A Ghost in the Machine (32 page)

“What is it?”

“The
Echo
, Chief.”

“I can see it's the
Echo.
Why are you giving it to me?”

“You remember the old biddy who kept coming in about this bloke and his weird machines?”

“Only as I'd remember a plague of boils.”

Blimey. Better watch your step today, Gavin. “That medium she was on about's been found dead.”

“So?”

Troy wondered aloud if perhaps the chief hadn't heard about Ava Garret's radio interview? The sergeant only knew of it himself because Maureen and her mother had still been pulling the programme to pieces when he arrived home. Troy was furious at the sight and sound of Mrs. Sproat. There had been a definite agreement between himself and Maureen that she would only visit when he was out. Mrs. Sproat's novel take on personal hygiene (if it don't smell why wash it?) was only one of the reasons. Troy drank his tea to the accompaniment of his mother-in-law's screaming falsetto and thought Anthony Perkins hadn't known when he was well off.

Barnaby said that he did know about the interview. Joyce picked it up on the car radio and had talked about it after supper. They had been together in the rose arbour in the late sunshine. Joyce in the hammock with her legs up, Barnaby in a wicker chair grumbling over an article on heavy-handed policing in
The Independent
and getting up from time to time to zap greenfly with a foul-smelling spray.

“She sounded strange,” Joyce had said. “Bragging nonstop but kind of sad as well.”

“Gotcha.”

“Do you think any of this spiritual trancey stuff is true?”

“For God's sake…” Barnaby was disbelieving. Almost contemptuous.

“It could be.”

“No, it couldn't.”

“She also said she'd been engaged by the Almeida – you know, Cully's company – as advisor on
Blithe Spirit.
”

“Mad as well as sad then.”

Joyce went off in a huff after this, saying he had spoiled everything, what with making the roses smell of disinfectant, and sneering. Barnaby went on drenching the Ena Harkness, ending up with an irritable sinus and the beginnings of a headache. So he was hardly now in the mood to indulge in yet further discussion of such ludicrous twaddle.

“But don't you think, sir,” persisted Troy, “that it's a mysterious coincidence? Just days before she was going to give the murderer away.”

“You been watching
Poirot
again?”

This was one of the chief's favourite gibes. Troy had only ever seen one episode and that was round at his mother's. He had been a fool to mention it. And even more stupid to follow up with a lumbering joke about having enough little grey cells in his life as it was, thank you. Being a policeman, ha ha ha. Yes, he had laughed as well but he had laughed alone.

“She died in her sleep.” Barnaby, having glanced at the story, pushed the paper aside. “What's mysterious about that?”

To be honest Troy had always thought such a happening was incredibly mysterious. People were always going on about how terrible death was but it seemed to him that it couldn't be all that dreadful if it could happen while you were asleep without waking you up. Also, if death was such crap, why were skulls always grinning?

“They'll have done a PM by now,” continued Barnaby. “We'll be informed if they find anything.”

Troy, recognising a lost cause, was now eager to get back downstairs. He made his way indirectly. A diagonal shuffle towards the filing cabinets. A little sidestep to study the black-and-whites relating to the Badger's Drift case, now superfluous as the man had just been caught. A sudden nip to the coat-stand where he absently ran through his jacket pockets. One more manoeuvre and he'd be home and dry.

“Don't think you're sidling off,” said Barnaby.

“Pardon?” Troy could not have been more bewildered.

“I know what you're up to.”

Troy's puzzlement deepened. Plainly all this was beyond him.

“Chatting up that new WPC.”

“Me?” Puzzlement gave way to astonishment so profound he might have been accused of making advances to the force's mascot, a comely goat named Ermintrude.

“What's-her-name Carter.”

“Abby Rose.” Damn. But he couldn't resist saying it aloud. “Her dad was a Beatles fan.”

“What would Maureen say?”

“We're going through a difficult time at the moment.”

