Ghosts Know

by Ramsey Campbell

  “I know perfectly well what it means, Graham, and that’s not the point. If he was that much out of control at his own girlfriend’s funeral I wouldn’t like to think how he might behave when there aren’t so many people around.”

  The policewoman looks as if she’s suppressing a frown, an impression I’ve had ever since we met her out here at Reception. She’s keen-eyed and efficient but slightly built, which may suggest how trivial the police consider my call to have been. I wouldn’t have called if Christine hadn’t insisted. “He behaves just the same,” I tell the policewoman. “I can handle him.”

  ‘You’ve had other dealings with him.”

  “He was with Kylie Goodchild’s parents and their psychic when Graham had them on his show, and he made a scene then.” Christine gives me a doubtful look as she says “Go on, Graham.”

  “He showed up the other day, before I found his girlfriend.” Too late I realise that I didn’t tell Christine. “He said he’d put me in the hospital,” I hear my voice admitting, “but that’s just one of those things people say.”

  “To you,” the policewoman says, “do you mean?”

  “To anyone. Haven’t they ever to you and your colleagues?” She raises her eyebrows a fraction, which might be an acknowledgment or a hint that she’s offended. “Did you give him any reason?”

  “He seemed to have got it into his head that I was hiding some kind of secret about his girlfriend. I wouldn’t have expected him to have that much imagination.”

  As Christine keeps an observation to herself the policewoman says “Whereabouts did all this take place?”

  ‘Just by the canal. He seemed to be at home down there.”

  “Do you want to put in a complaint?”

  When Christine shows signs of answering I head it off. “I honestly don’t think it’s called for. Maybe you could keep an eye on him.”

  “We may want to speak to him.”

  “I expect you’ll have done that before.” When she betrays no response I try saying “Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard his last name or where he comes from.”

  This brings me no information either, and she’s turning to the lifts when Christine says “Was Kylie Goodchild murdered?”

  “Who gave you that idea?” After more of a pause than I can see the point of, the policewoman says “Her boyfriend?”

  “Not him this time,” I tell her. “Frank Jasper, the character who’d like us all to think he’s psychic.”

  “How would he know?”

  I’m not sure which of us Christine is asking. It’s the policewoman who says “From the girl’s parents?”

  “So it’s true, then.”

  The policewoman’s face stiffens, growing so blank that I’m afraid she feels worse than tricked. She doesn’t speak until she’s at the lifts, and then she says “Please keep whatever you think you know to yourselves till it’s official.”

  As a lift shuts away her gaze, which is so relentless that she might almost be trying to leave some trace of it behind, I make for the newsroom. Give ‘Em Rhythm, the Sunday independent music show, is playing a track by Babies With Rabies, but I barely hear it—I’m impatient to return to my search. Last night I jerked awake so violently, having realised what I overlooked at the funeral, that Christine moaned in her sleep as if someone had dealt her a blow. How could Wayne have known what Jasper said about my childhood? He must have heard it on Wilde Card. He isn’t the type to keep his thoughts to himself, and if I can identify which calls he made I’m convinced I’ll learn something that I need to know. I hurry into the studio and restart the playback.

  Too many of the callers hold views sufficiently brutish for Wayne, but they sound a good deal older. Quite a few of the voices resemble his, but they’re too intelligent or at least more articulate. The voice I’ve heard far too often during all these hours at the console is my own, however swiftly I skip past it to the next caller. I’ve sampled every call for several months—I’m just a few days short of the end of last week—and they’ve left me feeling trapped in an interminable poindess argument, as if all my displaced voice can do is quarrel. The thought fills me with a dull frustrated rage, and the prospect of a future spent in squabbling on the air makes it worse. Perhaps I can suggest an interview show to the Frugo people next week, and there’s still my novel if I can recapture the inspiration I had the night Kylie Goodchild turned up. I haven’t played back the most recent of my broadcasts when I find an excuse to leave the console. Waves is broadcasting a track by Voodoo Dumplings now. I gulp a cup of water from the cooler and am filling one for Christine when somebody knocks on the door of the newsroom.

