Dance of Ghosts

20

After Bishop left, I just sat in my chair beneath the window for an hour or so, smoking cigarettes and trying to work out what the hell was going on. It wasn’t easy, thinking about Anton Viner and what I’d done to him all those years ago … it was something that I usually kept buried deep in the dark places inside my head, the places where I didn’t want to go. It wasn’t that I had any conscious guilt about what I’d done, I didn’t regret it or feel any remorse. Nor did I have any good feelings about it either. There was no satisfaction, no sense of atonement or vengeance or closure … whatever that is. I didn’t consciously feel anything about Viner’s death at all.

But I had killed him.

I’d taken a human life.

And that leaves a hole in your soul. The hole fills, in time, but the new-grown flesh is never quite the same — it’s scarred, wrong, tainted … it has something missing.

It takes something away from you.

So I didn’t want to go back there, back to the dark place deep down inside me, but I knew that I had to think about Viner again now. I had to ask myself if there was any possibility, any chance at all, that the man I’d killed wasn’t Anton Viner.

And that meant taking myself back to that night, back to that shabby grey council house, back to the moment when I was standing over that lank-haired middle-aged man, looking down at the scabbed bite mark on his head … ragged and raw, the blood-brown crust edged with the pink of new flesh … seeing the toothmarks, the shape of a mouth … the shape of Stacy’s mouth. And I had to take myself back to her clothing too, all scrunched up in a carrier bag, browned with blood … her pale-pink vest, her white blouse, her jeans, her underwear … ripped, torn, bloodied … savaged …

And I had to ask myself how drunk I was that night, how drug-crazed and lost and out of my mind …

Could I have imagined these things?

The bite mark, the clothes, the proof that Viner had killed Stacy.

Was it possible that I’d not seen these things?

‘No,’ I muttered. ‘No.’

I’d seen them.

There were a lot more things I had to ask myself — could Viner have got Stacy’s clothes from someone else, or could they have been planted in his house? could the anonymous message I’d received have been a set-up, a string of lies to frame Anton Viner and goad me into killing him? and, if so, who could have sent it? and why? and was it possible that the man I’d killed had only admitted to Stacy’s murder because I hadn’t given him an alternative …?

And while I knew that none of these things were impossible, I also knew that the chance of all of them being true was virtually infinitesimal.

Anton Viner had killed Stacy.

The man I’d killed was Anton Viner.

I went into the kitchen, fetched a bottle of whisky and a glass, and took them back into the front room. I hadn’t had a drink in two weeks, and as I sat down in the armchair and opened the bottle, I hesitated for a moment … thinking about it, almost changing my mind … but I didn’t. I half-filled the glass, took a long shuddering drink, and lit a cigarette.

The only person who knew what I’d done to Anton Viner was Dougie the Burner, and even he didn’t know for sure. He knew that I’d killed someone, or at least that I’d been involved in the killing of someone, and he knew that we’d cremated the body, and I assumed he knew — from the TV and newspaper reports at the time — that a man called Anton Viner was the main suspect in the investigation into the rape and murder of Stacy Craine, so it wouldn’t be hard for him to work out whose body it was that we’d burned. But that was the point — we’d burned it. Dougie had burned it, just like he’d burned countless others. And he was never going to admit to that, was he?

Just as whoever had sent me the anonymous message about Viner wasn’t going to admit to anything either. Not that they actually knew anything — although, again, once they’d found out that Viner had disappeared, they must have guessed straight away what had happened to him — but whoever it was, and for whatever reason they’d sent me the message, I was pretty sure they’d want to keep quiet about it. And even if they didn’t, they didn’t have any proof that I’d done anything.

And although the police had questioned me at the time about Viner’s disappearance, they’d never seriously suspected me. There was a witness, a young man walking home from the nearby party that night, who’d thought he remembered seeing two men getting into a car, one of whom could possibly have been Anton Viner … but this young man had been drinking and smoking dope all night, and he couldn’t be absolutely sure about anything … and so nothing had ever come of it.

