The Ghost Who Fed Them Bones (7 page)

“I’l see you then, then. I cannot offer you anything more than friendship, natural y, and I probably wouldn’t have done even when I was alive.”

“Were you real y a lesbian …. ?”

“Paul, where the hel are you?” Mike shouts up the stairs, interrupting us.

“Coming in a second,” I shout back.

“You have been up there for hours!”

“I’l be with you. I’ve been looking around for ghosts.”

“Did you find any?”

Alice winks.

“No. They must al be out for the day,” I quip.

Mike returns to the main room.

“Alice,” I continue, “could I ask you a favour?”

“Natural y.”

“Can you conjure up these body parts of yours at wil ?”

“Yes, anything I like.”

“Can you do the same thing twice?”

“Yes, I am sure I can. They aren’t real, except in appearance. Why?”

“The people up at the Château …. ”

“ …. oh, that lot. They make me sick …. ”

“That lot. They have been betting on which part of your body wil turn up next …. ”

“That real y makes me sick. They must be psychos …. ”

“ … no, just bored, like you …. ”

“I would never think of that.”

“Anyway, do you want to punish them, and help me, and have a good laugh as wel ?”

“D’acc.”

“This is my idea. I wil find out today what parts everybody is betting on, and I wil join in and bet on a different one. Then, tomorrow, when we meet up, I wil tel you which one I am backing, and you produce it. I’l get Mike to do it too, so it won’t always be me. What do you think?”

She laughs. “I think that would be pretty funny. I’l do it. You must go now,” she adds, and then she kisses me three times on the cheek, without actual y touching of course. “Until tomorrow.”

* * *

After a sort of lunch, it is time to look around the garden to search for the rest of the remains of whomever it is Inspector John keeps finding the parts of.

“Can the police laboratories here do any kind of DNA match?” I ask, interested suddenly.

“They have tried,” replies Inspector John. “They haven’t found anything of Alice’s to match the DNA in the forearm and foot – the Picards are searching high and low for one of Alice’s stray hairs – but they could, in principle, compare it with the parents’ DNA and at least calculate a level of probability as to whether or not they could belong to their daughter, but the strange thing is, and this is exceedingly strange, they cannot extract any DNA from the forearm and foot whatsoever, try as they might. This has never happened to them before, they say, and I can believe it. DNA matching has become extremely precise recently – the techniques have come on in leaps and bounds even in the last five years. One pathologist in Manchester told me that progress has been the equivalent of going from the first car ever built to the Space Shuttle in five years, and I cannot imagine that France is any less advanced than we are. If anything, they are probably more advanced but, in this case, they cannot get a read at al . They say that it is as if these body parts aren’t real y real at al , although obviously they are.”

“Spooky!” Mike declares, intuiting the truth without realising it.

“That is strange,” I add.

“Isn’t it? So they have no clue whatsoever whose body I am finding. Maybe the next piece wil reveal something more.”

“Where should we start looking?” asks Mike, eager for instructions.

“You sound as if you are real y looking forward to finding something, Mike,” I comment.

“I have money on it,” he explains.

Inspector John looks shocked. He evidently hasn’t heard about the Wil iam Hil syndicate which has been set up at the Château. “What do you mean, Mike?” he asks.

“It’s a bit revolting,” Mike starts to explain with sudden embarrassment, “but we have been betting on what parts of the body would turn up next.”

“How disgusting! Have you lot not got anything better to do?”

“It reduces the shock, I suppose,” ventures Mike by way of self-exculpation.

“It adds to my shock,” counters Inspector John.

“Yes, I can imagine it would.”

“Wel , out with it, what are you betting on?”

“A rib.”

“Any specific one?” I throw in.

“No, I am the only one with a rib, so I don’t need to be specific yet.”

“And you, Paul?” Inspector John chal enges me.

“I haven’t taken part.”

“Good for you. Please don’t.”

“I might tomorrow.”

“For God’s sake, why would you want to do that?”

“To win.”

“How do you know that you wil win?”

“Yes, how do you know?” Mike chimes in.

“I always win when I place a bet.”

