Ghost Girl

by Thomson, Lesley

  ‘Don’t go.’ He barred the door, hands outstretched, imploring. ‘You drink coffee. I know that, don’t I? We are like soul mates, you and me.’

  Her thoughts were racing. She wanted Jack to come, but was frightened of what would happen if he did. Jack would not come. He was cross with her about Barlow. Stella tried to regulate her breathing to stop the dog sensing her tension. David must trust she would bring the tea or he would stop her leaving. No, they were not soul mates. That was not it.

  He came towards her.

  ‘The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness…’

  The voice, strong and deep, resounded off the walls. Stella’s heart tumbled in her chest.

  ‘…and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.’

  She had heard the voice before, by the Bell Steps when the river was filling. Then too she had been in trouble.

  Barlow was at the back door. ‘Where’s the key?’

  ‘You’ll find it in the fork section of the cutlery drawer.’ Jack had come.

  The dog barked sharply and pushed its hind legs against Stella, scrabbling towards David.

  ‘I will always love you,’ he mouthed. She went over and handed him his dog. He folded the poodle into an embrace. Their fingers clutched; his were warm. Stella let go and stepped away.

  The kitchen door opened. Then she heard the sirens.

  Epilogue

  Friday, 11 May 2012

  Mallingswood House was separated from the thirty-two acres that once formed part of its estate by King Street and the railway. At Barons Court the District and Piccadilly lines emerged from a tunnel and were carried along a viaduct over streets of Victorian terraces to pass above the remainder of this land which, for over a century, had belonged to the public and was called Ravenscourt Park.

  The few in the park at nearly nine o’clock on an unseasonably cold May evening were hurrying to the exits. Tennis players clanged shut the gate to the courts and, rackets under their arms, sauntered into Glenthorne Road. A straggle of teenagers, raucous shouts and laughter clamouring across the lawns, cigarettes glowing in the dusk, spilled out on to King Street. Late commuters scurried along the darkening avenue of cherry trees to Ravenscourt Square or Goldhawk Road. Above them a District line train slid out of the station and, with a rising whine, gathered speed and clattered along the viaduct. Yellow light from its carriages, brighter in the massing twilight, illuminated a figure striding counter to the others between flower beds in which, in the failing light, reds and purples of windblown tulips were particularly vivid.

  Stella should not be here. The park was closing. Jack had texted her to meet him under the third railway arch and, quelling misgivings, she had agreed.

  Under the viaduct she stopped. His text had mentioned a slide. Beyond the geometric shapes of a climbing apparatus in the kids’ play area she distinguished a paddling pool and a sand pit. No slide. And no Jack. She was alone in a London park at nightfall. She should not have come.

  To her left ran a path shaded by the viaduct and bushes. Insipid orange lamps on the railway bridge accentuated wedges of shadow. Reluctantly she went down it. The first arch was boarded up. A grille covered the next arch; through it she made out lawn mowers, a grass roller and other maintenance equipment. The third arch was enclosed with sagging corrugated iron leaving a semi-circular gap at the top. A crude door was padlocked. Stella heard a metallic thrum from within the arch. Frightened now, she clasped the bundle inside her anorak.

  ‘Stella! Is that you?’ A sibilant whisper echoed in the vaulted space.

  ‘Jack?’ Her heart fluttered. ‘Of course it’s me.’

  ‘Brilliant! Come on.’

  ‘It’s locked.’

  ‘No it’s not.’

  Stella peered at the padlock. Jack had set the shackle shy of the fastener.

  ‘Come on!’

  She dragged open the door. Its jagged edge scuttered along the concrete with a shriek of metal. She found herself in a cavernous chamber.

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake, Jack!’ Gradually Stella became accustomed to the dark. She gasped and folded her hands over her chest. A tower of criss-crossing metal reached to the apex of the arch. Jack’s face was suspended above her.

  ‘How did you get up there?’

  ‘Sssssh!’ The sound bounced off the bricks.

  It was the highest slide Stella had ever seen. The chute dropped steeply to level out inches from the concrete. Jack was huddled in the doorway of a half-timbered cottage with windows framed by painted roses.

