Slow Motion Ghosts

by Jeff Noon

  It was an eggshell-blue Ford Capri.

  Lucas Bell’s car. The original. Hobbes knew that instantly.

  ‘My husband bought this for Brendan, for his twenty-fifth birthday.’

  The inspector walked around the vehicle. He peered in through the side window, almost expecting to see the front seats splattered with blood. But they were clean. And there was no tarot card on the dashboard; that was long gone.

  ‘This is incredible,’ he said at last.

  ‘You really think so?’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘It’s been on quite a journey, I gather. Nobody claimed it from the police car pound, so they sent it off to be crushed at the scrapyard. I’m guessing that somebody recognized its worth and saved it. What happened to it after that, I haven’t a clue. Gerald bought it from a man in London. I don’t know his name.’

  ‘Did Brendan ever drive it?’

  ‘A few times, when it was first restored. But after that, no, not really. But he would come out here to sit in it. Often for hours at an end.’

  ‘Would you mind if I …?’

  ‘Please do.’

  Hobbes opened the door and settled in behind the steering wheel. It felt like he was climbing into a time machine. It was easy to imagine how Brendan Clarke must’ve felt, sitting here. The vehicle was a temple, a zone of contemplation. Mrs Clarke stood some way off, almost out of sight. Nothing disturbed the sacred atmosphere. Dust motes moved in the plush interior, the plastic of the seat creaked under his weight. Hobbes closed his eyes. Colours flickered inside his head. He could almost hear music playing, a faraway song.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Mrs Clarke asked, knocking on the side window.

  ‘Yes. Sorry. I was miles away.’

  He looked around, overcome by a deep sadness. Terrible passions reached out from long ago, to claim their present-day victims.

  Hobbes pressed at the glove box to open it. He knew that the suicide note had been found in there, the one he had seen upstairs, in the bedroom. But another piece of paper was now lodged in the compartment. This whole car was a shrine to Bell’s final moments, replicating each detail perfectly. He unfolded the paper and looked at the words it held. It took him only a few seconds to realize what he was holding in his hands.

  Here was the proof, at last.

  The proof that Lucas Bell had been murdered.

  THURSDAY

  27 AUGUST 1981

  Secret Lives

  Hobbes woke early. He had a quick breakfast and then went outside to look for his car. As promised, Barlow had parked it close to the house. It was a strange feeling, to be driving out towards Ilford, a journey he used to make regularly whenever he visited the Jenkes household. He and Glenda would go round for dinner. They would often stay late, playing cards or watching home movies. Charlie always had to have the latest gadgets, aspirational to his core. He was the first of his circle to own a videocassette player.

  ‘To have and to hold, and I intend to hold everything.’

  The two men had become friends when Jenkes had transferred to the Charing Cross nick, back when Hobbes had first been made detective constable. They were a year apart in age and both on the way up, both aiming for detective sergeant. Jenkes was hot-headed, easily triggered, but fiercely loyal to the cause, dogged in pursuit of bad guys, and the very best man to have beside you in a showdown. As he’d proved in the Brixton riot.

  It was impossible not to think of that night, and its consequences.

  Hobbes turned into Waverly Road. In these large redbrick houses lived the successful refugees from the East End, the working class made good. Jenkes had put down his deposit on the semi-detached house and garden the day after being made sergeant, keen to escape the Dagenham estate where he’d been born and bred. Margaret Thatcher’s arrival as Prime Minister in 1979 put the seal on his ambitions: nothing was going to hold him back now, he had as much right to the riches as any toffee-nosed bastard, that was his motto. In fact more so, because he’d worked so bloody hard to get his hands on the prize.