“That sort of thing won't make it any better.”

“More than difficult, actually. For two pins…”

Troy didn't bother to develop this threat. Both men knew the emptiness of it. Both had daughters they would have given their lives for. Abandonment was not an option.

“So you can start to clear that board. Get everything sorted.”

Sullenly Troy began to remove the photographs, the maps and drawings and photostats of documents. Barnaby applied himself to clearing his desktop. Wiping obsolete files, emptying and checking folders, saving some, deleting others. For twenty minutes or so they worked in silence. Then the phone rang. Troy picked it up, listened, then mouthed, “Talk of the devil” at the chief in clear and silent dumb show.

Barnaby, fingers idling on the keyboard, prepared to be entertained, for Troy was hopeless at concealment. Every emotion was writ not only plain but large, all over his face. Even his ears were eloquent. First his eyes widened, then the eyebrows strained into an arch. He fielded Barnaby's ironical gaze with a portentous shake of the head. He hung up, then paused, turning to face the boss, holding the moment in the interest of dramatic tension.

“Don't tell me – the butler did it.”

“Garret was poisoned.”

“How?”

“Methanol.”

Barnaby slotted the word into his memory where it vibrated gently. A recollection arose, vague and undefined. Joyce…Joyce with a newspaper…Joyce reading something out to him. A tourist in Egypt drinking a bottle of contaminated Cabernet Sauvignon. And dying.

“In red wine…” he murmured, half to himself.

Troy stared across the room. His mouth slowly rounded into an amazed, petrified circle. How did he do it? Just like that. Not only did he know it was wine but he knew the
colour.
No doubt if the type and year proved relevant he would know that as well. Long aware of his own shortcomings in the light of the chief's powers of deduction and analysis, Troy now had to contend with this unexpected gift of second sight. Life was unfair; only a fool would think otherwise. But there should be some sort of limit.

Barnaby sussed all his sergeant's thought processes with ease. He toyed with the notion of explaining the source of his almost by-the-way comment but decided otherwise. It never hurt to keep the infantry on their toes.

“You know what this means, Chief? She was killed to stop her talking.”

“She may not have been killed at all.”

This remark was almost certainly the forerunner to another little homily guaranteed to set Sergeant Troy's teeth on edge. He knew without being told what was coming. It was the open mind lecture.

Oh! Sergeant Troy knew all about the famous open mind. He had had the open mind right up to and beyond his own mind's gagging point. At the very next mention of the words Troy had vowed to throw himself from the office window.

“She could have drunk it in a restaurant, at a friend's house, at home.” Now Barnaby was putting on his coat. “Don't just stand there. Get her address. And fill them in at the desk.”

“Sir.” But now it was Troy, hurriedly taking down his jacket, in whom memory flared. “Wasn't there some antifreeze scandal about wine once? People falling over right, left and centre.”

“Which is why we have to find out where this stuff came from. It might not be just the odd contaminated bottle.”

“Blimey. You don't think it was Tesco's?”

“Why?”

“I bought some plonk there at the weekend,” Troy's arm wrestled unsuccessfully with the entry into his jacket sleeve, “Oz Clarke recommended.”

Barnaby opened the door and stood, impassive, drumming his fingers on the glass panel.

“I think I've split the lining.”

“I'm leaving,” said the chief inspector. “And I expect to find you in the car when I get down there. With or without that bloody jacket.”

It was now nearly a whole night and day since Roy had discovered Ava's body. Karen was still in shock, given to tears and the same repetitive cries: “What'll I do, Roy, without her? What'll I do?”

Roy tried to be understanding but couldn't really fathom the reason for all this misery, which seemed to him right over the top. A mother like that – you'd think anybody'd be glad to get shut of her. But what did he know? His own had dumped him in a phone box a few hours old and pissed off the face of the earth.

