Ghost Girl (29 page)

‘No suspicious circs. It’s looking like she tripped on the path. Money on the tox report says high blood-alcohol levels. There was an empty whisky bottle in the bin and a tumbler with whisky dregs that had lipstick on the rim. No sign of an intruder. As you know, Stella, the door was open. Neighbours heard nothing. One said it wasn’t the first time she’d forgotten to lock up. Another implied she wasn’t the full shilling, but that was based on that temple thingy in her garden.’ He was pacing the room; he stopped by the door. ‘Marian, before you shoot off, can you give me the heads up on what Mrs Hampson wanted when she came?’

The administrator was staring at her screen, showing no signs of shooting off. If Stella were she, she would disapprove of Cashman involving the cleaner. Cashman behaved as if she were an extension of Terry. Stella found herself liking this notion.

‘She had found out Hampson had his advanced driving licence. I said we knew.’

Cashman puffed out his cheeks. ‘Got to feel sorry for her. She was scraping that barrel.’ He rocked on his heels. ‘Suicide’s not ruled out, though there’s no note.’

‘What about Joel Evans’s killer?’ Marian Williams got up from her desk. ‘Matthew Benson has to be expedited. I’m fine now.’

Stella had sympathy. Jackie had once packed her off to the dentist in the middle of a crisis. Work was the best cure.

Cashman strolled to the filing cabinets and leant on one. ‘Benson’s going nowhere: we’ve got his passport. You are! Watch rubbish daytime telly and return fresh as a daisy.’ Cashman thrust his hands in his pockets.

Marian Williams turned to Stella and said formally, ‘Thank you for your help.’

‘It was nothing.’ Stella squeezed her empty tea beaker until it cracked. ‘I hope you feel better soon.’ Marian had gone.

‘She’s a diamond.’ Cashman pushed away from the cabinet. ‘Here week in, week out. Marian’s missed one day in the last twenty-five years.’

Stella whisked her cloth at the vacated desk. ‘I suppose you need Marian to keep up with processing traffic-accident figures.’ This was the nearest she would go to asking Cashman outright about Terry’s streets. And then, conscious of the non sequitur: ‘Like that boy Marian mentioned.’

‘I wish! We don’t analyse traffic incidents. They’re a second cousin to crime. Even if we did, we don’t have the resources to follow up. That was one of Terry’s beefs.’ Suddenly he was efficient; rubbing his hands together, he crossed to the door. ‘Stella, you manage people. Did she look OK to you?’

Stella didn’t think of herself as managing people. ‘Yes. Well, apart from the fall.’ So Terry had been bothered about traffic incidents.

‘Lucky it was you that found her. Terry’s daughter can do no wrong! Your dad was a god to her. I’m a poor substitute!’

Alone in the office, Stella could not wipe away the sight of Mrs Hampson bleeding on the stones. She should call Jack. Terry would have checked on his team after a trauma. Martin Cashman had sent a key staff member home because of a bruise. Stella had no idea about managing people.

When she returned to the toilets it was after eight and the station was busy. She wouldn’t clean with women coming in and out; clients resented their privacy being disturbed.

She did not know what made her go into the cubicle where Marian had fallen, lock the door and sit on the closed toilet lid. Her knees were an inch from the door, the tiled walls close to her shoulders. There was little room to move, what with a plastic bin for sanitary towels, another Gina-Ware product. The porcelain toilet-paper dispenser was inset flush into the tiles. It had not caused the injury.

Marian Williams was not a small woman so it was freakish that she had hurt herself in the tight space. Bad luck that she got such a drastic bruise; she must bruise easily.

Someone entered the adjacent toilet. Stella hurried out, wheeling the bucket-wringer ahead of her like a child’s toy.

At the lights on Shepherd’s Bush Green, Stella recalled Cashman’s prediction that Mrs Hampson’s death was an accident fuelled by alcohol. It was as unlikely as Marian’s injury. Terry said there was no such thing as an accident. For once he was wrong. Odd things did happen.

The lights went to green. Mulling on Jack, Stella concluded that if she rang to offer him support, he would be embarrassed. She would be.

Some things were best unsaid.

39

Tuesday, 1 May 2012

The electronic Big Ben clangs were strident. Stella had seen David Barlow three times now and on each occasion his manner had been warm and understated. The doorbell must have come with the house. But he had said he had lived here for over thirty years. The chimes must be his wife’s choice. She jumped at the click of a latch behind her.

