Death Of A Devil

by Derek Farrell

  “Okay,” Caz nodded, satisfied now that I’d explained my rationale, “so, how many of them are there, and how do we keep them out of hearing range of that thing?”

  “That,” I said slathering pâté on a chunk of bread, “is something I have yet to figure out.”

  THREE

  I followed Caz’s eyes across the bar, past a frighteningly detailed attempt at a Creature from the Black Lagoon, a couple of bearded nuns wearing miniskirts and enough doctors and nurses of every description to staff an A&E on a Friday night (though I doubted whether the Hippocratic Oath encouraged the physicals that some of them were delivering).

  Standing in the doorway, looking for all the world like a selection of Victorian spinsters who’d been set down in Bedlam on Bang-your-neighbour-Friday, were Mr Tavistock and – I assumed – his band of ghost hunters.

  “Mr Tavistock!” I pushed my way through the crowd, a smile of what I hoped looked like welcoming plastered on my mug, and reached out my hand to shake his, which caused him to recoil as though I’d held a live asp out to him.

  Then I realised I was in costume, and I assumed he’d not recognised me.

  “It’s me,” I slipped my plastic fangs out and smiled directly into his face as what can only be described as a collection of voles in macintoshes of various shades of beige huddled behind him in varying degrees of catatonia.

  “I know who it is, Mr Bird,” he answered, peering into my face with eyes made almost comically mole-like by the thick lenses of his huge horn-rimmed glasses, “but I’m puzzled as to what on earth is going on here!”

  I, too, was puzzled; but by his obvious confusion. “It’s Hallowe’en,” I explained, waving a hand which got entangled in a passing mummy’s shroud, and had a pissed-up Ramesses II telling me to, ‘Watch where you’re waving your fucking hands, you moron,’ before he fell over and had to be hauled to his feet and becalmed by two passing male nurses and a woman who seemed to be dressed as a cello.

  “I am fully aware,” Tavistock said through clenched teeth, “of the date. I thought we were to have the pub for a psychic investigation.”

  And then it dawned on me: Tavistock and his mates thought I was actually going to shut the place, and leave it entirely at their disposal.

  “Well, you see,” I explained, “this is a really big night in the trade. I’m sure we can do a bit of investigating in some of the less public areas,” I finished lamely as he continued to stare at me like a furious mole. “Why don’t you come through to my flat and we can talk.”

  I ushered them into the pub, the two women and one man behind Tavistock behaving the way Caz would if, for example, I waved her into the middle of the opening day of the January sales. At Primark.

  Speaking of which, halfway across the pub, as I attempted to simultaneously herd the pack of increasingly concerned loons and clear a way through my increasingly inebriated punters, Caz caught up with us, attempted to greet Tavistock, was met with the same look of horror, and, taking her cue from me, suggested we go upstairs to the flat.

  By this time, we were behind the bar.

  “The flat?” Tavistock asked. “Surely the kitchen would be better. Kitchens are a great place to listen for knockings from beyond the ether.”

  Caz looked at me. I shook my head. Ali sidled up, sniggered at the phrase, ‘knockings from beyond the ether,’ and asked the assembled what they were having.

  “A difficult time breathing,” said the other man in the group – a man with a body so impossibly obese and legs so stick-thin that I wondered if he was actually wearing a fat suit.

  “All the better reason,” Caz announced, leaping on the emphysematic wheezing of the red-faced man with a shock of unruly dark hair, “to go upstairs. It’s warmer in the flat. Give you all time to settle down and collect yourselves.”

  “She does have a point, Thomas,” a tall, stick-thin woman – her blonde hair hanging in limp greasy curtains either side of a long pale face – said, casting a concerned eye towards the other side of the bar, as though the regulars might, at any minute, chorus, as one, Braaaaaains, and lurch at her.

  Tavistock shrugged his acquiescence, but Ali – sensing four possible sales slipping through her fingers, tried again, putting her most genial smile on and forgetting, again, the fact that both Caz and I had told her that smiles worked best when they reached the eyes too.

  We’re here to help you have a great time, her curved lips said, while her squinted eyes chorused, buy a drink you miserable fucks.

