Pretty Little Dead Things

by Gary McMahon

  Tebbit seemed to beam; the compliment of being called a colleague rather than an assistant was not wasted on him, and I silently congratulated Scanlon on his use of basic psychology.

  "I'll say nothing more today, and hand you over instead to DI Tebbit, who is more than capable of fielding all questions and filling you in on what we know – and, more crucially, what we don't yet know."

  What we don't yet know.

  Again, the subtle use of psychology, making everyone aware that during the course of the investigation they would get to know whatever they needed to help find the missing girl and nothing more. Bravo, I thought. You know exactly what you're doing.

  Tebbit coughed into his closed fist, swallowed, and seemed to grow a little in his chair. "Thank you, sir. Okay, then. As DCS Scanlon has already said, thank you all for coming today. Let me begin by telling you what we already know."

  Feet shuffled; the crowd leaned forward as one; someone coughed loudly.

  "Penny Royale went missing on her way home from school two days ago, October twenty-first, at approximately threefifty in the afternoon. We at the West Yorkshire Constabulary have committed every available resource to finding her, but we are also appealing to the general public to help us in any way they can. At the end of this press conference, I shall read out our emergency hotline numbers, which will be manned twenty-four hours a day. This has been a very tough time for the family, and rather than sit and detail every nuance of the case, Penny's mother and father would like to say something directly to you all."

  Muted whispering. The shuffling of feet. This was why they were all here, to watch the monkeys perform. I could sense the press leaning forward in their plastic chairs, straining to get closer to the shattered parents. A few camera flashes went off, and the TV crews lined along both sides of the hall shifted their lenses towards the Royales, who sat in the glare of lights like frightened animals.

  "I'd like to ask you all to remain silent during the announcement, and keep your questions until later. There'll be plenty of time to answer everyone."

  Murmured voices. Again, the restless shuffling of feet.

  Mrs Royale leaned forward across the table, her hands clutching a sheet of foolscap paper that had been folded and unfolded countless times judging by its shabby appearance.

  "I…" Her voice was breaking before she'd even begun, and her husband reached out to take the paper. Mrs Royale snatched it away from him, as if his attempt to take over had been an insult. Then she closed her eyes for a couple of seconds, opened them and continued, reading directly from the sheet of paper now clutched so tightly in her hands that I was afraid it might tear.

  "I would like to speak directly to whoever has our Penny." Her accent was thick, making her sound dull and uneducated in the way that pure regional accents often do. "Whoever you are, wherever you've got her, I just want to tell you that our Penny is a good girl. She sticks in at school, has a lot of friends, and wants to work with animals when she grows up."

  A pause, during which it seemed like nobody dared breathe.

  "Our Penny won't give you any trouble. Just tell her what to do and she'll help you. Penny doesn't want to be hurt, and I'm sure that you don't want to hurt Penny."

  The constant repetition of the girl's name was surely the work of some police advisor: the woman had probably been told to make sure that any potential kidnapper identified with Penny, seeing her as a real human being rather than a thing to be coveted and kept.

  "Our Penny belongs at home, with us. We love her very, very much, and would like her to come home. We promise that we'll try and understand why you've taken Penny, and we'll make sure the police give you all the help you need to sort out your problems. Our Penny can help you, too. She's a good girl. A very good girl. Please just let her go – even if you open the door now and let her out. She'll know her way back to us… she's a good… a good… good girl…"

  Mrs Royale had done well right up until the end, when her voice seemed to fade away into a series of quiet sobs. Her husband held her hand, but it was limp in his grip. The woman looked deflated, as if all the air had been let out of her in one go, and she slumped so low into her seat that it seemed for a moment she might fall to the floor in a heap.

  Then something happened that took me completely by surprise. From the far side of the raised platform, where he must have been standing quietly and watching events unfurl, a man walked over and approached Mrs Royale. He was short, solidly built, and bald-headed, wearing a simple dark suit with a white T-shirt underneath. It was the man I'd brushed up against at Baz Singh's place, the Blue Viper. The man Singh had called Mr Shiloh.

  He crossed the stage and knelt down at Mrs Royale's side, one hand slipping into hers and the other arm going around her shoulder. She leaned into him, and he whispered something into her ear. She smiled, briefly, and then buried her head in his neck. Mr Royale looked on, helpless yet not objecting at all, as if this were all perfectly natural. Mr Shiloh kept whispering into the side of Mrs Royale's face, his skin shining like plastic under the bright lights. Again I was struck by his lack of energy, the strange neutrality that radiated from him, as if he were a blank sheet of matter waiting to absorb the energy of others and reflect it back at them. The image I had was of the neck of a bottle floating upon an endless sea, the remainder of the receptacle resting beneath the water, but with the bottom smashed off, so that the entire ocean had become the container. And it would never, ever be full enough to cease swallowing whatever it came into contact with.

