Colm & the Ghost's Revenge (6 page)

C
edric Murphy, the private detective, sighed as he ripped open the white envelope. Another bill. He took a look at the figure at the bottom of the page. He owed them how much? He felt like he'd been punched in the gut by a man with rocks for fists. He crumpled up the paper and threw it across the room where it bounced once before rolling gently into the pile of sixteen other scrunched-up bills that sat beside the wastepaper basket. Murphy's cramped flat now doubled as his office and the neatness and orderliness that had once been an important part of his life were long gone.

He took a slice of cold pizza from the takeaway box and wondered if it was safe to eat. It hadn't been in the fridge since he'd bought it the previous night and the two dead flies stuck in the congealed cheese made it a little unappealing. He picked them out and wolfed down the pizza before thoughts of bacteria, gut-wrenching illnesses and days spent on the toilet had fully formed in his barely awake brain. Cedric's head hurt, his hair was a mess and he hadn't slept in almost three days. He wasn't even sure if it was morning or night and he couldn't summon up enough energy to open the curtains and find out. He scratched his enormous belly, broke wind, then frowned as he caught his reflection in the mirror. Was that really him? He wondered how he had let himself get so out of shape.

Eighteen months ago, when the rat-faced little man had engaged his services for the oddest case in all his years of detective work, Cedric had been so frightened he'd promised himself that if he got out of the situation alive he'd go on a major diet. He had too. For a while. Green tea and porridge for breakfast. Cabbage soup for lunch. Brown rice and vegetables for dinner. It was vile. He'd lost weight, plenty of it, but he was always hungry. Always. Thin people didn't really know what true hunger was, he thought. It gnawed at you constantly. Your stomach growled, begging to be fed a tasty morsel, preferably something made from fat or sugar. He was almost at the point where he was imagining other people as steaks or hamburgers like they did in cartoons.

And the headaches. No one had told him about the headaches he'd get when he began dieting. It was as if Woody Woodpecker had taken up residence in his skull and invited all of his raucous woodpecker friends around for a wild house party.

Sure, Cedric looked better, felt better too eventually, but there was always a tiny voice in his head telling him to have one teensy little biscuit. And a slightly larger voice in his office telling him to eat one too. His assistant, Kate Finkle, was constantly nagging him to eat, eat, eat. Not because she didn't want him to be slim – secretly, she found him rather attractive that way – but because when he was dieting he was the crabbiest, most contrary man on the planet.

They had always bickered and both had enjoyed it, but when he lost the weight Cedric had become downright obnoxious. If someone said black, Cedric wouldn't just say white, he'd say, ‘Shut your mouth or I'll wipe that stupid look off your pig-ugly face. Moron.' He was ruder than he'd ever been and he wasn't someone who'd ever been known for his good manners and sociable ways.

There was a low point which convinced Cedric that dieting wasn't for him. Someone had cut in front of him in a supermarket queue and he'd lost it. He'd been overcome by a complete Berserker fury. He'd roared and shouted at the woman who'd skipped ahead before finally emptying an entire carton of buttermilk over her head. Buttermilk didn't flow easily and it took a good thirty seconds for the carton to empty over the nun. She didn't like having to wipe it from her eyes or the front of her jumper and Cedric had to make a large donation to a convent school to avoid getting in further trouble for that one.

That was when he'd decided to start eating properly again. And now he couldn't stop. It's not my fault, he told himself. Business had been bad for the last year. Actually, bad was a bit on the optimistic side. Atrocious was more accurate. At first he'd thought it was due to the recession – people weren't that concerned about what their wives or husbands or employees were up to when they were worried about their jobs and homes. But the recession should have only caused a small loss of business. This was different. It was a catastrophic collapse. One minute he'd been bobbing along nicely, fewer clients, but still enough to pay the bills, next minute, boom. Nothing. Not one client. Not a single person had walked through the door in the last six months. The bills had piled up, the bank savings had dried up and Cedric knew that this week he was going to have to tell Kate Finkle she didn't have a job any more. She would no longer be his assistant. Poor Kate. That job was her life. He wondered how she'd take the news. Probably by breaking my nose, he thought.

Of course, being a detective, he'd tried to discover the cause of this loss of business. He'd found it too. A new detective agency had opened up. A rival. Just around the corner. And they only charged one-tenth of the price. Now, even those who don't know much about business could see that that just didn't add up. No detective firm could charge so little and hope to stay in business. And there wasn't enough room in Dublin for very many detective agencies as it was, never mind two in the same area. No, he was sure that the only reason they were doing it was because they hoped to drive him out of business and as soon as he closed down they'd up their prices. It was an old business trick and, as far as Cedric was concerned, an extremely sneaky one.

