Free Whispers of the Dead by Simon Beckett Page B

town not far from Gatlinburg, perhaps
twenty miles from where the body had been found in the mountain
cabin. 'That's good, isn't it?'
'You'd think so,' he agreed. 'They found several other of Dexter's
fingerprints at the cabin, as well. One of them on a week-old credit
card receipt found in Loomis's wallet.'
All of which suggested that Terry Loomis was the victim and
Willis Dexter his killer. But there was something odd about Tom's
manner that told me it wasn't that simple. 'So is he in custody?'
Tom took off his glasses and wiped them on a tissue, a quizzical
smile playing round his mouth. 'Well, that's the thing. It appears
Willis Dexter was killed in a car crash six months ago.'
'That can't be right,' I said. Either the fingerprints couldn't be his
or the wrong name must have been put on the death certificate.
'Doesn't seem so, does it?' Tom put his glasses back on.'That's why
we're exhuming his grave first thing tomorrow.'
    You're nine when you see your first dead body. You're dressed in your Sunday
clothes and ushered into a room where wooden chairs have been set outfacing
a shiny casket that stands at the front. It's balanced on trestles covered with
worn black velvet. A piece of blood-red braiding has come loose on one
corner. You're distracted by how it's curled up into an almost perfect figure
eight, so that you're almost up to the casket before you think to look
inside.
Your grandfather's lying in it. He looks . . . different. His face seems waxy,
somehow, and his cheeks have a sunken look, like they do when he forgets to
put in his teeth. His eyes are shut, but there's even something not quite right
about them, too.
You stop dead, feeling a familiar pressure in your chest. A hand presses into
your back, propelling you forward.
'Go on now, take a look.'
You recognize the voice of your aunt. But you didn't need any urging to
go nearer. You sniff, earning a swift cuff on the head.
'Handkerchief!' your aunt hisses. For once, though, you weren't clearing
your nose of its almost permanent drip. Only trying to discern what other
odours might be masked beneath the perfume and scented candles.
'Why're his eyes shut?' you ask.
'Because he's with the Lord,' your aunt says. 'Don't he look peaceful? Just
like he's asleep.'
But he doesn't look asleep to you. What's in the casket looks like it's never
been alive. You stare at it, trying to see exactly what's different, until you're
steered firmly away.
Over the next few years the memory of your grandfather's corpse never fails
to bring with it the same sense of puzzlement, the same tightness in your
chest. It's one of your seminal memories. But it isn't until you're seventeen
that you encounter the event which changes your life.
You're sitting on a bench, reading during your lunch break. The book is a
translation of St Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae you stole from the
library. It's heavy going and naive, of course, but there's some interesting stuff
in it. 'The existence of something and its essence are separate.' You like that,
almost as much as you liked Kierkegaard's assertion that 'death is the light
in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent'. All the
theologians or philosophers you've read contradict each other, and none of
them have any real answers. But they're closer to the mark than the
sophomore posturings of Camus and Sartre, who hide their ignorance behind
a mask of fiction. You've outgrown them already, just as you're already on
your way to outgrowing Aquinas and the rest. In fact you're beginning to
think you won't find the answer in any book. But what else is there?
There've been whisperings at home lately about where the money's coming
from to send you to college. It doesn't bother you. It'll come from somewhere.
You've known for years that you're special, that you're destined for greatness.
It's meant to be.
You chew and swallow the packed sandwiches mechanically as you read,