Ghost Girl (26 page)

‘Stella Darnell.’

‘It’s Jack,’ he breathed.

‘Please leave a message after…’ It had gone to voicemail, almost as if Stella had cut the line. She wouldn’t have done that.

He lay back on the unyielding pillow. Last night when he called, Stella wasn’t at Terry’s, nor when they met had she said where she was. He felt creeping unease. Softly he began to sing to himself:

‘Mary had a little lamb,

Little lamb, little lamb,

Mary had a little lamb,

Its fleece was white as snow…’

Jack fell asleep without finishing the first verse.

35

Monday, 30 April 2012

Marian Williams’s office was empty, but a steaming mug of coffee on her desk meant she wasn’t far away. A green faux-leather handbag hung from the back of her chair and an open manila file that Stella saw from the label had been signed out of the General Registry lay beside the keyboard. She frowned; when clients left valuables out, it made her and her staff vulnerable to accusations of theft.

Stella was about to leave and return once the administrator was there when she noticed a black and white photograph half out of the folder. It was of a street. Stella ignored an urgent voice in her head commanding her to clean at the other end of the building. She checked the corridor and set her cleaning cart outside, blocking the doorway.

She snatched up the photograph. Her hunch was on the nose. It was a road in one of Terry’s pictures, but it looked different. Shot by a police photographer, it showed the aftermath of an incident. A cordon of police tape was in the foreground; behind was a car, its bonnet crumpled against a tree, which Stella identified was an ash. Jack was right about trees holding up: the trunk was unscathed. Forensics in white jumpsuits examined the wreckage. A case number code was stamped in the corner. Stella had read two digits when she heard a footstep. She slipped the picture back in the file, too late realizing she had put it flush with the other documents. Marian Williams would notice.

She bounded to the window and swished her cloth over the heating vent, an eye on the door. Two women in plain clothes passed; one glanced in. Stella flashed a tight smile. They were police; they would see her guilt.

She should get out while the going was good, but instead pattered back to the desk and tweaked off the closing report from the top of the pile. On red alert she ran a finger down the text. ‘Paul Vickery, aged forty-three, crashed his Triumph TR7 in North Hammersmith on Monday, 16 March 1977.’ She swept up a block of sticky notes from the desk, grabbed a pen, snapped it on and scribbled: ‘Accident at approx 11.30 p.m. Victim thrown clear of vehicle, suffered broken neck and fractured skull. Died on impact.’

She was startled by the dead man’s address: 42 Primula Road. The street where Terry had grown up. A coincidence? Could have drawn his attention to the collision. Traffic incidents were not Terry’s remit.

Someone was coming. She shoved the report back. A green form floated to the floor. Stella had no time to return it. The cart rattled; her ruse had bought her seconds. She stuffed the paper into her trouser pocket.

‘It must have moved,’ Stella panted. She pulled the cart clear. ‘I have literally just arrived.’ She was no good at this stuff. Nor did she want to be. She should not have listened to Jack.

‘You carry on.’ Marian Williams trotted past her. Trailing behind, Stella gave the desk a wide berth and wheeled her cart to the window. She pushed the form deeper into her pocket.

Stella moved robotically around wiping and polishing while Mrs Williams, sipping her coffee, tapped at her computer. She showed no sign of leaving.

Any minute now she would, consult the folder and miss the form. She would make Stella empty her pockets. Stella tipped the contents of the waste bin into a sack hanging from the handle of her cart. She missed and scattered rubbish all over the floor. Scooping it up, she saw too late it would have been a chance to have appeared to come across the form.

When Jack called, Stella had run out of anything to clean and had no reason to stay in the office.

‘I thought it was on silent,’ she muttered in apology to Marian Williams. ‘It’s a member of my staff. Would you mind?’ She hoped Marian would mind. She couldn’t talk to Jack; he would know she had stolen the form.

‘Not at all, go ahead.’ Marian Williams got up and swung her handbag on to her shoulder. ‘I’m popping out. If you’re gone when I get back, have a good rest of the day.’

