Urban Witch

by R. L. Giddings

  “And you can’t lift this one because it’s been knocked off its pallet. Plus, if you were a fork-lift driver, it would actually be blocking your way. So what is big enough to knock a three hundred pound packing case onto its side?”

  Helena didn’t say anything. She moved over to the crate and started to inspect it. It took her only a few seconds to detect that it was damaged on one side.

  “This has been hit with something fairly hefty,” she said. “Could it be that the fork lift knocked it over?”

  “Could be,” I said, kneeling down in order to examine it more closely. “But what about this?”

  Helena strained to get a better look. “Are those fibres?”

  “I think they’re hairs.”

  “Well, if they are they aren’t human.”

  She took an evidence baggie from her jacket. Then she produced a pair of tweezers and very carefully teased out a few strands of hair. She dropped these into the baggie before sealing it and passing it to me.

  Then she turned and lined up along the line of packing cases. “You’re absolutely right about how they’re arranged, though I’m not sure how significant that is.”

  I took the baggie and held it up to the light. It looked like horse-hair to me.

  Helena’s phone rang and she answered it.

  “That was Kinsella. Seems that the police have found a body. Looks like it might be Brodsky.”

  Chapter 7

  We took a cab over to Brodsky’s place. Kinsella sent us the address.

  “If it is Brodsky,” she said. “I’m more interested in who killed him rather than how he died. We’re going to have to keep a low profile if they do let us in.”

  I could sort of see her point, dressed as I was in skinny jeans and a knitted sweater, I hardly passed muster as a member of Special Branch. My lack of height didn’t help either.

  I asked. “Do they even know who we are?”

  This is a regular bugbear for the Bear Garden staff. Only people with a fairly high security clearance are aware of our existence so it’s difficult gaining any traction with lower ranks. The backup plan is a business card with a telephone number printed on it – nothing else. I’m not exactly sure what is said to whoever rings the number, only that they turn very pale very fast and then they can’t help you enough. Millie says it’s something to do with pensions.

  “Kinsella managed to speak to Collinson. He’s the D.C.I. in charge. I’ve had dealings with him before,” she assured me. “He’s a bit old school but he won’t get in our way. We should be in and out before you know it. Have you ever attended a murder scene before?”

  “Er, no.”

  “Well… just use your common sense, okay. If it feels like things are getting too much for you, just step outside. No point playing the hero.”

  I nodded, “I’ll be fine.”

  The cabbie dropped us outside a big detached house. Nice drive-way, double garage. It was easy to spot because two uniformed officers were just putting up the yellow crime scene tape. Helena ignored them and strode straight towards the house.

  “Whoa! Whoa, ladies! Can I help?”

  We turned to see a bearded detective wearing a forensic suit coming out of a side gate.

  Helena didn’t miss a beat. “We’re here on behalf of Mr Kinsella.

  This brought him up short.

  “Just a sec.”

  He disappeared back the way he’d come with two fresh sets of coveralls.

  “D.S. Tom Sciprianou, I’m working with the D.C.I. on this case. He’s coming over later so he’s asked me to look after you two. Don’t worry, I’ve worked on this sort of weird stuff before.”

  Helena made the introductions. “So you’re fine with us being here?”

  “If the D.C.I.’s happy then I’m happy. Obviously, he doesn’t want the rest of the team knowing why you’re here. Nothing personal, but he thinks that your presence might skew the investigation – get them looking for a definite supernatural link when one hasn’t yet been established.”

  “I understand.”

  Sciprianou led us around to the side of the house.

  “So, do we have a cover story?” I asked.

  “Nothing too glam I’m afraid: Customs and Excise. Brodsky was an antiquities dealer who’s died in mysterious circumstances. It all ties in. So, once you’ve got your suits on I’ll give you the grand tour.”

  When we’d changed, Sciprianou lead us out through a screen of trees into an area of woodland, one of those hidden aspects of London which probably hadn’t changed much in three hundred years. Facing us was an old barn which was the centre of police activity. We passed an elderly female neighbour who was surveying events from the other side of the fence.

  “Did she see anything?” I asked.

  “She was the one who reported it,” Sciprianou said. “Heard a racket late last night. Thought it was foxes, if you can believe that. Got suspicious when the bloke’s dog started barking at 6am and wouldn’t shut up. Eventually, she called us.”

  “Any idea how he died?” Helena said.

  “Messily. The Scene of Crime boys are all over it now. Looks like he might have disturbed burglars in the act. He uses this place as storage sometimes so I’m thinking some of the pieces could be pretty valuable. That’s just a theory, by the way. You’ll find him upstairs.”

  “With the paintings,” I’d said before I’d had a chance to stop myself.

  “Yeah,” said Sciprianou, surprised. “He has got a lot of paintings up there. Why? You been here before?”

  “No,” I said, backpedalling madly. “Just that he deals in antiquities as well as paintings. I just assumed…”

  Helena gave me a guarded look just as Sciprianou stopped before a clear plastic sheet which had been draped across the doorway to the barn. “This is it, ladies. Primary crime scene. Mind where you put your feet.”

