The Ghost of Helen Addison

by Charles E. McGarry

  Leo and Fordyce strode off towards the stairs, but a few paces on the former stopped abruptly.

  ‘Shithouses!’ he cursed.

  ‘What’s up, old stick?’

  Leo bounded towards the Sheraton sideboard where he exclaimed, ‘Blast and buggeration!’ before anxiously checking the floor and the surrounding area.

  ‘I say, whatever’s the matter?’ pleaded his perplexed friend. ‘What on God’s earth are you looking for?’

  ‘A poetry volume. My Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. I left it here earlier – now it’s gone!’

  ‘I expect the Mintos will have it in their possession.’

  ‘I certainly hope so – it belonged to my late father.’

  But upon enquiry it transpired that the Mintos did not, in fact, have the precious book, nor did any of the staff, nor did a thorough search of the stair and lobby area, and a thorough racking of Leo’s brains, produce it. Bill Minto promised they would keep their eyes peeled; Leo, meanwhile, was inclined to believe that Kemp had pinched the cherished item in order to spite him, but he wouldn’t give the big bully the satisfaction of a confrontation.

  They decided to dine in Fordyce’s heavily furnished rooms rather than Leo’s because the former consisted of an entire suite and was therefore more spacious. Fordyce looked rather foppish in his canary-silk neck scarf and Roselli smoking jacket. Bill Minto served dinner as the wind soughed outside and rattled the window frames.

  ‘I don’t know why you put up with him,’ Leo said to Minto. ‘Such a dreadful little man.’

  ‘Och, I’m afraid it was part of the deal for Ardchreggan House,’ replied Minto, as he poured juniper gravy over the haggis and clapshot. ‘He is entitled to dine here, at our pleasure, fifty-two times a year. Between ourselves, I’m beginning to wonder if we got such a bargain. He comes over regularly, generally causes a fuss, and I swear he deliberately orders the most expensive items on the menu.’

  ‘The hallmark of a true barbarian!’ opined Leo, before stuffing a copious quantity of sheep offal into his mouth and washing it down with a long draught of claret.

  20

  LEO slept reasonably soundly that night, and woke up early. He used the bathroom, noting that Benjamin Franklin had expanded a little (as was his wont during the early hours), then returned to bed for a further ninety minutes or so of sleep, this time fitful and filled with fragmented, unsettling dreams.

  When he awoke his mind had descended into a familiar guddle, whereby it took him an inordinate amount of time to process and synchronise any simple strand of information. And typically by the time he had processed it he had forgotten the original purpose of the computation. He was also disappointed that he had not encountered Helen again in order that he could probe her about certain key aspects of the case. A proposal Fordyce had made the previous evening for a bracing spot of trout fishing could be just the tonic he required. His friend had a spare rod he was welcome to borrow. Gingerly, Leo peeled the bandage from his head, wrapped it in newspaper, cast it into the little pedal bin in the bathroom, and prepared for the day.

  The storm had moved eastward to terrorise the Trossachs, then Fife, then the trawlermen and roughnecks of the North Sea, leaving a fair amount of debris in its wake. The air, which was fresh and cold, was still apart from the occasional gust, reminders of the previous night’s violence. The tepid late winter sun lit the sky an anaemic blue.

  Leo, feeling like a prize clype but wishing to remain faithful to the latest promise he had made to DI Lang, visited the incident room to relate the fragment of conversation between the Mintos he had overheard the previous evening. The policeman nodded slowly as he listened, wearing an inscrutable expression. He looked stressed and seemed drained of vitality, a washed-out man, a ghost. Leo couldn’t help but wonder which one of them would win the race to meet his maker first.

  ‘By the way, we’ve finished fingerprinting all the locals: there was no match with any of the prints found on the boat,’ said Lang, once Leo had finished.

  ‘No surprise there; the killer would have been wearing the gloves I saw in my original vision.’

  ‘Unless he wasn’t a local at all.’

  ‘He’s from round here all right,’ said Leo. ‘The whole case reeks of it.’

  ‘I’m inclined cautiously to agree. And if this Tark individual from the victim’s diary is the killer then he is even more probably local. I’ve some other news for you. Now this is strictly off the record.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘I took a turn over to Innisdubh yesterday. And let’s just say that a set of special keys I had in my possession gained me access to that charnel house you dreamed about.’