I drained my glass, poured myself another, and lit another cigarette.

I couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would suddenly want to link me with Viner.

And now that I’d had a couple of stiff drinks, I wasn’t even sure why I was thinking about it anyway. Everything seemed too circular, too mixed up, too complicated to think about — Stacy, Viner … Viner, me … Anna, Stacy, me, Viner, Anna, me …

And Bishop.

‘Shit,’ I muttered. ‘Fuck it.’

I picked up the phone and called the office.

Ada answered, ‘John Craine Investigations,’ sounding as grumpy as ever.

‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Listen, something’s come up …’

I told her everything that Bishop had told me about Anna Gerrish and Anton Viner, and then I went on to explain that the police were going to announce all this in a televised press conference at two o’clock.

‘Which means,’ I said, glancing at the clock, ‘that in about half an hour’s time, the media are going to start looking for me.’

‘Where are you now?’ Ada asked.

‘At home.’

‘Are you still working that insurance case?’

‘I was this morning, yeah, but I think it’s best if I leave it for now. Could you call Mercer and let them know?’

‘Yeah, OK. But what are you going to do? The media are bound to find out where you live, so if you don’t want to talk to them — ’

‘I’ll see how I feel. I might stay here, I might not. They’ll probably try the office first though, so the easiest thing for you to do is unplug the phone, lock up the office, and go home. If anyone from the media gets in touch with you, don’t say anything. And if I need to speak to you, I’ll use your mobile. OK?’

‘Yeah … how long do you think this is going to last, John?’

‘I don’t know. Hopefully it’ll all be over by the start of next week and we can get back to normality again. But let’s just see how it goes over the weekend, all right?’

Ada sighed. ‘I don’t understand any of this, John. If Viner’s a serial killer, what’s he been doing for the last seventeen years? And why’s he suddenly come back here and started killing again?’

‘I don’t know …’

‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘I know.’

‘And it’s not fair either … for you, I mean.’

‘Nothing’s fair, Ada,’ I said. ‘It’s just the way it is.’

I poured myself another drink, turned on the television, and tuned in to Sky News. Adverts were showing. I muted the TV and went to the bathroom. When I came back, just as I was sitting down again, there was a knock at the door.

‘John?’ I heard Bridget saying. ‘Are you there?’

I got up, went over to the door, and opened it. She’d put on a coat and was holding Walter’s lead in her hand. Walter was sitting beside her.

‘I’m just taking him out for a walk,’ she said. ‘I wondered if you wanted to come with us …’

‘I can’t at the moment — ’

‘That’s all right,’ Bridget said quickly. ‘I just thought I’d ask — ’

‘Can you come in for a minute?’ I said.

She looked at me for a second or two, then nodded. ‘I’ll just put Walter back — ’

‘No, he’s all right,’ I said, stepping back to let them both in.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah, of course.’

As I showed Bridget into the front room, Walter padded across the floor, making a beeline for the settee.

‘No, Walter — ’ Bridget started to say.

‘It’s all right,’ I told her. ‘I don’t mind.’

Walter clambered onto the settee, sighed, and sank down comfortably with his head on his feet. Bridget went over and sat down beside him.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked me, glancing at the whisky bottle as she took off her coat and hat.

‘Yeah …’ I said, checking the TV as I sat down in the armchair. The weather was on. I looked back at Bridget. ‘Sorry … I’m waiting for something … on the news. It might affect you.’

She frowned. ‘What are you talking about, John?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘I’m not being very clear, am I?’

‘Not really, no.’

‘OK, what it is … the man who was here earlier, Mick Bishop, he’s a police officer. And the reason — ’

‘There he is,’ Bridget said suddenly, pointing at the TV. ‘That’s him, isn’t it?’

On the screen, Bishop and two other men were shuffling their way onto a small wooden stage where a table and three chairs had been set up. There were microphones on the table. A jug of water, three glasses. On a hastily erected screen behind the table it said: Essex Police: Working for OUR Community.

