The Ghost (17 page)

June, 1976

Summer swarmed in – a choking, enshrouding heat which baked itself into the Bethesda School classrooms, melting Plasticine, sealing the over-painted ventilation grids, throttling the assembly hall in a miasma of pre-pubescent musk. The pupils staggered from class to class, flushed and drowsy. Cook and Michael Howell started a betting challenge – predicting the number of fainters at morning hymns. (The record was four – a mass topple during a feeble rendering of ‘All Things Bright And Beautiful'.) At home, not even Cook's bedroom could retain its mystical chill. Esther replaced the heavy-duty sheets with something lacy and flimsy and suspiciously net-curtainish, but Cook still thrashed and floundered in delirious half-sleep, repeatedly waking to gulp from a bedside mug of tepid water.

His bike had been re-gifted for the half-term break, but Cook could barely pedal past the oil-works without slowing and panting. Instead, he lazed around the back yard, in Y-fronts and vest, playing mini-cricket with Uncle Russell and zapping ants with a magnifying glass.

A pink-and-white
Mr Whippy
ice-cream van took residence at the street corner near the bridge, in sight of the old butcher's shop. As Cook queued, he found it impossible to ignore the building's ominous allure, and on the Sunday before school restarted, he wheeled the Chopper out of the yard and convinced David Brereton to join him for an ‘investigation'.

At the bottom of the entry, the boys propped their bikes along the shadowy wall of the Cash & Carry, and sneaked in through the gate-gap. Cook was surprised to see the wooden panel still in place – hinge fractured, flapped over to the side, more or less as he had left it. Brereton lingered outside as Cook stooped his way into the back-room.

“What's it like?” called Brereton.

Cook assumed this to be some kind of safety check. “Nothing here. It's alright.”

Brereton barged his way in. “Ah! It stinks. Smells like toilet!”

“Ssh! Look over here. Unless you're too scared!”

“Fuck off!” snarled Brereton, his voice booming through the gloom.

They scrambled across a bundle of house-bricks which jutted up through the polythene sheeting that, Cook noted, seemed to have shifted and flattened since his last visit. Something else was different – a half-shredded blanket had been knotted onto a rail and draped over the first-floor window. Sunlight flared through the slits, fluttering over the putrid concrete.

Since he was now not so close to an instant escape, Brereton switched to a whisper. “This is brilliant! You could live here, easy.”

“Yeah. I think someone does.”

“Oi!”

A shout from near the back door. Brereton hustled Cook out of his way and made a dash for the staircase. Cook watched him, smiling. He recognised the voice, but held off on reassurance, keen to see if Brereton was actually planning to dive out of the first-floor window. Brereton scampered halfway up the stairs, stopped and turned, coiled into a crouch and fixed his saucered eyes on the passage from back-door to central chamber.

“It's Den,” said Cook, turning, and then, calling – “We're in here!”

There was crunching, clattering, muttering.

Dennis Mountford emerged, with an impish grin. “Did I scare you?”

Brereton cleared the stairs with one bound, sprinted over to Mountford and leapt onto his back. Cook grappled up onto Brereton, and the three boys veered into a stack of crusty planks, laughing and protesting, eventually collapsing into a corner, consumed by a cartoonish dust-cloud. They sat, huddled close, on the powdered floor, hearts drumming. Brereton summoned the strength to give Mountford a final shove.

“I nearly shit meself!”

Mountford sniggered. “I saw the bikes outside.”

Cook was the first to stand. “C'mon. Let me show you something.”

Cook led Mountford through to the splintered door and descending staircase. Brereton dawdled and complained, trying to disguise his caution with banter. (“I bet all the tramps have it off in here. You sure this isn't your house, Dor?”)

Mountford, the eldest, stepped ahead of Cook and shouldered through the door. A spiral of pitted stone steps led down to a narrow passage half-flooded with spilled plaster. As they reached the bottom, Cook wriggled up-front. Mountford hesitated, Brereton hanging at his shoulder.

“Can't see a thing down here!” said Mountford, hushed. “Have you got a torch at your house, Dor?”

But Cook was away, wading through the rubble, plunging to the end of the passage, submerged by the deep, invincible dark.

