Another Bloody Love Story

by Rachel Green

“Such as?” Winston took a mouthful of tea and looked into her eyes.

  “Well…” Pennie looked away. “He sent him to buy an old book last time. One that was all about making tiny dolls. It’s unnatural, grown men making dolls.”

  “I suppose.” Winston patted her arm. “You said they were looking for papers, the people who did this.” He nodded at the damage. “What sort of papers?”

  “Pages from the book, actually.” Pennie smiled for the first time since Winston had arrived. “They didn’t get them. I had them too well hidden.”

  “They must be important, though, these pages.” Winston finished his tea and relinquished his hold on the cup. This left him a hand with nothing to do and he became acutely aware of it, as if it were a casual friend lying on the table.

  “I suppose.” Pennie looked worried. “You don’t think they’ll come back?”

  “Nah.” Winston leaned back and put his hands in his lap, out of her line of sight. “You’ve had the police out and everything. They wouldn’t dare. How did they get in?”

  “They forced the back door.” Pennie nodded toward the offending entry. “The neighbours downstairs didn’t hear a thing.”

  “Perhaps it was the neighbours doing it,” said Winston.

  “Paul and Jo?” Pennie considered it for a moment. “No. I can’t see it. They’ve got a spare key.”

  “I still don’t think it was Magelight.” Winston stood up and stretched, putting his hands behind his head and arching his back. “They’ve got no reason to turn your place over. So what if there are missing pages? Jim would just go and buy another copy.” He began picking up pieces of broken crockery. “This was thugs,” he said. “You mark my words.”

  “Why would thugs break in to smash everything?” Pennie asked, pulling on a pair of heavy-duty gloves. “They smashed the telly when they could have taken it. They left my jewellery and my papers.”

  “Papers?”

  “Rent book for downstairs, bank card, passport, that sort of thing.” She started on the corner of the living room opposite to Winston. “As far as I can tell, nothing was taken.”

  “But something was left here.” Winston paused, looking up to the corner of the ceiling. “Give me a minute, will you?”

  “Sure.” Pennie’s brow creased as he took out his mobile phone. “Who are you calling?”

  “Mate of mine.” Winston flashed her a smile as the call connected. “Julie? I’m at Pennie’s flat…no, not like that. She’s been burgled. It’s a hell of a mess.” He paused while Julie talked. “I will, yeah. Listen, is that bloke you work for any good with computers? No? Know anyone who is?” He gave a sudden bark of laughter. “Valerie? I didn’t even know she was back in town. How do I get hold of her?”

  He covered the mouthpiece and walked across the room to Pennie. “I’ve got to nip out and fetch someone,” he said. “A specialist in security. Will you be able to cover her bill?”

  “I expect so.” Pennie took a step toward him. “What’s all this about?” she asked. “I’ve already had the police lecturing me on the proper use of locks and bolts on doors and windows.”

  “It’s not that sort of security.” Winston held a hand up to forestall her reply and spoke back into the phone. “Yeah? Cushti. I remember her…Hang on while I get a pen.” He made scribbling motions and Pennie opened a drawer in the sideboard for one, passing it across with the back of an envelope to write on.

  He wrote down the number Julie gave him and read it back to her. “Thanks, babe. I owe you one.” He put the phone down with a smile at her reply.

  “What was all that about then?” Pennie asked. “What security are you on about?”

  “Come into the kitchen.” Winston led her to the back door, opened it and ushered her outside. “How long have you had micro webcams in the corners of your rooms?” he asked. “Not ones you can get out of a shop but state of the art cutting edge micro cams?”

  “I don’t understand.” Pennie made to go back inside to see. “Where have those come from?”

  “I only know one place where they make those,” said Winston. “Let’s say I believe you about Magelight now. This ransacking wasn’t to steal anything at all. It was to plant those cameras.”

  “Why would anyone want to spy on me, though,” said Pennie. “I don’t have any secrets.”

