Dance of Ghosts

17

Two weeks later, on a cold and misty Friday morning, I was sitting on an old wooden bench in my backyard, drinking coffee and listening to Bridget Moran as she told me about a fat little boy and a mouse.

I’d been seeing quite a lot of Bridget over the last ten days or so, mainly because she’d finally split up with Dave and didn’t like being on her own too much, and although I often heard her talking to her dog, Walter, I knew that she needed a bit of human company every now and again. Of course, I liked to think that there was a little bit more to it than that, but I didn’t really mind if there wasn’t. If all I was to Bridget was a convenient pair of human ears, and if all we ever did was share the occasional cup of coffee together … well, that was perfectly all right with me.

After my interview at the police station — and after three or four days of stultifying depression, when all I could do was lie in bed and wait for the black place to leave me — I’d done what Mick Bishop had told me to do: I’d gone back to my shitty little office and got back to doing my shitty little job. Apart from one phone call to Cal, I hadn’t got in touch with anyone who had anything to do with the Anna Gerrish case, including Helen and Graham Gerrish. I hadn’t even sent them a bill. I’d just got back to living my life, doing my job … working insurance cases, tracing bad debts, tracking down the makers of pirate DVDs …

The Anna Gerrish case was over for me: I’d done what I’d been hired to do; I’d found her. It wasn’t my job to find out who’d killed her. It wasn’t my business to ask any more questions. Who was driving the Nissan that night? Who was Charles Raymond Kemper? Did Kemper kill Anna? Did Bishop kill Anna? If he didn’t, what was he trying to hide? And if he did …?

No … it wasn’t my business.

Right now, my business was investigating the alleged whiplash injuries suffered by a 48-year-old woman in a minor road-traffic accident. That’s what I was being paid to do. And once Bridget had finished telling me about the fat little boy and the mouse, and after I’d had another cigarette, or maybe two, and perhaps another cup of coffee or two … that’s exactly what I was going to do.

‘You know the kind of fat kid I mean, don’t you?’ Bridget said.

She was dressed up warmly in a baggy old jumper and fleece-lined boots, her short blonde hair hidden beneath a red woollen hat, and she was sipping her coffee with both hands wrapped round the cup, like a small child drinking orange juice from a beaker.

‘Sorry,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘I was miles away for a minute there. Who was this fat kid again?’

Just then, Walter wandered out through the back door. He paused on the step for a moment, sniffing the air, then he shook his head and lolloped across the yard. Bridget watched him with quiet affection as he found a bush, cocked his leg, scratted the ground, then went back in again.

‘It’s too cold for him,’ she said.

‘You should get him a coat.’

‘He’s got a coat.’

A veil of mist hung in the air, suffused with the sour tang of nettles. Small birds were flitting from wall to wall, and somewhere in the distance I could hear the unseasonal chimes of an ice-cream van.

I felt OK.

‘Right,’ Bridget said. ‘Are you listening now?’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘OK, so … Wednesday morning, this fat kid came into the shop looking to buy a mouse …’

Bridget was the joint owner of a pet shop in town. It was only a small place, nothing fancy — no chinchillas or snakes or lizards, just fish, birds, mice, rabbits …

‘… and I refused to sell him one.’

‘You refused to sell him a mouse?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

She shrugged. ‘I didn’t like the look of him. He was one of those nasty fat kids with piggy little eyes, you know, the ones who always get what they want. If I’d sold him a mouse it would have been dead within a week. So I told him he couldn’t have one.’

‘What did he do?’

‘The little shit went and got his dad. The two of them came back in the afternoon — fat kid, fat dad.’ She smiled. ‘Fat dad said that if I didn’t sell his boy a mouse, he’d take me to court.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Told him to contact my lawyer.’

I lit a cigarette. ‘There’s probably a joke in there somewhere.’

‘Probably.’

She raised the coffee cup to her mouth and gently blew at the steam.

I said, ‘Why aren’t you at the shop today anyway?’

She smiled. ‘I’m skiving, the same as you.’

‘I’m not skiving … I’m just taking a break. I’ll have to get back to it soon.’

‘Yeah, well … it’s my afternoon off. Sarah’s in charge today.’

