When the Dead Come Calling

by Helen Sedgwick

  ‘He. Or she. Is not local.’

  That is when he swivels round in his chair to face her.

  ‘I’m telling you, go look for yourself.’

  ‘No need for that. I believe you.’ He speaks quietly – probably trying to make a point.

  ‘About time.’

  ‘So we’re looking for someone who’s not from around here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He looks over at Simon’s chair then, and Trish grabs it, sits down herself like that was what she’d meant to do all along.

  ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Making a proper report of everything we have.’

  Trish rolls her eyes. Subconsciously, of course, she doesn’t mean to or anything, but…

  ‘Look, I know it sounds boring, but it has to be done, doesn’t it? Nothing had been filed when I got here, nothing written up, evidence spread across different people’s computers. With that kind of sloppy—’

  ‘You can stop right there,’ she snaps, fair fuming. ‘You think we don’t know you lot’d love a chance to close us down?’

  ‘It’s not me—’

  ‘Pissed off that you’ve got cuts to deal with too and we’re still here, still going, doing the bloody best we can with half the staff we need and these ancient—’ She waves a hand angrily at the computer on the desk.

  ‘Okay, okay. My apologies.’ He’s leaning back; he looks almost scared of her actually, and that’s when she hears Georgie getting back to the station. God but she looks tired – like things are getting to her too, wearing her down. Trish doesn’t know what’s got into the pair of them. At least Andy’s out there scrubbing the cars, putting his back into it – sure he had a bit of a moan when she sent him out there, but she could hardly blame him for that. This isn’t the work I was expecting, he’d said, and frankly there are times when Trish feels the same, but at least he’s got some energy to him, she likes that – she likes a bit of fight.

  ‘Let’s talk this through together,’ Georgie says, sitting down heavily. ‘Where are we tonight?’

  ‘Evidence-wise, we’ve got the two prints from the note in Dr Cosse’s office, and the one different set from the note under the body.’ Trish talks fast, making sure to get in before DS Frazer – though he doesn’t seem too keen to speak just now. ‘But no prints on the bodies themselves, nothing on the knife, and an overload of prints from the surrounding areas.’

  ‘Lots of folk go on the swings,’ Georgie says after a pause.

  ‘Exactly. And lots of people have been in the old flats over the years. Prints in the dust, the dirt…’

  Trish waits impatiently as Georgie nods, sighs, twists her wedding ring round and round on her finger.

  ‘So other than the notes themselves,’ she says eventually, ‘is there anything to suggest Dr Cosse’s murder was racially motivated, or even committed by the same people who wrote the racist notes?’

  Trish shakes her head. Frazer’s hand is over his mouth. She can’t have upset him that much; he’d not last long here, that’s for sure.

  ‘I’m starting to think the murders aren’t connected to the notes,’ Georgie says. ‘There’s something else going on here, something we’ve missed. Could the motivation be financial? Homophobic?’

  Frazer is rubbing his head like he’s in pain.

  ‘Something wrong?’ Trish asks.

  He looks at her in such a searching kind of way that Trish drops the attitude without even noticing it’s gone.

  ‘Just … those notes,’ he says. ‘The attack on the newsagents … all this racism everywhere. It’s deep, here. Ingrained.’ He swallows. ‘I’m sorry, I … How can you live with it?’

  Trish doesn’t know what to say. Wants to defend herself, but doesn’t know how.

  ‘But it’s not…’ she begins. ‘I mean, folk here, they… This is my home.’

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ Georgie says. ‘Maybe we all… Have you got a place to stay?’

  ‘Hotel in Crackenbridge.’

  She nods.

  ‘We’ll start fresh in the morning.’

  His smile is almost kind, when he gives it.

  ‘What’s this you’ve written?’ Georgie’s noticed his report, currently open at a timeline for Elise Robertson’s association with Alexis Cosse.

  ‘She’d been seeing him for four and a half months, so she doesn’t explain the N.P. in his day planner. She wasn’t his new patient, I mean, so…’

  Georgie’s shaking her head.

