The Empty Desk (10 page)

It felt good to be home. Aiden was perched on a stool at the kitchen counter reading a book he had brought home from school while Melinda prepared dinner. He stumbled over a few words as he read but he managed to work out what they were with little assistance. He never ceased to surprise her with just how bright he was. Jim was due back from the hospital soon, and she wanted to have something ready for him when he arrived.

“So what did you think about the ghost, Mom?” he asked when he eventually reached the end of the book. She was surprised that he hadn't brought the subject up on the drive home, but he had been full of talk about the art project that Dana had planned. He had come up with an idea of making a picture using different kinds of breakfast cereal. She suspected that a trip to the supermarket was likely to be in the cards before too long.

“I didn't really get the chance to talk to her,” she said. “She disappeared when you all left the classroom for lunch break.”

“I thought maybe you'd been able to help her cross over, because she wasn't there this afternoon.”

Melinda hadn't really thought about the possibility that the little girl might have somewhere else to go. Somehow she had thought that she was a lost spirit who would be anchored to that single place and that she would always be there, that Melinda would always know where she would be able to find her. She had assumed that Alice might choose to remain with the rest of the class in the hope of company rather than staying alone in the classroom, but that she would stay within the confines of the school. The creeping doubt was telling her that there was no guarantee that she would be there in the morning. If that was the case, her hands might be tied.

“I think she followed the rest of you guys out, and I couldn't hang around long enough to see if she came back.”

“I didn't see her,” he said.

“I'm going to call in when I take you to school in the morning,” she said, Aiden's confirmation that she had been wrong about the ghost's whereabouts troubling her a little more. “Just in case she's there.”

“That would be good. If at first you don't succeed . . .” he said.

“Try, try, and try again,” they completed in unison and shared a laugh that finally helped her get rid of the sour taste that had been left in her mouth by the encounter at the auto-repair shop. At least she was sure that Jez Lowe wouldn't be bothering her tonight. She'd made it perfectly clear that he wasn't going to get any more help if he came calling again today. If he came up with a solution to the problem he would have to get in touch with her at the antique shop tomorrow.

Aiden was already in bed by the time Jim came home but he was still awake, waiting for his father to read to him. Jim didn't get the chance to do it every night and hated to miss the opportunity.

“It won't be long before he's reading
you
a bedtime story,” Melinda laughed as she gave him a welcome-home kiss. It felt good to be held by him after a day like the one she had just had. Aiden could take most of it away, but it was Jim's embrace that allowed her to release all of her troubles and put things into perspective.

“I'd better go straight up then,” he said, slowly releasing her from his grip. Reluctantly she let him go. His son needed him just as much as she did and she listened as he called up softly to announce his arrival, just in case Aiden had already drifted off to sleep, too tired to wait any longer, but the response confirmed that Aiden was all too wide awake. Melinda stirred the contents of a saucepan. It might be a while before she got to serve it.

Later, when they had eaten and were curled up together on the sofa, she listened while Jim told her about his day. Compared to the things he had gone through in the operating theater at the hospital, her own troubles were little more than inconveniences. She didn't need to burden him with them while he had so much on his own plate. Instead she lay with her head in his lap while he stroked her hair in front of the flickering TV, which neither of them was really watching. When his hand stopped moving and his breathing fell to a soft purr, she knew that it was time for them to head to bed.

Ned had managed to find enough time to grab a shower and get changed before picking Terri up from outside the newspaper offices. Her hair was shorter than it had been the last time he had seen her, but apart from that it might have been only yesterday, although it had been closer to eight or nine months, maybe even longer. He still recognized her even through the plate glass door before she left the building. He stood beside his car so that she would be able to spot him, hoping that she would recognize him just as easily. He needn't have worried. The moment she stepped outside, she gave him a wave of acknowledgement.

“What, no flowers?” she laughed as she closed the gap between them.

“Flowers?” He thought he had got things clear in his head. This was just a drink, a chat, not some great romantic gesture, no declaration of love. Still, she managed to throw him off guard. “I . . .”

