Seeking the Dead

by Kate Ellis

  Maddy Owen was still quite insistent that she should call Joe Plantagenet to tell him about the answerphone message. In the end she agreed, if only to keep Maddy quiet. There was something of the mother hen about Maddy. But she was good hearted. And besides, Carmel was alone in Eborby and she needed all the friends she could get.

  She punched in the number, her heart beating fast. What if Joe resented her mother’s presumption? What if he was too busy to be bothered? A hundred what ifs galloped through her head as she waited for him to answer her call.

  ‘DI Plantagenet.’ The voice was deep with a residual Liverpool accent, not as strong as her father’s had been.

  ‘Joe? Is that Joe?’

  ‘Speaking.’ He sounded a little cautious.

  ‘This is Carmel Hennessy.’

  ‘Carmel. How are you?’ He sounded almost pleased to hear from her but she couldn’t be sure. ‘I’m glad you called. I was going to ring you … just to see how you were doing.’

  ‘My mum?’

  ‘She called me. She’s panicking a bit but I told her you can take care of yourself.’

  Carmel smiled to herself. This man wasn’t treating her like a child even though he’d only remember her as a silly teenager.

  ‘Look, Joe, I’m a bit worried about something. You’re not free tonight by any chance?’

  There was a long silence. Then, ‘Yeah. Do you want to meet?’

  She gabbled the rest, half grateful, half embarrassed. Could he come to the flat? Something had happened and she needed his advice. She was surprised when he said yes. He’d see her at eight thirty and they’d talk then.

  On impulse she invited Maddy round for a pizza at seven. She hardly knew anybody in Eborby and she told herself that a little impromptu entertaining would do her good. And besides, as Maddy had said herself, there was safety in numbers.

  Maddy accepted the invitation eagerly and Carmel found herself wondering whether there was anyone special in her life – she had never mentioned anyone and Carmel realised that she knew very little about her. But perhaps the coming evening would change that. She began to make plans – she would buy a bottle of wine and a few cans of beer for her guests on her way home and she toyed with the idea of asking Maddy what she liked to drink. But then that might sound too formal. Casual was the watchword here.

  On her way home she slipped into a small off licence on the corner of Boargate and bought a bottle of red wine and a bottle of white, not being sure of Maddy’s preferences. She also purchased half a dozen cans of Theakstons and two of lager, covering all eventualities. She had a dim memory of her father offering Joe a whisky but that was out, spirits being far too expensive. She bought some crisps and nuts for them to nibble. It would have to do.

  Armed with her carrier bag of goodies, she made her way back to Vicars Green and when she opened the front door, she could hear voices coming from Mr Peace’s flat. A man and a woman. Her neighbour had a visitor.

  She flicked open the lid of the post box and looked inside. There were two letters lying there. The top one, she knew would be offering a new credit card: she recognised the type as she had received many such offers before. It lay there promising instant gratification like a tart on a brothel bed but Carmel, immune to temptation, tore it up. On what they paid her at the Archaeology Centre, the last thing she wanted was to get herself into debt.

  The second letter in the box looked more interesting. The envelope was made of thick cream-coloured paper and the ink used was bright blue. The name Janna Pyke in large, flourishing handwriting, jumped out at her. It was identical to the last one. Whoever had sent it had written again.

  After leaving the previous letter in the box for twenty-four hours, she had taken it upstairs and shoved it into an empty kitchen drawer. She was tempted to do the same with this one, forget it in the hope that either it would be claimed or it would somehow disappear mysteriously. Either way she didn’t want it to be her problem … especially after the phone message.

  She was about to make her way upstairs when the door to Mr Peace’s flat opened. A female voice was saying goodbye and promising to call in again soon. Carmel hesitated at the bottom of the staircase, curious to see the visitor.

  A woman stepped into the hallway, closing the flat door behind her. She was, Carmel guessed, in her forties and she wore a neat sprigged blouse and a pale-blue linen skirt that skimmed her knees. Her straight brown hair was expertly streaked with blond highlights and her make-up was expertly applied, giving her a businesslike look, and Carmel wondered if she was some healthcare professional come to check up on her elderly neighbour. The woman spotted her and smiled.