‘What’s going on?’ Bridget said.

‘Sorry,’ I told her, turning up the volume. ‘I need to listen to this.’

The three men had sat down and the one in the middle was just beginning to speak. He introduced himself first, Chief Constable Stewart Wright, then he presented the man on his left, Detective Chief Superintendent Gerald James, and finally he introduced Detective Chief Inspector Bishop, described as being the officer in charge of the day-to-day investigation. DCS James then took over, stating simply that Anna Gerrish had been reported missing on 6 September and that her body had been discovered in a lay-by on Great Hey Road on Friday 8 October.

‘At this stage in our enquiries,’ DCS James explained, ‘the cause of death is believed to be multiple stab wounds.’

I could sense Bridget glancing over at me now and then as the press conference went on, but I didn’t look back at her. I just kept my eyes on the screen and listened as James announced that following forensic analysis of crime-scene evidence, a comprehensive link had been established between the murder of Anna Gerrish and the murder of Stacy Craine in 1993.

‘As some of you may remember,’ James continued, ‘the prime suspect in Stacy Craine’s murder was Anton Viner, a convicted rapist who went missing shortly after the crime was committed. Despite an ongoing and exhaustive search by both national and international authorities, Anton Viner has still not been found.’ James looked up from his notes and stared directly into the camera. ‘However, we now have very strong evidence linking Anton Viner with the death of Ms Gerrish, and we’re making a fresh appeal to anyone with any knowledge of this man’s whereabouts to contact us immediately.’

As James held up an A4-sized mugshot of Viner and explained that photographs and further information would be made available to the media after the conference, I kept my eyes on Bishop. He wasn’t looking at the photo that James was holding up, nor was he looking around at the audience, or into the camera … in fact, he didn’t seem to be looking at anything at all. He was just sitting there, stone-faced, staring blindly straight ahead.

But then, as DCS James announced that DCI Bishop would be happy to answer any questions, Bishop suddenly came to life — raising his head slightly, looking around, taking control … a picture of calm efficiency.

The questions came thick and fast.

Are you treating Viner as a serial killer?

Has he killed more than twice?

Was Anna Gerrish sexually assaulted?

Is it true that she worked as a prostitute?

Bishop answered most of the questions quite briefly, refusing to comment on anything that might jeopardise the investigation in any way, which basically meant just about everything. However, when someone asked him how Anna’s body had been discovered, he suddenly became a lot more talkative.

‘Her body was found by a private investigator who’d been hired by Mr and Mrs Gerrish to investigate Anna’s disappearance. While we’d prefer not to release any further details at the moment, we realise that if we don’t, we may well be adding to the media pressure on Anna’s family.’ He paused for a second, glancing into the camera, and I felt that he was looking directly at me. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘in view of this, we’d like to announce at this point that the private investigator who found Anna’s body was John Craine.’

There was an audible silence from the audience for a moment, then cameras started flashing, an excited murmur filled the room, and everyone started shouting out questions.

‘Is that the same John Craine who was married to Stacy Craine?’

‘Yes,’ Bishop said calmly. ‘Mr Craine was Stacy’s husband.’

‘Did Anna know Stacy?’

‘Not as far as we know.’

‘What’s John Craine’s connection with Anna?’

‘There is no connection. As I’ve already said, Mr Craine is a private investigator. He was investigating Anna’s disappearance — ’

‘How did he find her? What did he know that the police didn’t?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that at this — ’

‘Have you questioned him?’

‘Mr Craine has been questioned, yes.’

‘Is he a suspect?’

‘We have no reason to believe that Mr Craine’s discovery of Anna Gerrish’s body is anything more than a coincidence.’

‘But you have questioned him?’

‘I’ve already answered that question.’

‘Does Craine know Viner?’

‘Not as far as we know.’

‘How did he know — ?’

‘That’s it for now, ladies and gentlemen, thank you,’ Chief Constable Wright broke in suddenly. ‘Press packs are available on your way out, and we will be updating you if and when any more information comes to light.’

