The Dead Speak Ill Of The Living (The Dead Speak Paranormal Mysteries Book 1) (27 page)

  
“Feisty.”

  
“Joe, turn him off before I set fire to his house.”

  
“How long do I stay here, as a ghost?”

  
“With any luck,” Pohl said, “there’ll be a hell and you’ll go to it.”

  
“And I’ll meet you four there!” And he laughed and laughed until Joe flicked
the switch.

  
A front door opened, and Mrs Hughes stepped out. She was immaculately dressed,
which was a minor marvel considering her partner had just stabbed himself to
death. But if there was one thing Mrs Hughes would be remembered for, besides
running off with her husband’s brother (that kind of thing tended to stick), it
was for always being presentable, so today all sins and tears were covered in
makeup.

  
Getting to the end of the road, Mrs Hughes found a man standing there.

  
“Excuse me,” he said, holding out a hand.

  
Mrs Hughes paused, expecting another journalist, more pictures of her in the
paper, and wondered whether to just spit in his face, but the old British
resolve came through and she held a hand out and shook it. Then she said
“anything else?” When the man meekly said “no,” she walked off.

  
Murphy looked down at his hand. Close, so close, but Mrs Hughes had been
wearing gloves. Dammit. Double dammit. So close.

  
He looked up frustrated, to find Dee’s foursome walking down the street. Right,
he thought, time to get sneaky, and he walked right up to them. He’d been seen
beforehand obviously, but the group weren’t as spry, weren’t as quick, and they
just let him approach.

  
“How are you?” he said holding a hand out, and Pohl could be seen sighing as he
shook it… and stepped back in shock.

  
“Whatever is it?” Pohl asked.

  
“Nothing, nothing…”

  
“You recoiled as if struck by a snake.”

  
“Static electricity, nothing more.”

  
“Hang on, hang on,” and Dee waved a finger in the air. “You’re a detective who
specialises in the weird. You went up to Mrs Hughes, shook her hand, and did
fuck all else. You shook the professor’s hand and stepped back.”

  
“What are you implying?” Murphy asked.

  
“It says on our skills list that I’m an expert in the esoteric, and you’re
doing something. Something with shaking hands.”

  
“And why would a paranormal investigator need something unusual, some skill. Do
you happen to have one?”

  
Murphy and Dee stared at each other, until Joe broke it up. “I think we should
exchange information.”

  
“You don’t have to Joe.”

  
“No Dee, it’s fine, let’s talk.”

  
“Chocolate horn?”

  
“I’ll shove it up your arse hacker…”

  
They were in a pub five minutes later, and Murphy leaned back in a very creaky
chair as the other four drank a variety of liquids.

  
“I can see fragments of people’s memories by touching them. Skin to skin
contact, and the more we touch the more I see.”

  
“Must make sex interesting,” Nazir observed.

  
“Makes sex impossible,” Murphy sadly noted.

  
“Well you’re talking to the right fucking group,” Dee bemoaned.

  
“I tried to touch Mrs Hughes, but couldn’t, and when I shook Professor Pohl’s
hand I saw the images of a violent death.”

  
“That could all be in your head,” Pohl protested.

  
“Your secret is safe with me as long as we’re all open. And I also saw why
Steven Hughes died. So, tell me, why did you think he did it? How do you solve
cases?”

  
Joe did so, explaining about the machine, allowing a peek into the bag, and
then Dee narrated how Herbert had lied to them to harm his brother, and how
they had fallen completely for it. But if Murphy had taken all this in, he
didn’t let it change his expression.

  
“We all make mistakes, our business isn’t a perfect one. We have no rules of
the game. But you are absolutely convinced the ghost is being honest and Mrs
Hughes is the killer?”

  
“Yes,” Dee said sadly.

  
“Good. That chimes with my researches, and I was one touch away from
confirming, and hopefully finding something incriminating.”

  
“Well now you can really get amongst it,” Nazir sighed as he downed his
remaining half a pint.

  
“Why me? Don’t you want the prize?”

  
“We fucked up,” Joe said, “I think we need a step back.”

  
Murphy looked at their sad faces and despondent posture. “But you know who did
it. Don’t you want to fix it?”

  
“Fix it?” Dee said cautiously.

  
“Mrs Hughes must have her comeuppance. And I have a plan for how our talents
could be used to achieve it.”

  
Mrs Hughes was feeling better today. The body in her house had been removed and
specialist cleaners had restored the kitchen to its previous state. Many women
might be worried by spending time in a kitchen, or even the house, where they’d
found their partner dead on the floor, but Mrs Hughes had several advantages here.
Firstly, the partner had killed himself, which led Mrs Hughes to conclude he
was a weak willed fool not worthy of her love or attention. Secondly, she’d
beaten a man to death with a hammer, and wasn’t even remotely squeamish. Both
of these combined into a perfect storm of feeling pleased to inherit and move
on. Single and fancy whatever it was, that was her.

  
And what better way to start her new life by spending some of that money, so
Hughes had gone shopping. Not in the town, but into the city, where she was now
buying some clothes in a shop so up market you didn’t have to queue. Now she
just had to slip her credit card in the doohickey, enter her pin and… oh, it
didn’t take it.

  
“Terribly sorry,” said the assistant, “please try again.” But it didn’t take
that either.

  
“It’s the right pin,” Hughes insisted.

  
“Of course madam, of course, do you have another card we could try?”

  
“Yes.” But these didn’t work too, and soon a humiliated Mrs Hughes was forced
to leave both her new clothes and the store in disgrace. Someone at the credit
card company was going to be feeling her tongue very soon.