  It’s a security guard, and he’s pointing at me. “I’ll get it, Trevor,” I call as Lofthouse makes to leave his desk. “What can I do for you, Vince?”

  Though the guard’s broad mottied face looks conspiratorial, not least because his small eyes appear to be using his thick eyebrows for cover, he doesn’t bother to drop his voice. “Have you got rid of her?”

  “I didn’t know he wanted to,” Christine protests, having left the control room.

  “Not you, love. I’m asking has the law gone.”

  “I don’t see her, do you?” This sounds unnecessarily like hoping the policewoman is out of the way, and I add rather more forcefully “Why?”

  Vince’s eyes shift as if he might be searching for somewhere more private, but he blocks the doorway instead. “Just so’s you know I didn’t see anything worth telling the other night,” he says, “in case you was wondering.”

  I’m by no means sure I want to ask “What night? What did you think you saw?”

  “Before they found the girl. Well, you did.” With another sideways flicker of his eyes Vince says “You was down by the canal and looked like you was giving somebody a thump.”

  “It couldn’t have been me. I only fight with words.”

  “I didn’t say a fight. More like just a punch that’d have knocked even me in the water.”

  “You can’t be saying that was me.”

  “I’d have to if they asked. That’s why I’m telling you I never saw you hit anybody that I saw.”

  “I still don’t know what you’re—” I interrupt myself with some kind of laugh. “Wait there,” I say with an attempt at mirth. “Was this it?”

  Christine cries out and stumbles backwards, almost colliding with a desk. I hadn’t realised she’d ventured so close, and the fist I throw out with all my strength only just misses her head. “Careful,” I say to at least one of us. “Was it like that, Vince?”

  “Pretty like, except she wasn’t there.”

  “Nobody was apart from me. I’d just had an idea for a novel I’m writing and I was excited, that’s all. Didn’t you hear me shouting yes?”

  “I thought you sounded like you was shouting at someone.”

  “Just me, and I wasn’t angry either. You don’t need to keep any of this quiet. Tell anyone you have to tell.”

  His expression is on the way to changing as he makes for the lifts. I’m heading for the studio when Lofthouse says “I didn’t realise you were into telling stories, Graham.”

  I take time to draw quite a breath. “Which story do you think you heard?”

  “I can’t say, can I? We’ll have to wait for you to go public.”

  My eyes begin to sting as I stare at him. “What are you trying to get at, Trevor?”

  “Your secret self.” When I give no sign of understanding he says “Didn’t you say you were writing a novel?”

  My mistake or whatever it was enrages me further, which makes me blurt “Did you listen to me talking to the police as well?”

  “I didn’t have to listen very hard. You weren’t what I’d call discreet.”

  “You did get a bit noisy, Graham.”

  I’m furious enough without Christine’s contribution. “Maybe you heard a story you can use, Trevor. The girl they sent as good as admitted they’re looking for a killer. There’s an exclusive for
you.”

  “That isn’t how we work here, Graham. We couldn’t be as sure of it as you seem to be.”

  I’m uncertain what he’s rebuking me about, which only aggravates my rage. A Shakespearian rap by 2 2 Solid Flesh starts up as I tramp after Christine into the control room, where the door shuts with a thud like a gloved punch. I’ve nothing to say to her just now—I don’t want to discuss searching the playbacks, though I can see she’s more doubtful than ever. I shut us in the studio and clamp the headphones to my skull before she can speak.

  Wayne isn’t there. I am—I’ve listened to hundreds of fragments of my estranged voice by the time the latest Wilde Card comes to an end—but I can’t hear him among the callers, however aggressive some of them are. When I remove the headphones I feel as if a dull weight has been left on my cranium and inside it too. “I don’t get it,” I mutter.

  “I’m not sure I do either.” Christine lays down her headphones and swivels her chair to face me. “What exactly were you looking for?”

