The Shadows Call Page 11

  I looked at the form without seeing it and nodded dumbly.

  The cop then moved away a few feet, indiscreetly speaking into his radio. He was running a check on my details. His colleague walked over, holding some papers he’d pulled from his pad. I was known to them, but didn’t have any outstanding warrants or unpaid fines. They didn’t need to tell me as much, and only shared a nod as they received confirmation from their control room.

  The second copper, a younger man, who had a southern accent, handed me copies of the forms he’d filled in. ‘You’ll probably need those details for your insurance.’

  That was it.

  Nothing else to be concerned with, the police officers returned to their car. They didn’t drive off; they sat filling in their notebooks. They were possibly relieved that they hadn’t earned a massive pile of paperwork with this collision. But who knew? It was highly likely they had a mass of reports to get on with that I’d never see. The stocky policeman glanced up and noted that I hadn’t yet moved from the pavement.

  I was studying the road where I was positive there should have been a body.

  It was clear, but for the greasy rain. No corpse. No blood. No nothing.

  When I’d hurtled from my car after the collision, I was positive I’d find Naomi lying crumpled on the road. If not Naomi – how could it possibly be her? – then some other woman bearing a passing resemblance to my old girlfriend, dressed in a similar red dress and black boots. But there was nobody there. No body.

  I couldn’t understand how it was possible. I’d felt the impact, watched the woman’s face smash against the windscreen, before she was catapulted over the roof. Horrified, I’d widened my search, checking behind the parked cars on both sides, even in the adjacent gardens along the route. Finding no sign of the woman, I’d returned to my car. Both rear wings were scratched and dented from hitting the parked vehicles, but on the front there wasn’t as much as a scuff. Nothing on the windscreen or roof either. It made no sense. What disturbed me most was that I’d hoped to find a stranger lying in the road, because the alternative was sheer madness. How could I have hit some one who’d simply disappeared?

  I was shivering. Shock had forced bile from my stomach, and it burned my throat. I had no idea what to do, and would have jumped in my car and sped off, if I hadn’t noticed an elderly lady watching me from a bedroom window. No way I could make off, so I’d brought out my mobile and phoned the police, saying only I’d had an accident. It seemed like forever before they’d arrived on scene, and throughout the wait my thoughts had tumbled wildly as I tried to make sense of what had gone on.

  One thing I couldn’t tell the police was that I’d just run down my ex girlfriend, who had already died years ago. If I had they’d have had me back at the police station for certain. I could expect tests for drug misuse and maybe even a visit from a doctor. Swerving to miss a stray dog was a feasible enough excuse, though I’m not sure I was believed.

  Now, standing in the road like that, I might just pique the suspicions of the officers and bring them back out of their vehicle. I gave the stocky cop a short wave, then hurried to my car. The young cop had left the keys in the ignition.

  I drove off carefully, got a few streets away, then parked alongside some metal railings at the boundary of a park. Empty wrappers from a nearby take-away were caught in the undergrowth next to the fence. My Volvo was under some overhanging tree branches. Drops of rain made a drumroll on the roof. Clenching the steering wheel, I sat; but my mind was a blank. I’m not sure how long I sat there, or when or how I made it back to work. My first conscious memory afterwards is of being hailed by my boss, Daniel Graham, and he made a sharp gesture towards his office. I’d already done so for the cops, now it was time for me to pucker up and blow for him.

  Still numb, I walked in the office and he closed the door behind me. The office was small, with barely room for his chair and desk. He pushed by me, sat down. I stood in front of him, my back touching the wall, thighs nudging the desk. I felt trapped.

  ‘What time do you call this?’ Daniel asked without preamble.

  Honestly, I had no idea. Daniel made a show of looking at his watch. ‘Three forty,’ he informed me.

  I should have been back at work for one thirty.

  I didn’t say a thing. My eyes darted for the door, for a way out.

  ‘Nothing to say for yourself, Jack?’

  I mumbled something.

  ‘What? I can’t hear you.’