  “You have something they want. We have to find out what.” Winston pulled out his phone and dialled the number he’d written down. “Meinwen?” he said. “It’s Winston.” He frowned. “Winston. Felicia’s friend?” The frown was replaced with a grin. “That’s right. Listen, I hear Valerie’s staying with you. Is she there? Can I speak to her? Cushti.”

  Pennie went back inside to make another cup of tea. Listening to men make fools of themselves to women she didn’t know, was not one of her favorite pastimes. She boiled the kettle, doing her best not to stare at the corners of the ceilings.

  Winston opened the kitchen door, almost giving her a heart attack. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “I have to pick up Valerie and Meinwen.”

  “Why?”

  “Valerie’s a computer whiz,” he said, “and Meinwen wants to help.”

  “Okay.” Pennie followed him to the top of the stairs. “Winston?” she called.

  “Yeah?” He paused at the door, one hand on the latch ready to close it and looked back up the stairs at her.

  “Yes,” she said, “I will come with you to your sister’s wedding.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Winston was still grinning when he and the three women pulled up outside Pennie’s flat and got out. “You’ll like her, honestly,” he said to his sister as he opened the passenger door. “She’s brainy and everything.”

  “Ooh!” Latitia sing-songed, as she took the keys out and opened her own door. “Can someone really tame my philandering brother?” She had, as usual, refused to even get into Winston’s car, let alone allow him to pick up Meinwen and Valerie in it. “It’s a death trap,” she had told him, for the fourth time since he’d gone home to change out of his security guard uniform. “I don’t care if you kill yourself, but I do care about the lawsuits of anyone else.”

  It wasn’t true. She cared about her brother’s life very much. What she’d never told him was, she already had prior knowledge, through her predictive cognisance. He wouldn’t die until his skin was as wrinkled as a week old plum on a Naples balcony. A car crash would never kill him, but it might kill his passengers.

  “I know you love me really.” Winston helped Meinwen out of the back seat. Latitia’s car might be road worthy but it was only a two door. Valerie was already uncoiling from the drivers’ side. “You’ll love her, too.”

  Meinwen turned a full circle. “There’s a disturbance in the ether,” she said “Can you feel it?”

  “Now that you mention it…” Winston sniffed the air. “No. Not really. I can smell tonight’s menu from the Taj Mahal curry house, though. It’s making my mouth water.”

  He grinned and headed to the house. Valerie called to her landlady. “He’s just being crass, don’t worry about it.”

  “I don’t.” Meinwen watched the retreating back of the man as he led his sister toward Pennie’s front door. “I stopped getting upset about people ridiculing me about it years ago. You can see it, though, can’t you?”

  “Not without special lenses.” Valerie shrugged as she pulled a metal case out of the boot. It held her laptop and a few sundry items. “That’s one of the reasons I’ve agreed to go on this run to Magelight. They make a lot of cutting edge paranormal detectors that I’ve run out of. Stuff you can’t get on the open market.”

  “You’re going to steal equipment?”

  “Yes.” Valerie showed no shame in the concept. “Why shouldn’t I? They don’t sell the gear on the open market and I need it.”

/>   “Theft is never justified.” Meinwen pulled a bag out as well. This one was a white plastic shopping bag from the supermarket nearest to Winston and Latitia’s house. It contained all the items she needed to protect the house from her own brand of magic.

  She motioned Valerie inside then paused outside the front door and got out the plastic tube of salt. The second buy one, get one free, she left in the bag. Witches always need salt. Salt breaks magical spells and casting a circle in salt as she was doing here prevented illusions from passing through.

  Demons, she knew from personal experience, could be tricky like that.

  Inside, Latitia had already set the kettle to boil and emptied Pennie’s cupboards of cleaning fluids. From a bag similar to Meinwen’s she handed out a roll of bin liners and a pair of heavy rubber gloves to each of them. Valerie took one step into the room before backing out again. She squatted at the top of the stairs and opened her case, pulling out a laptop.

  Meinwen raised her eyebrows. “I thought you were broke,” she said. “How could you afford that?”

