The Unquiet Dead

by Gay Longworth

  ‘The explosion?’

  ‘Trapped gas, Burrows.’

  ‘The electricity cutting out?’

  ‘If you want it to be ghosts, then fine. Personally, I put it down to a leaky building and dodgy wiring. Everything can be explained your way, but equally, everything can be explained my way.’

  Check the date. He drowned. It was an accident. Listen to yourself. In fact the only thing she couldn’t explain was what went on in her own head.

  The three sat in silence watching the activity in the cafeteria as patients and their families clustered round their formica tables, sipping lukewarm tea, full of forced jollity and inane conversation, all the while avoiding any discussion of death.

  Burrows asked Jessie, ‘What were you doing down there anyway?’

  ‘We were going to look at his scrapbook.’

  ‘It’s as if someone wanted to stop you getting it.’

  Jessie reached down into her bag. ‘Well, they didn’t succeed.’

  She made room on their table for the worn journal and opened it at random. Placing her hand on a yellowed newspaper clipping, she turned to them.

  ‘Burrows, I want you to talk to the archives department at the council. They must have some sort of record of the disabled swimming groups that Don talked about. I want names, details of their disabilities and the dates they occurred. Niaz, see if your friend Asma can find out anything about Mrs Romano. Do that cross-pollinating thing, see if her disappearance raised any eyebrows.’

  ‘She’s not my friend,’ said Niaz very quietly.

  ‘Whatever. We have to find Mrs Romano. Begin a nationwide search.’

  She looked down at the photograph under her hand. Michael D. Firth, the proud lifeguard, was staring back at her from the midst of a group posing in the foyer of the baths. Danny, Rose, Tim … They’d raised money for a minibus. Everyone was smiling; the sense of pride radiated off the yellowing page.

  The door of the canteen opened and a physician approached their table. Jessie, Burrows and Niaz stood.

  ‘Which one is DI Driver?’

  Jessie stepped forward.

  ‘Congratulations. You saved a man’s life today. Not many people get to know what that feels like.’ Jessie wasn’t sure whether he was congratulating her or himself.

  ‘Why did he just die like that?’

  ‘He had a heart attack. You got it going again. Physically, he is a fit man, and that helped. I cannot venture what triggered the attack. His heart looks healthy. Did something happen to frighten him?’

  ‘There was an explosion, right in front us. He took the full impact.’

  ‘I thought that was what the nurse said, but I dismissed it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He has no burns. Not even a hair of his moustache was singed.’

  ‘But he was in front of me,’ said Jessie. ‘And look at me.’

  ‘You should see someone about that,’ said the doctor. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me –’ With that he turned and made his way out. But Jessie wasn’t satisfied. Moments later she chased him down the corridor.

  ‘No, hold on! We’ve been waiting for hours – is that all you can tell me? What about the medication he’s on?’

  ‘Well, he’s been on a lot of different drugs over the years.’

  ‘Might that have contributed?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. It this part of an investigation?’

  ‘He told me the pills didn’t work. He said he lied to his doctors.’

  ‘Schizophrenics always lie to their doctors. We expect it and up the dosage.’

  ‘What if he were telling the truth?’

  The doctor snorted. Enraged by his arrogance, she turned back towards the cafeteria, now more confused than ever.

  Dominic Rivers was standing by Niaz and Burrows.

  ‘I heard you were casing the joint,’ he said. ‘What have you done to yourself this time?’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Jessie sternly. Dominic looked at her arms.

  ‘Do you want me to check –?’

  Seeing the quizzical glances Niaz and Burrows were exchanging, she cut in: ‘Nope, I’m fine.’

  ‘Right. Can’t stop, but I thought you’d like to know: your dead geezer, he’d attempted suicide on two, possibly three occasions. None were successful, as we know.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Wrists. The rat scratches hid the scars. Might have been some serious self-harm, I suppose. Either way, I don’t think the man was particularly happy. Does that help?’

  They could add scars to the identification form. ‘Thanks, it might narrow it down.’ Though Jessie didn’t think so.

