Another Bloody Love Story

by Rachel Green

  “Not interrupting are we?” Pennie looked up at a blue uniform. “PC Mike Brandsford. This is Constable Sanders. We did knock but you must not have heard us.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  There was something fundamentally wrong, Felicia thought, as she waited for a covered mobility scooter to pass before crossing the road, with calling an infusion of flower petals ‘tea’. It was bad enough that she had to ask for Jasmine Sensation, enduring the sniggers of the pre-pubescent staff at the coffee shop on Hope Street, but carrying it back to Meinwen’s witchery shop was embarrassing. She hoped that neither of the other werewolves living locally saw her carrying herbal tea.

  It was a relief to reach the door of ‘Goddess Provides,’ backing into it to force it open without risk to the two drinks and baguettes she carried. As she crossed the threshold, she executed a neat turn to prevent the door from taking the drinks out of her hand as it closed again. The bell overhead rattled, bringing Meinwen through the bead curtain to check who’d entered.

  “You’re late,” she said, looking at the array of clocks. All of them said different times but by the law of averages one of them must be correct.

  “Sorry. I was chatting to Julie on the phone and there were a couple of potentials in.”

  “Sell anything?”

  “No, but at least they made the gallery look busy. That brings more customers in. Besides, I’m not going to kick someone out because they don’t want to buy anything. If that had happened to me when I was young, I’d have never gone into art. I’d have taken a subject socially disturbing like politics.”

  “You should become a councillor, you might do some good,” said Meinwen, taking the cups and leading the way into the tiny kitchen. “Do you know, somebody stole my bin last week and the council won’t replace it. They only replace them when they’re broken and they insist on seeing the broken one first.” She handed the drinks back to Felicia, shifted a pile of books from the table and put them on the draining board.

  Felicia set out the drinks and sat down, unwrapping the chicken salad baguette and picking out the salad, dropping it onto the plastic wrapper, much to Meinwen’s disgust.

  “If you hadn’t had meat I’d have been able to eat that,” she said.

  “I have to eat meat.” Felicia tore the top off her cappuccino and took several sips. “You know I can’t process much else.”

  “Cheese,” said Meinwen as she unwrapped her hummus. “You could have a cheese salad and then I could eat the salad.”

  “I thought you didn’t eat cheese either,” said Felicia. She took a bite of the baguette and chewed.

  “Some cheese I do,” said Meinwen. “I’m vegetarian, not vegan. I can’t imagine giving up honey or eggs.”

  “Right, I forgot.” Felicia swallowed. “What time does Valerie start and finish work?”

  “Six until two.” Meinwen’s tongue lapped a trace of garlic oil from her spoon. “Why? Have you got some work for her?”

  “Maybe.” Felicia grinned. “Probably better you don’t ask. Tell her to give me a call, would you?”

  “Of course.” Meinwen looked away as Felicia tore into her chicken.

  * * * *

  It was an hour after Felicia had left before the door opened again.

  “What’s up?” Valerie sidled into the shop, instinctively catching the clapper before it rang the bell. “I got your message on the answering machine.”

  “Sorry about that.” Meinwen held open the bead curtain. “I want to talk to you and it isn’t a conversation I wanted to have over the phone.”

  “You want me out of the house?” Valerie sat. “I can understand that. It can’t be easy living with me. If it’s about the blood-soaked overalls in the washing basket…”

  “No.” Meinwen’s face creased in consternation for a moment then cleared as she put it out of her mind. “It’s not that at all. Actually, I quite like having someone else in the house with me.”

  “That’s a relief.” Valerie visibly relaxed. “What then?”

  Meinwen sat, taking Valerie’s hands. “How well do you know Felicia?”

  Valerie shrugged. “Quite well. I know what her monthly cycle is, if you know what I mean. Also the others she lives with: Gillian and Julie and Harold. I know what they are.”

