Burial of Ghosts

Chapter Sixteen

It’s evening. I’m pacing a long corridor. There are pools of shadow where the security lights don’t reach. No sound. The children are asleep.

Then, ahead of me, I see a boy. He seems to have appeared from nowhere. It’s Nicky, a fifteen-year-old with a fine, drawn face and the pallor of a pensioner. I think of him as one of my successes and approach him without any sense of danger.

‘Miss!’ His voice is urgent. His eyes burn as if he’s just woken up from a nightmare.

‘Back to bed, Nicky. It’s all right. We’ll talk in the morning.’

I’m close enough to touch him. Nicky killed his grandmother. Recently I’ve persuaded him to speak about it. Everyone here has to confront their offending behaviour. The necessity of doing that is a fundamental belief, as essential as the belief in God in a monastery.

‘Just a few words, Miss.’

That’s when I see the knife. Was he holding it all the time? Behind his back perhaps? Through the white fingers I see the yellow handle.

‘Nicky…’

But his arm is round my neck, choking me to silence, and the knife is pointed at my stomach.

He kicks open the door into his room and pulls me inside. We fall onto his bed like lovers, our legs tangled, his arm still around me.

He squirms free and sits over me. The point of the knife is held at my throat. He makes a sound, a bubble of excitement. In my head I scream to the mother I have never met to save me.

I woke with a start to a knock on the bedroom door. I knew immediately it wasn’t going to be a good day, but it took a moment to remember why. Jess was standing in the doorway with a mug of tea in one hand. She’d never done that before, not even when I was ill. I’m not much of a tea drinker but it was a kind thought. She was looking harassed. She’d woken me up to talk. I hope she didn’t notice the opened letters on the window-sill.

‘The phone hasn’t stopped ringing.’

‘Farrier?’ I knew he’d want to talk again.

‘The press. Not just the Journal. Some from London.’

‘Put on the answerphone.’

‘But that’d make things worse, pet, wouldn’t it? They’d just come round, camp out on the doorstep.’

‘They’ll do that anyway.’

‘I don’t think they will. Not now.’

She waited for me to sit up and handed me the mug. I took a sip. The tea was strong. I thought I could taste the enamel dissolving from my teeth.

‘I lied,’ she said. ‘I told them you’d been trouble ever since you’d got here and I’d thrown you out. This was the last straw.’ She paused so I could tell her how clever she’d been.

I obliged. ‘You didn’t!’

‘Do you know, everyone believed me. Every single one.’ She was indignant. ‘As if I’d do a thing like that.’

I didn’t tell her she was different from most landladies. I was miserable, ungracious and not in the mood for giving compliments. ‘What else did you tell them?’

‘That I thought you’d gone to stay in Heaton with an old friend from college.’

Heaton. Where Philip had grown up. Did his family still live there? Was there another set of grandparents for Thomas?

Jess must have said something, but I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t hear her. When I came round she was looking at me, concerned. She’s not a daydreamer, doesn’t understand it. I made a show of reaching over to the bedside table, shaking a couple of pills from a little brown bottle and taking them with the last of the tea. She didn’t say anything but she left the room beaming.

I started phoning Stuart Howdon’s office at nine o’clock. The woman who answered wasn’t the receptionist I’d met there after Philip’s funeral. This person was older and she had a Scottish accent.

‘Oh, he isn’t in the office yet,’ she said, as if I was mad to expect it.

He must have arrived by the time I rang at ten, because the response was different, if just as chilly.

‘Who should I say is calling?’

I gave my name without thinking. A mistake. ‘I’m sorry, Ms Bartholomew, he’ll be in a meeting all day.’

I wanted to go to Morpeth and drag him out of his meeting, but Jess persuaded me not to.

‘Leave it to Mr Farrier, pet. It’s his job. He knows what he’s doing.’

I wished I could believe her, but Farrier was convinced I was guilty. He just didn’t have enough evidence to keep me in custody.

