The Unquiet Dead (13 page)

Jessie listened to the sound of clattering porcelain as the nun poured the steaming brew into a mismatched collection of chipped cups. She wanted to say something, but all her words had evaporated. Sister Beatrice passed Jessie a cup of hot sweet tea. She was about to refuse, but the nun pressed it on her so forcefully that she took a sip and was surprised to find that hot sweet tea was exactly what she wanted.

‘You’ve told her about Mary?’ said the nun.

‘No,’ replied the vicar.

‘Oh.’

He nodded knowingly.

‘Oh,’ she said again, this time holding the word until it stretched out like gum. She passed Burrows a mug with a picture of St Christopher on it. ‘Whom did you lose, Detective?’

Jessie slammed her cup down on the desk. ‘I’m sorry to break up this happy tea party, but we are talking about the disappearance of a girl and you haven’t answered any of my questions yet.’

‘This may seem far-fetched …’ said the priest.

‘Try me.’

‘Marshall Street Baths houses a stubborn spirit
who will not move on. The name An—’

‘Yes, yes, you’ve already told me that bit, but it doesn’t explain what you were doing there,’ said Jessie.

‘Before a priest can enable a soul to leave a place, they must first find out who they are and why they are stuck. Although I have heightened psychic awareness,’ he said, ‘for the tough ones I require help.’

‘Mary,’ said Sister Beatrice. ‘She’s what you might call a medium.’

‘Someone who talks to the dead,’ said Jessie with as much sarcasm as she could muster.

‘Not dead. In limbo.’

‘Right.’

‘Boss,’ warned Burrows. Even Jessie was taken aback by the force of the sneer in her voice. She inhaled slowly and sat back.

‘The ones that get stuck often have a message they need passing on. Mary gets those messages, she can tie up the loose ends, help with the unanswered questions.’

The white-haired vicar with the smiling eyes leant forward over his desk. ‘There are many reasons why a spirit would remain here. A horrific act, for example, an injustice – this is often the case in unsolved murders. An inability to accept one’s death, when death has come too quickly and the person hasn’t had enough time to examine their life. Sometimes they are obstinate and won’t move on, and sometimes they are confused and can’t.’

‘Gee, Heaven must be really empty.’

‘Oh, there are many more. Some simply haven’t been commemorated as they should have been. Even an unborn life is a little soul. Others are guilty. “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” – it is as important to forgive as to be forgiven. An entity often remains due to an inability to do either. We get them there in the end.’

‘All this is very interesting,’ said Jessie, trying not to be drawn in, ‘but it doesn’t tell me what you were doing in Marshall Street.’

‘I know most of the infested places in this city. As a Christian Sensitive and an expert in deliverance, it’s my job to know. So, when news of the girl’s disappearance hit the headlines, naturally I thought I could help.’

‘The same girl you couldn’t remember or recognise a few moments ago.’

‘Yes, sorry about that.’ He smiled, picked up a plate from the tea tray. ‘Ginger nut?’

‘Marshall Street,’ Jessie prompted.

‘Oh, yes. So I went down there.’

‘To the baths?’

‘Yes. Strangely enough it had been in my dreams lately. I awoke with terrible feelings of regret.’

‘What do you have to regret, Father?’

‘These weren’t
my
feelings, though I suppose one is always wondering if one could not have lived a better life.’

‘You’re telling me that you saw Marshall Street
Baths on the news and went down there because you’d been dreaming about it?’

‘Right.’

‘Wrong. You were there before Anna Maria disappeared. You were there before the story even broke – we have you on CCTV. You appear to be following her through the crowd.’

‘I wasn’t following anyone. But you’re right about being there before the news story. It is an amazing thing, though I shouldn’t be amazed any more. I was in town attending a two-day seminar at St Martin-in-the-Fields. I took a stroll through Carnaby Street on the first afternoon and returned there when I saw the news piece the following day. Obviously, I knew where it was. Luckily, the door had been left open for me, so I went in and found you. Why attend a seminar on those days, of all days, at that place, you may well ask. But ours is not to reason why, now, is it? Would you believe how many spiritualists found themselves in New York on September 11th. Some spent days channelling confused spirits to the other side, but I am afraid even so many got left behind and much more work needs to be done there if the pall is ever to be lifted.’

Jessie stood up.

‘I’m not sure the detective is really taking this in,’ said Sister Beatrice softly.

‘I’m not taken in, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Boss …’

‘What! People died. You should not mock it!’

‘Perhaps you’d like to speak to Mary?’

‘Mary the medium?’

The nun nodded. ‘My sister.’

‘Another nun?’

‘No. My twin.’ Sister Beatrice laughed. ‘It’s a good joke though, isn’t it? My sister the sister!’ She laughed again. ‘Yes, very good joke.’ She looked up at Jessie, suddenly serious. ‘She may convince you where we cannot. She has worked with the police before, though they don’t like to admit it.’

‘I don’t need to talk to your sister. That can wait until I return with a warrant to search these premises.’

‘What on earth for?’ asked the woman, startled.

‘For Anna Maria Klein,’ said Jessie.

‘This hasn’t got anything to do with Anna Maria Klein. This is about the man in the baths,’ said Father Forrester calmly.

‘What man?’

‘The man whose body you found.’

Jessie felt suddenly queasy. No one knew they’d pulled a man out of the baths. DCI Moore had made sure of that.

‘I thought we were talking about Anna Maria Klein.’

‘No. You were,’ said Father Forrester.

‘No. You were.’

‘Listen to yourself, Detective.’

Played for a fool, one thing; patronised, another. ‘Burrows, we’re out of here.’