More questions rang out as the three men got to their feet and shuffled off the stage — mostly questions about me — but the press conference was over now, the microphones turned off, and Sky News was returning to the studio presenters. As they started telling us what we’d just seen and heard, I turned off the television, took a long drink, and lit a cigarette.

‘Well …’ Bridget murmured, looking over at me.

I smiled at her. ‘Confusing, isn’t it?’

She nodded. ‘A bit.’

I picked up the whisky bottle. ‘Would you like a drink?’

‘No, thanks.’

I poured whisky into my glass. ‘Anna Gerrish’s mother wasn’t happy with the way the police investigation was going. She thought they weren’t doing enough to look for her daughter. So a couple of weeks ago she hired me to see what I could find out.’ I shrugged. ‘It wasn’t too difficult. I poked around a bit, asked a few questions, and after a while … well, like I said, it wasn’t that difficult.’

Bridget looked at me, waiting for me to go on.

I drank some more. ‘I can’t tell you exactly how I found Anna’s body, but it didn’t have anything to do with Viner or Stacy. I didn’t even know about Viner’s connection with this until a few hours ago. That’s what Bishop came here to tell me about.’

Bridget nodded. ‘You don’t have to justify anything to me, John.’

‘Yeah, I know … it’s just … well, the way Bishop explained it, you could easily have assumed — ’

‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn’t assume anything. I still don’t really understand any of it — ’

‘Neither do I.’

She nodded again. ‘Was he right about it just being a coincidence?’

‘I don’t know …’ I sipped my drink. ‘I really don’t know.’

We were both silent for a while then — Bridget just sitting there, idly preening Walter’s grey head, while I just sat there, drinking and smoking … not really thinking about anything any more, just letting things be, letting the alcohol sink down inside me and soak up all the stuff that didn’t make sense …

‘It must have been terrible for you,’ Bridget said after a while.

‘What?’

‘Finding the body.’

‘Which one?’

She hesitated, taken aback for a moment, not sure what I meant, but then she suddenly realised. ‘Oh, shit … of course, your wife … God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean — ’

‘No, it’s my fault,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have said it like that … sorry.’ I shook my head. ‘I’m such a fucking idiot sometimes …’

Bridget smiled. ‘Just sometimes?’

‘Most of the time, actually,’ I said, returning her smile.

We carried on smiling at each other for a few moments, then Bridget looked away and carried on stroking Walter’s head as she gazed casually around the room. As I sat there, half-watching her, I realised that the whisky was really getting to me now, weighing me down with its vaporous gravity, and I could almost hear a faint voice of sobriety castigating me for being so stupid, for drinking so much when I hadn’t eaten anything for God knows how long, for being so weak when I needed to be strong …

But the voice was too far away to have much effect.

And I was already too drunk to care anyway.

‘Is that Stacy?’ I heard Bridget say.

Just for a second, I thought that she meant the distant voice in my head — is that Stacy reproaching you for drinking too much? — but then I looked over and saw that she was studying the framed photograph of Stacy on the shelf.

‘Yeah …’ I said, gazing at the picture as Bridget got up and went over to the shelf for a closer look. The photo was a head-and-shoulders shot of Stacy, taken on the day we’d got married. It wasn’t much of a wedding — a register office service, with no guests, no fuss, no reception … just a couple of friends as witnesses and a few drinks in the Double Locks afterwards — but it was a day I’ll never forget. Just the two of us, alone together in our own perfect world …

‘She’s beautiful,’ Bridget said.

I nodded, unable to speak. In the photograph, Stacy was laughing, her eyes beaming, her face alight with joy … and just for a moment I was back there again, I was there … on our wedding day, sitting in the sun-dappled beer garden of the Double Locks, taking her picture. I’d just made a daisy crown for her, and when I’d placed it on her head it had looked so pure and wonderful — she’d looked so pure and wonderful — that I’d just had to take a photograph …

‘How old was she then?’ Bridget asked.

