Pretty Little Dead Things Read online

  All I have is belief.

  "Billy sends his love," I tell her, tightening my grip on her hand. I am still not sure if I am clinging on to her because I feel like I might faint or if I am just holding her there in case she tries to bolt. "He came to me last night." I picture his thin lips, the words they had formed: the interesting shapes they made.

  "Your name is Sally." It was not a question.

  Her eyes widen. Silence smothers us, cutting us off from the rest of the ward. At last I hear Billy Adams's words: they come into my mind like a song that has been stuck in your head all day because it was the last thing you heard before leaving the house. I can barely believe that I did not hear the words last night, when my young visitor bequeathed them to me.

  I take a deep breath, close my eyes. Open my mouth…

  "He said, 'it wasn't your fault. The brakes have been faulty for weeks, but I couldn't afford to get them done. First it was mum's birthday and then I bought you those flowers. I could've still got the brakes fixed, but our Dave borrowed the money to pay off a gambling debt. Let it go, Sal. Let all the blame go and fall in love again. Just remember me as I was and not as I am now.'"

  Then I hear nothing more. Billy is once again silent, but his face hovers in my mind, that wide grin still locked firmly in place.

  The girl's mouth gapes; her eyes are moist, but they are shining.

  Shining.

  My job is done; the task I was given has been carried out to the best of my abilities.

  (If only every one was that simple, maybe then I could find a sense of peace.)

  I leave Sally to heal. Hopefully she will do so, and perhaps my intervention has even helped in some small way. At the very least she will be sure to forgive herself for the accident. At some point in the future she might even climb onto a motorcycle again. She is young enough that anything is possible.

  Shining.

  Suddenly, as if it has been waiting patiently for me to realise, my purpose in life becomes clear. Walking back to my private room, I know what it is I must do, and I realise that I need to get started as quickly as possible.

  And her eyes – her eyes were shining.

  But was any of it real?

  SIX

  I knew I had to visit Baz Singh, but had been putting it off for reasons I couldn't even begin to think about. More than the fact that I'd seen his daughter's body hanging from the ceiling – and still saw her now, on my upstairs landing – was the conviction that Singh was an unhealthy presence to be around. I'm not a fool. I'd known all along that Singh was at best a man of dubious business interests, yet I had accepted his offer and followed his daughter to her death.

  I never claimed to be a good decision maker.

  I was pondering these thoughts when I heard a knock at the front door.

  It was just after noon. Time had run away from me. Ellen had always had that effect on me: in her company, time became irrelevant, simply a measure of how long I was with her.

  I got up and went to the door, glancing out the window on my way. A huge light-skinned Indian man was standing on my doorstep, his face calm and dark and intelligent. I knew immediately that all the time I'd been thinking about avoiding Baz Singh, he must have been biding his time before making steps to summon me.

  I opened the door.

  "Good afternoon," said the man. He was wearing a dark grey suit and a white shirt with no tie. There was nothing threatening about him apart from his build, and the fact that he was standing there outside my door. Otherwise, he seemed very pleasant.

  "Hello. How can I help you?"

  The man smiled. It was an expression he used often; I could tell because he slipped it on so easily, and it suited his big, kind features. "I'm sorry to disturb you, Mr Usher, but Mr Singh sent me to request your presence. He would like to see you, and he asked me to say that he's rather surprised you haven't called by."

  I nodded. "I've been expecting you, or someone like you. Give me a minute and I'll join you."

  "No rush, Mr Usher. I haven't been sent to threaten or intimidate you in any way, merely to invite you to come and see my employer. If you don't wish to come, I can pass on a message." He smiled again. And again it wasn't threatening, just… nice. Friendly.

  "No, no. I do owe him a visit. It was rude of me not to call by or even telephone, particularly after what's happened. I'll be right with you." Our genteel exchange seemed so out of place that it had begun to take on a surreal air, like a mannered discussion between two psychopaths.

  I returned inside and put on my coat, then followed the large Indian man out to the street, where a shiny brown Jaguar was parked at the kerb. The man opened the back door and I climbed in, catching a whiff of leather and the vague traces of cigar smoke.

  The man drove off without further conversation. He kept his speed down, watched the road carefully, and handled the vehicle with skill and precision. He probably learned to drive in the armed forces, or perhaps MI5. The man certainly had the bearing of an ex-soldier, someone high up the ladder. I knew that Singh had a lot of shady family connections, and it was rumoured that some of the men working for him were experienced mercenaries.

  Again, I questioned my own judgement in associating with such a man.

  I'd known Baz Singh for about seven years, since the days when he ran an Indian restaurant in Pudsey and a takeaway in Horsforth. He'd come a long way in a short amount of time, buying up several businesses with money from big-time investors, and finally renovating the one-time massage parlour and clip joint, the Blue Viper.

