When the Dead Come Calling

by Helen Sedgwick

‘The counter in the Spar,’ he says, his voice dragging like he’s being forced to recite lines at detention. ‘You know which one, boss.’

  ‘I’m not your boss, Andy.’

  He nods; he knows that. He wanted to try it out though, a bit of camaraderie, he was still hoping there was a chance he wasn’t going to look guilty. But he is, and he does. Georgie has a sudden vision of him, standing huddled over the upturned pew out in the church ruin, writing racist spite on an old school notebook while gulls picked at his discarded chips, soggy with rain and vinegar. Her head throbs.

  ‘We broke into the Spar, me and … just me.’

  ‘We’ve got Lee too, you arse,’ says Simon.

  Andy’s temper flares, though only his eyes show it.

  Georgie holds up her hand, gives Andy the space to calm back down and finish his confession. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, that’s what’s getting her; he’s got no control over himself. Doesn’t know how to be a criminal. Doesn’t even know how to lie, not really. But he’s been storing up blame and anger, years of it, letting it fester, and she hasn’t been paying enough attention to see the signs.

  ‘Alright then,’ Andy says. ‘We broke into the Spar, just to paint our message on the counter and smash it up a bit. That’s all. We’d said we’d do it, for Bobby. I…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just wanted her to leave.’

  Georgie stares at him.

  ‘It’s our village. It should be our shop, for us—’

  ‘What the bloody hell are you talking about?’ Simon snaps, and Andy looks to Georgie, though whatever he’s expecting to find there he doesn’t get. She can see the battle in him, watches him weighing up his options.

  ‘Look, I… I don’t know how the other stuff happened.’

  Georgie takes a deep breath.

  ‘And before last night?’

  ‘Boss – Ma’am?’

  ‘Is there anything you’d like to tell us about your behaviour prior to last night? Been writing any other messages I should be aware of?’ Her voice is getting harder.

  ‘Oh. That.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You mean the notes? We just… It’s just there’s no jobs or anything and … and there’s nothing to do…’

  An image of Fergus, collecting rubbish, reading about history, starting a community group; the kindness of the way he dealt with having no job. Violence doesn’t have to be the response. It’s a choice you make.

  ‘We didn’t mean anything by it…’

  ‘The note places you at the scene of Dr Cosse’s murder.’

  ‘No! It were last week we sent it, it must’ve fallen out his pocket or something. And I never thought he’d send one to you—’

  ‘Think that makes it okay?’ Her words come fast and sharp, her pauses are gone.

  ‘No, but … everything’s going to shit, isn’t it. What are we supposed to do?’

  ‘Christ’s sake,’ Simon bumps into the table and Andy half jumps out of his skin.

  ‘Alright,’ says Georgie. ‘That’s enough for now. Andy, I’m taking you down to the station on suspicion of the assault of Pamali Silva.’

  ‘No, but I—’

  ‘You were there, Andy. You’re a part of this. Now, where’s your dad? We need to tell him we’re taking you in.’

  Andy startles, rubs his hand like she just scalded it with boiling water. ‘Please don’t tell him. He’s at the market anyway, he’s not here. We’ll go to the station, just us.’

  ‘Can’t do that,’ she says. ‘You’re a minor.’

  ‘I’m seventeen! Please, Georgie, I’ll come with you to the station, I’ll not be any trouble or anything… But yous don’t have to tell him, do you?’

  ‘Of course we’ll have to tell him,’ she snaps. ‘None of this is going away.’

  Andy nods and holds his hands out for the cuffs.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he says. ‘Before he gets back. Please?’

  She’d thought maybe she’d feel sorry for him, but something has switched in Georgie and it’s not going back again.

  ‘Just get in the car, Andy. We’re parked out by the gate.’

  She’s not going to cuff him; what would be the point? He’s too scared to run off.

  ‘Okay, boss,’ he says, weakly. Eyes down.

  But before they leave, she writes a note for Ricky Barr. Says they need to interview him down the station. That they’ve taken Andy in for questioning. Leaves her card and tells him to phone.

  Rain like needles now – less soggy, more sharp. A smell of rotting seaweed in the air. There are ghosts about.

