by K E O'Connor
“It won’t do any harm to take a look, though.” Helen turned to me. “What do you think?”
“Yes, let’s take a look around.” I looked at Zach. “Are you joining us?”
“I’ve got some work outside to finish,” said Zach. “But let me know if you find anything useful. And if you need a hand moving any of the heavy stuff, give me a shout, and I’ll come and help.”
“Okay, thanks.” I felt a twinge of disappointment that he couldn’t spend any more time with me.
Zach took hold of my arm gently. “And do be careful. I know you believe what you’re seeing is true, and I understand you want to help Beatrice. Don’t do it at the expense of your own safety. And just remember what I said; this family is a powerful one. If they think you are meddling for the wrong reasons, you are going to find yourself in trouble.”
I nodded, watching his lean frame descend the stairs and turn the corner.
“I think you have a fan,” said Helen.
“I don’t know what you mean.” My gaze was still on Zach.
“You have the hots for the gardener.”
I grinned at Helen. “Whatever makes you think that?”
She laughed. “Stop leering at your new crush. Let’s get searching for clues.” Helen strode into the room with Flipper by her side and pulled open a drawer on one of the cabinets.
Zach’s words of warning played through my mind. I was being paranoid. There was nothing wrong with helping Beatrice. And if she had been killed, then she deserved justice. And I would be careful. Besides, what would the Galbraiths do? Tie me up in the cellar and leave me to rot?
A shudder ran through me, before I walked into the bedroom and shut the door.
***
Three hours later, I was covered in dust and old cobwebs. Flipper had eaten eight spiders and was dozing on the carpet by the door.
“If this search has shown us anything,” said Helen, “it’s that Beatrice loved her dogs.”
I glanced over at the piles of photograph albums and framed images, all with dogs on them. There wasn’t a family member in any of her shots. “I don’t hold that against her. She was devoted to her dogs and seems to have loved them more than anything else. I can understand why.” I gazed affectionately at Flipper, who gave a loud snort in his sleep.
“But no secret letters or journals to give us any clues about who wanted to kill her.” Helen joined me on the floor and rested her back against the wall, drawing her knees up to her chest.
“Nothing incriminating at all,” I said. “She really did live an uncomplicated life. I quite envy her; nothing to stress about, simply immersing herself in something she enjoyed and forgetting about everything else.”
“She must have gotten involved in something else, though,” said Helen. “Otherwise she’d still be here. You don’t kill a person for no reason.”
I nodded and rested my head back on the wall. It was getting late, and I was tired. The rest of the search would have to take place another day. “We’d better come back tomorrow. From the gleam in Douglas’s beady eyes, he wants this room as soon as possible. I bet if we don't clear these things out quickly he'll throw everything into a skip. If he does that, we might lose a valuable piece of information.”
“We can come back tomorrow evening,” said Helen. “Surely he won’t be so keen to get in here. I bet he’s already drunk out of his head and won’t surface until tomorrow afternoon.”
“Let’s hope so.” I crawled over on my hands and knees to Flipper, sitting next to him and rubbing his belly. He gave a grumble of appreciation and rolled over, exposing more of the soft grey and white fur on his undercarriage.
I was about to stand up, when something glinted on the floor. I scuttled over, still on my hands and knees, and peered underneath the bed. It was an old, antique style bed, four poster design, with the base raised off the floor, leaving room to store things underneath.
“I hope you haven’t found another spider,” said Helen. “I think they’ve even beaten Flipper tonight.”
“No, not a spider,” I said. “Although there is a lot of dust under here. There’s something tucked at the back of the bed.” I lay flat on my stomach and reached my hand underneath the bed. My fingers brushed against something cold and smooth. I inched forward as far as I could, face pressed against the edge of the bed, and stretched out my hand.
“What have you got?” Helen moved to my side and peered under the bed.
“Not sure.” My fingers latched around the object, and I drew it towards me. It was an empty bottle of brandy.
