The Ghost’s Story (unpublished)

I started work on a new book called The Ghost’s Story in 2017. Sadly, it’s never seen the light of day, although many of the characters are in A Necessary Murder which was published in 2020. This is the story of The Ghost’s Story.

I wanted to write a whodunnit but didn’t want to have a detective or any police investigation as that’s been done to death. I started with the simple idea of a murder being investigated by the ghost of the man who was murdered. It seemed like a workable idea – I wanted to write something different from the Barclay & MacDonald books as I felt their story had been told. Over that summer I had all my main characters worked out, a plot that had enough twists and turns to captivate the reader and even a cover image for Jen to work with. It was looking good.

But when it came to the writing I started to get seriously sidetracked. The first draft proved problematic as I struggled to pull together a complex series of events in a structure that flashed backwards and forwards in time, visiting characters at different points in their lives to slowly reveal what had led to the murder. I was trying to write something along the lines of The Time Traveler’s Wife, one of my favourite books, and I naively thought that, as my ghost was also not going to be confined by the convention of time or place, my book could be similarly structured. It would be a puzzle that the readers would have to solve for themselves – I would just give them the pieces.

By the end of the first draft, I had close to 500 pages but it was awful. All first drafts are messy and rough, but this one I couldn’t see ever working out. I started to unpick what I’d written and put it into a more conventional narrative structure but that didn’t work either, and the supernatural element of a ‘ghost’ suddenly felt childish and inappropriate for telling the story of the child’s murder that was at the heart of the story. What is more, if the story made me confused and uncomfortable, how would future readers react?

I didn’t complete my second draft - I was working on page 360 when i called it a day. It was the longest work I’d ever attempted and it was destined for the bin. God, I hate writing at times.

The Ghost’s Story Synopsis

The Ghost’s Story chronicles the death and life of journalist Adam Graves. It begins with his murder in a brutal hit-and-run incident that leaves the police baffled, but although Adam may be dead, his spirit finds that it cannot rest in peace until it solves the mystery of who killed him and why. 

As his body is laid to rest, Adam’s troubled ghost travels through his recent past, revisiting the events that led to his murder. It witnesses again the disappearance of 15-year-old Alison, his brother Jack’s daughter. Jack is distraught and is comforted by Adam’s wife Jo, but Adam himself appears to be nonchalant about the disappearance (he’s never liked the girl much). 

Initially the police believe that Alison has run away to her estranged mother Carol but the disappearance takes a more serious turn once the police find that Carol actually died three years previously. The police fear it’s similar to another case where a local teenager, Nina Salmon, was found dead shortly after disappearing – the media has a field day and there’s an extensive and very public hunt for Alison which proves unproductive.

The police question Adam and his brother Jack extensively about her disappearance. Adam’s ghost learns that Jack’s account of events is inconsistent and implicates Adam. Adam is arrested but not charged, as after questioning there is insufficient evidence. The police enquiry stumbles along inconclusively and grinds to a halt, and the press loses interest with the lack of any apparent progress.

At the insistence of his wife Jo and in an attempt to clear his own name of suspicion, Adam decides to pursue his own investigation, hoping also that this may also be a story to resurrect his own ailing career as a journalist. He talks to Mick, a police friend of the brothers who is working on the Nina Salmon case and finds that the police think that a local criminal gang is involved but that political considerations are stalling the investigation. 

Unprepared and naïve, Adam investigates the gang but when he confronts gang boss Jakob he is abducted, threatened and his wrist is broken as a warning to back off. 

Meanwhile there is a breakthrough in the police investigation: the shirt Alison was wearing when she went missing is found during a search of Jakob’s properties. He is arrested and a case is prepared. Then Alison’s body washes ashore.

Adam’s exclusive story goes national when it rekindles the interest in the unsolved Salmon murder and other disappearances. But the suggestion of Jakob’s involvement may be sensational but it is also tenuous. In a drunken celebration, Jack and Mick boast to Adam that the shirt wasn’t Alison’s but a similar one found in a charity shop, planted by Mick to frame the gang for the abduction. Adam is shocked but promises to keep the deception alive so that the prosecution of Jakob can continue.

But the case against Jakob is too weak and never makes court. Jakob is released and threatens Adam again. Mick goes missing. The ghost sees more than was apparent at the time, and realises that it really was Alison’s actual shirt, not a copy. The ghost learns that Jack killed Alison and disposed of her body then found the shirt in his laundry and used it to frame someone else for the crime. Jakob’s gang was actually innocent of the abduction.

Adam is oblivious to this and, encouraged by Jack, goes into hiding, fearful of Jakob after parts of Mick’s body are washed ashore. Adam has a plan – they (posthumously) frame Mick for Alison’s murder, but whilst out running Jack runs him down, believing that it is just a matter of time before his brother works everything out for himself. Adam’s ghost, now aware of the truth, manages to manifest itself in a brilliant flash of light, blinding Jack as the car hits Adam, killing both brothers and allowing the ghost of Adam Graves to finally rest in peace.