“That is usual y because you have come up with some sneaky way of discovering the outcome in advance. Paul is a spectacular cheat, Inspector. Never play games with him, and definitely not for money, whatever you do. He is right. He always wins. It’s not a boast; it’s a criminal confession. So how are you going to fix it, Paul, this time? Are you hoping to find something here today, bet on it, then rediscover it in a couple of days’ time. Is that your plan?”

“It’s a good plan,” I confirm. “I may just do that.”

“Wel at least you wil be taking this search seriously then, Paul,” smiles Inspector John, “so we had better get started.”

For about two hours we scour this real y quite smal garden as if playing Grandmother’s Footsteps without Grandmother, although stil expecting something to turn round and say boo. In fact Mike and I boo each other a couple of times, and it occurred to me that it would be great if Alice could make an impromptu appearance and boo Mike on her behalf too, but she must have had other plans.

Needless to say, we found nothing at al , not even a dog bone.

* * *

We came directly from Inspector John’s garden to the Château, in fact we walked which seemed a healthy idea at the time except that it took us much longer than we thought it would, knowing that we would have to go and get the car later again in the dark.

“Don’t’ worry,” offered Peter. “I’l drive you back to get it.”

Mike must be off tracking down Sarah somewhere. I am watching Peter and John Jr. playing tennis. Fiona says “May I?” and sits next to me (she certainly keeps turning up). Peter and John are playing impeccably together. They seem to know every aspect of each other’s game, and to be able to anticipate each other’s moves faultlessly, even when on the wrong end of a triple-feint. It suddenly occurs to me that Fiona’s whole marriage must be like this – being an observer watching Peter and John cavorting together.

Talking of the which, Marcel and Natalie are over by the pool in tactile conversation. I look away again.

“Do you mind?” Fiona asks me, solicitously.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t hurt you to watch them together?”

“No. It doesn’t matter.”

“You can’t be that hard, Paul.”

(Some days).

I switch my gaze over to Fiona. “We were already in the hissing phase. The next one would have been biting. French women always bite when they want to break up with you. I have the marks to prove it.”

I don’t suppose that Fiona believes me, but I turn to show her two scars on the top of my forearm which are sufficiently delineated to indicate teeth marks.

“Ow!” Fiona exclaims.

“And you?” I riposte. “Does it hurt?”

“What?”

“When you bite,” I elaborate, but Fiona has realised exactly what I am referring to.

“Yes it does, but it was my bargain. I proposed it, and I ful y intended to live with it, and stil do.”

“Very courageous of you.”

“It was my duty.”

“Why?”

“I wil explain it to you, Paul,” Fiona assures me earnestly, “another time. Actual y, we were thinking of coming over to your place in Valflaunès to beard you in your lair. I can explain then. Are we invited?”

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Virtual y everybody. Would you and Mike mind?”

“We might have to tidy up first. Give us a couple of days.”

“What if it were the day after tomorrow?”

“No probs. We’l do a barbeque. Lunchtime or dinner?”

“If we strol ed over in the afternoon?”

“Fine by me.”

“Do you want to consult with Mike?”

“No, it wil be fine with him too.”

“Sarah wil be there. He might appreciate that.”

“I am sure he would.”

“You know that he doesn’t stand a chance with her, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Does he?”

“In his head, yes - in his heart, no.”

“You and Mike seem incredibly close, almost like Peter and John. Virtual y inseparable.”

“Mike is a wonderful brother. He is my best friend. Always has been.”

“So you have got a heart after al , Paul.”

“That was my head speaking.”

Fiona laughs. “You are impossible. Perhaps I wil pass your comment on to Sarah. It may encourage her.”

“I don’t suppose that she is looking for a brother.”

“No,” Fiona replies. “That is what I did. I always wished that I had been furnished with one, sort of two or three years younger than me. Something to dress up, that sort of thing. Give him a few orders. Confide in him during my teen years.

Use him to recruit potential boyfriends.” She pul s a face. “I ended up with John instead. He is a wonderful brother too, although Sarah doesn’t think so.”

I continue to concentrate on the tennis, al owing Fiona to believe that she is performing a soliloquy.

