Dance of Ghosts

27

I learned how to pick locks from a semi-retired investigator who used to work part-time for Leon Mercer. It wasn’t actually a very useful skill to have in the world of corporate investigation and insurance fraud, which was lucky for me because I was never very good at it anyway. I wasn’t totally useless, but I knew that I probably wouldn’t be able to open the Yale lock on Ray Bishop’s front door, so I went through a rusty old gate at the side of the house and headed round the back instead. There was no back garden as such, just a high-walled concrete yard cluttered with bins and bin bags, carrier bags, bits of scrap metal, car doors, seats, hubcaps, broken deckchairs … all kinds of shit. The wall surrounding the yard was high enough to screen me from the neighbours’ downstairs windows, but I paused for a moment and looked around anyway, making sure that no one was watching me from any upstairs windows, then I went over to a glass-panelled door at the rear of the house and examined the lock. It was an old-fashioned mortice lock, loose and rattly, and I was fairly sure I could open it. I looked around all the crap on the ground, searching for something I could use to pick the lock, and almost immediately I spotted a carrier bag full of broken old tools. I went over and picked out a small handle-less screwdriver, and within a couple of minutes I had the door open and was stepping through into a small kitchen at the back of the house.

I shut the door behind me, took out a penlight, and looked around. The kitchen was very small and very cramped, neither overly clean nor excessively dirty. There was a stained porcelain sink with a warped wooden draining board, old cupboards, a rust-flecked boiler, a formica-topped table scattered with empty KFC boxes. I paused for a moment, listening to the silence, then I moved down a narrow hallway and went into the front room. The curtains were drawn, the lights off. As I swept the penlight around, I saw a room that didn’t belong to anyone. It was a room that had been furnished from Argos: bland pictures on the walls, a thin carpet, a cheap two-seater settee and matching cheap armchair. The dining table and shelves were flat-packed white plastic wood, and the ornaments were straight from the ornaments page of the catalogue: lamp, vase, clock, a porcelain figurine of a doe-eyed child. A cut-price music system was stacked against the wall and a widescreen television loomed large on the floor.

There was nothing of Ray Bishop in here.

It was no more than the simulation of a room.

I left the room and headed upstairs.

Halfway up, a samurai sword was hanging from a cord on the stairway wall. At first, I thought it was just another ornament from the Argos catalogue, but when I paused on the stairs and looked closer, I realised that it was all too real. The blade — 24 inches of slightly curved, razor-sharp steel — even showed some signs of use. It was nicked here and there, the cracked edges beginning to rust, and several parts of the blade were discoloured with dark-brown stains. I stood there for a few seconds, gazing at the sword, trying to ignore the simmering fear in my guts … then I went on up the stairs.

There was a small landing, a bathroom, an empty box room, and a surprisingly large main bedroom. And when I opened the bedroom door and stepped inside, I knew straight away that this was where Ray Bishop lived. Up here … this was his home. I didn’t even need to see it, I could sense it, feel it — a brutal vitality that sapped the air from my lungs.

I closed the door behind me and shone the penlight around. The walls were black, the paint seemingly applied with no care at all. It looked as if someone had simply rushed round the room, slapping on paint until the walls were more black than white. The only window, facing the street, was covered with a single heavy black curtain. There was no bed, just a blanket on the floor. The blanket was surrounded by a mess of scattered objects: syringes, phials, tissues, a spoon, a carton of milk, crackers, soda bread, yoghurt, cheese, nuts …

‘Christ,’ I whispered, stepping cautiously around the mess and sweeping the penlight around the room again.

The entire place was lined with wall-to-wall shelves stacked with all manner of extraordinary things: ropes and wires and chains, small wooden boxes, metal boxes, plastic boxes, cardboard boxes, baskets, tins, box files, piles of papers, pornographic magazines, newspapers, books, photographs, DVDs, knives, belts, axes, straps, tubes, packets of pills, small glass bottles …

It was like a nightmare haberdashery.

As I moved round the room looking at these things, my heart was beating hard, sucking the air from my throat, and I could feel the race of adrenalin imploring me to get out — go, right now, get out of here, get OUT!

But I couldn’t leave yet.

I had to keep looking.

I didn’t know what I was looking for … I was just looking.