At lunchtime Dan Meech turned up on the doorstep. He’d tried to phone, but Jess had given him the same story. He hadn’t been taken in by it. He was carrying a bunch of flowers, as if I was an invalid or the one who had died. As if there’d been an accident and he wanted to mark the spot.

‘The press have been to Absalom House too,’ he said. ‘Daft bastards. They’ve been handing out money to the residents in return for a story about Thomas. Of course they’ll get a story that way. It’ll probably be a fairy tale, but what do they care? I shouldn’t stay long. Ellen’s on her own there, fighting them off.’

I waited for him to mention the mail he’d asked me to deliver to Thomas, but he didn’t bring it up. Not then or later. Unless the police specifically asked him, I didn’t think he would.

‘It was kind of you to come,’ I said.

It was kind, but it was weird too. We’d been close at one time but not recently, and he’d never much cared about my feelings. I wondered if a ghoulish curiosity had brought him. Like the readers of the journalists who were pestering us both, perhaps he wanted the details. To know just how much blood there’d been. A description of the scene in close up and Technicolor. He looked awkward and embarrassed when I repeated ‘very kind’, so I thought I was right.

But he added quickly, ‘It’s Nell.’

‘What about her?’

‘She wants to speak to you.’

‘Why?’

‘She’s got it into her head that you spoke to Thomas before he died.’

I couldn’t take it in. It was as if he were accusing me of murder. I felt I had to defend myself. ‘He was dead when I arrived at the house. There was someone with me who can confirm…’

‘No.’ He almost shouted the interruption, realizing too late how I’d taken the words. ‘Not like that. Of course not. She thinks you might have phoned him to make an appointment to visit. Or met him on a previous occasion.’

‘Well, I didn’t.’

‘Could you tell her that?’

‘What?’ The question was pitched louder than his interruption.

‘She’s out of her mind. She won’t take it from me.’

‘She’s a bit young for you, Dan, isn’t she?’ It was a snide remark, intended only to hurt, but he coloured, twisted the flowers in his hands, scattering petals. I took them from him, set them on the kitchen bench and invited him in.

‘Is that what the row between Nell and Thomas was about?’ I asked carefully. ‘You?’

‘He didn’t know it was me. Nell told him she’d met another man. Someone older. He didn’t take it very well.’

‘I wonder why.’ I was amazed that Dan could be so crass. Thomas had been dumped by everyone he’d ever cared about. ‘Is that why he moved up to Delaval?’

‘One of the reasons. If he’d still been going out with Nell he’d probably have hung around.’

He looked up and saw my face, gave a melodramatic shrug, a gesture to slide off any trace of responsibility. ‘I thought he’d get over it. People do. How was I to know that he’d die when he was still angry, before Nell had a chance to make things up with him?’

It was very similar to the tone he’d used with me when we were still in college. Hey Lizzie, I didn’t know you felt like that. How could I realize you’d take it seriously? We’re mates, right. It was a bit of fun.

As an actor, I thought again, he had a limited range. No wonder he’d had to find a day job.

There was a pause. In the distance I could hear Jess hoovering the upstairs rooms. I sat, refusing to break the silence.

‘I could take you now,’ he said. ‘Nell hasn’t gone into school today. I’ve borrowed Ellen’s car.’ Suddenly his voice went flat and bleak. ‘Please, Lizzie. You don’t know the state she’s in. I can’t go back without you.’

I considered him suspiciously. Was he better, after all, than I’d realized? A bit hammy but with more emotional tone than I’d given him credit for? Then I thought none of that mattered. If I went it wouldn’t be for Dan. It would be for the girl. She’d be blaming herself and me and Dan and her parents. Everyone except the person with the knife. And what else did I have to do? I stuck the flowers in a milk jug and left a note for Jess on the table. She’d only have tried to stop me. I closed the kitchen door quietly behind me, but I didn’t think she’d hear anyway, above the hoover. Dan drove to Whitley Bay in silence, which meant either that he really cared for this girl or that he had more sense than to be triumphalist.

