Kevin Brooks - Dance of Ghosts

As we approached the lift doors, I took out my mobile and dialled Cal’s new number. I let it ring a couple of times, and I was just putting the phone back in my pocket when Cliff Duffy appeared from a doorway on my right.

‘Hello, John,’ he said, coming straight up to me and offering his hand. ‘Good to see you again. How’s everything going?’

He was looking directly into my eyes as I shook his hand, which was slightly unusual for Cliff, but then I felt something in his hand — possibly a piece of paper — and I realised that he was passing me a message.

‘All right?’ he asked, still shaking my hand.

‘Yeah,’ I said, nodding to let him know that I’d got it.

He turned to DC Wade and said, ‘Is the DCI in his office?’

And as Wade answered him, ‘Yes, but he’s busy,’ I took the opportunity to let go of Cliff’s hand and slip the message into my pocket.

I didn’t look at the message until I was safely in Cal’s car and we were driving away from Eastway, heading back towards town.

‘What’s that?’ Cal asked as I unfolded the sheet of notepaper.

‘I don’t know yet,’ I said, lighting a cigarette and starting to read:

John. Overheard B making private call to someone called Ray 10.00 this morning. Your name mentioned. B angry with R about something, couldn’t hear what. B arranged to meet R 19.00 tonight at Turks Head, off Roman Road .

Good luck .

C .

‘What are you doing tonight?’ I said to Cal.

‘Why?’ he asked, glancing at the notepaper in my hand. ‘What is it?’

I smiled at him. ‘Charles Raymond Kemper … I think we might have found him.’

Before dropping me off in town, Cal checked his iPhone to see if the search on Mick Bishop had come up with anything yet. It took him a while — scrolling up and down, reading this, reading that … and occasionally looking up to make sure that he was still on the road — but eventually he shook his head and said, ‘Nope, nothing of any interest yet.’

‘What’s it given you so far?’ I asked out of curiosity.

He shrugged. ‘Not much. I’ve got his landline number, and I know what kind of car he drives, and when he passed his test, and where he lives, and how old he is …’ Cal looked at me. ‘It might take a while to get to the good stuff.’

‘If there is any.’

‘Yeah, well … we should know by the end of the day.’

I glanced out of the window. ‘You can drop me here, Cal.’

‘Sure?’

I nodded. ‘How long do you think it’ll take us to get out to The Turk’s Head?’

‘Not long,’ he said, pulling up at the side of the road. ‘Twenty minutes, maybe.’

‘All right, so if we leave your place at six, we should get there by half-past at the latest. That’ll give us plenty of time to check things out before Bishop meets this guy called Ray.’

‘How are we going to play it when they get there?’

‘I don’t know yet.’ I smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll work something out.’

He nodded. ‘OK, so you’ll be at my place by six?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where are you going to be until then?’

‘Around.’

‘Around where?’

‘Just around.’ I opened the car door. ‘Let me know if the search comes up with anything, OK?’

‘Yeah, but — ’

‘See you later, Cal.’

Bridget’s pet shop is situated halfway down Market Street in a pedestrianised area on the west side of the shopping precinct. It’s a small brick-built place, flanked by a confectionery shop that’s always empty and an old-fashioned hardware store with a dusty window display of upright vacuum cleaners, pressure cookers, light bulbs, and dead wasps.

The rain was beginning to ease off as I made my way down Market Street, and in the distance I could see patches of clear blue sky breaking through the purple-grey blanket of cloud. It was unusually quiet for a Saturday lunchtime. The streets were busy, but not so busy that I couldn’t keep walking in a straight line, and it wasn’t long before I found myself standing outside Bridget’s shop, smoking a cigarette, wondering what the hell I was doing there.

Why was my heart beating so hard?

Why was my blood racing?

And why did I have a tiny black planet spinning around inside my chest, whipping out threads of adrenalin?

I smoked my cigarette and stared at the ground.

I didn’t know why.

I didn’t know what I was doing there.

I put out my cigarette and began walking back the way I’d come … but after three or four steps I stopped, turned round, and went back.

I couldn’t help it.

It didn’t matter why.

When I entered the shop, Bridget was at the counter wrapping up bags of greeny-brown pellets for a plump old woman in a threadbare fur coat. The old woman had a huge purse in her hand and a wheeled shopping trolley at her feet, and she seemed to be buying up half the contents of the shop — rabbit food, drinking bottles, bowls, polythene bags full of hay and straw. Bridget was cutting off price tags with a small lock-knife and jotting down prices on the back of a paper bag, but when the bell over the door sounded, she stopped what she was doing and looked over the woman’s shoulder at me and smiled … and just for a second I was sixteen years old again — stupid and pure, a blue-eyed animal, wanting and needing only this moment …

I closed the door.

As Bridget slipped her lock-knife into her back pocket and turned her attention back to the plump old woman, I wandered around the shop looking at things. One wall was packed with pet food and pet accessories, while the other side was reserved for the animals. There were racks of birdcages full of budgies and canaries, there were mice and hamsters in glass tanks, scurrying around in their toilet rolls and sawdust, and on the right-hand side of the shop the entire wall was lined with four tiers of fish tanks. The tanks bubbled and hummed, giving off a wonderful smell of pond water, and as I stood there watching the fish, breathing in the smell of the living water, I remembered the rivers and streams of my childhood — the jam jars full of bullheads, the newts, the frogspawn …

‘Wanna buy a fish, mister?’

I turned at the sound of the voice to find Bridget standing behind me, wiping pet-food dust from her hands. The plump old woman had gone and the shop was empty.

‘I’m just looking, thanks,’ I said, smiling.

Bridget put her hands in her pockets and smiled back at me. Dressed simply in a jade-green jumper and jeans, she looked quite wonderful.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked her.

‘Not bad.’

‘Are you on your own?’

She nodded. ‘Sarah doesn’t work Saturdays, and it’s been so quiet today that I told Melanie to go home.’

‘Who’s Melanie?’

‘She works here part-time. You know, weekends, school holidays …’

‘Right … so what do you do about lunch?’

‘Sandwiches, usually. Why?’ She grinned. ‘Are you offering to buy me dinner?’

‘Well, yeah, if you want …’

‘Why don’t we just stay here?’ she suggested. ‘I’ve got enough sandwiches for two.’

‘I’m not really all that hungry, to tell you the truth.’

‘Neither am I,’ she said quietly, stepping closer to me. ‘But why don’t you stay here for a while anyway? I can close the shop for an hour or two.’ She reached up and gently ran her fingertip down the side of my face. ‘We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to,’ she whispered. ‘We can just talk.’

I nodded. I didn’t want to talk.

Bridget smiled at me for a moment, then she cupped my face in her hands and kissed me lightly on the lips, before turning round and crossing over to the door. As she put the CLOSED sign up and locked the door, I said, ‘Where’s Walter?’