Ghost Virus

by Graham Masterton

  She took off her zig-zag sweater and hung it on the railings before she tried on the jacket and buttoned it up. It was two sizes too big for her, and the sleeves were too long, but it gave her a tingle of pleasure across her back and down her arms, and she felt that it belonged to her – as if it had been hanging on the railings waiting especially for her to come walking past – her and nobody else.

  She reached into the pocket of her sweater to take out her mobile phone and admire herself. Then she took a series of selfies, posing and pouting like Kim Kardashian. A middle-aged man wheeling his bicycle along the path called out, ‘Lovely, love! You ought to be a model!’

  Mindy turned round to him and shouted back, ‘Piss off, you pervert!’

  The man stopped, obviously trying to make up his mind if he ought to answer back, but then he saw that two young mothers with pushchairs were approaching him, and he wheeled his bicycle away without saying anything.

  You see? She’s always been sweet and polite and done whatever she’s told, but now she can be strong, too, and stick up for herself.

  But ‘piss off’ – that’s rude!

  He asked for it. She’s only nine and out on her own. Who knows what he might have done to her next, the lecher?

  Mindy felt that the jacket was becoming tighter and tighter, and actually clinging to her skin through her long-sleeved T-shirt. It was so tight that she was finding it difficult to breathe, but the sensation was pleasurable, too, in a way that she had never experienced before, and it made her feel grown-up and excited.

  So what is she going to do now? Go home and see her mother? It’s about time she told her mother what she really thinks of her.

  Why? What’s Mummy done wrong?

  Oh, come on! Think about it! She may be her mother but that doesn’t give her the right to tell her how to behave every minute of the day, and to make her bed and tidy her room, and help with the laundry. Why should she? She’s nine now, and an independent person. She can stop her mother taking her to St Nicholas’ every Sunday, for a start. God doesn’t exist, so why waste an hour in a chilly church singing stupid songs about fighting the good fight and listening to some boring vicar talking about forgiveness? If anybody needs to ask for her forgiveness, it’s her mother.

  Mindy untied Sprout from the railings and tugged him away, even though he was still barking and furiously trying to shake himself free from his collar. She left her zig-zag sweater behind on the railings, and one of the young mothers called out, ‘Hey! Sweetheart! Is that jumper yours?’

  Mindy waved her arm at her dismissively and called back, ‘Get stuffed and mind your own business!’

  ‘Oh – charming!’ said the young mother. ‘Why don’t you go home and wash your mouth out with soap and water!’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Mindy retorted. ‘I said get stuffed and I meant it!’

  The two young mothers shrugged and pulled faces at each other and carried on walking. For a few moments Mindy stood watching them go, and then she made her way to the entrance, almost bursting with self-satisfaction.

  See! That was telling them, wasn’t it? She’s found her true voice at last!

  *

  It was beginning to grow dark by the time Mindy came down the alley beside her house in Nimrod Road and into the kitchen through the back door. Her mother was ironing sheets and pillowcases and her father’s shirts for the office.

  ‘Mindy!’ said her mother. ‘Where on earth have you been? I’ve been ringing you and ringing you! Isn’t your phone working? I was going to call the police if you didn’t come home soon!’

  ‘Oh, yes, why?’ said Mindy, dropping Sprout’s lead on the kitchen table. ‘Don’t you think she’s quite capable of looking after herself?’

  ‘What did you say? And where did you get that jacket you’re wearing? And where’s Sprout?’

  ‘What do you care?’ Mindy replied, walking towards the door that led to the hallway.

  Her mother put down her iron and caught hold of Mindy’s arm. She looked so much like Mindy that they could have been sisters, if there weren’t twenty-four years between them.

  ‘Where have you been, Mindy? Where’s Sprout? What’s happened? And why are you wearing that awful jacket? Where’s your sweater?’

  Mindy stayed perfectly still, but stared straight ahead of her, as if she intended to keep on walking out of the kitchen as soon as her mother let go of her.

  ‘So what is it now?’ she asked. ‘Insult the way she dresses, as well as everything else she does, like her homework, and her piano playing, and her dancing?’

