Walking with Ghosts (33 page)

They called him the Surgeon.

Because he cut out his mother’s eyes.

Who would stop him?

There were silhouettes in the room with her, but the Surgeon would remove them. That’s what a surgeon did. He cut away the bad, the evil, so that the good could grow and flourish.

William stepped into the road. The rope and the knife were there, safe in his pocket. She’d be drinking up there, he thought. Sucking on a bottle. William didn’t like his mother drinking, but it was the only thing she could do.

He had the house in his sights now. The very house where everything had happened. He remembered seeing his daddy hanging there, outside in the garden, and how he had been so small at the time, and frozen with grief. And he remembered thinking it was the end of the world, because his daddy was dead, and how it would be impossible for the world to carry on without him.

Almost everything about his mother disgusted him.

A car turned into the street and William retreated back into the shadows. It wasn’t a Daimler. It was a taxi, and it parked outside Dora’s house. William watched and saw the woman detective get out of the back. She was wearing the same lilac-coloured suit as earlier. She paid the taxi driver and went into Dora’s house.

William was paralysed again.

He looked up at the harvest moon and tried to remember what happened next.

He listened for a prompt.

His head was like a bucket with holes punched in the sides. As soon as he thought something the thought slid through one of the holes and was gone. There was a real connection between the woman detective and Dora, there had to be. But what was it?

The taxi got to the end of the street, turned the corner and was gone. He looked back at the house.

An ordinary house in an ordinary street. There was nothing to distinguish it from the houses on either side. People passing by would not give it another look. But behind it, hidden from the world, was a pear tree. And in the branches of that tree William had discovered the knowledge of good and evil.

His mother had hired the woman detective. In phase one his mother had killed Arthur. Phase two would be the death of William.

Unless, somehow, Arthur and William together could devise a plan to wipe her from the face of the earth.

40

Sam watched the bedroom door open. Celia was standing in the doorway. She mouthed the word: ‘Marie.’ He looked down at Dora, who was sleeping. He smoothed the cover near her shoulder and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. ‘It’s Marie,’ Celia said. ‘Sounds important.’

He looked at Celia, placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘You look worn out,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you go home? Get some rest?’

‘I’ll hang on a little longer,’ she said. ‘See what Marie wants. If you have to go out you’ll need me here.’

‘What about Diana?’

‘She’s sleeping.’

Sam followed her down the stairs. Marie got to her feet as they walked into the living room. She was dishevelled, her hair stuck to her head, her skirt and tights scuffed and torn. He went to her and put his arms around her. ‘You all right? What happened?’

‘Yeah. I’m fine. But Geordie’s in the hospital.’ She quickly told him what had happened. How she’d gone to enquire at Charles Hopper’s house, and how she and Geordie had been attacked by the character in the cloak.

‘Geordie,’ said Sam. ‘Is he conscious?’

‘Yes, Janet’s with him. It’s a compound fracture, broken two bones in his forearm. The radius and the ulna; it’s nasty, the upper part of the radius came through the skin. No wonder he passed out.’

Sam flinched. ‘But it’ll mend?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what about his neck?’

‘It looks terrible where the rope has burned the skin. But it’s superficial. He’ll come through.’

‘Did he say anything?’

Marie smiled. ‘Yeah. He said, “Tell Sam I’m sorry, and tell him to nail the bastard.” ’

‘And Janet? She can cope?’

‘I got them a private room. She can stay there with him. Be like a honeymoon. I told the hospital you’d pick up the tab.’

‘I’m stunned,’ Sam said. He cocked his head to one side, listened to the sound of a distant cash register.

‘I thought you’d want to make a gesture.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘What the hell. It’s better to give than lend, and it costs about the same.’

‘We didn’t get a look at the guy,’ said Marie. ‘He wore a hood. Like a medieval monk. But he was deadly serious.’ Sam turned back to Celia. ‘Get on the phone to J.D. Tell him thanks a lot for his letter, but I need him over here now. I don’t want to leave you unprotected. As soon as we leave, lock the doors and make sure the windows are all fastened.’