  “Tea,” Tavistock finally announced, as though giving instructions to a Victorian parlourmaid.

  Ali’s smile faltered, burst into flames and went down quicker than the Hindenburg when the two women asked not only for tea but – in the case of the mousy woman with the moustache and the big ears – specified, “Earl Grey, no milk, but lemon if you have it.”

  Not even the decision by the obese midget staring raptly up at the ceiling that he’d have a half of lager helped and – as I led the group out of the bar and towards the stairs up to the flat – I could distinctly hear Ali banging cups on the bar and loudly commenting on how she’d clearly not realised this was, “A fucking Lyons corner house.”

  Between us, Caz and I herded the five up the stairs and into the tiny space which served as my sitting room. A sofa, a couple of club armchairs, a small TV and a coffee table, I realised a little too late, filled the space so completely that there was barely room for us all to squeeze in, and the enclosed space seemed to make the fat man’s wheezing more pronounced, so that it sounded like we were in a TARDIS taking off.

  Tavistock peered suspiciously around the room and made noises that suggested it was far too small. In order to distract him from the reintroduction of his proposal that we all retire to the kitchen Caz attempted to relieve him of his overcoat and scarf.

  Which, since he didn’t really want to be relieved of them, ended up as less of a courtesy and more of a close-to-violent mugging that concluded with her triumphantly dragging the gabardine mac from his still flapping arms as he screeched from the rope burn inflicted by her whipping the scarf off his neck at speed.

  The others squawked their outrage but, when Caz turned her attention to the fat man, saying, “Here, let me take your coat,” he – and the rest of them – literally flung the garments at her, assuming, I suspect, that handing them over voluntarily was less likely to result in injury or death.

  As Caz tottered under the weight of four heavy overcoats, assorted scarves and a bobble hat, the door slowly creaked open, and the squat solid figure of Ali appeared, backlit by the landing light, a tray in her hands.

  “Here’s your teas,” she grumbled, advancing into the room so that Caz – half hidden by the coats – had to step to one side, shoving one of the women from the group, with a squawk, onto the sofa.

  Ali dumped the tray on the coffee table and Caz tottered out of the room to deposit, I supposed, the coats in my bedroom.

  “Right,” Ali said, her displeasure at having to dole out non-alcoholic drinks to the assembly, writ large in the tone she adopted, “who wanted the tea, strong, one sugar?”

  “That’ll be me,” said the tall blonde, stepping forward.

  “Mr Bird,” Tavistock said, deciding to use this opportunity to get the announcements out of the way, “this is Miss Jones.”

  “Charmed,” Miss Jones smarmed, attempting to reach a hand out to me while holding her tea and flicking her hair out of her eyes.

  “Oi! Watchit!” Ali hollered. “You’re spilling tea all over the Afghan.”

  Miss Jones winced, blushed, muttered her apologies and took the seat out of which the short moustachioed brunette had just climbed.

  “I’m the Earl Grey, no milk,” the brunette piped up, in an accent too posh for her plastic shoes.

  “Hold your horses, milady,” Ali barked back, “I’m getting to you.” She handed the half a lager to the no-longer-wheezing fat bloke, handed Tavistock his mug, barking, “Tea. Just tea. Like you as
ked,” before turning back to the brunette, her mousy bob, mousy features and a small cats-bum mouth all offset by ears that an African elephant would have been envious of.

  “’Ere ya go, jugs,” Ali announced, handing a cup of Earl Grey over to the woman, who smiled acceptance, before realising what she’d just been called, and frowned furiously as she tried to decipher the insult.

  “Mr Bird,” Tavistock tried again, this is Miss Baker,” he indicated Earl Grey woman, who smiled at me, sipped her tea, stared downwards at the front of her blouse, and frowned deeply.

  “Cheryl Baker,” she expanded her name, sticking a thumb in her mouth before withdrawing it covered in saliva and attempting to scrape at a stain over her left breast. “But obviously not the real Cheryl Baker,” she clarified, leaving me wondering if she was, in fact, some Cheryl Baker-shaped figment of my imagination.

  “Well obviously,” Caz murmured in my ear, as, relieved of her coat pile, she sidled back into the room and up behind me.