  Hobbes rang the bell and waited. It was just shy of half seven, and he knew that Lisa would be getting the kids ready for school. She opened the door and looked at him through her tortoiseshell-framed spectacles, her eyes unblinking. Despite rehearsing a few lines on the journey over, Hobbes didn’t know what to say. She shook her head in dismay and then turned on her heel. He followed, closing the door behind him and walking through into the kitchen. Lisa Jenkes fussed over her two children, giving out orders, and shooing them to get their school bags ready. Hobbes waited, not daring to get in the way. A transistor radio on the counter belted out the hits.

  ‘Come on, you two, out of the house, now.’

  Lisa bundled her son towards the front door. Then she gave her daughter a peck on the cheek, and told her to have a good day.

  Hobbes and Lisa were alone.

  She turned off the radio. The quiet lay between them. Lisa stood against the counter, wiping a cup with the tea towel, over and over.

  Hobbes said, ‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?’

  He opened the cupboard and saw three of every item, one of Charlie’s old habits passed on from his father’s time as an engineer in the Royal Air Force: one for use, one for spare, one in case the spare goes missing, or breaks. The sight of the three packets of Typhoo tea, one opened and the other two next to it, made Hobbes shiver with a sudden emotion.

  He had always felt so at home here.

  Lisa asked, ‘How’s Glenda? And Martin?’ There was a tremor in her voice.

  ‘They’re fine. Hanging on.’ He couldn’t bear to tell her the truth, not just now. She had enough troubles as it was. ‘Martin’s learning guitar.’

  Lisa touched his arm. ‘I never thought I’d see you again,’ she said.

  ‘No, well. I’ve been a bit …’

  ‘Here, I’ll do that.’

  She turned to face the sink and began filling the kettle with water. Hobbes could see her shoulders trembling. He wanted to offer comfort but didn’t know what was appropriate. All the visits to deliver the worst kind of news to parents and spouses – none of it helped him now.

  ‘I was talking to Tom Fairfax last night.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘He’s worried about you, and the kids.’

  ‘He was right to be worried.’

  ‘Lisa …’

  She turned to face him, her eyes unseeing.

  ‘Lisa, I’m sorry.’ It was as quiet as anything he’d ever said in his whole life, as quiet and as gentle and as useless, but there it was.

  A great sob went through her body, forcing her to sit down at the kitchen table.

  ‘Stupid, stupid bastard.’

  The words were spat out. It took Hobbes a moment to realize that she wasn’t referring to him, or to Fairfax.

  ‘What did he do, Lisa?’

  Her fingers gripped his, tight enough to hurt. ‘It wasn’t Charlie’s fault, not really. I had an affair. Last year.’ Now the words were out, her hand relaxed slightly. ‘It was nothing, honestly. A silly fling. Well, you know how it gets, Henry. Don’t you?’ She looked at him, her eyes wet with tears, as she repeated her line: ‘You know how it gets sometimes.’

  Her hand moved away.

  ‘Oh don’t look at me like that, Henry.’

  ‘I’m not—’

  ‘Don’t you dare judge me!’ Her voice was a spike, cutting into him. ‘I’ll bet Charlie’s had his affairs. Many of them, I imagine.’

  ‘I don’t think so …’

  ‘It was just the once, that’s all. But he found out, Charlie found out who it was.’

  ‘A fellow cop?’

  She dismissed the idea with a shake of her head. ‘Charlie beat the guy up. Really badly. This was just before the riot, the night before. He was all pent-up. Crazy. Like a beast.’

  Hobbes remembered the look in Jenkes’s eyes that night in the alleyway in Brixton.

  ‘Oh God, he scared me so,
when he came home …’

  ‘He didn’t hurt you, Lisa?’

  ‘No. He wouldn’t do that. But his face was horrible to look at, like he’d … like he’d been in a war, and just about survived.’

  She took a deep breath.

  ‘Only, see … the man I slept with … well …’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He wasn’t a white man.’

  ‘You mean …’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hobbes was shocked. He tried to work through the implications.

  Lisa looked down at the table. ‘He’s a teacher, at Beth’s school. Oh. Nothing much happened, not really, but, well …’

  Her voice trailed off.

