Walking with Ghosts (28 page)

He had to keep her. Watch her fade away.

He’d fed her for a time. Made sandwiches for her, brought her a bottle of water and let her drink it through a straw. But then he’d left her quite alone, to fend for herself.

Now Charles Hopper would go the same way. William had no choice in the matter. If William hadn’t put Charles in the chest, Charles would have talked to the detective, the woman detective. Marie Dickens.

If she’d talked to Charles Hopper she’d probably talked to other people as well. She was close, and getting closer. She’d have to be stopped.

William had seen her already. He knew the house where she lived, down by the river. She was living with a man, but she wasn’t a mother. If he waited until the man went out she’d be alone.

It would have to be soon.

There it was again, that word.
Soon.
Dora was going to die soon, and so was Marie Dickens.

34

J.D. said, ‘How was it for you?’

Marie had heard the line in films. She’d read it in newspapers. But she’d never expected to hear it live, right on cue, just after having finished doing it with a guy you thought you liked right up to that moment.

‘Great,’ she said, managing to sound not quite so fazed as she felt. J.D. was lying back on the headrest of the bed. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and there was a neat and sizeable dent in the bridge of his nose. His hands were clasped over his white stomach. He was smiling.

‘Like clockwork?’ he said.

Marie connected with his eyes. ‘Well, no, actually. Not like clockwork at all. Just the opposite.’

J.D. shook his head and broadened his smile. ‘It was OK, was it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Thing is, Marie, my old didgeridoo down there doesn’t work like it ought to.’

She moved closer to him, placed a hand on his arm. ‘Well, it did fine this time. A girl couldn’t have asked for more.’

‘No. You don’t understand. It’s prosthetic.’

‘Prosthetic? Artificial?’ She could feel her eyes getting wider, and could do nothing to stop them. Her heart put in an extra beat, then another one, and eventually went into a flutter. ‘Jesus, you mean—?’

‘Well, no, not quite. I mean it
is
still there, it’s just that it doesn’t work without help.’

Marie took deep breaths, calmed herself down, hung on to those words:
It is still there.
So that was OK, then, wasn’t it? If it was still there, then she hadn’t just been entered by something else. Something he’d strapped on specifically f0r the job.

‘You understand what I mean when I say prosthetic?’ J.D asked.

She nodded. ‘I’m a trained nurse. It means artificial.’

‘Yes. But in this case it’s an implant.’

‘Not a transplant?’

J.D. smiled, more to himself than Marie, though she noticed that he was amused. If there was something funny about this, she hadn’t discovered it yet. ‘Not a transplant, no. It’s a penile implant. A device that I can inflate and stiffen with fluid. Very like the original in fact. Except with this one I have a reservoir of fluid and a small pump implanted lower down.’

‘Lower down?’

‘In my scrotum.’

Marie wanted to cry. Men were always a disappointment. In theory you had to, eventually, meet one who was straightforward and uncomplicated, a strong, gentle man. But in reality they never happened along. It was always the same, you thought you’d got a man, but what you’d got was a bundle of problems. They were such pricks. Ha bloody ha.

Celia listened. She was good at that. She sipped at her coffee in Betty’s, then she replaced the cup on the saucer and placed her hands in her lap. She didn’t interrupt, let Marie explain all the intricacies of organic erectile dysfunction, and the various methods that the medics had introduced to deal with it. She managed to encourage Marie with various facial contortions, but not a sound came out of her mouth until Marie had finished.

‘Poor man,’ she said. Then she added, ‘And poor you.’

‘I feel like I’ve been an experiment, Celia. A sacrifice to modern technology.’

‘I do understand,’ said Celia pensively, ‘from other friends, and from a catholic reading of the classics, that there are men in the world who do not have the ability to make a woman feel good about herself.’

Marie laughed. ‘You can say that again. But thank goodness we can talk about it. I feel better already.’

‘You’ve forgiven him?’

‘No, but I’ve forgiven me.’

