Phil Rickman - The Smile of a Ghost

Merrily shoved the parish-magazine file into a drawer, lit a cigarette. This could get out of hand. With the death of his mother – an unnecessary death, a second public death – Mumford wasn’t going to stop.

When the phone went again, she thought it was going to be him ringing back, having cooled down, but it was Bliss. He sounded relaxed or maybe that was just in comparison with Mumford.

‘You remember Karen? Merrily?’

‘Huh? Sorry…’

‘You all right?’

‘Yes. Sorry. Karen…?’

‘Big farm girl? WPC. Acting DC now. With Mumford gone, I campaigned very strongly to get Karen on the team. Another real local country person, somebody who can work a baler and drain a slurry pit – can’t get along with these poncy law graduates. Now then, earlier today Karen brings in a personal computer. Lifting it around like it’s a toaster, what a woman.’

‘Good to hear you have a new bag-carrier worthy of the term.’

‘The computer’s original owner: Jemmie Pegler. Jemima.’

‘I thought you said it wasn’t your case.’

‘Yeah, well… you ringing up like that, out the blue, got me thinking. I always hate it when me mates are talking over me head. And Karen, despite having pigshit on her boots, is also our resident computer expert – bit of a natural, so they sent her on a course for stripping down hard disks, all that – so Shrewsbury asked if she could do the necessary with Jemmie’s gear. And I thought I’d have a peep.’

‘Nice to have you back, Frannie.’

‘Yeah, that really hurt me feelings. Still the last maverick cop under forty, and proud of it.’

‘So what did you find on the computer?’

‘Upsetting.’ Bliss didn’t sound upset. ‘Hard disk is full of links, for instance, to these horribly scary teenage-suicide chat-lines. Would you like to see?’

‘Shall I come now?’

‘Leave it till late afternoon, when the DCI has a meeting at headquarters with some tosser from the Home Office. And no dog collar, eh? I’d really hate it to get back that I still talk to dangerous cranks.’

THAT EVENING IT rained again. Hard, brutal, nail-gun rain, like in winter.

For the first time in about a week, Merrily had built a fire of logs and coal in the vicarage sitting room. She sat watching Jane cuddling Ethel on the hearthrug. There was a lot to be chilled about tonight, but it was cosy enough in here, if you averted your eyes from the damp spreading under the window.

‘What is this?’ Jane said. ‘Suddenly, everybody wants to talk about suicide.’

‘Never mind,’ Merrily said. ‘We don’t have to. Put the CD back on.’

‘Not the Belladonna album again.’ Jane put the cat down and made as if to get up, staging a startled glance at the door. ‘Anything but that… in fact, let’s talk about suicide. What do you want to know?’

Jane being self-consciously frivolous, but she really hadn’t liked the CD – Nightshades – that Merrily had found in Woolworths. If you ever do come across that woman in Ludlow, just don’t invite her here.

‘Teenage suicide,’ Jane said sweetly.

‘All I said, flower, was that it seems to have—’ Merrily shook herself. ‘Sorry, did I call you “flower” again? It’s no good, doesn’t seem right saying “Jane” all the time.’

‘Not my fault you wanted a kid called something basic just because you ’d been landed with a silly name.’ Jane slumped back down. ‘Just call me whatever makes you happy. And yes, I do know people my age who’ve been into suicide chat-rooms.’

‘Why?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, is it suddenly seen as cool or something?’

‘Is it cool to die?’

‘OK,’ Merrily said. ‘Jemima Pegler was habitually sullen and uncooperative and didn’t talk to her parents.’

‘Hmm. That does sound like a particularly curious case—’

‘Jane.’

‘OK, sorry…’ Jane leaned back, hands clasped behind her head. ‘It’s like one of the uncles said on the news – how were they to know she was seriously depressed when she wouldn’t talk to them?’

‘You don’t sound too sorry for her.’

‘Sorry?’ Jane said. ‘I’m supposed to feel sorry for her? Look, suicide chat-rooms, it’s like it’s the final taboo. The great unknown. The ultimate experience. Because nobody you know – all the cool guys who’ve been there, done that, washed the T-shirt again – it’s the one thing, the one place – death – that they haven’t… do you know what I’m getting at?’

‘Possibly,’ Merrily said. ‘In fact… yes.’

Jemmie Pegler had been fifteen years old. Reading her e-mails, you had to keep reminding yourself of that.

Merrily had left the Volvo in the Gaol Street car park, to find Frannie Bliss waiting for her in the street with an executive briefcase. Annie Howe, the DCI, had been delayed, was still in the building. Bliss had rushed Merrily off to a café in a mews at the opposite side of the car park. On a discreet corner table, he’d laid out a sheaf of printout material from the dead girl’s computer.

But first he wanted to talk about Mumford.

‘Merrily, why the… why didn’t you tell me?’

He’d had his red hair cut tight to the skull, maybe because it had been receding or maybe because he thought it made him look more dangerous. Which it did.

‘I did tell you—’

‘No, you didn’t. You totally did not tell me, Merrily.’

‘I don’t understand…’

‘Mumford’s been in Ludlow today, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Talking to people all over the town about Robbie Walsh and this woman?’

‘Did I mention—’

‘And the reason I know about this is that the DCI told me. And the reason the DCI knows is that she was telephoned by her opposite number in Shrewsbury, a shiny-arsed admin twat called Shaun Eastlake, who was clearly chuffed as a butty at being able to tell her about a… a member of the public stamping around his patch interrogating other members of the public, having identified himself as Detective Sergeant Mumford?’

‘Oh God,’ Merrily said.

‘Now, I think you can probably imagine how the Ice Maiden is reacting to this.’

‘Mmm.’ Danger signals in Merrily’s head blinking amber and red. Before Bliss had been promoted to Inspector and Annie Howe to DCI, Mumford had been her bag-carrier and local-knowledge man – history which, in the present circumstances, would matter not a damn.

‘Frannie, look, I didn’t know. Should have realized, of course… should have realized, if only from personal experience, how hard it is to get information out of people if you haven’t got the weight—’

‘Merrily!’ Bliss’s fist came down on the table, a woman behind the counter glancing anxiously across. ‘It’s an offence. Impersonating a police officer? And if you’ve been a police officer, does that make it better? No, it makes it wairse.’ The Mersey in his accent bursting its banks. ‘Is it conceivable the fat bastard’s forgotten that?’

‘Frannie—’

‘You think I’m kidding? This is Annie Howe we’re talking about, not a human being, and her face is as close as it gets to being pink with embarrassment.’

Merrily sat back. ‘One of the people he talked to told the police?’

‘No, they told George Lackland.’

‘The Mayor, right?

‘And county councillor? And vice-chairman of the West Mercia Police Committee?’

‘Oh God, really? But, apart from the element of deception, why would he – or any of the people Mumford talked to – not want the truth to come out about Robbie Walsh and a woman who—?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe she’s well connected. Let’s just say that Ludlow’s one little town where Mumford would be well advised to walk like the streets are tiled with antique porcelain. Bearing in mind that when it comes to bailing-out time, Steve Britton will no longer be his friend. Best to assume he doesn’t have any friends any more, in or out of uniform, at Ludlow nick.’