The Smile of a Ghost mw-7

by Phil Rickman

  However…

  The cleaned-up version was not available in 1999, when ‘Gloomy Sunday’ was covered by Belladonna, and the singer insisted that the crackles and scratches on the 1933 recording be scrupulously duplicated on her own version. Record company executives refused to include the Belladonna version on the album The Pervading Dark — for which it had been recorded — after a spate of suicides, including an assistant engineer, a secretary and the singer’s former lover, the session musician Eric Bryers, who threw himself from high up in a block of flats in south London.

  Jane drank some water. Christ, another one. Did Mum know about this? Somehow she suspected not.

  One theory was that the music was part of an occult ritual devised by Seress for purposes unknown, in which his girlfriend was expected to take part. But the implications of it terrified her, and this might have been linked to her suicide.

  The words ‘Gloomy Sunday’ were blinking at Jane from the monitor.

  Uh-huh. She drew back and clicked away the panel.

  Belladonna. There were some artists who’d been big in the 1980s that it was still cool to kind of like: Elvis Costello, Julian Cope and XTC, of course, who would have been totally celestial if they hadn’t stopped touring and been forced to compete against dreary synth bands. But Belladonna…

  Belladonna had embraced synthesizers. Her voice even sounded like it had been produced electronically, thin and screechy with occasional pulses — part of the machine. Belladonna was distant, lacked any kind of intimacy. But in its dismal-as-January way, the music did, Jane was forced to concede, sometimes carry you away. Just not to anywhere she could imagine ever wanting to be carried.

  Actually, she was being particularly wimpish tonight. Could be something to do with being alone in the vicarage. She really should download Belladonna’s ‘Gloomy Sunday’. It was almost certainly a scam — that whole story sounded phoney.

  On the other hand, she was pretty sure The Associates had existed. The trouble with the Net was that it was always very good at half-truth and conjecture.

  Jane clicked back to the music panel. Immediately, ‘Gloomy Sunday’ began to flash. Her hand hovered over the mouse.

  Mumford calmly put his glasses in their case, tucked it down the inside pocket of his jacket. He stood there, turning his head slowly from face to shadowed face, as if he was matching each one to a mugshot. Then he straightened up, hands by his sides, cleared his throat.

  ‘Help you boys?’

  And Merrily realized that they were boys. Mainly young teenagers, plus the kid of eleven or so who’d been here earlier.

  The tallest and presumably the oldest of the teenagers peeled himself away from the others. ‘So what’s happening, dad?’ He was about a head taller than Mumford.

  ‘Heard you was having a garage sale.’ The beefy kid with the chain grinned from inside his hood, like some kind of malevolent gnome. He pulled the chain tight. Chink.

  ‘Con,’ the tall kid said, ‘will you put that fuckin’ thing away?’ He looked mixed-race, had prominent teeth, a stud in the cleft of his chin. His silky black jacket had zips everywhere, like ridged operation scars. ‘Sorry about my mate, dad, he’s seen too many old videos.’

  ‘Don’t apologize,’ Mumford said mildly. ‘Just take him back to the home and we’ll say no more about it.’

  ‘Good one, dad. So…’ The tall kid with the zips looked around. ‘This is it, then, is it? The official Robson Walsh closing-down sale? Everything must go, yeah?’

  ‘Knew Robbie, did you?’

  ‘We was only his very best mates, dad. We had some awesome laughs with Robbie.’ He turned to the others. ‘Am I right?’

  The eleven-year-old giggled. The other small kid — yellow fleece, combat trousers, watchful eyes — looked down at his trainers.

  ‘You had some laughs.’ Mumford’s voice was a thin, taut line. ‘With Robbie.’

  ‘So, like, basically, we thought we’d like to buy something to remember him by. Not the books, though. The books are shite.’

  ‘What kind of laughs you have with Robbie?’

  ‘See, I was thinking that computer. How much?’

  ‘Not for sale,’ Mumford said.

  ‘Tell you what, dad… forty quid.’

  ‘You en’t listening, son.’

  ‘All right — sixty. You en’t gonner get sixty for a second-hand computer that old, are you?’ The tall kid unzipped his jacket, felt in a pocket of his jeans, took out an amazingly dense wad of notes. ‘OK, I’ll go seventy. Seventy quid. How’s that?’

