Colm & the Ghost's Revenge (4 page)

T
he moment Kate Finkle opened the front door of her flat she knew something was wrong. It wasn't the torn newspapers on the floor, the blaring TV or the half-empty cans of cat food lying on their side on her threadbare two-seater couch; her flat was exactly as she had left it. No, what set off the alarm bells in her head was the fact that Mr Gilchrist, her favourite cat, didn't immediately leap from whichever corner he was hiding in and wrap himself around her ankles, as he did every single evening when she returned home.

Kate wasn't your average person. For one thing, she worked as an assistant to a private detective, the much disliked Cedric Murphy. For another, she was a large woman who took no pride in her appearance. Makeup, new clothes, dyeing her hair, none of these things meant anything to Kate. They took up too much time, time she would rather spend working or tending to her cats and goldfish (to be fair, the goldfish didn't need much minding, but the cats were a demanding lot). She loved being tall and heavy. It intimidated people and intimidating people was fun for Kate. Especially when someone was acting the fool. One glare from her and they'd shut up. She couldn't charm the birds from the trees, but she could certainly scare them off the branches.

She stepped over the empty crisp packets and into the living room just as the man who had been hiding behind the sofa stood up. He was thin and wiry and the scars on his face told of previous battles.

‘Prepare to die,' he said.

That was his first mistake. Kate Finkle grabbed him by the collar and lifted him into the air until his feet dangled six inches above the bright blue carpet. He kicked wildly against her shins, but if this bothered her, she didn't show it.

‘What have you done to my cats?' she roared. It wasn't the time for diplomacy.

The man took a swing at her, but Kate's reach was longer than his and his fist didn't even brush the tip of her nose. She slammed him against the living room wall and heard the air leave his body with a little whoomph sound.

‘Your cats are safe in the bathroom,' the man spluttered, wondering if his ribs were broken in two or three places.

‘Lucky for you. Who are you and what are you doing in my flat? I've got nothing that's worth robbing,' she said. This was true. Even the telly – a portable – was worth less than fifty euro and it was the most expensive item she owned.

‘I'm tellin' you nuthin',' the man replied.

Kate lifted him higher. His hair brushed against the ceiling.

‘Mammy,' the man whimpered.

Two thoughts went through his head simultaneously. The first was that Kate was far more frightening in person than in the photos he'd been given. The second was that he was glad he'd brought along two accomplices.

Kate sensed the men before she saw them. She swung around, the wiry man still in her ferocious grip. The thugs were standing on the far side of the living room, less than ten feet away. Both were huge, bald, ugly and dressed in black.

‘Hello boys. Aren't you great for dressing up like twins. You look really cute,' Kate sneered.

The slightly prettier of the two smiled, revealing a mouthful of broken, yellow, rotting teeth.

‘Whoa, they should put your picture on bars of chocolate as a warning. No kid would ever want to eat sweets again if they thought they'd end up looking like you.'

The men didn't say anything. They just took a step towards her. Uggo cracked his knuckles. Pretty Boy took out a police baton. Uh-oh, thought Kate, you had to antagonise them, didn't you. She tried to take a step backwards but the wall was blocking her way. Her options were limited.

‘Let me down,' said the man. He was still dangling in the air and had grown quite embarrassed about it. His accomplices would be mocking him about this one for months.

Kate sized up the situation. Three against one. She was good, but not that good. What would Cedric do in this situation, she wondered. There was only one thing for it.

‘Let me down. I won't ask you again,
Kate
,' the man said.

Calling her Kate was his second mistake.

Using her free hand she grabbed the wiry man by his belt buckle and hoisted him above her head in a move she'd seen Randy Orton use in a WWE match.

‘It's Miss Finkle to you, ya stick insect,' she shouted, flinging him at the thugs. He sailed through the air accompanied by a tiny yelp. The men swiftly moved out of the way, making no effort to catch their colleague. He landed face first in a dish of soggy day-old cat food.

Kate didn't wait to see what happened next. She turned and sprinted for the front door as quickly as she could. It wasn't quick enough.

Before her hand had reached the latch, the thugs were upon her. In less than three seconds she was unconscious.

‘I
n the name of all that's good and holy, what's that smell?' Colm's mother cried, flapping her hand furiously in front of her face.

Colm closed the front door, took off his shoes and popped his head round the kitchen door.

‘I think, Mary, that that insufferably awful stink is our one and only child,' his father replied.

‘Hi Ma. What's up, Da?' Colm asked in as cheery a voice as he could muster.

The journey home had been mortifying. The driver wouldn't allow him on the bus – ‘Janey, son, were ya showering in sewage or wha'?' – so he'd had to walk. A real walk of shame. Fellow pedestrians had given him a wide berth. Most had given him odd looks. More than a few had tried to be smart alecks – they'd made jokes about slurry and Stig of the Dump; one wag had told him to familiarise himself with a substance called soap that had existed for roughly five thousand years. A Yorkshire terrier had even sniffed at Colm's shoes, before running off into the distance leaving behind an auditory trail of high-pitched whimpering, possibly traumatised for life by the appalling stench. It wasn't Colm's finest hour.

