The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (13 page)

  
“Shall we kick him downstairs?” Dee asked.

  
“I’ve got to caution him, do all the legal stuff. Do you two want to go
downstairs and get out of this place?”

  
“Can I have my laces back when you’ve cuffed him?”

  
“No, actually we’ll need those for the investigation. But I’ll send someone to
fetch you new ones.”

  
The rest of the afternoon proceeded smoothly: Dee and Joe gave statements,
Stuart was taken away, everything was examined, and the police focus was on
Stuart’s house. This allowed Dee and Joe to leave, where they parked up at
Dee’s and found Pohl and Nazir waiting for them.

  
They went inside, got everyone an alcoholic drink, and the new pair were
debriefed on the day’s activities.

  
“So what happened after you’d got him tied up?” Pohl asked.

  
“We spoke to Nathan,” Dee explained, “who was very pleased his brother was
going to end up in a prison and targeted by all the other bastards who think
they have the moral high ground.”

  
“Excellent. Does that mean he told you where the payment was?”

  
“Ah.”

  
“Ah?” Nazir replied to Dee.

  
“There is no payment,” Joe confessed, “Nathan made it up to get us involved.”

  
“Fucking ghosts,” Nazir sighed.

  
“However,” and Dee leant forward, “there is some good news.”

  
“Oh?”

  
“He feels that as his business here is concluded, he’s going to be able to
leave the house. Which means it’s clear of ghosts.”

  
Pohl saw how Dee was grinning. “You’re going to buy it aren’t you.”

  
“And at a sweet knocked down price, oh yes. The new trustees of Tompkins’
estate are bound to want to shift it.”

  
It took a few weeks, but Dee was able to push through a purchase, and for the
price she wanted, having correctly deduced that being the home of a murder and
the site of an arrest would do to the price what Grell had done to the police.
That was why the four members of the group gathered there one Saturday morning
to move both Dee and Pohl in.

  
Dee had hired a large van, and over several journeys they packed up, loaded,
unloaded and more or less dumped all Dee’s worldly goods in the new house.
Pohl, on the other hand, had just bought a car load of selected items and left
her flat in Cambridge in mothballs. Well, mothballs which were cleaned once a
week by the staff.

  
But despite the differences in the size of their possessions, both had a lot of
books.

  
“Forget charging ghosts,” Joe complained, “we should be charging Dee for
carrying all this stuff about.”

  
“Just think Joe, it’s giving you muscles.”

  
Joe weighed up Nazir’s comment, and decided that might impress Dee, whereas it
would actually just impress Nazir.

  
“My house is a flirt free zone,” Dee cautioned them, as she carried in a plant
pot and was followed by the lads carrying a sofa.

  
“Why don’t you have one end of this sofa, what happened to equal rights?” Nazir
grinned at her back.

  
“Because one of you pig fisted bastards would drop Steve.”

  
“Your plant is called Steve?”

  
“You bet my plant is called Steve!”

  
“Grell’s definitely gone then,” Pohl said as she walked past them.

  
“If he hasn’t fucked off he’s being very quiet, the machine’s been running in
the lounge all morning. Not a peep.”

  
Pohl nodded at Nazir’s comment, then said to Joe “maybe you could develop a
detector next, so we know for certain if something is there.”

  
“Good idea.” If I had any clue what was happening in that box.

  
Detective Constable Maquire sat in his corner of the office looking down at a
report. He was perplexed. It wasn’t that Stuart Grell was proving difficult,
because he was proving a perfect prisoner: no denial of the crimes, but a
willingness to show off and grandstand which netted them all the information
they could possibly need to lock him up for years, for life. Dates, methods,
details, the whole shebang, and even more importantly he wasn’t shy about
informing on the rest of the group. They, however, were a lot more reticent,
but things were moving ahead nonetheless and all would soon be before a judge,
the result a foregone conclusion.

  
No, that wasn’t why Maquire was perplexed. He couldn’t stop thinking about Dee,
and not for the reason his penis was demanding. The issue, the problem, was
that Grell had said something odd during his interviews. Okay, he’d said a lot
of odd things during his interviews, from listening to God cats to his complete
inability to see how his brother hadn’t betrayed him by calling in the police.
No, what was odd was how Grell had sat there as a thought burst into his mind,
and he told Maquire about a box. A metal box, the sort that could fit into a
rucksack, which was channelling the undead and allowing Nathan to speak.