  ‘Mindy – where’s Sprout? What have you done with him? Have you lost him? What’s going on, darling? Please – tell me!’

  Mindy looked up at her at last. ‘Just like she said to those busybodies in the park – get stuffed and mind your own business!’

  Mindy’s mother slapped her across the face, and then immediately said, ‘I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you! But you have to tell me what’s happened, Mindy! Why are you talking like this?’

  Mindy’s left cheek was flushed scarlet, but she gave her mother a dismissive smile, as if she had expected to be slapped, and couldn’t care.

  ‘Mindy, for the love of God, darling! I really didn’t mean to hurt you! But you’ve come home hours and hours late, wearing some completely strange jacket, and there’s no Sprout with you, and all you can do is answer me back as if I’m some kind of a stranger.’

  ‘She’s had enough, that’s why,’ said Mindy.

  ‘Why do you keep calling yourself “she”? Have you had an accident or something? Has somebody attacked you?’

  ‘If you had experienced even a tenth of my suffering, you would feel the same way as I do,’ said Mindy. Her voice sounded different now, low and measured, and her mother thought her eyes looked different, too – not wide and round and innocent, but curiously feline, and filled with a kind of weary malevolence. They were the eyes of somebody who had been punished by life, and was not going to forgive those who had hurt her, or anybody.

  ‘Mindy, let’s go through to the sitting-room. I’m going to call Daddy.’

  ‘Oh, yes? And what do you think the great and wonderful Daddy is going to do? He’s as hopeless as you are, you stupid bitch.’

  Mindy’s mother wasn’t tempted to slap her face again. She was seriously worried now. She held onto her arm and guided her into the living-room and switched on the light. Over the beige-tiled fireplace there was a row of framed photographs, most of them of Mindy from when she was a baby, and always smiling her coy, shy smile, as if she couldn’t believe that she was pretty enough for anybody to want to take a picture of her.

  ‘There, sit down,’ said Mindy’s mother, leading her over to the sofa. ‘I think you’ve had a shock and we need to find out what it was. Why don’t you take off that horrible jacket? I mean, where did it come from? It doesn’t look very clean.’

  ‘No,’ said Mindy, staring around the room. ‘I hate this wallpaper. Green! Why did you choose green, of all the disgusting colours?’

  ‘Well, sit down at least.’

  ‘No.’

  You see? She doesn’t have to be obedient. She can defy her mother and there’s nothing that her mother can do about it. Her mother won’t slap her again. Slapping her like that made her feel worse than Mindy.

  Mindy’s mother sat in the armchair next to the fireplace and took her mobile phone out of her apron pocket. She rang her father’s number and he answered almost immediately.

  ‘Hi there, love! What’s up? I’m right in the middle of a meeting, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Peter, it’s Mindy. Something awful’s happened to her but I don’t know what it is and she won’t tell me.’

  ‘What do you mean, “something awful”? Has she been hurt?’

  ‘I don’t think so, not physically. But she took Sprout out for a walk at three o’clock and she’s only just come back. There’s no sign of Sprout and she’s wearing some peculiar second-h
and jacket instead of her sweater. And she’s saying such meaningless things. She keeps talking about herself in the third person, as if she’s somebody else.’

  ‘And she won’t say what’s happened to her?’

  ‘No... she told me it was none of my business. In fact she was ruder than that.’

  There was a long pause, and then Mindy’s father said, ‘She hasn’t been raped, has she?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no. But then she won’t tell me anything.’

  Mindy had been standing with her back to her mother, but now she turned around and said, ‘I know what he’s thinking. Typical father. He thinks she was raped, doesn’t he? Just because he’d secretly like to have sex with her himself. All fathers do. They look at their little daughters naked in the bath and if their wives weren’t around they’d love to touch them.’

  ‘Peter,’ said Mindy’s mother. ‘I think you’d better come home now. And I think we might have to call the police.’

  ‘Oh, you want to call the police?’ Mindy challenged her. ‘And what good will that do? You think the police are going to go looking for a Yorkshire terrier and a sweater? You don’t think they’ve got one or two things more urgent to attend to?’

