Phil Rickman - The Smile of a Ghost

‘Window dressing, Huw reckons. I mean, he’s harmless, isn’t he? And gay. Probably an excellent source of information from the lunatic fringe. And doubtless so deeply honoured to be chosen that he’s more than happy to pass it on.’ Merrily smiled. ‘Is Siân a gay icon, do you think? Or maybe Martin’s being groomed as my successor…?’

The phone rang. Sophie snatched it quickly, probably to kill the image of Martin Longbeach here in this office with his thinking-candles and his herbal teas.

‘Gatehouse.’

Merrily heard a man’s voice on the line. Pale sheet-lightning brought the office up in shades of grey.

‘One moment, I’ll see if she’s in.’ Sophie covered the mouthpiece. ‘It’s former-Sergeant Mumford, are you—?’

‘Sure.’

She’d spoken to him very briefly last night, telling him about the woman who had proved to be Belladonna. It had meant nothing to Mumford, who said his knowledge of rock music began and ended with the Rolling Stones. Sophie passed the phone across the desk.

‘Andy, I was going to ring you tonight. How are—?’

‘You got a TV, switch it on.’ Mumford’s voice, flecked with storm crackle, also loaded with the kind of urgency you didn’t expect from him. ‘Just caught the headline, called you at home, your daughter said you’d be there. You got a television in the office?’

‘Well, we have…’

Looking up at the portable collecting dust on the filing cabinet.

‘Switch it on. Central News, it’s on now, don’t hang around. I’ll call you back.’

Thunder trundling, like a heavy goods vehicle over the horizon, as he hung up.

‘… REMAINS A POSSIBILITY, but, yes, very unlikely to have been accidental.’

The stonework, in jagged close-up, was hard against the patchy sky. Then the picture pulled back, and you could see that the shot had been done from the ground.

This was as near as they could get because the tower was taped off, two police protecting the site. Old videotape from coverage of the Robbie Walsh tragedy, Merrily thought.

They cut back to the policeman who’d been talking over the shot. She didn’t recognize him. ‘… Just about possible to survive that kind of fall, but unlikely,’ the policeman said.

Now Robbie Walsh’s face came up, the school photo, Robbie with his hair brushed and his tie straight, his mouth in an unsure smile, his eyes flicked to one side. The reporter’s voice over the picture:

‘… weeks since the town was shattered by the death of fourteen-year-old Robbie.’

They’d been too late to catch the link into the story and had also missed the first part of the report. It looked like Central News was going heavy on the death of Mrs Mumford, rehashing the events preceding it.

The boy’s photo had been replaced by another one, a poignantly blurred holiday snap of a woman in a sundress leaning – bitter irony now – against a lifebelt hanging from a sea wall.

Merrily bit her lip.

‘And then, at the weekend, came news of the shocking death of Robbie’s grandmother, Mrs Phyllis Mumford, whose body was pulled from the River Teme, flowing just below the castle here. Eighty-three-year-old Mrs Mumford was said by neighbours today to have been inconsolable after the death of her grandson, who’d been staying with her and her husband at the time.’

Shot of the river, a police barrier, two sheaves of flowers lying up against it, the cellophane flapping.

‘The town is in mourning once again. But absolutely nothing could have prepared the people of Ludlow for what was to happen today.’

‘Huh?’

Merrily looked at Sophie. The phone on Sophie’s desk started to ring. Sophie opened a drawer and put the phone in and shut the drawer up to the wire. Merrily moved closer to the TV.

‘… Hard to take in. We’re shocked… shattered.’

Man in his sixties, hair like wire wool and hollow cheeks. George Lackland, Ludlow Mayor, the caption read.

‘… Gather she wasn’t local,’ George Lackland said. ‘We don’t know where she came from, but the thought that she came here – a girl that age – specifically to… you know, to die, in this horrible way… that really doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?’

‘Christ,’ Merrily said.

Long shot of the tower. The reporter saying, ‘And that’s the terrible question that just about everyone here is asking tonight…’

The camera finding the reporter – evidently live, picking up off the back of his taped report – standing outside the castle, on a walkway halfway down the banks above the river, his spread arms conveying universal incomprehension.

‘… Did the girl come here to kill herself in a macabre imitation of the death of Robbie Walsh? There was nothing to suggest that Robbie’s death was anything other than an accident. But two identical accidents at the same castle? As the Mayor said, the implications of this are, to say the least, disturbing.’

In the studio, the presenter, a blonde young enough to be the reporter’s daughter, said, ‘Paul, do we know yet where exactly the girl had come from – how far she’d travelled?’

‘Tammy, my information is that the police do have a name, and the parents of a fifteen-year-old girl are, at this moment, being brought to Ludlow in the hope of a formal identification. But it could be several hours before that name is formally released.’

‘Is there any connection with Robbie Walsh?’

‘It’s a question that’s been asked, but there’s no reason to suppose there was any connection between them at all – except, of course, the circumstances of their deaths.’

‘And what does that say about Robbie’s death, Paul?’

‘Well, there’s no particular suggestion that it throws a different light on Robbie’s death. There’ll always be an element of mystery about that. What I’d guess police and townsfolk are asking is: was this girl, in some awful way, inspired by… by the way he died and, of course, the dramatic location?’

‘Obviously, Paul, this is something nobody could have predicted. But how could it possibly have been prevented?’

‘Tammy, it’s an impossible situation. This is a major tourist attraction that gets hundreds of visitors every day, many drawn in by its dramatic location, at the highest point of the town, with these high walls, these ruined but still very tall towers and this steep drop almost to the river. Yes, of course it’s dangerous, but so are hundreds of beauty spots all over the country and what’s being said is, well, if someone’s determined to die, there’s no shortage of places to go.’

‘But two teenagers – both at Ludlow Castle?’

‘Why here, particularly? Yes, that’s a question a lot of people are now trying to answer. Children do have to be accompanied by an adult and, with the number of tourists increasing daily as we move towards the main holiday season, there’s no doubt at all that attendants here are going to be exercising considerable extra vigilance.’

‘Paul, thank you,’ Tammy said. Turned back to camera. ‘And if the girl’s name is released, we’ll update you on our late-night bulletin.’