Walking with Ghosts

tissue left to know, but the circumstantial evidence leads us to speculate.’
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘Yes, these little chaps’ - he indicated the pupa of the blowflies - ‘tell us almost to the day when she died. Give or take a day either side, she had been dead for three weeks.’
    ‘No longer?’
    He shook his head.
    But she was missing for three months. How long does it take to starve to death?’
    She didn’t starve to death. She dehydrated. She was undernourished, too. There seems little doubt that she was abandoned there. Whoever put her in the hole left her with no food or water.’
    ‘How long?’ Marie said.
    He shook his head. ‘A week? She wouldn’t know much about the last couple of days.’
    ‘But why keep her alive for two months, longer than that, and then leave her to die?’
    ‘You asking me?’ said the doctor. ‘I thought you were the detective.’
    ‘And the pregnancy,’ said Marie. ‘How old was the foetus?’
    ‘Sixty to sixty-five days. It was developing in very bad conditions. But somewhere around there.’
    ‘A couple of months. About the same time she was kidnapped?’
    ‘Yes. Just before or just after.’
    He sat at his desk beaming at her as though he’d invented her. Christ, she thought. Dr Simon Cod. Not exactly a traffic stopper. When Marie had worked at the hospital he’d sniffed around her as if she was a bitch on heat. He was the kind of guy, when he wasn’t around any more, you missed him like a cold sore.
     
    She glanced at the list of substances found in and around the allotment shed. Many of the names were unreadable, but some she recognized. Charcoal, cyanide, Dettol, glycerine, greasepaint, horse manure, nicotine, nitrate of soda, paraffin, pyrethrum, soot, talc, Vaseline, washing-soda, wood-ash... Marie dropped the list on to the passenger seat and turned on the ignition.
    One or more of those substances could have been brought into the shed by the murderer. But which one? And even if it was possible to isolate one of them, and say, yes, this is it, this is what he brought with him, what then? Where would it lead say, if murderer had left behind a quantity of tincture of opium?
     
    They were waiting for her in the sitting room in Sam and Dora’s house. Sam had gone upstairs to talk with Dora, but Geordie and Celia were sitting there, drinking Sam’s coffee which was the best coffee in the world. And Geordie introduced her to the other guy, J.D. Pears, the writer. I suppose you have to call it chemistry, she thought. It was there right from the first moment they clapped eyes on each other. He couldn’t hide it, he was really interested in her. And she was so taken with him she didn’t hear a word Geordie said. Only J.D. Everything else was a blur.
    ‘What?’ she said, taking her eyes off the guy before everyone got embarrassed.
    ‘J.D. Pears,’ said Geordie. ‘Sam says it’s OK for him to follow us around. He’s doing research.’
    ‘For a book,’ J.D. explained. ‘I write crime novels. Need some info on how you gumshoes work.’
    Marie nodded her head. She wanted to take his glasses off, ruffle his hair a little. But then again she wanted to leave him exactly as he was. Not spoil the picture one little bit. Except maybe for the beard.
    ‘So,’ he continued, ‘would you mind if I join you for a few days? I’ll only be hovering around in the background.’ Marie was still nodding her head.
    Celia, Sam’s elderly secretary, said, ‘Marie, sweetheart, why don’t you sit down, have some coffee. You look like you’ve had a busy day.’
    By the time Sam came down and Marie had got halfway through her second cup of coffee, she’d begun to be coherent.
    She told them what the doctor had said about the body, and gave her impressions of Edward Blake.
    ‘Did he do it?’ asked Geordie. ‘You think he killed her?’
    ‘He’s decidedly iffy,’ Marie said. ‘But that doesn’t make him a murderer.’
    ‘So I missed something today,’ J.D. said. ‘You’ve been grilling the main suspect, and I wasn’t there.’
    Marie turned towards him to tell him he could be with her tomorrow, the next day, he could be with her whenever he wanted. But in the turn she forgot what she was going to say. Instead, she said, ‘Are you married?’
    She looked at him, her mouth open.
    J.D.’s eyes surveyed the room. ‘Used to be,’ he said. ‘But she lammed off with another woman.’
    ‘They don’t make them like they used to,’ Marie told