D. I. Ghost: A Detective Inspector Ghost Murder Investigation

by Lauren White

  I wouldn't have thought they had a lot of tidal waves in Sheffield, Bim muses, as we explore.

  The central heating pipes are fractured. The doors and windows don't fit their frames. There are stains on the carpets and up the wallpaper. The stairs creak and the ceilings on the lower floor are so badly cracked one of them has actually caved in.

  Bim screws up her nose. What is that smell?

  The reek of boiled cabbage is pervading every room, despite the sickly-sweetness of the air freshener that someone has used to mask it.

  The electrics are a little eccentric, I say. The lights in the bedroom refused to work, when I switched them on, only to spring to life of their own accord, a few minutes later.

  Perhaps, some of this damage could have been done while they were putting out the fire in the kitchen, Kerry suggests.

  I had forgotten the fire. We all look through the charred door at the scorched walls, work surfaces, and cupboards.

  She is right, you know, Kate.

  I smile at Bim, sardonically, while I wait for her barb.

  Well, it had to happen sometime. She probably studied water damage in geography.

  I wish you wouldn't talk about her as though she isn't here, I whisper.

  Most of the time she isn't!

  Why would she want to be?

  It's like the Marie Celeste, Kerry says, dreamily. Do you think anyone is still living here?

  The sound of a key going into the lock, in the front door, answers her question. Brian Jones doesn’t look anything like how I imagined a jilter would, which makes no sense at all since I have never given the matter a second’s thought before. Possibly, I expected him to be wickedly good looking, an obvious Lothario and not the stolid, uninspiring specimen standing in front of me. Dark haired and clean shaven with metal rimmed glasses, he has an enthusiast's face, by which I mean there is something both eager and purposeful about it. I could picture him chasing up back numbers of The Beano on eBay. Am I being unfair? Why should I worry about it? Where he is concerned, I’m a sister. How dare he do what he did to one of us?

  He isn’t on his own. There are two women with him and only one of them is alive. This is when we finally begin to comprehend what's actually going on in this maisonette. Brian’s arm is in a sling. He fractured it falling downstairs, late yesterday, and has spent most of the night in the Accident and Emergency Unit of the local hospital. Were he a child, the doctors working there would have reported him to his local Social Services Department, some time ago. Since Jackie died, he has presented them with a long list of suspicious injuries. Last year - the one in which his living, as opposed to live-in, girlfriend moved in with him - was the most calamitous by far. Barely, a week went by without one of them having to seek medical attention. Neither of the young couple believes in the paranormal otherwise the word poltergeist might have come crashing into their vocabulary by now. Between them, they've experienced what they see as such a run of bad luck in this maisonette, they've decided to move. A new start, in a new home, is all they need to herald in a more tranquil epoch in their lives. Fat chance! Jackie is sure to be moving with them.

  We should feel appalled. I am sure Gerte were she here with us would be. Kerry almost is, at least, to the extent she decides to pop back to Leicester to check on whether Gordon Richards has shown up, rather than spend any time in Jackie's presence. Bim and I, however, are entranced by her skill in manipulating the material world. What we can do is child's play compared with what we see going on here.

  I think your body may have been found, I inform my heroine, when we persuade her to take rest from blowing dust and dirt onto the accident prone couple's wet washing, in the communal gardens downstairs.

  So?

  I'm not sure what to do with that so I press on. You may have been buried in a wood in South East London and if we're right, probably, it means you were murdered.

  Now, tell me something I don't know, Einstein.

  Why is she being so irascible? I didn’t murder her. I was thinking you might like to wreak revenge on the person who did it.

  What do you think I am doing?

  Are you trying to tell me Brian Jones killed you?

  I’m not trying to tell you anything.

  I study her, perplexed. Her manner may be ugly but I can tell from her presence that in life she was extremely beautiful. She reminds me of a Modigliani portrait: oval face, pale skin, and a full-lipped sensual mouth.