After the ambulance men had gone he made some tea and sat at the table trying to think. The sudden apprehension of all sorts of grown-up stuff needing to be handled clogged his mind, leaving him deeply disturbed. At the home everyone had told you what to do and you did it till you were old enough to give them the finger and bunk off. Same with school. At work he did his simple job as well as he could, turning up on time and keeping his nose reasonably clean, but there was nothing like what you'd call real responsibility. So—where to start?

“I think we ought to make a list.”

“Why?” Karen had found three custard creams in an old golden syrup tin. She gave him two.

“Because I can't remember everything in my head, that's why.”

“What do we have to remember?”

“We'll know that when I've made the list.”

Roy frowned and chewed his pencil. He knew there must be things you had to do when someone died but, apart from collecting a death certificate, he had no idea what they were. Probably there were places for advice but he was pretty sure they would be linked to the council, which somehow rather defeated the object. Better leave the technicalities and concentrate on the definitely dodgy present. On the fact that whoever had turned up on their doorstep yesterday morning would be coming back and sooner rather than later.

He muttered: “We gotta think like they'd think.”

Karen said, “The social?”

“Yeah. First…” He pictured them pushing in, staring round. Looking for things wrong so they could pick on him. “We clean this place up.”

“I can do that,” cried Karen.

“And we'll have to buy some stuff to eat. If there's no food in the house we'll be in deep shit.”

“Roy? Could we have some flowers?”

“You can't eat flowers.”

“I could pick some.”

“Yeah, OK. Now, money. I've got…” He ferreted around the pockets of his Levi's. “Seven pounds and…forty-three p.” No good asking what she'd got. On the other hand, seven quid wouldn't go far. The next question was obvious. Obvious but, no matter how you put it, tricky. At the home the minute a room was unoccupied you'd naturally go through it, helping yourself to anything worth having. You'd be a fool not to. But somehow the idea of doing this now, of searching the house, made him feel uncomfortable.

“Um…I wonder if…d'you know…?”

“There might be some money in the toffee tin.”

“Where's that, then?”

Karen opened and closed her mouth, swallowed and tried again. “Wardrobe. I can't.”

“No worries.”

Roy pushed his chair back and made for the stairs. But on the threshold of Ava's room he hesitated, not understanding why. After all, he was only doing a quick straightforward search. Not prying or reading personal letters or anything. And the place was empty. Wasn't it?

Roy, who had put one foot across the threshold, stepped back. A vivid recollection of just what sort of person Ava had been possessed him. A person with extremely powerful psychic gifts in constant touch with the world beyond. A person who had only just passed over. So what if her spirit was still lurking? Roy drew in a sharp breath over teeth suddenly cold and achy. What would it think, that spirit, seeing someone going through all its possessions? More important – what might it do?

Roy had heard stories about what happened to people who robbed the dead. About how tomb raiders in ancient Egypt were followed forever after by the Curse of the Pharaohs, eventually to meet terrible ends. And once he had seen an old-fashioned film where a little boy in rags stole the coins from a corpse's eyes and was straightaway run down by a horse and cart.

He heard Karen downstairs, turning the taps on. Getting ready to clean up. Putting her back into it. Disgust at his own cowardice propelled Roy into the room. He walked quickly over to the wardrobe and opened it, spotting the tin straightaway. “Sharpe's Toffees,” it said on the lid. Green letters dancing over a stout old man, cheeks bulging with sweeties and wearing tartan trousers. The tin was empty.

Roy replaced it and stood quite still, breathing quietly and carefully for some minutes before he realised none of this caution was necessary. He was completely on his own. No atmosphere, no creepy feelings, no bony fingers click-clacking along the radiator. Just him and the empty bed and a not-very-nice smell, which he recognised as Ava's hair spray. To celebrate the complete absence of any presence Roy flung open the window and let the sunshine in.

