Phil Rickman - The Smile of a Ghost

SADGIRL. OK, IT wasn’t sophisticated, but it was simple and it sounded vulnerable and inoffensive: SADGIRL, HEREFORD, ENGLAND.

It would do.

So Sadgirl left a message in the Departure Lounge.

i lost my baby, and i lost my fella. i’m seventeen and i dont want to get any older. dont want to do any of this again. i listened to belladonna and shes given me the courage to do what i have to do. i want to rest for ever with my child. this is serious.

Rest for ever with my child. Jane thought this was moving and resonant. She felt better hiding behind Sadgirl. Putting her own name in there would have been awful: planting some part of herself in the electronic depths – a suicide seed.

Sadgirl was cyber-bait. It just needed someone to come through and harden the link between Belladonna and suicide. Jane had a picture of the dragon lady lurking, logged on from Ludlow, waiting to entrap damaged people.

Which wasn’t entirely ridiculous. She instinctively didn’t like this woman. OK, she hadn’t even been born when Belladonna was famous, and she hated almost all 1980s music on principle, but it went beyond that now. She’d logged on to the Belladonna websites – surprised at how many there were, mostly unofficial – and they were all creep sites. You had an immediate sense of something unhealthy, sexually perverse and kind of slick and clammy, like those things people put up to catch flies.

And the woman – her music, at least – was sharing the same cyberspace as Karone the Boatman, sultan of sickos.

Maybe – and the idea wasn’t total fantasy because anything was possible in cyberspace and everyone was equal – Sadgirl could lure Belladonna into the open. She just needed to know more. Mum had not divulged enough to give her much of a handle, and Mum was out of reach, which left…

Lol.

It was useful, not to say comforting, to have Lol just across the street. Jane stayed connected to the Net and phoned him on her mobile.

Lol said, ‘She’s out with Mumford? At this time of night?’

‘It’s not a date, Lol. And like, I’m sure that, while a certain kind of woman wouldn’t be able to resist that gruff, monosyllabic—’

‘I’m backing off, all right?’ Lol said. ‘Just because I’m across the road—’

‘No, I like you to be concerned about her. It’s old-fashioned.’

‘Meanwhile, what exactly is bothering you about Belladonna?’

‘Just need a clearer picture of where she fits in. Like, why is she in Ludlow? What’s she doing there?’

‘Everybody’s got to live somewhere, Jane. It’s a very sought-after place these days. However… apart from the fact that her stepdaughter’s in the area, we really don’t know.’

‘But there is a definite connection between her and Robbie Walsh, right?’

‘Seems that way. However—’

‘Therefore, if I was to firmly link her with Jemmie Pegler, as well…’

‘You haven’t…?’

‘Got to be close. Mum says Pegler was visiting suicide chat-rooms, and if they’re the ones I’ve just peered into, they’re more or less recommending Belladonna as, like…’

‘Music to slash wrists by? That’s no surprise. It doesn’t mean she’s authorized it.’

‘She could have, though.’

‘It, um… sounds like you’ve been having an interesting night.’

‘Educational. I tell you, Lol, if I was ever contemplating an exit, it’s the last place I’d go for help.’

‘That’s the idea, isn’t it?’

‘Ha ha. No, listen, there’s this guy who comes on like, are you cool enough for it? Like, do you have what it takes to be a statistic? You can imagine people who are really, really depressed, and this creep’s sneering at them, like it’s a challenge – are you hard enough to top yourself?’

‘Could be reverse psychology.’

‘Not that subtle. It’s telling them that if they can’t find the balls to do it, they really will have failed. You know?’

‘Out of interest, which Belladonna songs?’

‘Well, she – this is probably some kind of sick joke – but she’s supposed to have done a cover version of something. “Gloomy Sunday”?’

Lol said, with no hesitation, ‘The Hungarian Suicide Song.’

‘Shit, Lol…’

‘It’s fairly well known. Billie Holliday did a version.’

‘And survived?’

‘For a while. She didn’t have a very nice life.’

‘Did you know that Belladonna had recorded it?’

‘No, I didn’t. Doesn’t surprise me, though.’

‘See, there’s supposed to be an original version from 1933 that if you hear it…’

‘I’ve heard that, too. Not the song. I’ve heard what it’s supposed to do. The music business is full of ghost stories.’

‘They only had the Belladonna version on the Departure Lounge recommended listening list. Along with a Leonard Cohen song he apparently doesn’t play any more.’

‘And Nick Drake’s “Fruit Tree”? That’s usually among the top ten suicide songs.’

‘I didn’t see that. Lol, the Hungarian guy who composed it and Belladonna’s ex-lover, Eric…’

‘Bryers.’

‘You knew him?’

‘I know people who I think did.’

‘They both committed suicide by, like, throwing themselves off buildings. Did you know that?’

‘It’s a popular method, Jane.’

‘Especially in Ludlow, apparently,’ Jane said.

‘Jane, let’s not… Like I say, Belladonna might not even know they’re using her songs.’

‘Nah, I think she’s there. I can feel her lurking like an evil presence. And Jemmie Pegler was definitely into those sites.’

‘Let’s not get carried away, Jane, OK?’

‘Hey, when did that ever happen?’

Lol was silent. She could picture his expression.

‘You had any more anonymous letters, Lol? You would tell me?’

‘You’d be the first to know.’

‘I bet.’ Jane leaned into the computer screen. ‘Hey, something’s come up. I’ll have to go.’

‘Jane, you didn’t listen to—’

She cut the line. This could be significant. But how would she handle it if Belladonna herself had left a message for Sadgirl? Well, it was possible.

But it was Karone the Boatman who’d come back, and he was not sympathetic.

Sadgirl, u r in the wrong room, babe. Nobody here wants to know about ya problems. Come back when ya ready to DO THE THING.

The heartless bastard! You’d lost your baby, got dumped by your guy, and this scumbag…

Jane started to laugh. Oh God, she must really be overtired. She finished the fizzy water, thinking how it would be best for Sadgirl to react now. She knew how she wanted to react, but that wouldn’t achieve anything outside of personal satisfaction.

She switched off the desk lamp, sat back in the chair and closed her eyes to think this out.

Standing in the wreckage of Robbie Walsh’s torn-off life, Merrily lit a cigarette and smoked half of it and then threw it down on the concrete and stamped on it. When she put a hand to her face, it sent up a hot wire of pain. Afterwards, her fingers were slicked with blood and water and mucus.

‘Should mabbe see a doctor.’ Holding his head at an angle, Mumford bent and picked up a cardboard box. Books were scattered all around, oil soaking into the pages, the turquoise baseball cap crushed flat. ‘Shouldn’t’ve let you come, Mrs Watkins. Should’ve realized.’

‘What about you, for God’s sake?’ Merrily could see the flush on his neck, a glaze of blood where the chain had bitten.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Oh sure – that’s why your voice is like a penny whistle someone’s trodden on.’

She tried for a laugh, but she was still too shaken, the scene replaying itself from when she’d thrown herself at the fat kid, trying to get a grip on his gelled hair – at the same time aware of the kid in the yellow fleece pulling the computer, by its cord, towards the edge of the bench. She remembered seeing Mumford turning into the chain, his hand crabbed across the face of the fat boy, thrusting him away. Merrily feeling grateful that he’d found the strength… until, at the same time as the computer hit the concrete, the boy’s elbow had pistoned back into her face.