It wasn’t pleasant. The pornographic DVDs and magazines were sick with dull-eyed people doing fucking awful things … unnatural things, things that had nothing to do with sex, just violence. In the corner of the room, there was a small desk tented with a khaki blanket, and beneath the blanket was a computer screen, scanner, and printer. The monitor surround was painted black. I couldn’t bear to go anywhere near it. I scanned the shelves again, looking at tongs, clips, dolls, masks, protein powder, clubs, execution stills, a leather-bound black bible … and right in the middle of all this madness, I came across a black-and-white photograph in a cheap cardboard frame. As far as I could tell, it was the only framed photograph in the whole room. It showed two teenage boys standing in front of a large grey house. They were both dark-haired, both pale-skinned, both unsmiling, both dressed in V-neck jumpers. I picked up the photograph and looked closer. In a granite block over the door of the house, I could just make out the words PIN HALL. I looked at the two boys again, quite certain now that I was looking at Mick and Ray Bishop. Mick was slightly taller than Ray, and although he was only a year older than his brother — about fifteen at the time of the picture, I guessed — it was clear that he was the dominant one. Standing just in front of his brother, his body tensed, staring hard at the camera … it was almost as if he was guarding him from the unseen eyes of the future, the eyes on the other side of the camera, the eyes of people like me.

As I turned my attention to the image of Ray in the photograph, I realised that the look on his fourteen-year-old face was almost identical to the expression I’d seen earlier that evening, when Mick had been scolding him about something outside the pub. The disdain, the emptiness, the lack of emotion …

It was unnerving.

I put the photograph back on the shelf and carried on looking. There were lots of books: Spinoza, Voltaire, Unamuno, Genius, Skinned, Leviathan, How We Die, The Fabric of Reality, Killing for Company, Varieties of Religious Experience, The Character of Physical Law, Infinity and the Mind, Three Steps to Hell. There were strange little ornaments: painted skulls, tiny skeletons, disturbing sculptures. There were things in jars: dead insects, pickled mice, embryos, divining bones … all kinds of untouchable and unknowable things. They held a silence and a sense of aged stillness that reminded me of exhibits in a small-town museum … but this was a museum that no one was meant to visit, a museum of a twisted mind. These exhibits were not meant to be seen.

After what seemed like an hour or so, but was probably closer to twenty minutes, I came across a small wooden chest hidden away at the back of a wardrobe. At first, I didn’t understand why I felt drawn to it, why it felt different to all the other objects in the room … but after crouching down in front of the wardrobe and thinking about it for a while, I slowly realised that — unlike everything else — the wooden chest wasn’t on display.

It was hidden away.

Out of sight.

I paused for a moment, wondering what that could mean … then I reached in, lifted out the chest, and opened it up.

It was filled with what, at first sight, seemed like nothing much at all, just a haphazard collection of random objects … bits of nothing: a shoe, a hair band, a broken watch, a pink cardigan, some rings, bracelets, a purse …

And a necklace …

A silver half-moon on a silver chain.

Anna Gerrish’s necklace.

I don’t know how long I sat there, crouched on the floor of that sickening room, staring into that box of gruesome souvenirs … and that’s what they were, I realised. Souvenirs. This man — Ray Bishop, Charles Raymond Kemper, Joel R Pickton … whatever he wanted to call himself — this man had killed Anna Gerrish. He’d picked her up in his car, overpowered her, stabbed her, killed her, he’d discarded her body at the side of the road … and he’d taken her necklace. As a souvenir. To remind him of what he’d done.

As I looked down into the box, I wanted to be wrong. I didn’t want to believe that all those bits of nothing weren’t bits of nothing at all, that they were bits of people, girls, women … all of whom were probably dead.

Killed.

Murdered.

‘Fuck,’ I heard myself say.

There were so many of them …

Did Mick Bishop know? I wondered. Did he know that his brother was a serial killer? Or was he only aware that Ray had killed Anna Gerrish? I took a pen from my pocket and cautiously lifted the silver necklace from the box. It was proof, I knew that. Proof that Ray Bishop had killed Anna Gerrish. But what could I do with it? Who could I trust with it?

I was still asking myself these questions when I heard a car pulling up outside.

I froze for a moment and listened hard. I heard the engine stop … then nothing for a few seconds … and then the sound of a car door opening and someone getting out. I knew it couldn’t be Ray Bishop, because Cal would have called to warn me if he was coming back, but still …

I had to make sure.

Dropping the necklace into my pocket, I quickly got to my feet, went over to the window and pulled back the edge of the heavy black curtain. For a second or two, I tried to convince myself that the car parked outside the house wasn’t a white Toyota Yaris, and that the man heading up the path below wasn’t Ray Bishop … but I knew I was only wasting my time.

‘Shit,’ I said, as I heard him putting his key in the door.

