A Ghost in the Machine

by Caroline Graham

  “Are you on your own here?”

  They answered together, overlapping.

  “Her aunty’s coming tomorrow.”

  “My aunty’s coming tonight.”

  “We told the ambulance men,” lied Roy. “The hospital’s getting in touch with the council.”

  “Fine. We’d like to ask a few questions about Mrs. Garret’s movements on Wednesday.”

  “Like what?” asked Roy.

  “Maybe we could start with the morning?”

  “Just as usual really.” Karen screwed up her forehead, thinking hard. “I got up. Ava’d had her breakfast—”

  “Which was?” asked Troy.

  “Toast and coffee, I think.”

  “Did you have the same?”

  “I had cereal first. Then a bit of toast. After that she went to the Spar for some ciggies.”

  “She used to try sending her, would you believe?” said Roy. “A kid that age.”

  “Roy,” said Karen. “Anyway, she brought two packets of Cup a Soup back, mushroom. And we had that, round one o’clock.”

  “And where were you during this time, Mr. Priest?” asked Troy.

  “In bed.”

  “You don’t work then?”

  “I certainly do work.” Roy’s indignation filled the room. “Pay my way, an’ all.”

  “So you’re not able—”

  “Only I’m on nights this week. ’Course, I shan’t be going back till we’ve got the kiddie sorted. They’re being very good, Tesco’s.”

  “So, Karen,” Barnaby eased the interview back on course, “after lunch?”

  “Then she was on the radio.”

  “Was that live?” asked Sergeant Troy.

  “Pardon?”

  “Did she have to go into the studio?”

  “’Course she did,” said Roy. He slapped his forehead in amazement at such ignorance.

  “And what time did Mrs. Garret get back?” asked Barnaby.

  “Around five.”

  “She said we could have some fish and chips.”

  Troy smiled at Karen. “You got a chippie in this place?” He couldn’t help sounding surprised.

  “Rumbling Tum mobile,” said Roy. “Once a week.”

  “And did…Ava eat with you?”

  “No,” replied Karen. “She was going to but—”

  “What you asking all these questions for?” asked Roy. He sounded quite belligerent. “Did she eat this? Did she eat that?”

  His annoyance at being deliberately kept in the dark was understandable. If the girl hadn’t been here Barnaby would not have dreamed of pussy-footing about. Pity he had not been aware of the situation in advance. He could have brought a WPC along. The cause of death was hardly a state secret. It would be public knowledge by this time tomorrow and, even as he jibbed at putting it into words, he recognised that for her the worst had already happened. One could say the cause was almost beside the point. He tried to put it as undramatically as possible.

  “Your mother died, I’m afraid, Karen, because of something she either ate or drank.”

  “Which is why,” added Sergeant Troy, picking up the tone of quiet moderation, “we need to find out what it was. In case other people might be at risk.”

  “And as you’re both OK,” said Barnaby, “it’s obviously something she had and you didn’t. So, do you think she might have stopped somewhere after she had done her broadcast? Perhaps to have tea?”

  “Definitely not,” said Karen. “She was too excited. She couldn’t wait to get home.”

  “And she didn’t have nothing at the radio place either,” said Roy. “They offered her a drink in a plastic cup and she were that disgusted she wouldn’t touch it.”

  “I see.” Barnaby couldn’t help glancing around the seedy kitchen. The phrase “delusions of grandeur” came to mind. “What about when she came home? A gin and tonic, maybe?”

  “Ava wasn’t much of a drinker,” said Roy.

  “She had a vodkatini once.” Karen made it sound unbelievably glamorous.

  “I reckon it was something she had with that bloke,” said Roy.

  “Who was this?”

  “She got a phone call from the BBC,” said Karen. “A man wanted to interview her.”

  “It was in her stars,” said Roy.

  “Time?”

  “A bit before half-five.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Karen. “’Cause the chippy came when she was upstairs getting ready.”

  “Hang on a sec,” said Troy, scribbling away. “Ready for…?”