  ‘It’s closing time.’ But she knew that wouldn’t work.

  ‘Have you ever been in a park at night after everyone has gone?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a swooshing. Jack whisked down the slide, coat tails billowing, and skidded to a stop beside her, his legs flailing. ‘That was fan-tastic! Have a go. I’ll give up my turn.’

  Stella eyed the structure. ‘That thing is not safe.’

  ‘I agree. It’s a death slide, a relic of the sixties. Next door there’s a massive roundabout which still works, but it’s impossible with one person. You’d need to be Batman to push it.’ Jack leapt up and scampered into the depths of the arch.

  ‘Superman.’ The thrumming was Jack climbing the slide; it shook with each step. ‘Why are we here?’ She adjusted the zip on her anorak.

  His long legs floundered out of the doorway; feet splaying, he positioned himself. ‘This is where Mary and Michael Thornton played after school. They should have gone straight home for their tea.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Jackie told me.’

  There were footsteps outside on the path. Jack scooted into the cottage and beckoned furiously to Stella through the little window.

  A scrape of shoe leather, closer now. Stella crept around the slide. Her arm across her chest, she put her foot on the first rung of a metal ladder. It shook when she gave it her weight. She could not hurry or she would give them away. Designed for children, the treads were narrow, the handrails low, she could lose her balance and pitch over the side.

  Stella clambered up the last two steps and collapsed on to the platform beside Jack. The footsteps were closer.

  There was a long-drawn-out mewing sound.

  ‘Ssssh!’ Jack put up a hand.

  ‘It wasn’t me.’ Stella unzipped the top of her anorak. The dog’s head shot out and butted her chin. He gave another yawn, quieter this time.

  Someone was outside. Jack and Stella stared at the animal. Its ears were pert, its nose twitching; it turned sharply towards the sound, its breathing rapid, working up to a bark.

  The footsteps resumed, then receded.

  ‘What is he doing here? Cashman put him in the police pound.’ Jack and the dog regarded each other. Stella pulled the zip up to the poodle’s chin.

  ‘I’ve got him for the time being.’ Through the gap in the planks she contemplated the drop below.

  ‘How long is time being?’ Jack enquired.

  ‘For now. Go on with what you were saying.’ Stella had offered to take the dog on a whim. She would take each day as it came.

  ‘Jackie said that Michael got scared and caused a bottleneck. No one could go on the slide and the kids blamed Mary. Jackie said it wasn’t her fault, she was kind to her brother and took him with her down the slide.’

  Stella appraised the steep silver chute and felt affinity with the little boy who, over forty years ago, had cowered on this precarious perch, scared and paralysed. The ladder was at a precipitous angle, almost vertical. She clung to the housing, unsure how she would get herself and the small dog down.

  ‘You were right,’ Jack said.

  ‘Was I?’

  ‘Barlow isn’t evil. Just weak and cowardly. I haven’t been supportive. Sorry.’ Jack had his back to her.

  ‘Cowardly is bad enough.’ Stella s
huffled towards the opening. ‘And you were right, it’s more complicated than straight good and evil. David believed he had been punished enough. His wife never stopped reminding him of what she said was a sin. Maybe it was punishment, but David never confessed. He never gave the Thorntons closure. Robert Thornton sounds like a horrible man, but that didn’t make it OK.’

  The slide had to be over twenty feet high. Since David Barlow’s arrest she had taken every shift going. When possible the dog came with her. Jackie had rung to say that she had received a cheque for David’s last deep-cleaning session. What should she do with it? Did they accept money from villains? David had posted it the day he killed Mary Thornton. Stella told her to donate the sum to the local hospice. Jack put in his statement that Barlow had not attempted to stop or take avoidance action. Mary had saved Jack’s life, her death would not be described as suicide. He had picked up speed. Barlow was charged with leaving the scene of an accident and reckless driving in two cases decades apart. Martin Cashman reckoned he would get less than five years with good behaviour. Stella told herself she didn’t care. Either way she would never see or hear from David Barlow again.