Nell’s family had a house in one of the streets parallel to that where the Laings lived. Presumably Dan had been on his way there when we’d met the week before. It was on a corner, detached, mellow brick with ivy growing up the side, a more modern extension built on the back. At the gate I stopped, blocking the path, so Dan had to listen to me.

‘How did you know I’d found the body?’

‘Radio Newcastle.’

‘I was named?’

He nodded. ‘A twenty-five-year-old social worker.’

Oh, well, I thought, it could have been worse. Farrier could have added, ‘Who’s currently on sick leave following a mental breakdown.’ I’d always thought he was decent.

I stepped aside and let Dan past. He led me round the back of the house and opened a door in the flat-roofed extension. I expected to step into a kitchen, but this was Nell’s room, a cross between an artist’s garret and the Blue Peter studio. Everywhere was colour. One wall was orange, with Pollock-like splashes in red and brown, another was washed deep blue fading into lilac. On that body parts had been printed in black gloss – not just the handprints you see in nursery schools, but feet, arms, buttocks and some smudgy marks which were probably tits. There was a big window looking out over the garden. A long trestle table had been built beneath it. Below the trestle were sets of drawers on castors, baskets with brushes and tubes of paint; beside it, a couple of high stools. Everything was messy and chaotic. The tubes of oil paint had tops missing. On the opposite wall was a sink. More brushes stood in jars of white spirit on the draining board. On the floor were piles of paper. I saw some pencil drawings which made me think for the first time that Nell was more than a spoilt brat who didn’t look after her things. In one corner a construction was under way, involving chicken wire and plaster. Perhaps it was finished and making a statement about impermanence, but I don’t think so. There were splashes of plaster on the floor and they still looked wet.

Nell could have been another installation. She was curled on a huge purple cushion on the floor. There was more plaster on her hair and her jersey. When she heard us come in she sat up.

‘This is Lizzie,’ Dan said.

We stared at each other.

‘Look, coffee, yeah?’

He ran away through an internal door. He seemed very at home in the house. I presumed Nell’s parents were at work. Left alone, we continued to stare at each other.

She was very small and dark. Black hair, which I don’t think had been dyed, chopped in a jagged cut around her ears. A little face. Dark eyes made even bigger by the panda shadows which surrounded them. Even as she was sitting, cross-legged, I could tell she had that dancer’s grace which Dan always went for.

‘You found him,’ she said.

I nodded. There were no chairs, and no way would I sit on the floor with all the crap. I was wearing a decent pair of trousers you could only dry-clean. I pulled out one of the stools, dusted it with my sleeve while my back was to her and sat on that.

‘I’m not sure why you want to see me,’ I said. ‘He was dead when I got there.There’s nothing I can tell you.’

‘You must have spoken to him to arrange the visit. I want to know how he was. If he was OK, perhaps I won’t feel so bad. Now I just remember how I betrayed him.’

I know all adolescents are intense. I’d been intense myself in my search for justice, my mother and the great Newbiggin dream, but no one had ever looked at me before with such haunted and piercing eyes.

‘No.’

‘What did you want to see him for?’

I could have lied, but I didn’t see the point any more. The only people I’d have any qualms about hurting or offending were already dead. I told her the whole story. ‘My problem now is that the solicitor claims never to have heard of me. It makes my position a little…’ I hesitated ‘… uncomfortable.’

‘The police think you might have killed Thomas?’

I nodded again.

‘That’s ridiculous.’ She was scathing. ‘Why would you?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t think they need to prove a motive.’

‘At least I wrote to him,’ she said. ‘To apologize. We’d had a dreadful row. At least he still knew I cared about him.’

I didn’t say anything. No point in stirring that up either. I moved the conversation on quickly, thinking that Dan might come back any minute and the last thing I wanted was talk of letters.

