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

by Lauren White

  Do you remember what was wrong with the car, Mr Richards?

  He blows his cheeks out and scratches his head. Sorry, I don't. Does it say what the problem was there?

  It says the engine died because the air filter hadn't been changed to the summer position.

  Remind me what car it was?

  A Renault 5.

  Yes, that's right. You don’t seem many of those anymore. Nice old cars. They have two positions, one for summer, and one for winter. They regulate the amount of air coming into the engine. If the tube is in the wrong position, it can cut out at speed. It just loses power.

  How long would it take to fix something like that?

  Richards looks over Fester's shoulder, at the wall behind, as he appears to consider this. Oh, seconds, I would think?

  On your time sheet, you said it took forty five minutes to get Miss Brand's car going.

  He widens his eyes and shrugs as though he can't figure out why that should be. Then, something occurs to him. I probably checked a few things, before realising what it was. I may have thought it was something more serious at first. And, the car won’t start until the engine cools down. So I would have had to hang around until it did to make sure it was okay. Yes, that must be it.

  Can you remember what you and Miss Brand talked about?

  The car, I guess.

  Nothing else?

  I'm truly sorry, Detective but it was so long ago, and I don't remember.

  In your statement you say Miss Brand told you she was on her way to Sheffield.

  I'm sure that must be right then.

  Do you remember how she seemed?

  He shakes her head. She was wearing a wedding dress, I remember that. It was strange to see a bride driving herself about like that.

  Did you talk about that?

  Is there anything about that in the statement?

  Fester's mobile phone buzzes. He picks it up to read who is calling. Then, he gets up, abruptly.

  I'm sorry Mr Richards, I have to get this. Will you excuse me? I'll just be a few moments.

  Sure, go ahead.

  Fester heads for the door, muttering into his phone. He makes his way to the office next door where Nigs is waiting.

  He comes across as a pretty ordinary bloke, doesn't he?

  They usually do at first, that's what makes them hard to catch.

  What does he seem like, when you're sitting opposite him?

  I did notice one thing. He is wearing loose clothes and, at first glance, it looks like there is nothing of him but, when he put his arm up to scratch his head, I caught sight of his contour. He works out, this guy. He has got muscles. That fits the forensic psychologist’s profile of the killer.

  Nigs rubs his forehead. Okay, why don't you try giving him a surprise? Mention Gail Martos. Not her name, we don’t want anything happening to our only witness - just that we know of a witness. Let’s see if he reacts.

  Fester goes back into the interview room. Sorry about that. Now, where were we? He sits down. I think we're almost done here. Just a few more details. Contact details, really. Where are you living now Mr Richards? We called at the house a couple of times and one of the neighbours said you were away.

  Which neighbour? A surly note enters his voice for the first time, taking Fester by surprise.

  I don't remember. Is it important?

  No, no, of course not, Richards assures him, recovering his neutrality. I'm living in Spain. Well, I'm not an official resident, I go back and forth. It used to be my mother's house. She moved there when she retired. She died earlier this year.

  Fester smiles, sympathetically. Was it sudden?

  She had cancer. I gave up work to spend as much time as I could with her so I haven't been in Leicester much. I've really fallen in love with Spain. And, now my mother is dead, the house is mine.

  How often do you come back?

  Once in a while, just to keep an eye on the house here and my tenant.

  You must have missed a lot of the furore over this serial killer then.

  They call him the June Killer, don’t they? There is a faint smirk on his lips.

  The newspapers do. Our psychologist says he is a bit more pathetic that that, some type of inadequate.

  Richards looks down at his nails. Must be to do that stuff, he says, equitably. Still studying his nails, he asks: You any nearer catching him?

  Yeah.

  He glances up, searching Fester's eyes. Really?

  We've found a witness to his first attack.

  Gordon turns to look at the clock on the wall behind him, yet not fast enough to stop Fester noticing the frisson of surprise in his dead eyes.

