The Unquiet Dead Page 6

  ‘What can we conclude from this?’ asked Mark.

  ‘That the place is spooked?’ said a voice from the darkness that Jessie recognised as Fry.

  ‘No, lad. That coppers smoke too much.’ More laughter. ‘Now, let’s get the fuck out of here and have a break and a smoke, like I suggested.’

  All the lighters moved at once.

  ‘Not all of you,’ exclaimed Jessie. But the lighters kept on moving until there were none left. Jessie felt warm air on the back of her neck. Finally she found her torch. She swung round with it, illuminating Mark’s face. He stood a few feet away.

  ‘Very funny,’ she said, with no trace of humour in her voice.

  ‘What? Get that light out of my face.’

  ‘Stop pissing about.’ She could feel little hairs bristle as she rubbed the nape of her neck. She shone the beam of light towards the floor. Open, empty eye sockets gaped back at her. Startled, she nearly let go of the torch. ‘Now look what you’ve done, Mark!’

  ‘What? I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘You dropped him.’

  She passed the light over the body again.

  ‘I didn’t.’

  Jessie frowned. The lids lay closed as before. Hiding the holes that lay beneath. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘it must have been a trick of the light.’

  ‘Trick of your mind, maybe,’ said Mark. ‘Don’t tell me this place is getting to you. Not the fearless, indomitable Jessie Driver.’ He took two steps towards her, snatched the torch from her hand and switched it off.

  ‘Mark, don’t!’

  She could hear him moving about in the darkness.

  ‘This is so childish. You could fall.’

  He didn’t reply. She imagined the infantile grin on his pasty face.

  ‘Turn the light back on before you do yourself an injury,’ said Jessie, following the sound of him feeling his way through the dark. Still he didn’t reply. He was mistaken if he thought she’d fall to her knees and sob like a baby. That was his speciality.

  ‘I thought you didn’t like the dark?’

  Silence.

  ‘Remember? In the dark, alone, scared.’ A cold blast of air came from nowhere, wrapped itself around her legs and made her shiver. She could still hear Mark. His shuffling was getting closer. She braced herself for whatever was coming. Blinding light in her eyes. More warm air on her neck. A soft moan. Rattling chains. What? What was it going to be?

  ‘I can hear your elf-like footsteps, arsehole.’

  There was a bang. The sound of something heavy being dropped.

  ‘Stop messing around and put the fucking light back on!’ she shouted.

  A pale blue bulb popped and glowed, then another. They got brighter as the power seeped through the circuit, gradually illuminating the long-forgotten boiler room. Jessie looked around. She was all alone. Curled around her feet lay the lifeless body.

  Jessie sat high up on one of the spectators’ benches. She’d watched the last of the police officers leave and was just waiting for Moore to phone her with the all-clear to move the body. She looked up at the sound of approaching footsteps. It was Sarah Klein.

  ‘I didn’t know anyone was still here,’ said Jessie.

  Sarah Klein sat down on the thin wooden seat next to her. ‘I can’t go out there.’ She looked at Jessie with red-rimmed eyes. ‘Just look at me.’

  ‘Ms Klein, did P. J. Dean really recommend me to you?’

  She looked sideways at Jessie. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I thought – hell, what does it matter what I thought?’

  ‘What statement did you make?’

  ‘I told you, I couldn’t go out there. Your boss did it.’

  They fell into an awkward silence. Jessie stared down at the empty pool and imagined what it must have looked like in its heyday. Line upon line of Italian marble tiles. Chlorine and laughter rising off the warm water. Sunshine streaming through the now filthy domed glass.

  ‘It’s a work of art,’ said a voice above them. Jessie and Sarah Klein jumped. ‘Do you know, that pool never leaked a fluid ounce of water since the day it was built? Not one. That’s real craftsmanship. Something to be proud of. Seeing it reduced to this … Well, it isn’t right, is it?’ He moved down the terraces. ‘Give me a shout when you want to go, and I’ll lock up.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jessie.

  ‘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.

  5

  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.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jessie. ‘Just curious. Occupational hazard.’

  ‘I expect you’d like to see where the slipper baths were. People used to wash there because they didn’t have no bathrooms at home.’

  Jessie looked at her watch; it was late.

  ‘It won’t take long.’

  Jessie followed him out through the foyer and into an impressive Art Deco stairwell. ‘They aren’t there any more, of course. It’s all exercise rooms now. I’ve seen everything: keep-fit, Jane Fonda workout, step, karate, judo, Callanetics … The best was the karate. I liked the teacher. He said I had special powers.’

