Slow Motion Ghosts

by Jeff Noon

  Hobbes spoke gently. ‘A few more questions, then I’ll leave you in peace.’ He gave them a few moments to settle, then he asked, ‘Was Stephen a member of any clubs, or societies?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. He played football for the school team, does that count?’

  Hobbes nodded. ‘It might do. Did he ever make up characters, or give himself different names?’

  Husband and wife glanced at each other; they looked bewildered.

  ‘Did he ever … did Stephen ever wear a mask? Or draw masks?’

  They still didn’t know how to answer.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Castle, did your son ever mention the name King Lost?’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Helena said at last. ‘There wasn’t anything strange about Stephen. Nothing at all. He was a … he was a normal, happy thirteen-year-old.’

  Hobbes asked a few more questions, finished the interview, and made his apologies.

  He visited four more households, with similar results each time. One irate mother almost attacked him in an angry exchange. He walked to the next address on the list, following the librarian’s written directions. It was quite a distance and along the way he wondered how DS Latimer was getting on.

  He arrived at a small end-of-terrace house. It was dark by now, and there were lights on behind the living room curtains. Hobbes looked around. This part of town was familiar to him for some reason, and he realized that Morgan Yorke lived close by. Hobbes consulted his list. A teenager called Edward Keele had once resided here with his parents, until his death in 1966. He rang the bell and waited until he heard footsteps approaching and the door opened.

  A woman’s face peered out at him. ‘Yes? Can I help you?’

  ‘Mrs Keele?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Hobbes.’ He showed her his warrant card.

  The woman was suddenly worried. ‘The police?’

  ‘May I come inside?’

  ‘Has something bad happened?’

  ‘No, no. I’m just making enquires in the area about a crime. Do you mind?’

  She looked flustered. He pressed gently forward and she was forced to open the door wider for him. He moved into the hallway.

  ‘I’m not sure this is a good time, actually.’

  ‘It’ll only take a minute. That’s all.’

  They walked through into a living room. Mrs Keele turned down the sound on the television. The room was bright and neat and airy with not a speck of dust in sight, but Hobbes was conscious of an oppressive atmosphere. There wasn’t a single photograph on display.

  Mrs Keele stared at him. ‘What do you want to ask me about?’

  ‘It’s about your son, Edward.’

  She fell back into an armchair, the life taken out of her body in an instant.

  Hobbes regarded the woman from where he was standing. She was around fifty years of age, with a shrunken look about her, as though the very act of living had worn her down. The weight of grief was palpable.

  ‘I’m sorry to bring up such distressing memories,’ he continued, ‘but it is important to a present-day case.’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’ Mrs Keele’s hands trembled in her lap.

  ‘How old was your son when he passed away?’

  ‘He was fourteen. One week short of his fifteenth birthday.’

  ‘He drowned, is that correct, in 1966?’

  The woman nodded.

  ‘Could you describe Edward to me?’

  ‘Describe him? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Did he have any hobbies, for instance? Or was he the member of a club?’

  ‘Well … he was a lonely child, I guess.’

  ‘He kept to himself?’

  ‘He had a few friends, not many.’

  ‘Did they ever come round to visit, these friends?’

  ‘No. Hardly ever. They met elsewhere.’

  Hobbes felt he was closing in on an elusive quarry.

  ‘Did Edward like to read?’

  Now Mrs Keele’s eyes brightened. ‘Oh yes, Edward loved adventure novels. Simply adored them. He was always going to the library, to renew his books.’

  ‘Would you say he was an artistic boy?’

  She looked at him strangely. ‘He could certainly draw, if that’s what you mean, yes.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Well, faces, mainly. Made-up faces. Superhero masks, things like that.’

  Hobbes must’ve looked surprised, because Mrs Keele noticed this and she started to tremble even further. ‘Why are you asking me these things?’

