D. I. Ghost: A Detective Inspector Ghost Murder Investigation

by Lauren White

  The Weasel rises and takes the mountain path down to the neighbouring village. He should be gone a couple of hours but to make sure he doesn't arrive back at the house, unexpectedly, Kerry follows him. As I look across the valley, from the balcony of his room, there they are - two specks in the distance against the pale blue sky. The sunlight is milky yellow, beautiful, but fragile, too sickly to give warmth yet, and there is a brittle chill in the early morning air; the first hint of winter approaching. Pine forest surrounds the village on two sides and, as the land on the other two falls away, into a valley, olive trees march in line as far as the eye can see. The monotony is broken only by the occasional almond grove. On the banks of the river which runs along the bottom of the valley, there are a few fields of arable farming and some grazing pastures for a ragged herd of goats and sheep. The whitewashed village houses, their garish geraniums, spilling from the balconies and sills, are shuttered to keep in the warmth. The village would look deserted but for the smattering of smoke coils oozing lazily from the chimneys. In the street, directly below me, two women wrapped in shawls jabber about the weather, the black olives which are due to be harvested before Christmas, and La crisis, the economic downturn in Spain. Inside, I can hear Maria busy cleaning in the kitchen. Her vigour rumours futility. When I looked in on her, she had the air of a woman who is inventing tasks to occupy herself. Bim has been assigned the job of minding her so that I can search the Weasel’s room in peace. She hovers at her back, attempting to bond with her by sharing the household tips, she almost managed to pick up from Marigold, the woman who cleaned for her in Greenwich.

  She used to swear by vinegar. I'm not entirely sure why but I do know if you drink an egg cupful before a meal, you eat less. An egg cup full of cider vinegar, that is. Well, everyone knows that. But, I'm not quite clear why it is good for cleaning too. Marigold definitely used to swear by it though, she enlightens an unresponsive Maria.

  As I listen for the sounds of anyone else stirring in the house, the only other presence, I’m aware of, is Mrs Richards. She is asleep on the divan in her room. Her son’s room, across the landing from hers, is wooden beamed and white washed with a floor of matt brick-shaped terracotta tiles. There are two single beds, either side of a small pine night table, and opposite, a squat and solid chest of drawers. In the corner, an alcove has been curtained off to create a wardrobe, and next to the oak planked door, a tiny writing desk, with a pile of British newspapers and car magazines neatly stacked on it, is wedged. I open the chest of drawers. His socks and pants are in the first drawer, three long sleeved t-shirts in the second, and in the third, there is a jersey, on one side, and his folded pyjamas, on the other. There are no papers or personal possessions. Looking down, I notice his holdall is protruding from under the bed. I set it on the duvet and search the side pockets. His passport is in one of them. The rest of the holdall appears to be empty apart from a folded windcheater but when I lift this, I discover a buff folder, underneath. Inside, there is an assortment of legal documents, including his mother's death certificate. She died of a stroke, before the cancer could kill her, exactly as he told the people he got chatting to, at the airport. The deeds of this house are here too and her will. Gordon was her sole beneficiary. He inherited the house and her modest savings.

  What are you doing here?

  I spin around. Damn! This is all I need. How did Maria get past Bim? Where is Bim?

  This is the master's room.

  She is staring at the open holdall on the bed.

  Maria, I wanted to talk to you, I say, in an attempt to distract her.

  I asked you, what you were doing.

  I was looking for you. I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to ask you why you killed yourself.

  She looks confused. I don’t know what you’re talking about? I'm...I'm...I'm the housekeeper. And, this is the master's room.

  We are back to this again, and so soon. What do I do now? I don't know where the idea comes from but in the few seconds I have to turn it over in my mind I decide it just might work. Maria, I want you to go downstairs and prepare some coffee for the master.

  She appears to waver before returning to the same groove. What you're doing in the master’s room.