  ‘The tenth baron’s mausoleum! And?’

  ‘And, nothing. There’s bugger all there apart from the old boy’s tomb. I got soaked in that bloody storm for nothing.’

  Leo sensed it was time to leave, but as he neared the door he turned around to address the policeman once more.

  ‘Just one last thing, Detective Inspector. Did you know that Robbie McKee was rendered homeless by a house fire some time back?’

  ‘I heard that, yes.’

  ‘Could the blaze have been started deliberately?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea. And I don’t see the relevance. What are you getting at, Leo?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just a whim.’

  Leo communed upon a Pan Drop as he tottered down to the boatyard to meet Fordyce. Surprised and impressed as he was by Lang’s maverick conduct, he didn’t much care that the policeman’s search had yielded nothing. He had to get inside that sepulchre for himself, have a look round. Experience it.

  ‘First sport of the season!’ announced Fordyce cheerfully as he arranged his tackle. He had a Kelly Kettle on the go, which gave off a comforting smell of coffee and burning twigs. ‘The loch is bound to be teeming with bounty, and they’ll be rising to feed now that the freshets caused by the storm have abated. George caught a huge ferox trout last April; it was twenty pounds if it was an ounce. However, we, my friend, shall target its colonial cousin, Oncorhynchus mykiss, the little ol’ rainbow trout – yet still a noble and worthy adversary! We’ll try the wet fly, and if we have no luck we’ll move on to the nymphs.’

  They made their way to the end of the little jetty and set up.

  ‘The Mintos are hiding something,’ Leo told Fordyce as he cast. ‘What’s more, I’m getting nowhere with this case. I need to get back over to the island, to check the mausoleum. But first I’m going to speak to the Addison family.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s wise, old stick?’

  ‘Perhaps not. Gosh, Loch Dhonn is full of such bloody weirdos!’ said Leo. ‘Present company excepted, of course,’ he added apologetically.

  ‘Not at all, old stick. We are rather a rum lot, I grant you.’

  ‘I am in a constant torpor. Perhaps it’s the after-effects of my recent influenza. Also, my mind’s all a fug. It is as though a cataract has formed over my frontal lobe; I can’t seem to think straight.’

  ‘Perhaps your . . . levels of indulgence . . .’ began Fordyce falteringly.

  ‘It’s not the drink; something’s impeding my powers.’

  ‘What do you mean, something?’

  ‘A malign force.’ Fordyce regarded his friend solemnly. ‘I just can’t get a handle on the fiend,’ continued Leo. ‘Celtic mythology speaks of the ilchruthach. Shape-shifters, faeries who can metamorphose at will. Perhaps that’s what I’m up against.’

  ‘Perhaps, old stick. Perhaps.’

  Craig Hutton had already informed Stuart Addison, Helen’s father, about Leo and his purpose at Loch Dhonn, so it wasn’t entirely a surprise when he called by.

  After their fruitless fishing expedition – Leo hadn’t had so much as a bite; Fordyce had landed a couple of baggies, then sentimentally released them, in spite of the directive that all non-native specimens be despatched when landed – the friends had returned to the hotel for a late luncheon of poached salmon and
asparagus. The ‘locally caught’ prefix served to mock the failed anglers. Having receiving directions to the Addison home from a reluctant Fordyce, Leo had retired to his room to take a steadying nip from his hip flask, and used some cinnamon breath spray to disguise the odour.

  * * *

  After Helen’s murder, her two maternal aunts had come up, from Musselburgh and Edinburgh, to help the family cope. Today, one had driven to Oban to shop at the supermarket there, and the other, Grace Dunn, who had made the family’s statement to the media, answered the door to Leo and regarded him rather coldly. She was in her mid-fifties, her short grey hair and black-rimmed spectacles serving to increase the severity of her countenance, which, quite understandably given recent circumstances, was lined with stress and suspicion. Leo, untypically, hadn’t prepared what to say in order to gain access, but upon stating his name an adult male voice called upon Mrs Dunn to send him through.