  How, I asked myself, could a man of such unassuming stature seem to contain the whole world?

  The room erupted into chaos; members of the press all tried to ask different questions at the same time, creating a sound not unlike the mad chattering of a group of chimpanzees. Cameras flashed like indoor lightning and the television crews trained their lenses on the centre of everyone's attention: the poor, weeping parents and their stolid companion.

  Tebbit tried to field the ensuing questions as best he could, but I'd already heard the official version of events. My job here was to look from a different angle, to bring my own unique perspective to the tragedy. My job was to see that which no one else could.

  And what I saw most was Mr Shiloh.

  "Who is that?" I leaned in close to Ellen, aware that I sounded slightly panicked.

  "Who do you mean?"

  I turned to face her, camera flashes haloing her features, and stared into her lovely blue eyes. "That man, the bald one. I've seen him before. Who is he?"

  Ellen looked at the stage, and then turned back to me. "That's Mr Shiloh. He's a friend of the family." She didn't look too convinced by her own description. "Apparently he's been around for years."

  I felt cold inside that warm, cramped room, and when I looked back towards him, the man they called Mr Shiloh caught my gaze. Held it. Held it. And did not let it go, even when I frowned at him to make my displeasure clear. It looked like he was trying not to smile – or struggling not to laugh – but I couldn't be certain. I could be certain of nothing, not any more.

  Something within this dark little man of infinite capacity recognised me; and something inside me knew him too. The horror of the moment was greater than I could even begin to comprehend, and I felt lost in its baleful shadow.

  THIRTEEN

  Loss is another country, a strange and welcoming dominion into which all of mankind must one day fall. Some of us walk there regularly, knowing its pathways by heart, and others merely visit briefly, keen to leave before the terrain becomes one with which they are too familiar.

  The landscape of my grief was a place I knew well. I had spent far too many years traversing its dense interior, mapping its ever-changing borders, and then I had finally reached a point where I was happy to call it home.

  After the meeting broke up, I found myself standing outside with Ellen looking up at the dark scudding clouds and wishing for rain. I'd made a hasty getaway to ensure that there were no awkward moments with DI T
ebbit. I wasn't sure how official my involvement with his murder case might be, and the presence of his superior officer made me nervous.

  Besides, I wasn't yet sure if I wanted him to know that I'd been dragged into all this stuff about the missing girl.

  "Would you drive?" I dangled the car keys from my middle finger, giving a little cock of the head as Ellen rolled her eyes.

  "You still don't like to, eh? Even after all these years?"

  There had been a time, immediately after the accident, when I'd refused to even get into a car. That feeling passed, as feelings do, and bit by bit I talked myself around and finally forced myself behind the wheel.

  "If you wouldn't mind." I smiled.

  Ellen took the keys and opened the driver's door, and then she climbed in and popped open the passenger door as I walked around the front of the vehicle. I remembered something my father had said, decades ago and long before his early death: if a woman opens the car door for you, she's a keeper. I don't know what data he based this theory on, but right then it seemed like sound advice.

  "Are you sure you don't mind coming back to their place?" Ellen started the car, pulled out from the kerb and headed off down the hill. "It's still not too late to say no." Despite her words, her face said quite the opposite.

  I sat in silence, hoping that she read my unwillingness to talk as an affirmative. I could easily have asked her to drive me home, or back to her hotel, but events had conspired to ensure that I became involved with the disappearance of Penny Royale. If I'd felt like a screw was turning before, I was certain now that some kind of knot was tightening around me. The fact of Mr Shiloh's presence linked everything in some way, and I felt that I needed to hang around and find out what that connection meant. In other words, I was by now too far into this to back out.

  Ellen swung the car around a corner and we passed a row of shops that looked like they were stuck in the late 1970s. The streets were filthy, with litter gathering in the gutters and plastic bags gusting on the breeze. The front doors of many of the houses we passed were barred by metal gates fixed to the external brickwork – drug-doors, as we used to call them in my younger days. The gates could be locked from the inside, giving a dealer ample time to either flush their stash down the lavatory or escape out the back way if the police came calling.

  Before long we arrived at a small cul-de-sac with a street sign covered in spray paint. As far as I could tell, the street name was Tilly Road, but some wag had adapted the letters so it read Titty Rod. At least the local vandals had a sense of humour, however primitive their jokes might be.

  The street was filled with cars; they lined the verge on both sides, some of them double-parked. A few of the neighbours were standing out in their front gardens, gossiping over the fences, and others merely peeked out of their windows, unwilling to let themselves be seen in full view. A TV camera crew had set up on the corner, but they were otherwise occupied drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups and chatting idly as we approached.

  "All I'm asking you to do is meet the family. Let them tell you a little about Penny, and see if you pick up on anything." Ellen had turned off the engine and she sat staring through the windscreen, her eyes large and moist. "I don't know how this works, but maybe you'll see or hear something?"