Stella answered the phone. ‘I’m at work,’ she barked into the mouthpiece.

‘I’ve been trying to get you. Where have you been?’

Not answering his phone was what Stella found exasperating about Jack. She could not tell him she had been helping David Barlow rescue a puppy from the river or that she had been out with him each time Jack had called. She didn’t know why she was reluctant to tell him. Of course it was none of his business whom she went out with and anyway it wasn’t going out. In fact it had been staying in. All of this meant she had not called him, but none of it could she explain, to Jack or herself.

She went on the defence. ‘I only got a couple of messages.’

‘So why didn’t you answer one of them?’

‘I’m answering now.’

‘I’ve found another street, but if you’re not interested…’

Stella clamped the phone to her ear to prevent his voice carrying into the room. ‘Me too.’

Marian Williams gathered up the manila folder and slid it into a drawer in her desk. With a jangle of keys she locked the drawer and dropped the keys in her handbag. She didn’t trust Stella. Five minutes ago Stella had wanted the file locked in the drawer, now she was dismayed she couldn’t get to it.

‘You talked to your policeman?’

‘No.’ Watching Marian Williams fussing at her desk, Stella was unprepared for what Jack said next.

‘We might have Terry’s pattern. Amanda Hampson’s husband killed a child.’

‘What do you mean? He…’ Stella stopped. The word ‘murdered’ would get Marian Williams’s attention. ‘He used bleach?’ she finished lamely.

‘What? Oh, OK, you can’t speak.’

‘Yes. I mean no.’

‘Charles Hampson killed a child months before his own accident. He was driving too fast. This is why I was calling you.’

‘Try a different astringent.’ At last Marian Williams snapped shut the clasp on her handbag and left. ‘How do you know?’ Stella asked Jack.

‘I found an article about Charlie Hampson’s death among Amanda’s stuff. He ran over a boy called Stephen Parsons. I have the cutting here. It was the eighth of January 2009.’

‘That’s stealing.’ Stella wiped her hand over her face. She had a green form belonging to the Metropolitan Police in her pocket and had rifled through a confidential file. She had evaded telling the truth about why she hadn’t returned Jack’s calls. She was not in a position to bandy ethics about.

‘Amanda won’t mind. She’s treating me as a sounding board over this business.’

‘What does it say?’

‘Hampson died on Phoenix Way – the name’s a little ironic, no rising from the dead for him – and I’m sure it’s in Terry’s blue folder. Hampson was done for causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving. He got off with a six-month suspended sentence and was banned for a year. Amanda thinks the punishment disproportionate. Indeed, one might say it was – too little. What you got?’

‘I’ll say when I see you. Did you go to the street you found, Marquis Way?’

‘Not without you.’ Jack was firm.

‘Let’s go tonight. Meet me at Terry’s at nine-thirty. I’m cleaning there,’ she added, knowing Jack wasn’t fooled.

‘Pick me up on King Street. That school, Mallingswood House, near Ravenscourt Park Station.’

‘Why not the Tube?’

‘Nine-thirty sharp,’ Jack stipulated.

Stella rang off. Jack was sulking about her not returning his calls. He was up to something or he would have commented on her being at Terry’s house. She thought of the form in her pocket and pulled it out. Dated Sunday, 17 October 1976, and headed ‘James Harrison – Deceased’, it outlined the facts of the fatality of a six-year-old boy in a road traffic accident at 3.30 p.m. He was hit crossing a zebra opposite Latymer Upper School on King Street by a Triumph TR7 that, according to witnesses, was travelling at speed.

Scrawled on a slip stapled to the corner was: ‘Driver: Paul Vickery. Deceased Marquis Way W10. 16/3/77’. Stella had known the handwriting all her life: DCS Terence C. Darnell.