  ‘I said I was in a car smash.’ My voice was barely audible.

  Daniel frowned, checked me up and down. His gaze settled on my haunted eyes. My proclamation had thrown him for a moment.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘I’m…I’m OK.’

  ‘Was anyone else hurt?’

  Only Naomi.

  Of course, I couldn’t tell him that. ‘No.’ I pictured a mangy dog running off between the parked cars. ‘I hit a couple of cars. My Volvo’s a bit banged up.’

  ‘Hell! At least you’re all right.’ His tone didn’t match his sentiment. ‘What happened?’

  I related the same lies I’d told the police.

  ‘Some pet owners are irresponsible, letting them run around like that,’ Daniel said. ‘They should be fined or something.’

  ‘The dog ran off, no way of tracing it or the owner.’ I had no desire to speak with my boss, certainly no intention of doing so for longer than I had to. ‘I had to wait for the police to come because of the damage to the other cars.’

  Suddenly Daniel clicked back into his managerial role again. He put on his caring face. ‘You should have called and let me know what was going on. I was worried about you.’

  Sure he was.

  ‘I was too shocked. I…I wasn’t thinking straight. I thought I’d be arrested or something.’ The desk was digging into my legs. I adjusted my body. I wondered if he could feel my trembling emanating through the furniture.

  ‘You didn’t have a drink or anything?’

  What was this? Trying to catch me out? ‘I’m not allowed to drink on my lunch break,’ I reminded him.

  He shrugged as if he didn’t care about rules. ‘Some of the other guys have a couple of pints with their pub lunches.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘I’m not accusing you of anything, Jack. But it remains to be said that you’re late back by -’ he checked his watch ‘- two and a quarter hours. I’m going to have to dock the time from your wages.’

  I could have argued that I’d been back for ten minutes or more, but no way was I going to win. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Or you can make up the time. We’re doing stock taking this Saturday evening, you could stop back…’

  I shook my head, and a lie jumped easily enough to my lips. ‘I’ve got my kids on Saturday evening. I’m off all weekend remember.’

  Daniel snorted. He made it sound as if he was offering a lifeline, but he wasn’t. He didn’t have children, or a demanding ex wife, and lived for the job. If he was going to be in work on a weekend then so should his staff. ‘I’m going to have to put a note on your employment record,’ he went on. ‘Don’t worry it’s an “unofficial warning”.’

  That was an oxymoron if ever I’d heard one. So what was the bloody point? ‘I’d no intention of getting back late. Events kind of overtook me.’

  Daniel looked down, scribbling notes on a pad. Those policemen had been more forgiving than the prick.

  ‘Sorry, Dan,’ I held my stomach. ‘Are we finished? I need to be sick.’

  He blinked at me, alarmed. Not that I was going to throw up, but that I might have the temerity of doing it in his presence.

  My stomach flipped, and the insides of my cheeks watered. I slapped a hand over my mouth.

  ‘Get to the toilet,’ Daniel commanded, even as he reared back out of the splash zone. If I did vomit, there would be no escape in this confined space. I grabbed for the door handle and let myself out. I raced for the men’s room, and banged through the do
or. I wasn’t really going to throw up if I could help it, my act a ploy to get out of the office. But I only made it as far as the washbasins and my stomach purged itself without bidding.

  Leaning on the edge of the sink, I retched up the meagre contents of my stomach. The purging was so violent that it shot pains through my insides, and even between my legs. I shuddered and spat out the last strings of bile. Sweat poured from my hairline, and my eyes were swollen and distended from their sockets. Turning on the taps, I sluiced away the vomit, then cupped water and splashed it on my face. Distractedly I wondered how bad I looked, but I was scared to check in the mirror for fear I’d see Naomi staring back.

  15

  Is there Anybody there?

  ‘Why now?’

  I stood on the half-landing peering up at the stained glass window above my bathroom.

  ‘Why now?’ I asked again, this time louder. ‘Come on, I know you’re there. Why won’t you answer me?’