‘What happened to you?' his dad asked, his face a mixture of concern and amusement.

‘I fell,' Colm replied.

His father arched an eyebrow. ‘It must have been a spectacular fall.'

Why did he have to say he fell? He was fed up with secrets and lies. He'd kept the events of
that
night from his parents. And his friends. He was lying to Mrs Dillon. It was getting too much for him. All it did was make him feel guilty.

‘Colm, your father's talking to you.'

‘Huh?' Colm snapped out of his daydream.

‘Don't say huh, say pardon,' his mother said.

‘Pardon?'

‘I said, we have to go to Maynooth at the weekend to collect a second-hand engine I found online.'

Ah yes, the engine for their little red car that had broken down. Again. Everyone else agreed it had broken down because it was fifteen years old, had over one hundred thousand miles on the clock (not bad for its age – Colm's dad wasn't much of a driver), and that its time was up. Everyone except Colm's father, that is.

‘I thought you said you hadn't the money to fix it,' Colm said.

His father had been unemployed until very recently. He had worked in a factory, but shortly after it had been bought by new owners it had suddenly been closed down, much to everyone's surprise. The following six months had been tough as money was very tight, but then, out of the blue, his dad had got a job as a night watchman in the newish shopping centre on the edge of the city, even though he'd never worked in security before.

Colm's father switched on the radio, which was, as always, tuned into some old geezer's station. An ancient song from the eighties or nineties squeaked through the tinny speakers and suddenly he grabbed his wife and began to twirl her around the kitchen. They weaved their way past the stools, their stockinged feet gliding silently over the faded lino.

It was at moments like this – moments which were far too frequent for his liking – that Colm wished he had a brother or sister. Just so there was someone to share the embarrassment with. He didn't mind seeing his parents happy, but this was taking it too far. Next thing they'd be … yep, there it was: the kiss. Not just a peck on the cheek or a quick smackeroo on the lips either. It was sloppy and wet and horrible.

I think I'm going to puke, Colm thought. ‘Uh, that's disgusting. You're all old and wrinkly. And … and … you're my parents. And you're kissing. Eeeurgh. Can you cut it out, please!'

They ignored him, so Colm focused his gaze on the kitchen clock which seemed to be ticking by slower than if he was stuck in a double Maths class.

‘What was that for?' his mam asked her husband when she finally came up for air.

‘I should have told you earlier, but I wanted to wait until we were all here. I've been promoted. Head of Security. I'll be in charge of the whole centre and responsible for twenty-two staff.'

‘Does it mean more money?'

‘A twenty-five percent pay rise,' his dad replied.

‘Weeeeaaaaaahhhhhh,' she screamed. She was trying to say three different things all at once and it came out like some kind of horrific wail, but the gist of it was that she was thrilled. When the screaming subsided the two of them began jumping around in circles and high-fiving each other.

‘C'mon, son,' his mam said, extending her hand for Colm to join in the celebrations.

‘Can't. Still all stinky,' Colm said, glad to have an excuse. ‘I'm going for a shower.'

Wheeeeee, they continued as he left the room. It didn't look like they were going to stop any time soon.

He felt better after the piping hot shower. Much better. And his odour was far less offensive to the nose. He was squeaky clean and fresh, and felt a lot more like himself. He got dressed in his fleece hoodie and his favourite pair of slightly faded jeans. It was good to be warm and cosy again. He put on his glasses, bringing the world back into focus, then stuffed his rotten clothes into the laundry basket for his mother to deal with later.

Back in his small room, he reached under the bed and pulled out the big black folder that held all his notes. He thumbed through the pages, occasionally taking one out and reading over it again. This was something he'd done hundreds of times now; he almost knew all the pages off by heart at this stage. Sometimes he thought he was probably the world's foremost expert on the Lazarus Keys. Well, him and Professor Peter Drake. Not that anyone cared, except for the occasional weirdo on a supernatural website.

He was distracted by the smell wafting up the stairs. A good smell this time – something frying. Something mouth-watering. His stomach reminded him of how hungry he was and he shoved the notes back in their folder and under the bed before racing downstairs, two steps at a time, skipping over the squeaky third step. His mother was by the cooker, humming to herself, but his dad had disappeared.

‘Take a seat, love,' she said without turning around.

Colm did as he was told. The kitchen table was laid out for one person. A fizzing glass of cola sat to the right of the knife and fork, alongside the salt, vinegar and ketchup.