“Beatrice was a drinker?” asked Helen. “Think she kept the bottle under her bed and had a little late night party of her own?”
I turned the empty bottle over a couple of times. It was an expensive brandy. “I’d always imagined Beatrice as more of a sherry type of lady or even a teetotaller. Didn’t Cecil mention she barely drank?”
“Maybe she did have a secret after all,” said Helen. “Perhaps she liked to drink a little too much and had to keep it hidden. Could that be the reason she died? She went outside drunk one night and collapsed?”
The sash window on the opposite wall screeched open and banged down. Flipper jumped from the floor and let out a rumbling growl.
“I think Beatrice wants to tell you her opinion on that idea,” I said to Helen. I stood up and brushed the dust from my skirt. “Beatrice, is this yours?” I held the empty bottle aloft.
The window opened and shut again on its own several times.
“You don’t have to perform your ghost dramatics,” I said. “Why don’t you appear and talk to us, or mime to us? You know what I mean. Let me know what's going on.”
Beatrice flashed into my line of sight and dashed the bottle from my hand so hard it bent one of my fingers back.
“You don’t have to be like that.” I gripped my injured finger. “We are only trying to get to the bottom of what happened to you.”
Beatrice’s face distorted into a silent scream, and she sped around the room, her form becoming indistinct as she moved faster, the air currents in the room swirling.
“Whatever she’s doing,” said Helen, her lips turning blue, “I don’t like it. I’m feeling dizzy and a bit sick.”
“She’s angry,” I said. “I think we’ve found out something she didn’t want us to know. You could be right. Beatrice may have been a secret drinker. That could explain why her memories are so hazy and she thinks her brother had something to do with her death. If she was drunk when she died, it would make her last memories seem confusing to her.”
“Beatrice, we don’t mean to cause you any problems. We’re trying to help.” Helen staggered over to the bed and gripped hold of the edge.
Beatrice slowed a little. She looked at the bottle on the floor, and then spun to the ceiling before bolting to the ground. Her gaze locked onto mine, and she lunged towards me.
I opened my mouth to tell her to stop, but she shot through me too fast, my blood freezing and my breath pooling out in icy blasts.
The overhead lights went out, Flipper yelped in alarm, and I heard Helen hit the floor.
Chapter 15
It took Beatrice less than a second to pass through me, leaving me with a banging headache and the sensation I’d been dipped naked into a deep freeze.
Stumbling towards the light switch on the wall, my numb fingers pressed it on and off several times. “Beatrice, stop punishing us. We haven’t done anything wrong.”
I tried the light switch again, and this time, it worked. I looked over to the bed and saw Helen on her knees, head in hands, Flipper nudging her with his nose. I rushed to her side. “Are you hurt?”
“No, nothing's broken.” Helen groaned. “But whatever Beatrice was doing, it felt as if the floor was shifting underneath me. I lost my balance and then the lights blinked off.”
“Looks like we pushed Beatrice too far.” I helped Helen to her feet and gave Flipper a reassuring pat. “I don’t think she liked the alcoholic
theory.”
“We touched a nerve.” Helen rubbed her stomach. “She’s powerful.”
“Yes, but using that amount of energy will have taken a lot out of her,” I said. “I’ll be surprised if we see Beatrice for a few days. She’ll need to rest and refresh her ghostly batteries. But at least that means she can’t do us any more harm.” I glared around the room, trying to get a glimpse of our pesky spirit.
“We were only trying to help,” said Helen.
“I have a good mind not to continue investigating Beatrice’s death. If she’s going to cause us such trouble, why should we help her?”
Helen sighed. “Because she’s an unhappy ghost, who may have been murdered, and the killer has so far escaped justice.”
“Well, yes, I suppose there is that,” I grudgingly agreed. “Beatrice, if you can hear me, this is your only warning. If you do that again, we will leave this place, then the mystery of your death will never be resolved.” I wasn’t sure she could hear me, but there was no harm in setting out the ground rules.