  
Nonsense, obviously, and his fleeting thought disappeared, anger at his brother
shouting from the afterlife coming back. But Maquire couldn’t dismiss it as
easily as he’d done with Dee’s first statement. Because if Maquire looked at
Dee’s statement he had to concede she’d been acting in a way which made far
more sense if she’d been privy to extra information, the sort which could be
provided by a machine which spoke to the dead.

  
But that, of course, was impossible. It was merely coincidence Joe le Tissier
was carrying round a rucksack large enough, and taking it to a house he had
little reason to be in.

  
Dee and Pohl had a new home, so of course there had to be a house warming meal.
Everyone had arrived early and helped cook, which caused a series of elaborate
movements that a ballet would be proud of. But all four got out of the kitchen
without being tied in knots, and soon they were tucking into a wonderful four
course meal.

  
Pohl had something on her mind. “How do you all feel the last few weeks have
gone?”

  
“How do you mean?” Dee asked.

  
“We had our first experience of solving a mystery. We had a ghost, a mission, a
moral dilemma, some law breaking and two of us were nearly shot. So, overall,
how do you all feel?”

  
“I fucking loved it,” Dee said, leaning back and grinning. “This is actual investigating,
no dog shows or science labs in sight. Err, present company accepted.”

  
“I have to admit,” Joe began, “while we didn’t make any money, I certainly had
a more lively time than my lab work.”

  
“And you Nazir?”

  
“It hit that sweet spot between being shot at by government forces and being
bored to tears restarting routers.”

  
Pohl leaned back. “It seems to me like we all agree this went well, and that
our first experiment in monetizing ghost communicators was worthy of a second
effort. In fact, if I may be so bold, more than a second effort. I think we
should pursue this with all our skill and vigour.”

  
“I agree,” Dee said holding her wineglass up ready to clink. The others joined
her, and the glasses came together in the middle.

  
“Now,” said Pohl, “let’s talk a bit more about ghost animals.”

  
“Oh no,” Nazir said laughing.

  
Dee joined in giggling. “I don’t care what anyone says, a ghost cat would shit
a lot less than the normal ones.”

  
“And you couldn’t stroke them!”

  
“I didn’t say I want to adopt one, I want to discuss them.”

  
“You so want to adopt one.”

  
“You could adopt the ghost of a Panda.”

  
“Somebody give Joe a hug for the best idea ever.”

  
Before

  
There had been loud thuds all morning, somewhere in the distance, perhaps in
the suburbs, it was hard to tell without going to look. War was a confusion,
and no one really knew what was happening, not the shifting coalition of
rebels, not the government. There were no clean front lines, no smooth
advances, just ad hoc movements forward and back. But then the need to look had
evaporated, as the thuds had come closer, and the buildings had started to
shake as artillery came crashing down onto buildings and roads all too close.
The danger was heightened by the clear popping of small arms fire, which meant
people were close by, people with desperation in their eyes and adrenaline in
their blood, people who’d shoot and kill and count it a success if they were still
alive.

  
Nazir should have fled a long time ago, but he was trying to squeeze the last
bit of information out of these computers. He’d been employed here by the
government in their cyber warfare division, well before the civil war, when
things had been largely academic: develop this, prove this can’t be hacked,
it’s not as if we’re going to use it on anybody. And then, of course, they did
use it, as the country descended into civil war and hell, and as Nazir found
he’d ended up on the side he opposed. A flight to the rebels seemed sensible,
but it was hard to give up your life and throw yourself into the cauldron. And
then, of course, the rebellion, such as it had ever been unified, splintered,
into a mass of groups each with their own agenda. In weeks Nazir went from a
boring, regular grind through the thrill of opportunity for change into the
disillusion of war. Now there was no one to run to, except outside this
country. But the only thing he had to bargain with was what was on the
computers, and his fellows in the unit had long since fled, and so Nazir was
filling up the largest hard drive he could find.

  
Finally finished, Nazir unplugged it and went down the stairs, but he heard
voices and the popping of bullets from below. He flattened himself against a
wall, because that was what people did wasn’t it? Creeping down the stairs,
giving as low a profile as possible, Nazir found a body lying sprawled there.
Eyes open, staring out, mouth twisted in pain, this man was dressed much like
Nazir, although with a rifle lying across him and spare magazines in a
bandolier.

