Ghosts in the Morning (17 page)

I think we shld cool it a bit, U R married remembr!

So th
at was it.
He must have phoned her after the “
cool it
”
text and she had felt forced to confirm that she was seeing someone else. I could imagine how it had panned out;
Nikki had started to pull away from Graham
- maybe
she’d had her fun, maybe he’d spent some money on her
-
but
now the cold, harsh reality of the situation had sunken in. She had seen that she was wasting her time with an older, married man and she had decided to break it off. Perhaps Graham had started to get needy,
I could sense the threat in her last text
, or maybe she had genuinely met someone else.

But one thing was sure- it
explained why Graham was suddenly being
kind
to me. He was feeling vulnerable, lonely.
In spite of everything,
I felt
a hint of
pity for Graham rising in me. He was obviously feeling rejected
. Probably he was feeling
depressed but he had managed to hide it well
, to carry on as normal.
And at the time of his suffering,
when he needed some support,
he had turned to me. Despite everything, I was his
rock, his
anchor.

I bit my lip and immediately the pity dissipated.
I dug my nails into my palms.
How could I feel sorry for him
?
He had bee
n cheating on me, and now that his dozy tart had dumped him, he wanted to come back to the safety of the family womb, with his tail between his legs? And
he had the gall to think that I would just
pat his little puppy head and say, ‘
there, there, it’s alright, Andrea’s here, baby
’.
Well, no fucking w
ay.

The TV was on in the lounge, with the sound on mute. I turned it up. The local weather was on,
and the usual
woman forecaster was back. She looked even more tanned than usual, maybe she had been to the Caribbean,
this time of year was supposed to be the best – weather-wise – for there. Graham and I had discussed going on holiday there once, years ago, but right at the time where we came to book it, he saw a story in the newspaper about a couple getting beaten up and robbed in one of the islands, and he decided it wasn’t safe.
‘It sounds bloody dangerous, it’s not a great time of year for me to be away from the office, and it’s bloody expensive as well
’, he had said.

I wondered
if the salary of a local weather forecaster allowed for expensive Caribbean holidays, though perhaps she had a rich boyfriend; she was pretty enough
,
in a cheap kind of way
,
to attract one.
A lot of y
oung
men
these days
seemed to go for that type
-
girls who looked like they spent their time at the hairdressers and beauty salons, and wore big earrings.
I noticed that s
he wasn’t married, there was no wedding ring. No-one seemed to get married these days,
but
I couldn’t blame them really.

‘So
that’s the weather outlook for today. N
ow, back to Chr
is
with a re-cap of the headlines.’

She clasped her hands together and smiled into the camera. Her short-sleeved blouse rode up her arms and you could just see the beginnings of a tattoo. A Chinese or Japanese symbol, they were all the rage with the young girls these d
ays. I thought they looked ugly. Cla
re - ‘Clay’ -
at the care home had a tattoo of a heart on the inside of her arm
. S
he had done it with a compass
and some Quink
.

‘Thank you, Jodie,
so
here
is a summary of today’s headlines
for the Channel Islands.
Local bank, Brantis
, has confirmed that it will be laying off forty members of its workforce. Brantis is one of Jersey’s largest private employers, employing approximately eight hundred people across the Channel Islands.
It is believed that jobs will be lost in both Jersey and Guernsey, but a spokesman for Brantis said that they had yet to confirm the specific details.
And
here
in Jersey, a promising young football player has been killed in what police are describing as a brutal attack – ’

Football player?
I was surprised, he
certainly looked more
like
a rugby player.

‘- the body of the
twenty-
one
year old man, who has been named
as Philip Tolley
,
was found on the West Road. It is understood that the man was walking in the direction of Mizzi’s nightclub
,
a venue that has only been recently opened
in
Litten Square.
Mr. Tolley was described as a gentle giant by his family, who wouldn’t hurt a fly
,
and t
he police have
urged
anyone with any information regarding this
incident to
come
forward.
The police have described Mr. Tolley’s death as ‘tragic and needless’. 
Details of the number to call are on the screen now.
And, in other news – ’

I
hit the mute button
and glanced at the clock
. There would
n’t
be much other news – the local news only merited eight minutes or so, tacked on the end of the ‘real’ news, and
those eight minutes had to encompass the
local sport and weather.

‘
Tragic and needless
’, that’s what the newscaster had said, but it sounded blasé
, just a cliché that was trotted out without feeling.
I mean there were so many things in life that met this description. I could see the banner scrolling across the television now, displaying the headlines of the
real
news
;
they were saying that five
hundred
people had been killed in an uprising in the Middle East, and eighty people have been killed in an earthquake and there, look, twenty thousand people have died in an ongoing famine, so what makes Philip Tolley’s death so important, what makes his death so
tragic and needless
compared to those famine victims, what makes his death so important?

