Walking with Ghosts

sip of the vodka and appeared to have regained her composure. She looked Sam in the eye. ‘Pammy.’ She hesitated, flicked her eyes away from him for a moment, then continued. ‘She doesn’t live here any more.’
    Sam shook his head and looked at the fish. Some were ultramarine, tiny, as if they had been squeezed from a tubepiggment. There was another one, much larger, light orange in colour, which seemed to consist of two huge eyes and a mouth equipped with fins and a tail.
    Mrs Shelton caught his gaze and glanced behind her. Her tone was sharpened when she spoke again. ‘I said Pammy doesn’t live here any more.’
    ‘I heard what you said. Trouble is I’m having a hard time putting that together with your reaction when I asked for her at the door. Something’s gnawing at you, and if you don’t want to tell me what it is, I won’t push you. But it seems like the fish are making more sense at the moment.’ She put the remainder of her glass of vodka away in one swallow. Must have been two centimetres there and she didn’t even blink. ‘What’s your business? Why’re you looking for my daughter?’
    ‘Mrs Shelton, I’m looking for my wife’s son. Billy Green-hills. I understand he was friendly with Pammy some years ago. There is a possibility she could help me trace him. She might even know where he is.’
    Sam watched as Mrs Shelton’s body exhaled. The glass slipped from her grip and lay on her lap. A tic on her lower right cheek staggered once or twice then went into a flamenco. ‘Pammy’s dead,’ she said. ‘She was murdered three years ago.’
    Sam let his breath go. He began to speak, searching for some formula of words that would not be patronizing, that would express his regret, his intrusion.
    She held a hand up to wave away his apology. ‘People don’t ask for Pammy any more. Most of the time they avoid speaking her name.’
    ‘If you’d rather not talk about it, or if it would be better some other time, I don’t mind.’
    The woman picked up her glass and splashed vodka into the bottom of it. ‘You’ve started me off now,’ she said, a smile without joy moving round her eyes. ‘Once I start talking about Pammy I can’t stop.’ She sipped from the glass. ‘Billy Greenhills. Yes, I remember him. Nice boy. Polite. They were the same age. He was round here a couple of times, just after they left school. Pammy was keen on him, always talking about him, but he went away.’
    ‘You don’t know where?’
    ‘London, wasn’t it? I don’t remember. I’d forgotten all about him.’
    ‘You never saw him again? When he came back to York?’ She shook her head, slowly, from side to side. ‘I didn’t even know he’d come back. When was that?’
    ‘Three years ago, we think. During the summer.’
    Mrs Shelton wasn’t listening. She spoke with a quiet dream-like voice. ‘Pammy died in the autumn. September. She’d been married for eighteen months. Sandy, her daughter, was six months old. They thought it was her husband, Russell, but he was devoted to her. He’d never have harmed her.’
    ‘Did they arrest him?’
    ‘No, but they wasted a lot of time with him. By the time they’d finished with Russell the real murderer had covered his tracks.’
    ‘So he was never caught?’
    She shook her head. Her mouth fell open.
    ‘Mrs Shelton, is your daughter’s husband still in the area?’
    ‘Russell? Yes, he and Sandy live in Clifton. Not far away.’
    ‘Could you give me his address? There’s a possibility he might know where Billy is.’
    She left the chair and found a small address book. Sam took it from her and copied Russell Wright’s address and telephone number into his own notebook.
    When he left, Mrs Shelton didn’t see him to the door. She was tucked in between the bottle and the glass, framed by the relentless voyage of the multi-coloured fish in the aquarium.
     
    He had intended to ride round to Russell Wright’s address, but once he got on the bike, Mrs Shelton’s grief got to him. He followed the cycle track along the river, back into town. The woman’s sorrow over the death of her daughter brought back Sam’s earlier thoughts about Donna, his first wife, and Dora who would soon return to him his widower’s mantle. He fully intended to speak with Russell Wright later, but after facing the grief of Mrs Shelton, the breeze and the boats on the water were too good to miss.
    He bought a chicken tikka sandwich and watched the river flow.
    In the Walmgate