“I'm kidding,” she laughed, brushing her lips against his cheek. He caught the faintest hint of her perfume as she danced away to the other side of his car. “So where are we going?”

Twenty minutes later they had found a bar where the early evening trade had barely begun and were taking the first sips of their drinks.

“So come on, spill,” Terri said once she had given a big sigh and leaned back in her chair. Clearly it had been a taxing day. “What can I do for you? Who is this missing person?”

“Well, that's the thing,” he began. “She's not exactly missing in the way that you're thinking, and I don't actually know her name.”

Ned decided that it was best to come clean and hoped that might get her more interested than if he invented some convoluted story. He explained that he was trying to track down a girl by the name of Alice who had died at some point in the last twenty years. He'd decided to extend the time frame further back, just to get an idea of the scale of the problem. He was pretty sure that the absence of any immediate hit on his Internet search more or less guaranteed that she had not died in the last five years. Just about everything that had happened in that time would have been captured somewhere on the Net and retained for posterity, even if it had been completely forgotten about.

“So why the interest?” she asked.

“Let's call it an academic exercise.”

“This isn't some kind of put-on, is it?” she asked. “You're sure that there was a girl called Alice? This isn't just an excuse to finally give me a call? You really didn't need one.”

“Of course not. I wouldn't do something like that,” Ned said.

“I would,” she laughed. “Well, I might. Call it one of the tricks of the trade. So I take it this is something to do with your studies. You still studying ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night?”

“That's not quite what we do,” he said, though he was sure he had no need to defend what he did.

“That's it, though, isn't it? You think you've found a ghost called Alice and now you're trying to find out about her because she won't talk to you.” There was a sudden twinkle in her eye and a smile that danced across her lips as she leaned forward, clearly keen to hear what he had to say.

She was good. Ned tried to deny it but he knew that wasn't going to get him anywhere. Terri was bright and would be able to see straight through him if he told her anything but the truth. It was a valuable trait for someone hoping to succeed in journalism, and he was sure that she would.

“Okay, I'll go along with it,” she said, pulling out a notepad and pen and placing them on the table beside her drink. “Shoot.”

“You think you can help?” he asked, delighted that this all seemed so easy.

“Who knows,” she shrugged, still smiling. “Of course, it's going to cost you.”

“Cost me? How much?”

“Oh, I don't know,” she said, picking up the slim menu that was wedged between the salt and pepper. “How does a burger and fries sound?”

Children were already milling around inside the school gates when Melinda arrived the next morning, and Aiden soon spotted a cluster of his friends. He abandoned her with barely a backward glance, let alone a kiss goodbye. Inside the main door the school secretary manning the reception desk was already looking harassed as children and parents waited for her attention in competition with the telephone, which did not seem to stop ringing. Rather than wait to attract her attention, Melinda headed down the corridor toward Dana's classroom.

The door was already open, but there was no sign of Dana inside. From the doorway Melinda could see that her friend's briefcase lay on the floor next to her desk and a scarf hung over the back of her chair. She thought about trying to find her before going inside but she was only too aware that might mean that her opportunity could slip away. She glanced back down the corridor once more in case she needed to explain her presence to anyone who might be keeping an eye on her, but seeing no one paying any attention to her, she stepped inside.

She avoided looking in the direction of the desk where she had seen the ghost of the girl on the previous day. If the girl was there, she didn't want to be seen as some kind of threat. There was every chance that she and Aiden were the only ones Alice had known to be able to see her, and that could be a disturbing enough situation as it was. If she was there, Melinda didn't want to scare her away before she had at least tried to talk to her. She slipped off her coat and hung it over the back of Dana's chair before she took a deep breath.

“Hello, Alice,” she said softly before she turned around, still not sure if the little girl would even be sitting at the desk. She was relieved to find that she was there and showed no sign of disappearing. “My name's Melinda. I was here yesterday.”

The ghost didn't speak; instead she lowered her head, rolling her fingers against each other.

“It is Alice, isn't it?” Melinda asked, taking another step closer. Not wanting to scare the child, she treated her like a frightened animal that might be about to dart away at any moment. She needed to win her trust.