  “Oh dear,” Cheryl Baker finally sighed, “I’m afraid, Mr Tavistock, that you’ve got your special sauce all over my blouse.”

  Caz choked, the blonde giant gasped and the fat man snorted. Ali made the sort of noise you might expect from a bulimic at a breakfast buffet – part gag, part sob.

  “To be clear,” Tavistock jumped straight in, “we went to McDonald’s before we came here, and when I bit into my Big Mac, it squirted condiment at Miss Baker.”

  “We do meals here, you know,” Ali shot back, squinting daggers at Tavistock, who stared her down, nodded and confirmed that he was well aware of the fact.

  “Yes,” he dryly responded, “and I’ve inspected the kitchens where they’re prepared, remember?”

  Ali shut up.

  “Anyway, where were we?” Tavistock turned his attention back to me. “Miss Jones, you’ve already met.”

  “Anna,” the blonde expanded.

  “And Miss Baker.”

  Cheryl did not look up from her left bosom, which, lying under a silk blouse in a colour that, somewhere on a pantone chart, was labelled ‘Sadness,’ was now jiggling round like an epileptic puppy, testament to the absence of a bra and her determination to rub the remains of Tavistock’s burger sauce out of the fabric.

  “This,” Tavistock gestured at the fat bloke, who had already downed the half a lager, belched and put the glass back on the tray, “is Horace.”

  “Just Horace,” the fat bloke explained.

  “Horace,” Tavistock beamed with pride, “is a medium.”

  “Looks like a three-XL to me,” Ali snarked, reaching a hand out to collect Anna Jones’ empty tea cup with the sort of smile that one assumes a table maid in the know might have delivered to the Tsarina on the last morning at Ekaterinburg.

  “Miss Baker,” Tavistock indicated the mousy woman with the big ears, “isn’t really here.”

  “I’m not really here,” said the mousy Miss Baker, slightly shaking her head, confirming Tavistock’s statement, and denying the evidence of my own eyes, “Which is to say, I’m here, but only so I can absorb Horace.”

  Eyeing up the difference in their bulks, I assumed Cheryl had absorption capabilities close to those technologically marvellous sponges they sell on the telly at four in the morning, but I chose to pass no comment.

  Ali, however, chose to pass wind, cough discretely, collect the rest of the empties and waddle out of the room.

  “Energy, I mean,” Cheryl said, as though these three words would clarify her previous statement. “The psychic energy generated by Horace when he’s in a trance can build up quite sharply, and, well, I’m here to relieve him of that excess.”

  I really didn’t need the mental picture of Horace being relieved of his excess energy by Cheryl Baker in my head, so I turned in desperation to Caz, who had a look of pure bewilderment but, having been trained by the finest Swiss finishing schools that money could buy, was always adept at moving on from uncomfortable silences.

  She raised an eyebrow at me, and at exactly the same time, Horace started humming like an obese Buddhist on a day retreat.

  “Shall we get started?” Caz asked breezily.

  FOUR

  “Where exactly was she found?” Cheryl asked in a stage whisper, her eyes shining brightly as she surveyed the empty room.

  “Silence!” Tavistock hissed, gesturing at Horace, who was standing in the middle of the room, his eyes closed, his body rocking backwards and forwards as the humming increased in volume.

  Cheryl turned her questioning eyes to me and I indicated, with a glance towards the corner of the room, where we’d discovered the lifeless body of Lyra Day, the disco diva I’d once hired to perform at the pub.

  Lyra’s murder had been something of a cause célèbre at the time, and clearly it had fired up Cheryl’s imagination. She followed my eyes, and frowned, as though trying to summon the spectre of the strangled chanteuse to appear.

  Anna Jones, standing to one side with a large camera, snapped off a set of shots. Cheryl, as though competing with Anna for usefulness, held up what looked like a hair straightener that was connected, via a long snaking wire, to a box which was attached to a belt around her waist, and pointed the device towards the corner in question.

  “Darling, if Lyra turns up, I’m off,” Caz murmured in my ear. “She was a bitch in life; can you imagine what she’ll be like now she’s realised that there are better singers where she’s gone.”

