Walking with Ghosts

Hopper, secretary of the Fulford Players. His hands were tied behind his back, and his legs were trussed with the same rope. It was green, and new, and could have been used to hang out your washing on a windy day. Except William never hung out his washing. He took it to the launderette.
    Charles Hopper had mad staring eyes. When William opened the lid of the chest, those eyes started blinking, and Flopper made sounds in his throat. He couldn’t speak, though, because of the clear parcel-tape over his mouth. He’d peed himself. William could smell it, and it was just as well he’d thought to put some newspaper in the bottom of the chest before he put Charles Hopper in there. Sooner or later, when Charles Hopper stopped all his blinking and making noises with his throat, William would have to dispose of the body, and then he’d have to clean up the mess in the chest. Not a pleasurable task. Not something to cheer a chap up on a rainy day.
    That was the kind of thing his father might have said. William smiled at the thought. His mother would never have said anything like that. She would have said something about history. Something dry and uninteresting, like about her own father or her mother. Or all that nonsense about Dylan Thomas. ‘You’re ten today, Billy. I remember my tenth birthday. Your grandmother had made me a dress in green satin. I wanted to climb a tree, but it was completely out of the question for a girl...’
    History. That’s all she knew.
    Whereas his father would take him on his knee. He’d lift him clean off the ground with his strong arms and hold him there. Billy would struggle and squirm, but his father was invincible. A man of iron and steel.
    Then he would take Billy by the hand and they’d go to the park with a ball, leaving the women at home. They’d kick the ball around on the green, and other boys would join in for a time. And the other boys would be jealous because they didn’t have a father with them who took them out with a ball. Billy would feel sorry for them, because they bad to put up with the history and all the silly talk, and then go to the park by themselves.
    And that’s what Billy had to do himself, later. After his father was taken away from him.
    He engaged Charles Hopper’s eyes and held the contact for a few seconds. He widened his own eyes and reached for the lid of the chest. He pulled it forward and balanced it on the thumb of his right hand. Charles Hopper glanced away from William’s eyes for a moment, saw that the lid was going to fall, and appealed to William with his own eyes There was a silent eloquence about him. A supplication in his gaze worthy of any of the saints.
    William smiled and took his thumb away from the lid of the chest, letting it fall heavily into place. It crashed downward, plunging Charles Hopper back into darkness and isolation.
     
    It was a nuisance having Charles Hopper in the house. It was necessary, of course, as it was necessary and inevitable that Hopper would deteriorate, become weaker, and finally die. It would follow the same course as the woman, whatever her name was, India Blake. The woman he’d kidnapped for the money. William hadn’t planned on the woman dying. He’d intended to let her go after the ransom was paid. But when he got the money he realized that he couldn’t let her go. She’d seen him. She knew him. If she identified him the floodgates would be opened.
    He had to keep her. Watch her fade away.
    He’d fed her for a time. Made sandwiches for her, brought her a bottle of water and let her drink it through a straw. But then he’d left her quite alone, to fend for herself.
    Now Charles Hopper would go the same way. William had no choice in the matter. If William hadn’t put Charles in the chest, Charles would have talked to the detective, the woman detective. Marie Dickens.
    If she’d talked to Charles Hopper she’d probably talked to other people as well. She was close, and getting closer. She’d have to be stopped.
    William had seen her already. He knew the house where she lived, down by the river. She was living with a man, but she wasn’t a mother. If he waited until the man went out she’d be alone.
    It would have to be soon.
    There it was again, that word. Soon. Dora was going to die soon, and so was Marie Dickens.
     

34
     
    J.D. said, ‘How was it for you?’
    Marie had heard the line in films. She’d read it in newspapers. But she’d never expected to hear it live, right on cue, just