‘Twenty-four,’ I said. ‘She was three years older than me.’

‘She looks very happy.’

‘Yeah …’

Bridget looked at me. ‘I don’t suppose it helps, does it?’

‘What?’

She shrugged. ‘Knowing that you loved each other … the memories … all the good things. I don’t expect they give you much comfort.’

‘Not really … in fact, sometimes I wonder if it might have been better if we hadn’t loved each other so much. Well, better for me, anyway.’

Bridget shook her head. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘No … no, I don’t.’ I lit a cigarette. ‘It’s just … well, you know …’

She shook her head again. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine how you must have felt. It must have been unbearable.’

I sipped my drink.

‘How do you do it, John?’ Bridget asked quietly. ‘How do you keep going when something like that happens?’

‘I don’t know …’ I shrugged. ‘I suppose you either keep going or you don’t … I nearly didn’t.’

‘Really?’

I nodded. ‘I pretty much fucked myself up for about a year after Stacy was killed. I just … I just couldn’t live with it. I was drunk all the time …’ I looked at the whisky in my glass, then glanced up at Bridget, half-smiling. ‘I mean, I know I still drink too much now, but back then I’d start first thing in the morning and just keep going until I passed out. And I wasn’t just drinking either. I was doing all kinds of shit — coke, speed, grass, downers … anything. I even started snorting heroin for a while. I didn’t care what I did. As long as it took me away from myself … as long as it took me away from the reality of Stacy’s death, that’s all I cared about.’ I drank some more. ‘I was looking for oblivion.’

‘What made you stop?’ Bridget said.

‘I don’t know, really … I probably wouldn’t have stopped if it hadn’t been for a friend of my father’s, a man called Leon Mercer. Leon had kept in touch with me after my father’s death, and we’d got to know each other quite well … which was kind of weird, actually, because I’d gone out with his daughter for a while when I was about seventeen, eighteen, so he’d been my girlfriend’s father, and boys are always frightened of their girlfriends’ fathers, aren’t they?’

‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ Bridget said, smiling. ‘My dad used to scare the shit out of any boyfriends I brought home.’

I nodded, taking another drink of whisky. ‘Anyway, Leon kind of kept an eye on me after my father died, and then when Stacy was killed and I started drinking and everything … well, my life was a complete mess. I lost my job, I lost most of my decency, I lost whatever sense of purpose I might once have had … I lost just about everything. But Leon still kept in touch, kept ringing me up and coming round to see me, and I was probably really fucking horrible to him, just like I was really fucking horrible to everyone else, but Leon didn’t give up. He didn’t try to change me or anything, he just kept being there for me, looking out for me … caring for me.’

‘He sounds like a good man.’

‘Yeah, he is …’ I said thoughtfully. ‘He really is. When he came to me one day and offered me a job with his private investigation business, I was so fucked up I could barely walk, let alone work. And Leon knew that. And he also knew that I didn’t know anything about investigation work, and that I’d probably turn down his offer anyway — which I did at first — but, despite all that, he still made the offer. And after I’d turned it down, he just told me to think about it, and that if I changed my mind, the offer would still be there … and a couple of weeks later, after I’d cleaned myself up a bit, I did change my mind … and that was it, really. Leon took me on, took me under his wing, started teaching me everything he knew about the business, and I gradually started living some kind of life again.’

Bridget nodded. ‘And you stopped looking for oblivion?’

‘Most of the time, yeah.’

She glanced at the drink in my hand.

I shrugged. ‘I still feel the need for some shadows now and then.’

She smiled sadly.

I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling the numbness of my scalp, imagining the skull beneath the skin … that eyeless shell, cold and white … that lifeless lump of bone that guards our life yet forever signifies death …

Walter groaned, stretching his legs, and as Bridget patted his flank, he let out a tiny fart. Bridget smiled — the smile of an embarrassed child — and I couldn’t help smiling too as Walter turned and craned his neck, giving his backside a slightly bemused sniff.

