Dance of Ghosts pjc-1

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘Stop,’ I tell him.

  He stops.

  I look around at the empty night — no traffic, no people, no nothing. There’s nothing here, just me and the man who killed my wife and baby. And both of us are less than nothing.

  I put the gun to Viner’s head and pull the trigger.

  ‘Why?’ Bishop said.

  ‘What …?’

  ‘Why is it impossible?’

  I looked at him. ‘Anton Viner …? You’re telling me that Anton Viner killed Anna Gerrish?’

  ‘No,’ Bishop said. ‘I’m telling you that Anton Viner’s hairs were found under her fingernails. Why do you find that so hard to believe?’

  ‘Because …’ I began, struggling to clear the chaos from my mind. ‘Because … well, I don’t know, it’s just …’

  ‘He’s a killer, John. A rapist. He’s not going to stop doing it. They never do.’

  ‘I know … but why would he come back here?’

  ‘Who says he ever went away? Just because we never found him, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he wasn’t here … and even if he wasn’t, even if he did leave Hey after he killed your wife … well, that was seventeen years ago. What’s to stop him coming back now? This is his home, John. This is his territory. He knows Hey. He probably feels safe here. Safe enough to start killing again.’

  I looked at Bishop. ‘Are you sure it’s Viner’s DNA?’

  ‘Positive.’

  I kept on looking at him for a while, trying to read his eyes, trying to see what was inside his head … then I got up from the settee, went through into the bedroom, and started fussing around with the bed. I needed time to think, to understand … I just needed to do something. Bishop followed me as far as the double doors, stopping to lean against the doorway and watch me as I lifted the duvet, straightened it out, and threw it across the bed.

  ‘There’s a televised press conference planned for two o’clock this afternoon,’ he said. ‘We’ll be naming Viner as the main suspect in the murder of Anna Gerrish, and obviously that’s going to have repercussions. Which is why I’m here, really.’

  ‘Repercussions?’ I said, flapping the duvet again, trying to clear the fuggy cloud of body odour and stale sweat from the air.

  He nodded. ‘There’s no point in trying to avoid the possible link between Anna’s murder and that of your wife, because the media are going to make the connection anyway. Two murders with the same suspect is more than enough for them to label Viner a serial killer, and no matter how much we try to play it down, we’re not going to be able to stop it. And I’m afraid that means that they’re going to start looking into your wife’s murder again, rehashing all the old stories, because — to them — she’ll no longer be just a murder victim, she’ll be the victim of a serial killer. And that alone would be sufficient for the media to come after you, John. But unfortunately … well, we’re not going to be able to hide the fact that it was you who found Anna’s body, and when the media get hold of that …’

  ‘Shit,’ I muttered.

  Bishop nodded again. ‘So you can see why I wanted to warn you.’

  I looked at him. ‘Can’t you cancel the press conference? I mean, what’s the point of it anyway?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s out of my hands, John.’

  ‘I thought you were the SIO on this case.’

  ‘I’m in overall charge of the operational side of the investigation, yes. But it’s become a lot more than just a murder investigation now, and that means there’s a lot more people involved. PR people, team co-ordinators, media strategists … it’s simply not possible for me to control everything.’

  ‘But you’re still in control of the actual investigation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I stared at him. ‘And how’s it going?’

  He stared back. ‘Reasonably well.’

  ‘Any idea where Viner might be?’

  ‘We’re working on it.’

  ‘Any leads, witnesses …?’

  Bishop said nothing, just carried on staring at me, his eyes perfectly still.

  ‘What about CCTV footage from the night Anna disappeared?’ I said. ‘Any luck with that?’

  He blinked once. ‘We’re working on it.’

  19

  In the summer of 1991, I worked for a few months as a handyman at the crematorium in Hey’s Weir. Most of my time was spent cutting grass, burning old wreaths, digging flower beds … I basically did whatever I was told to do. I didn’t mind. It was pleasantly thoughtless work, physically but not mentally tiring, and I was on my own most of the time. And, besides — as I’d explained to Bridget — as long as I knew that I’d be with Stacy at the end of the day, I didn’t care what I was doing.

