The Unquiet Dead

‘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.

‘What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be in here.’

‘I was hoping I might be able to help you.’

‘How did you get in here?’

‘The door was open.’

‘Don!’ shouted Jessie again. It was a ruse, to let the man know they weren’t alone. ‘Well, it wasn’t supposed to be. I’m afraid I’m going to have to escort you out. This building is closed to the public. It’s unsafe.’

He looked around the small atrium. ‘Unsafe. Indeed, especially to those who remain here. I expect you can feel it.’

‘Feel what?’ Jessie walked slowly down the last couple of steps, stopping a few feet away from him when she reached ground level.

‘The heavy atmosphere, a terrible feeling of regret.’

‘No,’ she said. Actually, now you come to mention it … ‘No,’ she said again. The strange old man stared over her left shoulder.

‘Have we met before?’ asked Jessie, resisting the temptation to check behind her.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘You look familiar to me. Have you been in trouble with the law, Father Forrester?’

He chuckled. It sounded like someone shaking a bag of marbles. ‘Not since leaving Oxford University when there was an embarrassing moment with some underpants and a flagpole. You could say I am a reformed character.’

She moved round him to the door that led to the entrance. Never let the unknown entity stand between you and the exit. Especially in a dark, derelict building. ‘Are you sure? You aren’t wearing a dog collar.’

‘I am now retired, but not redundant. I think I can help you.’

‘And how is it that you can help me, Father Forrester?’

‘Someone in here needs forgiveness. As it happens, I am in the forgiving business.’

‘Don’t you normally knock on the door with leaflets?’

His faint smile didn’t falter. ‘Does the name Ann mean anything to you?’

Oh dear, thought Jessie. One of those. It was extraordinary what human peculiarities crime scenes conjured up. From nowhere gypsies with crystals would arrive; wailing women, pagans, hippies, spiritualists offering to talk to the dead, housewives who’d had vivid dreams. Body-bags brought out the supernatural in everyone, it seemed. Personally, Jessie liked to stick to the facts.

‘Nearly right, Father. Her name is Anna. Anna Maria. And she isn’t here. Now I know a lot has been on the news, and that rumours of a body rushed through the press, but it isn’t her. Anna Maria isn’t here. Now, I insist you leave.’ She opened the door. Don was standing just the other side of it.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,’ said the caretaker.

‘You didn’t,’ she said, removing her hand from where it had jumped to her chest. ‘I need to escort this gentleman off the premises.’

The vicar looked at Don. ‘It is often the guilty who cannot move on,’ he said.

Don shrank from the vicar. ‘Go away,’ he said in a strained voice.

‘It’s all right, Don, he’s going.’ Jessie turned to the white-haired man. ‘Right now.’

But the retired priest was not listening to her. ‘An earthbound spirit can make a place feel unsafe. They make themselves heard in a number of ways.’

‘I can hear them,’ said Don.

‘What?’ said Jessie, turning back to Don. ‘Who?’

‘The voices.’

‘Everyone, just stop,’ said Jessie. ‘This conversation is over.’

‘He drowned. It was an accident,’ said Don.

‘What was an accident?’ Jessie looked at him sharply. ‘Who drowned?’

The caretaker began to quiver slightly; he looked around the room nervously.

‘Do you know anything about the body downstairs?’ Jessie persisted.

‘Questions, questions, questions – I don’t like questions. They give me the wobblies.’ Jessie didn’t want the caretaker getting the wobblies. Whatever the wobblies were, a psychiatric ward meant they were probably more harmful than the name suggested.

‘It’s all right, Don. Let’s sit you down. We don’t have to talk about this.’ She walked him back through to the foyer. ‘Don’t you go anywhere,’ Jessie shot back over her shoulder to the priest.

‘An infested location will often attack the human element within it,’ he called after her. ‘Especially if the human –’

Jessie held up her hand. She helped Don on to an upturned box. The quivering stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and when he looked up at Jessie, he seemed quite unaware of what had happened.

