Walking with Ghosts

answered the door. Who’s looking for him?’
    ‘My name’s Marie Dickens.’ She stepped forward and offered the woman her card. ‘And you are?’
    ‘Dawson’s the name. Clara Dawson.’
    ‘I spoke to Mr Hopper on the telephone a couple of days ago,’ Marie said. ‘He was helping us with an investigation. Do you know when he’ll be in?’
    The woman studied the card, narrowing her eyes to read the small print of the address and telephone number. ‘You’d better come in for a minute,’ she said. ‘I’m at the end of my tether.’
    She opened the gate and Marie followed her into a small cottage that was attached to Hopper’s house. Clara Dawson’s legs were criss-crossed with varicose veins.
    The door led directly into a Formica kitchen. The surfaces were all clean, and a whistling kettle gleamed its aluminium sheen from the top of a gas hob. A solid pine table took up the centre of the room, and the floor was covered with earth-coloured tiles. On the door of the fridge was a photograph of the woman, taken perhaps twenty years earlier. In the photograph she was surrounded by five small children, each of them with a striking resemblance to her, and she peered out at the camera with a permanent expression of amazement.
    She noticed Marie looking at the photograph. ‘They’ve all gone now,’ she said. ‘When they’re that age you think they’ll never leave, then you wake up one morning and they’ve all flown.’ Marie couldn’t tell from Mrs Dawson’s expression or tone if she was happy or sad at the loss of her brood. ‘You got any, yourself?’ the woman asked.
    Marie shook her head. ‘Don’t suppose I shall have now. Left it all too late.’
    They lapsed into silence.
    ‘You said you were at the end of your tether, Mrs Dawson. What do you mean?’
    ‘It’s Mr Charles. Sorry, Mr Hopper. He’s not been home for a couple of days. It’s not like him to go missing. He always says, even if he’s just nipping out for an hour.’
    ‘When did you last see him?’
    ‘Friday. I look after the house for him. He was reading the newspapers when I went out to do some shopping. When I came back he’d gone, and I haven’t heard from him since.’
    ‘Friday,’ said Marie. ‘And it’s Sunday now. Have you informed the police?’
    ‘No.’ Mrs Dawson shook her head. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’
    ‘I think you should tell the police,’ Marie told her. ‘They’ll check the hospitals, at least. If he’s had an accident, something like that...’
    Mrs Dawson began shaking, and Marie led her to a chair. ‘You’re sure he didn’t mention anything? Where he might have gone? If he had any phone calls or visitors?’
    Clara Dawson put both hands flat down on the surface of the table. She shook her head from side to side. She wasn’t listening any more. Now that she’d finally voiced her fears they came to the surface, hollowed out her eyes, and hung like gargoyles in the ploughed furrows of her lumpy face.
     
    William followed her. He watched Charles Hopper’s house, and he saw the woman arrive. It was as easy as that. He was wearing his lucky socks. Charles had said she was a private detective, but he hadn’t seen her, only spoken to her on the telephone, so he couldn’t describe her. William thought she looked like a journalist, but journalists and private detectives looked alike. They were snoopers. This one was thirty-five years old, something like that. A bit of a fatty. She wouldn’t be easy to overcome, except she’d be surprised. Usually they didn’t fight, anyway, they went to pieces, gave up almost immediately. Started begging.
    He tried to think of her sexually. Imagined that he found her attractive. But he couldn’t do it. William had never found women attractive. He’d told himself that Pammy was attractive, all those years ago. He’d told himself that he wanted to have sex with Pammy. But he hadn’t wanted to. Not really. And for a while there, when he was in London he’d thought that he might be gay. He’d tried looking at men, then, and young boys. But it was the same as looking at women. They disgusted him.
    They were weak. They let life and events overwhelm them. Humanity was like insects. William called them The hordes. He watched them every day. He had studied them for years. They queued up outside shops before they opened, and at the doors to theatres and cinemas. They formed orderly lines and they waited. They sat in stationary cars, and on buses. They