  ‘Would it help if I told you he used to be much larger?’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Niaz, adding scars and weight to his notes.

  ‘How much larger?’ asked Jessie.

  ‘Not easy to say, but significantly larger. Maybe as much as eighteen stone. He has stretch-marks, and the wear and tear on the weight-bearing joints doesn’t make sense in a man that slim, unless he was an athlete – which is highly unlikely, considering his limp.’

  ‘So, he used to be a big, unhappy man who lost a lot of weight and changed his appearance.’

  ‘Yes. Intentionally, would be my guess,’ said Dominic.

  ‘Why intentionally?’

  ‘When I examined the hair, I noticed that the roots were fairer. As I’m sure you know, hair continues to grow for some time after death. I’ve sent some off to the lab, but I’m pretty sure they will confirm what I suspect …’

  ‘He dyed his hair.’

  ‘That’s right. He was a natural blond.’

  Jessie, Burrows and Niaz turned to each other.

  ‘Malcolm Hoare,’ they said in unison. Once again the Tannoy crackled:

  ‘… Will Mr Malcolm Edwards report to neonatal immediately …’

  By the time the next shift came on it was dark outside. Jessie sat alongside Don’s bed in intensive care. He was still unconscious. The nurse tapped her on the shoulder and motioned for her to leave. She stood up and stretched. Her face and arms were sore, her clothes were crumpled, her eyes were itchy and the constant bleeping of the machines had given her a headache. She leant over Don’s bed and gently kissed him on the forehead.

  ‘He drowned,’ he mumbled. ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘Who drowned?’ she whispered. But he didn’t speak again and she felt foolish for asking. After a few minutes Jessie squeezed his hand and walked out. Don slept on.

  14

  Jessie woke early, immediately glanced at her mobile phone, saw that she had no new messages and walked stiffly to the kitchen. It was over. It should never have started again. She switched on the kettle, grabbed a couple of eggs out of the fridge and filled a saucepan of water. It was because she was so busy, she told herself, that P.J. kept a strange hold over her. She never got a chance to meet other men. There were plenty more out there, just as good-looking, fit, funny, rich … Jessie filled the cafetiere and watched the coffee granules eddy in the darkening water. Who was she trying to convince? There was only one P. J. Dean. Was it true, had she only taken him and his two stepsons up north because of who he was? Was Mark Ward right, was she just a star-fucker, no better than the busty blondes who soaked up a celebrity through their naked skin? P.J. could go back to his shiny life with all the other warped celebrities. Meanwhile, Jessie would shelve the episode under fantasy and stop imagining the happy ending that would never arrive.

  There was a noise behind her. Bill emerged from Maggie’s old room wearing boxer shorts and looking more dishevelled than usual.

  ‘Hey, Jess,’ he said quietly, closing the door behind him. ‘Another late night.’

  ‘For me or you?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Looks like it. Do you want some breakfast?’

  ‘Sure. I’ve got to take a pee. I’ll be through in a minute.’

  Jessie put in more eggs, toast, got the coffee cups out and laid breakfast on the tiny table in the k
itchen. This was more like it. Normal breakfast, with her brother, where nothing was served from under a silver dome. She was cutting the toast into soldiers when Bill came through, pulling an old sweatshirt over his head. He peered at her face.

  ‘It wasn’t particularly sunny yesterday, was it?’

  Jessie touched her cheek. ‘Got a little too close to a candle,’ she said.

  ‘Big candle,’ he replied.

  She broke the top of her egg. ‘There was a small explosion at the baths. I got in the way.’

  ‘Is that where you hurt yourself?’

  Jessie pulled at her shirtsleeve. She thought she’d been hiding the bandages well.

  ‘I saw the discarded ones in the bathroom bin. What happened?’

  Jessie hadn’t meant to tell her brother anything, but as soon as she started describing what had taken place in the boiler room, the memory overwhelmed her and she found herself telling him everything. Being trapped in the dark, the rats, the rising water, the sound of footsteps, the caretaker who heard voices, the explosion, the heart attack, the preserved body, the limp, the drowned boy, the dwarf nun, the exorcist, Burrows, Ward, Moore – everything except P. J. Dean.