He thought it would be best for the owner of the new business and him to have a nice little chat, man to man. Then, when the chat was over, he'd threaten his rival. His plan was that they'd be so scared they'd immediately close down and then everything would go back to normal.

It hadn't gone exactly as he'd hoped. Not even close. He'd called to their office, ready to speak to whomever was in charge. He'd even had a speech prepared. He'd opened the door to The Ark Security Agency and announced to the receptionist, ‘I'm Cedric Murphy.' Four seconds later a muscle-bound ape in a tight black t-shirt had picked him up, carried him out of the office and thrown him down the stairs. He'd had better meetings, but it was a mark of Cedric Murphy's character that he'd had worse too.

Going back to see them a second time would have been foolish and stubborn, adjectives which most people who knew him would use in a description of Cedric. So he did go back. This time he received a few digs and elbows before he was thrown down the stairs.

On his third visit, he was met by two goons with guns. Cedric Murphy didn't mind getting a few punches or kicks. They came with the territory. And bruises faded, broken bones healed. Bullets though? He had a problem with bullets. Especially ones that could cause him to suffer a severe case of death. He smiled his most charming smile.

‘Don't worry about it, lads,' he'd said. ‘I'll save you the trouble.'

He threw himself down the stairs.

As he lay in a crumpled heap, his leg twisted in a way likely to induce a fit of vomiting in anyone who saw it, Cedric realised that he was going to have to try a different approach if he was going to save his business. He also realised, as the blinding pain surged through his ankle, that he'd really begun to loathe the inventor of stairs.

The Ark Security Agency then stepped up their attack on his business. They weren't subtle. They posted a man in the hall that led to Cedric's office. Any time one of Cedric's potential clients arrived to unveil their tale of woe they found themselves confronted by a man who'd politely hand them a card for The Ark and explain that their prices were ninety percent cheaper than Cedric's and their offices were nicer, cleaner and only around the corner. And you'd get a free coffee and a doughnut even if you decided not to avail of their services. The free coffee and doughnut swung it for most people.

Those clients of Cedric's who decided to remain loyal to him were dealt with less politely. Let's just say they didn't make it to his office. The employees of The Ark began to intercept Cedric's phone calls and emails and told the people who rang or mailed that they couldn't trust a detective who allowed himself to be monitored in such a manner. And one by one the clients left, until he had none.

Cedric grabbed an ice-cold can of cola from the fridge, slumped onto the couch and gulped it down. It felt good and gave his brain the kick-start it needed. He had no clients, no proper office, very little money and a car that was in dire need of a service. Was he going to lie back on his couch and watch episodes of sitcoms he'd seen a million times already or was he going to get off his ass and do some work? He had to admit the sitcom idea was a tempting one. It would offer a temporary escape from his troubles, but when he turned off the TV later the troubles would still be there waiting for him. No, he had to fight back. He looked at the sheets of data lying on the table. Facts and figures about The Ark. He hated paperwork. It was useful and possibly the most important part of his job, but he hadn't become a detective to spend his time sitting around an office. He needed to be Out There. In the world.

The little black gadget in his pocket beeped once. He took it out, looked at the screen and allowed himself the tiniest of smiles.

Yesterday, while the man who was guarding his stairs had thought Cedric was in his new ‘office', he'd actually been attaching a tracking device to the man's car.

They were on the move. If they were up to something he'd find out by following them. He put on a shirt, gobbled another slice of pizza and pocketed his car keys.

‘You have no idea who you're dealing with, boys,' he said to himself, puffing out his chest in pride.

The problem for Cedric was that he had no idea who he was dealing with either. If he had, he'd have just gone back to bed and hidden under the covers.

‘I
t's nearly Hallowe'en, dudes,' Ziggy began.

‘Are we going to bob for apples? 'Cos I can't do that. It'll ruin my make-up,' Amy said. She was the most popular girl in Colm's class. She thought she was far more beautiful than she actually was and most of the time she acted as if anyone who spoke to her was lucky to be allowed to share the same air.

‘No,' Ziggy sighed. ‘We're not going to bob for apples. I just said we were going to tell ghost stories.'

‘I wasn't listening,' Amy admitted. She had been checking her reflection in a glass cabinet.

‘Nothing too scary, I hope,' Stephanie said.

Scary is kind of the point of a ghost story, Colm thought.

‘The gruesomer the better,' Iano said, desperately hoping his bravery would somehow impress Amy. ‘Lots of blood and gore and murder and stuff.'