  Hobbes stepped forward. ‘Mrs Keele, I need to—’

  ‘Please, I want you to leave, right now.’

  ‘Does the name King Lost mean anything to you?’

  The effect was immediate. She half rose from her seat and then fell back once more. She looked exhausted.

  ‘Please answer the question.’

  ‘King Lost. Yes, he’s … he was … he was a pop star!’ This answer came as an obvious relief and she clung to it desperately. ‘Yes, he was a pop star, wasn’t he? A few years ago. He made an album, isn’t that right?’

  Hobbes pulled up a chair and sat directly in front of her. ‘Does the name mean anything else to you, something to do with your son?’

  She blinked rapidly, her whole face creased up in anguish.

  Then she breathed out and nodded.

  And with that simple act, the room seemed slightly less oppressive.

  ‘It was a name that Edward used sometimes, when he was lonely or sad. You see, we named him Edward because it’s the most popular name for a king of England.’ She smiled weakly. ‘There have been eleven Edwards on the throne, did you know that?’ Hobbes didn’t answer her, so she carried straight on. ‘Little Edward would often pretend to have imaginary friends, or to take on other roles for himself.’

  ‘So King Lost was a character your son created for himself?’

  ‘Yes. I was worried about him. Most of the time he seemed to live in a world of his own.’

  There was a pause. Hobbes asked, ‘Mrs Keele, is your husband still around?’

  ‘No. No, he left home shortly after … after …’

  ‘After Edward died?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you live alone?’

  She nodded and her head drooped with a burden of sorrow.

  The wall clock ticked on, the only sound.

  Hobbes looked at her, this middle-aged woman in her plain blue dress, with her permed and tinted hair and her ringless fingers. For the first time he noticed the half-eaten plate of egg and chips at her feet; she’d been watching the television while eating her evening meal.

  He leaned forward and asked, ‘What’s your first name, Mrs Keele?’

  ‘Susan.’

  ‘Susan, have you ever heard of a place called Edenville?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s where Edward lived. He showed me a drawing once.’

  ‘An imaginary city?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why did your son need to make a mask for himself, do you know? Why did he need to escape this world into a fantasy land?’

  She could barely speak. ‘He … he was frightened.’ A whisper only.

  ‘What was he frightened of?’

  ‘Of Anthony.’

  ‘Your husband?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was your husband hurting Edward in any way?’

  They were sitting close together and she looked deep into Hobbes’s eyes, seeking understanding. And she must’ve found something good in his expression, because now she started talking more freely.

  ‘Anthony would beat him. And shout at him all the time. He was horrible to Edward, to his own son! Nothing was ever good enough, nothing, nothing at all. I tried to stop him, but it was hopeless. And he’d go on and on. Sometimes he would lock Edward away in his bedroom for hours on end, not allowing him to be fed, or to wash, or to go to the toilet, even. This was when my little boy first drew King
Lost, in those hours of confinement. And then my husband would go out to the pub and I’d creep into the room and comfort him …’ Her mind was far away by now, Hobbes could see that from the hazy look in her eyes. ‘The sheets were stained. And the smell … it was too much to bear. Yet I had to bear it. I was his mother. What else could I do?’

  Her eyes shifted focus. They saw Hobbes as though for the first time, and she looked suddenly ashamed.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she cried. ‘I shouldn’t have told you all this. It’s very bad of me.’

  ‘It’s all right. Don’t worry.’

  His low, gentle voice seemed to calm her.

  ‘Susan, I’d like to talk about Edward’s death.’

  She nodded. Hobbes had the impression that every single movement she made, no matter how tiny, caused her great pain.

  ‘What do you remember of that time?’

  ‘I really don’t know how it happened. My husband had been particularly horrible to Edward that week, probably because he was having a bad time at work. Anthony often took out his anger on his son. He struck him. Again and again. But that day our little boy ran off, I don’t know where to. I was ever so worried. He was missing hours, and hours. And then …’

  ‘Go on.’