‘Charming, isn’t he?’ Bridget said.

‘Yep,’ I said. ‘He’s a classy guy, all right.’

She laughed.

I drank some more.

The telephone rang.

I leaned down, picked it up off the floor, dropped it, and picked it up again. ‘Hello?’

‘Is that Mr Craine?’ a female voice said.

‘Who’s this?’

‘John Craine?’

‘Who are you?’

‘My name’s Eileen Banner, I’m from the Sun. I was wondering if — ’

‘Shit,’ I muttered, putting the phone down and disconnecting it.

‘Is something the matter?’ Bridget asked.

‘That was a reporter from the Sun,’ I told her, pulling my mobile from my pocket as it started to ring. The screen read UNKNOWN SENDER. I cut off the call and turned off the phone. ‘This is what I meant earlier on,’ I said to Bridget. ‘You know … about this affecting you.’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘The press, TV people … now that Bishop’s thrown them a bone they’re all going to be after me like dogs. I can keep the phones turned off, and I can keep away from my office, but sooner or later they’re going to start coming round here. And if I don’t talk to them, which I won’t, they’ll just go looking for someone else … you, for example.’

‘Me?’ Bridget frowned. ‘But I don’t know anything — ’

‘You don’t have to know anything. The media don’t give a shit about knowing anything. All they ever want is something to talk about, something to write about … it doesn’t matter what it is.’ I looked at Bridget. ‘If they come round here, and you open the door, they’re going to link you with me whatever you say, or don’t say … and the next thing you know you’ll be “the mysterious blonde now living with the husband of the serial killer’s first victim”, and everyone’s going to want to know all about you.’

Bridget just shrugged. ‘So I won’t open the door.’

I looked at her, struggling to focus now, and I wondered if I should warn her about the possibility of the media picking up on her resemblance to Stacy. And as I thought about that, I suddenly realised that not only was she roughly the same height and shape as Stacy, with the same short blonde hair and blue eyes, but she was also about the same age that Stacy would have been …

‘Are you OK, John?’ she said to me.

‘What?’

‘You don’t look so good …’

‘Uh, yeah …’ I mumbled. ‘I think I’m a bit …’

‘Drunk?’

I smiled. ‘Yeah … sorry. I didn’t mean to … I was just …’

‘Looking for shadows?’

‘Probably, yeah … something like that. But look — ’

‘It’s all right,’ she said, getting to her feet and coming over to me. ‘I won’t answer the door to anyone I don’t know, I won’t talk to anyone, and I’ll try not to let anyone take any pictures of me. But I’m not going to move out or anything, OK?’

‘Yeah, no … I didn’t mean that — ’

‘Whatever happens, I’ll deal with it.’

‘Keep your curtains closed.’

‘Stop worrying, I’ve got it all in hand.’ She was leaning over me now, helping me out of the chair. ‘You need to go to bed.’

‘Yeah, sorry …’

‘And stop saying sorry.’

‘Sorry,’ I grinned.

‘Come on, up you get.’

I don’t really remember the rest of it. I have a vague recollection of being slightly embarrassed as Bridget took me into the bedroom and helped me into bed, but I’m not quite sure what I was embarrassed about. I assume that part of it was simply that I felt so stupid about being so drunk, but I’ve got a feeling that there was more to it than just that. There was the touch of Bridget’s hand on my arm as she helped me into the bedroom, and then the dimly dawning realisation that I was in my bedroom with Bridget, and that she was putting me to bed … and that I didn’t know what was going to happen next. What did she want to happen? What did I want? What did she expect? Something? Anything? Nothing?

It was an embarrassing train of thought.

But nothing happened.

Almost nothing.

I remember her whispering, ‘Go to sleep … I’ll see you later.’

And then I felt her lips on mine — a brief but gentle kiss.

And it moved me. It made me want to be with her, to hold her, to have her hold me. And with the touch of her lips still sweet on mine, I reached out for her …

But she’d already gone.