The girl gave the slightest of nods and ran her fingers over the marks in the wood that spelled out her name.

“Have you been here long?” Melinda asked. It seemed like an innocent-enough question, but it only deepened the sadness on the child's face. The ghost nodded, then returned to playing with her fingers.

“I can help you,” Melinda said. “Would you like that?”

The little girl shrugged—the universal language of the uncertain. Melinda wished she could wrap her arms around her and give her a hug, just as she would if she saw Aiden looking as sad as this. She was in need of a mother's love and affection. This little girl had been lost for far too long.

“It might help me if I knew your last name, Alice. Can you tell me what it is?”

“Fallon,” she replied in a small voice that was barely above a whisper. She was so quiet that Melinda was not even sure that she had heard it properly, but she had to be certain.

Melinda nodded and smiled at her. “Alice Fallon,” she said. “Is that right?”

The girl nodded again in affirmation. It might not be much, but Melinda thought that she was at least making some progress. She wanted to know more about the girl, about why she was still there, but she didn't want to push things too hard. It would be better if she told her story at her own pace.

“I can't find my sister,” the girl said. “Do you know where she is?”

“I'm afraid I don't, honey,” Melinda said. She had expected the girl to want her mom, but a sister came a close second. “Would you like me to try to find her?”

The girl nodded. “I have to tell her that I'm sorry.”

Even as she spoke the words the door burst open and someone came bustling in. Instinctively Melinda looked over her shoulder in case she was going to have to explain her presence. She was relieved to see that it was only Dana. She gave her a smile in welcome but as she turned back to talk to Alice, she found that the ghost had gone. This was starting to be something of a habit.

“Sorry,” Dana said. “Is she here?”

“She was,” said Melinda.

“Sorry.” Again. “Were you able to talk to her?”

“A little, Dana,” she said, without reproaching her friend for breaking the contact and driving the ghost away. “At least I now know that her name definitely was Alice. Alice Fallon.”

Jez was waiting for her when she returned to the car. He seemed to keep turning up like a bad penny, and Melinda was starting to wish that he would leave her alone. There were more than enough demands on her time without being hassled by this ghost who didn't really want to be helped or who demanded far more than she was able to give. At least he had left her alone the previous evening, and for that she was grateful.

“I thought we'd said everything there was to be said yesterday,” she said as she started the engine. If he was going to keep appearing, she wasn't going to let it delay her own day any longer.

“You said that if I could find a solution, you'd try to help,” he replied.

“I did, but I hope you haven't come up with some wild scheme—like me standing over everything Tom does while you pass on instructions—because that just isn't going to work!” It was a possibility that had played over and over in her head during the night. No matter how many times she had tried to dismiss the madness, she had still kept hearing his voice in her dreams telling her that was the only solution.

“Of course I wouldn't ask you to do something like that,” he said, though Melinda had her own doubts about that. It felt like that was exactly what he had done to her yesterday. Her dreams had only been an extension of that.

“Okay, let's hear it. I'm all ears.” She turned off the engine and turned in her seat so she could see him better. One of the other mothers waved and smiled, slowing down as she walked past Melinda's car. Melinda acknowledged her but made no movement to open the window. If the other woman started talking she would never get this over with, and she had already given Jez more than enough of her time to sort out the problem that was stopping him from crossing over. The woman looked a little puzzled that Melinda did not want to pass the time of day with her but moved on after holding her hand to her face and making the universal sign of a telephone. Melinda smiled and nodded, pretending to look for something in her bag.

“It's all my fault,” Jez admitted.

Melinda could not have been more surprised if it had started snowing at that moment. There was no way that she had expected him to take any responsibility for the situation that his son now found himself in. As far as she was concerned this was quite a breakthrough. It might even be a significant turning point.

“I pushed him into it. He can do wonderful things when he has his computer to help him—things that I could never hope to understand, let alone be able to do. I should never have dragged him away from the job he had before. He was happy enough, but I convinced him that he would be much better off having his own business rather than being under the thumb of someone else. I thought it would give him some security for him and his family. But he wasn't ready for it, and that's not his fault.”