  Mrs Keele gathered her strength. ‘And then a police officer called round and told us that a teenage boy’s body had been found washed up on the beach. They wanted me to identify him.’

  ‘It was Edward?’

  ‘His face was bruised, and his skin, all over. The detective told me this had happened because his body had been buffeted by the tide, and the rocks. But I knew better.’

  She fell silent.

  And then her hands unclenched and she said in a weak voice, ‘Oh, but I haven’t offered you a cup of tea.’

  ‘That’s fine. It really is.’

  ‘Would you like to see Edward’s room?’

  ‘His room?’

  ‘I’ve kept it very much as he left it.’

  ‘Yes, that would be useful.’

  She rose from her armchair and directed him to a narrow set of stairs. ‘It’s the first door on the left, at the back of the house. I won’t come with you, if that’s all right?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It only makes me cry, these days.’

  Hobbes made his way up the stairs to the landing. He found the bedroom door, still with its ceramic Edward’s Room nameplate. It was dark inside. He found the light switch but clicking it had no effect. There was no bulb in the socket of the ceiling lamp.

  He walked into the room and allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimness.

  It was a fourteen-year-old boy’s room, perfectly preserved from 1966. Fifteen years had gone by. Plastic models of Spitfires and Lancaster Bombers hung down from the ceiling on pieces of thread, and a poster for the England football club adorned the wall opposite the window. The bed was neatly made, and a set of rulers, compasses and pens and pencils was laid out on the desk beside a pile of exercise books. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust. Hobbes imagined Mrs Keele attending to her son’s bedroom every few weeks or so, cleaning, folding, tidying away. Yet the dust told him that she had stopped this activity at some point in the recent past and left the room to its own devices.

  Hobbes turned on a desk lamp. He opened the first exercise book in the pile. It was filled with sketches and poems, all in the same handwriting. One page was filled with an early version of the King Lost mask, the split lips and painted teardrop in place but missing at this point the blue cross on the forehead. He flipped through the pages, seeing the word Edenville written here and there: the boy was slowly creating the fantasy world for himself, seeking protection from his father’s rages.

  A photograph was hidden within the pages. It showed five young people standing in a field. Hobbes guessed it was Witch Haven and that Eve Dylan had taken the shot. He recognized two of the teenagers immediately: Lucas Bell, with Gavin Roberts next to him. A boy and girl stood close together in the middle of the shot, with a second teenage girl standing slightly separate from the others. Hobbes turned the photograph over and realized immediately that he’d found the golden key. All the Edenville names had been written out on the back, corresponding to their position in the image: Luna Bloom, Bo Dazzle, King Lost, Miss Caliban, Mood Indigo. And beneath these fanciful names, the real Christian names of the youths were given. But no surnames, unfortunately.

  He turned the photograph back over and focused first on King Lost, or Edward Keele as he now knew him. And then on the girl beside him.

  Miss Caliban.

  Yes, it was her, a younger version of the woman he had seen at the fans’ recreation of the album cover, and in the photograph from the original shoot.

  She was called Natasha. He still didn’t have a surname for her.

  He shifted his focus on to the second girl, the one standing at the edge of the group. This was Mood Indigo. She looked to be eighteen years old or so. He stared at her face, and the shape of her body, and he checked again the name given on the back.

  He couldn’t quite work out what this meant. It was a mystery to be puzzled over.

  But he didn’t have time for that now. He had to find out the real identity of Miss Caliban. He searched through the exercise books, finding nothing more. He opened the desk drawers and found in one a silver picture frame lying face down. He lifted this up and saw that it held a photograph, this one showing just two people. Looking at it, Hobbes started to get an inkling of the truth.

  A floorboard creaked behind him.

  Without turning he asked, ‘Mrs Keele, do you have a telephone?’

  There was no answer.

  A shadow crossed the walls.