  Leo walked reverently into the Addison home, a white-roughcast 1970s bungalow that sat alongside Loch Dhonn village’s main drag of original cottages, although slightly further back from the road. It was the house bearing the little plaque ‘EDEN’ upon its garden gate that Leo had noticed before. He felt strange, almost guilty, at entering the family abode of an individual he had communicated intimately with on the other side. But intruder or not, he had to hold his nerve and proceed, and try to discover a way of vanquishing whatever force was frustrating his efforts.

  The house had an odd, smothered atmosphere, as if a veil had been drawn over all usual activities. These were now conducted at a slower, more definite pace, and at a lower volume. It was as though the pall of bereavement had physically dampened the very essence of the household. The interior itself was familial and unremarkable, filled with flat-pack furniture and ornamented by glass animals and little statues of straw-hatted rustic folk doing rural things, such as snoozing upon hayricks or leaning rods upon ‘NO FISHING’ signs. Had he been in his usual critical mode Leo would have decided that his and the Addisons’ tastes didn’t concur, but such matters seemed pitifully inconsequential to him today. These were ordinary, decent people, Leo would soon observe. The salt of the earth. In a way he wished they hadn’t been. He would have preferred that they had been cold-hearted or in some way obnoxious. As though anyone could deserve what they had been through.

  From time to time Stuart Addison would blink in a moment of complete incredulity; then he would gaze down at his opened palms, as though he would find an answer there as to why his lovely family had been torn apart. His son Callum, a pleasant, diffident lad of fifteen years, sat on the floor by his side, allowing himself to be petted by the absentminded brush of his father’s hand. Grace Dunn went into the kitchen to make tea.

  ‘Mr Addison, Callum, I’m so terribly sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Thank you,’ replied the father in a broken voice. ‘Please, do sit down.’

  Leo lowered himself into a wing-backed chair.

  ‘Everyone’s been so kind,’ smiled Mr Addison weakly. ‘The police have been marvellous.’

  ‘There is a lot of good in the world, Mr Addison,’ said Leo, choosing his words carefully. ‘We’ve got to focus on that.’

  ‘It’s just that they haven’t released . . . Helen, yet.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I expect they have their reasons. I wonder, if you don’t mind my asking, where is Mrs Addison?’

  ‘She’s in bed. I’m afraid she isn’t coping at all well.’ Mr Addison let a long breath go. ‘To think I used to worry myself sick about Helen when she was training in Glasgow. So for her to come back home to us . . . and then this!’ It was a scenario Mr Addison had outlined two dozen times already, to various listeners who didn’t know where to look.

  Leo nodded sympathetically.

  ‘So, you’re here to help us?’ asked Mr Addison, forcing a smile.

  ‘I certainly hope so.’

  ‘Good. Getting the . . . getting whoever did this won’t bring Helen back. But it would help, I think. Bring some sort of satisfaction. Maybe some peace, eventually.’

  ‘I shall do my utmost, sir, of that you have my word.’

  ‘So, I believe you’re some kind of a medium?’

  ‘Not really,’ replied Leo gently. ‘I have the gift of what is called second sight. Things that are unfolding occur to me as visions, within dreams and such like.’

  If Mr Addison was unconvinced by this elucidation he didn’t show it; perhaps he was simply willing to grasp at straws. Anyway, evidently DI Lang’s anxiety that the family should discover Leo’s involvement with the case was misplaced.

  ‘Any leads as yet?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I’ve drawn a blank so far. The visions haven’t been all that revealing of late. That’s why I came round. I really didn’t want to disturb you, but I thought if I could meet you all, and get a better idea of what Helen’s life was like, it might help to . . . stimulate the flow of ideas.’

  Mr Addison didn’t require further encouragement, and instructed Callum to retrieve a box of photo albums from the hall. Thus armed he produced his spectacles and gladly proceeded to detail much of the Addison family’s history, especially regarding Helen, and informed Leo about her character traits: her foibles, her likes and dislikes, her compassionate nature.

  If only he knew, Leo thought to himself rather guiltily, just how familiar I already am with his daughter, on a one-to-one basis.