‘Who’s Sarah again?’

‘My partner.’

‘Oh yeah … I remember you telling me about her.’

Bridget looked at me. ‘Yeah, I did, didn’t I?’

‘What?’

‘I told you about Sarah.’

‘That’s what I just said.’

‘I know …’

She was still looking at me, and there seemed to be a question in her eyes. And I got the feeling that I was supposed to know what it was, but I didn’t.

‘What?’ I asked her. ‘What is it?’

She smiled. ‘How long have we known each other, John?’

‘I don’t know … about ten years?’

‘Closer to thirteen, actually. Thirteen years. And in all that time … well, I know we’re not really close or anything, but we’ve talked to each other quite a lot, haven’t we?’

‘Yeah …’

‘And I’ve told you quite a bit about myself — how I met Sarah, how we got the shop together, what I like doing, what I did when I was a kid … things like that. I mean, you know stuff about me, don’t you?’

‘Yeah …’

‘But I still don’t really know anything about you. I know that your mother used to own this house, and that your wife was killed … and I know what you do for a living, but that’s about all.’ She sipped from her coffee cup, looking at me over the rim. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Mind what?’

She shrugged. ‘Me … you know …’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t mind.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah.’

She smiled. ‘You can tell me to shut up if you want.’

I looked at her, my heart beating hard with an expectation that I wasn’t sure I wanted. ‘What do you want to know about me?’ I asked her.

‘Anything, really … whatever you want to tell me.’

‘Like what?’

‘Tell me about your wife.’

‘Stacy?’

‘Yeah … Stacy.’ Bridget smiled. ‘Tell me how you met her.’

It was the smile that did it, I think. Bridget’s smile. If she’d been at all hesitant in asking me about Stacy, or if there’d been any trace of sadness or pity in her voice, I probably would have made an excuse and tried to change the subject. But the way she asked, as if the memory of Stacy was something to be celebrated, not mourned or avoided or tiptoed around … somehow that made all the difference. And as I began telling Bridget about the summer of 1990, I realised that this was the first time I’d talked to anyone but myself about Stacy since the day she was killed.

‘I’d just finished my first year at university,’ I told Bridget, ‘and I’d come back home for the summer — ’

‘What were you studying?’ she said.

‘Philosophy.’

‘Why?’

I looked at her. ‘I don’t know … I thought it’d be interesting, I suppose.’

‘Was it?’

I shrugged. ‘It was OK. I mean, to be honest, I didn’t really know what I was doing back then. I didn’t know what I wanted to be, what I wanted to do with my life … my father was hoping that I’d join the police force after I’d taken my degree — ’

‘The police?’

‘Yeah, well, he was a police officer — ’

‘Really?’

I nodded. ‘And so was his father … so, you know, it was kind of a family tradition.’

‘So what does your dad think of you being a private detective?’

‘He’s dead now.’

‘Oh … I’m sorry.’

I nodded again. ‘Well, anyway … it was the summer of 1990, a Friday night, and I was having a drink in the Double Locks … you know the place I mean?’

‘Yeah, down by the river … it’s a nice pub.’

‘Yeah, so I was just sitting there, a little bit drunk — ’

‘Were you on your own?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why? I mean, didn’t you have any friends or a girlfriend or anything?’

I shrugged. ‘I didn’t have a girlfriend at the time, no. I had friends … I mean, I knew people. I just … I don’t know. I just liked being on my own, that’s all.’

Bridget smiled. ‘Fair enough. So you were on your own, a little bit drunk, and you were having a drink … then what?’

‘I saw Stacy. She was with a group of people who I found out later were teachers from the school where she’d just started working … I suppose it must have been a teachers’ Friday night out or something — ’

‘Or an end-of-term celebration?’

‘Yeah … something like that. There were about a dozen of them — men and women, young and old — and they all seemed to be having a pretty good time. Stacy was at the bar with an older man when I first saw her. He was in his late twenties, early thirties, and I thought he was with her, you know …? The way he was standing really close to her, touching her arm, her shoulder, whispering in her ear … I thought they were a couple. But I still couldn’t take my eyes off Stacy.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘Stunning … I mean, just really, really beautiful. Not in a fancy, glamorous kind of way, she was just … I don’t know. There was just something about her. Her eyes, her face … everything. She was the most wonderful thing I’d ever seen.’

