Ghost Writer(48)

I hesitated.

“You can set a different code when you use the safe again.”

I blushed. “It's not that. I used a word, and I had to work out the numbers.”

The safe had an alpha-numeric pad like a telephone. When you locked it, you keyed in a code and it would only open again with that code.

“Eight. Seven. Six, six. Five.”

He keyed the coded and the door opened. Inside were the diary and a little white bean-filled cat. Gravell solemnly passed both objects to me after closing the door.

“Spook,” I said, holding up the cat. I had to smile at his expression. He'd been hearing that name bandied about quite a bit lately.

He went back to the key pad and confirmed that spook was my code word.

“When Seamus went away to camp the first time. I sent a black dog named Boris with him. He was a leftover Halloween toy that I got on sale. I charged him up with kisses, a week's worth for the week my son would be away from home. Boris still goes away with him, it's a tradition. I guess Shay thought this was like going to camp for me because he gave me Spook before I left.”

“Charged up with kisses?”

I looked to see if he was laughing at me. Nope. That melting look wasn’t amusement.

“I have been assured that Spook has been charged with enough kisses to last to September.” I tucked the little cat under my comforter. “Getting back to what I was saying, I was about to introduce you to Lieutenant Minton.”

Minton, who had appeared at the end of the bed, gave me a ‘you must be crazy’ look.

“Are you telling me there's a ghost here?” Gravell’s eyes narrowed in disbelief.

“There is for me. I see him. Ghost or projection of my imagination, he's been haunting me since I discovered the journal.”

“You talk to the ghost? The ghost talks to you?”

“Sometimes I find myself talking to him when we're alone. Presumably he can hear me.”

Minton rolled his eyes.

“I can't hear him. I can only see him…and sometimes I see his memories.”

Gravell sipped his tea and said nothing.

“Minton gave me the heads up about the storm coming. Right now he's gesturing me to shut up before you have me carted away.”

Gravell smiled. “Where would I cart you?”

I returned a shadow of that smile. I was taking a big risk telling him about this. I hoped he appreciated the level of trust involved.

“Between the journal and the memories of Lieutenant Minton, I've been building a picture of what happened on the station before the murders.”

“We don't know it was murder,” Gravell reminded me.

I looked over at Minton who was rolling his eyes again. I’m pretty sure he’d picked up that mannerism from me.

“I know it was murder. If the samples weren't compromised, I think we already have some physical evidence. I doubt we'll ever have conclusive proof I'm right. I'll settle for being sure in my own mind what happened.”

“If I remember correctly, you told me that there was nothing in the journal that definitively explained what happened.”

I sighed and, it seemed to me, Minton heaved a sigh as well. “It's a journal, Chief Gravell, not an affidavit. It expresses Minton's observations of what was going on. By itself, the view is pretty skewed. When you found me in sick bay…” I hesitated. That was only a day ago, a little over twenty-four hours ago. Only two days since I had been trapped.

I shivered. “It wasn't food poisoning. Minton decided to give me a more visceral example of what he experienced on the station. I saw the world through his eyes, coloured by claustrophobia and altered perception of reality. It made me nauseous and dizzy and,” I paused, shuddering from the memory, “you saw the results.”

Gravell looked troubled. “He would have been rigorously tested before being assigned to that mission. How would he have passed the tests if he was that affected?”

“I think he learned to cope with it, to a certain extent.”

I looked for confirmation from Minton and he nodded.

“I was hit as hard as I was because it was all thrown at me at once the smells, the disorientation, vision tunnelling.” I took a deep breath. “Also, I think his behaviour was triggered by smell. I bet tests don't look for reactions in small spaces that stink. In his journals and the visions he's shared, smell is…” I sought out the right term and gave up. “Here, listen.”

I pulled out the book.

“He's talking about Margolo. He still likes Margolo at this point. ‘He's a great guy, but one day I'm going to strangle him, he's such a slob and his socks smell like rancid cheese.’ Bodily smells are bad enough, but smoke…” I found the place and read, “‘It gives me a sick headache to be around the smell of smoke and alcohol.’” I flipped back a couple of pages. “‘Mitch says that the men can smoke in the kitchen because of the fire controls and extra air filters. As a result, all the food tastes like tobacco.’ It was driving him crazy.”

“It was common for people to smoke just about anywhere, back then,” Gravell pointed out. “They didn't understand the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke.”

“They knew,” I snapped, suddenly angry. “They've known since the fifties that smoking was linked to lung disease and cancer. The dangers of second-hand smoke have been known for decades. I am sure they knew it wouldn't be healthy have people smoking in a closed system. It was unconscionable.”