  Andy holds the gate open for her then climbs in the back of the car.

  For a second, she misses Fergus like an ache.

  Without another word she slams the door shut.

  WHEN WALT WAS HERE BEFORE

  The air was carrying something extra that night; Walt and Jack and Art felt the shudder of it through their clothes, just like the rustle of the dried leaves in the fountain and the clicking of the street lights that flickered then fell dead – the whole village, in fact, found themselves bolting their doors and closing their curtains over that last crack to make sure not a breath of the dark was getting in that night: harvest moon in a year with no harvest, farms forced to close and folk desperate and the smell of burned livestock clinging to the fabric of the land itself. A bad time for the village, and there are things which must be done to survive in a place so thin and old as this; that’s understood by the villagers of Burrowhead, the ones who have heard the stories from their grandfathers by the flicker of candlelight, and it’s not something that can be understood by the ones that haven’t, so they keep it secret and they keep it close.

  Walt felt he’d been walking for hours, through dense woodland and muddy bog, gravel crunching underfoot replaced by the slip of rotting leaves, and though he’d walked the tracks many times he knew the stone carvings didn’t always appear when you went looking. The distant call of an owl, followed by the strange silence of no reply. The smell of damp vegetation mingled with the smell of the burned cattle, the way it caught at the back of his throat, until at last: a clearing, a fresh gust of wind, the long deep slabs of stone glowing against the night and the three of them forming a ring. They didn’t speak, didn’t greet each other, just pulled their hoods low over their eyes, kept their faces invisible and raised their voices in unison, ancient words chanted deep and strong, held by the air thickening around them.

  So thick and heavy it was hard to breathe.

  Collecting in his throat, the nausea, the fear, the awe. Walt’s skin prickled with it. The hairs on the back of his neck, behind the ears; he felt it travel across his back, the knowledge that they were not alone. He closed his eyes and bid them closer, called them to join the circle, and three men became four, then five, then a dozen, faces obscured and cloaks billowing in the wind, their voices like whispers, like the hiss and breath of distant waves and he could feel them, pressing closer, the chill of their touch, their blood in his blood and his legs stretching and his head twisting back and he saw it: the stag behind the tall trunks of the silver birch, its eyes dark gold and its coat perfect white, and the rope looped through the air and the creature didn’t even break its gaze; it stared at them as they did it, the knife catching the moonlight, slipping easily across its throat, the black of the blood spilling down its flawless chest as its front legs stumbled and it fell to kneeling on the stone carved with the ancient cup and ring. The wind whipped up the leaves and a branch creaked from the old oak and there was a noise, then, from behind the trees, a noise which shouldn’t have been there, a scratching, a sneer.

  Jack turned, quick as flame, and ran to the trees, grabbed his boy Bobby by the scruff of the neck – sneaking after me, you don’t belong – and the air was thin and empty again, the stag limp and lost and Art’s hood fell back and beneath it his eyes were deep and hollow and Walt knew he’d lost everything, Jack too, all of them, and Art spoke softly, barely a whi
sper: ‘It’s not enough, is it?’

  ‘It’s all we got,’ Walt said. ‘It’s what we are.’

  The stag’s blood ran through the curves and lines of the carvings on the stone and was diluted by rain that rushed in to fill the air, turning rusty in the moonlight, and instead of cleansing the air the smell returned: the smell of the burning carcasses, the cattle and sheep they were forced to cull, the putrid black smoke rising from pyres all over the land, and the unspoken thoughts which came creeping in to the dark spaces left behind.

  AFTER ELEVEN

  Trish drives from the hospital straight back to Burrowhead police station, blaring her horn at every goddamn car in her way and screeching round corners like the road itself deserves to be locked up for life. She can’t believe it. She cannot fucking believe it. What an idiot she is! Looking out for that boy, helping him with his bloody work-experience report, fixing his spelling, feeling sorry for him, for Chrissake. And all the while he was sending racist spite to her friends and trashing the village and hurting people – smashing and kicking and hurting. God, she is so furious she flies right over a pothole and winces at the clanking of her car – but the tyres hold and she keeps on going. Easing back from ninety, but still. Andy effing Barr, the little monster. She’s going to kill him.