  ‘Robert Thornton had wanted a son – or maybe any child that was his own. He wasn’t interested in his stepdaughter. The model was a landscape in which his son was alive. He treated me as his son.’

  ‘He attacked you.’

  ‘He wasn’t a well man. Mary saved me. He was bent on one thing – recreating a city where no one died. At least that’s my guess.’

  Stella followed the progression of a bus along King Street beyond the gates. It passed Mallingswood House where, in the evenings after her work at the police station, Mary had been entrusted with the care of other people’s little boys. She had worked there, making their tea and putting them to bed for years until the school ran out of money and closed last December. She hoped the job had given Mary comfort. She had been about to lose another home. She was being forced to take over from her stepfather, now too frail to leave the house. She had only one way to escape.

  ‘I keep wondering why she wanted me to come to Dukes Meadows?’

  ‘Who knows? You taking a printout of the database and working behind her back was a betrayal.’ Jack had his back to her at the top of the slide. ‘Possibly she would have told you everything. She said she wanted your help.’

  Stella let Stanley lick her hand; she had told him her face was forbidden. She had given him a bath but still caught David’s aftershave on his woolly coat.

  Jack turned around. ‘Let it go, Detective Darnell. We solved another case!’

  ‘Terry solved it. We just caught up with him.’

  ‘No. If he had known about Marian – Myra – he would have acted. He trusted you would know his photographs were significant. We finished what he started. Come down the slide with me, it’s exciting with two. Or three.’

  ‘I’ll use the ladder.’ An ear-splitting rumble drowned her response and the sides of the make-believe cottage shook. Then there was stillness.

  ‘The 9.23 Upminster train’s on schedule.’ Jack knelt at the mouth of the slide.

  ‘Jack, you’ll fall!’ Stella snatched at his coat.

  Jack crawled over to where she was crouching. ‘If you sit on the flat bit, I’ll hold you. I promise it’ll be fun.’

  Fun. Was this what her mum had meant?

  ‘If we fall I could squash Stanley.’

  Jack blinked. ‘Stanley?’

  ‘He’s named after… the point is it’s too risky.’ Stella arranged the dog within the folds of her anorak. Since collecting him from the pound, she had taken him everywhere.

  Jack sat astride the flat end of the slide, flung back his coat tails and reached out to Stella. ‘Think of a pillion rider leaning into the turn on a motorbike.’ He brushed the sleeve of Stella’s anorak. ‘It’s all about trust.’

  The dog struggled out of the top of her anorak, button-brown eyes fixed on her intently, his apricot fur defining him in the dim vaulted space. There were flecks of amber in his irises she hadn’t noticed before. His nose twitched; he caught a scent. Stella caught it too. Mulch spread around the bushes outside. His eyes flicked about her face as if reading her every thought. He trusted her. Stella scuffled to the door of the cottage and before she could change her mind took Jack’s hands and wriggled onto the slide. Jack shuffled along so that he was sitting behind her. Sure that the dog was secure, she gripped the sides of the slide, reassured by the cold metal. She felt Stanley settle heavily against her chest.

  ‘Shove up.’ Jack clasped her waist. ‘We’ll creep forward a bit at a time. Close your eyes if it helps.’ He was particularly cheerful. ‘We must give ourselves up, don’t try to control our speed. Trust it.’

  He meant, ‘Trust me.’ Stella realized that she did trust Jack.

  Jack shoved his heels against the lip of the opening and pushed. Bricks zipped past and Stella was flung against Jack. It was over. At the bottom Jack flung out his legs to prevent them tumbling sideways off the chute.

  ‘You were perfect,’ he whispered.

  Stella got unsteadily to her feet. The dog was calm. It sensed nothing to be frightened of, no threat. No ghosts.

  Jack couldn’t shut the padlock on the gate; it needed a key. ‘The keeper will assume it’s kids.’

  ‘He won’t be far wrong,’ Stella muttered.

  She lowered Stanley to the ground and fixed his lead on to his collar. He walked beside her, close to her leg, eyes up to her. She told him he was a good boy.

  ‘He looks rather like you – the way he sniffs the air.’ Jack was strolling along as if they were on a Sunday outing. ‘Your voice puts a prance in his step.’

