The Unquiet Dead
Authors: Gay Longworth
GAY LONGWORTH
Dedication
To Alicia and Matt Suminski
Prologue
Jessie sensed the impact before she heard it. It was the smell. The smell of hot steel, of friction, of fear. Or was it even before the smell, before she’d seen the train’s headlights emerge from the gloom or heard its lugubrious rattle? She was deep underground at Oxford Circus, waiting for the Bakerloo line that would take her to Paddington and the 11.15 train to Heathrow. As she made her way to the point of impact, she knew from the look on the passengers’ faces that she wasn’t going to make that train and she wasn’t going to be there to welcome her brother home from Africa.
A young woman, about Jessie’s age, was lying on the track facing up; her eyes were open and a thin trickle of blood seeped out of the corner of her mouth. She was alive. Jessie sent for the paramedics, cleared the shocked onlookers and summoned the underground staff to shut down the power and form a barrier before she jumped down on to the track. It wasn’t until she was on the filthy
cement floor that she saw what she could not have seen from the height of the platform. The woman stared up at her, but the lower portion of her body was facing down. As the train had rolled her along the track, she’d been twisted around like dough.
‘It’s okay,’ said the woman. ‘I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt.’
Jessie couldn’t move for a moment. Was it a miracle or diabolical that the woman was still alive?
‘The doctors are coming,’ said Jessie finally, knowing it was futile. There was nothing anyone could do.
‘I’m okay,’ the woman said again. ‘It doesn’t hurt.’
‘My name is Jessie Driver, I’m a detective with the CID. Can you tell me your name?’
‘Harriet.’ A blood bubble burst on her lips. Jessie wiped it away.
‘Harriet, I’m not a doctor, but I think you are in serious trouble. Is there anyone I can call for you, anyone you’d like to talk to?’
Harriet closed her eyes.
‘Stay with me,’ said Jessie. ‘The paramedics are here.’
It didn’t take very long for the paramedic team to confirm what Jessie already knew. The woman lying misshapen at her feet was living on borrowed time. Her spine had twisted around itself, snapping in two. That was why there was no pain; she had
no feeling at all. Her midriff had been wrung out, her insides with it.
‘The weight of the train is keeping her alive, containing the damage,’ said the paramedic. ‘As soon as we move the train, the sudden haemorrhage from her ruptured organs will cause a massive heart attack. She is going to die. She should be dead already. She’s a jumper, right?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jessie.
The paramedic glanced down at the tracks. ‘Well, tell her to make her peace, she hasn’t got very long.’
Harriet had long dark hair and startling blue eyes, but the pressure was building inside her and the whites of her eyes were now flecked with blood. Jessie stroked her hair as she delivered the paramedic’s message. Jessie didn’t know what response she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t a smile.
‘I feel so calm.’
It’s shock, Jessie wanted to say, but all she could do was smile back.
‘I’m sorry to have caused so much trouble.’
‘Let me call someone – your parents?’
‘No.’
Something terrible had happened to this woman, something that made jettisoning herself off a platform into the path of a train easier than stepping back. Something, or someone.
‘I understand,’ said Jessie. ‘It’s okay, we don’t have to call anyone.’
‘I thought I’d be more afraid,’ she said. ‘I’m not afraid any more.’
Definitely shock, thought Jessie, struggling to find suitable words.
‘Please,’ said the girl who was dead already. ‘I need your help.’
‘Anything.’
‘In my bag … letter …’ She paused, her breathing was getting more laboured. ‘Destroy it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘It was an accident … I fell. Please. Tell. Them. I. Fell.’
‘I …’ Jessie sat back on her heels. It sounded so pathetic in her head. I need to file a report. Paperwork. Take statements.
‘Don’t hurt them …’ She was mumbling some of her words. ‘I fell … The truth … I am calm … happy. Don’t hurt … Okay, I don’t hurt any more. I’m going to a much better place, it’s safe and warm …’
‘Harriet, I can’t do that.’
‘I’ll make amends, for them,’ she said, suddenly lucid. ‘I’ve been forgiven, they need to forgive themselves.’ Her eyes flickered but did not close. Jessie turned her head; she could see the bag lying a few feet away, intact. She shuddered. Unknown feet walking over her unknown grave. She looked around. In all the commotion, no one had noticed it. A dying woman’s wish. Who could say for sure that she jumped? Would it really matter? To London Underground it would – better a suicide
than an accident. An accident had legal implications, Health and Safety issues. They shouldn’t have to take the blame.
‘I’m okay,’ Harriet said again, very quietly this time. ‘I don’t hurt any more.’ Jessie squeezed her hand.
‘Detective Inspector,’ said a loud voice above her.
Jessie looked up quickly. ‘Not now …’
‘You can let go now. She’s gone,’ he said.
Jessie looked back at Harriet. ‘But she just …’ Her large eyes were fixed, her lips had parted to form the faint beginnings of a smile. If that split second had been caught by camera and not by death it would have made a beautiful photograph. The paramedic was looking quizzically at Jessie.