  Merrily saw that the boys had arranged themselves in a rough semicircle around Mumford and her, the width of the garage, so that nobody was going to get past them.

  ‘Lot of notes you got there, Jason.’ Mumford’s face was set like cement, his eyes steady on the tall kid. ‘Been nicking little children’s dinner money again, is it?’

  Jason? Mumford knew him? Merrily kept quiet, staying in the corner beside the workbench. They were only boys, after all. The eleven-year-old… he could even be ten. The other younger one, maybe twelve or thirteen, kept glancing nervously at the tall kid, as if he was worried about where this was going.

  Merrily felt the heat of sweat on her forehead.

  ‘You talking to me?’ the tall kid said. ‘Is that my name, dad?’

  ‘Ah well…’ Mumford reached up and unplugged the computer from a socket over the workbench; the screen sighed and faded. ‘Could be I made a mistake. Just you reminded me for a minute of Jason Mebus, star of a whole stack of CCTV nasties — urinating in High Town… nicking Big Issues from a disabled man. Jason’s just waiting for his seventeenth birthday, he is, so he can be in prison videos.’

  ‘Fuck are you?’ the tall kid said.

  He might as well have pinned on a lapel badge that said Jason.

  ‘Then again, it’s a bit dark now.’ Mumford looked into the black screen. ‘So I might’ve been mistaken. And if you was all gone from yere ’fore I had a chance to get a good look…’

  Good. Merrily breathed slowly. That was sensible.

  Jason didn’t move. The gnome with the chain stifled a laugh.

  Merrily saw something dance into Jason’s eyes. He reached out a hand, laid it on Mumford’s shoulder.

  ‘You a cop, dad?’

  ‘Take your hand off me, boy,’ Mumford said mildly.

  Jason’s grip tightened. ‘No, come on, dad… are you a c—?’

  Mumford came round faster than Merrily could have imagined, had the boy’s arm down behind his back, had him swinging round and rammed up — smack — hard against the side wall, squashing his open mouth into one of its concrete blocks.

  ‘No. For your information, I en’t.’ Mumford’s forearm in the back of Jason’s neck. ‘Which means I can do what I like to you, ennit, boy?’

  Merrily saw a bloody imprint on the wall where Jason’s mouth had kissed it.

  ‘Andy…’ She came out of the corner. If Mumford had smashed this boy’s front teeth, they were in trouble. ‘Let’s just—’

  ‘You can start by explaining why you want the computer, Jason,’ Mumford said, ‘or mabbe who sent you in to get it for them, and then—’

  And then Merrily was dragged aside from behind, and stumbled to her knees, and saw across the bench that the boy in the yellow fleece had hold of the plug on the computer lead and had started to pull on it, his face red with effort and a kind of panic in his eyes.

  By the time she was back on her feet, the dog-chain was around Mumford’s throat, the fat kid tugging on it from behind, swinging on it, both feet leaving the ground, and Mumford’s eyes bulging out of his veined, florid face.

  19

  The Joy of Death

  Sadgirl. Ok, it wasn’t sophisticated, but it was simple and it sounded vulnerable and inoffensive: SADGIRL, HEREFORD, ENGLAND.

  It would do.

  So Sadgirl left a message in the Departure Lounge.

  i lost my baby, and i lost my fella. i’m sevente
en and i dont want to get any older. dont want to do any of this again. i listened to belladonna and shes given me the courage to do what i have to do. i want to rest for ever with my child. this is serious.

  Rest for ever with my child. Jane thought this was moving and resonant. She felt better hiding behind Sadgirl. Putting her own name in there would have been awful: planting some part of herself in the electronic depths — a suicide seed.

  Sadgirl was cyber-bait. It just needed someone to come through and harden the link between Belladonna and suicide. Jane had a picture of the dragon lady lurking, logged on from Ludlow, waiting to entrap damaged people.

  Which wasn’t entirely ridiculous. She instinctively didn’t like this woman. OK, she hadn’t even been born when Belladonna was famous, and she hated almost all 1980s music on principle, but it went beyond that now. She’d logged on to the Belladonna websites — surprised at how many there were, mostly unofficial — and they were all creep sites. You had an immediate sense of something unhealthy, sexually perverse and kind of slick and clammy, like those things people put up to catch flies.