  ‘Have you just moved in upstairs?’ The woman had a faint local accent and she sounded friendly.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ Carmel put down her carrier bags as the woman extended her hand.

  ‘I’m Elizabeth, Conrad’s niece. He said you’d popped in to see him.’

  ‘Yes.’ Carmel had a feeling this woman was going to do all the talking. But she didn’t mind. After a day’s work she didn’t really feel up to making polite conversation with a stranger.

  Elizabeth looked round as though she was afraid of being overheard. ‘I’m glad someone a bit more …’ She searched for a suitable word. ‘Sympathetic’s moved in upstairs. The last girl who lived in your flat caused Uncle Conrad an awful lot of trouble, you know. Playing her music at full volume and inviting all sorts round. I had to have a word with her, you know. I told her that he’s an elderly man and she should have a bit of thought for others.’ She pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘But she told me to mind my own business in no uncertain terms. Told me to F off.’ She mouthed the words. ‘Some people, eh …’

  ‘I lead a pretty quiet life,’ Carmel said with a smile and a hint of regret.

  ‘Good, ’cause Uncle Conrad doesn’t need all that nonsense at his age. I like to pop in most days. I work at the hospital so it’s no trouble really.’ She paused and looked Carmel up and down appraisingly. ‘Uncle Conrad said you work at that new Archaeology Centre. Enjoying it?’

  ‘Very much, thanks.’

  Elizabeth glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve got to get back to the hospital – my boss has a couple of evening appointments.’ She looked at the carrier bags full of bottles but made no comment. ‘Nice to meet you, Carmel. I’ll see you again soon no doubt,’ she said as she opened the front door.

  Carmel climbed the stairs wearily, the letter addressed to Janna Pyke stuffed inside one of the carrier bags. When she reached her flat she shoved it into the drawer with the other one, thinking that the place needed noise. Silence brought on the sadness, the heavy atmosphere that oozed from the ancient walls. She switched the TV on, hoping that the sound of the newsreader’s voice would drown out the presence of the girl, and for a while it seemed to work.

  A rise in interest rates, more explosions in Iraq, some rock superstar standing trial for offences against minors. It was all bad news. Then came the item that interested her. The police had received a good response to their appeal for information about the Resurrection Man’s victims and they were pursuing several lines of enquiry. But there had been no arrest as yet. He was still out there, whoever he was. Carmel picked up the remote control and switched to another channel. There was a home makeover programme that sounded relentlessly cheerful – just what she needed.

  As Maddy was coming round at seven, she decided to take a pack of garlic bread from her small freezer compartment to go with the takeaway pizzas: there was no reason why they shouldn’t indulge themselves a little. She had just taken the pack out when she heard the doorbell. She left it on the worktop and hurried downstairs.

  She hesitated for a moment at the front door. She wasn’t expecting any visitors just yet. But curiosity overcame her apprehension so she turned the latch and opened the door.

  A tall young man stood on the doorstep, the bulk of his body blocking out the evening sunlight. Then he took a step back as the door opened and Carmel could see
him properly. He had a shock of fair hair above a long freckled face and his eyes were a piercing blue. He looked familiar, but different in his frayed jeans and black T-shirt proclaiming the virtues of a heavy metal band called the Cynical Dead. She stared at him for a few moments before it came to her. Last time she had seen him he had been wearing much more formal garb.

  This was Jack the Ripper. And he was standing on her doorstep.

  Chapter Five

  Jack the Ripper – she really would have to stop calling him that – looked nervous as he shifted from foot to foot.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ he began with an anxious-to-please expression on his face. ‘But I’m looking for someone … a friend.’ The voice that had sounded so sonorous, so theatrical, was now lowered to a whisper.

  ‘Don’t I know you?’

  He looked at her hopefully. ‘You probably don’t recognise me without my costume and make-up, but I lead the ghost tour. I’m an actor,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘I have to take what I can get.’ He fell silent for a moment, as though he was suddenly unsure of himself. ‘I saw you last night.’

