I nodded reluctantly, and sat down at the kitchen table. Dan sat opposite me, taking a gulp from his beer.
‘So, you wanted to talk about Katie?’ he said.
‘Yes. I saw your entry on pi.share. I have two clients who think their daughter was murdered by a… a…’
‘Ghost? Ghoul? Gothic creature of the night?’
‘Erm… yes. Possibly they’re mad. Possibly I’m mad for listening. But here I am. Is there anything you can tell me about your case that might help?’
‘No, they’re not mad,’ he said, putting down the can and shoving his hand roughly through his hair. He looked distracted and vague, staring off into space over my shoulder. I took a sneaky sideways glance. Nothing there. Not that I could see, anyway – but Father Dan could be witnessing a choir of celestial angels dressed up as Boy George and singing ‘Karma Chameleon’ for all I knew.
He snapped his eyes back to me, sat up slightly straighter. His T-shirt had been washed a few too many times and was stretched a bit too tightly over his shoulders.
‘It’s not mad,’ he repeated, making piercing eye contact with me, ‘because it’s probably true. Things that go bump in the night? They exist, and they can kill. Most of the time we find other names for it. We blame accidents, or bad luck, or too much booze. In Katie’s case, it was a spirit. A pretty bloody unhappy one at that. She wasn’t pleased with being surrounded by gorgeous young girls, all very much alive, when she was dead. So Katie got a shove. She wasn’t the first in that building, but she will be the last.’
He took another gulp of his beer, finished it off, and crushed the middle of the can with his hand. A slight smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He seemed utterly convinced by what he was saying. Maybe nature had walloped him with the loony stick to make up for the face and body.
‘So,’ he said. ‘This is the bit where you start to wonder if I’m a lunatic planning to cudgel you to death and hide your corpse in the well. After I’ve sliced off selected body parts to eat with a nice Chianti.’
Ha bloody ha. I wasn’t scared. Much. He might be big and think he was tough, but I was small and knew I was tough. Except when it came to wasps, obviously.
‘Are you a leg man or a breast man, then?’ I asked, picking up my Coke. ‘I was wondering which body parts you’d go for.’
Which, I realised, could be taken in more ways than one. Accidental flirting.
He rocked back in his chair and laughed. It was a big laugh, honest and loud. It made you want to join in. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I get it. You’re not about to run screaming from the house and into the wild blue yonder.’
God no. I’d be more scared of the wild blue yonder than I would a psychopathic serial killer, but he didn’t need to know that.
‘Look. I’ve come a long way to talk about Katie Bell – have I wasted my time?’ I asked in my best don’t-mess-me-around voice. He might be eye candy to infinity and beyond, but I was here for a reason. A not particularly amusing reason.
‘No. If you think you’re up to it, I’ll tell you about Katie.’
I nodded. I was definitely up to it.
‘ She was nineteen, bright young thing, apple of her parents’ eye. She was originally from up here, in Cumbria, which is how I got involved. I’d done some investigative work before; other… unusual occurrences. But Katie’s was the first where I… solved it, I suppose you’d have to say.’
‘Solved it how?’ I asked. ‘There was no case closed marker on pi.share.’
‘Solved it with a really big, dramatic exorcism. Flashing lights. Bleeding eye sockets. Full on fire and brimstone. Sure you don’t want that beer?’
I narrowed my eyes at him. Was he trying to put one over on me? Having me on for a laugh?
‘No. It’s all true,’ he said, getting up and pulling two more cans out of the fridge.
Fuck. He could read my mind. He was like Father Doheny after all. Except, you know, forty years younger and a million times better looking. I was going to have to be cleaner in thought as well as deed if this carried on.
I took the lager from his hand and cracked it open. One wouldn’t hurt. I wasn’t sure what a yardarm was, but I was pretty sure the sun was past it.
We took our beers outside into the sunshine. Father Dan dragged a couple of chairs with us, and an ashtray for his roll-ups. Not very priestly of him, but nobody’s perfect.
‘So tell me about your case,’ he said, fiddling with a tobacco pouch and a pack of Rizlas. I wondered briefly if he was going to reach for his stash of wacky backy and make it a spliff. That would at least have explained some of the insanity.
‘Similar family situation to yours – only child, worshipped and adored. Bright girl, came to Liverpool to study to be a vet, all going great until it wasn’t. Now she’s dead – took a shortcut out of a fifth floor window, in the halls where she was living. Hart House. No witnesses, she was in the room on her own – but also no sign of a struggle, no fingerprints that shouldn’t be there, door locked from the inside, no obvious clues as to any wrongdoing. It was June, and there was a seat in the bay window. There were some books left there, open, like she’d been reading them before it happened. She had exams coming up.’
I’d got all of this from my conversation with Mr and Mrs M, together with their copy of the coroner’s findings. I knew there’d be more out there, extra forensics reports, initial call-out notes, instincts and gut reactions that never even got written down. I just had to track down the right boys in blue to find it.
‘Her mum and dad are convinced she was pushed by a ghost. Apparently she left notes about it in her diary, but my feeling is she had mental health issues. Wouldn’t be the first time an academically gifted student has lost the plot, especially around exam time, or the first time grieving parents grasped at delusions.’
‘What are they like? Flakes? Hippies? Mentally unstable?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘just the opposite. Solid, middle class types. Probably in the Rotary Club and on parish councils. About as far removed from nuts as you could possibly imagine…’
I saw a vaguely satisfied look on his face as he lit up.
‘You knew I was going to say that, didn’t you?’ I asked.
‘Yep. Because if they had been flakes or hippies, you wouldn’t have looked twice at it. And I also suspect that deep down you believe them, and you find that worrying in case it means you might be deluded too. Am I right?’
He blew a small cloud of smoke out and it immediately drifted off on the breeze, disappearing up to the tips of the conifers that were touching the sky. Yes, he was right. But I’d be buggered if I was going to admit it. Self-doubt is like hot chocolate fudge-cake – best consumed alone.
‘What was her name?’ he asked, after a beat of silence. He looked sad and angry and determined all at the same time. I suspect I just looked wistful – I gave up smoking on my thirtieth birthday and still missed it.
‘Her name was Joy. Joy Middlemas. She was nineteen years old. Look, I’m sorry to ask, but why the hell should I believe any of this? It’s insane.’
‘It is, isn’t it? Completely insane. Do you believe in God? And give me your first answer, not the one you’ve thought about and analysed.’
I