‘We going somewhere?’ asked Marie.

‘The guy who attacked you,’ Sam said. ‘I know where he lives. You game for a bit of house breaking?’

‘Will I need a note from my mother?’

They detoured to the hospital. They walked through the main entrance and took a lift to the second floor. Marie led the way on to the ward, past the nurses’ station to a private room. Geordie was flat on his back, Janet sitting in a chair by the side of his bed.

‘Great security system here,’ Sam said.

Marie laughed. ‘Yeah, you can walk in and smother all the patients. Kill the doctors if you like. No one will stop you unless you’re smoking.’

Sam went to the bed and placed his hand over Geordie’s, looked down into his face.

‘It was weird,’ Geordie said. His voice was faint and hoarse. Didn’t sound like him at all. ‘I knew I was dying and I was really pissed off. I didn’t see all my life pass in front of my eyes. Nothing like that. It was like being drowned, like being in an ocean, being dragged down into the depths, all alone. Up on the surface there was Janet and Barney in the sunlight, you and Marie and Celia. And down below it was pitch black. I didn’t want to go but there was no way round it. It was so disappointing.’

Marie took a step towards the bed. ‘But you didn’t die, Geordie.’

He put something like a grin on his face. ‘Thanks to you.’ He reached out his good hand and she took it, leaned over the bed and put her cheek next to his. When she pulled away Geordie looked exhausted.

‘We’d better be on our way,’ Sam said.

‘You gonna get him, Sam?’ Geordie asked. His face was whiter than snow, his eyes huge and black.

‘Yeah. We’ll wrap it up tonight.’

‘Careful. He’s Radio Rental. He’s not big but he’s stronger than you think. I tried to kick him in the grapes.’ Sam nodded. Glanced at Janet, then snapped back to Geordie. ‘You gonna be OK?’

Janet said, ‘The doctors and nurses are really good. They could put scrambled eggs back into the shell.’

Geordie did something with his face, another stab at a smile, but not much better than the last one. ‘I could use some grapes,’ he said. ‘I thought that’s what’s supposed to happen. People come and visit you and tell old jokes and feed you grapes.’

Sam got up and headed for the door. ‘Don’t be a sprout,’ he said.

*

St Mary’s was quiet. The moon was bright but the wind had dropped away. Billy’s attic room was lit with a flickering glow that could only have come from a candle. The other windows were in darkness.

‘We’ll go in the back way,’ Sam said. He led Marie through the pedestrian passage to Marygate Lane, and from there to a brick wall and tall wooden gate which led to the back of Billy’s house. The gate was locked from the inside. Sam asked Marie to hold his torch. He put a dustbin against the wall to give him a start, went over the wall and unbolted the gate so Marie could follow. The bolt on the gate hadn’t been used for some time.

They stood together in the dark and listened. There was no sound from the benighted house, no sense of life or movement from within. The concrete floor of the yard was little used, there was moss growing in the cracks and a smell of cat piss. An old bicycle was leaning against one of the walls, both of its tyres flat, all of its moving parts rusted and crusty. Sam felt Marie tremble next to him. He took hold of her arm and squeezed it gently. ‘You OK?’ he whispered.

‘I’ll manage. It feels weird.’

‘You can wait out here if you like. Watch my back.’

She shook her head. ‘I wanna be where the action is. I’d shake to death out here.’

He smiled and moved over to the door. He turned the knob slowly and eased back on the door, but it didn’t give. ‘I’ll take the window out,’ he said. And he turned his back to the window and hit one of the small panes sharply with his elbow. There was a loud crack as the glass shattered, and a marmalade cat which had been sitting on the garden wall watching the break-in did an open screak followed by a sudden scattering run.

Sam slowly withdrew his arm and brushed shards of glass from his sleeve. They reflected the moon as they fell to the ground. He put his hand through the jagged opening and turned the key in the lock. When he next turned the knob on the door and pulled gently, there was a creaking sound as the dry hinges allowed it to swing outwards.

