Phil Rickman - The Smile of a Ghost

Usually it was clocks. In a town like Ludlow, on a night like this, it ought to have been clocks.

She reached up and felt for the ridge of the tiny cross under the fleece and the T-shirt, pressing it into the cleft between her breasts, and heard a voice, hollow with pain.

Might have been just an owl inside the castle grounds. Or, a moment later, two distinct species of owl in sequence: the breathless fluting of the woodland tawny overtaken by an ethereal screech – barn owl. That was all, that was—

As she was plunging into pockets for the cigarettes and the Zippo, it started up again, bloating into something swollen and visceral that wasn’t like any kind of owl but definitely like a woman.

Then a harsh, white shriek.

‘TAKE ME!’

The castle wall was caught by a blade of moonlight.

‘TURN ME!’

Merrily stood looking up, frozen. The jagged windows of the Hanging Tower were holes in mouldy cheese,

‘TAKE ME, TURN ME… TEACH ME…

‘PLOUGH ME, PLY ME, PLEACH ME!’

The words seemed to be crawling up the wall.

‘TAKE ME, RAKE ME…’

She knew it, of course. It was from Nightshades . It was twenty years old.

When it stopped, the air was alive again, as if the night was frayed and abraded.

And from below the Hanging Tower, the same voice, only different. Soft and breathy, ethereal.

Wee Willie Winkie running through the town

Upstairs, downstairs, in his nightgown

Rapping on the—

A stifled sob. In the distance, Merrily heard a car horn, the furry rumble of an aeroplane. And then there was coughing and the voice came back, husky and earthen and bitter.

‘ You lie like carrion …’

And then rising, fainter and frailer but spiralling up again like pale light.

‘… I’ll fly like Marion .’

THE DOOR WAS on a chain, a strip of light sliding out over the concrete landing and her teeth bared at him in the gap.

‘Never get the message, do you? You’re not wanted yere, you was never wanted. Got nothin’ to say to each other. Not at half-past one in the morning, not any time.’

Half-one? Was it really? How time flew when you were plugged in again.

Aye, he’d accept it was a bit late to be calling on even your closest living relative. But he’d seen the lights on, guessing they stayed up half the night and then went to bed till the afternoon: the half-life of the worthless.

‘Just wanner talk a while, Angela,’ Mumford said calmly. ‘En’t gonner keep you more’n half an hour. Just some things I need to get sorted out.’

‘Well, you can fuck off,’ Ange said through those guard-dog teeth, ‘and you leave us alone from now on. I don’t wanner see your fat face ever again, yeah? Clear enough?’

Mumford nodded. Fair play, he’d started out politely enough, telling her he thought he should inform her it was Mam’s funeral on Tuesday and listening, without comment, to the expected response – not even bothering to wipe what had accompanied it from his face. Being imperturbable.

He could smell the spliff from here, knowing that the reason Ange instead of Mathiesson had come to the door was that Mathiesson would be busy flushing it all down the toilet in case Mumford wasn’t on his own. Probably a few ounces of blow wasn’t the half of it, but when the boys raided the estate they’d likely let this particular flat alone, thinking mabbe this family had suffered enough and Mathiesson was only small-time, anyway. Bliss could be thoughtful, on occasion.

‘Well,’ Mumford said, like his feelings were hurt, ‘if that’s how you feel, en’t much more I can say.’

Backing off as he spoke, his eyes on the tension in the chain, and when he saw it go slack as she was about to slam the door in his face, he turned his shoulder and met it with the full force of his fifteen and a half stone.

Ange’s screech was simultaneous with the splintering of wood as the chain came away, pulling out a wad of cheap Plascarreg door frame, the door flying back and Mumford going in there fast, grabbing her as she spun away, desperate to stop her falling because she was, after all, pregnant.

Holding her arms tight to her side, he manoeuvred her backwards into the living room. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of making her scream again, but he held on because, if he slackened his grip, she’d have one of his fingers between her teeth before he knew it.

She was her father’s daughter, was Angela.

Mumford gave her the heavy-lidded, level stare.

‘’Fore you says a word, I’ll pay for it, all right? I’ll leave a hundred on the table when I go. And you can tell that scum he can stop flushing, ’cause I en’t remotely interested in what he puts up his nose tonight.’

Ange breathing through her teeth, eyes black with what Mumford took as hate. He went on staring into them, imperturbable.

‘All right?’ He saw her mouth working on the saliva, and he gave her a little shake. ‘No. Now you listen to me… no, listen!’

‘Your level now, Mumford, eh?’ Mathiesson standing in a doorway, stripped to the waist. ‘Pregnant woman?’

‘You wanner dispense with the heroics, boy, seeing as we’re in your place and it’s all your stuff that gets broken?’

Looking at the stuff in here, this was no bad deal he was offering. Sony TV size of a double wardrobe, screening some slasher-horror DVD with the sound down. Had to be ten grand’s worth of hardware. A subtle hint here that Ange and Mathiesson were existing on a bit more than the sickness benefit from Mathiesson’s famous bad back.

Mumford thought about Robbie Walsh’s broken neck and his snapped spine, and a surge of the old volcano went through him, and he caught himself hoping that Mathiesson would try and take him. But Mathiesson didn’t move and Mumford turned back to Ange.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘either I holds on to you the whole while, or we all sits down nice and quiet and you answer my questions, in full. On the basis I en’t a copper no more and nobody gets nicked, or—’

‘We got nothin’ to say to each other no more,’ Ange said. ‘Not that we ever had much.’

‘—Or I go down the station at Hereford and have a chat with a few of my old colleagues. Who’ll mabbe see to it that you’re a single parent, for a while, this time around.’

Ange looked at Mathiesson, and Mumford kept on looking at Ange. She was wearing a red towelling robe, the wide sleeves falling over his hands where they gripped her arms.

‘You’re hurting me,’ Ange admitted.

‘Your decision.’

‘He’s on his own,’ Mathiesson said. ‘No witnesses.’

Mumford let Ange go and moved away quickly and went to stand next to the Sony. Ange sat down on the big cream sofa, rubbing her arms, then pulling her dressing gown tight across her chest, not looking at him. Mumford turned to Mathiesson.

‘You ever work – if that’s the word – at the old Aconbury Engineering factory, Lenny? Edge of the Barnchurch?’

‘Never heard of it,’ Mathiesson said.

‘I see. So that’s gonner be the level of our conversation, is it?’

‘It’s closed down.’

‘Well, aye, been closed down eighteen months, far as engineering goes. Far as preparation and distribution of crack goes, it was turning a tidy profit until… oh, the day before yesterday?’

‘If I was involved, I’d’ve been arrested, wouldn’t I?’

‘Well, mabbe it’s not over yet, that part,’ Mumford said, and Mathiesson’s jaw twitched.

Ange snatched the remote from the arm of the sofa and snapped off the TV.

‘Thank you,’ Mumford said. ‘Now I’m gonner come clean, Angela. I’m gonner be dead straight with you. Wasn’t the ole lady responsible for what happened to Robbie.’