Caroline Graham - A Ghost in the Machine

By the time the car turned into the gates Kate was almost hysterical. She had to force herself not to run outside but stood in the kitchen forcefully drying some already bone-dry cups and plates. As the front door opened she heard voices. He had brought her back.

Polly was alive. She had not died of some rogue virus or electrocuted herself or been run over, or killed during a break-in or by a jealous lover or a madman on the loose. She was all right. Kate took several deep and careful breaths, then, still dizzy with relief, stepped out into the hall.

Mallory was standing with his back to her, holding Polly. Kate’s welcoming smile, half formed, now froze. She was too appalled to speak.

Polly, swaying on her feet, looked like a ghost. Her face was without colour but for the deep bruising around her eyes. Her hair, her lovely thick shining hair, hung down like a tangle of greasy string. Her clothes were unclean. She was crying, tears splashing on the floor at her feet.

Kate moved forward without hesitation. She couldn’t help it. The armour developed against years of rejection, the training of herself not to care, the determined cultivation of indifference to slight and insult dropped clean away.

Polly turned from Mallory and, in a single blind movement, fell into her mother’s arms. Kate held her gently for a moment then murmured, “Come along, darling…come and rest.”

Slowly they stumbled upstairs. Polly’s head resting awkwardly against her mother’s breast; Kate with an arm around Polly’s shoulder. She led Polly into the bedroom and found her a clean nightdress. Undressed her like a little girl, sponged her face with warm water, helped her into bed.

Late evening sunshine, faintly tinged with red, spread over the coverlet, shedding warmth on Polly’s deathly countenance. Kate thought the golden light beautiful but when Polly started to turn her head to and fro to keep it from her eyes she drew the curtain a little.

Then she sat by the side of the bed, holding Polly’s hand until she fell asleep. Gradually Kate became aware that, stronger than the feelings of fear and anxiety about Polly’s wellbeing, stronger even than curiosity as to what had brought her to this terrible pass, was a slow pervasion of happiness. Polly had turned to her. She had been needed. She had held her child in her arms. In these arms, thought Kate, touching them almost in disbelief. And so she sat on as one hour flowed into the next. In the moonlight and starlight she sat, surprised by joy.

Knowing the chief’s first appointment that day was with the fishmonger in Causton, Detective Sergeant Troy was surprised, on picking him up at eight thirty in the station forecourt, to be told to drive to Forbes Abbot. Lucky with the traffic, it took him barely fifteen minutes.

The village was looking good, warming up in what looked like the beginnings of a beautiful day. Troy thought, as he often did, that he’d like to move out of his cramped terraced house in the seedy part of Causton to a place like this. Never, ever would that come about. The prices here were astronomic. And you couldn’t blame weekenders for pushing them up. This was commuters’ territory.

“Property, Chief – eh?”

“What?”

“It’s a madhouse.”

“Yes. I wouldn’t like to be starting out now.”

Troy knew he should be grateful that he was not starting out. Nine years ago he and Maureen had scraped and saved for a ten per cent deposit on their present house, seeing it as the first step on the property ladder. Three years later they had Talisa Leanne, Maureen gave up full-time work and their dreams of moving were over. Now there was no way Troy could have afforded even a dog kennel in the town where he was born.

“I should park close to the wall,” suggested Barnaby as they turned into the drive of Appleby House. “They might need to take the Golf out.”

“I did actually plan to do that, sir.”

“Good for you.”

“This is Croydon.” Benny had come to her door, holding a magnificent tortoiseshell. She put it carefully down on the veranda. “He was Carey’s cat but he’s mine now. Shoo, Croydon. Go and play.” The cat sat down, yawned and began to wash itself.

“Has anything happened?” asked Benny eagerly, when they were once more in her little sitting room. “Have you made an arrest?”

“I need to ask you some questions, Miss Frayle.” Barnaby lifted his hand in a negative gesture towards Sergeant Troy, about to produce his notebook.

“Will it take long?” asked Benny. “I’m having coffee with Doris…Mrs. Crudge, at eleven.”

“That depends on how frank you are with us.”

“I don’t lie.” Benny sat down quite suddenly. “I answered all your questions the other day.”

“Not quite accurately, I’m afraid.”

“Oh I’m sure I…What…what do you mean?”

“I asked you if you saw the medium Ava Garret in church at all. And, as I remember it, you said you were not very good at putting names to faces.”

“That’s true.”

“True may be, but also misleading. Because you had a meeting with her, Miss Frayle. You gave her some money and she did you a service. Would you like to tell us about that service or shall I?”

Benny’s heart beat faster and faster. She tried to speak but her voice was thick and jumbled and the words made no sense.

Barnaby continued: “When Ava Garret pretended that Dennis Brinkley had ‘come through,’ as I believe it’s called, she described very precisely the room in which he died. The white walls, the windows, the machine which killed him. She even knew the colour of the clothes he was wearing—”

“She was a medium,” cried Benny.

“She was a liar!”

Benny gave a little yelp and shrank back in her chair. Troy winced. It was like watching a kicked puppy. He had more sense than to intervene but then, mere moments later, her attitude changed. She seemed to rally becoming at once tearful and belligerent.

“It’s all your fault!”

“What?”

“I asked you – I begged you to investigate Dennis’s death. If only you’d listened instead of writing that horrible letter none of this need have happened.”

“At the time there—”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Benny still didn’t look directly at Barnaby. “What would you have done?”

“How much money was involved?”

“A thousand pounds. Five hundred before the Sunday service and five afterwards.”

“Did you pay it all?”

“No. She gave me a week to raise the second instalment but died three days after the service.”

“And if she hadn’t?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What was she going to say the following Sunday? When the murderer is supposed to finally reveal himself.”

“We were rather hoping to genuinely hear from Dennis before then.”

The chief inspector paused, sighed and rested his forehead in the palm of one hand. Rodin’s Thinker without the muscles.

“Did anyone else know of this arrangement?”

“Neither of us would have wanted that.” Her admission over, Benny straightened up, looking relieved and much less intimidated. “It all seemed to work out very well.”

“Doubt if Mrs. Garret would agree with you,” murmured Troy.

“Oh, well,” said Benny, in quite an airy voice. She lifted and lowered her shoulders in a casual sort of way.

Any minute now, thought Barnaby, we’ll be into omelettes and breaking eggs. Having got what he came for he felt annoyed and dissatisfied being forced to recognise that, far from being a piece of the main puzzle, this new revelation belonged nowhere. It moved nothing forwards. It shed very little light on what had gone before. It was as dead as the proverbial parrot.