  Occasionally, when the crematorium was busier than usual, I’d be asked to help out in the furnace room. I didn’t get involved with the actual cremation procedures — I was mostly just moving coffins around or sieving the ashes — but it was while I was working in the furnace room that I met a man known as Dougie the Burner. Dougie was an intriguing man. In his late twenties or early thirties, he had an unruly mop of tousled black hair, twinkling dark eyes, permanently grubby skin, and an equally permanent lopsided grin. He was slightly hunchbacked and he walked with a limp. And he always wore the same shabby old blue overalls. He smoked pipe tobacco in hand-rolled cigarettes, and for his lunch he’d eat a whole raw onion.

  Although there was plenty about him that always unnerved me a little — not least his resemblance to a hunchbacked Fred West — there was a lot about Dougie that I liked. I liked the way he never got angry about anything, never worried about anything, never took anything seriously. He just seemed to hobble his way through life, carelessly enjoying whatever came his way — burning bodies, sieving ashes, eating onions … he was perfectly content with his lot.

  On a warm Friday night in July that year, just as the sun was starting to go down, I suddenly realised that I’d left my jacket at the crematorium earlier in the day. My wallet was in my jacket pocket, and Stacy and me were setting off early the next morning for a weekend away in Wales, and for some reason that I can’t remember I decided that, rather than picking up my jacket in the morning, I’d go back and get it that night.

  So I grabbed my work keys, got in the car, and drove out to the crematorium. It must have been around ten o’clock when I got there, and at first the whole place seemed as quiet and deserted as I’d expected. But as I got out of the car and headed across the car park towards the door at the side of the main building that led into the staff room where I’d left my jacket, I gradually became aware of a familiar low rumbling sound — the muffled roar of the furnace. I’d always assumed that the furnace was shut down at night, so I was a little surprised to hear it working, but I didn’t really give it much thought. I just assumed that my assumptions were wrong. And as I approached the side door, and noticed that Dougie’s car was parked at the back of the building, and that next to it was a dark-blue van I’d never seen before, I still didn’t think anything of it. I just supposed Dougie must be working late, maybe checking the furnace or something, and that the van probably belonged to a friend of his who was helping him out …

  I unlocked the side door and went inside. The staff room was dark, the lights turned off, but the adjoining door to the furnace room was open, and through the doorway I could see a flickering glow of bright orange flamelight. I could see Dougie too — standing beside the furnace, wiping his hands on a rag, looking over at me. He wasn’t grinning. And then two men stepped into view from across the room. One of them was middle-aged, stout, with cropped white hair; the other one was a younger man with a dark complexion, possibly Turkish or Greek.

  As the younger man reached into his pocket, Dougie stepped forward and took hold of his arm.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I heard him say. ‘I know him.’ Dougie turned to me. ‘Hey, John,’ he said, grinning now. ‘What are you doing here?’

  What are you doing here? I thought.


  ‘I left my jacket behind,’ I said, staring at something I’d just noticed on the floor behind Dougie. ‘I was just …’

  Still grinning, Dougie glanced over his shoulder at the object that had caught my attention, then turned back to me. ‘I hope you can keep a secret, John.’

  The object on the floor was a roll of carpet. At least, that was my first impression. I was shortly to find out that it was actually just a piece of carpet, and that rolled up inside that piece of carpet was a corpse. The body, according to Dougie, belonged to a young gypsy man who’d been beaten up and shot to death by the father and uncles of an eight-year-old girl who’d been assaulted and raped by the dead man. The two men with Dougie weren’t gypsies themselves, they were just fixers, hired intermediaries, people who ‘got things done’.

  Dougie seemed remarkably unconcerned as he explained all this to me. Grinning his care-free grin, he just rolled a big fat cigarette and told me all about it.