“So you didn’t find any ghosts at Inspector John’s and no more body parts?”

“Nairy a one,” I confirm.

“Have you seen any ghosts here at the Château?”

“It would be very surprising if there wasn’t an outraged phantom or two complaining about British aristocracy occupying their sacred land.”

“Have you seen one, then?”

“No, but I haven’t been looking and, if I had, I probably would not have recognised it anyway. I am real y not into ghosts.”

“Mike said you were. Apparently it is wel known in your family that you commune with spirits from other dimensions, or so Mike said.”

“My mother thinks so.”

“And you deny it.”

“Sometimes my mother is a strange spirit from another dimension. I wouldn’t go by what she says about me. I am not into ghosts, or angels, or any kind of astral travel er. The most I ever do is to sense a chil in the air in some places, like at Inspector John’s the other day. That is my lot.”

“So why does Mike say otherwise?”

“Sometimes he is a wonderful brother. At other times he is a fantastic one. He makes things up about me. It’s a game we play between us. I do the same thing for him sometimes. Did you know that he has been ordained as a Buddhist monk, for instance?”

“Is that something you have just made up?”

“Ask him about it. You may be surprised. Good shot, Peter,” I add, final y engaging with the tennis in front of me.

“You haven’t applauded any of my shots,” John Jr. protests, “and I am winning.”

“Sorry, John,” I cal back, “but you not only have to make a great shot, but you also have to do so during a lul in the conversation.”

John grins rueful y. “Ah, that is where I was going wrong. Silence, please, among the spectators!” but his next five shots are dreadful.

I leave the Valflaunès house at 9:15. Mike wil not be up until at least midday as we have nothing planned. I haven’t explained where I am going, but we often abandon each other at the house, so there is nothing for him to suspect.

The barn where Alice is probably hiding is a derelict one, however, I am stil cautious as I open the rickety door in case I am chased out again by a pitchfork or an Alsatian, or even by an aggressively suspicious farmer wondering what I am doing poking around his property. No such thing occurs. Instead I immediately see Alice perched on an old broken tractor.

That would be an interesting statistic. How many old broken tractors are there in France?

“You are on time,” Alice observes appreciatively, greeting me with the three-cheek-kiss. “Noblesse oblige.”

“I said I would come, and ghosts do tend to be touchy.”

“Not this ghost,” Alice responds turning on the charm and twirling slightly as she did last time. Coquettishness is built into the genes of French women, even when they don’t have them any more, which reminds me ….

“You have the whole of the French police force baffled,” I report.

“Why?”

“They cannot isolate any DNA in the parts you keep leaving around.”

“I told you, they are simulacra.”

“Very convincing ones, apparently, otherwise.”

“Of course.”

“Presumably that is what you want, so that your father cannot be implicated.”

“Exactly.”

I sit up on the tractor next to her. “What shal we talk about?”

She frowns. “It has been such a long time since I have had the opportunity to talk about anything. I am completely out of practice. What do friends talk about nowadays? How about ‘Can a relationship between a man and a ghost ever be entirely platonic?’.”

“Can it?”

“I would have thought if it was between a rosbif and a lesbian ghost there might be a good chance.”

“I’m not a rosbif. I haven’t lived in England since I was four.”

“Perhaps a steak americaine, then. Do you eat that, by the way?”

“No. My Dad likes it, though. He likes liver too, and andouil ette. Anything smel y. I don’t think that Mum and he have had sex in years. She cannot cope with his odours, which are usual y topped off with beer and wine. I drink beer and wine too. I am a beer and wine fiend, like my dad.”

“I never did.”

“What do you miss most, then?”

“People. Friends. Laughing. Sex with Mary.”

“Not food?”

“No, strangely, food doesn’t mean anything.”

“But sex does?”

“Yes, it must be more spiritual than food, must it not?”

“Certainly the way Mike eats.”

“Does that mean he eats very slowly or very fast?”

“It means that he worships food, so long as he does not have to make it himself, and he cannot rely on me either. I think he wil end up marrying a woman for her food, which perhaps explains why he goes for the uglier ones. They are good cooks. I hadn’t thought of that.”