  He enters the house by knocking out the air vent for the water heater downstairs. He gets a wire through and uses this to open the latch of the rear lobby window. It is a small window, but he manages to wriggle through, worm-like, into the house. I feel his presence, immediately. The atmosphere is dulled by him. It is like a curtain falling. It has taken him less than four minutes, from beginning to end, which is the last underestimation I can afford to make. I glance down, nervously, at the woman who's sleeping beside me. She is snoring, lightly, one arm wrapped around a cuddly toy, the other beneath her pillow, resting on the steak knife she has placed there every night since she was first attacked by Gordon Richards.

  Bim and Jackie appear at the foot of the bed. They've been at the front of the house, waiting for him.

  He must have walked here. Nobody has driven into this road, Jackie says.

  No, he is too cunning for that.

  Gerte and Kerry arrive, next. They've been watching the back.

  He came across the gardens. He must have parked his car a couple of streets away, Gerte says.

  The five of us listen to the house.

  Did the police waiting outside see anything?

  Bim shakes her head. They’re just sitting in their car, chatting. They think the whole thing is a waste of time.

  Your old colleagues should never have mentioned a witness to him in the first place, Gerte says, angrily. They had no right to put her in danger. He was bound to make the connection.

  At least, they alerted the local bobbies, just in case, I say, without conviction.

  He has reached the foot of stairs, already, Kerry warns us. What are we going to do?

  I’ll go and make a 999 call. That should send the uniforms outside running in here.

  I get off the bed and cross the landing to the upstairs telephone. As I lift the receiver, I look down into the darkness of the stairwell. A man, dressed in black, is crouched low, at the mid-point of the staircase. His head is covered by a leathery mask, which has three slits, two for his eyes, and one with a zip, for his mouth. It would look absurd, if it didn't proclaim the sinister intent, which has brought him to this house, at three o'clock in the morning. The telephone line is dead. He must have cut it downstairs. No matter. I have Carrie’s mobile. When the operator answers I start the tape she has recorded for me. I've just seen a man breaking into a house where I know there is a woman living alone. I turn the volume up, hoping to frighten him into running away but he doesn’t hear through the mask. I watch him crawling like a reptile up the remaining stairs, the handles of a holdall looped over one of his shoulders. Her name is Gail Martos and her address is 14 Blackwell Road. Please hurry. It is an emergency. I hang up. That should do it, I reassure the others, as I return, but I can tell from the energy in the room, no one is convinced the police are going to get here in time to save her. The man in the leathery mask straightens up, and as he passes by me, I realise for the first time how tall he is.

  It’s not him, I exclaim to the others. It must be Dead-gorgeous.

  He stands in the open bedroom doorway. I can't see his mouth through the mask but I bet he is smiling. He thinks this is going to be easy. Placing the holdall down by her bed, he bends over to extract something.

  Hell, it is a stun gun, Gerte says. He is going to abduct her.

  No
ne of us react. We've become hypnotised by the horror of what is unfolding before us. He puts the gun against her thigh and Jackie breaks the spell that has fallen over us. She knocks it from his hand. It clatters to the floor but he can't hear or see it. He is going to have to feel around, on his hands and knees, if he wants to retrieve it.

  The commotion awakens Gail. She sits bolt upright and screams, holding the steak knife in front of her chest. She understands what is going on in a blink of an eye. She has been expecting this, every single night, for the past four years.

  Dead-gorgeous stares at her in disbelief. Then, he makes a grab for the knife, but she is too quick for him. She lunges the blade upwards towards his torso. Instinctively, he puts out his hand to protect himself and she slashes through his leather glove, splattering the duvet with blood.

  Bitch, he curses, in pain. Bitch, bitch, bitch!

  Making a fist with his injured hand, he brings it down hard against her head, knocking her sideways. Her shoulder is rammed against the wooden headboard so forcefully one of the knobs hits the wall and splinters off. The blow disorientates her and he easily prises the knife from her hand. He pushes the blade towards her throat but before it touches her, Gail draws herself back, and swings herself away from his hand. The move is as quick and graceful as a yoga exercise, which makes what happens next more astonishing. As soon as she is clear of the knife, she hurls herself at him, biting and scratching like a rabid dog. He staggers backwards, and drops the knife, as he tries to protect himself. I hope he is thinking the same as me. He is fighting for his life now, and not for hers. Turning to look towards the door, he checks his retreat before throwing Gail down onto the bed, and running onto the landing.