  Hobbes kept on at her. ‘And your friend didn’t report it, when Charlie attacked him?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. No, I persuaded him not to. But then …’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’m worried sick, Henry.’

  ‘Why? What is it?’

  Now she looked up at Hobbes. ‘I’m scared that Lloyd – that’s the teacher’s name – I’m scared that he did something to Charlie, in retaliation. He made threats.’

  ‘After Charlie attacked him, you mean?’

  ‘No, no, later. After Charlie did that horrible thing, at the drinking den, to that poor black man.’

  Hobbes looked at her. He didn’t know what to say, not yet. The whole incident in the cellar of the Silhouette club was taking on another aspect, a much more personal one. The terrible experience of the riot, on top of Lisa’s affair, had tipped DI Jenkes over into madness, into a blinding desire for revenge, against any representative of the race. And the victim at the club – Michael Hennessey – with the simple act of spitting in a policeman’s face, had walked right into the centre of Charlie’s madness.

  ‘Do you know what you’re saying, Lisa? This is a serious accusation.’

  ‘Yes. I know. I know that.’ Her hands fluttered against each other on the tabletop. ‘But lately, he’s been pestering me, Lloyd has. He won’t leave me alone! The other night he came round, knocking on the door, and the kids were in, eating their tea, and I … I only just managed to get rid of him.’

  She wiped tears from her eyes.

  ‘Beth wanted to know what her English teacher was doing here. I had to make some excuse to her.’

  Hobbes could see that she was near to breakdown.

  ‘What does he want?’

  ‘He’s saying that now Charlie’s out of the way, we can get together. But that’s never going to happen. I mean, how can it?’

  ‘No.’

  She stared at him intently. ‘I don’t want anything to do with him, Henry. Nothing! Not any more.’

  He let her settle for a moment and then asked, ‘What is Lloyd’s surname?’

  ‘Patterson.’

  ‘Lloyd Patterson. And his address?’

  She told him and he wrote it down on a scrap of paper.

  ‘The thing is, Lloyd’s married as well.’

  Hobbes tried to keep her focused. ‘And so you’re saying … Lisa, look at me …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re claiming that Patterson killed Charlie? Are you really saying that?’

  She didn’t reply. Her fingers tapped nervously at the tabletop. And then her head made the tiniest of gestures, a nod.

  ‘And do you have any proof of this?’

  ‘No. No, of course not. But he was making threats, saying that I deserved so much more, and that Charlie was a hindrance.’

  ‘A hindrance?’

  ‘That’s the word he used.’

  Hobbes felt he was seeing Lisa Jenkes for the first time; her husband’s death had let loose the truth about the marriage, a truth that even he as a close friend had been unaware of.

  The kettle was whistling madly. She got up and turned it off.

  ‘Lockhart’s been coming round,’ she said. ‘Asking all these questions.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He knows something’s wrong.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Will you, Henry?’

  ‘I promise.’

  A glimmer of hope flickered in her eyes.

  He asked, ‘Lisa, do you still own the garage?’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t go in there, not any more. I’ve been parking the car out-front.’

  ‘Do you have the key?’

  She nodded, searched through a cabinet drawer and handed him the fob. There seemed little more to say, and indeed Hobbes was keen to escape the house; the atmosphere unnerved him.

  ‘All I want to know is the truth,’ Lisa said. ‘The truth of how he died.’

  Hobbes left. He went back to his car first, to collect the report from the back seat, and then walked the short distance to a row of garages. The report had been waiting behind the door for him when he’d got home late last night, a present from Lockhart, and he’d skimmed through it before falling into bed. Strangely, its disturbing images had not taken root in his dreams, and he’d slept soundly. But he was now facing a very different level of apprehension.

  There were ten garages altogether, their doors painted a uniform green. He’d been here a few times, with Charlie, when he’d helped with repairs to the car. Along the way he passed a back garden, and looked over to see a new clothes line hanging between two posts. He knew that the rope had been taken from there, an improvised noose.