  And the woman — her music, at least — was sharing the same cyberspace as Karone the Boatman, sultan of sickos.

  Maybe — and the idea wasn’t total fantasy because anything was possible in cyberspace and everyone was equal — Sadgirl could lure Belladonna into the open. She just needed to know more. Mum had not divulged enough to give her much of a handle, and Mum was out of reach, which left…

  Lol.

  It was useful, not to say comforting, to have Lol just across the street. Jane stayed connected to the Net and phoned him on her mobile.

  Lol said, ‘She’s out with Mumford? At this time of night?’

  ‘It’s not a date, Lol. And like, I’m sure that, while a certain kind of woman wouldn’t be able to resist that gruff, monosyllabic—’

  ‘I’m backing off, all right?’ Lol said. ‘Just because I’m across the road—’

  ‘No, I like you to be concerned about her. It’s old-fashioned.’

  ‘Meanwhile, what exactly is bothering you about Belladonna?’

  ‘Just need a clearer picture of where she fits in. Like, why is she in Ludlow? What’s she doing there?’

  ‘Everybody’s got to live somewhere, Jane. It’s a very sought-after place these days. However… apart from the fact that her stepdaughter’s in the area, we really don’t know.’

  ‘But there is a definite connection between her and Robbie Walsh, right?’

  ‘Seems that way. However—’

  ‘Therefore, if I was to firmly link her with Jemmie Pegler, as well…’

  ‘You haven’t…?’

  ‘Got to be close. Mum says Pegler was visiting suicide chat-rooms, and if they’re the ones I’ve just peered into, they’re more or less recommending Belladonna as, like…’

  ‘Music to slash wrists by? That’s no surprise. It doesn’t mean she’s authorized it.’

  ‘She could have, though.’

  ‘It, um… sounds like you’ve been having an interesting night.’

  ‘Educational. I tell you, Lol, if I was ever contemplating an exit, it’s the last place I’d go for help.’

  ‘That’s the idea, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ha ha. No, listen, there’s this guy who comes on like, are you cool enough for it? Like, do you have what it takes to be a statistic? You can imagine people who are really, really depressed, and this creep’s sneering at them, like it’s a challenge — are you hard enough to top yourself?’

  ‘Could be reverse psychology.’

  ‘Not that subtle. It’s telling them that if they can’t find the balls to do it, they really will have failed. You know?’

  ‘Out of interest, which Belladonna songs?’

  ‘Well, she — this is probably some kind of sick joke — but she’s supposed to have done a cover version of something. “Gloomy Sunday”?’

  Lol said, with no hesitation, ‘The Hungarian Suicide Song.’

  ‘Shit, Lol…’

  ‘It’s fairly well known. Billie Holliday did a version.’

  ‘And survived?’

  ‘For a while. She didn’t have a very nice life.’

  ‘Did you know that Belladonna had recorded it?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Doesn’t surprise me, though.’

  ‘See, there’s supposed to be an original version from 1933 that if you hear it…’

  ‘I’ve heard that, too. Not the song. I’ve heard what it’s supposed to do. The music business is full of ghost stories.’

  ‘They only had the Belladonna version on the Departure Lounge recommended listening list. Along with a Leonard Cohen song he apparently doesn’t play any more.’

  ‘And Nick Drake’s “Fruit Tree”? That’s usually among the top ten suicide songs.’

  ‘I didn’t see that. Lol, the Hungarian guy who composed it and Belladonna’s ex-lover, Eric…’

  ‘Bryers.’

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘I know people who I think did.’

  ‘They both committed suicide by, like, throwing themselves off buildings. Did you know that?’

  ‘It’s a popular method, Jane.’

  ‘Especially in Ludlow, apparently,’ Jane said.

  ‘Jane, let’s not… Like I say, Belladonna might not even know they’re using her songs.’

  ‘Nah, I think she’s there. I can feel her lurking like an evil presence. And Jemmie Pegler was definitely into those sites.’

  ‘Let’s not get carried away, Jane, OK?’