‘I hope you're hungry,' his mother said as she carried the plate to the table. Double cheeseburger and chips. Homemade chips. This was a treat. The chips were thick, golden and crispy. The burgers were big and juicy, the bun filled with fried onions, two slices of melting cheese, beef tomatoes and crunchy iceberg lettuce. And there was a portion of curried beans on a side plate. He hadn't had a meal like this in ages, not since his dad was working overtime at the factory. Then it hit him. It was a bribe of some sort. It had to be.

‘Why are you being nice to me?' he asked.

‘What? I'm always nice to you.'

Colm raised an eyebrow.

‘All right. It's because we're celebrating your father's promotion. Is that a bad thing?'

‘No. Sorry, Ma. I just …'

‘You're grand, Colm. Just eat up.'

He tucked in. Her cheeseburger and chips was even tastier than he remembered. It took all of his willpower not to wolf the entire lot down in one go. Boy, it was delicious. He stuffed seven chips into his mouth. It was one too many and one of the smaller ones popped back out and landed on his plate, a little soggier than it had started out.

‘Glad to see you're enjoying it,' she said, tousling his hair.

It was the tousling of his hair that confirmed his suspicions. His mam was always giving out to him for stuffing too much food into his mouth at once. He should have been rewarded with a smack across the back of the head, not a sign of affection. She was up to something all right.

‘Ma?'

‘Hmmm?'

‘Did you know about Dad getting the promotion before me?'

‘No, Colm. He wanted us both to find out at the same time. Don't you remember him saying that?'

‘Yeah.'

He paused for a moment. His mother's moods had been a bit changeable recently and he didn't want to say the wrong thing and set her off. Especially when he hadn't finished his dinner. There was a possibility that she could throw it in the bin. Still, he had to say what was on his mind.

‘You just cooked my favourite meal, but you didn't have to go to the shop to get the ingredients. That means you had them already,' he said.

‘So what?'

‘It's my
favourite meal
. Why would you have been cooking this for me when you didn't know we had something to celebrate?'

His mother looked as if she was holding back a swear word.

‘And why am I eating alone? Why aren't you having something?' Colm continued.

‘A mother can't be nice to her son without him getting all suspicious? What kind of world are we living in? You've hurt my feelings now,' his mother replied, turning away. She sniffed, then wiped her eye with the knuckle of her index finger, as if she was brushing away a tear.

‘Too much, Ma,' Colm said.

‘What?' his mother said.

‘Pretending to cry. Really? Come on, you don't cry over stuff like that.'

‘OK, you caught me,' she sighed. ‘I need a favour.'

She wasn't telling him he had to do something. She was asking a favour. This was dangerous territory. Colm knew he had to be careful. His mother could be cleverer than a fox with a Harvard degree when it came to things like this.

‘What is it?'

‘Nothing much. Just a little thing.'

‘Ma?'

‘Your dad's gone to work. Night shift.'

‘Yeah.'

‘But I'd already made plans to go over to Lisa's.'

‘Oh. That's it? That's OK. I don't mind hanging out here by myself.'

‘Nope. I trust you, but you're not staying at home on your own.'

Colm's mind flicked through the pages of the book of possibilities. What could she mean? Surely, she wouldn't get somebody to babysit him? Not at his age. That'd be embarrassing. Rachel did all the babysitting around the estate and she was only fourteen. Not even a full two years older than him.

‘There's a party,' his mother said.

‘What? A party? Lisa's having a party?' Then it hit him. His fork clattered to the floor. ‘Oh no. No way.'

‘You don't even know what I'm talking about yet.'

‘I know exactly what you're talking about. Is it a birthday party?'

She nodded.

‘A birthday party for a boy on the other side of the estate?'

She nodded again.

‘You want me to go to Ziggy's party?' He shook his head vigorously enough to cause a slight dizzy spell. ‘Not a hope, Ma.'

‘Colm …'

‘No, I'm not going and there's nothing you can do about it.'

Of course there was plenty she could do about it. She could withhold affection, food, pocket money; give him nothing but unfashionable clothes to wear; make him do all the cleaning and tidying in the house. And that was just for starters. Let's face it, he was twelve years old and entirely dependent on her for everything. Well, wait until you're old and you need someone to push you around in a wheelchair, Colm thought. We'll see how you like it when I'm in charge.

‘Just tell me why I have to go,' he said in the end. He was too tired to argue or run up to his room and sulk. It had been a very long day.

‘It'll do you good,' she said.

He knew she wanted to say more and he knew what that was too. She'd been worried about him. Worried that he was spending so much time on his own, that since the night at the Red House Hotel he'd lost the few friends he'd once had. She thought it had something to do with his dad being on the dole or that he was going through some sort of pre-teenage mood swings. She hadn't a clue what the real reason was.

‘Ma, Ziggy's a dope and there's no way I'm going to his party. No matter what you say or what you do, I'm staying here.'

‘Colm,' his mother said in the icy tone she reserved for moments like this.

‘Right. What time am I supposed to be there?' he asked, caving in immediately.