  ‘If you want me to tell you it adds up to nothing,’ said her brother, ‘you’re asking the wrong person. There’s so much black magic and voodoo in Africa, you dismiss it at your peril.’

  ‘I didn’t say it adds up to anything,’ she said, falling back against the chair, exhausted. ‘It’s been a bit weird, that’s all. I shouldn’t have told you.’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

  Jessie picked out some cold egg white from the shell and put it in her mouth.

  ‘I don’t think it means anything,’ she said again. ‘But I obviously needed to get it off my chest.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure, Jessie.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts. You’re a surgeon!’

  ‘Not ghosts, necessarily, but something. Do I believe that we all go and sit on a fluffy white cloud and prune our wings? No. Do I believe in the force of energy that each human being has? Yes. And if you follow physics, then you’ll know that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it just changes its form. Potential to kinetic, kinetic back to potential, and all that jazz.’

  ‘Very scientific, bro. Amazing you’re allowed to cut people up.’

  ‘I’m going to tell you a story.’

  ‘If it’s a ghost story, I’m leaving.’

  ‘It isn’t. A young girl was given a heart transplant. After the operation she had such terrible dreams and her behaviour became so erratic that she was sent to a shrink. The shrink was so fascinated by what she was being told that she researched the provenance of the donated heart. It came from a child who had been murdered. The recipient had been having dreams about that murder. The shrink passed on the information and a man was arrested, tried and convicted. The Chinese believe that every muscle has its own memory – a theory backed up by sports therapists and psychiatry. Or maybe your Father Forrester is right. Justice was being sought by the victim’s soul, unable to rest, and the person she chose as her messenger happened to be the recipient of her donated heart.’

  Jessie stood up suddenly. She ran to the loo and, to her total surprise, was violently sick. Bill tried to follow her into the bathroom, but she kicked the door shut in his face. There was only one thing worse than being sick and that was being sick in front of someone. Finally her stomach stopped heaving, she brushed her teeth and doused her head under a cold stream of water. She scooped some gel on to her fingers and swept her hair back, then studied the face in the mirror. Of all the children, she was the one who looked most like their mother. Jessie had seen her the day she died; her grey skin was mottled with patches of red caused by all the toxins in her blood. Her liver had begun to fail a few days before death finally rescued her. Her dark eyes stared blankly back, her wide mouth was cracked and dry from dehydration, her dirty hair scraped off her face … Jessie pulled the mirrored cupboard door open and focused on the collection of medicines inside. She picked up a sachet of Diorylite and left the bathroom without closing the cupboard. The image of her dead mother’s face revisited her enough times, without wanting to see it in the bathroom mirror. Bill was waiting for her in the kitchen.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  She blew her nose. ‘Bad egg,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go to work.’

  ‘Hey, I didn’t mean to freak you out.’

  She turned back to him. ‘You didn’t.’ She emptied the remainder of her food into the bin. ‘I should have checked the dates.’

  There was a click as the kettle turned itself back on. Jessie ignored it.

  Bill lifted his plate. ‘Mine seems fine.’

  ‘There was a mixture,’ Jessie offered by way of explanation. ‘Being the loving sister that I am, I gave you the fresher ones. I won’t kiss you goodbye.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Jessie walked down the corridor, reached the door, and turned back to face Bill. She was about to say something, thought better of it, and left. A few minutes after she left the flat, the telephone rang. Bill picked it up.

  ‘Who was this girl then, and what was the name of the man who was put away?’ asked Jessie over the sound of the bike’s engine.

  ‘I don’t know the names. A doctor friend told me about the case – it happened in America.’

  ‘America,’ laughed Jessie. ‘Well, that explains it.’

  ‘He knew the man who performed the transplant. It’s a true story.’

  ‘What a load of bollocks. I’ll talk to you later.’

  Bill looked up at the sound of his bedroom door opening and put his finger to his lips.