Terry had signed the addendum slip on 13 August 2008. One day after her birthday and the year before he retired. He had cross-referenced it with the Vickery file, now locked in Marian Williams’s desk. Both incidents were over a quarter of a century old. Terry had signed the James Harrison file out of the General Registry four years ago. He would have given a reason, probably fresh evidence. If only she could see the file. But at least she had some information. They were getting somewhere.

As executive officer, Marian Williams’s job was to process traumatic information and handle shocked and bereaved families. They didn’t need Cashman to help with the photographs. However, with the green form burning a hole in her pocket and her conscience, Stella would not push her luck.

Outside in the station compound Stella fitted the completed job sheets at the front of her Filofax and flicked to her grid. She put in Jack’s information, relieved she had retained the name of the boy and the date he had died, and what she had learnt from the police file and the green form.

Now proficient on the Street View app, Stella checked Phoenix Way on her phone. Jack’s photographic memory was accurate: the road matched the street in the last picture in Terry’s blue folder. She noted down Terry’s references – two photos for Phoenix Way – on her grid. Jack might be right about a pattern. Two of the drivers had knocked over children. Stella added extra columns, one for ‘Child’ and another with the date of child’s death.

They had identified streets for nine of the fifteen pictures. Stella was parking the car in a street behind the office when she thought again about Mrs Hampson confiding in Jack. Women had a soft spot for him. It was mutual. However irksome this was, Stella had learnt – within limits – to trust his judgement. Maybe Terry had also listened to Hampson – she was a good-looking woman – and had encouraged her to bring him anything new? A rash offer: Amanda Hampson would come with the flimsiest of clutched straws.

By going out with David Barlow – not that she was – Stella had crossed a boundary with one client, so hanged for a sheep… The next time Jack cleaned for Amanda Hampson, she would tag along and introduce herself as the detective’s daughter.

36

Monday, 30 April 2012

‘Fifty yards, turn left.’ The satnav voice broke the silence. ‘You have reached your destination.’

Stella drove a little way along Marquis Way and, stopping, leant over the wheel and peered out at the darkness. Like Britton Drive it was poorly lit. She left the headlights on full beam. Jack said it was better to be here at night – when Hampson, for one, had died – to recreate the scene. She knew this to be true.

Jack was right about atmosphere. Marquis Way was deserted. Stella questioned the wisdom of the decision: she was about to suggest that they come back in daylight when Jack jumped out of the van. He sprinted over to a high fence fixed into breeze blocks on the other side of the road. Clinging to the mesh, he peered through. A sign to his left read: ‘Guard Dogs Patrolling’. Beneath the words was a cartoon drawing of a slavering dog.

‘Jack, I think we should…’ The words died on her lips. Jack wouldn’t listen. Instead Stella joined him, this time bringing her phone. She switched on her torch. Surely there was nothing to guard in this sprawl of wasteland? Scraps of rubbish were caught in the wire and banked up at the base of the fence. In the midst of the levelled ground stood a hoarding on which was a mock-up of a ‘modern office unit’ featuring sleek cladding and plenty of stainless steel and glass. A banner declaring ‘Affordable Prices!’ cut diagonally over the picture beneath which was more sales blurb about square footage and Wi-Fi. Nettles and brambles, weeds and sycamore saplings dotted amongst the rubble suggested that the ‘unique opportunity to acquire a unit within a landmark development’ was some way in the future. The saplings would be trees before the diggers arrived. Stella scanned the street; again like Britton Drive, it was derelict, victim to the recession.

She had met Jack by a drinking fountain on King Street. She told him the photograph of Phoenix Way in Amanda Hampson’s cutting was the street in three photographs numbered 7, 7a and 7b in Terry’s folder. This made him annoyingly happy – he loved it when apparently disconnected facts and events were linked. Jack was a magnet for coincidence, signs that he took for instruction. Life wasn’t like that for most people, Stella would say. She told him about the Paul Vickery file, avoiding how she knew. He was so excited that they had proved three photographs in the file were of streets where a collision had occurred he didn’t ask how she got the information about Vickery and James Harrison.