‘Did you know they used two hundred and eighty-six marble tiles for the big swimming pool? Each one three foot by four foot, put there by hand.’

‘No,’ said Jessie. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘I’ve worked here all my life,’ said Don.

‘Yes,’ said Jessie, ‘I know. But now it’s definitely time to go home.’

‘It’s about money,’ said Father Forrester, walking through the double doors towards them. ‘Old money.’

‘Who have you been talking to?’ she asked, then immediately regretted the question. He smiled benignly. If he was expecting enlightenment, he was talking to the wrong girl.

‘That is a complicated question, Detective, and one that I should like to answer in the fullness of time. Until then, perhaps it is better to simply pass over my details. It will become increasingly evident when and why you’ll be needing me.’ He handed her a piece of paper. ‘I’m staying with some very good friends of mine: Sister Beatrice and Mary at the Rectory, Mill Lane, Wapping. I took the liberty of writing the details down. Call me when you want to talk. I’ll be ready.’

‘Ready for what, exactly?’

‘For whatever is needed of me.’ He bid her goodnight, replaced the trilby on his head and walked out into the rain. There was something about him that made Jessie feel uneasy. She was about to call after him when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned abruptly.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you again.’

‘Again, you didn’t.’ Again, she lied.

They watched as the elderly man was swallowed up by crowds of commuters battling with the steady downpour.

‘If you’re ready …’

Jessie nodded. ‘Are you feeling better?’

‘I’m not sick, you know, I just get the wobblies sometimes.’

Jessie was suddenly very tired. ‘Goodnight, Don,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She stepped out into the rain. Behind her the caretaker pulled the thick metal chain through the door handles and began the lengthy ritual of locking up his keep.

Jessie was walking towards her bike when she remembered she’d left her helmet in the foyer. Unable to face going back, she pulled the collar of her leather jacket up and thought about hailing a cab and going home. It had been quite a day and she felt emotionally drained. Her relationship with Mark had never been easy to navigate, but today the velocity of the storm that Marshall Street Baths had thrown in their faces had been overpowering. She’d never felt the antagonism quite so intensely as she had standing on the threshold of that bizarre old boiler room. Since the fry-up at breakfast, her only sustenance had been two whiskys – no wonder she was feeling low. Two whiskys and a fry-up, thought Jessie ironically; whatever Mark might think, she was becoming a card-carrying copper despite herself.

She stood on Regent Street long enough to get bored, wet and cold. Welcome orange taxi-lights were evading her. The queues at the bus stops stretched back to the shop doors, Oxford Circus tube station was closed due to a security alert and the rain was now falling in a relentless stream. Even returning to work seemed more appealing than attempting public transport, so she crossed the busy road and headed down Maddox Street. Rain had brought its usual effect on the commuter traffic and the customary crawl was now stationary. Horns blared to no effect except to increase the blood pressure of all who heard them. The pavements were slick with grease and rainwater, but at least off Regent Street, they were empty. Each step made a small splash. She stopped to wipe water from her eyes and thought she heard someone stop behind her. She listened through the falling rain then started walking again, stepping carefully and precisely, changing momentum. Now she was almost sure she could hear someone walking in the rain behind her. She stopped again and turned. Her ears were playing tricks on her. Ears and eyes, all in one day. Marshall Street Baths was getting to her.

Up ahead, Jessie could see the panda cars and the IRV drivers waiting for instructions and, although it was silly, she felt relieved. Behind her, a phone played a ring-tone she recognised. Jessie turned involuntarily and looked around. The street was still empty. The P. J. Dean song started revolving in her head. That was something she was haunted by.