  
Hearing movement downstairs, Nazir hesitated and picked up the gun. Then he
continued creeping down, until he peered round a corner and found his only exit
route blocked. Two men stood there, both armed, both smoking, a dead body at
their feet. Rebels? Government? It could be hard to tell, and neither would be
pleased to see him. They were talking about whether to search the building, to
go up the stairs Nazir had been on and see who else they’d have to shoot. And
that would take them past Nazir.

  
The gun felt heavy in his hands, the smell of blood came into his nostrils, and
he felt a metallic taste in his mouth. He looked down at the rifle, a fully
automatic weapon, and back up at the gunmen.

Now

  
Detective Constable Maquire was sat in his car, elbows on the wheel, fingers
knitted together in front of him. There was a CD playing in the stereo, but he
wasn’t listening and the music drifted unused. He should have been sat at his
desk in the office, but he needed to think, and the best place to do that was
in his car, the same place he’d sneak out to and have a quick nap on those
endless days when a case just wasn’t closing.

  
So here he was, deep in thought. Police work wasn’t usually easy, it wasn’t
solving clues and moving from point to point in a straight line until you found
a criminal who then got locked away. It was easy enough to work out when
someone had committed a crime, say a murder, but after that there was a
succession of increasingly difficult battles to be fought, in fields not of
your choosing, even the courtroom where lawyers lined up to tear a hole in
things, and at each one a case could flounder. And it was one of these
difficult cases he was worried about today.

  
And here was the issue: he felt he’d found something, a series of linked crime.
But he couldn’t find any evidence which would tell him who’d done it using
normal police methods, using forensics or interviews or any of the other
methodologies available to him. Which would tell him for sure if they were even
linked. And that left non-standard methods, and that left him in a quandary.

  
By non-standard he wasn’t talking about violence. He wasn’t going to go and
threaten or beat up a potential grass or criminal, not at all. What he was
talking about was something that could invite only ridicule, could damage his
career, could see him laughed out of the service, or at least promotion for the
next ten years. And yet… and yet it might work, and he felt he had no other
option, because people were dying.

  
So as he sat and thought about Dulcimer Nettleship, her friend Joe, and the
machine they were supposed to have that could talk to ghosts. He wondered if he
was really going to go round and talk to them, appeal for them to help. If he
was really going to stake his career on a machine that couldn’t exist to save
lives and risk ruin. Could he do it? It was ludicrous, so could he do it?

  
Feeling like his head would burst, Maquire leant it on the steering wheel.

  
Dee, Joe, Nazir and Pohl had gathered for an evening meal. The idea to meet
that night had started as a communal film evening, but when it became apparent
the group’s diverse tastes in films made finding something to watch tricky
everything had morphed into gathering for an experiment in cooking, which was
why Nazir had volunteered to cook them some traditional Syrian food. He was
certain the three wouldn’t have tried it before, and he wasn’t wrong.

  
Dee had conceded use of her kitchen, and had instead been put in charge of
keeping the glasses topped up, a task she was expert in, and soon everyone was
chatting and then eating.

  
“What’s the furthest any of us have travelled?” Pohl asked.

  
“Ooh, I’ve been to Amsterdam,” Joe said.

  
“Did you spend the whole day stoned?” Dee smirked at him.

  
“Actually we went to a cat sanctuary on a barge.”

  
“Sorry?”

  
“It was a cat shelter, with cages and everything, but on a barge.”

  
“On a river?”

  
“Yes Dee.”

  
“I told you he spent the whole day stoned.”

  
“There was a barge full of cats!”

  
“Okay,” Pohl said to try and guide things, “we believe you. How about you Dee?”

  
“I’ve been to France on an exchange programme while I was at school, and
holidayed in New York a couple of times. Very busy place, like London only
everything is larger.”

  
“I’m sure they’d quote that on the tourist leaflets,” Joe replied.

  
“What about you Nazir?”

  
He turned to Pohl and said utterly deadpan, “I’ve been to Britain.”

  
“I see what you did there,” Dee grinned back.

  
“How about you Professor?”

  
“Well Joe, I’ve been to Rome, Greece, Turkey, all around the history of the
books I’ve studied.”

  
Dee had a thought. “You said you hadn’t been off campus in years?”

  
“I haven’t, I did all that in my twenties. I had a great old time. Then I
retired my travelling shoes.”

  
“Did something bad happen?” Nazir asked.

  
“No, not really. I just… felt happier at home.”

  
The doorbell interrupted them, and Dee rose to answer.

  
“Expecting anyone?” Pohl asked.

  
“Not unless you’ve ordered a stripagram for dessert.” She opened the door and
her stomach fell. “Hello Detective,” she said to Maquire, “you look like shit.”

