The Smile of a Ghost mw-7

by Phil Rickman

  It usually carried a few paragraphs on newcomers to the village, and Jane had left a piece on Lol in the file, which Merrily got around to just before noon.

  We are delighted to welcome to the select end of Church Street Mr Robinson, who many of you will no doubt remember as the young, good-looking and talented one in the almost-famous 1980s folk-rock band, Hazey Jane. Mr Robinson, who spends some of his spare time with the vicar, has recently relaunched his musical career after a difficult period in his life, but wants it to be known — although far too shy to say so himself — that he will not be available for the Ledwardine Summer Festival or any other piece of crap planned by his fellow incomers to ‘put the village on the map’.

  Also in the file was a copy of a letter from an outfit calling itself Parish Pump which had apparently gone to every community in the diocese.

  Do YOU want to make your parish magazine into a genuine going-concern — a professional publication that every parishioner will want to buy? If so, we can help you. We can show you how to turn your parish notes into something lively, gossipy and compulsively readable. We can even DO THE WHOLE THING FOR YOU! And if you aren’t satisfied with the increase in income, we’ll refund your fees. Parish Pump guarantees to pump up your income. Contact us NOW.

  You had to hand it to them for enterprise, but the idea of turning the Ledwardine Community News into something resembling Hello! magazine somehow didn’t appeal. Still, she put it back in the file; perhaps she’d show it to the parish council. Jane’s contribution, however… she cremated that slowly over the ashtray, with the Zippo. Because the magazine was usually laid out and printed in a hurry, you could never be too careful; it just might get in.

  The phone rang. She burned her thumb reaching for it.

  ‘This woman,’ Mumford said. ‘Sorry — you got time?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Ludlow. On the mobile, in a lay-by. Edge of the town centre, below the castle. Looking at a pair of locked gates. Mrs Pepper’s house, what you can see of it behind all the trees.’

  ‘I can imagine she wouldn’t want to be too public,’ Merrily said. ‘Some of her old fans could well be slightly disturbed people.’

  ‘That’s what the feller does the ghost-walk said.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Ludlow Ghost-tours.’

  ‘Ah. Right.’

  ‘Don’t stop her roaming the street in the early hours, mind. Sometimes on her own, sometimes with her followers. From out of town, mostly. Weird clothes. Like Dracula.’

  ‘I saw them, Andy, down by the river.’

  ‘Been street fights between local boys and these creeps, did you know that?’ Mumford said. ‘A stabbing one time.’

  ‘In Ludlow?’

  ‘Like anywhere else at closing time. Local yobs don’t work for the tourist office.’

  ‘This is what the ghost-walk guy said?’

  ‘Eventually. Took some time to get anything from anybody. Most folk won’t hear a word against her. I asked around in shops… cafés… the tourist information office. Helpful at first, then they clammed up. Without exception. Either they din’t know or they said it was rubbish, telling you to take no notice of any malicious gossip you gets told, it’s all lies. Woman lives quietly, does nobody any harm. Bit eccentric, that’s her business. What d’you make of that?’

  ‘That it’s a nice town, where people don’t like malicious gossip?’

  ‘Shops, Mrs Watkins, businesses. Good customer, mabbe? Rich woman, big spender?’

  ‘Or maybe they thought you were a reporter.’

  ‘No,’ Mumford said, ‘they didn’t think that. So, finally, I’m in this café, and an elderly woman having a cup of tea overhears me talkin’ to the proprietor, leaves the money on the table, follows me out.’

  Mumford paused; Merrily heard faint voices in the background, passers-by. When it was quiet again, he came back, his voice tight to the phone.

  ‘Whispers to me, do I mean the woman who walks the back streets, the alleys, very late at night, early morning?’

  ‘Ah.’

  Mumford said the elderly woman lived in one of the discreet courtyard retirement flats between the church and the top car park — new housing cleverly built into the oldest part of town, ancient stone walls merging with new brick, almost the colour of the old. Desirable dwellings, if you didn’t mind a few curious tourists, the occasional drunk.

  And the night walker.

  ‘Walking the back streets dressed all in white, sometimes carrying a candle in a lantern.’