‘Come this way, Stella.’

David held open the side gate. Lit by a strip of afternoon sunlight, he appeared taller while oddly less substantial. Something was draped over his left arm. Stella shifted her equipment bag on her shoulder and crunched over the gravel to him.

The ‘something’ was a small apricot dog. It took Stella a moment to recognize the stray from the riverbank. Washed and brushed, it had come up a lighter shade with ears brown and sticking out as, rapt with attention, it pinned its gaze on her. The dark brown unblinking eyes suggested attack if she got too close.

‘You kept it.’ Stella avoided contact with animals; she passed clients with pets to her staff. Such clients had a lower standard of what she considered clean.

‘He had no microchip or collar. The vet reckoned he’d been dumped because the owners couldn’t afford the upkeep. No reports of a lost poodle. The vet thought he’d been living rough a while.’ David Barlow lifted the dog’s paw. ‘Stanley, meet Stella!’

‘Stanley?’ Stella tried to sound neutral. She was uncomfortable with giving pets human names; it made the boundaries fuzzy.

‘My father was called Stanley.’ David Barlow ushered her down the side passage of the house.

Stella could not name a dog after Terry. It would be as if Terry was the dog. Jack believed that when people died their energy was redistributed, he would probably approve. That pets caused mess and fuss was one thing she and her mum agreed on.

She stepped on to the lawn and relaxed. A flawless green – not a weed or a bare patch – with the grass cut so short it propelled her along.

‘Watch.’ David lowered his hand and the dog sank to the ground. It flicked looks at Stella. She glared at the whites of its eyes.

‘Stanley?’ The dog shot around, tail pert. ‘Ssssit!’ He raised his hand, palm up. It rose to a sitting position. Despite herself Stella was impressed.

‘Poodles are smart.’ David scooped up the dog. Paws hanging like bagpipes, it contemplated Stella’s equipment bag. ‘We never had dogs. Jennifer didn’t like animals: too much mess. I’m suspicious of anyone who doesn’t like animals.’ He jiggled the dog in his arms. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘I’ll get started.’

‘Let’s have tea out here first. Though if you are going somewhere later…’

Stella was due at Terry’s house, but at no particular time. Terry wouldn’t be there. When he was alive, she often rang to say she was running late.

‘That would be nice.’ David wasn’t like a client, she told herself.

‘Hold him while I bring everything out.’

‘I’ll do it.’ Stella knew where the dog had been.

‘He likes you.’ David Barlow lifted it into Stella’s arms.

Stella stood on the lawn, the poodle lolling on her forearm, paws spilling. She held her breath against a doggy odour, but when at last she inhaled only caught David’s aftershave. She sniffed properly. Warm clean wool and the invigorating fragrance that she had yet to identify. Her sense of smell was laser sharp and she divined something else pleasing. David. Jack said that if you didn’t like a person’s body odour you could never be close to them even if you liked them. Stella had supposed he meant her. She made sure to smell of nothing personal. She wasn’t close to Jack. She patted the dog. Pat. Pat. It whisked around and licked her knuckles. Stella snatched her hand away.

‘I knew you’d have a way with him.’ David was passing with the tea tray. ‘Come on, dog whisperer!’ he laughed over his shoulder.

A green wrought-iron table was set beneath a matching umbrella at the end of the garden, screened by a trellis trailing with red roses. Stella blinked away the crimson of Amanda Hampson’s blood coagulating on pale limestone. She squeezed the dog; it licked her hand again. She didn’t wipe it dry.

David had been sitting here: his notebook and pen were on the table. A letter with the logo for the insurance company Terry had used for his car lay open. There were three chairs. Wildly she envisaged Jennifer Barlow joining them. Jack said ghosts were everywhere. She pulled herself together and sat carefully on the nearest chair, supporting the dog.

David unpacked the tea things. Another cake. Stella expected the dog to leap over to him when she sat down, but instead it turned around on her lap twice, flopped down and, head tucked into its chest, went to sleep.

‘Just got that.’ He indicated the letter. ‘We’re not getting anything for the burglary.’ He slipped it back into the envelope. ‘Police found no signs of forced entry, no proof of a crime. They’re not accusing us outright of making a false claim, but…’ His good mood seemed to have evaporated.

