Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  *

  It was hard to shift that unlikely image of bonhomie from my mind as I rang King’s College’s Head of Human Resources, known to work late, and also known to enjoy a drink.

  “Meirion Griffiths speaking,” said the man, sounding stone cold sober. “I’ve just had an outline of your concerns from Ayoko Simbale. Sounds serious.”

  “It is, and good of you to speak to me at this unearthly hour, but please, I’d appreciate if our conversation was kept strictly confidential.”

  Always the buzz word, and this was no different. Who didn’t like to feel important?

  “Of course, er… DI. or is it Mr. Lyon?”

  I paused. Morris gave me a wink.

  “DI.” That felt immediately better.

  “How can I help?”

  “What was Dr. Chisholm’s particular area of expertise? For example, Mediaeval? Renaissance? Tudor?”

  “Early 20th century. Particularly before and after the Great War. Why he left us so unexpectedly. Look, I can’t say this is confidential because it is in the public domain. If one knows where to look.”

  “What reason?” I reminded him, having to listen hard. My car roof reverberating to the latest deluge. The road ahead awash with even more surplus water. Morris was keenly listening too.

  “He had some trouble.”

  “Please explain as quickly as possible. This is urgent.”

  “Before he took up his new post at the university of West Norfolk three years ago, some important papers went missing from the department here. Research accumulated and catalogued by his predecessor, the late Sir Lyall Stokes…”

  A household name in the mid-to-late seventies for his historical documentaries. I’d watched a few myself. The Irish potato famine in particular, left a deep impression.

  “Was Dr Chisholm ever fingered by the police?”

  “Fingered?”

  “Questioned.”

  “No. Only by the university authorities, but nothing was proved, and because he was held in such esteem, it was assumed that perhaps some overseas student had helped themselves. Never to be seen again.”

  “Did Sir Stokes’ family shown any interest?”

  “He didn’t appear to have any. A typical bachelor, I’d say. Just like his sucessor. The study of history seems to shut out the living.”

  “What about an agent?” I enquired, thinking that had been a strange thing to say. “After all, they’re supposed to deal with their late clients’ estates.”

  A pause, during which the village of Stebney came and went and far away over the flatlands, a lightning tremor lit up the sky.

  “Not to my knowledge. Certainly, none ever came forward afterwards.”

  I sensed Meirion Griffiths was running out of steam, but I had one more question.

  “When and how did Sir Lyall Stokes die?”

  “A fatal heart attack the day before his sixty-third birthday. Let me think… 20th July 1984. That was it. He’d been in his departmental study, clearing his desk ready for the next incumbent. Why? What are you implying?”

  “Nothing, but as I explained earlier, Dr Chisholm may be…”

  I detected the sound of chair legs scraping against a floor. Of impatience.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Lyon, I’ve a trip to York later this morning. I do hope you understand…”

  Mr. Lyon. Deliberate or what?

  “Of course, thank you. And if you’ve no objections, I’ll keep you informed.” I ended the call, dropping down a gear to navigate a deep pool of water that had suddenly appeared on the road.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Morris, echoing my thoughts. “Plot thickens.”

  “Clearly ‘King George’s’ prestigious new post near the top of the greasy pole, would have depended on his research portfolio. Just as with Stephen. With whose assistance, though, apart from Greg’s? And talking of that poor sod, what must he have felt like, seeing that train coming towards him? Perhaps he couldn’t get out in time. Wasn’t meant to.”

  “My God.”

  “Exactly. Which is why your forensic team should consider it. Pronto.”

  *

  Rather than risk running out of petrol, I pulled in at a two-pump garage at the end of another small settlement, where a young woman dressed as a punk with bright pink hair took my cash via a hand-sized gap in her heavily reinforced glass cage. Was this out-of-the-way place really so full of miscreants as Stephen had implied? Hard to believe, yet if she’d been my daughter working at this time of night, then yes, such protection would be welcome.

  “You’re the second to stop by, since quarter past,” she said. “Never usually get a soul till around 6 a.m.”