  “And it doesn’t bother you?” Meinwen was surprised. “It would bother me. It did bother me, when I first found out. I got used to the idea eventually. You’re a nun. Surely what they are is against everything you stand for?”

  “Once, perhaps.” Valerie pulled back her hands and rested them on the table. “But then the convent trained me to be a covert operative so nothing really bothers me that much. I have two or three years before my reflexes start to slow, and then I need to find somewhere to settle down. Half a mil in the bank doesn’t buy a lot around here.”

  “Half a mil?” Meinwen was almost hoarse. “Why are you doing a minimum wage rubbish job when you’ve got half a mil in the bank?”

  “I need time to pull some documents together,” Valerie paused and tapped her fingers on the table. “So…why did you want to talk to me about Felicia?”

  “She wants to see you. She’s got a job for you.” Meinwen leaned back on her chair and snagged a jar of sunflower seeds. She twisted off the cap and began eating them one by one.

  “Amen to that. I could do with the excitement to be honest.”

  “Flipping burgers not as fulfilling as you’d hoped?”

  “I’ll turn the other cheek on that, Miss Jones.” Valerie made the sign of the cross and smiled. “Did Felicia happen to mention what the job was?”

  “She said it was better that I didn’t know,” said Meinwen, “though whether that was to keep me honest or to stop me worrying I’m not certain.”

  “Probably both.” Valerie reached across and took a sunflower seed. “It must be something big. She can handle most things on her own.”

  “More than you’d think.” Meinwen made stabbing motions with a seed. “I’ve seen her deal with an angel.”

  “And worse than that,” said Valerie. “Once she had to deal with me.” She slipped through the beaded curtain but paused to put her head back through for a parting comment. “That was the time she lost.”

  She smiled as she went through the shop, passing the tarot cards and images of pagan deities. It was a shame people believed in such things, she thought, when she knew with absolute certainty that God existed. There was no denying God once you’d met a demon, and a demon worked out of the bookshop she was walking toward.

  Despite twenty years of mental conditioning, she elected not to enter the bookshop and drive blessed stakes through the torso of the proprietor, electing to continue around the corner to the Basement Gallery instead.

  Felicia was in her office when Valerie arrived, talking to someone on the phone. She smiled at the younger woman and nodded at a chair. Valerie sat, taking the opportunity to look around the cramped space. The back wall was plastered in pin board which in turn was covered in notes and posters for art exhibitions all over the country. Valerie was particularly taken by one for the Pre-Raphaelites in Oxford, where the poster depicted Rossetti’s Annunciation. That was, she decided, the very best way to become pregnant. No fuss, no mess; just a quick hello from an angel and a wave of his flower and you were the Mother of God. Not much chance of that happening to her. Valerie was already twenty seven; well over twice the age of Mary when she conceived.

  “Done.” Felicia put the phone down and slumped into her chair. “Never,” she said, “never offer an exhibition space to a half elf. Give them an inch and they’ll take a guinea.”

  “A yard, you mean,” Valerie leaned forward. “Mother Superior used to make us count pins by the yard. It was important, she said.”

  “Important for who?”

  “I th
ink it was meant to keep us busy. Idle hands and all that. I can throw pins accurately over five yards now and still bury them to the hilt in the target.” Valerie picked up a pencil and tossed it across the room where it sank several inches into the wall.

  Felicia followed its progress. “Impressive,” she said. “I’ll have to learn that trick myself.”

  “I could teach you, if you like. It’s easy enough.” Valerie shrugged. “Meinwen said you had a job for me tonight.”

  “That’s right.” Felicia leaned forward and dropped her voice. “We think someone at twilight has got hold of one of Harold’s very important texts and we need to get it back”

  “No theft involved?”

  “No. Just reclamation of stolen property.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want to do anything bad.”

  Felicia laughed. “You were an assassin when I first met you.”

  “Redeemer,” Valerie corrected. “I helped people find God.”

  “Thirty years sooner than they would have liked to in most cases.”

