Walking with Ghosts

denying it. It was an eyeful he could have done without, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.
    A baby was crying in the room. Not a full-scale yell, a half-hearted attempt to bring the world to its cradle. It wasn’t a breathless cry, and Joni Prine wasn’t fazed by it. While Geordie was still reeling from the pungent odour of unwashed nappies and ammonia, she plucked a dummy from the cot, dumped it into a huge jar of raspberry jam, and stuck it into the child’s face. The crying stopped.
    ‘Come and sit down,’ Joni said, collecting a mound of clothing from a worn sofa and plonking it on the threadbare carpet.
    Geordie placed himself in the space thus vacated, and Joni Prine placed herself right next to him, seemingly oblivious of her skirt riding up to the rim of her pants.
    ‘And?’ she said, turning to face him.
    ‘Sorry,’ said Geordie. ‘And what?’
    ‘And what you here for, love? It’s not a café, is it? How’m I supposed to help you?’
    What Geordie was really grateful for, was that she hadn’t offered him a drink. Tea or coffee. He knew she was trying to confuse him with sex and legs and the way she’d handled the baby, and now sitting so close to him that their thighs were touching. And she could do all that, and think she was getting away with it - Geordie didn’t mind what she thought. ‘What I said on the telephone,’ he said. ‘We’re investigating a claim by Edward Blake, and we understand that you are acquainted with him.’
    ‘How’d you know that?’
    ‘Is it true?’
    ‘Yes, it’s true. Acquainted isn’t how most people’d put it, but even they’d understand what you mean. Are you from the police?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘And Eddy. Mr Blake, well, I call him Eddy. Will he find out I’ve talked to you?’
    ‘Not from us. Anything you tell me is in strict confidence.’
    ‘Did you bring the money?’
    ‘Fifty pounds. I’ve got it here.’ He tapped his jacket pocket.
    ‘Hand it over, then.’
    ‘After the interview. First, I ask the questions, then, when you’ve answered them, you get the money.’
    ‘I already told you everything on the phone. Fuck, that walk up the stairs was worth fifty quid. I showed you everything but the Post Office tower. How do I know you won’t get the answers you want and then just leave me here, take the money away with you?’
    Geordie looked at her. ‘You don’t, Joni. All right to call you that?’
    She didn’t smile. She looked him right in the eye. ‘I don’t give a fuck what you call me, Geordie, so long as I get that fifty pound note.’
    The baby began to cry, and Joni repeated the dummy and raspberry jam trick.
    ‘How long’ve you known Edward Blake?’
    ‘ ’Bout eighteen months.’
    ‘What is your relationship?’
    ‘He’s a sugar daddy. I service his fantasies. Sometimes I’m his princess, and sometimes I’m a slut.’ She giggled. ‘Actually, I’m a slut all the time.’
    ‘D’you dress up?’ Geordie asked, hearing an element of fascination in his tone that he’d hoped to suppress.
    Joni smiled. ‘Sometimes. I’ll show you if you like.’
    He shook his head. ‘Not really necessary. What I was getting at—’
    ‘—I think it’s fairly obvious what you’re getting at. Yes, he comes round and fucks me once or twice a week.’
    ‘Is that all?’
    She put her hand up to her face. ‘He’s rough from time to time. Last week he gave me this black eye. Knocked me over a chair, and hurt my ribs.’ She pulled up her V-necked, off-white sweater to reveal bruising under her left breast.
    ‘Was that an unprovoked attack?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Did you give him any reason to hurt you?’
    She nodded her head. ‘Yeah. He pays the rent, gives me money. Jacqui was crying all the time. He doesn’t like that. But he never touches her, he takes it out on me.’
    ‘Did you report it to the police?’
    Joni laughed. She laughed so loud the baby started crying again. Geordie didn’t laugh, but he couldn’t stop himself smiling when he remembered what he’d asked her. When she stopped laughing he asked her, ‘Do you think he killed his wife?’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘If he killed her, he could kill me. I don’t get that kind of vibe off him. Also, the way she died, his wife, I mean, she starved to death, didn’t she? He’s more physical than that. He likes a bit of rough and tumble. If she’d been beaten to death, strangled, something like that. If she’d been stabbed, I might’ve thought he could’ve