  ‘Really?’ said Jessie, running her hand along the wooden banister as they mounted the central stairway. From a small landing Don pushed open a carved wooden door to a circular room she now recognised as the one the junkies had broken into. ‘They got in here via the roof,’ he said, pointing to the broken glass in the domed ceiling. It was a beautiful wood-panelled room with benches all the way round.

  ‘This was the first-class bathers’ waiting room. They’d pay their two and sixpence and that gave them unlimited hot water. When a tub became free, they’d come on in here –’ he led her through to where most of the addicts had congregated. It was longer than Jessie remembered from the video that morning. ‘On either side were baths, each sectioned off by more wood panelling. In they’d go for their weekly soak. Can’t even imagine it now, can you – public bathing? Sometimes,’ he said, ‘when I turn my back, I can still hear them, singing away, soaping up, shaving, the doors slamming, the steam …’ He looked at Jessie for confirmation. All she saw and smelt was human detritus. She wanted to go home.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Upstairs was where the second-class bathers went. No refills for their shilling. Sometimes you can’t concentrate for all their chattering.’

  Jessie heard footsteps above her.

  ‘Just the pipes,’ he said quickly.

  Didn’t sound like pipes to her. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s no one there, Jessie. There never is.’

  ‘I’d still like to see for myself.’

  The long narrow room above matched the one before. It had old rubber flooring in a lurid shade of green. As Don had said, it was empty. But even in this deserted exercise room there was something strange. Preserved buildings were like preserved people, their very refusal to decay, their obstinacy, could teach you something. Something of the past. If you were prepared to read the signs.

  ‘He doesn’t come up here.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you feeling all right, Don?’ He’d only just come out of hospital and this had been no ordinary day.

  ‘They said it wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘Of course not. People with drug addictions are desperate, they’ll go wherever they can,’ said Jessie. ‘It wasn’t your fault you got ill.’

  ‘I’m not ill,’ said the caretaker defensively.

  ‘Sorry, my mistake.’

  ‘I get the wobblies sometimes, that’s all.’ He put his finger in his ear and rubbed it as if he were clearing some wax.

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ said Jessie. ‘It’s time to go home.’

  He stared at her. Her phone rang, making her jump. It was a number she didn’t recognise.

  ‘Best stay up here,’ said Don, quickening his step as he made it back to the stairwell. ‘Only place you’ll get reception on those things. I’ll go and start the locking up. You stay up here where you …’ He’d gone down the stairs so fast, she didn’t hear the rest.

  ‘Hello? Is anyone there?’

 
‘DI Driver,’ said Jessie into the phone.

  ‘Hi, my name is Dominic Rivers. I just wanted to tell you I’ve had a quick look at your body – sorry, that didn’t come out right. The stiff, um, the –’

  ‘The mummy?’

  ‘Yeah, the mummy, right. Thanks for sending it my way – it’s fascinating. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s perfectly preserved. Didn’t find it in a peat bog, did you?’

  ‘No. A lead-lined ash pit.’

  ‘He’s very clean.’

  ‘It was empty and sealed.’

  ‘Well, I won’t know why he is this beautifully preserved until I’ve done some tests, so why don’t you come by in the morning? By then I should be able to tell you a little more about this bloke.’

  ‘How he died?’

  ‘And if I’m doing my job correctly, how he lived.’

  ‘Damn!’

  ‘Sorry, isn’t that what you wanted?’

  ‘No, it’s not you – there’s been another power cut. Don!’ Jessie heard someone moving about on the floor below.

  ‘Where was he found?’

  ‘Marshall Street Baths,’ said Jessie, feeling for the banisters. ‘Sorry, I can’t see anything, I’ll have to call you back.’

  ‘No worries, just come by in the morning. About nine.’

  ‘Nine it is.’

  ‘That’s a date. Have a good one.’

  Yeah right, thought Jessie, feeling her way back down the stairs in the darkness. She cursed the fact she’d left her bag in the foyer.

  ‘Don!’ She called out. ‘The lights have gone again!’ The yellow streetlights oozed through the windows, reflected and repeated a million times by the raindrops that clung to the dirty panes. She looked down the central well.

  ‘Oh, you’re there,’ said Jessie. The figure looked up. It wasn’t Don.

  ‘Detective Inspector Driver.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Father Forrester. Anglican. Good and high,’ he said with a smile. He removed a brown felt trilby from his head and performed a small bow. A shock of white hair hovered around his crown in wisps as thin as clouds. ‘At your service,’ he said, his face dissected by laughter lines. Even in the dim light, Jessie could see his eyes sparkle.