  ‘That’s your woman.’

  ‘So I went back to see the ghost-walk boy. Taking what you might call a slightly firmer line with him.’

  ‘I hope that’s not understatement, Andy.’

  ‘Only language they understand, his sort. Anyway, he opens up eventually. Telling me how this woman hired him to take her on his walk. This was not long after she moved in. Just him and her. Nearly three hours, questions all the way. Ghosts: when was this one seen? Is it still seen? Have you seen it? I reckon he wasn’t too upset, in the end, at being kept out most of the night, mind.’

  ‘He was well remunerated?’

  ‘One way or another, I reckon.’

  ‘Unfair. People change. Presumably you asked the ghost-walk guy about Mrs Pepper and Robbie?’

  ‘Nat’rally. Well, first thing — he knew Robbie. All right, no surprise there, they all knew Robbie, all the shopkeepers, the coppers. But the ghost-walk feller, they had an arrangement. He’d come along on the walks, tell folks about the history of the various buildings. Very useful for the ghost-walk feller. People liked him, see — Robbie.’

  ‘The History Boy.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Would that be how he met Mrs Pepper?’

  ‘I’d say. Anyway, figured I’d go over to her place down lower Linney, ring the bell, ask her straight out. Come up against a pair of locked gates. No bell, no speakerphone. Just an expensive mailbox. So I climbs over.’

  ‘That wise?’

  Mumford snorted. ‘Walks up the drive, fully visible from the house. Farmhouse, looked like — pretty old. Bangs on the front door. Nothing. But, see… she was in there. Thirty years a copper, you just know when they’re in. And she was… She was in.’

  ‘You tried phoning?’

  ‘Ex-directory. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, few weeks ago.’

  ‘No… maybe not.’

  Merrily could sense his frustration. He was panting a bit now. She had the impression that years of bitterness were being funnelled into this, like petrol into a generator.

  ‘Folks finding candle stubs on walls, tree stumps, where she’s been. Been going on for months. And me — even I seen it. Hovering round Mam’s house with her bloody candle. Why didn’t I go after her?’

  ‘Because you had no reason to. Because whenever there’s a public kind of death, a big funeral, there’s always someone like that around — leaving flowers, burning candles. I see it all the time. And she was crying, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Was she crying at the river?’

  Merrily paused. ‘No.’

  ‘I en’t gonner make a mistake like that again,’ Mumford said grimly.

  * * *

  Merrily shoved the parish-magazine file into a drawer, lit a cigarette. This could get out of hand. With the death of his mother — an unnecessary death, a second public death — Mumford wasn’t going to stop.

  When the phone went again, she thought it was going to be him ringing back, having cooled down, but it was Bliss. He sounded relaxed or maybe that was just in comparison with Mumford.

  ‘You remember Karen? Merrily?’

  ‘Huh? Sorry…’

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry. Karen…?’

  ‘Big farm girl? WPC. Acting DC now. With Mumford gone, I campaigned very strongly to get Karen on the team. Another real local country person, somebody who can work a baler and drain a slurry pit — can’t get along with thes
e poncy law graduates. Now then, earlier today Karen brings in a personal computer. Lifting it around like it’s a toaster, what a woman.’

  ‘Good to hear you have a new bag-carrier worthy of the term.’

  ‘The computer’s original owner: Jemmie Pegler. Jemima.’

  ‘I thought you said it wasn’t your case.’

  ‘Yeah, well… you ringing up like that, out the blue, got me thinking. I always hate it when me mates are talking over me head. And Karen, despite having pigshit on her boots, is also our resident computer expert — bit of a natural, so they sent her on a course for stripping down hard disks, all that — so Shrewsbury asked if she could do the necessary with Jemmie’s gear. And I thought I’d have a peep.’

  ‘Nice to have you back, Frannie.’

  ‘Yeah, that really hurt me feelings. Still the last maverick cop under forty, and proud of it.’

  ‘So what did you find on the computer?’

  ‘Upsetting.’ Bliss didn’t sound upset. ‘Hard disk is full of links, for instance, to these horribly scary teenage-suicide chat-lines. Would you like to see?’