  ‘Hey, when did that ever happen?’

  Lol was silent. She could picture his expression.

  ‘You had any more anonymous letters, Lol? You would tell me?’

  ‘You’d be the first to know.’

  ‘I bet.’ Jane leaned into the computer screen. ‘Hey, something’s come up. I’ll have to go.’

  ‘Jane, you didn’t listen to—’

  She cut the line. This could be significant. But how would she handle it if Belladonna herself had left a message for Sadgirl? Well, it was possible.

  But it was Karone the Boatman who’d come back, and he was not sympathetic.

  Sadgirl, u r in the wrong room, babe. Nobody here wants to know about ya problems. Come back when ya ready to DO THE THING.

  The heartless bastard! You’d lost your baby, got dumped by your guy, and this scumbag…

  Jane started to laugh. Oh God, she must really be overtired. She finished the fizzy water, thinking how it would be best for Sadgirl to react now. She knew how she wanted to react, but that wouldn’t achieve anything outside of personal satisfaction.

  She switched off the desk lamp, sat back in the chair and closed her eyes to think this out.

  Standing in the wreckage of Robbie Walsh’s torn-off life, Merrily lit a cigarette and smoked half of it and then threw it down on the concrete and stamped on it. When she put a hand to her face, it sent up a hot wire of pain. Afterwards, her fingers were slicked with blood and water and mucus.

  ‘Should mabbe see a doctor.’ Holding his head at an angle, Mumford bent and picked up a cardboard box. Books were scattered all around, oil soaking into the pages, the turquoise baseball cap crushed flat. ‘Shouldn’t’ve let you come, Mrs Watkins. Should’ve realized.’

  ‘What about you, for God’s sake?’ Merrily could see the flush on his neck, a glaze of blood where the chain had bitten.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Oh sure — that’s why your voice is like a penny whistle someone’s trodden on.’

  She tried for a laugh, but she was still too shaken, the scene replaying itself from when she’d thrown herself at the fat kid, trying to get a grip on his gelled hair — at the same time aware of the kid in the yellow fleece pulling the computer, by its cord, towards the edge of the bench. She remembered seeing Mumford turning into the chain, his hand crabbed across the face of the fat boy, thrusting him away. Merrily feeling grateful that he’d found the strength… until, at the
same time as the computer hit the concrete, the boy’s elbow had pistoned back into her face.

  Sitting on the floor, semi-stunned, she’d heard one of the younger kids crying out, ‘Car coming!’ and been aware of Jason Mebus lurching away, eyes flashing hate at Mumford, blood from his mouth forming twin channels either side of the stud in his chin.

  In the next memory-frame, there was just her and Mumford amid the wreckage.

  He stood over the computer for a moment before lifting it back on the bench where it sat lopsided, looking like a badly fractured skull.

  ‘Andy, we have to tell the police.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Andy, come on… Blood on the wall? You half-garrotted? God knows what I look like. We’re supposed to just walk away?’

  Mumford sighed. ‘Mrs Watkins, you know how these things work. They appear in court in their school uniforms, hair all neatly brushed. Look real scared and helpless. One’s got a missing front tooth. They got Mr Ryan Nye representing them, on legal aid, making references to my mental state following the death of my nephew — who these boys will deny they ever met — and then my mother. I need to paint you a picture?’

  ‘Suppose I phone Bliss at home?’

  His expression was enough to shut her up. He put out a hand and tipped the computer lightly. Something inside it collapsed.

  ‘Got what they wanted, then.’

  She remembered Jason Mebus, on his way out, putting in two vicious, hacking kicks, splintering the back of the computer.

  ‘Probably won’t fetch much at the car boot sale now, Andy.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What are you going to tell your sister?’

  Mumford bent down, picked up Robbie’s baseball cap. ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Merrily had found a tissue in her coat pocket; she brought it cautiously to her face, winced, looked up at him through one eye. ‘Is there something here I’m not understanding?’

  ‘I was thinking at first it was the boy told the others we were yere,’ Mumford said. ‘But then I’m thinking, wouldn’t Ange stay with us? Wouldn’t you stay with somebody wanted to mess with your dead boy’s stuff? Make sure they didn’t find anything you didn’t want found?’