  Bim is evidently thinking the same. Good bones, she jokes, quietly, to me, as Jackie loses interest in us and begins to twang the washing line, so forcefully, a few of the clothes pull free from their pegs and drop onto the floor.

  Her eyes aren't glassy though. And, although she is petite, her hair is brunette, not blonde.

  What are you two wittering on about?

  We were wondering whether you were blonde when you were murdered, Bim bravely answers.

  What the hell has it got to do with you?

  Before we can reply – and neither of us are eager to – Kerry appears beside us.

  He is still not there, she tells us.

  That's mine. Take it off, Jackie demands, as soon as she realises what she’s wearing.

  Kerry is flustered...I...He...It's not my...

  Take it off, I said. Take it off now, or I'll make you regret it.

  You're having a go at the wrong person. Kerry hasn't done anything to you. We haven't done anything to you, I protest but she ignores me.

  Did you hear what I said? TAKE IT OFF NOW OR YOU'RE FOR IT!

  Bim starts muttering behind me: I don’t know why she’s still wearing it anyway.

  Shut up, Bim. It's not helpful, I whisper, fiercely, to her.

  But, I showed her how to change it, didn't I? We both know she can because she did it for my memorial service. You haven't gone back to wearing the clothes you were run over in, have you? So why is she wearing that old thing again?

  Why shouldn't she? You're still wearing your blue cocktail dress.

  Jackie's vibration is beginning to throb, violently, but Bim doesn’t take the hint. Anyway all this shrew has to do is picture herself in the stupid dress and it's hers. It would suit her a lot better than all that leather gear she has on. She looks like a biker.

  She manages to make biker sound like a close cousin of the sewer rat. Fortunately, for all of us, our unfriendly poltergeist is focused on the wedding dress Kerry is wearing to the exclusion of all else.

  Look at the state of it! It's completely ruined. It cost me a fortune that dress. I'll never get that dirt out.

  You’re mad, Bim tells her. What do you need a wedding dress for? Haven't you heard? You're dead, you silly witch!

  Kerry and I instinctively back away from them.

  What happens, next, astonishes me. They burst into laughter and, instantly, the atmosphere of hostility that clings to Jackie evaporates.

  Sorry, ladies, being angry does become a bit of a habit.

  That's the trouble with eternity, Bim gushes to her new friend. It's so same-y.

  Kerry and I stay where we are, a safe distance from the pair of them.

  What was it you asked me? Oh yes, my hair. I was blonde when I was murdered but not a natural blonde. She begins to swell with rage, again. I dyed my hair blonde because that prick said he preferred it that way, she shrieks, pulling his smalls from the line and flinging them beyond the garden, into the fish pond, next door. As she turns back to us, her expression softens again. The day after I was murdered, I reverted to my true colour. Now, ladies, why don't we go indoors and talk. I've finished out here, for today.

  She leads the way to the beleaguered couple’s bedroom.

  This is the epicentre of my activity, she announces, proudly, dancing about. I think of it as my bunker.

  It is practically in darkness because the cords of the two window blinds have broken, leaving them permanently down. I can just make out that the wardrobe door is open. The central clothes rail has collapsed and a quartet o
f Brian's suits are wrestling in a heap of earth and cat excrement, on the floor. We sit down, gingerly, on the bed.

  Now, ladies, what else do you want to know?

  Did Brian Jones kill you?

  I ask her this, straight out, because I want this interview over and done with, before she finds another excuse to get cross with us again.

  She pulls at a thread on the bedspread, until a small hole forms.

  The way I see it, yes, but technically, no.

  What do you remember about the day you were abducted?

  Virtually everything, I should think. It was supposed to be the most important day of my life. And, it was, but not for the right reason.

  I sense a storm brewing against Brian, again, so I hurry on. Let's take it from the top. What happened after you left your house that day?

  I was on my way to Sheffield to kill that bastard. She points through the wall. What kind of animal waits until your wedding day to call things off? How could he be so cruel?

  We nod, vigorously.