  I'd first heard of Singh when I assisted a close friend of his in a suspected case of demonic possession that turned out to be part of a complicated (and rather desperate) blackmail plan concocted by the man's money-grabbing cousins. After unveiling the scam, my reputation had risen in the Indian community and I came to be known as a man who could be trusted. Baz Singh retained my services when he thought one of his restaurants was haunted. It turned out that he was right, and I was able to help the spirit vacate the building. Ever since then Singh and I had kept in touch, and he maintained an interest in my professional affairs, sending other clients my way if he thought that I might be able to help them.

  And now he was putting pressure on me to return those favours.

  Instead of heading out into the country towards Harrogate, where I knew Singh maintained his family residence, the Jaguar cruised towards central Bradford. Traffic was no heavier than usual, but it was slow going. Weak sunlight glinted off the car's bonnet, slicing pale arcs in the air. The sky seemed to lift as the day progressed, making room for something beyond even my vision. We passed terraced houses that became second-hand shops, pound shops, betting shops and chip shops. All purveyors of poverty, these stores provided poor diets, cheap products and empty promises of a sense of wellbeing that would never last.

  Soon enough we approached the Blue Viper. I should have realised that he'd see me here rather than at home, where his wife and other family members would still be in mourning. It was a tall, thin building flanked by derelict properties and takeaway outlets. The neighbourhood was in terminal decline, yet the club was booming. Sleaze, it seemed, was a recession-proof industry.

  "We're here," said the driver, unnecessarily.

  "Thank you," I said as I stepped out of the car and headed towards the low-key entrance to the notorious strip club. The driver remained at the vehicle, standing with the door open, his hand clenching the panel. He was smiling again, and it was such a nice open, honest smile that I felt compelled to return the expression. I wondered if it was the same smile he wore when he kicked in people's faces.

  The door to the Blue Viper was a plain hardwood barrier with a small, square window set slightly above the eye level of an average person. The glass in the window was strengthened, probably bulletproof, and opaque.

  Two men – these even larger than the driver – stood on the concrete steps leading up to the door. One was a black man with a bald head and startlingly blue eyes
(so startling in fact that I assumed they must be contact lenses) and the other was Caucasian. The two men tensed slightly as I approached, but I held out my hands to reassure them that I meant no harm.

  "I'm here to see Baz Singh. I have an appointment."

  "What's yer name?" said the white man, coming down a step to meet me.

  "Thomas Usher. I have a working relationship with Mr Singh."

  The man nodded, smiled. His smile, however, was not a patch on the driver's: it was cold and hard and empty, the smile of a reptile as it eyed up dinner. "You're expected. Go on up. Climb the stairs and take the third door on your left when you reach the landing." His dull Yorkshire tones fell like small blows against my ears.

  The men stepped aside in unison, allowing me access to the door. I pushed open the door and stepped inside, feeling them close in like twin shadows at my back. It crossed my mind that I would hate to make an enemy of Baz Singh. On the surface, he and his little empire were above board and welcoming, yet there was a terrible darkness beneath the charade which held the constant threat of violence. The man wasn't a gangster, not really; he was a businessman. But these days, in these times, the concept of business had changed dramatically.

  To my left a corridor led along to the main body of the club. Ahead of me lay the stairs. I climbed them reluctantly yet knowing that I'd got myself into this and had nobody else to blame. Grief is something I can deal with, an emotion that fills me to the point that I can easily empathise with it in others. But someone like Baz Singh had his own coping mechanisms, and the emotions he generated were unlike the ones experienced by so-called normal people. Men like Baz Singh work in a different way to the rest of us.

  I had to go up there and expect anything: rage, tears, venom, or even a strange deathly calm.

  The main door closed behind me, shutting me up in a dark, quiet space that held within it a strong sense of despair. Ghosts walked here, unseen by me but definitely present: they moved behind the scenes, huddled in black corners, watching me with something approaching fear as I passed through their domain. I wondered what had gone on inside this building, either during Singh's tenancy or before he had taken possession of the building. Places like this, hidey-holes for the lost and the lonely, almost always had a history of human misery.

  The stairs creaked as I climbed them. I put out my hand and grabbed the wooden banister to steady myself. From somewhere upstairs, I heard the sound of wild laughter, followed by low, mumbling voices. A door slammed; something heavy was thrown against a wall or onto the floor.

  With each step I took the dead drew near, ready to expose themselves. I'd managed to ignore them for quite some time, but now my defences were crumbling. I hoped that I was strong enough to resist whatever lay beyond the spirits and the landscape they inhabited. I had glimpsed it once, for a moment, thirteen months earlier, during a supposedly routine job as a consultant, and that was enough to make me fearful of the special sight I possessed.

  I made it to the top of the stairs and paused for breath. I felt as if I'd surmounted a great barrier, and my body ached. My limbs throbbed as if from exercise and my joints felt swollen and rigid. Occasionally I experienced physical reactions to the dead, but this was the worst I'd known. It was as if my entire body suffered flu symptoms: aching joints, a pounding headache, severe perspiration of the brow and back.

  My tattoos were going crazy. The names on my back jitterbugged across my skin and the various symbols on my arms and shoulders seemed to roll and shift as if the ink were solidifying and trying to break free. I half expected a geyser of blackness to jet from my body, stigmatic wounds opening to bleed pure ink. The proof of my failures along with whatever protection the tattooed glyphs offered me bleeding out onto the dusty floor of this squalid building.