  Suddenly, the room blurred around him. He couldn’t work out why.

  Now the yellow beam from the table lamp seemed to swing across the ceiling. He was falling, his hands flailing about but finding nothing to hold on to, nothing at all.

  Confused, he writhed on the carpet, seeking purchase.

  Then the second blow came down. It glanced off his shoulder. His eyes closed. Now he realized and he tried to struggle. It was too late. A third blow caught him on the brow.

  At the last moment he forced his eyes open.

  He saw a model fighter plane spinning, spinning, and a glimpse of a woman’s face looming over him.

  The plane started to spin in the opposite direction, faster and faster.

  And then darkness.

  A Doorway to Paradise

  The world arrived slowly, sound by sound, item by item. Indistinct noises, shapes. Somebody moving close by, a figure in black.

  He tasted powder on his tongue, his mouth filled with dust. Then water, then foam.

  And once more, he slept.

  A woman’s perfume.

  Somebody kissing him, or touching his face.

  It felt like a dream, or a memory. Or a story someone was telling him.

  A bedtime story.

  Music was playing. Inside his body, or outside? He could not tell.

  In sleep he moved beneath the stage lights. He was looking out through the mask even as it tightened on his face, the crowd staring at him, yet he couldn’t remember the lyrics, no words, no music, only silence, and the audience turned against him. His hand came up holding the knife. He would do anything, anything at all to get the crowd back on his side, even this act of pressing the blade against his own skin, cutting in, peeling the flesh back.

  Now he woke up, in pain, in panic.

  And his hand came to his face, searching.

  Yes, the cut was there, he felt at it. Already half scabbed over, the crust forming.

  A smear of dark blood on his fingertips when he looked, and other colours: pancake white, lipstick red. His face stung. Hobbes traced the wound, from below his left eye, down to the corner of his mouth almost, and relived it again, the knife that had reached into his dream and sliced him open.

  The sound of a bell woke him. An alarm clock going o
ff, yet all was quiet when his eyes opened.

  This time he was fully conscious.

  His body was lit by a single lamp directly overhead, its shade directing the glow into a cone. Beyond this the room was dimly lit and shadowed, and then dark.

  There was less pain now, but the left-hand side of his face still ached. He tried to bring his hands up, to check on the wound, to see if it was still real, still there …

  He could not move.

  His hands were tied at the wrists to a chair, his legs also, wrapped with twine at the ankles and tightly bound to the struts of the chair.

  He howled and pulled at his bonds and cried out for help, for a response, anything, a sign of life, for a fellow soul here in the cold, lonely dark of the room.

  The twine cut into his wrists, digging fresh wounds.

  His own voice echoing.

  Then silence.

  He could feel the greasepaint on his skin, his pores clogged, a mask covering his face.

  The smell of animal fat, up close, the cheap make-up.

  He could hardly breathe.

  He wondered vaguely about DS Latimer, about Meg. Whether she had reported him missing yet, whether they were tracing his steps from house to house. It seemed impossible.

  Where was he?

  He looked around, stretching his neck as far as he could.

  He was in a cellar, he saw that now.

  Concrete walls, no windows. Stacks of tea crates, a workbench with rusty tools just out of reach: spanners, chisels, screwdrivers, a claw hammer. Instruments of torture.

  The smell of damp, mildew. Spiderwebs on every joist and beam.

  Cracks across the ceiling and down the walls, the overhead lamp with its tattered shade.

  A moth batting against the bulb.

  He had to let his eyes close. One moment of rest, that’s all. Yet his head slumped down with the effort of merely staying awake.

  He felt heavy and sluggish inside his skull, with too many thoughts. Something moved within his veins, that was it, a drug, a narcotic of some kind.

  He was fading away. Sleep reached out for him …

  A light flashed and burned and its glow penetrated his eyes and pulled him awake with its yellow flare.

  Now a large, full-length mirror had been placed in front of him, directly in his sight.