The first thought that raced through my head was — what the hell was Cal doing, letting Ray Bishop come back without letting me know? But as I heard the front door opening, I quickly realised that there were more pressing things to think about. Ray Bishop was downstairs. Ray Bishop killed people. And any moment now, he’d be coming up here.

I heard the front door closing.

I wondered, briefly, if there was any chance at all that I could reason with him. I imagined him downstairs, standing in the hallway, perfectly still, sensing the presence of a stranger in his house.

No, he wasn’t a man to be reasoned with.

I heard a cautious footstep on the stairs.

He killed people.

Another step, more confident now …

I pulled back the heavy black curtain and yanked at the window, trying to open it. But it wouldn’t move. The frame was painted shut. I paused for a moment, listening again. He was coming up the stairs now, moving quite slowly, but I knew that I only had seconds to get out. I rushed over to one of the shelves, grabbed a bone-handled sheath knife, and hurried back to the window. Tearing away the curtain, I started hacking at the frame, trying to slice through the age-old paint, but it was too thick, too hard … it was like trying to cut through superglue.

‘Fuck it,’ I hissed, starting to panic now.

I could hear Bishop on the landing outside.

I dropped the knife, looked around, and saw a heavy glass jar on a shelf to my right. It was a gallon jar, filled to the brim with some kind of creamy-grey ash, and I was just stepping over to the shelf and picking it up when the bedroom door swung open and there was Ray Bishop, standing in the doorway, brandishing the samurai sword in his hand.

He was smiling.

I barely even looked at him. I just went over to the window, heaved the jar through the glass, and with the deafening crash still resounding round the room, I quickly scrambled out through the broken pane. As I heard Ray Bishop lunging after me, I let myself drop from the window, keeping hold of the sill, and at the same time I swung my body to the left, reaching out with my feet for a drainpipe that I vaguely remembered seeing and desperately hoped was there. But my feet felt nothing. No drainpipe, no foothold, just a sheer brick wall. And I had no time at all now. Ray Bishop was at the window, his head poking out, the sword in his hand, his eyes staring coldly into mine.

‘Hello, John,’ he said, still smiling.

I met his gaze for only a moment, then I closed my eyes, braced myself, and let go of the windowsill.

I don’t remember falling. All I can remember is letting go of the sill, and then — almost immediately — a shuddering impact as I hit the ground. A sharp pain shot up my right leg, and as I rolled over and got to my knees, sucking in air, the pain rose up into my stomach, making me feel nauseous and faint. I was shivering, shaking, sweating in the cold night air … I wanted to lie back down in the dirt, curl up into a ball, and cry.

But the face at the window had gone now.

Bishop was on his way down.

I had to keep moving.

I forced myself to get up, forced myself to take a step … and the pain ripped through me again. But my leg held. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t going to kill me. The only thing that was going to kill me was the man who, right now, was opening the front door and coming after me with a samurai sword in his hand.

I took a breath, braced myself again, and started running.

Down the path, out the gate, along the road …

I didn’t look back to see if Bishop was coming after me. I didn’t have to — I could hear him. He was running, not with any great speed or energy, but then I wasn’t moving all that fast myself. I kept going, not knowing where I was going, just going. Across the road, round a corner into another street, and then — before Bishop turned the corner — I skipped clumsily over a low hedge into the front garden of a bungalow and ducked round the back of the house and into the back garden. As I stopped for a moment to catch my breath and rest my leg, I heard Bishop’s footsteps entering the street. I kept still, trying not to breathe too loudly, and listened. The footsteps stopped for a moment — and I imagined Bishop standing still, gazing down the street, wondering where I’d gone … and then I heard him start running again. Along the pavement, towards the bungalow, his footsteps getting louder all the time … and then, at last, I heard them pass by and disappear down the street. I carried on listening for a while, just in case he decided to double back, but after a minute or two I was pretty sure that he’d gone.

There was no telling when he might come back though.

I looked around to see where I was. In the low light of the moon I could see that it was a fairly large garden, mostly laid out to lawn, with decorative wooden fences on either side. The lawn was split in two by a concrete path that led all the way down to another wooden fence at the far end of the garden, and in the middle of this fence was a gate. I had no idea what was on the other side of the gate, but it was a gate — it had to lead somewhere. And somewhere was all I needed.

I set off down the path — half running, half hobbling — trying not to make any noise, still listening out all the time for any sign of Ray Bishop … but I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t allow myself to wonder where he was now, or what he was doing, I just kept my eyes on the path and concentrated on getting to the gate. By the time I got there, and discovered to my relief that it wasn’t locked, my leg was hurting badly and I desperately wanted to stop for a moment … just for a moment or two, to rest, to catch my breath, to think about things … but I knew that I couldn’t.