‘Did Thomas ever mention his father?’

‘Not his real dad. He talked about Ronnie. His mum always wanted Thomas to call him Dad, but he never would.’

‘What did he say about Ronnie?’ I tried to keep my voice casual, but I knew it was important. The relationship between Ronnie and Thomas mattered in all this. It could explain why Kay had kicked him out of the house.

‘Thomas said he despised Ronnie. He said Ronnie let Kay walk all over him.’

‘But?’

‘I’m not sure. He was pretty screwed up about the whole parent thing, you know.’

I knew.

‘I mean, I think deep down he wanted Ronnie to like him.’

‘Is that why Thomas started volunteering for a conservation charity? Ronnie’s into the countryside too, isn’t he?’

She looked at me. One of the nuns in the kids’ home I’d been in when I was seven had looked at me like that. Appraising, judging. I’d thought she’d been able to tell exactly what I’d been thinking. It had scared me rigid.

‘What do you know about that?’ she asked.

‘Only what Dan told me. That Thomas volunteered as a fund-raiser.’

‘I didn’t approve,’ she said.

‘Oh, Dan thought you’d introduced him to the charity.’

‘I don’t think of it as a charity. More a lobby group. Field sports. Hunting. Political, really. I was surprised when he went for it. He said I didn’t understand. If I understood properly what was going on there, I’d approve.’

I remembered what Ray had said after my meeting with Ronnie Laing. ‘Are you saying Thomas worked for the Countryside Consortium?’

‘Only as a volunteer. Marcus organized it.’

When she spoke she opened her mouth wide. The words were very defined. An actor doing a voice exercise. Another drama queen. I thought she’d suit Dan fine.

‘Marcus?’

‘He worked for the Consortium in his gap year. We both knew him, though he wasn’t at our school. I was surprised when Thomas got involved. He’d made fun of the whole thing at first. Ronnie was a supporter. That was enough to turn Thomas off. And he knew my feelings on the subject. But he seemed to get sucked in. When he started with them he didn’t talk about it much. Like it could have been some secret society. Like it was some big deal and he was saving the world. He liked being mysterious.’

‘Do you have an address for Marcus?’

‘His father owned the house in Seaton Delaval. Thomas was living with him. I didn’t realize until he died and the address was in the paper.’

She turned away, so I couldn’t tell what she thought of that.

‘What about his paid work at Harry Pool’s? Did Thomas have any friends there?’

‘Drinking mates,’ she said. ‘People to go to the pub with when they all finished on Friday nights. I never met any of them. Not my thing.’

‘Did he enjoy work?’

‘I think it embarrassed him. It was ordinary. Thomas always thought he would be famous. He talked about what he’d do if he got the chance – journalism, television, music.’ She paused sadly. ‘And now he’s made the front page, he’s not around to appreciate it.’

Dan came in then, clutching three mugs by the handles, spilling coffee on the way. He handed the first to Nell, carefully, and set mine on the trestle. He sat beside her on the dusty purple cushion, put his arm around her and held her close. She looked at me over his arm and she smiled, not a horrid smile but gentle, pitying, as if she was able to sense my jealousy and didn’t want to hurt me.

‘I should go,’ I said. ‘Jess will be worrying.’

He didn’t move. That made me cross. I was only there because of him.

‘You don’t mind taking me, Dan, do you? Only I don’t really want to wait for a bus.’

‘Right.’ He got reluctantly to his feet. What else could he do? ‘If there’s nothing else…’

He looked at Nell. I thought there was something else I wanted to ask. About Shona Murray, the MP, and what Thomas might have been writing to her about. But mention of an MP might trigger a memory of a House of Commons stamp on the back of a letter, so it would have to wait.

On the way back to Newbiggin he asked me what I thought of Nell.

‘Bonny,’ I said. ‘She’s really bonny.’ It was true.