  I'm the master's new wife and please go downstairs and prepare some coffee for him, I say in a commanding tone.

  His new wife?

  Yes, and I want you to...

  She starts to wring her hands. Where will I go? She looks devastated. He won't need a housekeeper if he has a wife.

  I’m so stunned by her response, I forget what I’m doing there myself. Is that what happened, Maria? Did the master marry?

  What master? There is no master. He is a figment of her imagination, Bim says, appearing beside me.

  Where have you been? You were supposed to be watching her.

  I was but I heard a noise in the room above. You have to hurry, Kate. I think the old lady is dying. I know she is his mother, but...

  Bim, she’s already dead!

  But her suffering seems so real?

  She’s like Maria. She’ll die and then, she’ll go through her illness, until she dies again.

  It’s a bit weird, isn’t it?

  I smile, wearily, at her.

  Maria is backing out of the door, making a low gurgling wailing noise.

  Stop that at once, I say, sharply, making Bim jump. I want you to prepare some coffee for the master. And, I want no more talk about having to leave this house. You are the housekeeper here, and always will be.

  As she passes through the door on her way to the kitchen, I call after her: Maria, why did you say the master was a wig maker? I don't catch her answer. What did she say, Bim?

  I think it was something about the alcove.

  I pull the curtain covering it back. There is a rail inside, groaning with women's clothes.

  These must be his mother's. Why has he kept them?

  Bim points to something on the floor, which is partially hidden by the hem of a silken dressing gown.

  I bend down to pick it up. It's a plastic skull cap, the kind hairdressers sometimes use to do highlights. It is covered with tiny holes, through which strands of hair have been pulled and glued on the inside to create a crude wig. It is blonde hair; human by the looks.

  Do you think he is a transvestite?

  That is mine, Bim exclaims, grabbing at it. I'd recognise Jacques' highlights anywhere. I should do, they cost enough.

  Actually I think it’s a mixture of hair here, Bim. See? That bit there looks like Gerte’s.

  Why have only half the holes been filled?

  He seems to be taking just a small chunk from each woman he murders.

  So he is going to need more victims to finish it?

  I nod.

  I don’t understand why he is doing this?

  He is sick, Bim.

  Well, he is not having my hair. I'm taking it back.

  You can't, he'll notice.

  Why should I care about that?

  He might destroy it. It’s evidence, Bim. It proves the connection between him and all the women he has killed.

  Why don’t we just give it to the police then?

  I doubt the Spanish police would be interested. He hasn’t murdered anyone here. Well, not as far as we know.

  We could always take it back to Britain with us and give it to the police there.

  It wouldn’t work. They would have to find it in his possession for it to count.

  Then, we could hide it in his suitcase and try and get him searched at the airport.

  But, they’d have no reason to think it was anything more than a bit odd. They’re not going to bother to try and find out whether it is human hair, let alone whose it is, unless they suspect he has done something wrong.

  Kerry appears just as I’m putting the wig back.

  What is that you've got there?

  I can hear footsteps, below. Is he back already? Did he change his mind about going to the next village?
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  Kerry ignores my question. What is it?

  It is a wig for his mother, I think. It’s made from the hair of his victims.

  Gordon begins to mount the stairs. I manage to put the wig back where it was on the floor of the alcove, before he enters the room, but I don't have time to slide the curtain across. He spots it, immediately. He checks inside to make sure the wig is there and looks under the bed where I have returned the holdall. Then, he turns and goes straight to his mother's room. His eyes comb it for anything out of place. Next, he tours the rest of the house, room by room, finishing up at the front door where he inspects the lock, pulling anxiously at his lower lip as he does so, the only leak of emotion to escape him. After he has finished checking it, we follow him back to his mother's room.

  She is lying on the divan. She appears to be dead.

  I sit on the bed and Bim stands beside me as we watch Gordon looking about her room. Kerry goes to the window and in the doorway I see Maria hovering. I'm sure Gordon senses us there with him. He knows somehow that he is not alone.