‘Sorry, my mistake.’ Jessie removed her jacket and placed it over the face of a girl called Harriet who had just died at her feet.
‘It’s okay now,’ said Jessie quietly. ‘It’s over.’ Death meant nothingness and nothingness couldn’t hurt her any more. The pain would be absorbed by the ones left behind. That’s how it worked. That was the meaning of life after death.
An officer from the transport police approached her with a cup of coffee and her leather jacket.
‘Did the young lady tell you what happened?’
‘Not really,’ said Jessie. ‘I think she was in shock.’
‘She didn’t tell you why she jumped?’
‘You’re certain she jumped then?’ asked Jessie, staring into the concentric rings on the surface of her coffee.
‘No. We’ve been through her things but didn’t find a note. There may be one back at her place of residence, though it’s unusual. What did she say to you?’
I’m okay. I don’t hurt any more
.
‘Detective?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What did she say to you?’
Jessie handed him back the polystyrene cup and thrust her hands deep inside the pockets of her leather trousers. ‘Thanks, but I’m giving up coffee for Lent.’
‘Lent? Are you feeling all right, Detective Inspector?’
Jessie looked at the train, still jacked up. The body had gone. The shell. The casing. She could feel the crisp white paper that held a tormented girl’s last words. But not her last wish. Finally she looked back at the policeman, his pencil poised over the pad.
‘She said she fell.’ A rush of wind from a neighbouring tunnel sucked at Jessie’s legs as another train on another track sped off to another destination.
Jessie turned into her street and saw the tell-tale desert boots sticking out from between the pillars that flanked the entrance to her flat.
‘Bill!’ she shouted, beginning to run. The boots retracted and moments later a tall, blond, bedraggled specimen emerged smiling through the iron gate and on to the pavement. ‘I am so sorry,’ she said and she hugged her brother.
‘Don’t tell me,’ he said. ‘Something came up.’
‘I’m sorry, did you wait at the airport for ages? I should have got a message to you, or called the airport police –’
‘Jessie, calm down, it doesn’t matter.’
‘I meant to be there.’
‘Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t even look for you in arrivals?’ Bill said laughingly.
‘I’d be furious, I took the fucking morning off.’
Jessie put her key in the lock.
‘So, no Maggie then?’
‘No, she’s gone. Why? You desperate?’
‘Yes, actually.’
They walked up the stairs dragging Bill’s ancient canvas kitbag and a plastic carrier bag holding cartons of duty-free cigarettes. ‘No stunning French female doctor to cavort with this time?’
‘My colleague was a fat Scottish doctor called Rob, who, though I love, I couldn’t bring myself to shag.’
‘Nurses?’
‘All nuns.’
Jessie winced. ‘Poor Bill. Well, for a little light porn, Maggie has a late-night chat show, and I still have her number – though I fear you may not be famous enough or rich enough for her now. Then again, she might like the look of your prescription pad.’
‘Bitchy.’
‘Maggie taught me everything I know.’ Jessie opened her front door and caught their reflections in the hall mirror. ‘You are so brown,’ she said, disgusted at her own pallid complexion.
Bill ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Even the equator has its plus points.’
‘I look like a ghost compared to you.’
Bill put his bag on the floor and pointed to Jessie’s hair. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Jessie tried to flatten it. ‘Piss off! I’m growing it out and it’s at a funny in-between stage.’
‘You’re telling me.’
Jessie took Bill to a small Italian basement restaurant that their elder brother Colin supplied wine to. As well as free wine and quick service, Jessie always got a flurry of compliments in hurried Italian that was often the perfect antidote to a bad day in CID. Today was no different once the waiters had established that Bill, six foot three and built like a rower, was family and not an over-protective boyfriend.
‘So tell me everything,’ said Bill after rapidly downing half a glass of red wine.
‘No. You first.’
‘Aids. Death. Aids. Poverty. Aids. Famine and flashes of extraordinary human courage. More Aids. Your turn.’
‘Didn’t you get my letter?’
‘There’s a glitch in the Médecins Sans Frontières’ postal system – everything keeps getting stuck in Paris.’
‘Well, I had my first big case. I made some good decisions and caught the guy, but I made some bad decisions too. Guess what everyone remembers?’
‘Would these bad decisions have anything to do with a well-known singer who happened to be married to the first victim?’
Jessie frowned.
‘Even in the wilds of the Sudan you can get your hands on a copy of a tabloid or two.’
Jessie bowed her head and groaned. ‘I can’t think about it, it’s too embarrassing.’
‘You don’t see him any more, then?’
A waiter arrived with warm bread and olive oil, and Bill was temporarily sidetracked. Jessie watched him eat. P. J. Dean had been like a destructive whirlwind; he’d spun her around and sent her flying off course. He believed they had a bond. A detective and a pop star. Not very likely. She’d made her mind up that it was a bad idea for all concerned. And most of the time she was sure she’d done the right thing.