  
Hughes returned home, got out her laptop, logged on to her bank. Or at least
she tried to log onto her bank to check things out, because the bank wouldn’t accept
her details. But why? Frustrated, Hughes really was going to abuse someone over
the phone, but first to make a Tweet about it.

  
And her Twitter account wasn’t recognising her. It was now that Hughes began to
expect something major was happening here, so she tried Facebook, tried Amazon,
tried everything. Yet her entire online or electronic presence was corrupted or
gone, as if she’d got drunk one night and erased everything. Which she hadn’t,
obviously.

  
A virus, she must have a virus and she’d been hacked, that’s what happened
wasn’t it, digital diseases and thirteen year old boys fiddling with her
identity. So she reached round, pulled the broadband wire out, and pondered.
She’d better get this sorted out, and quickly. What she needed was some sort of
technical expert.

  
Hang on, hadn’t a leaflet come through the door that very day? She rose, walked
over and fished it out of the bin. Yes, a discreet service, this was exactly
what she needed. Now to ring the bank and give them a proper earful about their
terrible security. While not mentioning hers.

  
A reporter had been called out and they sensed a great fun column coming on.
Two nights ago the neighbours of Herbert Hughes had rung the police to complain
someone was in the dead man’s house, making a hell of a racket. A pair of
police went round to investigate, but found no one there. What they did find
was something moving things about, and no one actually used the term
poltergeist, but why else would two sober police persons watch a photo frame
launch itself off the sideboard three feet onto the carpet? They left after a
mumbled explanation to the neighbours, which didn’t really cheer the latter up
as they now heard noises coming from the house as well as the lights coming on
and off.

  
So what else do you do in this situation, but ring the local newspaper and ask
if they knew of any exorcists? Sensing a half page of bullshit, the reporter
rocked up, spent the morning there, felt certain they’d heard a ghost, and
proceeded to write a florid piece which the entire town read soon after.

  
The entire town, and four newcomers who were doing their best to look touristy
as they hung around. They in turn sensed something interesting was happening,
so that afternoon they went to the Hughes house, determined to pose as
paranormal investigators if anyone caught them, went inside and switched their
machine on.

  
“Hello Herbert.”

  
“Don’t call me that you traitorous bitch.”

  
“Charming,” Dee replied.

  
“All of you, you’re all traitorous bitches.”

  
“I’ve been called worse,” Nazir confided, “but I do usually have a penis inside
them.”

  
“Eeerrghhh,” said the ghost.

  
“We sensed that you were trying to attract someone’s attention,” Joe explained,
“and we thought that might be us.”

  
“Too damn right it is. I know what you’re doing, I know you’re trying to harm
my wife…”

  
“Murderous widow,” Dee pointed out.

  
“…and I demand you stop.”

  
“How did you find that out?” Joe asked, interested.

  
“She came here to organise a few things. Took a call from the bank.”

  
Nazir smirked. “Odd that.”

  
“So stop it!”

  
“Can you do anything to stop us?” Dee asked outright.

  
“What?”

  
“Can you actually do anything to stop us beyond throwing your toys around the
pram?”

  
“…no.”

  
“Then the answer is fuck you.”

  
“I’ll pay you, I’ll pay you to leave her alone!”

  
“Fuck you with a dragon’s cock.”

  
“Is that scaly?”

  
“Joe, you’re spoiling my comebacks.”

  
Mrs Hughes opened her door and found the computer engineer stood there.

  
“Hello, I’m Mohammad and I’m here to repair a computer?”

  
Mrs Hughes looked the man up and down, and decided that the smartly dressed,
well-kept man was welcome into her house. That the suit had been sourced
quickly from a second hand shop wasn’t apparent, and neither was Mohammad’s
fake accent, which he’d been practicing for the past week.

  
“Please do come in, I’ve set my laptop up in the kitchen if you’d like it
there?”

  
Nazir didn’t wince at the thought of the kitchen, he just smiled and allowed
himself to be led through. He’d wondered whether she’d see through his
disguise, but it turned out Mrs Hughes expected all brown men to be called
Mohammad and look the same, so strike one for undercover planning / racism.

  
“I’ve run the broadband wire out, do you need that?” she asked.

  
“I’ll use it, but I’d also like to try your wi-fi too. It does to know how
people cracked into your machine.”

  
“They can get in through wi-fi?”

  
“Oh yes.” Okay, sounding too keen on that, but it is after all what he’d done
about a week ago to set this off.

  
“Can I get you a coffee?”

  
“I brought my own flask with me, but thank you for the offer.” I’m not having
you poisoning me you crazy bitch.

  
Nazir sat down, opened up the laptop and had a look. Just not at the laptop, at
his surroundings. Through the window, out in the garden, was a shed. Hmm, did
anyone check that?”

  
“Tell you what, let’s get the security nailed down before we fix things. Is it
okay if I take a wander about testing the machine?”

  
“Of course, everywhere on the ground floor is fine.”

  
“And the garden?”

  
“Yes. I’ll be in the lounge, the racing is on”

  
Nazir smiled, picked the laptop up, and exited the building, tapping buttons
and humming to himself as he went. Soon he was sat on a well-kept wooden bench,
and as he saw Mrs Hughes leave for the lounge, he put the laptop down and
opened the shed.

  
It was filled with old, dusty tools which probably weren’t used much, a
lawnmower which was much cleaner, a collection of garden gnomes which must have
been banished in here when Mrs Hughes arrived, and a bright, clean plastic bag
dumped in one corner. Which was odd, given how dirty everything else was, even
the well-used mower, so Nazir quickly went over, and used a pen to pull it
open.

  
Inside was a hammer. Which you might expect inside a shed, but not in a clean
bag for a high end clothing shop, because this hammer wasn’t new. Someone had
tried to wipe it, but there was a reddish stain.