  ‘But look,’ she says. ‘He suggested they try hypnosis on the fourth. That’s the same week. He wrote N.P. on the Monday, like a reminder for himself.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Not about a new patient,’ she says. ‘A new procedure. That’s when he started the hypnosis, with Elise at least. Could have meant professional disgrace for him too.’

  Trish leans back in her chair and doesn’t need to say another word. Frazer glances at her, looks away, looks at Georgie.

  ‘Of course.’ He clears his throat. ‘That’s, er … of course.’ He looks so embarrassed Trish could almost feel sorry for him. ‘Sorry.’ He glances at her again.

  She shakes her head. ‘It was worth checking anyway.’

  None of them seems to know what to say now.

  ‘Let’s call it a day,’ Georgie says. ‘I’ll send Andy home – we can do his interview tomorrow. Get some rest, both of you.’

  Frazer scoops up his coat with a nod and a ‘ma’am’ and is gone.

  ‘You head too, Trish,’ Georgie says, but Trish isn’t going anywhere.

  ‘Let me keep at it,’ she says. ‘I’ll lock up and that.’

  And so it is late, and dark, by the time she’s finally able to get round to researching Dawn Helmsteading. Still, she has time to make a few calls, start to piece her history together. Turns out Dawn has been living in rented accommodation outside Warphill, in one of the old cottages, and been working as a nurse at the GP’s in Crackenbridge for the past few years. She went to Warphill Primary, just like Bobby, just like Trish herself, though Dawn was eight years younger, but unlike Bobby she was never sent away to boarding school, and unlike Trish she never left the area at all, but lived at home while training in the city and took the first job she could find in the local community. A real homebody, far as Trish can tell. Tends not to go out very much. Never really stayed in touch with anyone from school. In fact, she seems not to have any friends at all.

  Her father, Mrs Helmsteading’s late husband, was originally admitted to Crackenbridge Hospital with stomach pain over four years ago, then transferred to the city for surgery after the cancer was diagnosed. In recovery, he was sent home in Dawn’s care – unsurprising given her nurse’s training and the infamous lack of bed space in the hospital. He was expected to have a decent quality of life for a few years, though he would need to be fed primarily on fluids because three-quarters of his stomach had been cut away. On the patient release form the doctors gave him three to five years. They were wrong: he didn’t last five months. He was cremated, his ashes scattered.

  Dawn was last seen in the Crackenbridge surgery the previous Friday, when she worked her full shift and ‘appeared to be on good form’. (Unlike the doctor Trish speaks to, after hours.) The receptionist at the surgery – who is far more willing to have a chat – describes her as being punctual, polite and efficient, if a little stand-offish. Finally, on Monday, Dawn didn’t turn up for work.

  Trish writes it all up, gets everything in order – Georgie will appreciate that, and it’ll show the DS who the professional one is and all. Moving fast now, she locks the office, turns the lights out, sets the alarm, locks the front door and strides past Mrs Smyth and Mrs Dover, huddled under their umbrellas on the corner across from the station. Looks like they’ve been watching for any goings-on. Typical. People are talking. Trish is having none of that though, she’ll not give them so much as a word to pass around the village. She breaks into a run, feels go
od doing it, races her way home through the darkness, and once there she pelts the boxer’s punchbag she has hanging from her living-room ceiling. She finds it very therapeutic.

  HIBERNATION

  When Georgie gets home she finds that Fergus is not alone. The front porch light is on – though he might have put that on especially for her, he often does – and she can hear their voices drifting towards the door from the living room.

  ‘What’s all this then?’ she says.

  ‘Georgie,’ Walt exclaims, bit by bit standing himself upright. He’s changed out of his dressing gown. It’s been replaced by golfing trousers, a shirt and a striped sports jacket. ‘Georgie, am I glad to see you again. Wasn’t sure when you’d be back, so I figured I’d wait. And Fergus here…’

  ‘Been a pleasure having you, Walt,’ says Fergus. ‘Good to spend time with a fellow enthusiast.’

  Behind them, on the floor, is some kind of robotic toy, but Walt is up now – he can be sprightly for someone who seems to have trouble moving from his chair – and he’s taken Georgie by the arm in a conspiratorial way and is guiding her back out towards the hall, where a large cardboard box is sitting behind the staircase.