  As I stooped under the plastic sheeting I felt like I did whenever I rode the Ghost Train as a kid. A bit wary of the whole experience yet safe in the knowledge that nothing too terrible was going to happen. Apprehensive yet excited. Everyone was treating me like a professional while all I was worried about was actually seeing a dead body. I’d only ever seen one dead person before and that had been Ma Birch.

  Once inside, the detective pulled his face mask on and we both followed suit.

  It was perhaps just as well that we didn’t take too much for granted as far as the police were involved. Certainly the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was aware of our activities, I had seen pictures of him attending one of Stahl’s little soirees. She knew everyone.

  The shell of the building had to be at least several hundred years old and was the sort of place that you might expect to see in a small country village, not secreted away in the back streets of the capitol. The beams supporting the roof had warped quite considerably over the years but, in spite of this, they seemed solid enough. The flooring consisted of greasy parquet tiles. The whole area had been utilised for storage with stacks of shelves on both sides of the room.

  Someone, at some point in the last forty years, had added a first floor studio space with an open-plan staircase leading up to it. The contrast between the barn’s older, darker oak and the newer pine at the centre worked remarkably well, both lit, as they were, by a digital lighting system.

  Half a dozen officers, wearing the same coveralls as us, were trudging down the stairs. It looked like we’d timed it just right.

  “If there’s anything you need…” Sciprianou was being beckoned over by one of the detectives.

  Helena waited until he was out of ear-shot before saying, “That thing outside – about the paintings.”

  “What.”

  “How did you know that? That wasn’t a guess.”

  When I made to walk past her she grabbed my arm.

  “I asked you a question? Was that a guess?”

  “I think you already know.”

  *

  “What are your thoughts about go
ing upstairs now,” she said. “I know I’m pushing it but I’m worried that if we don’t go soon then we won’t get a second chance. What do you think?”

  I was standing at the foot of the staircase now starting to have second thoughts. It was hot and stuffy on the ground floor so I had a pretty good idea how stifling it was going to be once we got into the room with the body. Helena was desperate to get upstairs and do some proper detective work. But I wasn’t so sure.

  What was it that Sciprianou had said when Helena asked him how Brodsky had died?

  Messily.

  My dad had said that every decent job has an unsavoury side to it and I suppose that if I wanted to get involved in this line of work then I was just going to have to get on with. Besides, I wouldn’t be on my own. I’d have Helena there: second guessing my every move.

  “Let’s get it over with,” I grabbed the hand rail and started hauling myself up the stairs.

  The last few officers from the forensic team were over against the far wall. Two of them were writing up their notes whilst a third was taking photographs. It was a huge room, taking up the whole of the first floor. As we came through the door, the room was illuminated by a sharp pop followed by a thin whine as the man’s flash-gun powered up again. Trying to ignore the after-burn of the image I struggled to make sense of what I was seeing. He was lying in a thick pool of blood, the front of his chest torn open so that the whites of his ribs poked into the air.

  Helena stood directly behind me and whispered, “What about his head? What happened to that?”

  The truth is that I hadn’t noticed that his head was missing. I hadn’t gotten beyond staring at his chest.

  I wanted to be professional. I wanted to go up and examine the corpse but I was struggling just to stave off the nausea. The best I could do was glance at it whilst trying to make mental notes. A pair of white Nike trainers, baggy jeans, and a black Swatch wrist watch. Peripheral details. I couldn’t make out what he was wearing on his upper body. The blood had obscured everything.

  “No need to get any closer,” Helena said. “Just have a look around. See if you can spot anything out of the ordinary.”

  Leaving Helena by the stairs, I moved into the main body of the room. It was laid out like an artist’s studio, canvases stacked against the wall. Although most of them faced inwards there were one or two larger paintings which faced outwards; abstracts mostly.

  I made a conscious effort to try and analyse them on a temporal level. It’s part of my special knack. It lets me access different emotional states directly usually in the form of colours but sometimes sounds. Depends what it is. The closest way I can think to describe it is like viewing some kind of emotional bruising, only it hangs around for a lot longer.

  The paintings had a dark, visceral energy which suited the mood of the room. I couldn’t sense anything unusual about them though and I was surprised by that. There’s usually a lot of energy around paintings. Everything else felt decidedly flat. Over in the far corner of the room, a table caught my attention. I was drawn to it as much for its unique design as anything else: the table legs consisted of two inter-locking sets of elephant tusks. A relic from a by-gone age. A very unique, if slightly distasteful, piece it was currently being used to store a collection of plastic desk files along with other bits of office stationery.

  When I looked back I could see Helena talking to one of the detectives. It didn’t look as if she was getting anywhere and I sensed her growing impatience.

  Amidst the files on the desk were various mementoes and souvenirs from trips abroad dominated by a red and black harlequin doll. The sort of thing you might pick up in Venice. The documents seemed to be piled up in no discernible order. None of it looked remotely promising.