“You mean you bullied him into it?” Melinda suggested, wondering just how far along the road Jez had traveled.

“
Bullied
is a bit of a strong word, don't you think?” He seemed affronted, but Melinda was not going to let him take the high ground. He had come this far and only needed to take a few more steps to admit just how the situation had arisen.

“He needs help,” he continued. “Tom needs help because I let him down. Either that or he should sell the business and walk away, but by the look of it, it isn't going to be worth much if he keeps going the way he is. He needs to make a decision now, before it's too late.”

“You're not exactly in a position to help him, are you? And by the look of things he would be hard pressed to be able to pay anyone a decent wage and survive himself.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But if he had the right person helping out a few hours a day he might be able to get on top of it, especially if he got his wife to help him out with the paperwork a little. She's a very able woman.”

“Well, why hasn't he thought of that himself?” Melinda suggested.

“He did,” he said. “When he first came back she used to come into the office while the kids were in school, but we had a falling-out and she said she wouldn't go back there again if she wasn't wanted.”

“Sounds like you've had quite a few disagreements.”

“Yes, well, they wouldn't listen. They wouldn't do things the way I wanted to have them done.”

Melinda gave him a look to remind him that he was skating on thin ice. The more he tried to turn things around to blame other people, the less she felt inclined to try to help him and the longer he would be stuck here unable to do anything.

“Okay,” he raised his hands in surrender. “I didn't listen to them. I told them that my way was the right way, and they didn't like it. But I'd given most of my life to make a success of that place—to provide for my family and give him a future. It was breaking my heart to see them coming in and changing things. Even if they changed things for the better, it felt like they were telling me that I had been doing it wrong all that time. That hurt. It was like they were throwing everything back in my face.”

“And now?” she insisted.

“Now I can see that maybe they were right. Maybe the changes that they wanted to make would have brought the business up to date and made it easier to manage.”

“So how did you cope without Tom? It must have been hard going for you if you were doing everything on your own.”

“I had Dan Poole working for me then. Tom came in when Dan decided to retire to look after his wife. He was one of the best. He could listen to an engine and tune it like you might a concert piano. And I was thinking that he might be Tom's answer.”

“How?” Melinda asked.

“Dan's wife died not long after Tom came to work with me. He might be prepared to come out of retirement for a few hours a day, or maybe a couple of days a week. He's a great teacher. He'd show Tom the things he doesn't know far better than I ever could. And I would know that he would be in safe hands.”

“You've really given this some thought, haven't you?” She could see that he had given the matter some thought, and maybe he had come up with something that would keep everyone happy. Most of all he might have found a solution that would allow him to pass over, and Melinda was grateful for that.

“You didn't exactly give me a lot of choice, now did you? I can't hang around here forever if all I'm going to see is things getting worse. It has to be better to try to point him in the right direction and then leave him to it.”

Melinda couldn't argue with that. If it meant one more visit to Tom to try to sort it out once and for all, it would be worth doing. She only hoped that he would be prepared to listen to her again and not just throw her out on her ear.

“I can't do it now, if that's what you were hoping,” she said. She was already going to be late opening up the shop, and while there might not be a line of people down the street, she hated not being there when people wanted to go inside to take a look. She could have asked Delia to open up for her again, but she had been asking far too much of her lately already, and she didn't want to risk losing any goodwill. Their friendship was too important for that.

“Maybe this evening?” he suggested.

She gave a sigh but agreed, making a note of the address. It was not far from her home, and Jim would be at home this evening to spend some time with Aiden. It was typical that on a week when his shifts meant that they could spend some time together, he was so tired that he could fall asleep early, or there were demands on her own time that contrived to keep them apart.

Once she had given her agreement, he left her to make the rest of the drive to the shop in peace. She was glad of a little time to get her thoughts in order. Maybe she was getting close to helping Jez pass over, and there had been a step forward at least with the girl. She had no doubt, though, that the little girl was her priority.