he was shaking.
Then he decided that, tonight of all nights, that a whisky would be justified.
Once he had poured it he sat down again, sipping it slowly, trying to sort out his thoughts. Was this it then, was this insanity? Was this how it felt?
Should he call someone? Probably. Was he going to? No, the prospect of admitting to going crazy was not a welcome one. Mental illness. Not something that looked great on a CV. What would they do, would they commit him?
He wasn't exactly sure what she was but that was one thing he was absolutely sure about; Dan didn’t want to be committed. Sure, he obviously needed help but that was far too drastic a step. Wasn't it? He had had an uncle who was sectioned, then committed. It took him years to get free of it, to convince the authorities that he safe. His uncle had never really got over it. He had previously held down a directorship at an engineering works but afterwards no one would give him a job, even a chance of a job. He ended his days as a gardener, literally scraping a living.
Dan didn't want to risk that; the stigma of mental illness was too strong. After all, he was functioning wasn’t he?
He laughed.
Yeah he was functioning. He was functioning so well he was seeing dead girls.
No not seeing. Not just seeing; talking to dead girls. More than that in fact, having a two way conversations with them.
Well not them. Just one.
Just one. Well that made it all right then, didn’t it?
She was in his head. She had to be, didn’t she? Well what was the alternative? A ghost? Dan didn’t believe in ghosts or anything like that.
But he did believe in Tess. She seemed so real. Tess was more real than almost anyone in his life at the moment.
He laughed out loud at that thought but then, abruptly stopped. Laughing out loud at thoughts would definitely get him committed.
But she was so real.
He stared at the spot where she had been sitting. He thought about what she had said, about the blanks, about being ignored, about being scared.
Feeling only slightly self-conscious he said; ‘Tess, I can’t see or hear you but…if you’re there I’m here for you.’
Yes, he thought, that was better. Now he was talking to imaginary girls who weren’t there too.
So what to do? He decided that maybe he could go and talk to someone if this kept happening. Nothing could be done now. The best thing was to carry on as normal and just accept whatever his mind served up for him. He needed to occupy himself, not brood. The best thing was to get on with things, like his application.
He gave it his best shot over the next ten minutes but he knew it was no good. He just couldn’t concentrate on it.
He found himself back on Google, running the same search as he had run the previous night but this time delving deeper, reading around, reading the other articles published at the time of the murder and the follow-up ones published over the next few weeks and months.
He learned a lot.
He learned that the murder was particularly shocking. Tess was a respected professional, a young solicitor with a very bright future. She also seemed to be genuinely nice; OK when someone died, even if they were the world’s biggest bastard people found something nice to say about them because that was the done thing but the outpouring of grief and shock seemed totally genuine; Tess didn’t seem to have an enemy in the world. Her friends, work colleagues and family were in shock both straight after the murder and long afterwards. The story was long lasting, there were a number of follow-up articles in the local papers, at least one of which had been taken up by the nationals. Dan now had a vague memory of it; it was about the time when he was still in London doing agency work and hating every moment of it. He was surprised anything had stuck; he wasn’t really interested in anything at the time.
It was also shocking how little progress had been made in finding the killer. Tess had been killed in her own flat only minutes after coming off a long call with her sister. There was no sign of a forced entry, no fingerprints, no murder weapon, no DNA left at the scene. There was speculation that Tess had known her killer and had let