional services but then it occurs to me that just because a man spends his eternity looking for his wife, doesn't mean he actually wants to find her. Most of the spirits I run into here are doing the tour. Well, that's what I call it because they seem to be permanently wandering about the world. I like them. They have the pleasing social ease of frequent travellers and I love hearing about their journeys. The old man who is looking for his wife is hooked on disaster. He travels to typhoons, earthquakes, air crashes, and fires, in search of his wife. He has just returned from a volcanic eruption and is in the middle of describing it to me, when Denise rushes in with one of her own.
The Weasel has turned up in Leicester!
With his blue van?
No, I think they said it was white.
A Renault?
A Ford.
I thought it would be too much to hope for that he still had the other one but I can’t help feeling disappointed.
She smiles at me, facetiously. Why, don’t you like Fords?
You know it’s not the make of the van I’m bothered about, Denise. It’s not being able to get hold of the forensic evidence that might have been inside the blue one. If it were strong enough, the police could have arrested the Weasel straight away, before he has the chance to kill anyone else.
Bim and Kerry want to know whether you are going to join them at the house.
I can’t, not yet. Something has been nagging me about the tall, blonde man who was recorded riding in the passenger seat of my car, the night Bim and I were killed, and I think it’s time I checked it out.
I don’t even know where Phil is living now. I have to pick up his trail at work. I spend a tedious few hours at the garage, waiting for him to go home. I loathe all things mechanical and cars are no exception. There is nothing I understand about them and even less which interests me. It is ironic really that I was killed by one: a peculiarly vengeful fate.
He finally closes the doors at seven at night but before he leaves, he invites the three mechanics still there to have a drink with him. They go to The George which I find unsettling. I am not sure which of them suggests it. It gets lost in the lads’ banter they keep up. But, it creates a tangible, if tenuous, association between him and me on the night I was killed. As Carrie pointed out, Phil is tall and blonde. It could have been him in my car. He could be the Weasel’s accomplice. Gotcha, I want to yell at him, before I've even discovered one iota of true evidence against him. This is how much I hate him, I tell myself, and it is important that I do, because my hatred is the measure I have used to rebut Carrie's accusation that I fancied him. She is aware of my intention to tail him and the reason for it. She even protests his innocence.
How could I have married a serial killer? I would have known if he were a murderer. Do you think I could make three sons with a psychopath?
I only wish I shared her confidence in her taste in men.
It is one of those mild wet days of November, compensation for the stick bare trees and slush of rotting leaves, underfoot. The sky is a yellowy-grey bruise. It makes me long for the navy uniformity of night, the street ligh
ts gleaming like the polished buttons on a police officer’s uniform. The guys I’m with are happy to hang. They are in no hurry to get home. None of them has a steady relationship, I imagine. Women have no doubt been attracted to less appealing specimens. But, they are so juvenile! They actually laugh at Phil's burps.
Their names are Jeff, Scott, and Brad, and like their boss, they are in their thirties. A difficult age, obviously, though not one I shall personally ever experience. Jeff has a doughy face, which will be flaccid with alcohol abuse, by the time he is forty, I predict, from the way he is knocking it back. Scott is the most handsome of the bunch: tall like Phil, but muscular, with rugged features that drain away slightly into the sides of his face, like the second facelift of a film star. Brad is a peacock. Everything he is wearing is the latest fashion. I don't see the point of it myself when his job requires him to put on overalls while he is working. I can only guess he finds it reassuring. It is self assertion, not self expression he cares about. Wouldn’t therapy be cheaper?
They don't talk as such, they taunt and tease. The references are meaningless to an outsider. I have no idea in detail what they're going on about, except I am sure it is nothing important. There is one strange thing I do pick up. Scott asks Phil, how Maxine is. Who is Maxine? He isn't even divorced from Carrie yet. Could he have found someone so quickly? From the dewy-eyed look he gives, as he replies, he must have. Fit, he says, with a bashful grin. Fit? Fit for what? What does he mean? It's a northern expression, isn't it? So why is a Londoner like Phil using it? Five minutes away from Carrie and he is becoming a stranger.