‘Ah, yes, Marie. You have a good grasp of what’s important. I’ll buy you another coffee.’

‘You know the fairy story about the frog and the princess. Where she kisses the frog and he turns into a handsome prince? That’s never really been my experience. The story is always there, somewhere, at the back of my consciousness. So as I come across these frogs I have the right attitude. I mean, I expect them to turn into princes. But they don’t.

‘What happens is precisely the opposite. Whenever I kiss a frog, the frog gets decidedly worse. D’you think there’s something wrong with my kisses?’

Celia asked a waitress to bring them more coffee, then turned back to Marie. ‘I’m sure there isn’t, my dear. It’s the men, they make as much sense as a square toilet seat.’

Marie and Sam arrived at Edward Blake’s office fifteen minutes before the cabinet minister was due. Blake’s blue-rinse secretary was not in evidence, maybe she’d been given the day off, or perhaps she’d already found something better.

Blake let them in and locked the door behind them, leaving the key in the lock. ‘You don’t want us to be disturbed?’ asked Marie.

He snorted, leading the way through the reception area to his own inner office. ‘I presume you’re here to ruin me,’ he said. ‘I can’t say that the prospect of visitors arriving during the actual operation fills me with joy.’

‘The cabinet minister has already been in touch, then?’

‘Five minutes after you left him. Fie got me up in the middle of the night.’

Marie smiled. ‘Life’s hard sometimes.’ She placed a video cassette on Blake’s desk, tapped it once with the tips of her fingers, and sat back in her chair. Blake fixed his eyes on the cassette, stared at it for so long that Marie wondered if he’d forgotten they were there. She glanced over at Sam, and he smiled but didn’t speak. He was wearing a black trilby and he tipped it forward so it fell over his eyes. This was Marie’s show, and he was only there because the cabinet minister’s barrister had requested his presence.

When the other party arrived, Blake made the introductions. Robert ‘Bobby’ Neville, the cabinet minister, looked completely different with his clothes on. Almost respectable. His hair was sleek and black. Marie was now among the few who knew the truth: that he was a natural redhead.

His barrister was all bustle and feigned good humour, overweight and anxious to get the proceedings under way. Keen to show that he was worth his two-thousand-pounds-a-day fee. It was he who introduced a professional cough, just loud enough to gain everyone’s attention.

‘As far as I can ascertain,’ he said, ‘we are primarily gathered here to negotiate the purchase of a videotape.’ He picked up the cassette that Marie had left on Edward Blake’s desk. ‘In fact, this must be the object in question. My client’ - a glance towards the cabinet minister - ‘is prepared to offer a nominal sum for the purchase of the tape, so long as the proceedings can be finalized immediately. He is not prepared to enter into protracted negotiations. Our bid is five hundred pounds, cash.’ He flicked a catch on his briefcase and extracted a plain brown envelope, which he waved at Marie.

She shook her head.

The barrister smiled and extracted another envelope. ‘One thousand,’ he said. ‘But that’s final.’

Marie shook her head again. ‘No deal,’ she said.

‘My client is in a position of some privilege,’ said the barrister. ‘I can assure you that the police will not look lightly on an attempt to extract money from him by means of blackmail.’

‘No one’s blackmailing him,’ said Marie. ‘I don’t want his money. The videotape’s not for sale.’

‘But I thought—’ said the barrister.

‘Never mind.’ Marie cut him off. ‘We’re here as a kind of industrial tribunal,’ she said. ‘To discuss the redundancy of one of Edward Blake’s employees, Miss Joni Prine.’

Blake got to his feet. ‘Now, just a minute,’ he said. ‘Joni’s got nothing to do with this.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Marie. ‘Joni Prine has been made redundant, and she is due a substantial payment to compensate her.’ She paused to let her words sink in.

It was the barrister who got the message first. ‘I think I see,’ he said. ‘The lady in question is obviously due some compensation, and my client, the right honourable Robert Neville, is here as a representative of government, unofficially, of course, to see that fair play is observed. He is not to be asked to contribute financially, and at the conclusion of the meeting he can leave with the videotape in his possession. Am I on the right track?’