  ‘Mindy—’ her mother began.

  ‘No, Janet! You can’t go on interfering in her life any more! She’s found her strength now! She has me and I have her! We’re one and the same! Nothing you do or say is ever going to be able to change that!’

  Mindy’s voice rose to a scream. She bent forward so that her face was only two or three inches away from her mother’s and her mother could feel her spit on her cheeks.

  ‘It’s all going to be different from now on! You’re never going to give her orders again and you’re never going to treat her like a child! She’s a woman because I’m a woman and we’re one and the same! She’s going to come and go as she pleases! Not only that, she—’

  Mindy hesitated, and held her left hand to her stomach. She retched, and a long string of saliva dripped from her lips.

  ‘Not only that—’ she repeated, but then she stopped again, and retched even louder, with a sickening noise.

  For three or four seconds she stood leaning over her mother with her eyes closed and her cheeks bulging, as if her mouth were filling up with bile. Then she shuddered and vomited directly into her mother’s lap, a stringy torrent of red, half-chewed meat and tangles of wet tan and black fur.

  She heaved again and again and all her mother could do was hold onto her shoulders with both hands and try to suppress her convulsions.

  At last she sank to her knees onto the carpet and stayed there with her head bowed, sobbing. Her mother looked down at the grisly mess in her apron and she could tell by the fur and the liquorice-black fragment of snout what it was.

  ‘Dear God in Heaven,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, Mindy. What’s got into you, my darling? Who’s got into you?’

  23

  ‘So what’s the plan with this what’s-his-name, this Lithuanian bloke?’ asked DI Saunders.

  Jerry said, ‘It’s simple enough. We stake out his gaff early in the morning and when he sets off on his rounds picking up charity bags we nab him.’

  DI Saunders came away from the window. It was dark outside now and he must have been admiring his own reflection.

  ‘I’m just wondering if it’s worth it,’ he said. ‘I know you said he makes a fair bit of money out of it, but if the clothes are being given away for free anyway, it’s not exactly the crime of the century, is it? It’s no worse than scavenging through a council rubbish tip and making off with a second-hand toilet.’

  ‘It’s depriving Cancer Research of valuable funds,’ said Jerry. ‘If your mum was diagnosed of cancer, how would you feel about some Eastern European tosser making off with the money that could have been used to save her?’

  ‘My mum was diagnosed with cancer,’ said DI Saunders. ‘She passed away last Christmas.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry. Wouldn’t have said that if I’d known. But you get what I’m getting at.’

  ‘Well, all right. But it seems like a slightly dubious use of our resources when we have more important cases to cope with. Like for instance Samira Wazir and Michael Brent and those two poor kids who got chucked out of their classroom window.’

  ‘We’re right on top of all of those investigations, sir,’ put in Jamila. ‘Samira Wazir’s father is back from Pakistan now and we’ve arranged to interview him at his house at six o’clock. We’ll be meeting Dr Fuller as soon as he’s completed his latest tests on the fibres from the coats and the skin samples from the victims.’

  ‘And when will that be?’

  ‘We don’t know for sure, sir. He’s waiting to get some more results from Lambeth Road, so it could be tomorrow or the day after. It depends. It could take weeks. But there’s not much more we can do until we understand how the clothing affected the suspects’ state of mind – if indeed that is what motivated them. Dr Fuller is also running new toxicology tests to see if there are traces of any mind-altering drug in the suspects’ bloodstreams.’

  ‘Well, keep on breathing down his neck, won’t you?’ said DI Saunders. ‘I’ve got the bloody media chasing me every five minutes and they’re getting on my nerves. We’re having to be so cagey about these cases they can smell that there’s something fishy about them.’

  He stood looking at Jerry and Jamila with one hand lifted as if he were about to say something else. Eventually, though, he shrugged, and went back to his desk, and started prodding at his keyboard.

  ‘We’ll be sure to let you know as soon as we have anything conclusive, sir,’ said Jamila.