“You wouldn’t do that, would you?” whispered Helen. “I thought we needed these jobs?”
“We do,” I muttered. “But not at the expense of being frozen half to death by an agitated spirit. She flew right through me. I hate it when they do that.”
“I could do with a lie down.” Helen’s lips still looked blue.
“Good idea.” My teeth chattered. “Let’s call it a night. We can continue our investigation tomorrow when we’re not feeling sick to our stomach and frozen.”
***
After spending the night wrapped in several thick duvets, I felt warm enough to emerge from my cocoon and face a new day.
A hot shower, followed by a warming breakfast of porridge, and I felt almost human. No one would guess I got blasted by a ghost last night.
Helen was up early again, so I’d missed her over breakfast, and despite calling Beatrice several times, there was no sign of her. She was most likely sulking.
Hurrying out of the kitchen, I bumped into Cecil, who was making his way towards the front door, looking dapper in an olive green suit and pink shirt.
“Good morning, Miss Shadow,” he said.
“Hello, Cecil,” I replied. “Where are you off to?”
“Patients to see, medicine to dispense, the usual fun and games of a rural doctor.” He smiled at me, but it faded from his face. “I hear you’ve been helping to clear Beatrice’s belongings from the house.”
“Yes, and you might be able to help me with a question about that,” I said. “I know you can’t break patient confidentiality, but I wondered if Beatrice enjoyed a drink or two when she was alive?”
Cecil looked up sharply. “Whatever makes you think that?”
“I found an empty bottle of brandy underneath her bed. I wondered if she needed it to help get to sleep. Maybe she was stressed about something. Were you aware of any problems she had?”
Cecil ran his hands over the thinning hair on his head. “Not to my knowledge. She rarely drank. And she never spoke of any stress or depression that prevented her from sleeping. How curious you found that under her bed.”
“It made me wonder if Beatrice had problems she was trying to keep hidden. It may explain her strange behavior on the night of her death, ending up in the garden alone.”
“It may. Why the interest in Beatrice?” asked Cecil.
“Clearing out her room has made me more interested in her,” I said. “From what I can gather, she was a nice lady, and I would hate to think she was struggling in her last few months and not able to find help.”
“That is kind of you to think of Beatrice,” said Cecil. “In my opinion, not enough people did think of her. And I believe she was lonely. But at least, you are giving her some assistance now, clearing out her room and helping Lord Galbraith move on as well. I know he misses his sister.”
“It was Douglas who insisted the room be cleared.” I glanced over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t within earshot. “He seemed adamant the room should be his.”
Cecil frowned and pulled at his bottom lip. “Yes, I can imagine Douglas would do just that.”
“I thought the two of you were friends?” I noticed the coolness in Cecil’s voice.
“We are drinking acquaintances,” said Cecil. “But I always seem to come off worst whenever we spend time together. He enjoys making himself seem like the bigger man. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you. Must be something to do with us men and all the testosterone we have.” He patted his rotund stomach as if that was where he stored his manly testosterone.
“Perhaps you could find a nicer drinking acquaintance,” I suggested.
“It’s not such a bad idea. The more I think about it, the more Douglas is a bad lot. I’ve seen him step over a lot of people to get what he wants. And as you’ve witnessed with Beatrice’s room, he has a way of persuading people to do things they don’t want to do. I shall be avoiding him in the future, and perhaps, you would be wise to do so as well.”
“I don’t have any intention of getting to know Douglas any better than I already do,” I said. “But I will take your advice about keeping clear of him.”
“That’s a good idea,” said Cecil.
“I’d best get to work. I know Lord Galbraith will have many letters that need typing.” As I bid him goodbye and hurried to Lord Galbraith’s study, I mulled over Cecil’s comments. I had been harsh with Beatrice last night. She behaved badly, but if she'd been waiting for justice for three years, I could understand why she was so testy. I'd give her another chance. And, most importantly, if that bottle of brandy wasn't hers, then who left it underneath her bed?