  I noticed a stapler wedged underneath one of the bigger box files. It had a sticker on the top of it which I couldn’t quite read. When I tried to lift it, the file proved to be a lot heavier than it looked and then the photographer’s flash went off again. I succeeded only in tipping the file back off the desk. It hit the floor with a hearty crack. Everyone turned and looked. I felt my face glow red with embarrassment as the detective opposite Helena started moving towards me. Helena reacted quickly though, stepping in to cut him off.

  I scuttled around to the rear of the desk to see that the file had burst open spilling its contents over the floor. When I attempted to cradle them in my arms they started to slip from my grasp. Somehow, I managed to slide them back onto the desk. I didn’t dare look at the forensic team. If they wanted to they could probably arrest me for contaminating the crime scene and no-one would have argued with them – least of all me.

  I knelt down in order to pick up the remaining papers, planting one hand squarely on the floor.

  I was kneeling on a threadbare looking carpet and, as my palm came into contact with it a bright, clear singing filled my head. Ancient words in a language I didn’t understand cried out for my attention. High, insistent voices at first with a fluting modulation changing gradually to something lower, more sonorous and unpleasant, registering at a primal level. It was impossible to make sense of and its sheer enormity threatened to overwhelm me.

  I had no real idea what was happening to me, so I was barely able to control the full onslaught of emotions which coursed through my body, activating a reflexive judder. The feelings ranged from simple unease with bass notes of anger through to panic and something so deeply disturbing that I was forced to pull back, breaking the connection. The next thing I knew I was sitting on the floor holding my fingers as if I’d been bitten.

  Helena was squatting beside me, “What just happened?”

  I waved her away, “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “It’s nothing. It’s happened before. Just, normally I get a bit more warning.”

  She didn’t probe any further which made me like her more. Instead she said, “Is there anything I can get you? Any medication.”

  “It’s not like that. Medical, I mean. I’m just …” I searched for the right word. I didn’t want her thinking of me as some sort of liability. “Just …”

  “Sensitive?” she said. It was exactly the sort of thing Ma Birch would have said. A common enough euphemism that was capable of conveying a whole world of meaning.

  “Yes, that’s right. Sensitive. That’s the word.”

  A moment’s unspoken recognition passed between us. Then she said, “Come on, let’s get you outside. Into the fresh air.”

  My first day on the job and I was already dangerously out of my depth.

  I rubbed the back of my neck hoping that it would relax me and found myself staring at the rug.

  “Sorry,” I said. “None of this is making much sense at the moment.”

  Helena helped me get to my feet.

  Chapter 8

  I don’t remember walking down the steps or even how we got out into the yard. I do remember a beefy detective standing in his shirt sleeves, his forensic suit rolled down to the waist while he smoked a cigarette.

  I don’t think I even asked him for one. He must have recognised my look of longing and taken pity on me. My hand shook as I lifted the cigarette to my lips. He curled his hands around the match as he lit it. The kindness of strangers, eh?

  Next thing I was sitting with my back against a wall as the nicotine blossomed in my lungs. It seemed like a very long time since my last cigarette; and it tasted amazing!

  “Didn’t know you were a smoker,” Helena was leaning against the wall next to me.

  “I thought I’d given up,” I surveyed the glowing tip. “Seems I was wrong.”

  The sweat on my back had started to cool and I shivered, “I was a bit of a mess in there. Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m just relieved that you’re alright. Thought I was going to have to call an ambulance for a minute.”

  While I wanted to talk through what I’d just experienced I didn’t want her dismissing me as some kind of lunatic. I’d considered
my sensitive nature to be such an embarrassment for so long that keeping quiet about it had become my de-fault setting.

  The guy who’d donated my cigarette finished his and went back inside.

  “Fancy a stiff drink? My treat.” Helena was trying to be nice to me.

  Not a good sign. She hadn’t wanted to bring me here, and was probably now feeling vindicated in that regard. I was clearly a liability. She’d put in her report to Kinsella and any possible career I might have had would be dismissed in a foot-note. ‘Lacks the relevant temperament for this type of work.’

  I could probably write it for her.

  My head was still spinning. The last thing I wanted to do was to add alcohol to the mix.

  “Maybe later.”

  I needed to go before she started asking me about what had happened in there, “Look, I forgot, I’m supposed to be at the estate agents. I’m collecting the keys to my new flat. Have you got the time?”

  She consulted her watch.

  “Three thirty. I was hoping we might get time for a chat?”

  “I’d love to but I’ve had to leave my dad to pack up the stuff from my old place. He won’t be able to start moving me in until I get there with the keys. I should have said something earlier.”

  “I see,” she was worried that I knew something that I was keeping from her. “No chance that your dad could pick up the keys himself?”

  Now things were getting awkward. The irony was that, by rights, I shouldn’t have even been at work. Friday was my allocated Moving Day.

  “I’ve got to sign for the keys,” which was true, though Millie could have signed “They close at seven. If I miss them I’m going to be really stuck tonight.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “Course you need time off to move. Sorry. It’s just that I’m so keen to get going on this. That is if you agree that we’re not wasting our time.”

  “Something weird’s going on.”

  “I agree, but we have nothing in the way of evidence. I need something solid to take back to Kinsella.”