  As hard as I tried, I couldn’t make out Naomi’s face in the mish-mash pattern of glass. When I’d asked Sarah what she saw in the window she’d said it looked geometric. To me it was chaos. It was random, with no hint of repetition other than in the proliferation of the colour red in the swirl of colours. Outside it was dark, almost nine o’clock, and with no source of light from outside, the colours didn’t bleed onto the landing wall.

  I turned and looked down the stairs to where Sarah stood. She was holding a digital voice recorder. Our gazes met and I shook my head. She pursed her lips.

  ‘Keep going,’ she urged. ‘Just because we can’t hear the replies the recorder could be picking something up.’

  I directed my question at the window again. ‘You showed yourself to me before. Why won’t you show yourself now?’

  Sarah moved cautiously. She said something for the purpose of the recording, noting her movements so they wouldn’t be misconstrued later when we listened back. She’d also warned me to “tag” any undue noises I made too, but I’d forgot.

  ‘Naomi? Are you there?’

  As mad as it sounds, coming from a confirmed disbeliever, I didn’t feel foolish calling out to my dead girlfriend. Part of me even wanted to hear her reply. Sarah had cautioned that it was unlikely we’d hear any disembodied voices in the audible range, but it was possible we could pick up EVP’s. She was referring to electronic voice phenomena: supposedly spirit voices imprinted on digital recording media. I was doubtful about the value of such an experiment, offering my theory that we would probably just pick up on interference from a passing taxi radio or something like it. Sarah was adamant that EVP’s didn’t appear in the radio bandwidths; usually they were seated in the white noise below. I hadn’t a clue about that kind of stuff, so had to take her word for it.

  I waited until she joined me on the half-landing.

  ‘Maybe she doesn’t want to speak to me,’ I said.

  ‘She obviously wants to contact you,’ Sarah said, ‘otherwise why keep presenting herself?’

  After throwing my guts up at work, I’d waited a few minutes before showing myself on the shop floor. Having cleaned myself up I thought I was presentable enough to face customers, but as soon as Sarah spotted me she informed me I looked like hell. I briefly told her about the crash, and the joyous ear bashing from Daniel. I might have hinted that I’d seen something unusual that had caused me to lose control of the car.

  ‘Not another shadow man?’

  ‘No. Someone else.’

  After that she wouldn’t let the subject lie, and I’d finally given in, telling her I was positive that my deceased girlfriend had stepped out in front of the car. I also admitted it was not the first time I’d seen her, hers being the face I’d seen on the wall, and who’d attacked me in my nightmare - though I never mentioned that Sarah had at first featured in that particular dream.

  ‘Maybe we’ve been approaching your haunting from the wrong angle. I thought we were only dealing with shadows, but now you tell me you’ve seen a full figure apparition.’ She was energised anew. ‘How’s about I come over after work? There’s something I’d like to try if you’re OK with it.’

  I didn’t know how I felt, but I agreed. To tell the truth, I’m not sure I wanted to be alone in the house. Not until I’d shaken the uncanny sensation that hadn’t left me following the incident earlier. We went our separate ways at home time, but Sarah had turned up at my door by seven o’clock. She was carrying her laptop and her digital recorder, and that was when she’d brought up doing the EVP experiment, explaining the methodology and the hoped for results.

  Before we got started I made some early supper, and we sat in the parlour with the TV playing, but the sound muted. Sarah wanted to wait until the traffic died down outside, and the adjoining building was empty of cleaning staff. It was a good idea, she said, to get a feel for the ambient noises of my house before we began the EVP session so we could discount any natural knocks and creaks.

  She didn’t ask how Naomi died, and I didn’t tell her. I’d already mentioned that my girlfriend was killed in a car crash, and she was respectful enough not to demand the gory details now. She also knew that my split from my wife was acrimonious, and was astute enough to guess that I’d been emotionally frustrated after my visit with Catriona. She hinted that Naomi had perhaps chosen to show herself to me now that I was in a low state, that she was there to offer spiritual support.

  It was rubbish.