  “I’ve had this for a couple of months,” she said. “I had to collect it from where it was hidden. Top of the range, though no longer cutting edge. I’ll have to get it upgraded before I hack any black ice.”

  “You’ve plenty of time for that,” said Meinwen. “It’s not even June yet.”

  Valerie stared at her, trying to judge if she was being sarcastic. It appeared not. “Ice,” she said. “I.C. Intrusion countermeasures. Programs that try to stop me doing what I do. Ice kicks you offline. Black ice fries the computer.”

  “That sounds bad.”

  “It can be.” Valerie booted up the laptop and connected to Pennie’s wireless connection, her fingers flying over the keys as she hacked passwords and server sites. “This isn’t, though, it’s just routine.” She tapped out several commands and pictures of Pennie’s flat appeared on the screen. “That’s handy,” she said, opening another DOS window and doing an IP lookup.

  “What is?” Meinwen squatted next to her and Valerie moved the screen so that she could see as well.

  “I’ve followed the feed back to the source,” she said, “which I’m not surprised to say is Magelight because I’ve traced the IP. The interesting thing is that they’ve been taking still frames every ten minutes and I’ve got the last two hundred stored on the server.”

  She brought up a series of images, the earliest of which showed the flat in perfect order, before the crime. “There,” she said. “Now we can scroll through and see who ransacked the place. First, though, I have to sort out the feed. No point in advertising our presence.”

  She accessed each of the cameras in turn and pointed them to a file on the server. Instead of a live feed, each camera would now display a still image it had taken earlier in the day. She wiped the stored photographs of Winston and the police for good measure. “Who’s that?” she said, hovering over the image of Chase. “I haven’t seen him before.”

  Meinwen glanced at the image. “Charlton Spenser,” she said. “Animal rights activist and town philanderer. Steer clear of him if you want to keep your chastity.”

  “I think I will.” Valerie deleted the files. “Though it looks to me that Pennie isn’t so worried about it.”

  Meinwen smiled. “We get our oats wherever we can,” she said. “I’d grow his corn given half a chance.”

  “Grow his corn?” Valerie raised her eyebrows. “Oh, I see.” She flushed red. “Rather you than I, although would you count as barren ground?”

  “I’m only thirty two, thank you very much,” said Meinwen. “I’ve got years left in me yet.”

  “Of course.” Valerie flashed her a smile. “It must be your strength of will that makes you seem older. Now, let’s show the others a slide show.”

  Meinwen glanced up when she returned to the living room, trying to spot the cameras. It should have been easy after seeing their field of view but out of seven she still only managed two. Winston fared better with four but only Valerie was able to point them all out to Pennie. “They’re perfectly safe,” she assured her hostess, “I’ve set them all to see the same, empty frame. If you have a bit of dark nail varnish we can black out all the lenses.”

  “Darned right we will.” Pennie vanished into her bedroom and returned with a bottle of ‘Midnight Girl.’ She proceeded, with the aid of a kitchen chair, to black out every camera. “Why can’t we just rip them out?” she asked.

  “Because that would flag a ‘no camera connected’ on the server.” Valerie spoke without looking, setting up her laptop to play the accumulated camera images. She deleted all the ones showing empty rooms until ten-thirty-two-a.m, where the screen showed a book in mid air. “Here are the stills from the cameras.” she said.

  The others gathered round as she began to play them through in a slide show. They watched a screen split into four quadrants as Pennie left the house at seven twenty-six am, after which the images flickered but remained still.

  “I deleted the next two hours,” said Valerie, as the time stamp flicked forward to ten-thirty. “But look what happens now.”

  They watched as without warning the bookcase nearest the door emptied itself of books. They appeared in the view of the other cameras as they landed around the room, then the bookcase fell forward onto the floor. Pennie remembered Chase picking it up again. They watched in disbelief as stains blossomed on the walls and the flat was trashed with no-one appearing to do it. At ten-thirty-five it went still again, the vandalism obvious.