  “Was it a Mitsubishi?” I took a chance.

  “Yeah. And a blonde driving it. Plenty of slap. Well-spoken too, which you don’t get around here. She bought two packs of sandwiches. Egg and cress and bacon with lettuce.”

  Someone’s looking after him.

  Mention of sandwiches would normally have brought a twist of hunger, but not then. I picked up a nearby Mars bar for Morris and told the cashier to keep the change.

  “Ta,” she said. “Good luck.”

  “You take care.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Back in the Citroën, he almost bit my hand off to get to his treat. Already wired up after my call to Griffiths, and then news of the Mitsubishi, he bit off a huge, fudge-brown chunk and chewed as if there was no tomorrow. “The jigsaw’s coming together nicely,” he finally managed to say. “I’m impressed.”

  “Glad you are, because I’ve not done half what I planned. And Catherine jumping ship like that completely threw me. I didn’t expect…”

  “To care so much?” He swallowed, then took another bite. “I should have warned you, Johnny. Women are the arch connivers and manipulators on this rotten, fucking planet. Except for DC Alison McConnell. Now she was something else…”

  At the sound of her name, I crashed the gears, tried again and lurched out on to the road too quickly.

  “Fuck, man,” Connor keeled over towards me. “Watch it!”

  “Sorry.”

  But how could I tell him any more about that one woman I’d worked with in Nottingham, who’d come closest to becoming Mrs. Lyon? The one from whom I’d walked away after last year’s Poitou nightmare, when I should have stayed?

  “Of course, Catherine Vickers may have been frightened of Chisholm. Had no choice but to join him.” But I didn’t believe it.

  “Whatever. We still have two mispers. Her hubby and her son. If he is her son, that is. Btw, is our delightful Vice Chancellor formally attached to anyone now?”

  “Neither Stephen nor Greg mentioned anything. So what else do we know about him? The way he referred to her at Stoney Linton suggests he was distancing himself.”

  “And yet according to you, the girl at the garage said she was driving what must have been his tank.”

  “P’raps he was lying on the back seat, hiding.”

  Morris crumpled up his Mars wrapper and patted my arm. “Cstherine Vickers is pivotal to everything, I’m convinced of that. But first, we need to get to know the other enemy a little better.”

  Other enemy?

  I tried to stay focussed on the sodden road that seemed to be narrowing to almost a single track.

  “Like where was ‘King George’ on July 20th1985? And why, if he did nick these particular papers, were they so so important to him? Important enough to maybe have Greg Lake killed. I know that a good research profile is everything in Higher Education, and perhaps he has to be top dog. But…”

  “Just like in our game. Who performs the best. Who ticks the most boxes…”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “What has been bugging me, though, is what did you mean when you told Catherine that ‘certain things have been found at her brother’s house?’

  “Trying to remember. You know how it is being in the loop one minute, out on your arse the next.”

&
nbsp; He was hurting, alright. And I resolved then and there that whatever happened, I’d look out for him. Police suicides were on the up, and young DC Ben Rogers three years ago, had been the worst case I’d known. In fact, I’d been there in Sherwood Forest, just feet away, unable to stop him pressing the trigger.

  “Gay porn,” Morris said suddenly, snapping me back to the present. “Usual things. Beach bums, dicks. Every permutation in fact, but two other items stood out. A desperate begging letter from a Doctor Lovell of Hecklers Green, to a dismissive Reverend Henry Beecham. This doctor was apparently diseased too. Offered to pay for the lepers’ treatment himself. Was that what Mrs. Vickers said she’d sent her brother

  “Sort of. Yes. Photocopies.”

  “And your other discovery?”

  “A letter from the United Benefice of Snodbury, about a forthcoming Diocesan meeting with the Bishop of Cavenham, which of course he won’t be going to.”

  “So?”

  “One of the diocesan members is… cue, drum roll… dah… dah… Guess.”

  “Chisholm?”

  “Spot on.” He looked up. “Not far now. See that sign?”