  Of course, I hadn’t mentioned that I ran Naomi’s ghost down and she’d been catapulted over the roof of the car. As far as Sarah knew, Naomi had simply stepped out in the road, and I’d reacted by jamming on the brakes and tail-ending the parked vehicles.

  She had explained how to ask questions of the spirits and to leave a pause after each, in order to allow them to gather enough energy to answer. It all sounded like pseudo-science to me, but I went with the flow.

  On the half-landing, Sarah held the digital recorder nearer the window. She nodded at me to continue.

  ‘Naomi, if you can hear me, please answer,’ I called out. ‘Just let us hear your voice.’

  We waited.

  Then, as if by some telepathic agreement, we moved up the short set of stairs to the next level. I continued calling out. The house was dead still.

  When we’d finished a sweep of that floor, Sarah decided it was time to listen back to our recordings. She set them going, and we huddled, heads almost touching, as we listened. I heard my voice and thought how strange it sounded compared to what I heard inside my own head. ‘I didn’t realise I sounded so lame.’

  ‘Shhh,’ Sarah cautioned.

  We listened, but I could make out nothing beyond our own voices. At one point there was a faint hiss and crackle, and Sarah replayed that section three times before discounting the sound as the scuffing of her clothing as she walked along the landing. ‘I’ll remember and keep the recorder held well away from my body next time.’

  I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I’m impressed at your professional style,’ I said.

  ‘I’m an amateur at this stuff.’

  ‘You could have fooled me.’ I was bulling her up, complimenting her in a way I knew would appeal. She wasn’t as much acting professionally as she was copying what she’d seen in all those TV ghost hunting programmes she watched. ‘I wouldn’t have known where to start. I’m only happy I’ve got a good friend like you.’

  She looked at me for a moment and I couldn’t figure out what she was thinking. In the end she slipped on a slither of a smile. ‘Do you want me to call out this time?’

  ‘Go on. You know more about this stuff than I do.’

  ‘Open the door for me.’ She indicated the door that led up to the bedrooms. I felt a little thrill go through me at her command. The first nice feeling I’d experienced since arriving at Catriona’s door earlier.

  I pulled open the door as she set the recorder going again. I was about to go up, but Sarah put a hand on my arm. ‘Wait,’ she said sotto voce, ‘let’s
allow things to settle down first, that way we’ve a better chance of catching something.’

  We waited, listening. I could hear the soft rasp of Sarah’s breath. She was breathing faster than normal and I wondered if her anticipation was at hearing something strange, or for her first visit to my bedroom. She glanced at me and offered a sly grin, and I hoped she had read my mind. ‘OK,’ she announced, not exactly dashing my hopes, ‘let’s go up.’

  There were too many creaks and groans from the stairs, and the swish of my shoulders against the walls as we went up, to try to capture an EVP. I tried to avert my gaze from Sarah’s swaying backside as she climbed, but it was unavoidable. Sarah waited until we were in the small landing before she introduced herself, said she was a friend of mine, then launched into a preset list of questions. She entered my bedroom, and the first thing I noted was how quiet things were now that the carpet had been fitted. My sleeping bag was rolled up against the wall opposite the windows, next to the lamp. Not exactly a romantic boudoir. I stood in the doorway, watching her as she patrolled the room, taking short steps, the recorder held out at arm’s length. She asked her questions, paused, asked again.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Her question was buried in with the others, and it took a moment before I realised she’d addressed me, not the spirits in the ether.

  ‘What’s what?’

  Without answering she approached the walk-in wardrobe.

  ‘It’s only my clothes in there,’ I said, trying to deter her. My shoes and trainers were in there too. Catriona once made the glib remark that I was the only person who’d ever received a refund from Odour Eaters.

  ‘Sometimes spirits will keep out of the way of the living by hiding in seldom used spaces,’ Sarah pointed out, and pulled open the doors. Thankfully she didn’t step away from the assault of sweaty trainer smell. In fact, undeterred she stepped into the wardrobe and asked a couple of questions. Wanting to divert her, I indicated the crawl space.