The Klein incident room was empty. All the boys were probably in the pub. She didn’t blame them. It was a good night for a Guinness or two. Or three. She sat down at the computer terminal and inserted the CD-ROM that the CCTV tapes had been transferred on to. If she could prove that Anna Maria was not in the Marshall Street Baths she could make sure Mark had no excuse to disrupt her investigation again. The two of them couldn’t be in that building without fighting. One location, two crime scenes and two investigating officers was a recipe for disaster as today had already proved. Mark was going to do everything in his power to remain in Marshall Street Baths, even if it meant prising up every floorboard, every tile. What really saddened Jessie was that the girl’s disappearance clearly meant half as much to him as getting Jessie out of CID – which came as a real shock to her because she had genuinely thought things had improved between the two of them. Well, she wasn’t leaving CID, and she wasn’t going to rest until she had handed Anna Maria Klein to him on a plate.

Jessie began as the sixteen-year-old moved out of range from her position on the corner. Green high-heel boots, a fur-trimmed coat under which peeked a long, floating skirt. She looked stockier in the CCTV images than she did in the ‘professional’ photographs her mother had shown them. Had the photos been touched up, like so many were, stretching her to seem longer and leaner? Or was the photo accurate and something else accounted for Anna Maria’s bulky appearance on the CCTV. Not the dress. That was made of very thin material. Too thin to be worn in February, surely? Jessie carried on watching frame by frame for the next fifteen minutes until something finally caught her eye. A girl walking quickly through the CCTV’s range. She had long dark hair and wore a stripy woolly hat. She wore a thick, oversized jumper and jeans, and carried a large duffel bag over her shoulder. A perfectly normal-looking girl. Jessie had watched hundreds come in and out of the frame. Runners. Shop assistants. Secretaries. Models. Schoolkids. Language students. Tourists. They all looked the same, except this one. This one was wearing green six-inch heels. Jessie froze the image and saved it. Next she brought up the clearest still of Anna Maria standing on the corner. She enlarged the picture to get a more detailed image of the boots she was wearing. They were high. The shape of the heels matched. The colour matched. A lawyer could argue that boots like this were sold in their thousands, and they were probably right, but these weren’t the clodhoppers with thick robust heels that most people wore. These had thin soles and spiky heels, and that made them expensive. Expensive and green reduced the likelihood of a sixteen-year-old girl wearing them. The build and height of the two girls were the same. The hair colour and the clothes were different. Jessie tried to remember what was up Marshall Street that would allow a girl to change her wardrobe with no one noticing. There was a cafe, but it was very small, some doorways in which to hide maybe, a telephone booth, a car park. Jessie smiled to herself. A car park would have security surveillance of its own. She picked up the phone and made the request.

‘Hello, Jessie,’ said a voice from the door. Jessie looked up. It was Jones. The person who’d given her the job in CID.

‘Sir!’ Jessie leapt to her feet and bounded towards him, then checked herself. ‘It’s great to see you.’

‘So great that you can’t even make time for my leaving party?’

Jessie put her hand to her mouth. ‘No. I could have sworn Mark told me it was …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘I think it was, then it got changed,’ said Jones, ever the diplomat.

‘I thought it was a surprise. You’re not supposed to know,’ said Jessie, seeing right through him.

‘Trudi keeps me in the loop.’ Trudi had been Jones’ assistant for years. Jessie had seen her moping about the corridors since Jones announced his retirement.

‘Has she told you about your replacement?’ she asked hopefully. Jessie believed she and Trudi had always had a certain understanding.

‘Trudi only told me that they hadn’t had time to get acquainted yet.’

Which Jessie interpreted as, Stupid cow hasn’t bothered talking to me yet because I’m a woman and only a secretary.

Jones shook his head. ‘No, Jessie, it wasn’t anything like that at all. Give Carolyn a chance. She appears a little frosty, but she’ll thaw. She’s just nervous.’

‘As nervous as a panther.’

‘Come on, Jessie. Usually you have very good intuition for people in pain. It’s what makes you a good police officer, seeing in people what they are trying to hide from themselves.’