Gay Longworth - The Unquiet Dead

‘Who is that?’ whispered Sarah Klein.

‘The caretaker,’ Jessie replied quietly.

‘She isn’t here, you know,’ said the moustached man, looking back at them.

‘No, I don’t think she is either,’ said Jessie. Anna Maria didn’t look so lacking in streetwise that she would climb into a drug hovel for some spliff. In all likelihood she’d never been here. She was probably unaware such a place existed. In an area where space cost £60 per square foot, a disused building of this magnitude was unimaginable.

‘How do you know?’ asked the missing girl’s mother.

‘I’d have heard her.’ Jessie and the actress exchanged mystified glances. The caretaker looked back at the heavy set of keys in his hand. ‘Let me know when you want to leave.’

He climbed down the benches and disappeared through the double doors that led to the foyer.

‘What a strange man,’ said Sarah Klein.

‘Eccentric but harmless, I think.’

‘All mad people are harmless until they slash you with a razor,’ the actress said dramatically. ‘Maybe he did it.’

‘Did what?’

‘Killed my daughter.’

‘I don’t think so. The truth is, I don’t think your daughter’s dead,’ said Jessie. ‘And I’m not sure you do, either.’

The actress didn’t say anything.

‘I don’t even think you believe she’s been abducted,’ said Jessie, pushing a little further.

Sarah stared straight ahead. Finally she spoke, very quietly. ‘I did at first.’

‘But not now?’

She shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. According to your colleague, she hasn’t spent any money. That isn’t good, is it?’

‘Not necessarily. She might be staying with someone – a boyfriend … ?’

‘I’ve rung everyone.’

‘Everyone you know.’

Jessie watched the actress swill the thought around in her head, then dismiss it. ‘There is too much coverage of her disappearance. Even if someone had lent her a large sum, surely they’d come forward?’

‘Has anything been stolen recently, any money missing?’

‘What? No! Are you suggesting my own daughter would …’ Her voice trailed off. ‘There was …’ She stopped herself. ‘No. Absolutely not.’

‘There was what?’

‘It’s nothing to do with Anna Maria.’

‘Try me. Another person’s perspective may shed some light.’

Sarah Klein brushed the hair back off her face. ‘It was months ago, I had to sack a cleaner because a few things went missing. She was new.’

‘What did she take?’

‘Nothing much. A few knick-knacks, clothes, little items of jewellery and some foreign currency. Every time she came, something disappeared.’ Out of her handbag she began to apply a fresh face to her ravaged one.

‘Did she admit to it?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! Of course she didn’t. But who else would it have been?’

Jessie let the question hang in the air. Then she changed tack. ‘Why were you crying before, on the steps?’

Sarah Klein’s face turned sour. ‘You don’t know what it’s like.’

‘Because I don’t have children?’

‘I don’t mean that!’ she said, snapping the compact closed. ‘The director was all over me until I said yes to doing the part. Now he’s shagging someone else. Guess who – the fucking understudy. Christ, you couldn’t buy publicity like this and still the vultures are circling, “You’re under too much stress to come in to rehearsal,” he says, let the little tart cover while you get through this. As if I don’t know what’s happening, the bastard!’

‘Sarah, do you know where your daughter is?’

‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘Of course not.’ She stood up. ‘I need to get out of this godawful place. How do I look?’

Like Aunt Sally. ‘Much better,’ said Jessie.

Jessie followed her down the spectators’ benches and over the tiled floor where bare feet once reigned. Together they crossed the foyer. She opened the main door a crack. ‘I’m afraid they’re still here. Let me find the caretaker – there must be another way out of here.’

‘It’s fine,’ said Sarah Klein, removing a headscarf from the pocket of her coat and a large pair of tinted glasses from her bag. It was dusk outside. ‘I’ve got to face them eventually.’

‘One more question: is it true that there were the arguments between yourself and Anna Maria?’

‘She’s always pushing me to the limit,’ Sarah Klein replied defensively. ‘Anything for a bit of attention. I’ve no idea where she gets it from.’

‘Ms Klein, do me a favour, tell DI Ward about the thefts, I think it might be useful.’

‘Anna Maria didn’t steal from me, Detective. She may be lying in a ditch somewhere and you’re worried about a little problem with my domestic staff!’

‘You didn’t report it, did you?’

‘I didn’t want her to get into trouble.’

‘The cleaner?’

‘Of course the cleaner. Now, do you mind? I have to go.’ She put her hand up in front of her face before the first flashbulb popped.

Jessie put a call through to the council. She was sure that the caretaker was a harmless eccentric, but before she spent any more hours alone with him in an empty building, she wanted to make sure. What they told her was both alarming and reassuring. Though the man suffered from bouts of ‘unspecific’ mental illness, his alibi was watertight. He’d been discharged from the Gordon Hospital psychiatric unit that morning after a three-week stay. Was he better? The lady on the phone couldn’t say.

As the more persistent of the journalists began to trickle away, Jessie made arrangements to have the body removed. For some reason, Moore wanted this one kept under wraps, so the mortuary van had been ordered to wait out of sight until given the all-clear. It would transport the body to Sally Grimes’ friend, who was waiting to receive it at St Mary’s. The same hospital where the concussed officer had been sent. Jessie hoped they wouldn’t be sending any more.

‘It has a life of its own,’ said the caretaker, joining her by the abandoned pool. ‘Especially when it rains. Can’t you hear it?’

Jessie had been listening to the sound of the wind in the ancient pipes and the rain pelting the glass roof. With such a cacophony of ghostly sounds even a rational mind could get jumpy. She couldn’t imagine the effect on an irrational mind.

‘Is that why the lights keep going out – because of leaks?’

The caretaker didn’t reply. She wasn’t going to push it.

‘We can go now. Everything has been, um, taken away.’

‘He’s gone, then?’

‘Yes.’

‘You sure?’

Jessie had seen the body-bag into the car. ‘Yes.’

‘Don’t you want the tour before you go? They’re going to pull it down soon. Tragedy.’

‘Pull it down, when?’

‘Soon as they can find out what’s wrong with the place.’

‘What is wrong with the place?’

The caretaker changed the subject. ‘You got a name?’

‘Call me Jessie.’

‘Jessie – that’s a boy’s name, isn’t it?’

‘There aren’t many people who can say that to my face and survive.’

The caretaker chuckled. ‘Follow me. There’s no one who knows this place better than I do. The name’s Don.’

‘You’ve worked here a long time then, Don?’

‘All my life.’

She pointed halfway up the wall over towards the deep end of the pool where two rusting brackets stuck out of the wall like miniature gallows, the type you draw when playing hangman. ‘So can you tell me what those are for?’

‘It was a platform. Had a wooden seat, see?’

‘What for?’

‘Why all these questions?’ he suddenly snapped.