  Did you reach Sheffield?

  No, I was on the M1, close to Leicester, when the car suddenly died on me. I phoned my recovery service and they sent a patrol man out. He told me I'd run out of petrol. I felt such a fool. He claimed I wasn't covered for that so he made something up for his control room, which I thought was really good of him, because he didn't have to. Then, he offered to drive me to the next service station to get some petrol. I didn't suspect a thing. I was genuinely grateful to him. I got into his van without a second’s concern. I felt safer being with him than staying on my own beside the car. He was wearing a uniform and driving one of the recovery service vans. What was there to fear?

  I show her the photograph of Gordon Richards.

  That's him. But, he had a moustache, when I met him.

  I glance at the others. This is the kind of evidence we've been lacking. We have found our killer.

  What happened next?

  He drove off the motorway. He said the nearest garage was close to the exit but we ended up in the middle of nowhere. He stopped the van to have a slash. I was beginning to have misgivings about him by then. But, what could I do? I talked myself out of it. I did get out of his van but there was nowhere to go. When he came back, he started screaming at me. I couldn't make out what he was saying. He was calling me a whore, I think. He was off his trolley. I was so shocked, it sort of paralysed me. He hit me, quite a few times. I fell to the ground and he kicked me. I was begging him not to hurt me. I must have fainted. When I came to, I was in a cellar.

  Do you know how he got you inside?

  He covered me up with a blanket, that's all. Isn't that incredible? He lived in a row of terraced houses, this guy. It was a quiet road but it was all built up. There were tons of neighbours, and he brought me into that house, under their noses, while it was still light. Yet, nobody noticed a thing.

  What did he do about your car?

  He was proud of that. He boasted about it. He hitched back to the M1 with the keys and some petrol. He dumped it in a service station car park, initially. But, later, after I was dead, he moved it to the place where it was found.

  Didn't his control room wonder where he was?

  It was the end of his shift and I was his last job. He called in and told them he'd hand the paperwork in the next day. They said that was okay.

  Did he drug you?

  No, he'd beaten me up pretty badly and I kept passing out. He didn't like that. It made him angry. He made me sit in a chair and he was moving me like a doll. Simon says do this, or do that, he kept saying. But, even with him working my limbs, I couldn't do anything, really. That was spoiling his fun. I was bleeding too. He didn't like that either. Too messy. He got fed up in the end and strangled me.

  What was it about do you think? What was the point to the game?

  I've no idea. Does it matter?

  Now, the interview is going smoothly, and she has apparently calmed down, Bim chooses this moment to ask: So why didn't you do something about him after he killed you?

  I can't believe, she just said that. I wait for the explosion.

  Like what? I was dead, Jackie replies, with surprising, equanimity.

  But, you still could have done something, surely, Bim persists.

  Bim, you...I start to say.

  She cuts me off. If she'd done something, Kate, I might still be alive.

  Bim, that's not fair, I tell her.

  Jackie laughs, nastily. What was I going to do? What are you going to do to stop him? He could be killing someone else, right now.

  None of us reply.

  That's the problem with your stupid investigation, she goads. Do you think, if you leave a 'Gordon Richards did it' note, for the police, they are going to arrest him?

  The least you could have done is haunt him and not your ex-bloke, Bim retorts.

  Why would I want to do that? It wasn't personal with Gordon Richards. I didn't exist for him. What he did had to do with him, not me. But, with Brian, it is different. He did that to me! And, now he is paying for it. All right?

  But, Gordon Richards murdered you, Bim exclaims, exasperatedly. If that isn't personal, what is?

  Jackie doesn't answer. Not, directly. She sends an ornament flying through Bim to the wall, behind, where it smashes into smithereens.

  I have to grovel - a lot - to persuade Jackie to visit Gordon Richards' house in Leicester. She only agrees on the condition Bim stays away. My purpose in bringing her there is to make sure she recognises the house as the site of her murder. It falls into the category of crossing a t, and dotting an i but it needs to be done. Being dead is all the sloppiness we need in this investigation.