Then he went back to the wardrobe and checked out Ava's clothes, his fingers flicking in and out of every pocket, quick as lightning. Pushing the things back and forth released more smells and a puff or two of dust but no money. Roy gave the dressing table a quick once-over. Jars of pink stuff and browny liquid, powder in boxes and lipsticks, crystals, brighter colours in little pots, necklaces hanging from the mirror.

Ava's platform wig was on a stand next to a large photograph of herself wearing it. She had told Karen that this must be the first thing she saw each morning when she opened her eyes as it helped her hold the dream. Roy remembered her saying it because, straight after, she had burned every other photograph like a snake shedding its old skin. Now, sorting through a large chest of drawers (jumpers, underwear, tights) Roy thought what a good idea that was. Making yourself over, it was called. He had just started to dream of what his own makeover might involve when he spotted Ava's handbag.

It was lying on the floor on the far side of the room, halfway between the door and the bed. A black boxy thing with gilt stick-on initials. Roy thought seeing it there was pretty strange. She hadn't been the tidiest person in the world, but just to chuck it on the floor…Still, didn't that tie in with her not even bothering to get undressed? She must have been paralytic. Either that or already ill. Roy pushed that thought away. Stamped on the mental picture of Karen fast asleep, with her mother dying just across the landing.

He picked up the bag, sat on the side of the bed and opened it. So much stuff—why did women carry all this rubbish about? Letters, bills, hairbrush, scribbled-on bits of paper, aspirins, half a tube of Polos. No sign of her mobile. A make-up bag was unzipped and Roy got some black stick all over his fingers. He wiped them on the sheet before opening Ava's purse. Money—lots of money. Nearly fifty pounds. Roy had just finished counting it when he noticed a thin, official-looking booklet with Ava's name on the cover. A Causton District Borough Council rent book. Seemed Rainbow Lodge cost Ava Garret (Mrs) all of sixty-five quid a week.
Sixty-five quid?
Roy's jaws gaped wide. He flinched against the weight of injustice so brazenly revealed. For over a year he had been sleeping on a mattress no wider than a baby's cot in a hutch roughly eight feet square and existing on scraps while paying a big enough screw to rent the whole house. Greedy cow. He had spoken aloud and didn't care. He didn't care and he'd do it again.

“You're a greedy fucking cow!” shouted Roy, on his toes now, dancing about and squaring up to the empty air with bunched fists. “Come back and haunt me, right? Just try it. Try it and I'll bloody kill you.”

 

In the middle of the afternoon of that same day DS Troy parked on the far side of Swayne Crescent and the two policemen walked across to Rainbow Lodge. Barnaby looked disapprovingly at an old red Honda straddling the pavement.

“Not much of the rainbow left,” said Sergeant Troy, scraping at the painted arch on the worn garden gate. The orange and green had nearly gone and the purple was flaking fast.

“Not much of a lodge either.”

DCI Barnaby followed his sergeant up the concrete path, looking about him. His green-fingered soul winced at the scrubby, neglected garden. He ached for the parched lupins and frazzled snow-in-summer. Why plant them in the first place? Why not just pour concrete over the lot and have done with it? Knowing he was overreacting did not improve Barnaby's temper. He attempted to calm down. He was about to enter a house of sudden death and, for all he knew, genuine grief. Though in his job you'd be wise not to bet on it.

Troy, having knocked once, waited. He noticed the curtains, black velvet patterned with stars and whirling planets, give a little twitch. Encouraged, he knocked again. The door opened slowly, an inch at a time.

The sergeant's gaze met empty space.

“Hello.”

Troy looked down. A child stood there. A bony, skinny little thing with colourless squinty eyes and hair like straw. She whispered: “Are you the social?”

“No,” said Troy. Then, gentling his tone, “Actually we're policemen. D'you think we could come in for a minute?”

“Show her your card, Sergeant,” said the DCI, who had already produced his own. Thanks to the glories of television even toddlers seemed to have got the hang of the correct procedure in these matters. Barnaby thought that was a good thing and was only sorry people weren't as canny when it came to checking out double-glazing cowboys and tarmac touts.