  HECKLERS GREEN WELCOMES CAREFUL DRIVERS.

  “What’s this Bishop’s name?”

  “Leslie Horncastle. Why? You can’t bloody call him now…”

  “I bloody can.”

  But before I could slow down and grab my cell phone again, that pleasant aroma of chocolate from Morris’ Mars bar, had been spiked by something else. The same as given off by that dying crow,

  Blood.

  “You OK?”

  “Not sure. Can’t you smell it? Haemoglobin. Christ…”

  My throat was closing again, as if lined by sandpaper. The thick, gritty variety, contracting against the creeping addition of rotting flesh supurating into wet soil. The same that had felled me at ‘The Vicarage.’ I was choking, losing air. Gasping, gasping…

  I felt Morris’ leg stretch over and press my left foot down on to the brake. His right hand on the wheel. “We’re stopping, so just keep calm,” he said. His voice coming as if from far away. “I’ll open some windows.” He thumped the necessary buttons. His and mine. “Dammit. I can’t! They won’t… What’s going on? What the fuck? John? John? John?”

  63. STANLEY.

  Tuesday 14th December 1920. 6 p.m.

  The sky seemed almost completely black with not a star to be seen, and with this early night came a deeper chill. Below freezing were me guess.

  The police station over in Diss ordered PC Drummond to stay by Lambert’s dead body, but he’d argued he were likely to die too, from the cold. He’d be driving round looking for the culprits which were better than just staying put. So here we was. Creeping up on Vesper House which he said were a good place to start. No one in, or so we thought, till we saw the doctor’s car tucked away, and then I spotted a thin strip of light between curtains to a room round the side.

  Well, well, well.

  I were staring a half-built snowman with its young maker busy adding a head. When he saw me, he grinned and ran forwards like an old friend. But sad to say, he soon got the picture.

  *

  It were too bloody cold, and I were wet through from scuffling in the snow with the little warmint, until Drummond, still in ‘is rubber suit, tied a rag over that wheezing mouth and round them hands and feet, then carried it over his shoulder like some dead animal towards the police van tucked out of sight behind the tall hedge.

  On account of his coat over being over his pyjamas, Buck Parminter were almost too big for the space set aside for ropes and spades and other stuff cops use on their daily duties. At least he kept quiet.

  “We’ll come back for the mother,” said Drummond starting the engine. “Give her a bit longer with our diligent doctor. Let her think nothing’s happened.”

  The boss, and he knew it. Me his slave, like I’d bin all along, but the thought of having me mawther all to mesesn, kept me sitting there, seeing snow spray up on either side, and Drummond singing some Christmas Carol I’d not heard in years.

  “You did kill Rita Myers, didn’t you?” He suddenly said. “I heard that her money’s been matched up with what that lock-keeper kept from you in Holland. But I also made my very own little discovery. And it’s made all the difference.”

  “What discovery?” I rewound in a panic those weeks I’d spent there.

  “Your hairs in her bed. The crinkly down-below variety, get my meaning?”

  “So? I never denied stopping with her, helping her out. Common knowledge, that were.”

  “Helping her out? That’s a new way of putting it, Stanley. Anyway, they match with some I found in the stank at Vesper House while you were messing us about.” A smile stretched those dry lips, which made me blood run cold. “You’re a clever one, aren’t you? Turning her place upside down like that.”

  “I never. Honest. As God sees me.” I took a deep breath. It hurt, more than me leg. More than anything. But I had to say it. “She were me real Ma. Why wud I do that?”

  The van swerved from side to side, making me bad leg hit me door. Throbbing and stinging under its freezin’ bandage. Making the bor in the back roll from side to side.

  “Stanley Bulling, you’re a born liar. But classy, I grant you that,” Drummond said, once he’d regained control. And you’re also a walking corpse unless you do exactly as you’re told. So, here’s the plan.”

  *

  “I can’t,” I shivered, once he’d spelled it out, down to the last gruesome detail.

  “Ye won’t catch me doin’ that.”

  “Remember the rope.”