  She frowns a little as she looks at it, or more precisely, as she listens to it.

  ‘I expect you know what I’m going to ask of you, Georgie,’ says Walt.

  In truth she has absolutely no idea.

  ‘They need someone who understands,’ he says.

  ‘They?’

  ‘I’m not going to be here for much longer—’

  ‘Oh, Walt, don’t say—’

  ‘It’s not what you think.’ He presses his finger to his lips, and then points up at the ceiling. ‘They’ll be coming soon, I’m sure of it, so I need to make my preparations.’

  Georgie presses her hand to his arm, just gently. She’s not sure if she’s trying to soothe his fear or offering sympathy for his mind, his old age, the decline he’s unable to face head-on. And who can?

  ‘What’s in the shoebox, Walt?’

  ‘My bees,’ he grins.

  ‘My God, all of them?’

  ‘Course not, Georgie,’ Walt chuckles. ‘Just a cup full, and their new queen.’

  Georgie doesn’t want to make any sudden movements, but she does find herself taking a step back. She glances over to the living room, where Fergus is standing in the doorway blocking her view of whatever he’s got on the floor.

  ‘Should they not be outside, Walt?’

  ‘It’s not warm enough yet,’ he says. ‘I bring them in for the winter, see, to live with me, keep them cosy till they’re ready for their new hive. It’s important. We’re family.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of—’

  ‘It’s my way, Georgie, and the bees appreciate it. They hardly ever sting me these days.’

  She raises her eyebrows.

  ‘I’m a part of their community, see?’

  Fergus steps out into the hall and kneels by the box.

  ‘It’s wonderful, Walt,’ he’s saying. ‘It’s magical.’ Glancing up at Georgie for confirmation. ‘We keep the box closed, do we?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And keep them somewhere warm, out of the way?’

  ‘I keep them in the cupboard under the stairs.’

  ‘We have a cupboard under the stairs too, don’t we Georgie?’

  ‘They’ll need a cleansing flight every couple of weeks, when you get a warm day.’

  Fergus nods, seriously. ‘A warm day. Alright.’

  ‘And I’ve brought you the inverted sugar. They can eat that without processing it, see. They don’t need much, my bees.’

  ‘I’m not sure if this is the best idea,’ Georgie says.

  ‘It’ll be okay, hon. I already said we could look after them…’

  She feels another flash of irritation.

  ‘You can give us instructions, can’t you, Walt?’ he says.

  ‘Is that a drone?’

  ‘I’ve brought you my bee book.’

  He holds it out to Georgie and she takes it instinctively, turns it over in her hands, notices the pages are worn, the book well used. The front cover is a photograph of a beehive with bees flying around it, on a white background. On the back is a picture of Walt. He looks younger, sturdy, though he has his stick, country cap on his head. Tweeds. Standing in a field, arm on a post. In fact, that’s the field just outside Burrowhead, behind Simon’s place.

  ‘You wrote this, Walt?’

  ‘It’s my bee book,’ he says. ‘Now, Georgie…’

  He pulls her away from Fergus, as though wanting her all to himself, and Fergus tactfully retreats into the living room as Georgie steers Walt towards the front door.

  ‘I need to tell you about them, Georgie.’

  ‘The bees?’

  ‘No, no.’ His finger pointing up again, urgently. ‘They’re ancient, Georgie,’ he says. ‘They’ve been coming here for thousands of years. I want you to understand.’

  She doesn’t have the heart to remind him he told her this already.

  ‘You can see the signs of them in the stones,’ he says. ‘In the rocks.’

  ‘Okay, Walt,’ she says. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

  He nods, slowly, and keeps nodding for a while, chewing the inside of his mouth. The bee book is still in her hand; she flicks through the pages, notices a photo of Walt and two other men, dressed head to toe in protective white suits.

  ‘Who’s this?’ she says, and Walt looks up at her confused.

  ‘Why, that’s Jack there, the big one. And there’s Arthur. They were my friends, see. And they understood the bees, that they did.’