  “He wanted to take her out to dinner.”

  For no discernible reason Barnaby felt a flicker of unease. Something perhaps about the speed of it. Barely two hours after the programme had gone out? No doubt some thrusting contender at the local station had phoned the story through, presumably with the aim of bringing his or her name to the BBC’s attention. They must have talked it up a storm. Even so, Barnaby found it hard to understand such an immediate, personal response. But then, what did he know? His sole experience with the media was fielding questions at press briefings.

  “Do you happen to know this man’s name, Karen?”

  “No. But he’s a senior producer,” said Karen.

  That rang with a cracked note as well. Producer, yes. Barnaby could hear someone describing himself as a producer. Senior producer? Well, possibly, if he wanted to make an impression. A bit unlikely, though. Almost naff.

  “It was Chris,” offered Roy.

  “Did you get his other name?” asked Sergeant Troy.

  “Ava didn’t say.” About to add, “But she wrote it down,” Roy stopped himself just in time. He pictured what would happen next. Them checking her handbag for the bit of paper. Finding a purse with not a single note or coin in it. Wondering where the money could have gone. Guess who’d get fisted.

  “Are we still talking radio? Or was this BBC Television?”

  “Must be radio. He asked her to meet him at Broadcasting House.”

  “How did she get there?” asked Sergeant Troy.

  “Drove to Uxbridge – that’s her car outside – then took the Tube.”

  “She had to ask for him at reception,” added Karen.

  Barnaby tried to visualise BBC reception. It had been a year or so since he’d been there. Cully was recording a Henry James serial and he’d called to take her out to lunch. He remembered lots of chairs and sofas scattered about a very large area. Anyone could just walk in off the street but you had to announce yourself at the visitors’ desk to get into the building proper. And unless they had an appointment already listed this could prove extremely difficult. Uniformed security staff were discreetly present.

  So, it appears his anxieties were groundless and Chris without a surname was a bona fide member of staff after all. Trouble was, thirty years in the force left you with a suspicious mind. Combine that with a fairly lively imagination and you saw treachery round every corner.

  “Sir?”

  “Sorry.”

  Barnaby yanked his concentration back to the present and Troy sourly prepared to read out the last entry in his notebook. Just let his mind wander like that. One second, that’s all, one second and he’d still be getting his ear bent at the end of the shift.

  “Apparently Ava got back quite late. Probably around eleven.”

  “Did you hear her come in?” asked Barnaby.

  Karen didn’t answer. Then, as they waited, some awful realisation possessed her. Her face was terribly transformed. She struggled to speak and when she did her voice splintered with emotion.

  “I was in bed but I heard her on the stairs.”

  Trembling hands fluttered around her mouth as if trying to trap the words. Unsay them. Roy stared at her, anxious and disturbed.

  Barnaby moved to the girl, crouched down, rested his hands on her shoulders. “Karen, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I. She. I can’t. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m—�
�

  “Stop.” He took her hand. “It’s all right. Whatever it is, it’s all right.”

  “No. What I’ve done. I’m sorry.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Can’t. Can’t.”

  “Try, Karen.” Though he spoke calmly Barnaby was becoming deeply concerned at the situation. “I’m sure we’ll be able to sort it out.”

  “Too late.”

  Gradually she stopped shaking. The frenzy left her face, leaving dry anguish behind. Her eyes, focused now on Barnaby, were clouded with pain.

  The chief inspector, gently releasing her hand, said, “Is it about your mother?”

  “Ava.” One long howl.

  “Look, Karen, whatever you think you’ve done, unless you talk about it we can’t help you.”

  Yeah, thought Roy. Some help the filth’ll give you. He was good at it, mind, this bloke. You had to hand it to him. Butter wouldn’t melt.

  Troy waited, thinking of Talisa Leanne. A couple more years and she’d be Karen’s age. If he ever saw her going through something like this he’d crack up. Even the thought of it made him sick to the stomach.

  “Did you talk to her that night?” Barnaby was asking now. “Perhaps after she came home?”