Sam looked at Marie, and together they gazed into the impenetrable darkness within the house. Stale cooking smells were evident. Burnt fat, toast, and something rancid, fetid. ‘What’s that?’ Sam asked, sniffing gently, unwilling to let whatever it was into his head.

‘Smells like rotten meat,’ Marie said.

‘Yeah.’

He moved into the kitchen, Marie following close behind. He flicked the torch on and off to get his bearings, noticed a grimy kettle to his right, sitting on a two-ring gas stove. He reached out and touched it, wondering how long it had been since Billy had been down here. The kettle was cold.

On a table were two bottles, each with stumps of candle stuck in their necks.

Underfoot had changed to sticky and damp. What had once been a carpet was now like a thick dough, partly cooked, a breeding ground for sucking insects, worms, maggots and disease-producing microbes. Billy was keen on the launderette, but as far as housework went he was still in nursery class.

Sam flicked the torch on again, noticed there was a step up from the kitchen to the next room. He reached behind him and found Marie’s hand. ‘Stay close,’ he whispered. ‘And as quiet as you can.’ He felt her grip his hand tightly, and they edged forward over the floor like a single being. The room was almost empty. There was a large cast-iron frying pan on the floor, the butt of a candle standing in it; and there was a carpet runner which looked like it might once have been a stair carpet. In the glance he had of it in the flick of his torch Sam couldn’t tell if it was patterned or plain, and he suspected that the answer to* that one, even in daylight, would require the aid of a forensic scientist.

From that room the next door led to a short corridor. To the left was a staircase with cupboards underneath it, and to the right was the front room of the house. The front room was also unfurnished, though it had curtains, seemingly stuck to the windows by cobwebs. There were mice droppings on the floor, and several of the floorboards had been taken up and removed, leaving dangerous, jagged holes, and a means of access for vermin.

‘Are you sure anyone lives here?’ Marie whispered. And while her words were still hanging there in the dank space of the room there was a single thud from the ceiling above their heads. A footfall? Something being dropped? It wasn’t clear. But someone was up there. Someone or something who might or might not know that Sam and Marie were in the house. Marie let her breath go slowly, and Sam felt a prickling sensation at the back of his neck.

He reached for Marie and pulled her head around so his lips were close to her ear. ‘We’re going up,’ he said.

She didn’t reply, but Sam felt a tremor travel the length of her body. He gripped her hand and made for the stairs. As they reached the first step a large longtail leapt through the wall of the balustrade and brushed Marie’s legs as it scurried into the front room. Marie let go with a shrill and unrestrained scream. The stillness of the house was shattered and every brick, every mite of dust in the whole edifice echoed her cry. She smothered it immediately, dammed it up inside herself, and everything fell quiet again apart from the sound of Marie trembling, her teeth chattering, her lungs sucking in oxygen to augment the flow of adrenalin.

Sam hugged her to his chest. Her whole body was fluttering with panic. It was as though the effort of will to suppress the scream had transformed the sound into an inner force that was rocking her bodily systems to their foundations. Sam held on to her for several minutes, until the terror began to subside. At the same time he listened for other sounds in the house. But heard nothing.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘We’ll go. I’ll take you home and come back later.’

Marie looked up through the gloom at him. She narrowed her eyes. ‘We’re going up these fucking stairs,’ she whispered, her voice shaking but betraying an inner calm and determination. ‘Both of us. Now.’

Sam flicked on his torch and eyed the staircase. There were parts of the wall where the plaster had been gouged out and left in lumps on the treads. It looked as though someone with a grudge against walls had come up with a revenge scenario involving an axe. Near the top there was one strip of burgundy-coloured flocked wallpaper which hung from the ceiling down to the stairs. It was patterned with Chinese dragons, and on either side of it the wall was covered in infantile graffiti which wouldn’t have been out of place in a secondary school bog.