Walking with Ghosts

there’s a possibility you could end up getting stuck.’
    ‘So what’re you listening to instead?’
    ‘Christy Moore.’
    ‘Never heard of her.’
    ‘Him. I’m listening to all the Irish music I can get my hands on.’
    Barney moved over to his basket by the side of Geordie’s desk. The smell of coffee and sixties’ music meant they were going to be here for some time.
    Marie handed Sam the book she’d left on his desk. ‘You’ll enjoy it,’ she said. ‘Female PI.’
    ‘And that’s another thing,’ said Geordie. ‘Reading books by women. I’ve never seen you do that before.’
    ‘I’ve been working my way towards it slowly,’ said Sam. He looked at the book, held it at arm’s length. ‘This is the fulfilment of a life’s ambition.’
    Marie laughed.
    Geordie scowled. He didn’t like change. He didn’t like more than one thing to change at a time. And he certainly didn’t like anything to change at all after a sleepless night. ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘What’s the score? You gonna tell us about this job?’
    Marie poured the coffee, and Sam sat at his desk to outline the history of the case of Edward and India Blake. Marie sat in the clients’ chair, and Geordie perched on the edge of Sam’s desk, making notes as he listened to the story.
    ‘So, you want us to collect background information?’ said Marie, when Sam had finished. ‘See if we can come up with something new, something to tie the husband in?’
    ‘Yeah, or anybody else,’ Sam said. ‘We’re being paid to find Edward Blake guilty, but if we’re gonna be on the job anyway, and if Edward Blake’s innocent, it would be nice to nail the real kidnapper.’
    ‘That’s not gonna be easy,’ said Geordie. ‘Edward Blake, yes, if we can find something that ties him to, say, the allotment shed. But we haven’t got anything else to go on. No other suspects.’
    ‘That’s true,’ said Sam. ‘But if, for example, India Blake was having an affair, and her husband found out about it. That might explain why she was pregnant. And it might also be a motive for Edward Blake to kill her.’
    ‘I would’ve thought two and a half million pounds in insurance money was enough of a motive,’ said Marie.
    Sam shook his head. ‘You never know,’ he said. ‘Murders are committed for all kinds of reasons. Something that one person would shrug off as insignificant, might easily make another man reach for a knife. And the two and a half million insurance money is chicken feed compared to what she was worth.’
    ‘She was some kind of heiress, wasn’t she?’ said Marie. ‘Furs,’ said Sam. ‘A great great grandfather started out as a trapper, and by the time India was born the family was worth something like ten million. Conservative estimates put Edward Blake around fifteen million better off since his wife went to heaven.’
    ‘So if he did it, and we can prove it, he’ll still get away with it,’ said Geordie. ‘So much money, he’ll hire the best lawyers in the world, and they’ll talk him out of trouble.’
    ‘You don’t wanna work on this one?’ asked Sam.
    ‘Yeah, I’ve been up all night thinking about it. Anyway, is that what you want us to do? See if we can prove she was having an affair?’
    ‘Just go through the motions,’ Sam said. ‘See where the investigation leads. I don’t know if she was having an affair. After you’ve talked to the husband, to people she knew, her friends, you’ll start to build up a picture of her, of their lives. Then you’ll feel yourselves being nudged in this or that direction. You’ll develop a nose for it, and you’ll find yourselves following a scent you never thought of before.’
    ‘I can’t wait to get started,’ said Marie. ‘It’s gotta be more interesting than serving process orders.’
    ‘Yeah, and checking credit references,’ said Geordie. ‘I hate that. And you never know if the stuff you get off computers is right. I’ve read about cases where people can’t get a mortgage, or whatever, because the computer says they don’t pay their debts. But it’s because the people who put the info in the computer got it wrong. Is that true, Sam?’
    ‘Yeah. It happens.’
    ‘So that means we could be stitching people up. We give somebody a bad credit ref, which is what the computer’s come up with. And then the guy can’t get a mortgage, has to spend the rest of his life in a cardboard box; dustbin liner instead of a duvet.’
    ‘Maybe you’re in the