‘More or less,’ said Marie. ‘Give or take an inch here, a tuck there.’ She smiled as if she’d swallowed a mouthful of sugar.

‘Quite,’ said the barrister. ‘What terms were you going to propose to compensate the lady in question?’

Marie took a breath. ‘Mr Blake is about to receive an insurance pay-out in excess of two million pounds,’ she said. ‘Joni Prine, who has been an invaluable aid in building up his present business, requires to be settled in her home town of Sunderland. We estimate that a one-off payment of one hundred thousand pounds should cover her moving expenses and allow her to purchase a moderate property for herself and her daughter.’

The blood began draining from Edward Blake’s face. ‘Another one-off payment of the same amount,’ continued Marie, ‘would ensure that Joni’s daughter receives a decent education. And a final, smaller one-off payment, say fifty thousand pounds, would allow Joni’s elderly and frail mother to spend her remaining days free from financial constraint and worry.’

The barrister looked at Edward Blake. Blake’s features were immobile, but his whole body was shaking. ‘What is your response to the proposals, Mr Blake?’

Blake brought his body under control and let a thin smile cross his lips. ‘I’ll not pay a penny,’ he said. ‘Joni Prine is a slag and a thief who’s never been in my employ. And no one can prove otherwise.’

‘OK,’ said Marie, ‘the alternative course for us is to solicit offers from the tabloid press for a certain videotape. One way or another Joni will be compensated.’

Robert ‘Bobby’ Neville leaned forward and touched Blake’s arm. He smiled with a mouthful of teeth. ‘Edward,’ he said, ‘I do believe you’d like to reconsider the proposals to compensate the lady.’

Blake glared at the cabinet minister with undisguised hatred. ‘A quarter of a million,’ he said. ‘I’m screwed for a quarter of a million, and the rest of you go home with everything intact. Is that justice?’

No one replied. Sam Turner made a squeaking sound from underneath his hat, but he didn’t actually say anything.

‘I’m not going to fall for this,’ said Blake. ‘If I go down you all go down with me.’

‘What you have to realize, Edward,’ said the cabinet minister, ‘is that the tobacco industry will immediately pull its cash out of your operation. And even if you are lucky enough to retain a new client, there will be very few politicians willing to listen to your arguments. If that tape ends up with the tabloids you’ll be joining the dole queue.’

‘We’ll be there together, then, minister. There’s no way that I’m going to pay everyone’s fare out of this.’

Bobby and his barrister went into a whispered conference. Scratching of chins. Shaking of heads. Slow dawning of resignation on their faces as they came out of the huddle. Bobby looked at Edward Blake and said, ‘Fifty-fifty?’ Blake took his time, let the minister sweat for almost a minute. Then he said, ‘You’re a fucking prince among men, Bobby.’

The barrister did his cough again. He rubbed his hands together. ‘Well, then, everything seems to be settled, er, amicably.’ He collected the videotape and put it into his briefcase.

‘A moment,’ said the cabinet minister. ‘What happens if for some reason Mr Blake doesn’t honour his part of the commitment?’

‘We’ll go to the tabloids,’ said Marie.

‘So there’s another copy of the videotape,’ said the cabinet minister, almost to himself.

‘Ten, actually,’ said Marie. ‘Lodged with different solicitors and banks. Just in case anything happens to Joni Prine or to anyone connected with her.’

Marie got to her feet. ‘Coming, Sam?’ she said. She waited until her boss had shaken hands with the other gentlemen in the room, smiling and nodding his head, occasionally raising his hat, but still not speaking. Then she followed him out of the office and down into the street where they both collapsed against the wall of the building.

‘Unbelievable,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think they’d buy the whole package.’

‘It’s true what they say,’ said Sam, when he’d got his breath back, ‘if it wasn’t for the government we’d have nothing left to laugh at.’