“Hang on…” Brereton lit a match. The scraping tore through the stillness.

“Where did you get them from?” asked Mountford.

“He's always got ‘em,” said Cook, pushing on through the leaping shadows.

They emerged into what looked like an old storage area. Rotting crates lined the walls, poised below layers of ceramic shelving, tilted by time. The floor was carpeted by a congealed layer of old newspapers, cigarette packets, cushions and cartons. Brereton lit another match and held it up to a row of coloured bottles on one of the shelves. Mountford read from the labels.

“Tippers Healing Oil… Black Lacquer… Turpentine Substitute… Loxene…”

Cook stooped and studied a rakish fireplace, hacked together from mismatched stone. The raised hearth was coated in a mound of fresh-looking mulch which had spilled from the firebox. Mountford took a match from Brereton and dangled it over the opening.

“Is that
shit?”
said Brereton.

“Soil,” said Mountford, giving it a kick.

Still crouching, Cook ran his fingers over a rough metal ring set into a square baseplate, bolted to the floor. It was riddled with rust but, as he clawed at the edges, it lifted away, twisting on its hinge. He gripped it with both hands and pulled upwards, grinding ring against base. The motion disturbed the edges of what looked like a thick trapdoor, but it was far too heavy to open.

“Let's have a go,” said Mountford. “Give me some light, Dor.”

Cook took a freshly lit match from Brereton and cast its glow over the ring. Mountford tugged and grunted, but the door's edges held firm.

“There's a load of pipes and bars by them crates,” said Brereton. “Let's stick ‘em down the ends and get it open.”

Mountford and Brereton gathered up a few sections of tapered steel tubing. They took a pipe each and stabbed the flattened points into the grooves around the door-edges, prising and rocking until the wood loosened enough for Cook to grip the ring and yank the door open. Brereton wafted a new match over the opening.

A wooden ladder had been fastened to the trapdoor's frame, descending to a tiny, dungeon-like cellar.

“I'm not going down there!” confirmed Brereton.

But Cook was already backing into the hole, finding footing. He climbed down, slowly and deliberately, testing his weight on each rung. As he stepped off at the bottom, Mountford and Brereton lit new matches and poked them in through the trapdoor opening. Under a low, curved ceiling, the cellar was a ten-foot square cavern of nothing – bare stone floor and walls, no clutter, no shelves, no crates, no light, no anything. But, in the current heat, it felt refreshingly brisk.

“We could use this!” Cook's voice was cut short by a squealing creak as the trapdoor swung shut, sealing the frame, casting the cellar into profound blackness.

Muffled shouts – Brereton laughing and protesting, Mountford stern and urgent.

Cook's legs buckled. He kneeled, fingertips groping for the dirty floor. This was a new flavour of void – solid, entombing. Above, Mountford and Brereton scraped their pipes at the trapdoor edges, but Cook was shocked to discover that he felt no fear. He was calm, cool, out of sight, safe from harm, away from the stare of the sun. Down here, there was no closet door for the Sea Devils to fall upon. He waved his hand before his eyes, but only felt a slight air disturbance – he could see nothing.

Mr Pink-Whistle is not like ordinary people. He's half a brownie and half a person, and he can make himself invisible whenever he wants.

Esther had said that it wasn't possible. But here he was, without body. And he still believed it – that if you could make yourself invisible, then no-one could see you or hurt you.

Mountford and Brereton levered open the trapdoor. They had been too busy with the pipes to burn matches and so there was hardly any extra light.

“Dor! Are you okay? Sorry! Sorry!”

“Yeah, it was an accident!”

Cook fumbled around, found the ladder, and began to climb.

“It's okay,” he said. “I've got an idea.”

COOK LIFTED THE LETTERBOX
flap and let it drop – three times seemed reasonable. He waited, noting the flaking paint around the door-frame and the recycle bin propped open with takeaway pizza boxes. William Stone peered through a small window above the letterbox, his features deformed by frosted glass. He studied his visitor for a little too long, before (it seemed to Cook) reluctantly admitting him, door barely ajar. Inside, Cook reeled at the reek of neglect – a microclimate of stale carpets, unwashed dishes, ageing meat, infrequent bathing. He recognised it from his own holding-pattern lifestyle. It was universal, bottleable – Calvin Klein's
Separation
.