  He led them all along the avenue of cherry trees, past the tennis courts, the nets like suspended white lines in the dusk. They came to two stone pillars supporting a gate. Stella was relieved to see that the geometric design made it tantamount to a climbing frame. She handed the lead to Jack and shakily inserted her boot above the locking mechanism. She hauled herself up and over.

  She had been in a park after closing time. One morning, before dawn, Terry had taken her to collect the first crop of conkers from St Peter’s Square.

  ‘Put your jeans on over your pyjamas. Here, wear my jumper. That’s it. Do up your shoelaces good and tight. We won’t talk until we’re clear of the house. Keep close by me.’

  Her dad had helped her over the gate. Stella crossed the road and the memory, like the coil of mist on Marquis Way, wisped to nothing.

  Ravenscourt Gardens School

  Head: Mrs Nelson BA (Hons), Dip. Ed.

  The notice, behind a mesh fence, stood in a flower bed of pansies and daffodils.

  ‘Mary Thornton ran away from here in May 1966. Jackie went to this school. Funny that, isn’t it?’ Jack joined her by the fence.

  ‘I know. I was here for a year before Mum left Terry.’ Stella had a recollection of a woman who put her in mind of an animal. Or a bird? She jerked Stanley away from a sandwich wrapper by the school gate.

  ‘Jackie felt guilty she didn’t do more for Mary,’ she said.

  ‘Mary didn’t sound easy. Douglas Ford never forgot her stealing his cards. Jackie was kind to her, he told me.’ Jack gripped the fence, hands above his head. ‘Could Mrs Thornton have guessed what her husband was doing?’

  ‘We thought it was Hindley’s death that precipitated her suicide. Maybe it was, but she could have found out that James Markham had died. She probably guessed. He was going out at night; she must have wondered what he was doing.’

  Under the bridge, the roundel sign for Ravenscourt Park station sent a bluish haze over the pavement. The two Thornton children might have been nervous of starting at another school. Stella had wanted to run away from her new school in Barons Court. Leading Stanley, Stella drifted towards the Underground.

  She had found notes in Lucille May’s file about how the little girl boarded a train here. PC Terence Darnell found her under the flyover at Hammersm
ith Broadway and brought her home. Days later he went back to the house in British Grove to tell the Thorntons their son was dead. Terry had wanted to make a difference. He treated everything as important; he forgot nothing. Anxious to hold on to the information she had collected, May had kept from them that Michael had a sister, but she knew she would never write the book. She was stuck in the house in British Grove, sharing it with ghosts of her own making. She had given Jack the file; she must have wanted to be helped. Terry might have helped her, but he died.

  Stella waited for Jack to catch up. With Stanley on one side and Jack on the other, she walked back to the van in Weltje Road.

  ‘Mary collected cards and marbles.’ Jack snapped in his seat belt. ‘Collecting objects is a way to quantify life.’

  Stella lifted Stanley up and planted him on Jack’s lap. ‘Like spreadsheets.’ She glanced at him. ‘I’m getting a seat fitted in the back so I can belt him in. In a collision, even a box of tissues flying off the back shelf could kill you.’ She drove out on to King Street.

  Jack held Stanley tightly as if he were a source of mortal danger.

  Outside Mallingswood House a little girl was jumping on and off the plinth of the drinking fountain. Crazily Stella pictured herself, leaping towards Terry, sure he would catch her.

  ‘We never found out what happened to the angel’s hands,’ Jack said.

  Stella braked at the zebra crossing outside the post office for a woman with a spaniel that refused to walk to heel. She noticed dogs now. Since David’s arrest she kept meeting people with dogs, in the street and in the park. Jackie once said that having a dog was like having a child: they brought people together. Stella wasn’t keen to be brought together with anyone. Terry struck up conversations with strangers. As you got older you were meant to get more like your parents. Jack was talking.

  ‘…Mary was attached to Michael, but Jackie thought she was jealous of him too. Michael had a father who loved him. She couldn’t kill her stepfather, but she could damage the angel he erected for his son.’

  ‘She would have buried them.’ Stella was suddenly certain.