  I moved left along the narrow landing, trying to remember which door the bouncer had told me to aim for. Then I heard Singh's voice, its muffled timbre coming from behind the next door along.

  I stopped outside the door and knocked. Knocked again.

  "Come in."

  Coughing into my fist, I pushed the door open and stepped into a small, neat room with a desk pushed back against the window. Framed art prints and photographs of smiling figures decorated the painted walls, the floor was covered with an expensive carpet, and the furniture was modern, functional, and obviously designer.

  Baz Singh sat behind the desk with his back to the window. He was replacing a telephone receiver into its cradle and smiling. "Thomas. Thank you for coming. I hope my man wasn't too crude with my invitation." He stood and came around to my side of the desk, his face solemn yet still with the hint of a sly smile at the corners of his mouth.

  "No, not at all. I'm sorry I didn't come earlier. I really should have." I stuck out my hand and shook Baz Singh's broad mitt, his thick brown fingers swallowing mine. His grip was solid, immovable. For a small man, he possessed the capacity for great physical strength.

  "If I didn't know you better, I'd say you were avoiding me, Thomas."

  I smiled, shook my head, and sat down in the chair he indicated. "No, of course not. I've just been busy. Mostly with the police." I sank into the chair, unable to stop the leather upholstery from swallowing me. It was some chair: incredibly comfortable, the kind of chair meant to put people at ease.

  Singh lowered himself back into his own chair, letting out a long, loud breath.

  "I'm sorry about your daughter. About Kareena."

  At the mention of her name he winced, as if from a blow. His eyes narrowed, his dark skin paled and his hands splayed out flat on the desk top, the fingers stretching and flattening like blades. His fingernails were exquisitely manicured. I don't know why I noticed that; I just did, and it disturbed me.

  "Listen, Thomas. Just to put you at ease, I haven't called you here to blame you or accuse you of inattention. I know you were following her and that you did your best when you found her there – found her dead." Silent beats; the ticking of an unseen clock; music drifting up from the street; a dog barking in the distance. "Perhaps if the girl had listened to me, she might still be alive today. Perhaps not. We'll never know for sure."

  I waited. Listened. There was no way I was going to interrupt the man's train of thought. I wanted to hear what he was about to say.

  "I'll get straight to the point. What I wanted to ask you – the reason I asked you here – is, well, I want to know if you think Byron Spinks killed my daughter. Did that animal… did he do it, or was he simply a witness to her murder? Because that's what it was: murder. I need no inquest to tell me that. Even if she hoisted herself up there and put the noose around her own neck, someone made her do it."

  I listened to the ticking clock, trying to figure out where it was. There was a bookcase against the far wall, stacked with nameless leather-bound hardbacks, and I guessed that the clock must be located somewhere on the top shelf.

  "Well, Thomas? What do you think?"

  I stared at him, wondering what he wanted to hear. Then, sadly, I opted for the truth. "I'm not sure, Mr Singh. I really don't know. All the evidence points to Spinks being the killer, and the police think he did it."

  "But?" He leaned forward, his face avid. Eyes huge. Lips pursed. Avid.

  "But I'm not so sure. When I found him there, he was hysterical. It wasn't an act; he was mortified. Petrified. Whatever he saw, it sent him somewhere he still hasn't returned from."

  "Thomas." His chair creaked. "Thomas, I realise that we've known each other for a number of years, and that I'm probably taking advantage of our friendship here, but I need to ask you to please keep your suspicions to yourself. I am a businessman as well as a grieving father, and my business interests cannot be allowed to suffer because of my silly, wayward, murdered little girl. I am well aware of a lot of her naughty little habits and sidelines, and would like to ensure that no one else learns of them."

  I'm still not sure if I was shocked or simply nervous, but once again I chose to say nothing. What was Singh implying abou
t his daughter's activities, and what was the exact nature of those activities? Clearly, he knew a lot more than the authorities thought he did.

  "I want the police to go about their business and investigate this, to find out who else was there, but at the same time I'd like to retain your services on an advisory level. You have contacts, and your highly specialised talents make you open to other forms of information, information no one else could ever gain access to. I'd like you to pass on any of this information that might come your way – to tell me whatever you see or hear… or sense."

  I nodded. What else could I do?

  "Whatever I'm paying you, I'll double it of course. This is a special arrangement, just between the two of us, and I'd hate for you to be out of pocket."

  In that moment, sitting in a small office with a man I thought I knew but really, truly didn't, I realised that Baz Singh was far from the usual grieving parent. More than his daughter's loss, even more than the absence caused by her no longer being in his life, he possessed an almost manic desire to ensure that her death did not tarnish his business. But there was also anger somewhere behind his mask. A dark and terrible rage that was so intense it had become a facsimile of calm. Like a deep ocean, this anger simply swelled and rolled and waited, passing itself off as a form of serenity yet hiding within its depths the capacity for great harm.