  
“Thanks for noticing. I’ve got something to ask you, and I’m still unsure about
it.”

  
“I’m having a dinner party, could it wait…”

  
“A dinner party of the people I want to speak to.”

  
Dee raised an eyebrow. “Are we in trouble Detective?”

  
“No, but I might be.”

  
They looked at each other, then Dee nodded, backed up and let Maquire in.

  
“This is the man who solved the Grell case,” Dee said without irony as she led
the detective into the kitchen cum dining room, and everyone said hello. “Are
you off duty and would like a drink?” She asked, sensing this wasn’t police
business.

  
“Please,” and he was issued with a glass of red wine as he shrugged his coat
off and laid it carefully over the back of a sofa. Underneath he still had his
work suit on.

  
There was then a nervous pause, which Dee ended. “Do tell.”

  
Maquire cleared his throat and went into it. “I have reason to believe you have
a device that lets you speak to the spirits of the dead. I have reason to
believe you can travel with this device, and used it to obtain valuable
information in the Grell case.”

  
“Extraordinary claims,” Pohl said, “but surely nothing illegal if it were
true?”

  
“Nothing illegal no, I’m not here to arrest anyone. I’m here to hire you all.”

  
“Sorry, you want to pay us to use the machine?”

  
Dee sighed. “Yes Joe, that’s what hiring means.”

  
“But that’s an actual job!”

  
“I take it that means you do have such a machine and are keen to help the
police.”

  
“How much does the government pay?” Nazir asked.

  
Maquire looked down. “Actually, you won’t be helping the police. I want us to
do this off the record, in secret. I want us to do this with the minimal
disruption to my career and savaging in court. I’m sure you can see how the
machine would be treated by a defence lawyer without the sort of thorough
scientific examination you evidently don’t want.”

  
“Then how can it help?” Joe probed.

  
“Just like you did with Grell. I want to know who’s doing it, and then I can
work backwards.”

  
“Doing what?” Dee asked.

  
“I want to know you’ll help before I tell you sensitive case details.”

  
The foursome all looked at each other, tilted their heads, and nodded.

  
“That a yes?”

  
“Yes Detective, that’s a yes.”

  
“Call me Maquire, everyone else does.”

  
“How friendly.”

  
“Okay, this is the case. Over the last eighteen months seven people in our
region have died by having their throats cuts. As far as we can tell the people
are entirely unconnected with each other, but were killed with a similar knife
with a similar cut. It seems fair to ask if this is a serial killer at work.”

  
“So you’re sure they’re connected?”

  
“Yes, err, you’re Nazir yes?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“I am convinced the same person is doing it, and as we’re out of clues I want
you to help.”

  
“Great,” said Dee leaning in, “what do you want us to do.”

  
“Whatever it is you do. How you use this machine. In fact can I have a look?”
Joe nipped to where the coats were placed and produced his rucksack. “So you
really do carry it everywhere?”

  
“I can’t build a new one if it gets nicked. I don’t like leaving it.”

  
“He touches it at night,” Dee smirked.

  
“Will it work in here?”

  
“One hundred per cent ghost free zone,” Dee continued.

  
“But I assure you it does work.” Joe was adamant. We can interview the ghosts
of the deceased.”

  
“That will be perfect.”

  
None of the foursome had been in a position to drive that evening, so a
decision was taken to begin the next morning. Maquire would excuse himself from
work for an hour and meet them at the site of the murder, and the others all
arranged to meet at Dee’s and car pool their way along. This was why Dee was
driving, Pohl was in the passenger seat, and the two chaps were in the back.

  
“Do you think we ought to get a van?” Joe asked, fantasising.

  
“A van?” Nazir repeated.

  
“Yes, something a bit more spacious for us all, somewhere for us to move heavy
bags, just an all in one transport solution.”

  
He didn’t seem as pleased with himself when Dee said “like fucking Scooby Doo?”

  
“Err, maybe?”

  
“I’m definitely not being Shaggy,” Nazir said, and he turned to Dee “so I
suppose you’d want to be Daphne?”

  
“I’m not giving us roles, and we are not being Scooby Doo,” she replied.

  
“I’d like a dog,” Pohl said.

  
“Oh Jesus.” Dee shook her head. She saw Joe in the rearview mirror. “I’m not
saying a van wouldn’t be handy, but I’ve just got a new house, so someone else
will have to buy us one.”