  He has converted the cellar since I was last here, she explains.

  I avoid Kerry’s gaze. She was right about recognising it.

  That's where I was kept and killed, Jackie continues. It was only after I died, I got to explore the rest of his beige palace.

  I draw her away from Kerry, under the pretext of showing her something.

  Did he do anything to your body once you were dead?

  Well, it didn't bury itself.

  That's not what I meant...

  He put it in a chest freezer for three days and then drove it to London in his blue van and buried it in some woods.

  But, he didn't defile it in any way?

  She doesn't respond for several stunned seconds. Then, she asks, hesitantly: Defile, in what way?

  I hesitate. I don’t want to tell her everything that was done to Bim and Gerte. Did you have any puncture marks in your palms?

  Puncture marks? Is that a joke?

  According to the post mortem reports, the others did, I say, quietly, checking to make sure Kerry has wandered off on her own. Two of them, for sure. Kerry’s body was too decomposed to tell, definitively.

  Why would he do that?

  I shrug. I guess sickos get sicker, if they’re not stopped.

  Is that a dig at me?

  No, no, of course not.

  And, you’re sure the same guy murdered us all?

  I think it’s possible but I’m not sure of anything yet.

  I do remember him cutting off a chunk of my hair. He cut it off at the roots. And, before you ask, I haven't a clue why.

  While we have a look around the basement studio flat, Gordon’s tenant, a sandy haired psychology student, is hunched over a book. Eyeing his domestic clutter – the empty takeaway cartons, unwashed clothes, a bike chain, several thick psychology tomes, and a tabloid newspaper – it is hard to imagine that this is where Kerry and Jackie were murdered.

  Kerry sits down next to him and lays her head on his shoulder.

  Jackie nods towards her. Is she okay?

  I give her a helpless look. Hey, Kerry, are you okay?

  She glances up at us. I can remember what happened to me on the day I was murdered. It just came back to me. Well, I think it was there before but I couldn’t bear knowing about it.

  Slo
wly, she recounts the sequence of events that led to her death. It is another chilling tale. On her way back to university, she came off the motorway at Leicester to get something to eat. She stopped at a small parade of shops, where she bought a kebab, which she ate in her car, before driving off, again. A couple of minutes later, she noticed a van behind her. The driver kept flashing his lights. She couldn't work out why until she heard a loud clunk under the car and she saw in her mirror that part of the exhaust pipe had fallen off. She pulled over and so did the car behind. Gordon Richards got out. He was nice to her at first - helpful. He said he’d fix it for her but then suddenly he grabbed her and held his hand over her mouth. He must have had something in his palm. Whatever it was, within a few seconds, she passed out.

  Was he on duty?

  He couldn't have been. He was wearing casual clothes - jeans and a navy jumper - and he was driving a blue van which had no company markings. I think it must be the same one Gail and Jackie remember.

  Where there no other vehicles on the road? No one who could have seen them?

  It was open countryside. One or two cars did pass by, but not at the crucial moment.

  He’s bold, isn't he? He likes taking risks.

  I bet he gets off on it, Jackie sneers. It probably makes the pervert feel potent.

  I wonder whether he knew the exhaust was going to fall off. All he had to do was tamper with it while you were getting your kebab and then follow you.

  Bastard, Jackie exclaims.

  There is something else I've remembered, something strange, Kerry says. After I was dead, my body was taken somewhere else, out of Leicester. It could have been in London. I might be getting this all wrong but I think it was some kind of outbuilding.

  It is the bugbear of every murder enquiry: how to organise information to make sure that any leads aren’t buried under a mound of irrelevant detail. I no longer have the benefit of a police computer programme to do this and so I resort to a more basic approach. I open a file and call it: The Weasel. Then, I list his known, or alleged, victims, sequentially, highlighting the key aspects of each attack and killing, starting with Gail - the only one of us who got away with her life - to see what emerges.