Burial of Ghosts

Chapter Thirty-seven

‘You think too much,’ Farrier said.

I don’t know how he could tell what I was thinking. He came to see me while I was waiting for the miracle to happen – for Joanna to die or disappear. He came to tell me she’d been arrested. I hadn’t expected that. Not without my help. It was the pride again. I’d thought I was the only person capable of putting her away. While I was waiting, the flashbacks had returned, more frequently than ever, but somehow I wasn’t so troubled by them. I didn’t let them get to me in the same way.

‘What’s happened to the kids?’

‘They’re with foster parents in Heaton. A really nice couple. A big house backing onto the park. I asked. I thought you’d want to know.’

Heaton. Where Philip had come from. There was something reassuring about that.

‘You don’t seem surprised about Joanna,’ he said, probing.

We were on the white bench outside Sea View. Jess had gone to Asda. Ray had taken her in the van because she had to do a big shop. She’d arranged a party, a big do. I thought she and Ray were intending to announce their engagement and I was so exhausted, so wrung out and emotionally dead, that I didn’t care any more. I’d move on, find somewhere to stay. There was always Absalom House.

‘No, I’m not surprised.’

‘How did you find out?’

I looked up at him. ‘Is this you and me talking? Or is it work, official?’

‘You and me.’

‘Because I won’t be a witness.’

‘She cut herself that day at Thomas’s. There were traces of blood which weren’t his. When we arrested her we did a test. The DNA matches. We won’t need witnesses like you. Between ourselves, I think there’ll be a guilty plea.’

‘She told me she killed him,’ I said. ‘She thought I cared so much about the kids I’d not give her away.’

‘You haven’t.’

‘I was still thinking about it.’

‘I know. I can tell.’

We looked out to the bay, to St Bartholomew’s at one end, solid, the colour of coal dust, and south to Blyth power station and the wind turbines with their feet in the sea.

‘I sent the accountants into the Countryside Consortium,’ Farrier said. ‘I wasn’t sure much would come of it. Routine. There’d been a hint in that letter Thomas had sent to Shona Murray. I wasn’t quite straight about that.’

‘How had Thomas found out Joanna was on the fiddle?’

‘Some of the members were grumbling about where all the money had gone. No one suspected her, mind.’

‘Of course not. She’s a saint.’

‘Thomas had only joined up to make trouble. He saw himself as a spy. An infiltrator. According to Shona. He saw some of the letters of complaint and got into the computer system to find out more. He must have said something to Marcus. That’s how Joanna first suspected him.’ Farrier didn’t look at me at all during this conversation. It was as if he were reporting to a colleague. A superior. ‘Then Ronnie Laing talked. His wife brought him in. He was brooding, she said. He had something on his mind. It was making him ill. And then that solicitor made a statement. Rats leaving a sinking ship.’

‘It’ll have been a shock for Joanna, that. She thought she had them charmed.’

‘She thought she had me charmed.’ Farrier looked up at me then and grinned to show that he was only human and he’d enjoyed the flattery. I bet Joanna took him the back way into the house too. She’ll have sat him at the kitchen table, offered him tea or wine.

‘But you weren’t taken in.’ In the distance there was a police siren. You hear them all the time in Newbiggin. Or it could have been a fire engine. It was the summer holidays and bored kids are always setting fires on the mound. ‘I didn’t realize all that was going on.’

‘It was a murder investigation. We don’t just sit on our hands.’ He smiled to show he wasn’t offended that I thought so little of him. He was wearing a sports jacket which had no shape at all, a blue shirt, a shiny tie which looked as if it had been pressed with too hot an iron.

I thought if I cried he’d put his arm around me to comfort me, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’ve told you I’ve got a thing about older men. This wasn’t the time, though. Everything was complicated enough.

‘You won’t need me to stick around for the court case?’

‘Na. Like I said, we’ve plenty of evidence. You don’t need to put yourself through that. Take yourself away.’

So I did. I bought a cheap flight with a charter company to Agadir, then took the bus to Taroudannt and spent the last of Philip’s money on a week in the Palais Salaam. There’s satellite television in my room, but I don’t watch it. I don’t want to see any English news.

I still find Morocco stunning. It’s something to do with the intense light and the smells. The colours don’t explode in my head any more, but I don’t mind that. This way is more restful. I can lie by the pool in the Palais Salaam and watch the bulbuls flitting under the tall trees and still think I’m in paradise. If I slide into the water and ease the tension from my muscles, I can almost forget about Dickon.

His paradise has been sold to pay off Joanna’s debts. She hadn’t stolen nearly enough, it seems. Wintrylaw will be a country club and there’s already talk of felling trees where the bluebells grow. A golf course is essential, according to the managing director of the development company. I saw him on Look North. He had an expensive toupee and he’d been ripped off by his dentist; his false teeth moved as he spoke. So there’ll be no more badger watching or building dens or wading through the surf towards the sun. No more Swallows and Amazons for Dickon.

And should I really care? All those kids in the unit, and the kids I worked with in placement, they didn’t have the chance of one week of that sort of life. They lived in shitty high-rise blocks and their adventures had to do with keeping out of the way of smack-heads and joyriders, so why should I weep for Dickon and not for them?

Tomorrow I’m going home. Jess is getting married and they want me to be bridesmaid. Ray asked me. He blushed and stammered and talked about what an honour it would be. At first I didn’t know what he was going on about. I had to say yes. He looked at me with his pleading bloodhound eyes and I couldn’t refuse. They’re being done in St Bartholomew’s. The vicar’s agreed, though Ray was married before. It’ll be weird, walking up the aisle behind Jess. I’ve even got a cheesy dress. We bought it from the Hospice Shop in Jesmond for twenty-five quid. As Jess says, you get really good second-hand stuff in Jesmond.

They won’t have any more bad boys in Sea View. Ray put his foot down. They’re going to take over that bit of the house again, and turn Jessie’s rooms in the roof into a self-contained flat. They say they’ll need the rent. It’s mine if I want it. I expect they’re just being kind. Jess won’t want to think she’s turned me out onto the street. I’ve told them I’ll think about it.