  ‘Shall I come now?’

  ‘Leave it till late afternoon, when the DCI has a meeting at headquarters with some tosser from the Home Office. And no dog collar, eh? I’d really hate it to get back that I still talk to dangerous cranks.’

  16

  Kindred Spirit

  That evening it rained again. Hard, brutal, nail-gun rain, like in winter.

  For the first time in about a week, Merrily had built a fire of logs and coal in the vicarage sitting room. She sat watching Jane cuddling Ethel on the hearthrug. There was a lot to be chilled about tonight, but it was cosy enough in here, if you averted your eyes from the damp spreading under the window.

  ‘What is this?’ Jane said. ‘Suddenly, everybody wants to talk about suicide.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Merrily said. ‘We don’t have to. Put the CD back on.’

  ‘Not the Belladonna album again.’ Jane put the cat down and made as if to get up, staging a startled glance at the door. ‘Anything but that… in fact, let’s talk about suicide. What do you want to know?’

  Jane being self-consciously frivolous, but she really hadn’t liked the CD — Nightshades — that Merrily had found in Woolworths. If you ever do come across that woman in Ludlow, just don’t invite her here.

  ‘Teenage suicide,’ Jane said sweetly.

  ‘All I said, flower, was that it seems to have—’ Merrily shook herself. ‘Sorry, did I call you “flower” again? It’s no good, doesn’t seem right saying “Jane” all the time.’

  ‘Not my fault you wanted a kid called something basic just because you’d been landed with a silly name.’ Jane slumped back down. ‘Just call me whatever makes you happy. And yes, I do know people my age who’ve been into suicide chat-rooms.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, is it suddenly seen as cool or something?’

  ‘Is it cool to die?’

  ‘OK,’ Merrily said. ‘Jemima Pegler was habitually sullen and uncooperative and didn’t talk to her parents.’

  ‘Hmm. That does sound like a particularly curious case—’

  ‘Jane.’

  ‘OK, sorry…’ Jane leaned back, hands clasped behind her head. ‘It’s like one of the uncles said on the news — how were they to know she was seriously depressed when she wouldn’t talk to them?’

  ‘You don’t sound too sorry for her.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Jane said. ‘I’m supposed to feel sorry for her? Look, suicide chat-rooms, it’s like it’s the final taboo. The great unknown. The ultimate experience. Because nobody you know — all the cool guys who’ve been there, done that, washed the T-shirt again — it’s the one thing, the one place — death — that they haven’t… do you know what I’m getting at?’

  ‘Possibly,’ Merrily said. ‘In fact… yes.’

  Jemmie Pegler had been fifteen years old. Reading her e-mails, you had to keep reminding yourself of that.

  Merrily had left the Volvo in the Gaol Street car park, to find Frannie Bliss waiting for her in the street with an executive briefcase. Annie Howe, the DCI, had been delayed, was still in the building. Bliss had rushed Merrily off to a café in a mews at the opposite side of the car park. On a discreet corner table, he’d laid out a sheaf of printout material from the dead girl’s computer.

  But first he wanted to talk about Mumford.

  ‘Merrily, why the… why didn’t you tell me?’

  He’d had his red hair cut tight to the skull, maybe because it had been receding or maybe because he thought it made him look more dangerous. Which it did.

  ‘I did tell you—’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You totally did not tell me, Merrily.’

  ‘I don’t understand…’

  ‘Mumford’s been in Ludlow today, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Talking to people all over the town about Robbie Walsh and this woman?’

  ‘Did I mention—’

  ‘And the reason I know about this is that the DCI told me. And the reason the DCI knows is that she was telephoned by her opposite number in Shrewsbury, a shiny-arsed admin twat called Shaun Eastlake, who was clearly chuffed as a butty at being able to tell her about a… a member of the public stamping around his patch interrogating other members of the public, having identified himself as Detective Sergeant Mumford?’

  ‘Oh God,’ Merrily said.

  ‘Now, I think you can probably imagine how the Ice Maiden is reacting to this.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Danger signals in Merrily’s head blinking amber and red. Before Bliss had been promoted to Inspector and Annie Howe to DCI, Mumford had been her bag-carrier and local-knowledge man — history which, in the present circumstances, would matter not a damn.