I get into the passenger seat of his Audi, when he leaves the pub, for a mystery tour, which I hope is going to end up outside the place where he is living. He is over the limit, I shouldn't wonder with all that beer on top of an empty stomach. If I were still alive, I'd nick him.
As we set off, I try and recall the assortment of his relatives I've met over the years. One of his cousins must be putting him up because with the mortgages on Carrie's house and the garage, he can't be flush enough to afford a place of his own. He has put weight on since Carrie threw him out. He has been living on takeaways, no doubt. His clothes have changed for the worse too. She used to dress him in good quality suits, which she bought in a posh second hand clothes shop. Left to his own devices, however, he has reverted to being a department store man. Nothing fits properly, nothing matches. He is Mr Bland.
We come to a stop outside a Victorian terrace in Catford - pebble-dashed with white PVC doors and windows. It has a tiny front garden which has been concreted over to take a car. He pulls onto it with the ease of someone who could do the manoeuvre in his sleep and, as he strolls up the front path, he rifles in his pocket for a key.
That you, pet, a woman calls, when he opens the door. Supper is ready.
I race ahead so I can find out who she is. She is in the kitchen holding two plates which have been warming in the oven. She sets them on the kitchen table. There is an individual meat pie, mushy peas, and chips, on each one. I take this in while trying to moderate my disbelief. The woman performing these actions is so unlike my sister, I'm wondering whether Phil has an identical twin too, whom I've just followed home by mistake.
That's music to my belly, Maxine, I'm starving.
So this is Maxine. Well, I beg to differ but she isn't very fit, not in the Southern sense of the word, anyway. She is small and plump; very plump, with massive breasts which jiggle in her blouse, as she speaks. She is older than Carrie too. Older than Phil, I suspect; forty something, if she is a day. And, if not, she’s had an incredibly hard life. She is not unattractive. She has light blue eyes, blonde hair, which is twisted back and up and secured, with a shiny black clasp, the ends frothing with curls on her crown, like the milky head on a cup of cappuccino coffee. Her complexion is pale, and her face is chubby and jolly. Her smile reveals huge white slabs of teeth, even and smooth-cornered as tabs of spearmint gum. I like her. She is pleasing to look at and comes across as warm. Not so much a mumsy type, as the barmaid who turns casual visitors into regulars by remembering their name, as though it actually mattered to her. She is welcoming is what I mean. I can definitely see the attraction. But, she is the last woman I thought Phil would choose to shack up with. She is so unlike me and my sister, I feel slighted.
He kisses her on her cheek. Had a good day, love?
I can see from his face, he is interested to hear her answer. When did he look at Carrie that way? When was he that attentive? How the hell am I going to tell her about this?
Busy as a blue arsed fly. My back's killing me, she tells him.
I'll run you a bath later.
A grin passes between them, the glimmer of a sexual encounter to come.
How about you, pet? What was your day like?
Well, I think I'll be sharing that bath with you, put it that way, he laughs, confirming their intention.
I can't bear to listen to this. I feel excluded, something I've never felt around him and Carrie. Their relationship was improved by an audience, which is probably why they had three kids. Phil and Maxine are an exclusive pair, however. They neither need, nor want, anyone else around them. How am I going to explain that to my sister? What strikes me as I tour their house, starting with the master bedroom, is the array of photographs. There are a dozen, at least, spread between the bedside tables, the dressing table, and the top of a chest of drawers alone. There they are, Phil and Maxine, saying cheese for unknown photographers at various parties and dinner dances. There are no holiday snaps but their nocturnal outings go back over a lengthy period of time, through a number of weight losses and gains for Maxine, and through a disastrous red headed period. Phil has aged in these photographs. This relationship must have been going on for most of his marriage to Carrie. I try and let this sink in. It is unbelievable. Yet, it is also true. It has to be. How am I going to tell her? The photographs reveal other things too. There was a flat, possibly rented, before this house. And, I am willing to bet my life insurance money on this being the reason why Phil took out a mortgage on the garage. He bought Maxine this house to live in. Could there be children? I scan the photographs here, before scurrying downstairs to check out some others in the living room. No kids. Oh dear, poor Carrie. Sam came along only four months after she got married. There has never been a time when her priority hasn't had to be the kids. Is that the attraction Maxine has for Phil? A childless woman who's prepared to make his sorry arse the centre of her universe?