  He smiles to himself. Hello Mum, he coos, softly. Is that you?

  WINTER

  The Weasel is in love with routine. Each day is meticulously the same. Nothing spontaneous is allowed to interrupt his need for repetition. The only variance is a different but intersecting pattern of behaviour, creating a Venn diagram of habitual paths: once a fortnight, he returns to his house in Leicester, for the weekend, to clean, collect his post, and change items of clothing. We follow him, back and forth, waiting and watching for something to occur, which will enable us to trap him, just so we can escape the annihilating tedium of our vigil. It is as though he doesn't quite exist. He is more ethereal than us. It seems incredible that there should be nothing interesting to note in the life of a serial killer but this is exactly how it is. He is a bore. There is a complete absence of the personal about him. He has no relationships, keeps no diary, and writes and receives no letters of any significance. His mobile phone doesn't have a single contact listed in it. Nor are there emails from anyone who could remotely be described as an acquaintance on either of his computers. The man is vacuous with mystery. Yet, at the same time we sense a light has gone on deep within him. He too is waiting. No, it is more that he knows something is on the way. There is a dull but persistent drone of anticipation inside him. Slavish to a fitness regime of his own devising, he walks and jogs daily, and has rigged up some weights, which occupy a good two hours of his time, each afternoon. In the evening, before he goes to bed, he does more exercises. It is not easy for us to think clearly around him. The way he bores is soporific, dulling our mental capacity, but in the fleeting moments in which the fog dissolves, one single conclusion is beginning to form in our minds: the Weasel is preparing to kill again.

  The first blip in his rigid curriculum happens in Spain without warning, when he gets into his hire car one morning after breakfast, and drives out of the village.

  Huddled together on the back seat, we assume he is making an unscheduled visit back to the UK, initially, but he misses the turn off for the airport, and heads in the direction of the city of Granada, instead.

  Bim is ecstatic. She wants to go window shopping for a new cocktail dress.

  Reece always hosts a party at the ski-lodge he rents, over Christmas. I shall need something stunning to wear, this year.

  Particularly, as nobody will be able to see you, I attempt to reality test.

  Exactly!

  But, Gordon confounds her by driving past Granada and taking the road towards the coast. The olive and almond groves slowly give way to orchards of lemon and orange trees, and then to a vast chequer board of makeshift greenhouses, which stretch as far as the fields of sugar cane that hem the sea.

  They call this the tropical coast because of the range of fruit and vegetables grown here but it used to be known as the windy coast, Kerry informs us.

  Aren't we lucky to have a geography student with us, Bim remarks, dully.

  I wish I'd done more travelling when I was alive, I confide to them both.

  Really? My biggest regret is not running up a massive credit card debt. Think of the fun I could have had before I died.

  I would have liked to have gotten married and had children, Kerry says, softly.

  That silences us all.

  As the sea comes into view, Gordon remains a blank. He could be driving through a tunnel for all the impression his surroundings make upon him. He turns in the direction of Almeria, but almost immediately takes the road for the port town of Motril. We're all for going to the beach, but he ignores our raucous demands, and takes us towards the commercial centre, instead.

  He leaves his car in a subterranean parking lot and walks briskly through the streets with the air of a man who is looking for something. Twenty minutes later, during which we've had to prise Bim away from every dress shop we've encountered, he enters an internet café. The place is empty and the manager motions him to choose whichever booth he wants. Gordon sits down at the one furthest from him, and logs in to an email account, but not the one in his own name, which we've seen him check on his laptop, back at the house, or on his desktop computer in Britain. The address of this one is xxxsayssimonxxx.

  There's one email in his inbox. It says: I've found a candidate. The sender doesn't give a name, but the email address is: Dead-gorgeous.

  We're slavering with curiosity but the message causes no ripple in Gordon. He simply reads and deletes it, twice; once from his inbox, and a second time from the list of deleted items. Then, he pays for his computer time, picks up his car, and drives us back to the village.