  He is trying to get away. Get his mask off, we need to see him, I call to Jackie.

  She follows him onto the landing but he suddenly spins around, and doubles back on himself, passing through her, on his way back into the bedroom. He has taken all of us, including Gail, by surprise. Grabbing a handful of her hair, he yanks her head backwards and, before she can recover, he places a thumb over her wind pipe and starts to press.

  Jackie is still reeling from having felt him move through her. Do something, Bim calls to her but I can see she is struggling to stay in the room.

  The rest of us look at each other, paralysed, by indecision.

  The gun, Kerry mutters. Where is it?

  We search the floor. Here, under the wardrobe, Gerte cries, tossing it to me.

  Gail's arms are flailing and I can hear her gasping for breath. I put the gun against the Dead-gorgeous' ankle and I hit the button. Nothing happens.

  Let me try, Bim says, but it makes no difference.

  It must be broken. What are we going to do?

  Gail’s body is becoming limp. She is losing consciousness.

  Fix it, fix the gun, Gerte screams at me.

  Suddenly, Kerry flings all the bedroom windows wide and the room fills with wind. Dead-gorgeous looks up, startled, and as it dawns on him they have opened on their own, he turns to stare at them in amazement, leaving Gail lying on the bed. She is making a low gurgling noise. I turn on the light in the bathroom, across the landing from her bedroom, to draw her attention.

  Come on, you have to run to the bathroom, while he is distracted.

  Lifting herself up, she slides her legs over the opposite side of the bed, from where Dead-gorgeous is closing the windows. He steps backwards and reaches out to catch her, but she is a fraction of second ahead of him. She staggers across the landing and, as she crosses the threshold of the bathroom, the door slams behind her, in his face. He uses his body as a battering ram against it, but Jackie has already slid the bolt across.

  The door won't hold, Gerte warns. It opens, inwards. We need to put something against it to stop him from breaking it down.

  There's a wooden towel cupboard which might do the job, Jackie says.

  Do you need any help?

  Her answer is the sound of the cupboard escaping the brackets securing it to the wall, followed by a loud thud as it falls heavily against the door.

  Gail has fainted from fright, Jackie says, passing back through it.

  She’ll feel better when Dead-gorgeous is in jail where he belongs.

  Bim taps him on the shoulder. He freezes while he tries to evaluate what he has just felt. Then, very slowly, he turns around to look. His eyes widen with terror as he recognises Bim standing before him, in her blue satin cocktail dress and matching handmade shoes. His mouth appears to moving silently under his mask but no sound escapes him. She smiles, seductively, at him, her face bloated with decomposition, her skin peeling off her bones.

  Aren't you dead gorgeous, she mouths to him. Fancy a shag?

  A whimper finally forces its way through his lips, as he backs away from the bathroom door, and tries to slide along the wall to escape her.

  What's the matter? Don't you like dead girls? Putting her hand in her mouth, she pulls out some of her teeth to show him. They still have the gums attached to them. Go on. Give us a kiss, she begs, as he retreats towards the stairs, unable to take his eyes from her.