‘But, ma’am, you should hear –’

‘Now.’ Jessie signalled to the door and Burrows reluctantly left. She turned back to the vicar and the nun. ‘You may find my behaviour shocking. I do not apologise, I have been in this business too long and seen too much to take anything at face value. I have arrested child protection officers for molesting children. I can arrest a priest for any number of broken commandments –’

The vicar looked right through her. ‘I understand your pain. Loss is a great challenge to one’s belief.’

Tears unexpectedly pricked her eyelids. ‘I don’t know where you’re getting this information from, but I will find out.’

Burrows was waiting for her in the dark corridor. They left the rectory in silence, but as soon as they were outside, he turned to her.

‘You shouldn’t dismiss what they were saying so quickly. I’ve heard of mediums helping investigations.’

‘Bollocks,’ said Jessie.

‘That is an interesting argument – well constructed. Just the sort of thing I’d expect from your fellow DI.’

‘What is it? You want me to go along with all that mumbo-jumbo crap?’

‘That mumbo-jumbo crap happens to be what I believe in.’

‘Jesus, Burrows, you telling me you’re a Christian?’

‘Why do you have to say it like that, like it’s some kind of disease?’

Jessie stopped walking. Her sergeant looked at her, she could see in his eyes how serious he was.

‘You’d bend over backwards if I wore a turban and a dagger hanging from my neck. You wouldn’t bat an eyelid if I left work early every Friday for Shiva, but Christian – oooh, scary Jesus creepers and jamborees. I believe in God. There, I said it.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Don’t be so bloody patronising.’

‘Burrows, don’t swear at me.’

‘Then don’t disrespect me,’ he replied firmly. ‘I’ve never disrespected you.’ It was true, even during her previous murder inquiry, when all about her were rejoicing in her demise, Burrows had stood up for her, redirected her and advised her. But she wasn’t really angry with him.

‘I don’t believe in Heaven,’ said Jessie.

‘That is your prerogative.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes.’

‘Lucky you,’ said Jessie, walking towards the car.

‘Luck has nothing to do with it, ma’am. Belief in the scriptures requires a leap of faith. That’s what people like you can’t get your head around. Throw all the science and reasoning you like at me, a leap of faith cannot be challenged.’

‘I’m not challenging you, Burrows.’

‘Yes you are.’

Jessie put her hand out to open the car door and saw that it was shaking again. For a moment she stared back down the cobbled road to where it bent out of sight. Burrows got in behind the wheel and started the engine.

‘Just because you can’t see her, it doesn’t mean she’s not there.’

‘What?’ said Jessie.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Burrows.

Jessie looked back to the rectory. Father Forrester was standing in the door frame watching her, smiling.

Jessie climbed into the car. ‘Take me to the library,’ she said.

‘What about getting a warrant to search for Anna Maria Klein?’

‘I’m not going to give them the satisfaction. These people are just touting for business. When he turned up at the baths he said he was there to help Anna. When she wasn’t there, it suddenly became old money and a dead guy. He probably overheard my conversation with Don the caretaker. Either way, it’s bollocks. I bet they’re nothing to do with the Church. Loads of people live in old rectories – they were sold off to pay for all those child-abuse cases.’

‘If dismissing them makes it easier for you, go ahead.’

Jessie couldn’t cope with any more religious
debate. She simply ignored him. ‘Anna Maria is where I thought she was.’

‘And where is that if it isn’t under the rectory floorboards?’

‘Holed up in a hotel, watching her own little drama unfold on the TV.’

‘In which case she could be anywhere.’

‘Not in those heels.’ Jessie looked at the rectory in her wing mirror. They drove along in silence for a while. Jessie wanted to apologise. She never wanted to make Burrows feel the way Mark Ward made her feel. Belittled. Not taken seriously.

‘Talk about goose chases! I’m sorry, Burrows; you were right, as usual. I should leave well alone. And I’m sorry if I seemed disrespectful. I admire you enormously, I hope you know that.’

He looked at her briefly. ‘Admire,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ reiterated Jessie. ‘And need.’

Burrows cleared his throat. ‘So what do you want me to do now?’

Jessie thought for a moment. ‘What I asked you to do in the first place. Get the CCTV from the car parks, ask at the café –’

‘You said –’ Jessie shot him a look. He closed his mouth, indicated right and drove away from the cul-de-sac. Jessie turned on the radio and let music fill the gulf between them. By the time they were halfway down the high street, Jessie laughed.

‘You’ve got to admit it, that was a bit like falling into a David Lynch film. Please – a midget medium and her twin sister the nun.’

Burrows didn’t say anything, but she saw the right side of his mouth quiver before he turned away to look out for oncoming traffic. She hoped she’d witnessed the beginning of a smile.

Niaz stood up from his position at the microfiche as soon as he saw Jessie enter the library research room. When she got closer, he offered her his seat.

‘You sit,’ said Jessie. ‘Any luck?’

‘Well, I decided to search through the local paper first. Any incident relating to Marshall Street Baths would automatically be covered by the local press, but not necessarily by the national papers. Unless it turns out to be a big story. You said in your message that the pathologist had estimated approximately fifteen years had passed since the man was killed. To be safe I began searching from 1980, in keeping with the dead man’s clothes. So far Marshall Street Baths has appeared twenty-one times in a single year, predominantly for fundraising events. Marathon swims for a children’s trust, celebrity races, and of course local school competition days. The safety record seems to be exemplary. I think I may be here all night.’ He pointed to a pile of photocopied articles. Jessie
picked up the top one; a group of disabled swimmers and volunteer helpers smiled back at her.

‘We are looking for a drowning on February 23rd, year unknown – but start with 1987.’

‘You think the date is significant?’

‘His watch stopped on February 23rd because it wasn’t waterproof. Ergo, we know the date he drowned.’