  "I'll do what I can, Ellen, but you must know that I have no control over what it is I do. I could pick up everything, or I could pick up nothing. There's no way of telling which way this will go."

  She turned to face me at last, a gentle smile warming her features. She slipped a hand onto my thigh and blinked. "I know, Thomas, but it's enough that you're willing to try. If you can pick up nothing that might mean that she's alive, yes?"

  I nodded. "But it also might mean that I simply pick up nothing."

  We left the car and headed towards the Royale house, with me bringing up the rear. A few men stood outside on the untidy lawn, smoking stubby cigarettes and staring aggressively at anyone who passed by the gate. They stared at me, too, even though I was with one of the family. Ellen strode by them, all business, and pushed through the unlocked front door. I followed, feeling wired and paranoid and wishing that this would all just go away. Somewhere overhead, thunder rumbled. I glanced up, but could detect no sign of rain.

  At the end of a long hallway was an open door. Low voices drifted from inside the room, and Ellen went in without knocking. The woman from the press conference was sitting in an overstuffed armchair in the far corner, dabbing at her face with a paper tissue. An older woman with the same badly bleached hair was kneeling at her side, clucking like an old hen.

  "Shawna," said Ellen, going straight to the chair. "I've brought him."

  Shawna Royale looked up at our approach, and the light that flooded her face made me queasy. What I saw there, behind her waxen features, was a combination of unalloyed hope and something darker, something that did not quite fit in with the rest of her bloated washed-out appearance. But the tears she'd shed at the press conference were still visible, and my heart went out to her for her loss.

  "Mr Usher," she gasped, standing unsteadily.

  I went to her and took her outstretched hand, almost pulling back because of the desperation I sensed. I felt no presence in the room but that of the living. If Penny Royale was dead, then her shade had not yet found its way back here to this tawdry little room on a dead-end street populated by the lost and the forgotten.

  "Please, don't stand. Sit yourself down, Mrs Royale."

  "Call me Shawna," she said, doing as I'd asked. She sank too far into the seat cushion, and her black skirt rode up to reveal a bare patch of pale, blotchy thigh.

  The older woman drifted away across the room, as if she were a phantom. I had to look twice to make sure that was not the case, but she was certainly alive and well, if a little absent.

  "My neighbour," said Shawna. "She's been good to us."

  I nodded and patted her hand, unsure of what else to do. Someone pushed a kitchen chair behind me, and I eased myself down onto its hard wooden seat.

  "I'm not sure what Ellen has told you about me, but I can offer you no promises. The particular ability I possess is rather random, I'm afraid. I have no active part in what happens. Sometimes I see things, and sometimes I am given clues and messages. That's all. I don't really communicate directly with spirits, but I can often understand what it is they need. They don't talk to me directly, just through signs and gestures. I am, basically, what my name suggests: a simple guide."

  It felt like the whole room had gone silent and everyone was listening to my spiel. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure, but no one would meet my gaze.

  Shawna Royale leaned slowly forward. "I know about what you do. But right now, any help that we can get is better than nothing. We just want our Penny back, and whatever information we can get our hands on might just be the one thing that leads us to her." As if confirming what she'd just said, her hand gripped mine. The bones in her knuckles cracked, and I tried my best not to wince in pain.

  "I'm not sure what it is exactly you'd like me to do, but for what it's worth I offer you my services. Ellen is an old friend, and I owe her more favours than I could ever repay."

  Shawna smiled, showing her yellow teeth and swollen gums. Up close, her hair was greasy, and I wondered when the last time was that she'd bathed. As if in response, I caught a sour whiff of body odour. Turning away, I scanned the room, looking for something to divert my attention. There were photographs of Penny Royale everywhere, on the walls, on shelves, even resting on the dusty tiled area around the base of the fireplace.

  "Help me find out if my daughter is still alive. It's all I ask." When I turned back around Shawna's face was far too close to my own, and I almost reeled back in shock. "I want my baby back." Beyond the hope, beneath the despair, was another emotion I could not quite name. I have a knack with understanding the dead, but often the obscure demands of the living are simply beyond my ken. Whatever is was – this other, hidden emotion – it was lost on me
. For now.

  "I'll do my best, Mrs Royale – Shawna. I promise."

  She would not let me go; her hand gripped my forearm as if someone had bolted it there. "Do you feel her now? Is she here? In this room?"

  Now everyone was looking at me. As I stood, turning to inspect the crowded lounge, I noted that every eye in the place was upon me. "No," I said, as clearly as I could. "No, your daughter is not here… but that doesn't mean that she isn't elsewhere, waiting to be seen." I felt like I'd let her down, dashed her slim hopes.

  "I hope you're wrong, Mr Usher. I hope you don't feel her anywhere, not ever."

  I nodded, smiled, and let Ellen lead me out of the room, along the hall, and out past the smoking doormen. She drove the car again; I was not up to any kind of additional stress.