  The sight of Pamali in that hospital was too much, it was the last straw for Trish, she isn’t taking this crap any more. Everyone responsible for this whole bloody mess, everyone, is going to be taken down, if there’s nothing else she achieves in this world. She slams on the brakes approaching the station car park and spins into her space, stopping an inch or two from the low concrete wall at the edge, and in she goes, slamming the door open and letting it ricochet back on its hinges, storming down the corridor. Lee is in the cell, Simon with him, and Andy is in the box room next door, which has been transformed into a second cell. The door’s open. Georgie’s in there. Everything’s being recorded so Trish says her name, walks in, and Andy’s looking straight at her, kind of pleading. Suddenly all she can do is stare back as he crumples up against the wall and slides down to the floor.

  ‘Andy,’ she says, surprising herself with how quiet she speaks, how sad she sounds. ‘Andy…’

  He’s trying to look away.

  ‘Look at me, Andy.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Andy’s lips are downturned, his hands clenching and unclenching. ‘Yous all hate me.’

  ‘You could have killed her,’ Georgie says.

  ‘I’ve not killed anyone—’

  ‘What were you thinking?’

  Fast, sharp, unforgiving; Trish has never seen Georgie like this. Andy’s scared of her.

  ‘I don’t… You don’t know what it’s like.’

  ‘So tell us,’ Trish tries.

  He takes a deep breath. Lets it out. Takes it in again.

  ‘They’re stealing our jobs,’ he says, voice hard all of a sudden and unfamiliar. ‘They’re stealing all the jobs and houses and they—’

  ‘You sound like an idiot,’ Georgie snaps.

  ‘No one is stealing anything from you, Andy. Who’s been telling you that nonsense, eh?’ Trish says, her voice gentle. He’s going to cry. And what has he got, really, what’s he got to look forward to?

  Andy just shakes his head. He’s stopped talking – he’s back to looking down at the floor.

  ‘Think about Pamali,’ Georgie says. ‘You know Pamali, you’ve known her all your life. She lives here, same as you. She’s a human being and a friend and she’s never taken a thing from you.’

  ‘But my dad says—’

  ‘Your dad, is it?’ Georgie’s almost shouting now, and Trish wants it to stop. ‘You want to be like him, do you?’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘And Bobby Helmsteading?’

  ‘He wanted us to make a stand.’

  ‘By hurting others?’

  ‘He was a mate.’

  ‘You’ve got to think for yourself, Andy,’ says Trish.

  ‘All you’re doing is picking on the people who’ve got less than you.’ Georgie’s standing, pacing. ‘You’re just a bully.’

  Andy slumps on the floor.

  ‘It’s no good, you being like this,’ Trish says, kneeling down. She wishes she could reach out to him, put an arm round his shoulders. ‘It’s no good, Andy.’

  He’s crying now, sobbing like a child.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ she says. ‘I know you must feel trapped here, sometimes—’

  ‘You going to tell me to go to university and all?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Like I can go to fucking art school.’

  ‘I understand,’ Trish says. And she does.

  ‘But whoever’s been saying this stuff to you, they’re lying,’ interrupts Georgie. ‘Your dad, and Bobby Helmsteading too. You think I was born with money? You think Pamali was? We’re not the ones making life hard here, Andy! Try looking at the CEOs who moved all their work to the city, the politicians who decommissioned the nuclear site, did away with student grants…’

  Andy sniffs.

  ‘You’ve got everything the wrong way round.’

  ‘I cut her loose,’ he says, in a weak voice. ‘I went back and I … I called the ambulance, made sure she was okay—’

  ‘You also let it happen in the first place,’ Georgie says, her voice more forceful than Trish has ever heard it. ‘So I want you to stop with your excuses, right now, and tell me exactly what you did.’

  COMING UP LUNCHTIME

  ‘I don’t need a lawyer,’ Lee spits out, head high. ‘I told you, I did it. It was my idea an all.’

  He’s short and stocky and surprisingly pretty for such an angry little shite, not a hint of stubble on his chin yet, no spots of grease on his nose, but what really strikes Simon is the way he keeps repeating his confession, like he’s proud of what he did to Pamali, like he’s claiming it.