  Feeling behind him with his foot, he miscalculates, and misses the top stair, tumbling backwards, head over heels, all the way down to the bottom. He scrambles to his feet, groaning with pain, and hobbles towards the window through which he entered. All thought of abducting Gail appears to have evaporated. He only wants to get away from this haunted house. When he realises the window has been mysteriously jammed shut, he starts to panic. He runs to the back door but it is locked. Next, he tries the front door but that won't budge either. As fast as he slides the bolts back, they flip across again, into position. Panting wildly, he hurries into the dining room, picks up a chair and uses it to shatter the window pane, hurling himself after it. It is only when he picks himself up off the ground, he notices the two uniformed policemen hurrying up the front path, towards him. There is a mixture of indecision and resignation in his body language, as he shifts his weight from foot to foot. He wants to give up. Perhaps, he is relieved to see the reassuring presence of two living policemen. But, as they near him, he rallies again. He lowers his head and barges into the middle of them like a rugby player. Startled, they let him pass and he vaults over the garden gate. He stumbles as he lands and one of the policemen leans over and makes a grab at the back of his mask. He is hoping to stop him in his tracks, but it tears and comes away in his hand. Dead-gorgeous turns his face away, but he can do nothing to hide his blonde hair, as he races full pelt to the corner of the road. Reaching the next street, a car pulls in front of him. The policemen chasing after him are blinded by the full beam of the headlights. They hear a door slam, the engine scream, and the next thing they know the driver is accelerating the car towards them. They don't see what he looks like. They are too busy trying to save their lives.

  Inside the house, Gail is sitting on the bathroom floor, hugging her knees and crying.

  You were asleep, and when you woke up, a man was standing over your bed, holding a stun gun. You tried to get away but he grabbed you by your hair, and started to crush your wind pipe. Somehow you struggled free and you managed to lock yourself in the bathroom, where you fainted. The man must have seen or heard the police arrive. When you came to, he'd fled.

  I repeat this version of events in her ear several times to make sure she has got it. She is so close to passing out, the odds of her taking it in, unquestioningly, are good. Maybe now the police will do what they should have done in the beginning and move her to a safe house. I blame myself too for placing too much reliance on them. I need to stop thinking like D.I. Kate Madding, and start being who I am now - D. I. Ghost.

  The front door opens, and a tall, elegantly dressed man walks down the stone steps, along the path, and out of the gate. It is a sunny morning but a shrill blast of air hits him as he reaches the pavement, forcing him to pause for a second in his stride. The March winds have arrived early, this year. It is still only February. He pulls up th
e collar of his camel-coloured cashmere coat and crosses the road, swinging the brown leather attaché case he is carrying. He is about to unlock the dark green, top of the range, Audi parked there, when he senses someone behind him. He turns around, quickly, and freezes. He is face to face with a man in a black woollen mask. His mind is racing. Is he about to be mugged in plain light of day? What is Blackheath coming to? Then, he registers the navy blue police bullet proof vest. He should feel relieved and, if this masked man wasn't holding a gun to his head, he would be, but as it is, he starts to shiver, uncontrollably, while he fights the urge to release his sphincter so the contents of his bowel can pour into his pants.

  He is guided by the masked man along the road, out of sight of the large detached house he has just left.

  Could you show me some ID, please, sir, the officer asks,

  It seems incongruous to hear such courteousness in the voice of a man who is pointing a gun at him. He fumbles in his pocket, noting a slight stiffening in the body of his companion, as he pulls out a leather wallet with his driving licence inside.

  The policeman takes it from him, before it is offered, not rudely, but impatiently. It says here you are Basil Mountford.

  Yes, he whispers, his life is flashing before him while he wonders what he could have done to warrant this.

  And, that's your car?

  Yes.

  And, you live in that house? The officer points to the house he has just left.

  He glances at it. Up until this moment, living there has made him feel sure of himself. That's what six bedrooms, four en suite, and an indoor swimming pool, on a private estate in the posh part of South East London, can do for one. It gave him the assurance that he was unassailable. How has he arrived here then - being treated like a common criminal?

  That's right, officer, he answers, beginning to find his voice. He hasn't done anything! This is obviously a terrible mistake. Why should he be cowered by the presence of the police? He'll sue them for humiliating him when this is all over. How dare they treat him so shamefully! He is no lawbreaker. I'm a barrister, he says out loud as though he needs to remind them both of his status. He feels a sense of substance trickling back inside him. He has deliberately omitted to mention that his specialism is corporate and not criminal law. They don’t need to know that yet. He wants them to sweat a little first. What can I do for you, officer?