The Lonely Dead

She stopped, took a deep breath. 'Then one day Paul came running in the house and said the dog had an accident. They went running out back. The dog is lying half in the yard and half in the narrow road at the end. Its head is all messed up, like it got caught in a car's wheels. Paul's crying and stuff so the dog's quickly buried and it was only later that night, when they were sitting in bed, that his wife said something. She didn't look at her husband and she talked quietly, as if speaking to the wall. She said that in all the years they'd lived in that house, the dog had never gone anywhere near the back road. She said how it would be odd for someone to be driving along it too quickly to stop. She said, too, how it was strange that it was only the head that had been so badly injured, that both eyes, and the mouth, should be so damaged.

'Her husband thought about this. Nothing more was said that night. They went to sleep, eventually. That was a week before they brought Paul back. The husband admitted that they didn't know how they knew, that they had no proof. It could still just have been an accident. But that week was enough. His wife couldn't have him there any more.'

Mrs Campbell held a finger up to stop me saying anything. 'Now listen, you. This is just something a man said. I thought it could just be some kind of overblown lie to make up for what they'd done, and that was probably there to read in my face. The guy just shook his head, and said that if I'd had to look in his wife's eyes all the years since, I'd know what was the truth and what was not. Then he walked away, and I never saw him again.'

'Jesus,' I said.

'Right,' she nodded. 'And the last thing is just me, and I'm going to tell you it, and then you're going to go. Six, seven years after that, not long before I retired, there was a fire. Muriel said she'd told you. A lot of paperwork got lost.'

'Yes,' I said. 'She mentioned it.'

'Something she doesn't know about is this. I was late getting to work that morning — tram got fouled up, I had to walk the last six blocks. Time I got there, building was already up in smoke, people standing out on the street, everyone running back and forth. Could have been a very bad day. As it was, four people got killed and a lot more got burned. Fire went up when the building was full. And as I was standing there, trying to take it all in, I got a strange feeling in the back of my neck. I turned, and…'

Her throat clicked, dry as old bone. 'There he was. On the other side of the street, watching. Grown up a little now, a young man. Looked just like you do now, only thinner. I saw him just a second, and then he was gone. Or maybe I didn't see him at all. Sometimes I think I saw that face, and recognized it. Most of the time, I think it was just in my own head, which is why I never mentioned it to no one. Not even Muriel, and she was like a daughter to me. Still is, when she's got the time.'

'It was him,' I said, quietly. 'It was Paul.'

She gripped me by the arm, her fingers strong and sharp. 'What you must not think is this was anything to do with him being in care, with the people who fostered him, who tried so hard to give him a life. It was not. Those people helped bring up Muriel and thousands more like her.'

'I know,' I said. 'My parents weren't my real parents either, and they gave me more love than I ever deserved.'

She was surprised, but gathered herself. She stood, and I understood my time was over.

At the door, as I stood on the porch, she put her hand on my arm again and said one final thing.

'I've spent all my life with young people, and on the whole I've enjoyed it a lot. But one thing about my view of the world changed in that time, and changed for good.'

'What was that?'

'I still believe we're all human,' she said, stepping back and closing the screen door. 'But I don't believe we're all God's children. No, I don't believe that at all.'

— «» — «» — «»—

I went back to the hotel because I wasn't sure what else to do. I ran out of steam when I hit the lobby and ended up sitting in the bar, staring out at the street through tinted glass. Everyone has their typical experiences, as discussed. This is one of mine.

I was spaced out and ticked off. San Francisco was a dead end. Mrs Campbell didn't remember the name of the family which had taken Paul in for good. In any event, they'd moved, and she didn't know where to. Her colleagues from that time were either dead or scattered. The trail had been severed, not least by the fire. 'I believed Paul had come back and set that fire, and I knew Mrs Campbell did too: just as I believed she understood that the young boy who had been found on the street alone had merely tolerated being moved from pillar to post until he was old enough to leave and make his own way in the world: when he would become the person to 'put things in place.'

When I reached for my wallet to pay for the first beer, I remembered I'd turned off my cell. I had a missed call. It could only be one of two people, so I hit callback without bothering to listen to the message.

She answered quickly. 'John?'

'No,' I said. 'It's Ward. Your phone tells you who's calling, Nina. Just look at the display.'

'Right,' she said. 'Silly me. Where are you?'

'San Francisco,' I said.

'Oh. Why?'

'I left my heart here. Came to pick it up.'

'Good move. How's it looking?'

'Barely used,' I said, and she laughed briefly. 'What's up?'

'Nothing,' she said. 'Well, not true, things are going crazy. We had a double murder this morning; someone killed a Jane Doe in a nasty motel and then whacked a cop to underline his point. He left a hard disk in the woman.'

'Charming,' I said.

'Not very. It's LAPD's business, of course, but Monroe is all over it and thus so am I. Wondered if you would take a look at this disk. I had a copy done, unofficially. I know you used to do that kind of thing on a professional basis.'

'Sure,' I said. 'Though Bobby would have been a better bet for you. And even a byte-for-byte copy isn't going to be exactly the same as the original. But I'll take a look.'

'They've already found a note and a piece of music on it. This one has a real sense of theatre.'

'What's the music?'

'Faur?'s Requiem.'

'Nice.'

'I haven't listened to it.'

'You should. Quite uplifting, given it's for dead people.'

She was silent for a little while. I didn't interrupt.

'Are you okay, Ward?'

'Sort of.' I told her, briefly, what I'd found out from Mrs Campbell. 'So that's weirded me out. Plus

I shrugged. She heard it. 'Yes,' she said, quietly. 'I know. I… I have this dream sometimes. I'm up at The Halls again, on the floor of the lobby building, after I'd been shot. You and John are out there in the houses, trying to find Sarah Becker. Bobby's gone, I don't know where. I'm on the floor, and I hurt bad, and somebody's coming to get me. And this time I think he might.'

'Shit,' I said. 'That sounds like no fun.'

'I had it again just three hours ago. It gets longer each time. I… sometimes I worry there will come a time when it doesn't end. Where he gets me, and I don't wake up.'

'Dreams last as long as you let them,' I said. 'Both good and bad.'

'Very deep, Ward-san.'

'Yeah. Sorry. I have no idea what I meant.'

She laughed, and it sounded a little more convincing this time.

'Okay, so, call when you've got the disk,' I said. 'I'll head down. There's nothing else for me up here.'

'It's sitting here on my table now,' she said.

I had been to Nina's house only once, and briefly, but I could picture it clearly. For just a moment, sitting on an uncomfortable stool with half a beer and the sound of generic chatter around me, I wished I was there now. There, or some other house. Something approximating a home.