‘Describe her.’

‘What?’

‘I want to know what she looked like. You know, was she tall, short, blonde …?’

‘Blonde, yeah. Short blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin … she wasn’t tall.’ I looked at Bridget. ‘About your height …’

My voice trailed off and I lowered my eyes as I realised that my description of Stacy could easily have been a description of Bridget, and for some reason I found that oddly embarrassing.

‘So did you make a move?’ Bridget said, smiling. ‘Or did you spend all night just looking at her?’

‘Make a move?’

She laughed. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘if it wasn’t for Stacy, I probably would have spent all night just looking at her.’

‘So she made the first move?’

‘Yeah … I’d been watching her for about half an hour or so, when I suddenly realised that she was staring right back at me from the bar. So I immediately looked away, you know … I probably started fiddling with my cigarettes or a beer mat or something in a vain attempt to make out that I hadn’t been staring at her at all. But then the next thing I knew, I heard someone say, “Would you like to buy me a drink?” And when I looked up, there she was, standing right in front of me with an irresistible smile on her face.’

‘And what did you say?’

‘I said, “I’m sorry?”’

‘Very cool.’

‘I know. She didn’t seem to mind though, she just kind of cocked her head and looked at me and said it again, “Would you like to buy me a drink?” And this time I said, “Yeah, yeah, I’d love to buy you a drink.” And then I stood up and started going through my pockets, looking for some money, but all I had on me was a pound … one measly pound coin.’

Bridget laughed.

‘So then Stacy said to me, “Would you like to borrow some money?” And that was pretty much it.’

‘That was it?’

‘Well, it turned out that she wasn’t with the man at the bar after all, he was just a teacher at her school who’d been chasing after her ever since she’d first started working there … she didn’t even like him.’

‘But she liked you.’

‘Well, we spent the rest of that night together, and the whole of that weekend, and after that we were together just about all the time. It was … I don’t know. It was like I just didn’t want or need anything else any more … all I wanted was to be with Stace, all the time. That’s all that mattered.’

‘You loved her.’

‘Yeah … yeah, I did. I never even thought about going back to university, I just forgot all about it and moved in with Stace, and while she carried on teaching, I just took on any old jobs that were going, just to bring in some extra money. I worked on a building site, I was a postman, I worked in a call centre … I even had a job at the crematorium for a while.’

‘Very nice,’ Bridget said, raising her eyebrows.

‘Yeah, well … I didn’t care what I did. As long as I was with Stacy — ’

‘That’s all that mattered.’

I smiled. ‘Yeah.’

‘So then what?’ Bridget said. ‘You got married …?’

‘Yeah, then about eighteen months later we found out that Stacy was pregnant — ’

I stopped at the sound of the doorbell ringing. As Walter started barking upstairs, I looked at Bridget. ‘Are you expecting anyone?’

‘It could be Melanie,’ she said. ‘A friend of mine. She said she might come over.’ Bridget looked at me, and I felt her hand on my knee. ‘I can tell her to go if you want.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s all right … I’d better get back to work anyway.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah …’

‘Maybe we can talk some more later on tonight?’

‘Yeah, that’d be good.’

The doorbell sounded again.

Bridget smiled, getting to her feet. ‘I’d better let her in. See you later, OK?’

I nodded, watching as she went back into the house and started yelling at Walter to be quiet. I lit a cigarette and sat there in the misty haze, trying to work out how I felt. I was slightly confused with myself for feeling OK about talking to Bridget about Stacy, but I did feel OK about it, and I guessed that was all right. I was only talking to her, after all. It wasn’t as if I was betraying anything, was it? We were only talking …

‘Yeah, I know, Stace,’ I muttered. ‘That’s what they all say, isn’t it? We were only fucking talking …’

It’s all right, it’s fine. I like her.

‘John?’ I heard Bridget say.

I looked up and saw her standing at the back door.

‘There’s a man here to see you,’ she said. ‘He says his name’s Bishop.’