  ‘Frannie, look, I didn’t know. Should have realized, of course… should have realized, if only from personal experience, how hard it is to get information out of people if you haven’t got the weight—’

  ‘Merrily!’ Bliss’s fist came down on the table, a woman behind the counter glancing anxiously across. ‘It’s an offence. Impersonating a police officer? And if you’ve been a police officer, does that make it better? No, it makes it wairse.’ The Mersey in his accent bursting its banks. ‘Is it conceivable the fat bastard’s forgotten that?’

  ‘Frannie—’

  ‘You think I’m kidding? This is Annie Howe we’re talking about, not a human being, and her face is as close as it gets to being pink with embarrassment.’

  Merrily sat back. ‘One of the people he talked to told the police?’

  ‘No, they told George Lackland.’

  ‘The Mayor, right?

  ‘And county councillor? And vice-chairman of the West Mercia Police Committee?’

  ‘Oh God, really? But, apart from the element of deception, why would he — or any of the people Mumford talked to — not want the truth to come out about Robbie Walsh and a woman who—?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe she’s well connected. Let’s just say that Ludlow’s one little town where Mumford would be well advised to walk like the streets are tiled with antique porcelain. Bearing in mind that when it comes to bailing-out time, Steve Britton will no longer be his friend. Best to assume he doesn’t have any friends any more, in or out of uniform, at Ludlow nick.’

  ‘Policemen don’t just drop their mates.’

  ‘Times change, Merrily. We didn’t used to have divisional chiefs like Howe. So you tell Mumford: any officer spotted discussing the weather with him, it’s a red-card situation. Do you think you could convey that to him?’

  Merrily nodded. There was nothing to be said. Mumford was so far out of line he probably couldn’t even discern a line any more.

  ‘Good,’ Bliss said. ‘Now let’s talk about poor Jemmie Pegler.’

  it was realizing i just did it to keep him quiet and so he’d keep paying for the drinks. what’s that say. im anbodys after a fe
w drinks and they just laugh at the desperate worthless fat bitch and when your worthless thats the bottom. your never gonna come back from that are you

  Merrily winced. ‘Who’s this one to, Frannie?’

  ‘Girlfriend. Found it on the end of a reply from the other girl. Karen went to talk to the other girl. She seemed genuinely shattered. Said Jemmie Pegler’s e-mails always went over the top — wanted her mates to think she was a woman of the world who’d had so many men she was bored with sex. Girl thought it was all bullshit.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem like that to me.’

  ‘In which case…’ Bliss put a stiff-backed photo envelope in front of Merrily with another e-mail on top of it. ‘The girl said she thought this was bullshit, too.’

  they’ve gone out again so i looked in the bathroom cabinet just now and im thinking what would happen if i emptied every packet and every bottle in there and swallowed the lot. well just be sick as a dog most likely. how sad is that, sam. im not going out sad. im not. when i go theyll fucking know ive gone.

  Merrily read it a second time, then opened the envelope.

  It was a flash photo, in colour: a party pic of a fleshy girl, laughing. Short black hair gelled into gold-tipped spikes. A nose-stud with an implausible royal-blue gemstone. She was gripping a bottle by its silvery neck.

  ‘When did the computer come in, Frannie?’

  ‘Soon after we got a firm ID. Last night.’

  ‘And would Karen have been working on it last night?’

  ‘She was certainly on last night, and it’s much nicer tucked up in an office with a computer and mug of tea than going out on the cold streets, so probably. Why?’

  Merrily went back to the e-mail. ‘This line about not going out sad. Seems to echo what someone apparently said on the radio this morning — that this kind of public suicide was a way of saying, “Now you’re all going to know who I am.” ’

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘I’m probably being paranoid. Dr Saltash, interviewed by Radio Hereford and Worcester. Is he officially assisting the police?’

  ‘Possibly. He’s done it before. The Ice Maiden’s fond of psychological consultants, profilers, all these buggers who’re supposed to be doing our job for us.’