  ‘Yes, OK,’ said DI Saunders. His tone of voice was such that it was difficult to tell if ‘yes, OK’ was simply an acknowledgement, or a statement of fact, or an order – as in, yes, OK, you will, because you’ll bloody well regret it if you don’t.

  *

  As soon as the lift doors opened on the ground floor, Jerry and Jamila heard a woman screaming. Two officers hurried past them in the direction of the cells, and almost immediately Sergeant Bristow appeared, bustling back towards his reception desk.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Jerry. ‘It’s not that schoolmistress, is it? I thought she’d gone off to St George’s to have her coat cut off her.’

  ‘You’d think it was, wouldn’t you?’ said Sergeant Bristow. ‘But it’s a bloke.’

  ‘What? A bloke? He sounds just like my Auntie Doris!’

  Sergeant Bristow stopped and came back. ‘You remember that call I was telling you about this morning?’

  ‘Of course, yes. The woman who rang in and said that her friend was missing?’

  ‘That’s the one. We got the go-ahead from Callow to force an entry, but as it turned out we didn’t have to, because her husband was at home. And – so was she, because her husband had stabbed her to death and hidden her body in the freezer.’

  ‘Jō ki hairāna hai!’ said Jamila, shaking her head. ‘That’s just incredible!’

  ‘Oh, it gets worse,’ Sergeant Bristow told them. ‘After he’d killed her he cut a lump off her thigh and cooked it and ate it, and when we got there, he’d cut her head off and was defrosting it in the microwave. He said he wanted to cook and eat her brain, and he got all narky when we wouldn’t let him.’

  ‘I feel sick,’ said Jamila.

  ‘And that’s him screaming?’ asked Jerry.

  ‘That’s him, believe it or not,’ said Sergeant Bristow. ‘DC Willis and DC Baker are with him now. They’ve been trying to get him to strip but he’s not having it – says he can’t take his sweater off because it hurts.’

  ‘It hurts?’ said Jamila. ‘Why?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue, but DC Baker’s asked me to call for a doctor. First of all we get that ice-cream stuck to his coat, and then that teacher, now we’ve got him, screaming about taking off his sweater.’

  ‘Let’s go and take a butcher’s,’ said Jerry.

  While Sergeant Bristow went off to recepti
on, Jerry and Jamila walked quickly along the corridor to the cells. David had stopped screaming now but he was sobbing bitterly and he still sounded like a woman.

  The duty officer was standing outside the cell with his arms folded looking bored.

  ‘Come to see Madame Butterfly, have you?’ he asked.

  ‘If you’ve no objection,’ said Jamila, coldly, and the duty officer fumbled with his keys and opened the door for them.

  David was sitting on his bed, his hands covering his face, his shoulders shaking. He was still wearing his black sweater and his grey boxer shorts and one bare foot was crossed over the other, more like a miserable woman than a man.

  DC Willis was standing with his hands in his pockets and a look of total frustration on his face, like a parent whose three-year-old child is standing at the top of a playground slide, refusing either to slide down it or climb back down the steps.

  DC Jean Baker was a young, chunky woman with short red hair, a face the colour of a pink party balloon and a tight bottle-green suit. Jerry always thought she could have been Ed Sheeran’s baby sister.

  The two uniformed officers were there, too – PC Ted Jonas, in his shirt-sleeves, as broad-shouldered as a rugby full-back, and PC Wilkinson, older and greyer, with a paunch.

  ‘Ah, Jerry,’ DC Willis greeted him. ‘And DS Patel. I think we might have another case of Stuck Clothes Syndrome. He won’t take his sweater off himself and he screams like an effing soprano every time we try to do it for him.’

  ‘What’s his name again?’ asked Jerry.

  ‘David Nelson. He’s been formally charged with doing his wife in, and cautioned. He hasn’t asked for a brief, although I reckon he needs a nut doctor more than a lawyer. The trouble is, he keeps talking about himself in the third person.’

  ‘The third person?’ asked Jamila. ‘What do you mean by that exactly?’

  ‘He’s admitted that David Nelson killed his wife and ate part of her leg, and he’s admitted that he decapitated her with the intention of eating her brain. But he keeps insisting that he’s not David Nelson.’