  ‘It’s just a little sideline for me, John,’ he said casually. ‘A bit of overtime, if you like. It’s all quite simple really.’ He lit his cigarette. ‘When someone needs to get rid of something on the quiet, they get in touch with me, and I tell them when to bring it round. They bring it round, it goes in the burner … and that’s it.’

  ‘When you say “get rid of something”,’ I said, looking over at the rolled-up carpet, ‘you mean … bodies?’

  Dougie grinned. ‘Bodies, yeah. Dead people. I mean, I burn them all day anyway, the only difference with these extra ones is they don’t get a service, and I don’t have to bother sieving them into urns.’ His grin broadened. ‘Plus, I get paid a lot more for these.’

  ‘Really?’

  He nodded. ‘The going rate’s a grand a time.’

  I looked at him, suddenly wondering if the only reason he was being so open about this was that he wasn’t planning on me being around much longer to tell anyone. I glanced over at the roaring furnace, then back at Dougie.

  He laughed, realising what I was thinking. ‘It’s all right, John, there’s nothing to worry about. As long as you keep your mouth shut …’ His grin lost a little of its warmth. ‘Is that going to be a problem?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No problem.’

  ‘Good. Of course, if you did happen to let anything slip …’ He turned round, casually flicked his cigarette into the burner, watched as it was instantaneously vaporised, then turned back to me. ‘But that’s not going to happen, is it?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘OK,’ he grinned. ‘Well, if you don’t mind, I’d better get on. I don’t want to delay these two gentlemen any longer.’

  ‘Yeah …’ I muttered. ‘I’ll just get my jacket.’

  ‘Before you go,’ Dougie said, reaching into his pocket and passing me a business card. ‘If ever you need to get rid of anything …’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, looking at the card.

  All it had on it was his name, DOUGIE, and a phone number. I put the card in my pocket, retrieved my jacket, and left.

  A few months later, I handed in my resignation at the crematorium and took up a better-paid job in a call centre. But I kept my promise to Dougie, I didn’t say a word to anyone about his unofficial cremation business — I didn’t even tell Stacy — and for some reason that I’ll never quite understand, I also kept his business card. I never imagined that a time would come when I’d actually have a need for Dougie’s services, and even now I still find it hard to believe that I really did call him before I executed Anton Viner.

  But I did.

  I called him before I left that night.

  He didn’t want to know any details, just what time I wanted to bring the ‘package’ round. And when I told him that it had to be later on that night, probably in the early hours of the morning, he just said, ‘All right, but it’s going to cost you extra.’

  And that was that.

  I killed Viner in the pub car park. I wrapped his bloodied head in a bin-liner and dumped his body in the boot of my car. I drove to the crematorium, where Dougie was already waiting for me, and together we lugged Viner’s body out of the car, into the furnace room, and finally into the furnace.

  And that really was that.

  I’d killed Anton Viner.

  I’d shot him in the head and incinerated his body.

  I’d erased his life from this world.

  But now, seventeen years later, I’d just been informed by DCI Bishop that Anton Viner’s DNA had been found on the body of Anna Gerrish.

  Ghosts upon ghosts upon ghosts …

  20

  After Bishop left, I just sat in my chair beneath the window for an hour or so, smoking cigarettes and trying to work out what the hell was going on. It wasn’t easy, thinking about Anton Viner and what I’d done to him all those years ago … it was something that I usually kept buried deep in the dark places inside my head, the places where I didn’t want to go. It wasn’t that I had any conscious guilt about what I’d done, I didn’t regret it or feel any remorse. Nor did I have any good feelings about it either. There was no satisfaction, no sense of atonement or vengeance or closure … whatever that is. I didn’t consciously feel anything about Viner’s death at all.

  But I had killed him.

  I’d taken a human life.