  “I told you. Kylie’s boyfriend, if he even deserves to be called that with his attitude to women. As long as he thinks he knows so much about me it’ll do no harm to find out about him.”

  “I still don’t understand why you were so sure he’d be there. I did say I thought he’d never rung up.” She seems to want to head off any argument by adding “You still haven’t told me why you think he listens to you.”

  “He knew what Frankie said about my father, and I can’t imagine anyone less likely to go and see him at the theatre.”

  “Perhaps he wouldn’t do that, but couldn’t Frank Jasper have told him afterwards?”

  I feel as if the burden inside my skull has grown more solid. Have I really wasted all these hours? What should I have been doing instead to lessen my frustrated rage? Shoving my chair away from the console doesn’t help. “Let’s go home,” I say in case something in my apartment or hers may improve my state—but as I follow her into the newsroom, where Trevor is sitting all by himself like a guard or a watchman, I almost turn back. For an instant I’m convinced that I’ve been conducting the wrong search, that I need to identify some other feature of the playbacks. The idea vanishes before I can grasp it, and I trudge after Christine past the stack of copies of my face.

  23: A Chattering Show

  It’s We’re All Coloured Day, and I’m ready for all comers. I just wish the Frugo people were here now instead of tomorrow. If Paula wants controversy she can have some of the honest kind. I hope Bob from Blackley puts in an appearance; it’s time we heard from him again. As I don my headphones Sammy Baxter reports that the police are treating Kylie Goodchild’s death as suspicious and asking anyone who may have seen her on the night of the twelfth of May to contact them. The news ends by predicting the kind of heat people used to go abroad to find, and I remember hearing from a listener who insisted our climate had changed since if not because the country had joined Europe. I thought of suggesting that the weight of all the immigrants had tilted the world on its axis, and now I wish I had. For the moment it’s my job to announce Jessie from Gorton, who declares that there’s no such thing as a white person and then makes albinos an exception. I suggest they mightn’t want to be singled out, and she agrees with this along with too much else to let me argue. No doubt we’re irritating some of the audience, and perhaps Steve from Collyhurst is provoked. “You’re on the same subject, are you, Steve?”

  “What she was talking about before, I said.”

  “It’s your choice of topic. What would you like to say?”

  “They ought to talk to the feller that ran off.”

  “Who should?”

  “Want us to think you don’t know? The police.”

  “Are we talking about some kind of racist attack?”

  “Why’s it going to be one of those?” Steve emits a noise somewhere between a snigger and a spit, which seems to thicken his Lancashire accent. “I’m not on about today. I’m on about Kylie.”

  I pause until Christine frowns at me. I’m working out that Steve meant Sammy Baxter rather than Jessie from Gorton, that’s all. “Who are you saying ran away?” I ask him.

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Would I ask if I did, Steve?”

  “You’d do that all right, but you can’t pretend this time.”

  I feel as if the headphones have gained weight and grown clammy on my skull. “Who is this?”

  “It’s who you said. I don’t mess with my name or where I’m from.”

  That applies to Jasper, not to me, and I almost waste time saying so. Instead I urge Steve “Try and make yourself clear.”

  “Everybody saw you run off at Kylie’s funeral.”

  I lower my gaze to my fists on the console to avoid seeing Christine’s worried face. “You were there, were you?”

  “Everyone that cared about her was.” With another version of his sound, this one more unambiguously a spit, Steve adds “And you.”

  “Forgive me, why would I have gone if I didn’t care?”

  “You cared all right. Cared what somebody might say about you.”

  “That’s absolutely not the case. If you’re talking about Frankie from Hulme—”

  “I’m talking about Frank Jasper that’s helping Kylie’s family and the police. Why’d you run away from him?”

  “You’ve an odd idea of running I stayed and had it out with your friend Wayne. Something tells me he’s your friend.”

  “Graham,” Christine says in my ear.