Cook searched for somewhere to set down his car-keys, but all the horizontal surfaces had been colonised by mugs and bowls and plates of varying vintage.

“Sorry about the mess,” said Stone, unapologetically. He swept a few newspapers off the sofa. “What's up? Do you want a drink, mate?”

Cook detected a faint slur in his friend's speech. It was earlyish – 10am – and he charitably dismissed it as morning grogginess.

“No, thanks. I won't be long.”

Stone flopped into an armchair.

“How are things?” said Cook, lowering himself onto the unyielding sofa.

“Could be worse. They've done a ‘conduct investigation' review and now I've got to agree an ‘improvement plan'. My brief has got the complaint reduced. It's all bullshit, though. I'll be back soon. Main thing is that I'm still fucked for any promotions. Unless I can find Lord fucking Lucan.”

Cook greeted all of this with a few well-practiced grunts of sympathy, marking time until he felt it appropriate to attempt a subject-change. He had mentally rehearsed a subtle transition, but in the event, realised that he simply didn't have the skill or inclination for diplomacy.

“I'm in trouble, Will. I need your help.”

To Cook's surprise and irritation, Stone unleashed a belly-laugh which triggered a convulsion of breathless rasping. He burrowed through the detritus on a side-table, plucked out a cigarette and sparked it up, puffing and coughing. “Mate. I'm a man whose ‘standards of professional behaviour' are probably being discussed right now by a bunch of cunts in suits. What help can I be to you?”

“It's nothing major,” said Cook. “I need your advice – and maybe a bit of, uh, insurance.”

Stone spluttered, spouting a flurry of smoke. “Dor, I know you're a movie man, but this isn't the fucking
Godfather
. It's reality. I can't just call in a fucking SWAT team. I'm serving this out, staying good as gold.”

“It's nothing that elaborate.”

Cook rescued a soft-porn magazine which had almost slipped out of sight beneath the sofa. He turned a few pages, squinting at the prurience. He was both acting and feeling casual. “Gina and I are on a break. It's been coming for a while. You know that. It's just… There's something else.”

“Oh my God!” said Stone, smiling. “You're going to kill your family and top yourself. I had one of them a couple of years ago. Fuck me! One of the kids
survived.”

Cook looked up from the magazine but didn't indulge the banter.

“No. Nothing like that. Gina and I – we might be okay. This goes a lot further back.”

That evening, at ‘home', Cook poured himself a glass of red wine and scrutinised the letters from Eleanor, cross-referencing her descriptive asides with the detail in his own research. When he was satisfied, he made a few brief notes in his old screening pad and headed into the kitchen, where the radio babbled, tuned to a news and sport station.

He took a knife from a drawer, butter from the fridge, cheese slices, ham slices, relish.

He listened to the news.

“
Police have launched a murder investigation after the bodies of a man and a child were found at a house in Edgware.”

He laid out two rounds of bread. He opened the butter.

“Dennis Mountford, 47, was found along with his seven-year-old son Jake at their home on Tuesday.”

He did not release the knife in horror. It did not tumble to the floor in slow-motion.

“Detectives have issued an appeal for witnesses and are studying CCTV footage of the area.”

He layered the cheese and ham onto the bread.

“
This is a particularly brutal and callous crime, with an added element of outrage due to the involvement of a young child. We would ask if anyone has any information – no matter how small it might seem – to please come forward, in confidence. It's crucial that we apprehend whoever is responsible for this appalling act as soon as possible.”

He squashed the ingredients between the buttered bread slices, turned and walked out of the kitchen into the living-room.

He took his car-keys and notepad.

He left the house and got into his car.

He drove to the town-house flat-block and pressed the button marked ‘D. Brereton' over and over again.

He got back into the car, drove out of the town centre, onto the motorway.

He left the motorway and stopped the car by the side of the road.

He consulted his notes and drove to a low-lit suburban street.

He parked at the corner, near a sign – ‘Vaughan Green Primary School'. Opposite, stood the house where he was sure that Eleanor Finch was being held prisoner.