***
Another day of administrative tasks passed by, and I found myself in the kitchen, poking around the cupboards, waiting for the catering company to deliver dinner, and seeing what else I might convince Helen to rustle up to go with our food.
There was a knock on the back door, and Zach entered, his hands full of wildflowers. “I hoped you’d be here. I brought you these.”
“They’re lovely.” I took hold of the flowers, still sun warmed from the pleasant summer day, and inhaled their sweet scent. I spotted some scabious and delicately fringed daisies in the mix.
“We have a surplus in the garden, and I hate to see them go to waste,” said Zach. “And I wanted to apologise if I acted strangely when you revealed your... ability to me.”
“You mean when Helen blurted out the fact I’m able to see ghosts?”
Zach ran his hands through his hair a few times. “Exactly that. It’s the first time anyone’s told me they can see the dead.”
I took a moment to fill a vase with water and placed the flowers inside. I wasn’t sure how much to tell Zach, and even if I did tell him more about what I could do, I wasn’t certain he would believe me. I didn’t love having this ability, but I’d had it for so long, it was a part of me.
“You don’t have to reveal any more to me.” Zach remained in the doorway, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “I can tell you my strange ability if you like. It might even things up.”
I placed the vase full of flowers on the kitchen table and gestured to the seats, before sitting down. “You have a strange ability?”
Zach sat opposite me. “I can roll my tongue up.”
“You can do what?”
Zach grinned. “I can roll it into a ball. It’s quite freaky. Do you want me to demonstrate?”
I choked out a laugh. “No, I don’t want to see that. And although it’s an interesting talent to have, it’s a bit different from my ability to see ghosts.”
“Yes, I suppose it is,” said Zach. He studied me in silence for a few seconds. “Is it something you’ve always been able to do?”
“Not my whole life,” I said. “I had an accident when I was nine years old. I was swimming, got out of my depth, and panicked. The next thing I remember, I was lying on my side, having water thumped out of me.”
“An
d you’ve been able to see ghosts ever since then?”
“That’s right; whatever happened to me, it now means I see ghosts.” I looked over at him, trying to discern how seriously he was taking me. “When I was younger, I used to have what seemed like seizures just before a ghost appeared. My parents thought I had epilepsy, and for years, I tried different drugs and treatments, but nothing improved things. When a ghost was on its way, I started to seize up and lose control of my limbs. It was terrifying. I never got used to it.”
“But it wasn’t epilepsy?”
“No, I figured it out before anybody else,” I said. “But try telling your family that a ghost materialising makes your limbs shake. Not so simple. Things changed for the better when I got Flipper.” As I spoke his name, he climbed to his feet and laid his head in my lap. “We found each other by accident. He’d been abandoned by the roadside as a puppy. I trundled by on my bike, spotted him on his own, and fell in love.”
“Flipper cured you of your seizures?”
“Not exactly, and they aren’t real seizures. Animals are sensitive to human emotions, and as soon as I got him, I noticed his behavior change when a ghost was around.”
“What does he do?”
“He is my guardian angel,” I said. “The first time a ghost appeared and Flipper was there, I felt shaky. Then Flipper started whining and pawing the ground. He was focused on the arrival of the ghost. Somehow, him being there, controlled my reaction. I’m still a bit shaky the first time a new ghost pops up, but that’s it. No collapsing or drama. Providing I have Flipper nearby, I feel safe.”
“That’s incredible,” said Zach. “How does it work? Does he channel away some of the ghost’s energy, so it doesn’t impact on you?”
“I have no idea. It could be a placebo thing, of course; simply having him by my side means I feel more in control. I don’t really know. If I could explain it to you any clearer, I would. But having him changed my life. He’s my miracle dog.”
“So Flipper is your own personal ghost detector.” Zach looked down at Flipper. “That’s a neat skill to have.”