‘Eeeeeewwww. Stop,' Stephanie cried.

Colm glanced at his watch, which he noticed was still streaked with dried-up sour milk. How much longer before he could leave without it being considered rude? Twenty minutes?

‘I'll start,' Ziggy said.

He moved to the centre of the room. The candle flame cast shadows on his face. He lowered his voice until it was almost a whisper. People leaned in closer to hear him.

‘OK,' he began. ‘This story is true, right. It happened to my cousin's best friend's brother a couple of years ago.'

When he was sure he had everyone's complete attention, he continued.

‘It was a dark and stormy night and … Johnny was driving home from the cinema with his girlfriend. He was tired and he wasn't paying attention to the road. He ended up taking a wrong turn onto a country lane. Full of potholes and cow dung and stuff like that. He realised they'd gone wrong, so he decided to turn back. But the road was really narrow and he couldn't find a place to swing the car round, so he started turning left and right and back and forward and long story short …'

‘Not that short,' Iano whispered.

‘They got stuck,' Ziggy continued. ‘Now, all this time his girlfriend was moaning at him: “You're a muppet, Johnny”, stuff like that. Johnny got annoyed and pressed his foot too hard on the accelerator. The car shot forward and rammed into a ditch. No matter what he did they couldn't get it out. They were trapped.'

‘Why didn't they just ring their parents or the AA?' Amy said.

‘Ahm, there was no mobile reception in the area, so they couldn't use their phones,' he said, thinking on his feet. ‘Anyway, they sat there for ages and it got darker and darker, stormier and stormier, creepier and creepier. Next thing they heard a sound on the other side of the ditch. A strange metally sound.'

‘How did they hear the sound if it was so loud and stormy?' a guy called Peter asked.

‘They just did, right,' Ziggy said, getting a little hot under the collar. What was wrong with these people? Couldn't they just listen to him? ‘Oh, wait. I forgot a bit – they turned on the radio while they were waiting and they heard that a killer was on the loose. In the very area they were just after driving to.'

‘How did they know what area that was if they'd taken a wrong turn?' Amy asked.

‘I …'

‘Aw, man, I know this story,' Iano said before the host could offer yet another explanation. ‘It's
The Hook
. Everybody knows it.'

Stephanie hadn't heard it before, but she was glad she didn't have to hear it now. Her hands had been trembling ever since Ziggy had switched off the light.

Ziggy's face had turned a colour a professional painter might describe as Scarlet Lake. In other words, quite red. ‘Right,' he said. ‘I've got another one.'

But that didn't work either. It turned out that Iano had heard nearly every ghost story ever told:
The Woman Hitchhiker
;
The Man Upstairs
;
The African Mask
;
The White Dog
. It almost drove Ziggy mad. He'd spent ages looking up stories on the Internet. He was going to pretend that they had all happened to people he knew, just to make them scarier, but none of that mattered now. Iano was ruining it, just so he could look good in front of Amy.

What a twonk.

‘Well why don't you tell a story so, since you seem to know everything there is to know about ghosts,' he spluttered angrily after Iano had once again ruined the ending.

‘I'm not a storyteller, man. I'm an athlete,' said Iano, flexing his weedy muscles, which caused Amy to explode with laughter. Cola shot from her nose and onto Ziggy's favourite shirt.

‘Anyone else got a story? A true story?' he asked, wiping the snot-fizz from his chest and desperately trying to hold on to his temper. If he gave out to Amy, Iano would definitely have the upper hand with her. They'd probably end up dating, and even though Iano and Ziggy were supposed to be best friends, the last thing Ziggy wanted was for Iano to end up with the girl he fancied.

Stephanie looked in Colm's direction.

‘What are you looking at
him
for?' Ziggy exploded. ‘He's the most boring kid that ever lived. Five seconds in my world is more interesting than his whole life.'

‘She can look at me if she wants,' Colm said. He was trying to stand up for Stephanie, but she didn't take it that way.

‘I wasn't looking at you, weirdo,' she said. ‘As if.'

‘Yeah, seriously, Colm. No offence, but who'd look twice at you?' Amy said. She would have been surprised to know that Colm actually was offended.

‘That
was
a stupid thing to say, Big C,' Iano added.

Colm wasn't going to take the bait and make some sarcastic remark, no matter how much they got under his skin. He was just going to get up, walk out of the room, go home and have a big bowl of cereal and watch whatever programme happened to be on the National Geographic channel. As he got to his feet, Ziggy stood up too.

‘Where do you think you're going?' he asked.

‘I'm going home,' Colm replied, heading towards the door.