  Something about one of the men in the picture is nagging at her, but she can’t put her finger on what it is.

  ‘They’re gone now, though,’ he says. ‘So that’s why I brought the bees to you. Normally they live inside with me, all through winter, see, but I’ve got to be leaving, and I’m terrible concerned about them.’

  ‘I understand, Walt,’ she says.

  ‘Will you take care of them for me?’

  ‘Of course I will. We will.’

  His hand is on the door latch, but he hesitates before opening it.

  ‘They need someone who appreciates them.’

  ‘It’s going to be okay, Walt. You can go home. Get some rest.’

  The evening air is cold, sharp. She feels a stab of guilt, though she’s not sure what for.

  ‘They’re sensitive, Georgie.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I’ll take good care of them for you. I promise, Walt. I promise.’

  Even as she says it, her skin is crawling. Then Walt is gone and the door is closed, and she can feel Fergus standing behind her, sort of hovering there as if he’s afraid to be the one to speak first.

  ‘I hear you were at the standing stone today,’ she says, turning to face him.

  ‘It was for the society,’ he says. ‘I wanted to—’

  ‘And that?’ She gestures to the drone squatting beetle-like in her living room.

  ‘I needed aerial photos to put on my … for the society’s website.’

  There’s a buzzing, she’s sure of it. Is that the drone or the bees, the collective noise of them? She doesn’t need any of this.

  ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have…’

  Georgie swallows.

  ‘I wouldn’t have even seen it if it wasn’t for the drone though, truly. And I called the police out as soon as I realised what it was. That … that eye.’

  She doesn’t want a fight, not tonight. But the tone in Suze’s voice, the way Cal left the silence hanging.

  ‘They said you were hugging the stone.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They told me, Fergus. The police found you hugging the standing stone. What were you thinking?’

  ‘I wasn’t hugging it, Georgie, I was examining it. I’m a scientist – you know that. There are markings… I’m going to show you.’ He takes her arm, leads her through to the computer. �
��It’s amazing actually, I never knew the markings were so complex, so clear.’

  He seems oblivious, actually oblivious to the fact that her job relies on being respected, that what he does reflects on her and the people round here, they talk. If she loses her job, if the station’s closed down, what then, what’ll they do?

  ‘Look at this,’ he says, opening his photos on the screen. ‘It’s beautifully…’

  But to Georgie the computer is showing a photograph of a pale threatening stone surrounded by dirty white gulls and a dark grey sky; she can hear the squawking noise of them as they pecked at Alexis’s face, feel the stone reaching deep underground to something cold and wet and rotten.

  ‘It’s beautifully intricate,’ he’s saying, ‘though I admit it’s hard to see it in the photo, I mean you can hardly see the carvings at all, but up close, when I put my hand on it, I could feel the shapes and the markings…’

  That eye belonged to Alexis.

  ‘You have to be there, Georgie. You have to experience it. It’s like there’s some ancient meaning there, trying to get through to us. Something from where we all came from.’

  ‘Can’t you just leave this alone?’ she says.

  He looks hurt and confused, and also like he’s not going to leave anything alone.

  ‘Is the case going badly?’

  Georgie doesn’t reply, but there was something Frazer said that has sunk deep under her skin and she can’t seem to shake the nausea it’s left her with.

  ‘Well, this stone is part of our heritage, isn’t it?’

  Not mine, she thinks, but she doesn’t say. It is part of their heritage, though. Not hers, or Alexis’s, or Pamali’s, but it is undeniably part of this land, solid and ancient and immovable, deep and ingrained.

  THURSDAY

  TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS BEFORE THE SLAUGHTER OF DR ALEXIS COSSE

  The story of the church that stands on the outskirts of the village of Burrowhead is a story that tends not to be told by the villagers of Burrowhead, and that, of course, is how things come to fester. But the truth is that no one quite knew where she came from or who had brought her here, the young black girl with old eyes who unnerved them all so much. The local boys who’d gone to work on the ships were away again soon as they’d docked, soon as they’d passed on their cargo. It reminded some of the smuggling, but it was legal of course; no other way the minister would have got himself involved the way he did.