  Silence as we passed through Hecklers Green. All white with just a few windows lit like piss holes in the snow. Nora Deakins’ in particular, and at the end of the village by the forge, someone had planted a Christmas tree and it stood black and different from everything around it. Like a bad omen.

  *

  Wombwell Farm lay like a set of blocks joined together, covered in white, with not a light to be seen. Maybe everyone were in the kitchen round the back, which seemed the obvious explanation and to imagine it, brought stingin’ to me sore eyes, makin’ ‘em worse.

  Drummond got out to open the gate. He returned with snow covering his cap and the other stuff he’d changed into not long after Vesper House. Gloves mind. Brown this time, to match his hair. He weren’t going to risk contamination. As for me, it were as if a rock had settled in me belly. The things I’d done was spur of the moment, not planned. Thiis weren’t me at all, but what choice did I have?

  One telephone call to his constabulary would be all it took. He didn’t hold all the bloody cards.

  Don’t.

  Why not? I held a few, too. What he’d got planned cud soon see him out o’ uniform. And why was them Parminters so important that he’d risk his own neck?

  There was questions to ask, but no time, as we ground towards the far side of the Dutch barn away from the farmhouse. On me own land, remember? Not his.

  *

  “Where we off to?” I said.

  “Out of sight, you dimwit.”

  “And then?” Me pulse throbbing all over. And me leg.

  “You know. Now get going and make it quick. They’ll come looking for you here first thing, make no mistake.”

  “They?”

  “My colleagues from Diss.”

  “What about me footprints?”

  “There’ll be a thaw soon.”

  Snowflakes tickled me face. Normally, I’d ‘ave enjoyed the sensation. But not then. They added to me nerves. I had to persuade Ma and Pa that this family were dangerous. That them too was at risk of a soon and terrible ending. What did they want, then? To get rid in a way which no one wud ever know, or face the Grim Reaper before the next Tidswell Summer Fayre came around?

  I were in the firing line just like Rupert Myers who never came back. Cud I do it? Cud I?

  “Move!” hissed Drummond. “I’m giving you five minutes. And here,
” he got out nimble as a muntjac despite ‘is bulk, and from the back, pulled out a new-looking spade. “Be quick and quiet. You should know your way blindfold.”

  The bor’s eyes staring out from the dark, made me jump, but thoughts of a rough rope around me neck got me pulling him out of his den and fighting off his fists.

  Knock ‘im out first. That were the order.

  But I cudn’t, and as I ploughed across Priest’s Field, slipping and sliding with him getting heavier an’ heavier over me back, I realised I didn’t know this Drummond at all. Not even his first bloody name.

  “I want my Mum and Dad.”

  Jesus.

  The gag had come off, but I cudn’t see it nowhere, not in the dark.

  “Let me go! Let me go!”

  He were croaking like a frog. Croaking and croaking. “I thought you liked us.”

  “I do. Playing with ye both like that over by Vesper House, I were a bor mesen, all over agin.”

  “A bor?”

  “Boy.”

  He’d stopped wriggling and I cud see where the pit lay like a black wound in the snow.

  “Mollie kept talking about it off and on for ages till Dad told her to be quiet. But you’re not playing now, are you?”

  “Go and hide,” I hissed. “Over the river if you can. The Grange has got outbuildings. Don’t go back to the farm or Vesper House for at least three days. Whatever you see and hear. Understood?”

  “Yes.” Scared stiff.

  “And don’t fecking mention me. I’m just obeying orders.”

  “Whose?” He slithered to the ground. Held out ‘is little hands for me to untie the knots, but mine was too frozen to be of any use.

  “I can’t bloody do this,” I said.

  “Please try again,” he wheezed.

  “I fecking can’t.”

  “My feet. Do them.”

  Just then, footsteps. Heavy breathing. Warmer air than the rest. No torch, so I knew it were him following. The bor clung to me good leg, shivering like a dog under me own coat. His little heartbeat banging away.

  “You’re taking too long,” snapped Drummond. “Remember the deal. Where is he?”