  Charlie had died late at night. When Hobbes had first heard about the suicide, he’d pictured his friend creeping into the garden under cover of darkness to steal the clothes line; the domestic nature of the act added another layer of sadness. But now he imagined a very different scenario: somebody taking the rope with the express purpose of wrapping it around Charlie’s neck and pulling it tight, and then using it to string his body up. If this was the case, then the murder had been planned, or at least semi-planned: it was premeditated.

  Hobbes reached the garage door and bent down to put the key in the padlock. For a second he hesitated, and then he pulled the door upwards.

  Immediately, he knew that someone had searched the place, and thoroughly.

  Charlie was a man who set great store by order and cleanliness. Whenever Hobbes had helped out here, every tool was replaced on its rightful peg after being used; each nut, bolt and screw was stored with others of similar size and shape in clear plastic boxes. Even the oily rags had their own compartment under the workbench. Rolls of black tape were stacked neatly on a shelf. And of course there was at least three of everything. But now all these objects seemed to be slightly askew, as though somebody had inspected each one, and put them back in the wrong position. This wasn’t the work of the police team who had first investigated the death. There would be very little reason to search for anything, nor to replace things. No, somebody else had done this. He imagined the killer in a panic, after the murder had taken place, searching, searching, desperately.

  What had they been looking for? And more importantly, had they found it?

  Hobbes skimmed the report’s findings: ‘… occlusion of blood vessels … asphyxiation … bruising on the neck … torn jacket … oil on the fingertips …’ He didn’t like that torn jacket, the detail disturbed him. Had anyone looked into this properly? It seemed unlikely. To those high up, Jenkes was a guilty copper, a disgrace to the service, and bloody good riddance to him. Case closed.

  He looked at the photographs again: the dead body hanging from the crossbeam, the workbench from which, it was assumed, DI Jenkes had stepped forward and fallen into oblivion.

  Hobbes started to search and found a bottle of whisky hidden away, and a collection of pornographic magazines at the bottom of the box of rags, and he thought: Charlie would’ve thrown those away before he hanged himself. It was a simple fact: he wouldn’t have wanted his wife or kids to have found them. No, Jenkes would’ve taken care of such things. So now Hobbes set to work diligently. He spent a good twenty minutes going through everything, but nothing fur
ther was revealed, nothing found. The place was clean.

  He looked up at the crossbeam, and wondered about the car. Why wasn’t it in the garage, on the night …

  ‘What’re you doing?’

  He looked round to see Elizabeth Jenkes standing in the garage doorway.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’

  She groaned. ‘Oh please. It’s boring. Everyone keeps looking at me, and talking behind my back, like I’m the one who beats up black guys.’

  Her anger seethed behind her studied expression.

  ‘Does your mother know how you’re feeling?’

  Beth smiled. ‘What the fuck does she care? Stupid old tart.’

  Hobbes couldn’t believe the language the twelve-year-old was coming out with.

  ‘Beth—’

  ‘What? Is it lecture time?’

  ‘I was going to say, “Your mother needs you now”, but I can see it won’t make any difference.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  He knew precisely what she was going through. He knew how she’d felt when she’d arrived at the garage to find her father’s dead body suspended by a length of rope from the ceiling. He knew every emotion. He’d felt them himself.

  He said, ‘I believe your father acted with the best intentions, but those intentions …’

  ‘They were fucked up, right? Piss-poor, fucked-up, evil, twisted intentions.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Well, you still haven’t told me why you’re here.’

  ‘Your mother asked me to sort the garage out for her. She can’t face it.’

  He regretted the lie, but she took it in good faith and looked up to the crossbeam. For a moment the surliness left her face. Her eyes blinked and glistened. And he thought: soon, if this investigation pans out, the poor kid will have to swap one form of pain for another; from thinking her father took his own life, that sense of abandonment, to thinking instead of his final moments as he struggled against his killer.