  I don’t understand. He has had no contact with anyone, Kerry says. How did he know there was an email waiting for him? Did we miss something?

  I’m not sure. I don’t think so. He must have known it was going to arrive on a pre-arranged date, that was set before we started tailing him.

  We all look at each other. What else don’t we know about him? What other surprises are laying in wait for us

  When the Weasel returns to his house in Leicester for his cleaning weekend, he finds a large brown envelope lying among the usual utility bills and advertising fliers, on the front doormat. It has a central London postmark and the address has been typed - badly. Whoever sent it doesn't do this for a living. Gordon shows little interest in it. He picks it up and places it on the kitchen table, where it remains, unopened, as he unpacks his bag, showers, shaves, changes his clothes, sets the washing machine, waters his spider plants, and cleans the house, from top to bottom. I find myself thinking of Gail Martos while all this is going on. She and the Weasel seem to share the same need to control how something enters their space, but their motivation is different. Gail is dominated by fear, generated by his attack on her. But, Gordon is moderating pleasure, and not pain, through his prevarication. He wants to open that large brown envelope so badly, he forces himself to wait. It is the mastery of his desire, not the satisfaction of it, which pleases him most. It is perverse. But, then, what else could be expected from a serial killer?

  After he has finished his chores, he makes himself a cup of tea and sits down at the kitchen table to drink it. He eyes the envelope, while he does so, but he doesn't reach for it until he has finished his tea. Pushing the empty cup and saucer away to create a space in front of him, he slits open the edge of the envelope with a pen knife and shakes the contents out. A dozen photographs scatter across the surface of the table. They all depict the same woman.

  What I notice first about her is the obvious, she is a petite blonde. But, close behind this is the realisation that these photographs appear to have been taken without her knowledge, as she leaves a house, walks along a street, and gets into a car. On the back of one of the photographs there is a typed caption. It gives a woman's name, Cheryl Tinsdell, the make, model, and number plate of a car, and an address in South London. Then, it says: She is away from home for the next week. This must be the candidate. And, Dead-gorgeous is the
accomplice. I feel oddly triumphant about this. I've sensed him waiting in the shadows, like a thought I couldn't quite grasp, from the very beginning and, now, finally, it looks as though he is getting ready to reveal himself. As usual, the Weasel’s demeanour gives little away. He examines the photographs, minutely, and puts them back inside their envelope. This, he throws into the fire place in the living room, douses it with paraffin, and sets light to it, watching it burn to a fine smouldering powder.

  He doesn't go back to Spain, as expected, on the Monday. He drives to London, in his white van instead, with us in the back. To Peckham, in South London, to be exact; a tree lined avenue, bordering a park there. He stops the van adjacent to a large Georgian house, which has been converted into flats. It has three floors and what looks like a basement, down a short flight of steps to the side. A black and white tiled path cuts through the middle of a handkerchief of lawn, at the front, on its way to an imposing double-door entrance. The car that was in one of the photographs is parked a few doors up. It is a white BMW, several years old, but still in gleaming condition. Nobody enters the building, during the entire two hours, he stays sitting there, watching. Hardly anyone passes by on the pavement either. It seems to be a quiet residential street, populated with well heeled young singles, out working during the day.

  The flat number, he was sent, is 4B. Kerry goes off to find out where it is.

  It is the basement flat, she informs us, when she returns. There is only her name on the doorbell, C. Tinsdell. It looks like she lives alone.

  The Weasel finally gets out of the car. He walks briskly across the road, but instead of stopping at number 4, he continues past it. Then, when he reaches the corner, he turns and retraces his steps. This time, as soon as he is level with the door, he darts up the front path, checks the names on the doorbells and disappears down the steps to the basement - with the three of us hard, on his heels. The front door and a small window are both covered with security grills. The glass is opaque too. There's no way he can see, inside the flat.