  I almost wrench the headphones off, I’m so enraged by her interrupting my Jasperish trick. “I’m handling this,” I cut off the call long enough to tell her. “Sorry, Steve, what did you just say?”

  “‘I said why’d you think Frank Jasper was talking about you?”

  “Do you really want to know?” The moment I give him to respond only lets my rage gather. “I think he was trying to get his own back because I told everyone who he used to be.”

  “Graham…”

  I shake my head fiercely at Christine as Steve says “He put that on his web site.”

  “Only after I’d given him away. It’s a trick like everything about him.”

  “You’re only saying that since he told us all about you at the funeral.”

  “He didn’t tell anyone about me if you noticed. He’s too sly for that. He knows if he’d named me he’d have been the one in court when there wasn’t any proof.”

  “Who says there’s not?”

  “Since you ask, the police. They’ve spoken to me and I’ve no reason to suppose they aren’t happy, satisfied, I mean.” While I can’t judge whether this placates Steve, it silences him. “I know you must be concerned about Kylie,” I tell him, “but you’re going to have to look elsewhere for whoever was responsible.”

  He has no reply to this either, and so I thank him for his call. “Now I think Eunice from Miles Platting wants to return to the subject of the day.”

  “Why was he saying you ran away from a funeral, sweetheart?”

  “I didn’t.” My rage was fading, but now it’s back. “Somebody who calls himself Frank Jasper and plays a psychic on the stage—”

  “We all know who he is, pet. You had him as a guest.”

  “Well then, him. They let him speak at the funeral and he gave some people the impression I know more about Kylie Goodchild than I do.”

  “What are you supposed to know, honey?”

  “I don’t.” Her syrupy epithets feel like toothache, but I need to be clear. “Not a thing,” I say. “That’s the truth, believe me. You didn’t actually call about that, did you?”

  “They’re trying to tell us we’re all coloured, dear.”

  “That’s because we are.”

  “Only some are more coloured than others, darling. That’s all I want to say,” she declares and rings off.

  I’d opened my mouth for an argument, and it feels idiotic until I clap it shut. I’m less frustrated by the time I finish disagreeing
with Wanda from Ancoats, who insists we soon won’t be allowed to listen to “Good Golly Miss Molly” or call anyone a boy or say snigger or spick and span or Day-Glo. I end up suggesting we’ll be forbidden to say a horse has been spayed or refer to a packing case, and as for the astronomer who dared to mention a black dwarf… I feel as if I’m understudying Benny at the bar, though I hope to sound even sillier. I’m ready for another confrontation as I say “George from Micklehurst, you’re going to tell us something else we won’t be able to say.”

  “They can’t call them convicts now, can they? They’ve got to call them custodial service users.” Before I can argue he says “Anyway, I didn’t ring up about that. Strikes me you could be like your friend who put on the show at the funeral.”

  “He’s anything but a friend, believe me.” I feel as if the headphones are forcing my head down towards my clenched fists. “What are you saying we have in common?”

  “It’s like you said, maybe you’re as psychic as he is.”

  I said that in another context, and that’s as much as I recall. “How would that be?”

  “Something must have led you to that poor girl.”

  “Trust me, nothing did. I just happened to be there.”

  “We’ll have to make up our own minds about that.”

  “That’s how I like it,” I say and do my best to mean, but I’m happy to end the call. “Levi from Newton Heath, you want to talk about differences, do you?”

  “You don’t want anybody talking about Kylie Goodchild.”

  I can’t tell whether this is meant as a question or a complaint, and so I say “The phone-in isn’t meant to be about me.”

  “We’re let then, are we?”

  “I thought I’d made that clear. Are you a friend of hers?”

  “Was.”

  “Of course, forgive me. I wasn’t meaning to sound like Frankie Jasper.” With an unspoken vow not to mention Patterson again I say “I didn’t see you at the funeral.”

  “You’d know me, would you?”

  “Sounds as if I should. I’m guessing Eunice who called before would say you’re more coloured than some.”