Walking With Ghosts

PART 2

Back at the station, Josie sat with her head in her hands, staggered as her superior, Paul Kett, spoke eight words that struck her core like black bolt-lightning, as black as night, as black as death.

“Joe died on the way to the hospital,” Paul Kett’s hard exterior melted as he saw her grief. “I’m sorry, Leigh. Josie, I’m so sorry.”

She stared into space, unaware of the tears coursing down her face. Words turned to ash in her throat.

“We all feel it,” Kett said, again letting his guard down. “Believe me.”

“I do,” she managed. “Oh, God!”

“What the Hell happened?” Kett was pushing her, she knew, to make her talk, to help compartmentalise the grief.

She met his eyes for the first time. Paul Kett was a tall, economical man, with a full mouth and a way of talking that was both respectful and blunt. He was down-to-earth, tough on the outside but, as Joe Morris had told her, a totally different man when he invited you to his home- you saw him then as the man he was- a loving father with a dry wit.

“She screamed,” Josie said. “As if all the demons of Hell were chasing her. She screamed.”

“Who? Who screamed?”

Josie stared at the wall clock. It was ticking softly, measuring out the last seconds of her career if she told the truth. “I don’t know.”

Kett sent a glance towards the clock. “It’s seven A.M., Leigh. You’ve forgotten what happened in two hours?”

She’d never forget what happened. The words threatened to rush out of her, but she compressed her mouth into a harsh, thin line, stopping the flow.

“I don’t have time for this.” Kett stood and came round his desk. “We’ve too many man hours invested in finding this grave-digging child abductor to waste any more time. How the hell could anyone bury a child, for God’s sake? So, tell me, you were near Little Stonegate, right?” He paused. “See a ghost?”

Josie’s eyes betrayed her before her mouth even had chance. Kett shook his head. “We’re cops, Leigh, we’re practical, honest, hard-working cops. Anyone who’s ever walked a late beat in York has a story. We’ve all seen something we’d rather forget. It was one of the kids, right?”

“Scared me ball-less, Sir. I was on my arse, babbling, whilst Joe was dying.”

“No. I don’t believe that, and if you look deep down, neither do you.”

“I guess not. I tried to help him.”

“You did help. You made sure the last thing he saw in this world was someone who really cares about him. We should all be so lucky.”

“Joe said that girl’s scream signifies that something terrible is about to happen.”

“I heard her once. My father died the same night.”

Josie closed her eyes and tried a quiet laugh that came out as a strangled sob. “So, I guess I’m the lucky one, hearing her twice.”

Kett suddenly pushed himself forward. “Wait. Twice?”

“Yes, Sir. The second time right after I though Joe had died, for the first time.”

“Christ, Leigh. If you’re right, that means this ain’t done yet. Something else is going to happen today…”

Josie surfaced from Kett’s stifling office near nine in the morning. Christ, her shift was technically only half way through, and it had already changed her life. Technically, because Kett had just ordered her to take a few days off, to come back fresh after Joe’s funeral.

It was the right thing, and something she needed to do.

The squad room was running as competently as ever, but with a subdued air. There were no good-humoured cracks, no harmless, bawdy comments. Dust motes spun listlessly through heavy air drained of brightness and laughter, and now coloured dull grey instead of red and gold.

Colleagues caught her eye, a few nodded. She made her way to her desk and sat down heavily.

Sunday morning, nine-o-clock. The one person who could lift her spirits would still be in bed, dreaming a bunch of lovely, untainted dreams. No matter. Josie needed her anchor, her innocent muse. She tapped speed-dial one and waited with her head down.

“Mum?” The voice was stifled with sleep.

“Hi, darling.” Josie could barely speak.

There was a rustle of covers and pyjamas and toys and, most likely, a torch. “Mum?”

Emily’s youthful concern shook Josie into lucidity. “Just thought I’d let you know, Em, I’ll be home early today. Soon.”

Her six-year-old practically squealed, in the way of children going from lethargy to fully alert at the speed of sound. “Now?”

“Soon, darling, soon. Tell Simon to make blueberry waffles for ten.” She needed them.

More squeals and a sudden hang up, and Josie found her lips had curled up into a smile. She placed the phone gently back into its cradle, lost in thoughts of Emily and Joe and the unpredictability of life when a large shadow fell across her desk.

“Leigh.”

It was Paul Kett and he was drip-white, as if he’d spent the last night walking with ghosts.

Josie felt a dreadful sense of foreboding…

… and remembered Joe’s words: she only screams when something terrible is going to happen.

… as Kett spoke words no sane person should ever have to hear.

“A six-year-old girl was just abducted from Coney Street. It’s him, Leigh. He just took another kid from under our Goddamn noses.”