‘That's rude.'

‘What?'

‘Leaving my party before it's finished. Shows you've got no class. Shouldn't have expected any more of you anyway. You always wander around acting like you're better than all of us,' said Ziggy.

‘You don't want me here,' Colm said calmly. ‘I don't want to be here. It suits both of us if I leave.'

‘What? I don't want you here, that's true. But you're lying when you say you don't want to be here. This is the coolest party ever. You were lucky to be invited. Nobody wanted you to come, you know,' Ziggy said, his voice getting a little higher with each passing sentence.

‘I know nobody wants me here. And now I'm going.'

‘Nobody leaves my party until I say they leave,' Ziggy squeaked.

That was it for Colm. He was sick of all of them. He was exhausted from keeping secrets and telling lies. He just wanted his life to be normal again. Something popped in his brain. It was the part of him that always remained polite. It was as if it was saying: I'm outta here, buddy, do whatever you like, say what you gotta say.

So Colm did.

‘You know what? I hate your party. You lot think you're so fantastic, but all you ever do is judge other people, moan about haircuts and clothes, and sit around watching movies.'

‘What makes you think you're so cool?' Iano sneered.

‘'Cos you're not. Far from it,' Amy added.

‘I know I'm not cool, but so what? I'd rather be me than waste my time trying to impress someone so stupid that when our Maths test had a question asking us to “find x” he put a circle around it and wrote “there it is”.'

‘Anyone could have made that mistake,' Ziggy said defensively.

‘And you can't even tell a simple scary story without getting it all wrong,' Colm continued.

‘I suppose you could,' Amy said.

‘Yes, I could, actually,' Colm said. ‘And it'd be true too. None of this my mother's brother's friend's cousin's gardener stuff. It really happened to me.'

‘What frightening story could you have? The day you wet your nappy?' Ziggy sneered.

‘Yeah, and it was only two weeks ago,' Iano said to peals of laughter.

‘The time the teacher got cross with him for forgetting his homework? That was really scary, wasn't it, Colin?' Stephanie said.

‘It's real and it's terrifying and my name is Colm,' he shouted.

There was a sharp intake of breath from the entire group, followed by a deathly silence.

‘Oooh, Mr Touchy,' someone whispered.

Colm could hardly believe what he was doing. Was he really going to tell them the truth he'd kept hidden from everyone for so long? The truth that had given him nightmares. The truth that had changed him, turned him into a different person.

Maybe it'd do him some good to get it off his chest. They all hated him anyway; they all thought he was a loser. It wasn't as if they were going to think less of him. He could hardly sink lower in their estimation.

They stared at him, with none of the hostility he'd expected. A sea of blank faces.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Not a single one.

He couldn't tell them about that night. He just couldn't do it. Life at school was bad enough as it was with them just thinking he was a bit odd. If he started going on about supernatural events and zombies and cursed books … no, the secret would have to stay with him. Colm's heart sank. Why had he said he was going to tell them a horror story? He'd have to make one up now. What could he tell them? Nothing came to mind. When he'd stood there for thirty silent seconds, mouth open, but nothing coming out, they began to snigger.

‘See, I told you he was an eejit,' Ziggy said to a boy who hadn't spoken during the entire time Colm had been at the party.

There wasn't any good explanation he could give them, no reason for standing there like a twonk, so Colm simply left the living room with the sound of harsh laughter echoing in his ears. He opened the front door and escaped into the night, gently pulling the door shut behind him. He was glad the estate was quiet for once. He didn't want to see anybody right now. He steadied himself on the front wall of Ziggy's house and took a deep gulp of cold air. His knees buckled. I almost told them, he said to himself. What had he been thinking?

Wrapped up in his thoughts, he failed to notice the dark figure watching him from beneath the solitary tree on the edge of the green as he began his walk home. Or the bounty hunter who'd been tracking his progress all evening. It wasn't as quiet out there as he thought it was. Far from it.

A big yellow moon hung over the estate. Colm picked up the pace, trying to warm up. A rattling sound carried through the air like a whisper. He paused for a moment. Had he heard something? He was sure he had. He just didn't know what it was. He considered looking around, but he wasn't that far from his house. There were some dodgy characters living around here. People you didn't want to get on the wrong side of, or any side of for that matter. He wished he hadn't left Ziggy's so suddenly. His mother would kill him if she knew he was out on his own after dark, even so close to home.

He quickened his step until he was moving like a speed walker and in less than a minute he was home. He unlocked the front door, went in and shut the night outside where it belonged. Tomorrow'll be better, he said to himself. It had to be.

Boy, was he wrong.