  ‘Yeah, have a good day.’

  He replaced the receiver and went back to the bin.

  ‘I’ve heard of reading tea leaves,’ said Amanda Hornby. ‘But eggshells?’

  He spread them out over his hand. ‘You want to know what they say?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ve got to be somewhere and you’ll call me later?’ she ventured.

  ‘No.’ He stared at his hands. ‘I see coffee, toast, maybe some sausages …’

  Amanda looked at her watch. ‘Well, they’re wrong, I’ve got to go to the office and file a story. It won’t take more than a couple of hours – how about we pick up the eggs at lunch?’

  ‘I thought you said you had the day off?’

  ‘It’s just come up,’ she said hurriedly.

  ‘What’s the story?’ asked Bill.

  ‘Nothing very interesting,’ said the news reporter, ‘but the sooner I go, the sooner we can meet up. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Bill, letting the eggshells fall back in the bin. Amanda returned to the bedroom to dress while Bill opened the fridge. There were no old eggs in there either.

  The first sign that battle had begun was on the dartboard in the canteen. Usually it featured a Page Three model. But today the perforated face of P. J. Dean stared back at her. It hadn’t taken long for him to slip back into the realm of fantasy, the place he rightly belonged. A place that he should have never left. Thousands of little ink dots on a dirty page. Owned by the great unknown. A parallel universe to which the likes of her did not belong. ‘I knew him once,’ she imagined saying to her future children, and they would smile sympathetically at their deranged mother and laugh about it behind her back.

  ‘I knew him once,’ she whispered quietly to herself, turned and made her way to CID. She checked her e-mails; there was nothing. She quickly turned to her in-tray and mechanically went through the motions of her daily routine. Thankfully, Burrows soon walked through the door.

  ‘Morning, boss. Anna Maria did make a call from her room, just one, in the early hours of the third night of her stay. Unfortunately, we can’t trace it. It’s an over-the-counter pay-as-you-go mobile phone.’ He handed her a slip of paper with the number on it. Jessie looked at it. The Kleins and their theatrics seemed to have taken place in a different lifetime. Jessie screwed
up the piece of paper. Sarah Klein had called the press to the hotel, that was why she was so dolled up at such an early hour. It was her fault the cameras had been there that morning. Jessie knew from experience that it was a trick they all used. P.J. probably did it himself. He could have done it himself.

  Jessie must have shaken her head, for Burrows went on: ‘I agree. Total waste of police time. But I don’t think they’ll press charges. She’s too young.’

  She unravelled the crumpled piece of paper. ‘Unless this number belonged to Sarah Klein.’

  ‘We’ve got her mobile – it’s a different number.’

  ‘It would be, wouldn’t it.’

  Jessie put the number in her pocket. ‘Let’s get on with the more serious matter of Malcolm Hoare.’

  ‘Wasn’t it weird that, just when we said his name, it was announced over the Tannoy?’

  … Malcolm X, Malcolm in the Middle, Malcolm McLaren, Malcolm Edwards …

  … be prepared to listen to their messages.

  … listen to yourself.

  ‘It wasn’t his name, Burrows. Come on, let’s put it in the system and see what it comes up with.’

  Within a few moments Jessie’s password had been accepted and she was completing an application by RIC to Scotland Yard. She knew it would take a little while for the information to come through, so she took Burrows out for a quick bite to eat. Her empty stomach was growling. When they returned to the office, nothing had arrived. She picked up the phone and called through to the admin department. After holding a few minutes she was told that the details had been sent. Jessie checked the fax number. Her heart sank as she realised the information had been sent to Mark’s office by mistake. It was the office she was supposed to be in. Was that a sign to fight? Was everything a sign? Flustered, she quickly replaced the phone and went upstairs. Mark was not in his office. There was nothing on his fax machine either.

  ‘Shit,’ muttered Jessie. She peered over the machine, checked it for paper, but it was working fine. She was halfway towards the canteen when she saw DC Fry. He was holding a stack of paper.

  ‘Oh, DI Driver, I was looking for you. This just came –’