I search the desk in the rear lobby, monitoring the couple's low murmuring voices for any change which would indicate they're about leave the kitchen and come in my direction. They couldn't see me anyway, I tell myself. Yet, I feel so guilty about searching through their private papers, under their noses, I can't rid myself of the sensation, they could. I find the deeds to the house. These are what I'm looking for. They are joint owners of the house. Another paper shows that Maxine took out her own mortgage to cover her half. It was purchased two years ago. Two years ago! I can only imagine Phil must have gone straight home to Maxine after work, returning to Carrie and the boys, after midnight, just to sleep. And, all those weekends he was supposedly working, he was here with her too. Well, at least I know there’s no way he could be the Weasel’s accomplice. I mean where would he find the time? Carrie suspected there was someone else. For years, she accused him behind his back. I dismissed her instinct about his philandering, simply because it wasn't my own. I couldn't imagine anyone, apart from Carrie, being stupid enough to take him on. Does Maxine think his burping is funny? She must be the kind of woman I've never encountered before, if she does. There are no photographs of the boys in this house. Why is that? I can understand that he might not want to decorate his love nest with images of his ex, but why exclude his sons too? Does he have no feeling for them at all? Or does he see them as Carrie's now, not his? It is possible Maxine doesn't know about Carrie and the boys, I suppose. He might have lied to her too. Could he have made a bigamous marria
ge with her? I sift through the rest of the papers in the desk to see if I can find a marriage certificate. There isn't one. Surely, even Phil wouldn't be that daft. But, I still feel relieved. Why was he so dead set against splitting up with Carrie when he had Maxine stashed away? It doesn't make sense. What would make him go on with their marriage when he had this relationship which obviously makes him so much happier? Was it simply to make my sister's life a misery? Was it for the boys, or for money? Hells bells! How am I ever going to tell Carrie about any of this?
Gordon Richards is getting ready to make a move. He packs a few clothes in a canvas holdall, slides his passport into the pocket of the navy blue blazer he is wearing, and calls a cab. He leaves his white van parked in a street, around the corner from his house. Does he think someone might come looking for it while he is away? In the centre of Leicester, he abandons the cab, and switches to a Skylink bus. This is when Bim and Kerry, who are with him, realise he is headed for the airport. By the time I join them there, they are in the bag drop-off queue. In the flesh, he is not the terrifying monster I imagined him to be. He is below average height, and wiry, but muscular, like a weasel, exactly as Kerry described. His receding hair has been shaved close to his head since the photograph in our possession was taken, making it look darker, and also giving him a harder edge. He has grown a moustache again too, an old-fashioned droopy one. His face, at first glance, is unremarkable, which is as far as most people would get but, if they did linger a little longer on his features, they might notice that the veins beneath his white pulpy skin appear to be surfacing, dappling his face with shadowy stains, even in full light. His sunken blue-grey eyes are uncomfortably penetrating too. It is as though he is scrutinising every atom, around him, from a stronghold deep inside himself. He sees us, not consciously, but he does. He knows something new is present and this makes him nervous. I'm glad, because it is an ordeal for us to wait in line beside him too - for Kerry, particularly. She has to deal with her memories of being drugged and strangled by this man. To Bim, who can’t recall what happened, he is probably a bit of a celebrity, although of the Sweeney Todd, Jack the Ripper variety, undoubtedly. We distract ourselves by fretting over why he might be going abroad. If it is a holiday, why does he have so little luggage?