  ‘We’ve called your mum in,’ Simon says, and Lee snorts. ‘She’s had to take the day off work, sounded right upset—’

  ‘She doesn’t work. They don’t even pay her.’

  ‘Well, she said she’d have to close the museum.’

  ‘So?’

  Simon sighs and looks down at his notes. Everything he’s said matches Pamali’s statement. He’s not lying to them. But God he’s furious, all full of rage and hate and the way he’s looking at Simon with no fear whatsoever.

  ‘You people,’ Lee says, leaning back in his chair with a smirk on his face. And there is something then in the way he’s staring at him – not to do with the crime at all, maybe, but a sort of leering, a sort of challenge, like he knows it all and wouldn’t think twice about leaving Simon bleeding on the kerbside. Like he can see right through his clothes.

  ‘Right then,’ Simon says, standing up. ‘Interview terminated.’ Locks the door behind him, down the hall, and it’s not till he gets back to his office that he realises his knees are shaking. God, he feels sick. Acid rises up in his throat. He takes a swig of water from the bottle on his table. Rubs his hand across his forehead. Tries to focus on the job and not think about Alexis, not think about what else he could be investigating and what evidence there might be here in the station. Logs on to his computer. Opens up Facebook. He’s going to check their pages, Lee, Andy, Bobby – Andy’s already given them the password to get into his account along with his email and mobile phone. Messages between them, clear enough what they were planning, and there were a few other kids in on the racist notes too, a right gang of them it seems. Bobby had been collecting angry adolescent boys and grooming them into something, though quite what the endgame was he can’t tell. There are all kinds of links on his Facebook page. Alt-right websites, racist forums. Simon doesn’t think any of it is quite illegal, but there’s plenty to show the kind of man he really was, and it’s all the same shite Andy has been spouting too.

  But then he hears it. The ringtone of a mobile he doesn’t recognise, DS Frazer’s voices answering, ‘Cal?’ and Simon
can’t help it, he has to know, have they found Dawn? Or something else? He’s standing outside his own office, back pressed into the wall, staying as still and silent as he can, listening to DS Frazer sitting in Georgie’s office talking into his mobile.

  ‘It’s definitely Dawn’s then?’ he says.

  Cal’s answer, presumably, is yes.

  ‘The hair does more than place her at the scene. It was on his shirt. They were close….’

  The blonde hair. The hair Georgie once thought could have been his. Suddenly Simon is hit with the image, again, of Alexis lying on the ground, his blood staining his shirt, his skin; the noise he would have made as he tried to speak, as his lungs filled with blood and it rose up his throat but now there’s Dawn, standing at the playground with her back to the sea and something dark in her, something desperate. His head rocks back and hits the wall, a thud loud enough to bring him back to the station, to the phone call.

  ‘So it was pulled out?’

  Simon wishes he could hear both sides, but then this is more than he thought he’d get. Georgie wasn’t going to let him anywhere near the case. And she shouldn’t. He knows that. He’s not going to do anything. He’s not—

  ‘And her father dead too, in suspicious circumstances… Well, she’s a suspect in his possible murder, given what she said in her hypnosis sessions.’

  Her dad? Alexis had realised Dawn killed her dad, was that it? He’d have tried persuading her to tell the truth, to confess it all – that’s what he would have done. He was always advising the truth. He wouldn’t have expected violence. He probably wouldn’t even have fought back.

  ‘I’ve sent her picture to the train stations and bus depot.’

  She’s here then, they think she’s still here.

  ‘… organising a team from Burrowhead and Crackenbridge to search for her.’

  He’s doing the job Simon should have been doing all along. Except Simon’s not at home grieving any more, Simon’s right here – and he needs to be a part of this, not pushed out and standing in a damn corridor. He needs to be right in the middle of it. His own statement, he can hear it, buzzing in his ears, what happened on Monday night, how he’d thought Alexis had stood him up, was with someone else, sleeping with someone else, but that wasn’t it, and now he knows: Alexis went to meet Dawn that night. She was the one with him, at the playground. She was the one watching as he bled on the ground, as Simon searched the streets and drank and blamed. She was the one who killed him. And Simon needs to end this. Today.