‘They find any excuse not to pay up,’ Stella agreed. She was discouraged by his use of ‘we’. Her first instinct had been right: Barlow still loved his wife. Stella would not be a substitute. She regarded the third chair. Someone, Jack probably, said that dogs sensed the presence of ghosts. She looked at the sleeping poodle. No ghosts here. Still, she would eat the cake, do the cleaning and go.

‘Jennifer insisted I report the breakin to the police. She made me go every week to see if they’d got anywhere. Of course they hadn’t. Then she died. I only submitted the claim a month ago. More for her sake. I’m guessing they found the time lapse of four months suspicious. I’m not sorry. The burglars were welcome to all of it. Its value was sentimental, more to Jennifer than me.’

‘Odd they didn’t take any electrical goods.’ Stella heard that she sounded suspicious. ‘Specialized thieves target what they can fence.’ She stopped. David had risked his life to save a dog. He would not make a false insurance claim.

‘Spoken like the daughter of a police officer!’ David slotted the letter into his notebook and laid it on the grass. ‘“God is watching you,”’ she’d say, ‘“he sees all our transgressions.” She promised she’d be watching me too. Absurd!’ He gave a wry smile and poured the tea.

It wasn’t absurd. Over the last year, eating shepherd’s pies in Terry’s kitchen, and cleaning his house, Stella felt Terry watching.

‘This is her seed cake. Are you OK with almonds?’

Stella smiled, reluctant to eat anything made by a dead woman.

‘By the end Jennifer could hardly speak or walk, then three days before she died, the Tuesday, she was her old self. A miracle, she said. “God has given me a day to spend wisely.”’ He thrust the point of the blade into the sponge. ‘Her voice was strong, she could walk – with a frame – even dress herself. She baked seven cakes. She often did that, for fairs, charity or whatnot, but these were for me. “Keep me in your thoughts,” she said. She put them in the freezer saying she’d know if I gave them away. This is number six.’

‘Why wouldn’t you eat them?’ Stella was too late to stop David tipping a large slice onto her plate.

‘Call me unfeeling.’ He gazed over the dog. ‘Life has to be about more than being obedient.’ He talked between mouthfuls of cake, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. ‘That dog is pure joy.’ He gave her a shy smile.

Stella, concentrating on restoring order and keeping surfaces spotless, had not thought about life in these terms.

‘We were unsuited. By the end it was a loveless relationship. Got so you never knew what was around the corner. There, I’ve said it!’ He stopped eating. ‘“Grab life while you can,” to quote Stanley Barlow! Dad didn’t take to Jennifer, said she was “starchy”. He’d approve of… of me starting again.’ He cut himself another piece.

Stella didn’t mention Terry’s shepherd’s pies, not that Terry had cooked them or insisted she eat them. Besides, she had bought them herself when they had run out. Once the freezer was empty she would sell the house.

A thought occurred: ‘Did you find the jacket?’ Distracted by the dog, Stella had forgotten the jacket behind the bath panel.

‘I did. More cake?’ He held up a piece balanced on the blade.

Silly question, of course he had. ‘I’m fine thanks.’ He was no longer smiling.

‘I’d better get on.’ She gathered up the dog, still in a ball, and stood up. She shouldn’t have mentioned the jacket. Cleaning is our business; what we find is their business. The sun had gone in; the air was cooler.

‘I shall take this little lad out for a walk.’ David Barlow scrambled the plates and cups on to the tray.

Only a third of the cake was left. Despite the disparaging comments, he must like it. Stella had never baked a cake. Nor would she.

They walked across the lawn to the house. The dog struggled up on to Stella’s shoulder. David put the tray on the kitchen table and came back outside.

The silence was broken by a drawn-out mewing sound. The dog smacked his lips and nuzzled into the crook of Stella’s neck.

‘He’s yawning!’ David tickled the dog under the chin and the back of his hand caught her cheek. He was looking at her, smiling again.

‘Stanley’s my second chance. You too,’ he murmured. ‘I’m not a believer in God, nor do I hold with things being meant, but hanging out like this, it’s OK, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ David didn’t care about the jacket. It must have belonged to whoever lived here before. His wife had died four months ago, he respected her memory, but he had been honest about the relationship. Everyone deserved a second chance.

When she handed him the dog again, Stella caught David’s smell on the animal’s coat. It could be possible to get on with a person with that smell.

After David had gone, Stella lugged her bag into the downstairs bathroom that he’d had installed when his wife couldn’t get upstairs. He’d done a lot for a woman he didn’t love. She snapped on rubber gloves. Another bath, another bath panel.