  And that leaves a hole in your soul. The hole fills, in time, but the new-grown flesh is never quite the same — it’s scarred, wrong, tainted … it has something missing.

  It takes something away from you.

  So I didn’t want to go back there, back to the dark place deep down inside me, but I knew that I had to think about Viner again now. I had to ask myself if there was any possibility, any chance at all, that the man I’d killed wasn’t Anton Viner.

  And that meant taking myself back to that night, back to that shabby grey council house, back to the moment when I was standing over that lank-haired middle-aged man, looking down at the scabbed bite mark on his head … ragged and raw, the blood-brown crust edged with the pink of new flesh … seeing the toothmarks, the shape of a mouth … the shape of Stacy’s mouth. And I had to take myself back to her clothing too, all scrunched up in a carrier bag, browned with blood … her pale-pink vest, her white blouse, her jeans, her underwear … ripped, torn, bloodied … savaged …

  And I had to ask myself how drunk I was that night, how drug-crazed and lost and out of my mind …

  Could I have imagined these things?

  The bite mark, the clothes, the proof that Viner had killed Stacy.

  Was it possible that I’d not seen these things?

  ‘No,’ I muttered. ‘No.’

  I’d seen them.

  There were a lot more things I had to ask myself — could Viner have got Stacy’s clothes from someone else, or could they have been planted in his house? could the anonymous message I’d received have been a set-up, a string of lies to frame Anton Viner and goad me into killing him? and, if so, who could have sent it? and why? and was it possible that the man I’d killed had only admitted to Stacy’s murder because I hadn’t given him an alternative …?

  And while I knew that none of these things were impossible, I also knew that the chance of all of them being true was virtually infinitesimal.

  Anton Viner had killed Stacy.

  The man I’d killed was Anton Viner.

  I went into the kitchen, fetched a bottle of whisky and a glass, and took them back into the front room. I hadn’t had a drink in two weeks, and as I sat down in the armchair and opened the bottle, I hesitated for a moment … thinking about it, almost changing my mind … but I didn’t. I half-filled the glass, took a long shuddering drink, and lit a cigarette.

  The only person who knew what I’d done to Anton Viner was Dougie the Burner, and even he didn’t know for sure. He knew that I’d killed someone, or at least that I’d been involved in the killing of someone, and he knew that we’d cremated the body, and I assumed he knew — from the TV and newspaper reports at the time — that a man called Anto
n Viner was the main suspect in the investigation into the rape and murder of Stacy Craine, so it wouldn’t be hard for him to work out whose body it was that we’d burned. But that was the point — we’d burned it. Dougie had burned it, just like he’d burned countless others. And he was never going to admit to that, was he?

  Just as whoever had sent me the anonymous message about Viner wasn’t going to admit to anything either. Not that they actually knew anything — although, again, once they’d found out that Viner had disappeared, they must have guessed straight away what had happened to him — but whoever it was, and for whatever reason they’d sent me the message, I was pretty sure they’d want to keep quiet about it. And even if they didn’t, they didn’t have any proof that I’d done anything.

  And although the police had questioned me at the time about Viner’s disappearance, they’d never seriously suspected me. There was a witness, a young man walking home from the nearby party that night, who’d thought he remembered seeing two men getting into a car, one of whom could possibly have been Anton Viner … but this young man had been drinking and smoking dope all night, and he couldn’t be absolutely sure about anything … and so nothing had ever come of it.

  I drained my glass, poured myself another, and lit another cigarette.

  I couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would suddenly want to link me with Viner.

  And now that I’d had a couple of stiff drinks, I wasn’t even sure why I was thinking about it anyway. Everything seemed too circular, too mixed up, too complicated to think about — Stacy, Viner … Viner, me … Anna, Stacy, me, Viner, Anna, me …

  And Bishop.

  ‘Shit,’ I muttered. ‘Fuck it.’

  I picked up the phone and called the office.

  Ada answered, ‘John Craine Investigations,’ sounding as grumpy as ever.