Walking with Ghosts

concentrating on. He didn’t know what the something else was. Once he’d worked out the connection between the wind and the Daimler he’d be free to concentrate on the other.
    The light in Dora’s room shone. The silhouettes behind the curtain moved.
    The promise that William had made, about not moving. There had been a reason for that, but the reason wasn’t obvious any more. He pushed his left foot forward, and took a step toward the light in Dora’s room.
    They called him the Surgeon.
    Because he cut out his mother’s eyes.
    Who would stop him?
    There were silhouettes in the room with her, but the Surgeon would remove them. That’s what a surgeon did. He cut away the bad, the evil, so that the good could grow and flourish.
    William stepped into the road. The rope and the knife were there, safe in his pocket. She’d be drinking up there, he thought. Sucking on a bottle. William didn’t like his mother drinking, but it was the only thing she could do.
    He had the house in his sights now. The very house where everything had happened. He remembered seeing his daddy hanging there, outside in the garden, and how he had been so small at the time, and frozen with grief. And he remembered thinking it was the end of the world, because his daddy was dead, and how it would be impossible for the world to carry on without him.
    Almost everything about his mother disgusted him.
     
    A car turned into the street and William retreated back into the shadows. It wasn’t a Daimler. It was a taxi, and it parked outside Dora’s house. William watched and saw the woman detective get out of the back. She was wearing the same lilac-coloured suit as earlier. She paid the taxi driver and went into Dora’s house.
    William was paralysed again.
    He looked up at the harvest moon and tried to remember what happened next.
    He listened for a prompt.
    His head was like a bucket with holes punched in the sides. As soon as he thought something the thought slid through one of the holes and was gone. There was a real connection between the woman detective and Dora, there had to be. But what was it?
    The taxi got to the end of the street, turned the corner and was gone. He looked back at the house.
    An ordinary house in an ordinary street. There was nothing to distinguish it from the houses on either side. People passing by would not give it another look. But behind it, hidden from the world, was a pear tree. And in the branches of that tree William had discovered the knowledge of good and evil.
    His mother had hired the woman detective. In phase one his mother had killed Arthur. Phase two would be the death of William.
    Unless, somehow, Arthur and William together could devise a plan to wipe her from the face of the earth.
     

40
     
    Sam watched the bedroom door open. Celia was standing in the doorway. She mouthed the word: ‘Marie.’ He looked down at Dora, who was sleeping. He smoothed the cover near her shoulder and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. ‘It’s Marie,’ Celia said. ‘Sounds important.’
    He looked at Celia, placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘You look worn out,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you go home? Get some rest?’
    ‘I’ll hang on a little longer,’ she said. ‘See what Marie wants. If you have to go out you’ll need me here.’
    ‘What about Diana?’
    ‘She’s sleeping.’
    Sam followed her down the stairs. Marie got to her feet as they walked into the living room. She was dishevelled, her hair stuck to her head, her skirt and tights scuffed and torn. He went to her and put his arms around her. ‘You all right? What happened?’
    ‘Yeah. I’m fine. But Geordie’s in the hospital.’ She quickly told him what had happened. How she’d gone to enquire at Charles Hopper’s house, and how she and Geordie had been attacked by the character in the cloak.
    ‘Geordie,’ said Sam. ‘Is he conscious?’
    ‘Yes, Janet’s with him. It’s a compound fracture, broken two bones in his forearm. The radius and the ulna; it’s nasty, the upper part of the radius came through the skin. No wonder he passed out.’
    Sam flinched. ‘But it’ll mend?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And what about his neck?’
    ‘It looks terrible where the rope has burned the skin. But it’s superficial. He’ll come through.’
    ‘Did he say anything?’
    Marie smiled. ‘Yeah. He said, “Tell Sam I’m sorry, and tell him to nail the bastard.” ’
    ‘And Janet? She can cope?’
    ‘I got them a private room. She