Ghost Virus

Jerry couldn’t manage anything more than a Ginster’s Cornish pasty for lunch and even then he left most of the crust. He had just dropped it into his wastepaper basket when Jamila came in to tell him that she had heard from Dr Stewart at Springfield. Mindy had been taken there about three hours earlier and was now fit to be interviewed.

Jerry put on his raincoat and said, ‘What about the others? Any news on them?’

‘Not a lot of change, that’s what Dr Stewart said, but no improvement. All of them still seem to be convinced that they’re going to die, and soon.’

‘Well, maybe the spirits possessing them are going to die. They kept saying that they needed to feed on human flesh, didn’t they, but there’s no way the hospital is going to be serving them fricassee of toddler anytime soon. The question is, will their hosts die, too?’

‘I haven’t a clue, Jerry. But I don’t think we’ll have to wait very long to find out.’

As they crossed the car park, Jerry held out the car keys and said, ‘Do you want to drive, skip?’

‘Do you know something? You are the first man who has ever asked me that. But no thanks. I’m a terrible driver. Not because I’m a woman, but because I’m Pakistani. More than thirty-three thousand people died in road accidents last year in Pakistan.’

‘Blimey. That’s twice the entire population of Tooting. My offer is withdrawn. If I let you drive, this place would be a graveyard.’

She smiled at him over the roof of the car and again he saw that expression in her eyes: I like you, and I could have allowed myself to like you even more if only our destiny had been different. It made him feel pleased and regretful, both at the same time.

*

Cherry Mwandi was waiting for them at Springfield and she led them through to the high-security wing. A young black PC was on duty there, looking infinitely bored. He had a book open on his lap but he was staring at the opposite wall as if he were deep in thought.

‘What’s that you’re reading?’ Jerry asked him.

He lifted it up so that Jerry could see the cover. A Brief History of Time.

‘I’m trying to read it, anyway,’ said the PC. ‘I thought it would make the time pass quicker, but it seems to make it go twice as slow.’

Cherry Mwandi escorted them along the corridor to the room where Mindy was being treated.

‘Has she spoken to you at all?’ asked Jamila.

‘Not really. When they brought her in she was still very groggy from the analgesics. She asked where she was, and she asked for a drink of water, and then about half an hour ago she asked for a vodka.’

‘Vodka? You didn’t give her any?’

Cherry Mwandi shook her head in amusement as she unlocked the door. ‘Of course not. And she’s still on a saline drip to replace the fluid she lost during her operation.’

Mindy was lying in bed with the sides raised to prevent her from falling out, although Jerry could see that she was wearing a blue restraint belt, too. She was pale, with some red blotches around her mouth, and her eyes were puffy, but her shiny brunette bob had recently been brushed. Jerry found it difficult to believe that this skinny nine-year-old schoolgirl with a turned-up nose had horrifically murdered both of her parents and then cut the penis off a strange man and eaten it.

Jerry and Jamila sat down on opposite sides of the bed. Mindy looked suspiciously from one to the other.

‘I know you,’ she said, in a husky whisper.

‘Yes,’ said Jamila. ‘We talked to you before, if you remember, outside that house on Pretoria Road. I’m Detective Sergeant Jamila Patel, and this is Detective Constable Jerry Pardoe. We need to ask you a few questions if you feel up to it.’

‘What difference will it make?’ said Mindy. ‘I am dying.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Jamila told her. ‘You’ve had a traumatic experience, and you’ve had to undergo some quite extensive surgery, but you don’t need to worry. Before you know it you’ll be feeling much better.’

‘You are wrong. I am dying. I know what dying feels like. I have died before.’

‘What’s your name, sweetheart?’ Jerry asked her.

‘I told you before. Varvara.’

Jerry looked across the bed at Jamila. ‘We were right,’ he said. He nodded his head in the direction of Sophie’s room and then he mouthed the words ‘they’re both Varvara’.

‘How did you die, Varvara?’ asked Jamila, taking hold of Mindy’s hand.

‘I had the flu. I couldn’t breathe. They took me to the hospital but I caught pneumonia. I don’t want to die like that again. It was like drowning, except in bed.’

‘Varvara, you can’t have your time over again,’ said Jamila. ‘You’ve taken over this poor young girl’s mind and body and you’ve made her commit the most appalling crimes.’

‘What else could I do? I needed to eat,’ said Mindy. ‘There’s only one way that I can come back to life, and that’s if I eat. And who cares about this young girl? She’s a nobody. My life is the only life that’s important.’

‘You’ve had your life, Varvara. Mindy’s only nine. She deserves to have hers.’

‘Ha! She will now, won’t she? If I don’t get anything to eat, I’m going to be dead in two days. This time I won’t even have a funeral.’

‘You have to have human flesh, though, don’t you, to stay alive?’ Jerry asked her.

‘Of course I do, because my body has been cremated. I am nothing but ashes, so I need to rebuild myself. How can I rebuild myself with anything else but human flesh?’

‘Is there any way in which I can speak to Mindy?’ asked Jamila.