This was no time for thinking.

I just had to keep going.

I opened the gate and stepped through into a narrow dirt track. There were fenced gardens on either side of the track, and although I couldn’t see much further than ten yards or so in each direction, I guessed that if I followed the track to the right it would bring me back out on to Long Road, and if I went the other way …

I didn’t know where I’d end up if I went the other way. All I knew was that I didn’t want to go back to Long Road.

I went the other way.

About fifteen minutes later, after winding my way through a maze of back lanes and pathways, I finally emerged into an unknown side street that led me down to a busy roundabout at the north end of town, next to the old railway station. Long Road, I guessed, was about a mile away to the east, and so — I hoped — was Ray Bishop.

I made my way over to a bus stop, sat down on a bench, and lit a cigarette.

I looked at my watch.

It was nine o’clock.

The night was cold, my leg was numb …

I pulled out my mobile and called Cal.

There was no answer, no voicemail message, no nothing. The phone just rang. I tried another of his numbers, and then another, but the result was the same — no reply. And when I called his ‘special’ number, the one for the mobile that was totally anonymous and completely untraceable, and again got no answer, that’s when I really started to worry. Cal always answered his mobile, wherever he was and whatever he was doing. And if you couldn’t get him on one of his numbers, he was always available on another.

Always.

Without fail.

Unable to think of anything else, I started calling all the numbers again. I wasn’t really expecting anything to happen, so when the second number I called was answered almost immediately, and an unfamiliar female voice said ‘Hello?’, I just assumed that I’d made a mistake and misdialled.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I think I’ve got the wrong number.’

‘Don’t hang up,’ the voice said quickly. ‘My name’s Lisa Webster, I’m a paramedic, I need to know who the owner of this phone is.’

‘What?’

‘I’m a paramedic,’ she repeated, speaking more calmly now. ‘I need to know the name of the person you’re calling.’

‘What’s going on?’ I said, still confused. ‘Has something happened to Cal? Is he all right?’

‘Who’s Cal?’

‘Cal Franks — ’

‘Is he a young man, in his late twenties?’

‘Yes, what’s happened — ?’

‘Does Cal drive a black Mondeo?’

‘Yes — ’

‘And could you tell me who you are, please?’

‘John Craine — ’

‘John Craine?’

‘Yeah, I’m Cal’s uncle …’ I took a breath. ‘Could you please tell me what’s happened to him?’

‘Where are you, John?’

‘Why do you want to — ?’

‘Are you in Hey?’

‘Yes — ’

‘All right, listen. A man in his late twenties was attacked earlier this evening. He’s been brought into Hey General Hospital, but as yet we haven’t been able to confirm his identity. There was nothing in his pockets to tell us who he is, but this is his phone — one of three he was carrying — and he was found beside a black Ford Mondeo, so it’s very possible that he’s your nephew.’

‘He was attacked?’

‘Yes, I’m sorry, it looks as if he was quite badly beaten. We managed to stabilise his condition in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and he’s undergoing emergency surgery right now, but I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you at the moment. If you could come in to Hey General to confirm his identity — ’

‘Was he wearing a hat?’

‘A hat was found nearby, yes.’

‘A trilby?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

I called four taxi companies before realising that I was never going to get one at short notice on a Saturday night, and I was just about to call Imogen to see if she’d give me a lift to the hospital, when my mind suddenly flashed back to the moment I was hanging from Ray Bishop’s windowsill, and he’d looked down at me, his eyes staring coldly, and said, ‘Hello, John.’

He knew who I was.

And if he knew who I was — and I was guessing that his brother must have told him — then he probably knew where I lived. And even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t be too hard for him to find out …

I called Bridget’s mobile.

‘Hey, John,’ she answered. ‘I was just thinking about you.’

‘Where are you?’ I said.

‘At home … why? Are you all right? You sound a bit — ’

‘Listen, Bridget, this is really important. I want you to get out of the house as quickly as possible. I don’t have time to explain, but please … just trust me. You have to get out of the house right now. OK?’

She only hesitated for a moment. ‘OK … if you say so. Where shall I go?’

‘I’m at the old railway station, near the roundabout. Do you know where I mean?’

‘Yeah …’

‘Pick me up as soon as you can. I’ll explain everything then.’

‘All right …’

‘And ring me as soon as you’re out of the house and in your car. OK?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Go … now.’

She called me two minutes later.

‘Are you in your car?’ I said.