They were standing in a kitchen. It was very clean but when you'd said that you'd said it all. Shabby, ugly units, one cupboard with handles missing. Hard plastic chairs round an old Formica table. A linoed floor, webbed with cracks.

Behind him Barnaby heard his sergeant making a strange noise – it sounded like “nyuhheerr” – and turned to look. Troy had gone a whiter shade of pale. He was paler than the girl, could that be possible, and was staring, bug-eyed, at a stack of bulging carrier bags on the table. Red, white and blue carrier bags. From Tesco.

“What the hell's wrong with you?”

Troy struggled for composure and gradually common sense came to the fore. Just because they'd shopped at Tesco didn't mean they never shopped anywhere else. And he had drunk his wine nearly two days ago. By now surely some effects would have been felt. Then he remembered how hard it had been to wake up that morning, how incredibly sleepy he had been, and experienced a lurch of nausea.

Just off the kitchen a toilet flushed. A youth came in and stared very seriously at DCI Barnaby, who stared interestedly back. A day earlier he would have been looking at a different man. Roy, recognising that his appearance was calculated more to alarm than disarm, had systematically set about improving it. Freshly showered, his hair washed free of gel and blow-dried, he now looked not only much cleaner but considerably younger. He had removed the chain and rings from his nose, a complicated, painful progress, and all but two from his ears. Jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, still damp from the wash, concealed most of his tattoos. The one circling his throat, an intricately dotted line under the words “Cut Here,” was harder to hide. Roy had managed it by wrapping one of Ava's scarves around his neck.

Having come into the situation blind, Barnaby was aware of the need to feel his way carefully. The dead woman could well be this girl's mother. Maybe the lad's too. She was whispering, just loud enough for Barnaby to catch the sense of it.

“It's not the social, Roy.”

“You don't have to tell me.” Roy jerked his head, indicating a sliding door: accordion-pleated plastic. “If you wanna sit down there's more space back there.”

“That's all right,” said Barnaby. Then, hoping to reassure. “We won't be long.”

Troy sat at the table, moved some scraggly buttercups in a milk bottle and put his notebook down. Barnaby leaned against the cooker. Karen perched on a high stool, her thin legs twining through the rungs. Roy just hovered. He looked extremely wary. The girl even more so. In fact Barnaby had the feeling she was just a breath away from out-and-out fear. He smiled and received a nervous flash of uncared-for teeth.

“Would you tell me your name, please?”

“Karen Garret.”

“And you are?”

“Roy,” said Roy. “It's French for king.”

“Surname?” asked Troy.

“You won't find me on any of your files.”

“Just for the record,” said Troy, adding an excessively polite “sir.” They didn't want any aggro this early in the game.

“It's Priest, if you must know.”

“And your relationship to Mrs. Garret?”

“I'm the lodger. But,” Roy added hastily, “I'm also a friend.”

“And you're her daughter, Karen?” asked Barnaby. “Is that right?”

“Not that you'd notice,” said Roy.

“How are you both coping?”

“We're cool. We got food…” He nodded at piles of oranges and apples; green vegetables. Milk and fresh bread. “Everything.”

“Are you on your own here?”

They answered together, overlapping.

“Her aunty's coming tomorrow.”

“My aunty's coming tonight.”

“We told the ambulance men,” lied Roy. “The hospital's getting in touch with the council.”

“Fine. We'd like to ask a few questions about Mrs. Garret's movements on Wednesday.”

“Like what?” asked Roy.

“Maybe we could start with the morning?”

“Just as usual really.” Karen screwed up her forehead, thinking hard. “I got up. Ava'd had her breakfast—”

“Which was?” asked Troy.

“Toast and coffee, I think.”

“Did you have the same?”

“I had cereal first. Then a bit of toast. After that she went to the Spar for some ciggies.”

“She used to try sending her, would you believe?” said Roy. “A kid that age.”