  This was it. She became unnaturally alert, almost rigid. And very still.

  “Maybe you had an argument.” That could well be. Imagine having a row with your mother and her dying straight after. Imagine trying to live with that. “I’ve a daughter myself. We’re always at it.”

  Karen shook her head, silvery hair flying.

  “But you did talk?”

  “No. She. She.” Karen started to cry. “She called me. On the stairs.”

  “Why don’t you leave her alone?”

  Barnaby made a quick, savage gesture in Roy’s direction but Karen didn’t notice. Her crying increased. Tears streamed down her stricken face.

  “I heard her. But I didn’t. I didn’t.”

  Then Barnaby understood. Understood and recognised the measure of the burden he had unwittingly placed upon this child. A burden she would carry for the rest of her life if something were not done and done quickly.

  “Listen, Karen. The doctor who did the—who discovered how your mother died, said the methanol she swallowed would have begun to take effect straightaway.” He waited. “Karen? Are you listening to me?”

  “But…she came home.”

  “Yes. It can take a while, sometimes several hours, before the person actually loses consciousness. But the process, once started, is irreversible.”

  Karen looked bewildered.

  “What I’m saying is that, even if you had got up, there’s absolutely nothing you could have done.”

  “Does…would it…hurt…?”

  “No. She would simply lie down and drift off, either to sleep or into a coma. Either way your mother would have known nothing about it.”

  “You see?” said Roy, as if he had been telling her this all along.

  She started rubbing at her face with the sleeve of a dirty blouse. “Oh—is it true?”

  “Absolutely true.”

  Shortly after this, driving back to Causton, Sergeant Troy replayed the scene over and over in his mind. He had been much impressed by the way the chief had handled things. But it was not in his nature to be impressed without being at the same time resentful. He too had been sincerely concerned about the girl. He would, in his muddled, careful way, also have tried to handle things with kindness and tact. But there was no doubt he was missing the chief’s encyclopaedic knowledge. It was that stuff about the methanol that had really turned the situation round. By the time they left Karen had stopped shaking and crying. There was even a faint shading of colour on her cheeks. Where had he picked the information up? It wasn’t on the PM report. Must be all that reading. He could ask, of course. No harm in asking.

  “Sir?”

  Grunt.

  “Handy you knowing all about methanol.”

  “What?”

  “Really helped the kid out.”

  Barnaby, who knew nothing at all about methanol, grunted again.

  That was nice as well, thought Troy. He was laid-back with it, the gaffer. Not boasting or showing off like some would have done. Like he himself would certainly have done. As bosses go, Troy knew he could be a lot worse off. For instance, there was the time—

  “Watch that bollard!!!”

  “Whoops.” Crunch. “Sorry, Guv.”

  Around teatime that same afternoon the programme tape was delivered to the station by a courier. Barnaby was tucking into a warm maple and pecan Danish when Troy brought it into his office and slotted it into the machine.

  They were in the fortunate position of being able to picture Ava as she spoke, for Barnaby had asked for a photograph before leaving Rainbow Lodge. It was plainly a professional job – intensely theatrical, luridly lit and dramatically posed – but was better than nothing.

  As the tape started to play Barnaby remembered Joyce’s description of Ava as “bragging but kind of sad.” Listening, he missed the sad but there was no way you could miss the bragging. It was quite funny for a while – like two point five seconds – and then just boring. But, in spite of the endless repetition, Barnaby couldn’t risk pressing the fast forward.

  “Poor bloke,” murmured Troy. But he still laughed at Ava’s blithe insult to her interviewer’s face. She couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to talk to him.

  Barnaby was equally unsympathetic. To his mind any man who allowed himself to be called Corey Panting deserved all he got.

  Now she had got on to her special powers, describing how she talked to the dead at the Church of the Near at Hand. Barnaby sat up straight. Troy’s attention became more serious.

  “…we must remember that so far only half the story has been told.”

  “And we shall hear the rest next Sunday?”