‘Yeah.’

‘Did you see anyone on your way out?’

‘No …’

‘Are you OK?’

‘Not really. I mean, this is pretty fucking scary, John.’

‘Yeah, sorry … but everything should be all right now. Just get going, don’t stop for anyone, and when you get to the roundabout, drive round it two or three times before you stop to pick me up. All right?’

‘Just drive round the roundabout?’

‘Yeah … I’ll be waiting for you.’

I moved from the bus stop and positioned myself at the south side of the roundabout, making sure that Bridget would see me when she arrived, and after about five minutes or so I saw a white Escort van with HEY PETS written on the side coming towards me. Bridget waved as she went past, and I nodded back, but I was more concerned with watching the road behind her. I was looking out for familiar cars — a silver-grey Renault, a green Nissan Almera, a white Toyota Yaris, Mick Bishop’s Honda Prelude — or familiar faces in unfamiliar cars, or cars that were just acting strangely … following Bridget around the roundabout, slowing down without any reason, stopping suddenly — but by the time Bridget had passed by me again, making her second circuit of the roundabout, I hadn’t seen anything untoward.

The next time she came round, I held up my hand and caught her eye, and she slowed down and pulled in beside me. As she leaned across and opened the passenger door, I saw that Walter was in the back of the van, sitting upright in a wicker basket. I quickly got in and closed the door, and Bridget immediately pulled away again.

‘Where are we going?’ she said.

‘The hospital.’

She looked at me. ‘What’s going on, John?’

As we drove across town to the hospital, I told Bridget everything. She didn’t interrupt me as I talked, she just drove the car, keeping her eyes on the road, and listened. There was a lot to tell, a lot of explaining to do, and by the time I’d finished we were almost at the hospital.

‘Is Cal going to be all right?’ Bridget asked.

‘I don’t know … the paramedic couldn’t tell me very much, just that he’d been badly beaten.’

‘Who do you think did it?’

‘Some of Mick Bishop’s people, probably. He must have had someone following us. Or maybe it was Ray Bishop … I don’t know.’

‘And you really think that Ray Bishop’s going to come after you?’

I nodded. ‘I know what he’s done, what he does. I know what he is. And he must know that I’m not going to keep quiet about it. Which means that if he doesn’t do something about me, or get someone to do it for him, he’s fucked. So, yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s coming after me.’

‘And you can’t call the police?’

‘I can’t trust the police. Mick Bishop owns too many of them. Whoever I call, even if it’s just the emergency number, there’s a good chance it’ll get back to Bishop … and if he finds me, he’ll kill me. Simple as that.’

‘Do you really think he’d go that far?’

‘What else can he do? I know that his brother’s a serial killer, and I know that he’s covered up for him on at least one occasion. The only way Mick Bishop can save his skin is by making sure that I don’t talk.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know …’

We were approaching the hospital now, and as Bridget slowed for the turning, I studied an information sign at the side of the road that gave the whereabouts of all the various departments and wards.

‘Do you know where they’re keeping him?’ Bridget asked.

I shook my head. ‘A amp; E, I suppose. I’d better ask at reception.’

She drove straight on, heading for the main hospital building, and we found a space in a car park close to the entrance.

‘It’s probably best if you stay in the car,’ I told her.

She looked at me. ‘Why?’

‘There’s a chance that Bishop might have someone waiting for me in the hospital, or he might even be in there himself. If you come in with me, they’ll get both of us. But if you stay here …’ I looked at her. ‘No one else knows about this, Bridget. Just you and me …’

She nodded. ‘What do you want me to do if you don’t come back?’

‘Give me an hour,’ I said, jotting down a phone number on a scrap of paper. ‘If I’m not back by then, call this number.’ I passed her the piece of paper. ‘Ask for Leon Mercer, but if he’s not there, you can talk to his daughter, Imogen. They’re both old friends of mine, and I’d trust them with my life. Just tell either of them exactly what’s happened, and they’ll know what to do.’

She nodded again. ‘Why don’t you just call them yourself, right now?’

‘The more people I involve, the more people I put at risk.’

‘You involved me.’

‘I know, I’m sorry … but I had no choice.’

‘You could have lied to me.’

‘Yeah …’

‘But you didn’t.’

‘No.’

She smiled at me, nodded her head, then leaned across and kissed me. ‘Be careful, John.’

I looked at her for a moment, more haunted than ever now by the memories of Stacy that she brought to my heart …

‘Keep the doors locked,’ I told her. ‘And call me if you need me.’

I got out of the car and went looking for Cal.