  Valerie ignored the remark. “Where is this book?”

  “I’ve no idea. This is a recon mission. Slip in and slip out. If we can get the book so much the better, but if not we need to find out where it’s kept and how well guarded it is.”

  “Who stole it in the first place?”

  “A chap called Steven Lowry. Why?”

  “We’ll look in his office first,” said Valerie. “Chances are he still has it.”

  “I doubt it.” Felicia picked up the phone and dialled. “Julie? This book we’re looking for. Do we know who has it?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Can you find out?”

  “How am I supposed to find out? Winston is my only contact up there and he didn’t know anything about the book, let alone who has it.”

  Felicia covered the mouthpiece. “She doesn’t know who has the book,” she said. “Nor does Winston.”

  “Someone must know.” Valerie frowned. “Is the layout still the same from when it used to be a convent?”

  “As far as I know.” Felicia pulled up the website on her laptop. She scanned through the links. “There isn’t a floor plan but I can’t see it being radically different. That’s why I wanted you with me. You used to live there. You’ll know your way around.”

  “I was a nun living in a cell on sub level two,” said Valerie. “And that was only until the Abbot turned out to be an agnostic. I was hardly in a position to wander the halls of the Technorati.”

  “I bet you did though.” Felicia grinned at Valerie’s sudden blush. “See? You have more knowledge of the research facility than I do.” She took her hand off the phone. “Julie? Are you still there?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” Julie yawned. “It’s not as if I’m inundated with customers up here, is it? Or work, come to that. If I wasn’t playing cards online I’d have been bored to tears hours ago. Oh, wait!”

  “Good,” said Felicia. “Good that you’re still there, I mean. Not that you’re bored to tears. Is there any chance you could ask someone for a floor plan of Magelight? Would Winston have one?”

  “Possibly.” Julie thought for a moment. “I’ll see what I can do and get back to you, all right?”

  “Super. Thanks sweetie.” Felicia put the phone down. “I’ll do what I can to get an updated layout,” she said. “When do you finish flipping burgers again?”

  “Two a.m,” Valerie said. “Where do you want to meet?”

  “I’ll meet up with you,” said Felicia. “I’d say to meet here but the security system is a killer.”

  “I could crack it,” said Valerie. “I kept up my skills while I was locked up in the convent.”

  “That’s good to hear,” said Felicia. “I wonder how many more people would be afraid of nuns if they met you.”

  “None at all.” Valerie grinned. “They’d be dead.”

  * * * *

  Julie walked up the stairs to the romance section. If the ghosts looked pale before, it was possible they would look even paler, when they realized the proprietor of the shop they spent their afternoons in could see them after all. Mrs. Prendergast backed away. “What do you want?” she said. “Do you have unfinished business. Leave me alone, dear. Go into the light.”

  “I can’t,” Julie said. “I have to ask you to do something for me.”

  “Always with the want, want, want,” said the ghost. “Tell me then, and try not to moan or rattle your chains.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Constable Mike Brandsford walked around the flat tutting at the damage. He’d spent several long minutes taking down Chase’s particulars and examining the back door to the fire escape and garden, through which the burglars had entered. After several attempts at dropping hints, he’d virtually ordered Constable Ann Sanders to make them all a nice cuppa.

  “So,” he said when they’d brushed off the small bistro-style table and sat around it. “There was no force used to get in. Did you leave the back door open or did they have a key?”

  “They must have used my ex-husband’s key.” Pennie handed him Steve’s ID badge. “I distinctly remember locking the door before I went to work this morning. I sat on the balcony with my coffee and morning paper.”

  Mike fingered the badge, turning it over and over in his hands. “What makes you so sure this wasn’t done by Steven Lowry?”

  “We’re friends,” said Pennie. “Just because we divorced it doesn’t mean we hate each other. We stayed best mates all the way through. Still are, really, which is why I gave him the key.”

