Ghost Girl (49 page)

Hopelessly he willed the message to yield her whereabouts. Stella had texted an hour ago; he might already be too late. He had no way to warn her about Barlow.

Yes he did.

Beside the text bubble was the symbol of a key. He clicked on it. A map appeared. A blue pulsing dot told him Stella’s location, or at least where she had been when she sent the message. Jack was puzzled.

Stella was at Mallingswood School.

‘I have the missing jigsaw piece.’

‘So do I, Amanda.’

The chawling rattle of a diesel engine coming from the Iffley Road end broke the early evening quiet. An orange light, like a beacon, was coming towards him.

Jack rushed out into the road.

70

Saturday, 5 May 1012

The headlights flashed in her rear mirror. David took the Hogarth flyover. Stella flicked a short burst with her hazards in response and then joined the Great West Road. Moments later she was in Weltje Road. The digital display rolled to 9.33. David had not told her where he was going. What meeting was he having on a Saturday night? Stella looked up at the dark building. Built of dull grey stone, it was austere and forbidding. No one could live there. Her good mood waned. Whom was David seeing? She berated herself for being distracted; for caring.

Her phone was registering a signal; there were no messages from Jack. It could take a while for data to download. She texted him suggesting they meet at Terry’s. She would go there now and have a shepherd’s pie. It seemed a very long time since she’d eaten Mrs Barlow’s cake.

Meanwhile, Marian was a priority. She had sounded definite about meeting at Dukes Meadows so it was strange that she had not come. Stella did not have her mobile number. She was about to drive off when she remembered Marian had called her. She looked at her phone. Caller unknown. She must have been calling from Hammersmith Police Station.

Stella wanted to call David but that was ridiculous; he had just left her and he was clearly in a hurry. She could still feel his cheeks against hers, smell his aftershave, the silky feel of his hair through her fingers. He was better looking than David Bowie. She brought herself back to Marian Williams. What would Terry do? He had looked out for her. He would want Stella to check she was all right. Stella dialled Marian’s direct line at the police station.

‘Cashman speaking.’

‘Martin! I was trying for Marian Williams. It’s Stella Darnell.’

‘This is her extension. I’m chasing up paperwork and doubtless messing up Marian’s system.’ He laughed. ‘As I’ve got you, can I say what a great job your guys are doing?’

‘It’s about Marian.’ Stella was now seriously worried. ‘She asked to meet me after work. I don’t normally.’ She was flustered. ‘This is confidential… about her husband.’

‘Her husband?’

‘He prevented her coming tonight.’ She should have rung as soon as Marian didn’t turn up.

‘Stella, I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Marian’s not married.’

Marian Williams had never said she was married. It was Stella who had decided the bruise was inflicted by a husband. ‘A partner then.’

‘No idea if she’s seeing anyone. Have to say it’s unlikely, Marian’s big love is her job. She didn’t front up this evening because her father was blue-lighted into A and E a couple of hours ago. She left me a message and I’ve rung the hospital, but they said she’d had to go to work. On a Saturday! Typical. I’m sending her packing when she appears.’ He hesitated. ‘As you’re her friend, I’ll give you her details. She’ll appreciate that you care.’

Stella supposed that she did care.

She squeezed the address and telephone number into today’s entry in her diary, next to the address where the Thorntons had lived, which Lucille May had given her. The two addresses were the same. Mallingswood House, King Street, London W6.

Stunned, Stella looked at the gaunt mansion looming in the sodium darkness. Mallingswood House. She was outside it now.

71

Saturday, 5 May 2012

The iron gates were unlocked; the chain dangled from the lock. Jack couldn’t see a light in the attic window. He pushed through the gates and ran across the turning circle, heedless of the noise his shoes made on the gravel. The front door of the mansion was wide open; inside all was dark. This was terribly wrong.

He tripped on the marble step at the bottom of the staircase and fell on to one knee. He ignored the searing pain and raced up the stairs. The key had gone from the lintel. The flat door was ajar. He blundered in.

‘Stella!’ His throat tore. At the same time hands grappled with him, holding him. He raised his hand to punch his assailant, fleetingly thinking he had never punched anyone and that he didn’t want to.

‘Jack!’

The passage light came on.

‘Stella! You’re OK! I went to Barlow’s and when you weren’t there…’ He took her hands. Then he remembered. ‘Where is he?’ He looked beyond her down the passage. The door to the streets was open. It was never open.