  “That is absolutely correct.”

  Troy had another chortle, this time at Panting’s “sleight of hand” joke and switched the machine off.

  But Barnaby did not laugh. He was thinking what a gift Ava would be to a conman. Insecure, yearning to be noticed, lying her boastful heart out even to herself. One crumb of flattery and she’d dance to any stranger’s tune, let alone one emanating from the magic portals of Broadcasting House.

  “She sounded so definite,” said Troy.

  “Hucksters have to be,” replied Barnaby. “Salesmen, politicians, actors – they don’t get far without the appearance of cast-iron confidence.”

  “You don’t reckon there’s anything in this spirit stuff, then?”

  “Don’t you start,” said Barnaby. “Any luck with the checks on ‘Chris’?”

  “Some response from the BBC. Radio One has got a Chris but he’s Chris Moyles, who is famous so it’s not him. And they wouldn’t be interested in talking to Ava anyway ’cause it’s not their sort of thing. Radio Two does do docs—”

  “Does do docs?”

  “Documentaries, Chief. Features. But they’re nearly always related to music or show-biz personalities. They’ve got three Christophers on the staff, though. One’s on holiday, one’s part of a graduate intake, been there a month, one’s a sound engineer. I’ve rung their extensions and left a message. Drew a complete blank at Three. They do very few features. All high-brow stuff. Commissioned. Planned well in advance. Nothing in the pipeline relevant to our investigation. No producers called Chris.”

  Barnaby put his head in his hands.

  “Chief?”

  “Go on, go on.”

  “Radio Four should be our best bet. However, quite a few of their programmes are now made by independents. No one knew offhand if one on spiritualism had been commissioned but they’re checking up. There’s a guy called Christopher Laurence in Current Affairs. I’ve spoken to him and he’s not our man.”

  “No, he wouldn’t be.”

  “I also contacted BBC London Live, and World Service at Bush House—”

  “
You’ve been very thorough, Sergeant. Thank you.”

  “Right.” Troy waited, ill at ease. “Think we’re wasting our time on all this, Chief?”

  “Yes, I do. But it’s time that has to be wasted. I can’t go upstairs until we’ve checked every single thing that’s checkable.”

  At the words “go upstairs” Troy struck a ridiculously exaggerated attitude of frozen horror and drew a thumbnail across his throat. The chief super was as mad as a hatter. No one entered his office without a wreath of garlic and two sticks crudely assembled in the shape of a cross. Or the twenty-first-century equivalent.

  “But he did meet her at Broadcasting House, sir.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. Try and get hold of Roy for me, would you?”

  “Roy French for king,” laughed Troy, flipping through his notebook for the number and punching it in. “Hello, there. Sergeant Troy, Causton CID…Yes, it is me again.”

  “Ask him if she went out with a mobile.”

  Troy asked, then listened. “She did, sir. And what’s more they got the impression it was Chris’s suggestion. She certainly gave him the number.”

  Barnaby stretched out his hand for the telephone. “Roy, I was wondering if there was another photograph of Ava?…I see…No one’s saying it’s your fault…In that case we may have to call on you for a more accurate description. We need to know how she looked when she went to meet this man…No – I’m afraid money won’t be changing hands on this one…Also, would you mind having a look for her mobile?…Thank you. We’ll be in touch.”

  “He’s a lad.” Sergeant Troy laughed again. “What’re you after, Guv? An E-fit?”

  “That’s right.”

  “D’you think it’ll come to that?”

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

  18

  So, how’s it all going at the office, darling?”

  Nobody ever said “darling” quite like Gilda. A mixture of indulgence, weariness and contempt. And the word was never spontaneous. Never tossed carelessly into the conversation but placed with great sharpness and delicacy, like a banderilla, in the recipient’s shrinking hide.

  “The office, darling?” replied Andrew, knowing how much she hated hearing her words repeated. Parroting, she called it. Not wishing to answer the question or even think about it, he simply sat, his face fixed in a polite smirk.