They said he was a ‘gentle giant’, but
I knew that
he wasn’t
. That was just another one of those trite clichés that
they wheel
ed
out when something like this happens
. He
wasn’t gentle, he wasn’t nice, he was malicious and cruel,
his death wasn’t tragic and needless,
he deserved it.

I turned the TV off, and a tiny part of me wondered if I was going a little bit mad.

Chapter 11

The doorbell rang. I
put my wineglass down on the kitchen table and
dashed excitedly towards the door. I
t was
only a
week
away from
Christmas and I
an was due back home today – I had told him to ring me
as soon as he landed
, I would pick him up from the airport, but I knew what he was like.
Pig-headed.
He would jump on a bus,
would say ‘
it’s only fifteen minutes on the bus, Mum, it’s no hassle
’. M
aybe he would be trying to chat up a fellow passenger,
some pretty young thing –
he
had charm in abundance and liked to use it
.
I
flung open the door, ready to embrace
my oldest son. The noise of drumming hit me - r
ain was pelting down.

‘Mrs. Halston?’
Two men were standing on the doorstep. The man who had spoken was short and wide. The other man was
much younger, and
very tall and thin
,
and was clutching a large umbrella
,
sheltering himself and the other man
.
They reminded me of Laurel and Hardy.

‘Er, yes, er – ’

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Blud and this is Police Constable Andrews,’ said the man who looked like Oliver Hardy. He was holding up what I assumed to be his official identification.
There was no point in squinting at it, I had no idea what a Detective Sergeant’s identification was supposed to look like. He
glanced back at the road, raising his eyebrows at the pouring rain. ‘May we come in?’

‘Er, well, I suppose, I –’
I said, feeling my pulse quicken. T
he football player...

The man who looked like Stan Laurel - Police Constable Andrews – folded the umbrella, inadvertently shaking a few large droplets onto
Detective Sergeant
Blud’s face.
Blud glared at the police constable and shook his head.

‘
That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into
,’ I muttered to myself, and stifled a laugh.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs. Halston
, did you say something
?’

‘Oh, er, um, nothing, nothing. Um,
er,
what’s this all about?’
My heart was pounding so loud, I thought they’d hear it smacking against my chest.

‘Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Halston, nothing to worry about at all.
Just routine.
Can we sit through here, Mrs. Halston?’

‘Er, yes, um, would you, um, like a cup of tea?’

‘Ooh, that would be lovely, Mrs. Halston. Milk, two sugars, please.’

I turned to the lanky Police Constable. ‘Er, would you like anything Stan - I mean, um, Mr. Andrews?’

Andrews shook his head and sat down next to Blud.
Not too close, I noticed, they didn’t seem too comfortable with each other. I
saw
their wet footprints across the lounge carpet,
I
saw
the rainwater pooling at their feet
...
I wanted to ask them if they would be happy if this sort of mess was dragged into their houses
.

In the kitchen, I put the kettle on and took a large gulp of wine. The
y
were here about the football player,
they
had to be. Someone must have seen me...
shit...

‘Thank you Mrs. Halston?’ Blud said, taking the cup in a chubby hand. No wedding ring, I noticed. Not surprising,
all of
those
detective programmes always implied that
it was difficult to stay married when you were a copper
, their lead characters always had marital issues, and I assumed that the programmes were at least part based on fact. Probably a result of all those long, unsociable hours spent with criminals
. ‘Your husband
–’
Blud
peered down at a notebook
‘
er, Mr.
Graham Halston
, yes, er,
is he here at the moment
?
’

‘No, no, he’s at work.’ I saw Blud
sip
his tea and grimace. I had forgotten to put any sugar in.
‘Er, can you tell me what this is abou – ’

‘Does your husband own a BMW X5? A black one?’

‘Er, well, yes, but, um, midnight blue, that’s what it’s called
, rather than black. I mean, i
t looks black, but it’s called midnight blue
.’

It was
my
car, really, Graham always used his silly little convertible if he was going out on his own or to work, but both cars were
registered
in Graham’s name.
I paused and took a deep breath. The car – the X5 - was
parked in the garage, but they
mustn’t have seen it
, the garage door must be closed. ‘Look, can you please explain - ’

‘Calm down, Mrs. Halston, as I said, it’s just routine. We’re
investigating an accident
that happened
a few weeks ago. A cyclist was
knocked off his bike.’

‘Surely you don’t think that Graham –
I mean, are you saying it was a hit and run, are you saying that Graham -
’

‘No, Mrs. Halston, that’s not what I’m saying. Not what I’m saying at all. We’re just in the process of eliminating people from our inqui
ries, that’s all.
It’s just that t
here was a car seen near the accident, a dark car, a four-wheel
drive –
’