  “Which, presumably he gave to someone else.” Mike sipped his tea, shifting his weight on the folding chair Pennie had scrounged for him, from her tenant downstairs.

  “I don’t know why.” Pennie looked toward Chase for support but he was staring into his untouched mug. “Even if it was him, he wouldn’t have trashed the place. He only had to ask for those papers.”

  “Papers?” Constable Sanders pulled out her notebook, “What papers?”

  “They’re pages from an old book he asked me to look after,” said Pennie. “I can get them if you like but I can’t see what they have to do with anything.”

  “When did you last see Mister Lowry?” Mike asked when she returned with the packet. “Was he aware of your hiding place for these papers?”

  “Not really, no.” Pennie opened the packet. “I never really saw the need. He knew he was welcome to collect them at a moment’s notice.”

  Mike leafed through the papers, a quizzical look on his face. “I can’t make head or tail of them,” he confessed. “What are they about?”

  “Search me.” Pennie stuffed them back in the envelope, ignoring PC Sanders’ outstretched hand. “Some old astrology text. I can’t see why they were so important.”

  “Talking of which,” said Chase, uncomfortable with being silent for so long, “why did he leave them with you? Why couldn’t he keep them at his house?”

  “I don’t rightly know,” said Pennie. “Perhaps he was embarrassed about them. You know what scientists are like. They’ll take any flaw in a colleague and move in for the kill.”

  “The kill?” Mike’s pleasant demeanour vanished. “That’s an odd term to use. Do you believe his life to be in danger?”

  “It’s an expression.” Pennie frowned. “You don’t think someone would want to kill him, do you?”

  “I’m sure they wouldn’t.” Mike smiled reassuringly. “Who’d want to kill a scientist?”

  “Any other scientist with an interest in the same field and a suspicion he was going to get the breakthrough first?” said Sanders, under her breath.

  “Nobody, I’m sure.” Chase stood up and collected the cups, taking Mike’s out of his hand just as he was about to take a sip out of
it. “Have you got everything you need for your report, Constable?”

  “I think so.” Mike stood as well, indicating with a hand that Sanders should follow suit. “We’ll be sending the fingerprint boys round a bit later on.”

  “But you’ve opened and closed that door half a dozen times,” said Chase. “That’s hardly preservation of a crime scene, is it?”

  “My fingerprints will already be on file,” said Mike. “They’ll need to take yours for elimination purposes.”

  “I haven’t touched it.”

  “Your dabs will be all over this flat.” Mike nodded. “We’ll see ourselves out,” he said. “Nice place you’ve got here.”

  “Thanks.” Pennie smiled and got up. “Is it all right if we clear up, though? As long as we leave the door, I mean.”

  “I don’t see why not, love.” Sanders, with a glance at Mike, took her to one side. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? Have you got somewhere else you can stay for the night?”

  “Not really.” Pennie glanced over at Chase who was deliberately looking the other way. “I don’t know that many people.”

  “Is there anyone who would stay with you then?” She followed Pennie’s glance. “For a few hours, perhaps?”

  “Maybe.” Pennie fumbled in her pocket for a tissue. “Thanks,” she said. “Thanks for thinking about me.”

  “Some people…” Sanders nodded toward Mike, who was studiously avoiding the ‘identifying with the victim’ talk, “think the job is all about tackling the crime. I don’t. I joined the police to help people when they needed it. Look.” She scribbled on her notebook, tore out the page and pressed it into Pennie’s hand. “Here’s my mobile number. Not the police one, my personal one. Give me a call if you want to chat out of hours.”

  “Thanks.” Pennie’s gaze flicked to the line of numbers. “I’ll do that.”

  “Good.” Sanders patted her shoulder. “Got to stick together, haven’t we? Call me anytime. I’ll soon say if it’s not convenient. I’ve got to go or His Nibs’ll have my guts for garters. Ten minutes in uniform and he thinks he’s an inspector already.”