‘How come you are here? Did you speak to Lucille May?’ Stella hadn’t answered his question.

‘Has he hurt you?’

‘Who?’

‘Barlow.’ Jack suddenly felt foolish. He could be wrong about him. No, he couldn’t.

‘Of course not.’ Stella was walking towards the open door. Jack pushed past her, tripped on her umbrella and stumbled. He was blindly aware he must stop her going in. No one behind the door. The house was silent. Too silent. There were too many rooms; he couldn’t control them all.

‘I agreed to meet Marian Williams at Dukes Meadows. She didn’t come. This is where she lives.’ Stella chatted on, seemingly unaware of any threat.

‘We should get out of here.’ He took her arm, alert for the slightest sound.

‘…Martin said her father’s in hospital. She’s not there and she’s not here. The most extraordinary coincidence, Jack, could be one of your signs—.’ She shook off his arm. ‘You went to David’s house?’

Brown stains were smeared on the walls and reddish-brown footprints sketched out a mad dance on the floorboards. Jack lifted his foot. It was sticky. Spots of blood made a trail towards the crawl space. He had thought the old man was trying to kill him. Barlow had got to them both. So intent was Jack on escaping, he had not thought the old man and his daughter could be the victims.

‘Jack, are you listening?’

He didn’t recognize the room. The floorboards were littered with splinters of wood, shards of plaster and torn strips of cardboard. ‘He’s here somewhere.’

‘I know where David is. Will you leave it! Why were you at his house?’ Stella was by the model. Along its edges were brown smears of dried blood. ‘Marian’s father must have cut himself when he fell.’ She leant over it. ‘There’s a horse trough on that corner, isn’t that Britton Drive?’ She straightened. ‘And that’s Spelling Way.’ She faltered. ‘Is this how you knew?’

He saw it in her eyes. He had broken his promise to her and broken into this house. The
A–Z
woman wasn’t like other Hosts, but Stella wouldn’t see that. A broken promise was a betrayal.

He looked properly at the model. One section was untouched. He went over to it. Aldensley Road was as it had been earlier this evening. There was the hydrangea bush spilling out over a front garden wall and the delicatessen on the bend. There was a taxi turning into the street from Iffley Road. While most of the streets were strewn with rubble, like a city strafed by bombs, Aldensley Road had been spared the damage as if in the eye of the storm. The room tipped, something didn’t add up.

‘Barlow killed the drivers.’ As he said this Jack felt something was not right.

‘David hasn’t killed anyone,’ Stella stormed. ‘What were you doing at his house?’

‘Looking for you.’ He could not say he was worried about her. Stella would tell him she could look after herself. In a way she’d be right. Jack blinked to clear the fog in his head. He had missed something. ‘There’s a picture of a Wolseley in his kitchen, a grey saloon like the one the police were looking for. Then there’s the green glass.’ He wasn’t listening to the words, his mind racing. David Barlow wasn’t seeking revenge. He snatched at the air with a hand as if he might catch the answer.

‘It’s David’s first car.’ Stella gripped her umbrella under her arm like a rifle. ‘He was eighteen and the green glass is for his wife’s grave, I told you.’ She fired her umbrella at the model. ‘This is Marian’s patch. Extraordinary that she made this.’

’Who’s Marian?’ The mental fog was clearing.

‘You know! My friend at the station. She didn’t turn up at Dukes Meadows. I was trying to tell you. She lives here. It’s the weirdest coincidence. The Thorntons moved to this godforsaken place after British Grove, Lucie May said. That’s why I was here. I rang Marian and got Cashman, he gave me the same address.’

‘Your friend Marian didn’t meet my Host when she brought you flowers that night for the simple reason she was my Host.’

Stella said nothing. He ploughed on.

‘She didn’t connect me to you or…’ He couldn’t bring himself to say that Williams would have killed Stella.

Stella folded her arms. ‘Or she would have murdered me.’

‘Marian and Mary, they are the same person.’ Jack felt his way as it fell into place. ‘Odd I didn’t see the flowers.’ He had seen them. The lilies he had squashed near the grave of Stephen Parsons. His Host had misled him. Clever.

‘Marian is not a killer.’ Stella said in a monotone. Jack noticed she had not mentioned Barlow. It was as if she had not heard what he had said.

