Kevin Brooks - Dance of Ghosts

‘I don’t know …’ I shrugged. ‘I suppose you either keep going or you don’t … I nearly didn’t.’

‘Really?’

I nodded. ‘I pretty much fucked myself up for about a year after Stacy was killed. I just … I just couldn’t live with it. I was drunk all the time …’ I looked at the whisky in my glass, then glanced up at Bridget, half-smiling. ‘I mean, I know I still drink too much now, but back then I’d start first thing in the morning and just keep going until I passed out. And I wasn’t just drinking either. I was doing all kinds of shit — coke, speed, grass, downers … anything. I even started snorting heroin for a while. I didn’t care what I did. As long as it took me away from myself … as long as it took me away from the reality of Stacy’s death, that’s all I cared about.’ I drank some more. ‘I was looking for oblivion.’

‘What made you stop?’ Bridget said.

‘I don’t know, really … I probably wouldn’t have stopped if it hadn’t been for a friend of my father’s, a man called Leon Mercer. Leon had kept in touch with me after my father’s death, and we’d got to know each other quite well … which was kind of weird, actually, because I’d gone out with his daughter for a while when I was about seventeen, eighteen, so he’d been my girlfriend’s father, and boys are always frightened of their girlfriends’ fathers, aren’t they?’

‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ Bridget said, smiling. ‘My dad used to scare the shit out of any boyfriends I brought home.’

I nodded, taking another drink of whisky. ‘Anyway, Leon kind of kept an eye on me after my father died, and then when Stacy was killed and I started drinking and everything … well, my life was a complete mess. I lost my job, I lost most of my decency, I lost whatever sense of purpose I might once have had … I lost just about everything. But Leon still kept in touch, kept ringing me up and coming round to see me, and I was probably really fucking horrible to him, just like I was really fucking horrible to everyone else, but Leon didn’t give up. He didn’t try to change me or anything, he just kept being there for me, looking out for me … caring for me.’

‘He sounds like a good man.’

‘Yeah, he is …’ I said thoughtfully. ‘He really is. When he came to me one day and offered me a job with his private investigation business, I was so fucked up I could barely walk, let alone work. And Leon knew that. And he also knew that I didn’t know anything about investigation work, and that I’d probably turn down his offer anyway — which I did at first — but, despite all that, he still made the offer. And after I’d turned it down, he just told me to think about it, and that if I changed my mind, the offer would still be there … and a couple of weeks later, after I’d cleaned myself up a bit, I did change my mind … and that was it, really. Leon took me on, took me under his wing, started teaching me everything he knew about the business, and I gradually started living some kind of life again.’

Bridget nodded. ‘And you stopped looking for oblivion?’

‘Most of the time, yeah.’

She glanced at the drink in my hand.

I shrugged. ‘I still feel the need for some shadows now and then.’

She smiled sadly.

I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling the numbness of my scalp, imagining the skull beneath the skin … that eyeless shell, cold and white … that lifeless lump of bone that guards our life yet forever signifies death …

Walter groaned, stretching his legs, and as Bridget patted his flank, he let out a tiny fart. Bridget smiled — the smile of an embarrassed child — and I couldn’t help smiling too as Walter turned and craned his neck, giving his backside a slightly bemused sniff.

‘Charming, isn’t he?’ Bridget said.

‘Yep,’ I said. ‘He’s a classy guy, all right.’

She laughed.

I drank some more.

The telephone rang.

I leaned down, picked it up off the floor, dropped it, and picked it up again. ‘Hello?’

‘Is that Mr Craine?’ a female voice said.

‘Who’s this?’

‘John Craine?’

‘Who are you?’

‘My name’s Eileen Banner, I’m from the Sun . I was wondering if — ’

‘Shit,’ I muttered, putting the phone down and disconnecting it.

‘Is something the matter?’ Bridget asked.

‘That was a reporter from the Sun ,’ I told her, pulling my mobile from my pocket as it started to ring. The screen read UNKNOWN SENDER . I cut off the call and turned off the phone. ‘This is what I meant earlier on,’ I said to Bridget. ‘You know … about this affecting you.’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘The press, TV people … now that Bishop’s thrown them a bone they’re all going to be after me like dogs. I can keep the phones turned off, and I can keep away from my office, but sooner or later they’re going to start coming round here. And if I don’t talk to them, which I won’t, they’ll just go looking for someone else … you, for example.’

‘Me?’ Bridget frowned. ‘But I don’t know anything — ’

‘You don’t have to know anything. The media don’t give a shit about knowing anything. All they ever want is something to talk about, something to write about … it doesn’t matter what it is.’ I looked at Bridget. ‘If they come round here, and you open the door, they’re going to link you with me whatever you say, or don’t say … and the next thing you know you’ll be “the mysterious blonde now living with the husband of the serial killer’s first victim”, and everyone’s going to want to know all about you.’

Bridget just shrugged. ‘So I won’t open the door.’

I looked at her, struggling to focus now, and I wondered if I should warn her about the possibility of the media picking up on her resemblance to Stacy. And as I thought about that, I suddenly realised that not only was she roughly the same height and shape as Stacy, with the same short blonde hair and blue eyes, but she was also about the same age that Stacy would have been …

‘Are you OK, John?’ she said to me.

‘What?’

‘You don’t look so good …’

‘Uh, yeah …’ I mumbled. ‘I think I’m a bit …’

‘Drunk?’

I smiled. ‘Yeah … sorry. I didn’t mean to … I was just …’

‘Looking for shadows?’

‘Probably, yeah … something like that. But look — ’

‘It’s all right,’ she said, getting to her feet and coming over to me. ‘I won’t answer the door to anyone I don’t know, I won’t talk to anyone, and I’ll try not to let anyone take any pictures of me. But I’m not going to move out or anything, OK?’

‘Yeah, no … I didn’t mean that — ’

‘Whatever happens, I’ll deal with it.’

‘Keep your curtains closed.’

‘Stop worrying, I’ve got it all in hand.’ She was leaning over me now, helping me out of the chair. ‘You need to go to bed.’

‘Yeah, sorry …’

‘And stop saying sorry.’

‘Sorry,’ I grinned.

‘Come on, up you get.’

I don’t really remember the rest of it. I have a vague recollection of being slightly embarrassed as Bridget took me into the bedroom and helped me into bed, but I’m not quite sure what I was embarrassed about. I assume that part of it was simply that I felt so stupid about being so drunk, but I’ve got a feeling that there was more to it than just that. There was the touch of Bridget’s hand on my arm as she helped me into the bedroom, and then the dimly dawning realisation that I was in my bedroom with Bridget, and that she was putting me to bed … and that I didn’t know what was going to happen next. What did she want to happen? What did I want? What did she expect? Something? Anything? Nothing?