  As Mr Addison commentated on the photographs and the family’s chronology, Leo drank in the scene. His host, a man of roughly his own age, was of average height and slim build, with a bald pate and a naturally amiable way, who would try to inject positivity and humour into proceedings as a coping mechanism, and in order to help those around him bear their burden. Leo wondered if the collar and tie he wore underneath his green tank top was to fortify his family, to display the fact that he was keeping it together. He was a clever man, a sewerage engineer at Argyll and Bute Council with an instinctive knack for all things technical, from electric circuitry to the internal combustion engine. He and his wife were not natives but came originally from Edinburgh. They had moved to Loch Dhonn as newlyweds before Helen was born. It had been their mutual dream to forsake city life for the rural idyll and they had adored it until the morning it turned into a nightmare. Now Stuart Addison’s eyes would be red-rimmed forevermore, and folk never knew if he was about to start laughing or crying whenever he reminisced about his daughter. Usually it was a mixture of both. As for Callum – a sensitive and thoughtful boy with a Liam Gallagher mop top and the same clever hazel eyes as his sister – he had lost his hero, and was simply wrecked by the whole tragedy, but possessed the selflessness to hide the worst of his despair from his grieving parents.

  One photograph of Helen was taken when she was four years old, and it evoked laughter from the assembly – Grace Dunn had now joined them, along with tea and digestive biscuits. In it, Helen was standing in a sandpit at a play park, her arms folded, a comically cross expression on her face as she stared defiantly into the camera.

  ‘It was time to go home, but she just plain refused to come out,’ laughed Mr Addison.

  The relief was short-lived, however, as the disembodied voice of a person broken by sadness and pain called out, ‘Stu-art! Stu-art!’

  Leo looked up to see Mrs Addison, Helen’s mother, pad into the hallway, calling on her husband, either oblivious to their visitor’s presence or uninterested in it. She wore a faded red housecoat and her hair was matted from lying down. She was mournfully pale yet even without make-up one could detect her daughter’s similar elfin beauty. She looked painfully thin and was hunched over with grief, and her eyes betrayed a dejection that had by now gone beyond sensation into a dull limbo of numbness, breached by sharp stabs of brutal anguish.

  Mr Addison got up to see to his wife and Leo recognised upon Grace Dunn’s features the suggestion that his visit should end.

  ‘Thank you for your time, and for the tea,’ he said to the aunt as
she accompanied him to the door once Mr and Mrs Addison had disappeared upstairs. ‘And do thank Mr Addison for me.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Please don’t think it’s not appreciated. It’s just that things are obviously incredibly difficult round here. I’m sorry if I seemed stand-offish.’

  ‘Please, my dear lady,’ protested Leo from the doorstep, ‘I beg of you, do not apologise. Only know that my heart and my every effort goes with your family.’

  As Mrs Dunn was closing the door, a thought occurred to Leo. ‘Mrs Dunn,’ he called out, and the door opened again. ‘I noticed, in one of the photographs of Helen, she was wearing a servant’s uniform?’

  ‘She was a chambermaid, briefly. At the Loch Dhonn Hotel.’

  ‘Oh, really,’ said Leo, unable to disguise his interest. ‘When would this have been?’

  ‘Och, she was just young, not long out of school,’ said Mrs Dunn, clutching her grey cardigan round her to keep out the chill as she cast her mind back. ‘It would be four or five years ago. She didn’t like it, mind. Didn’t like that Mrs Minto much. Told her to stuff it, I believe. Which wasn’t like Helen. She was quite a shy lassie really.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Dunn. Thank you very much.’

  Leo began walking the short journey back to the hotel, absorbed by his thoughts, and was thus unaware that Shona Minto herself, who happened to be out for a stroll and a general nose around, had from a distance witnessed him emerging through the Addisons’ garden gate. Leo was intrigued by this last morsel of information, and overwhelmed by the need for a stiff drink, after having set eyes upon Mrs Lorna Addison.

  He speculated about the dreadful moment when a pair of kindly officers from Fallasky braced themselves and then knocked upon the Addison front door that cruel morning. He imagined the initial disbelief that Helen was anywhere but upstairs, safe in her bed, giving way to ever-increasing circles of horror as the terrible reality dawned.

  A Royal Mail van passed by, and Leo could hear a two-stroke engine spluttering in the nearby forestry. And he wondered how life can proceed in its banal way at such a time.