‘Bear with me. Marian Williams lied to you about what Amanda said when she came to the police station.’

‘Marian is law-abiding.’ Stella restored a grit bin near the remains of Barons Court Station and repositioned a number 27 bus passing St Paul’s Church on the Broadway. ‘She doesn’t have brothers and sisters. She told me.’

‘Strictly speaking, that’s true. Her brother is dead.’ Jack straightened a lamp standard on Glenthorne Road. ‘The need to avenge Michael’s death is eating away at her.’ The woman who had taken his street atlas was after all a True Host. He had wanted his
A–Z
back. He couldn’t explain to Stella that he had intended to keep his promise to her: it sounded silly. Then he had seen the photograph of the family in the bedroom and got the feeling of dread he knew was a sign. Once he’d met the old man in the attic of streets, he hadn’t been able to leave.

‘Stay there!’ He crept into the passage. His Host’s – Mary’s – bedroom door was shut. He turned the handle. The room was as before. Neatly made bed, coffin wardrobe, bedside table with a full glass of water. No one there. Jack took the photograph.

‘There.’ He thrust it at Stella. ‘The Thorntons, in happier times. Douglas Ford told me that Michael Thornton had a sister and Jackie has just confirmed it, she was at school with the sister. Her name was Mary. You know her as Marian.’

‘Not that happy.’ Stella tilted the picture to the light. ‘Only the boy’s smiling.’ She paused. ‘Michael Thornton was beautiful.’ Beautiful was not one of Stella’s words; she went for understatement.

Jack looked again at the family. The father blurred, intent on being in the picture before the shutter snapped. His wife looking off camera as if preoccupied, perhaps envisioning what tragedy lay ahead. Like an angel. ‘It’s as if the sister was blotted out. There’s no reference to her in articles about the death and Lucie never mentioned her. Why? And why has this Mary changed her name to Marian?’

‘Marian would not do anything illegal,’ Stella intoned as if she hadn’t heard him.

‘She said Amanda Hampson had found out about Charlie passing his advanced driving test. Yet the police already knew. This is what Amanda actually showed her.’ He unfolded the torn Parkinson’s Disease Society letter he had found in Amanda’s temple. ‘I made a mistake. I thought Amanda had saved this to show Martin Cashman, but in fact she did show the administrator this and Marian Williams realized it was a vital piece of evidence. It was, as Amanda said, the missing jigsaw piece. Marian knew it too.’

Stella read out loud: ‘“Change attitudes, find a cure, join us…”’

‘Read the back.’

‘“The fifteenth of March, eleven p.m., Marquis Way W6. Porphyrion”. Then pounds signs and exclamation marks.’ Stella flicked the letter with her index finger. ‘Charlie Hampson must have been excited. At school we were told to be sparing with exclamation marks. Why didn’t Marian tell me this?’

Jack watched Stella. She was flittering about with the model, righting fallen masonry, signs. Clearing up. ‘She was worried you’d spot the pattern of deaths. What she didn’t know was that you had already spotted it. Or Terry had.’

‘Marian worshipped my dad. She would have wanted to help him, not commit crimes herself.’ Stella continued her repair work. ‘Even revenge for a brother wouldn’t make her break the law.’

Jack listened for the front door closing far below. The house creaked and groaned as if someone was moving stealthily closer. ‘I think Terry suspected her. He never showed her the blue folder.’ He tried to master his nerves.

‘If Amanda Hampson hadn’t fallen, she would have told you what she really said,’ Stella persisted. ‘She would have got hold of Cashman eventually and Marian would have been found out. Surely she wouldn’t take the risk.’

‘Our killer takes risks. We worked that out.’ He should tell her about the crawl space: it was a means of escape if they needed it. ‘Besides, she covered herself. Amanda didn’t fall. Marian visited her that evening and killed her.’

‘I know I’m not famed for insight, but this is wrong. Marian wants to make a difference. She loves her job; she is not a cold-blooded murderer.’ Stella thudded her umbrella tip on the floorboards in time to her words.

‘As Mary she is making a difference. She is murdering reckless and unrepentant drivers who kill boys like her brother.’ He paused and looked at Stella. ‘I think you’re insightful.’ Jack felt himself reddening. Stella had seen what he sometimes felt about her. She never failed to surprise him.

Stella was reading the torn letter. ‘Porphyrion! I’ve heard of that.’