  ‘Did you?’ Carmel began to feel a little foolish. She’d been misled by the role he’d been playing. Now he seemed unthreatening … quite ordinary.

  ‘Look, I don’t know if you can help me but I’m looking for someone called Janna Pyke. I don’t suppose you know where I can find her?’

  Carmel shook her head. ‘Sorry. She moved out a few weeks ago. I’m renting her flat but I’ve no idea where she’s gone.’

  The young man looked disappointed but resigned. ‘I called here last week and the old man downstairs told me she’d moved out but he didn’t know any more. I know it’s a long shot but has she left any forwarding address or …’

  Carmel shook her head. ‘The landlady said she left without paying the rent and she’s no idea where she went. Sorry.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘I saw you standing outside the other night.’

  The visitor took a deep breath. ‘I was passing on my way home and I saw a light on in the flat.’ The words came quickly as though he’d rehearsed the answer. ‘I wondered whether Janna had come back. I was going to call but I chickened out.’ He craned his neck to look beyond Carmel at the staircase, as though he suspected she was harbouring the missing girl; that she didn’t want to see him and Carmel was colluding in the deception. ‘The truth is, she just vanished without a word and I’m wondering whether I should report her missing … to the police, I mean.’

  ‘I’m sorry. But, as I said, I really have no idea where she is.’ She hesitated. ‘Were you and her …?’

  He blushed ‘We split up a while back but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about her.’ As he said the words he looked genuinely concerned, somehow vulnerable.

  ‘Look, why don’t you come in. I could make us a cup of tea.’ Carmel issued the invitation on impulse. But some instinct told her that the man standing in front of her was harmless. A young actor worried about his ex-girlfriend. Nothing more.

  ‘My name’s Tavy McNair, by the way.’

  ‘Carmel. Carmel Hennessy.’ She held her hand out automatically. Tavy took it and she noticed that his flesh was soft and cool.

  With the formalities out of the way she led the way up to the flat and switched the kettle on while he made himself comfortable on the sofa.

  ‘Is it true?’ she asked as she put two steaming mugs of tea on the coffee table.

  ‘Is what true?’

  ‘The story about the girl who was left to die here when her family caught the plague. It was my bedroom window you were pointing at.’

  Tavy McNair smiled shyly. ‘Sorry. Hope it hasn’t given you nightmares. Don’t know whether it’s true or not. It’s just something I heard ages ago.’

  Carmel could tell he was trying to sound casual, trying to make it seem as if it was something he had made up. But he knew it was true all right.

  ‘In fact that’s how I met Janna. She was on one of my tours last summer and she came up to me afterwards … told me it was her window I’d pointed out. She asked if it was true as well.’

  ‘And what did you tell her?’

  ‘The same as I told you. I don’t know for sure. It might be, but on the other hand it might not be. Who knows? You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?’

  Carmel didn’t answer. She didn’t really know what she believed.

  After a long silence, Tavy spoke. ‘I don’t suppose Janna left anything in the flat … a diary or …’ The words were said casually but Carmel sensed an urgency behind them and wondered why. Was there something her former boyfriend wanted? Or wanted to get his hands on so that he could conceal it from the world? She looked him in the eye.

  ‘Someone left a strange message on my answerphone. It was for your friend Janna. Listen.’ She played him the message and watched his face.

  ‘Janna. This is your final warning. You can’t escape. Wherever you are, we’ll find you and when we do, you’re dead.’ The words echoed, cold and terrifying and, there was no mistaking it, Tavy McNair looked worried.

  ‘Have you any idea what that’s about?’ Carmel asked, watching his face.

  He shook his head. ‘I wasn’t sure what she was into but I knew it was pretty weird. That’s why we broke up.’ He hesitated. He looked uneasy, almost afraid. And when he spoke again she could hear the tension in his voice. ‘She used to go to a pub called the Black Hen,’ he said. ‘Some very odd people hang out there … you know, they dress all in black and go on about death and …’

  Carmel grinned. ‘I had a friend who was into all that once. She grew out of it.’

