Walking with Ghosts

course, can I look forward to early settlement now the police have dropped the case?’
    ‘As I said, that’s not my department. But I have been led to believe that our investigation is not to be protracted unnecessarily.
    ‘Good,’ he said. ‘How can I help?’
    ‘I have to ask some personal questions,’ Marie explained. ‘And I’m also going to have to talk about your late wife, India. I don’t want to upset you in any way, but—’
    ‘Just ask,’ he interrupted. ‘During the time I was in police custody, any feelings I may have had were completely shredded. I assure you I won’t be upset. My only desire is to put the whole sorry story as far behind me as possible. I’ll answer all your questions as fully as I can.’
    ‘Did your wife have any intimate friends?’
    ‘I’m sure you can do better than that,’ he said. ‘Good Lord, a private investigator with a sense of delicacy. This really won’t do, Ms Dickens. What you mean is, was my wife having an affair? Did she have a lover? Isn’t that what you’re saying?’
    Marie nodded.
    ‘No. India was a faithful wife. She did not have a lover.’
    ‘But would you have known? Many cuckolded husbands are the last to suspect.’
    ‘Is that the voice of experience?’ A hard edge had come into his tone, and he checked that now. ‘I’m sorry. I try to be objective, but it still gets to me. My wife was eighteen years my junior, but I believe she loved me. You may well think I’m an old fool who’s deluding himself, and you are, of course, free to hold any opinions you wish. But I’m sure you’ll take your investigation into other quarters, as did the Police before you, and I doubt very much if you’ll turn up any evidence to the contrary. My wife was faithful, and she was murdered by a kidnapper who was clever enough to avoid capture. I know that is not a very satisfying solution for you, and I assure you that it is not for me, either. But it is all we have got, Ms Dickens. And unless the kidnapper decides to come forward and identify himself, it is all we are likely to have.’
    ‘What about the insurance?’ Marie asked. ‘Why did you insure your wife for such a large sum at that particular time?’
    ‘My financial adviser had a heart attack. I had liquid funds to dispose of. An insurance policy seemed a good idea.’
    A very good idea, thought Marie. Especially in retrospect.
    ‘I bought a small house as an investment at the same time. And a car. All during the same week. You can ask my secretary for the accounts when you leave. I’ve asked her to give you access to anything you think pertinent.’
    She was a middle-aged secretary with a blue rinse and a tired smile. Definitely not a steroid enthusiast. Marie didn’t have to ask to discover that the woman had three children (all girls, to her husband’s eternal disappointment) before retraining and returning to work. This was her fourth job during the second phase of her working life, and Marie foresaw that the woman would have several more in the future. It was impossible to stop her talking. She was like an amplifier: tuned in to her own internal stream of consciousness and broadcasting out to the universe.
    She found some of the documents Marie needed, but couldn’t put her hands on the bank statements covering the week when Edward Blake had taken out the insurance policy on his wife. ‘Goodness, I had them earlier,’ she said. ‘Mr Blake thought you’d want to check them, and I made a point of getting them ready. You know how it is, I’ll find them as soon as you’ve gone. Probably be looking out of the window to see if your car’s gone from the car park.’
    ‘You could fax them to the office,’ Marie told her, giving a card, trying to make a getaway before the woman worked up a second steam.
    When she got back to the car park Marie checked the car for tracking devices. Women like the blue-rinse secretary always seemed to know where to find her. Once inside the car she let the engine turn over while she sat with her forehead on the steering wheel, her eyes closed. ‘If there’s a god ’ she said, speaking into the far reaches of the cosmos, ‘please don’t let me end up like that.’
     
    Dr Simon Cod met Marie at the entrance to his office in the York District Hospital. He was a full head smaller than her, maybe forty years old. He had a broad smile, carefully cultivated to hide every one of his feelings. To Marie’s knowledge he never took it off. Perhaps, if