  “Where d’you think she’s gone?” I murmured back, keeping my eyes on Tavistock, who was, in turn, keeping his fixed on the rocking blimp, whose brow was bathed in sweat.

  “Basingstoke, for all I care,” Caz responded. “But you can be sure that – up or down – she will not be the biggest celebrity in the place. If she pops up here, you and I are done for.”

  Horace opened his eyes. The humming stopped.

  The group, as one, leaned forward.

  “Brandy,” he croaked.

  A series of perplexed glances were exchanged.

  “Brandy,” Horace croaked again.

  Once more the threesome looked at each other, as though there was an obvious meaning they were missing. Finally, Caz tutted loudly, stepped forward and held out a hip flask.

  “It’s Armagnac,” she said, as Horace took the flask from her and slugged greedily at it.

  Sated, he returned Caz’s offering, and she retook her place behind me, all the better to whisper in my shell-like, “Empty,” she said. “The only spirits this one’s likely to contact tonight are the ones that are eighty per cent proof.”

  “I sense death,” Horace spoke at last. “In this room.”

  I looked at Caz. She looked at me. We both looked at the group, who were looking at Horace with the sort of jaw-dropped awe that suggested group amnesia.

  “Well, yes, we know,” Caz said aloud. “That’s hardly news. It was in all the nationals, the local paper, the news, and on The One Show on the anniversary.”

  Eight eyes turned to us.

  “If you’re going to mock,” Tavistock said coldly, “I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

  “No,” Horace held a hand up to stop him, whilst eyeing Caz in a way that suggested he was either sizing up how long she’d take to cook, or – more likely – debating whether she had any more booze secreted about her person. “It’s a valid point. But I’m not sensing that death. Not the one that was in the papers.”

  “This is a man. Two men. I see two men and – wait – two women. A blonde and a brunette.”

  “Brilliant,” Caz muttered, “he’s now seeing ABBA getting offed in your pub. That’ll bump up the takings. ‘Come see where Frida fell. Examine the spot where Bjorn and Benny were bumped off.’”

  “What about the blonde?” I muttered.

  “Oh blondes always sell tickets,” she answered, indicating her Bride of Frankenstein wig, “just by being present.”

  “One of the men is dead,” Horace went on. “He’s lying on a bed over there,” his finger
went to the wall opposite the fire breast. “And the other three are arguing over something. They’re wearing…” his eyes squinted as though he were looking closer at something that was clearly visible. I found myself peering at the thin air he was squinting at, as though I, too, would see whatever he was imagining. “They’re wearing Victorian clothing. Top hats, canes and bulky overcoats.”

  “What,” Caz asked, “even the women?”

  Tavistock shot her a warning glare.

  “No,” Horace clarified, “just the men.”

  “But I thought you said one of them was dead in a bed,” Caz said. “Why would he still be wearing his hat and coat?”

  Horace looked at her and licked his lips, “I don’t know,” he answered tetchily, “maybe he feels the cold.”

  “Mr Bird,” Tavistock shot, as Cheryl stepped forward to absorb some of the sweat and psychic energy from Horace’s brow, “perhaps we would be better conducting this review on our own.”

  I suddenly had a vision of the gang – unchaperoned – walking straight into the kitchen as the freezer went into full drum ‘n’ bass, and blanched.

  “No, really, Mr Tavistock,” I stammered, “we’re sorry. This is all very new for us, and, well, we’ll be quiet,” I promised.

  “And respectful,” he pressed.

  “And respectful,” I agreed.

  He glanced at the assembled; at Anna, taking photographs of the empty corner; at Cheryl, who had tucked the wand device under her left armpit and was now using both hands and a tea towel to mop sweat from Horace; Horace who was now breathing deeply and rolling his eyes back like someone in a Georgette Heyer approaching ‘fulfilment,’ then back at Caz and I, nodding curtly.

  “Okay,” he said, “but one more unnecessary comment and you will leave.”

  “I’m on a higher plane,” Horace suddenly cried out, before throwing his hands up in the air, staggering backwards and forwards, then slamming his arms downwards while doubling his body over at the waist.