  Tavy clenched his fists. ‘Janna didn’t. She took it deadly seriously. Tried to get me involved.’

  ‘Involved in what?’

  He looked uneasy. ‘There was some strange stuff going on. Satanism and …’

  ‘And you said no?’

  ‘I said no.’

  There was a long silence. He seemed anxious and she was suddenly afraid of saying the wrong thing. In the end she decided to concentrate on practicalities. ‘Have you been to this Black Hen place to ask whether anyone’s seen her?’

  ‘I did drop in there a couple of weeks ago. Asked around. But nobody had seen her … or at least that’s what they said. I got out quick. The place gives me the creeps. That’s why I wondered if she’d left a diary. I know she kept one. I thought it might contain a clue about what was going on … and where she might be now. She was doing an MA and I went to the university to ask if anyone knew where she was. Nobody did.’

  Looking at Tavy McNair now, as his restless fingers twisted a strand of his tousled blond hair, she found it hard to imagine why she had ever been afraid of him: why she’d ever given him the nickname Jack the Ripper. ‘What’s Tavy short for?’ she asked, trying to lighten the mood.

  ‘Octavius. My father was a history professor at the university. His speciality was the Roman occupation.’ He looked away and began to bite at a nail. ‘He died two years ago. Cancer.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Carmel automatically. ‘What about your mother?’

  He gave her an embarrassed grin. ‘Er … I still live at home with her. Can’t afford a place of my own on what I’m paid for the ghost tours and my weekend job. And I think Mum’s glad of the company. Or at least she says she is.’

  ‘Where is it you work at weekends?’

  ‘ A kitchen showroom. Nothing exciting.’

  There was an awkward silence. After a few moments Carmel looked up. ‘What do you think has happened to Janna?’

  He frowned. ‘I’ve no idea, but I don’t think it’s anything good.’

  Carmel stood up and walked over to the chest of drawers. She opened the top drawer and took the two letters out. ‘These came addressed to Janna. Do you think we should open them?’

  Tavy took the letters from her and stared at them. ‘Maybe we should,’ he said after a few moments of reflection. He slit the first open neatly and took out a sheet of writing
paper – expensive deckle-edged paper to match the envelope.

  ‘You have been warned. Jack Wendal demands your silence,’ he read before passing it to Carmel. He opened the second. ‘The price of betrayal is death. Jack Wendal will collect payment.’

  Carmel read the two letters. ‘Who the hell’s Jack Wendal? Do you know a Jack Wendal?’

  Tavy shook his head. ‘Look, I don’t know anything about this, honestly.’ He looked into her eyes as though he was willing her to believe him. But she wasn’t sure she did.

  ‘I’m going to show these letters to someone I know who’s in the police. If she’s really missing …’ She half expected Tavy to object but instead he nodded.

  ‘Yeah. Maybe you should.’

  ‘This … er, policeman’s coming round later. Around eight thirty. If you want a word with him, why don’t you come back and …?’

  Tavy made a show of looking at his watch and stood up quickly. ‘Sorry. I’ve got to take another ghost tour soon. But if you find out anything about Janna, will you call me? You can reach me on my mobile.’ He wrote the number down neatly on a scrap of paper and passed it to Carmel before standing up.

  ‘Thanks for the tea. Take care of yourself, won’t you?’

  Something in the way he said the last words worried Carmel. This was no ghostly tale, no spine-chilling story to provide a thrill of terror for the imaginative tourist. This was real.

  And for the first time it occurred to her that she might be in danger herself.

  DCI Emily Thwaite looked at the tiny jewelled watch on her wrist – a present from Jeff in the early days of their marriage. It was getting late. Six thirty.

  ‘I don’t want to be late tonight. Jeff’s cooking. It’s our anniversary. Fifteen years.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve known murderers get less.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ Joe mumbled, unsure whether her last comment had been a joke. He thought he had sensed an almost imperceptible trace of bitterness in her voice but maybe that was her way. He didn’t know her well enough yet to judge.