Mindy stared at her for a moment, and then said, ‘No. Why would you want to do that?’

‘She’s still inside you?’

‘She’s sleeping.’

‘But she’s still alive, and she’s safe?’

‘I need to eat. I’m so hungry I could eat my own arms. Can’t you please, please find me something to eat? This is a hospital, isn’t it? There must be sick or dead people here that nobody wants.’

‘Varvara, tell me something about yourself,’ said Jamila. ‘Where were you born?’

‘What do you care? I’m starving.’

‘It might help us to understand what’s happened to you… How you came to take over Mindy’s body. And if we can understand that – I don’t know, we may be able to help you in some way.’

‘What – you’re going to help me die? It was bad enough the first time. This is going to be worse.’

‘Please, just tell us where you came from, originally.’

‘I was born in Vilnius,’ said Mindy. ‘October the 12th, 1951.’

‘Vilnius? That’s the capital of Lithuania, right?’ said Jerry.

Mindy looked at him as if he were retarded. ‘Of course. Where else?’

‘So when did you come to England?’

‘In 1991. I met my husband Wiktor when he came to Lithuania to work for Achema the fertiliser company, in Jonava. In 1989 there was a big explosion in the factory and a huge cloud of ammonia gas spread over the countryside. I breathed it in, and after that I always suffered problems with my lungs. Wiktor got a job here, in Merton, and we came here to live, but my chest always hurt and I was always catching cold. That was why I died before my time. Don’t you think I deserve a new life?’

‘Not at Mindy’s expense, love,’ said Jerry. ‘You’ve ruined this young girl for ever. She’s murdered her own parents and mutilated that bloke who picked her up, even if he was asking for it. When you’re dead and she’s got her own body back, how do you think she’s going to deal with that? I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t go mental.’

Mindy closed her eyes while Jerry was talking, as if to show him that she wasn’t listening. When he had finished, she suddenly opened them again and blinked, and clutched at her sheet. ‘What is that light?’ she demanded.

‘What light?’

‘That red light! Why are they shining that red light in my eyes?’

‘Nobody’s shining any light in your eyes, Varvara. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘It’s blinding me!’ she said, angrily, covering her eyes with both hands. ‘Tell them to stop!’

‘I’ll fetch the nurse,’ said Jamila. She reached over and pressed the button to call for assistance.

‘It’s blinding me! I can’t see!’

A nurse appeared, followed by Cherry Mwandi. Mindy kept her hands pressed over her eyes, but said nothing else, even when the nurse asked her what was wrong.

After two or three minutes, she took her hands away and stared at the ceiling.

‘Varvara? Can you answer some more questions?’ asked Jamila, but she didn’t respond.

‘I think it would be better to leave her for now,’ said Cherry Mwandi. ‘Dr Stewart’s anxious that she doesn’t get too distraught. We don’t yet fully understand her condition, but mentally she seems to be right on the edge, and we don’t want her suffering a stroke or any other kind of a seizure.’

‘Very well,’ said Jamila. ‘Perhaps you could call us again when she improves.’

Jerry and Jamila left Springfield hospital and drove through heavy traffic back to the station. On the way, Jamila prodded intently at her iPhone, and didn’t look up until they had to stop at the junction with Tooting Broadway.

While they waited for the traffic lights to change to green, Jerry said, ‘What do you think that was all about? All that fuss about a red light?’

‘I can’t even guess,’ said Jamila. ‘But she’s in such a peculiar psychological state, who can tell? What really disturbed me was everything that she was saying about her life in Lithuania. If she isn’t possessed by Varvara, how could she possibly know about that explosion at the fertiliser factory? I’ve just Googled it and it happened in 1989 exactly like she said.’

‘Blimey.’

‘Yes – it produced a cloud of ammonia gas seven kilometres wide and fifty kilometres long and seven people in the surrounding towns were killed. Hundreds of other people suffered from cardiac arrest and respiratory problems.’

‘Well, if it really is her, skip, that sort of fits in with what I was thinking about the red light. It could be that it’s infrared.’

‘I don’t follow you.’

‘She’s inside Mindy, isn’t she, and at the same time she’s inside Sophie Marshall, so she can be in two places at once, right? But maybe that means she can be in any number of places at once. Maybe she’s still inside her jacket, too. Dr Fuller’s sent the jacket to Lambeth Road for forensics, and one of the first things they’ll be doing there is putting it under an IR spectroscope.’

‘And you think that’s what she could see?’

‘I’m only guessing, but it could have been. And another thing – if she’s still inside that jacket, nobody else had better try it on. They might end up like Sophie and Mindy. The same could apply to that coat that Samira and Jamie were both wearing, and Laura Miller’s coat, and David Nelson’s sweater.’

‘Well, I doubt if anybody will try them on, but I’ll warn them all the same. I don’t have to explain the reason, do I?’

‘No, I suppose not,’ said Jerry, as they turned into the station car park. ‘But then again, we don’t really know the reason ourselves, do we?’