  Pennie straightened up. “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Wait.” Valerie pointed at the screen. “There’s more.”

  At eleven twenty-one the back door opened and two men walked in, flicking from the kitchen camera to the living room and vanishing. “Bedroom and bathroom,” explained Valerie. “More of the same.”

  “I know them,” said Pennie. “They came to the sanctuary to see Chase.”

  “Sanctuary?” Valerie frowned.

  “Animal rescue place,” said Winston. “Where she works, Chase is her boss.”

  “Ah.” Valerie paused the slides at a good shot of the intruders. “Who are they?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Pennie said. “Chase owed some money to someone and they were reminding him.” She frowned. “Oh, God. Did they think I had their money? Did this happen because of Chase?”

  Winston warred with his conscience before reassuring her that it probably wasn’t anything to do with Chase. “I know these guys too,” he said. “Speaker and Dog. They’re brothers that work for Charlie Benton.”

  “What do they do,” asked Meinwen.

  “Extortion, drug pushing, money laundering, protection.” Winston shrugged. “I don’t think there’s a pie Benton hasn’t got a finger in. I don’t know what they’re doing here though.”

  “That!” Valerie stabbed a finger at the screen. In the image, Speaker was tucking a plastic identity tag under the sofa. “They were planting evidence.”

  “Why though?” asked Winston. “Who would ask Charlie Benton for a favor like that?”

  “Someone desperate,” said Pennie.

  “I bet they came to look for your papers,” said Winston, “but when they saw the mess they assumed someone had beaten them to it. Dog kept a lookout while Speaker planted the evidence then they scarpered without the pages.”

  “César,” said Valerie. “Dog changed his name. I heard them tell Chase.”

  “Odd.” Latitia stood up as the slide show finished. “What was going on at the start? Was it something supernatural?”

  “A ghost, you mean?” Pennie gave a bark of laughter. “You don’t honestly believe in all that guff, do you?”

  “Guff?” Winston raised an eyebrow. “I believe it about as much as I believe in politicians, and I really wish they
didn’t exist.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Pennie’s face twisted into a most unflattering expression. “All this was done by a ghost?”

  “Certainly not,” said Meinwen. “It’d be ridiculous to even contemplate it.”

  “Thank God,” said Pennie. “Some sanity at last.”

  “That’s right.” Meinwen picked up a dustpan and brush. “Ghosts are unable to manipulate objects. This was done by a demon.”

  “A demon?” Pennie’s mouth hung open. “You’re having me on.”

  “Not at all,” said Latitia. “Of course, there is the possibility of it being an elf or a fairy, but those usually show up on cameras.”

  “Neither of those,” said Valerie, packing away her laptop. “They’d leave evidence, the smell at least. Did you notice any odd smells when you got in, Pennie?”

  “Not over the faeces and the urine, no.” Pennie wrinkled her nose. “I saved some poo if you’d like to take a look.”

  “You saved some? Why?” Latitia looked askance.

  “Forensic evidence,” said Pennie. “DNA matching.”

  “Good call,” said Meinwen, “though if it was a demon it will have used someone else’s poo so they’d get a false positive.”

  “Hold on though,” said Winston. “Whose poo would a demon throw? Not just anyone’s, surely? There’s always a method to a demon’s actions.”

  “Why do you keep saying demon?” said Pennie. “This isn’t the set of The Exorcist and I’m not about to fall for a candid camera trick. There’s no such thing as demons except in books and films.”

  Meinwen nodded. “She has a point,” she said, turning to Winston and wiggling her eyebrows out of Pennie’s line of sight. “There’s no such thing as demons. We might as well tell her the truth.”

  “Thank you, at last,” said Pennie. “What exactly is going on?”

  “It’s a top secret project,” said Meinwen. “They’re experimenting with manipulating magnetic fields from a distance. That’s why they installed cameras first. If they can ransack your flat they can use the internet to get anywhere in the world. It would be a devastating weapon.”