by Lucy Banks
“Hey, don’t look so concerned,” his father said and gave him a slap on the back. “It’s nothing for you to worry about. I want to talk with you about the agency, nothing else.”
“Oh, okay.” Kester neatly side-stepped an enormous puddle. “What in particular?”
Ribero looked at him severely, then up at the sky. Dishwater-coloured clouds slid uneasily over their heads, hurried along by the wind. It was a grey, sombre day, and it was already getting dark.
“We are in trouble,” he said finally. “But you knew that already, right?”
“I know the agency is struggling financially,” Kester acknowledged. He followed his father as he turned down the narrow alleyway that led out on to the high street. “But we’ll get through it, right? I mean, you’ve always managed in the past.”
Dr Ribero smiled grimly. “Yes, we have scraped by, that is true. But it is tiring to keep scraping, right?”
Kester nodded. He could see how the lack of work was affecting the rest of the team. After the success of the Bloody Mary case, morale had been high, but in recent weeks, the mood had steadily slipped, leaving them in a state of disappointment and worry.
“However,” Ribero continued, “the other agencies, they are offering things that we cannot. Infinite Enterprises have all the sophisticated equipment, right?” He spat out the word sophisticated, making it sound like the most despicable thing equipment could possibly be.
“Yes, I know,” Kester said. “And Larry Higgins has got another office opening up.”
“Ah, do not mention the Higgins!” Ribero exclaimed, pressing his hands theatrically to his ears. A few seconds later, his shoulders dropped. “Of course, you are right,” he admitted. “Extra offices. All this money, all these companies doing very well. But not us.”
“Why not us?” Kester asked, picking up his pace to avoid the large gang of youths approaching the other way. Although only twenty-two himself, young people made him nervous, and he always felt sure they were about to mock his portly figure and spectacles. Mainly because that had happened several times in the past. To his relief, they passed without giving him a second glance.
“Good question!” Ribero said energetically, oblivious to Kester’s concerns. “Why not us? There is plenty of work, plenty of projects to bid on. But not so many coming to us. And this does not make sense to me, because people know that we have you.”
Kester gulped at the distinct emphasis placed on the last word. Oh no, not me again, he thought. I hate being the thing they’re relying on. “Yes,” he stuttered, stumbling to keep pace with his father, who was now striding purposefully along the pavement, heedless of other people walking the opposite way. “But I’m not sure my ability to open a door to the spirit world works very well.”
“You have said this before,” his father said impatiently and waved his protests away. “But I have seen you, Kester, my boy. I have watched you in action. You have the talent, just like your mother. Dear Gretchen would have been so proud of you.”
Why does it always have to come back to my mother? Kester thought irritably. It was exhausting always being compared to Gretchen Lanner who, from what Kester could surmise, had been something of a legend in the supernatural world, until she’d accidentally got pregnant with him. I’m not as good as her, he thought despondently. I don’t think I ever will be.
Ribero coughed, reading his expression. “We must keep the agency going,” he said, wisely moving on, “for Jennifer’s sake, if not for everyone else. It’s her family’s agency. It means everything to her.”
Kester nodded. He knew that it had been Miss Wellbeloved’s ancestors who had first set up the agency, back in the Victorian era. In those days, her well-connected relations had turned it into a great success, but as the years went on, and the more people became cynical about the supernatural, the more the agency had been pushed into the shadows.
“I made a promise to Jennifer’s father,” Ribero continued. “I promised I’d keep this agency going. And I must keep my word, yes?”
Well, you didn’t seem to have a problem breaking the other promise—the one about marrying his daughter, Kester thought, his mouth twitching just a little. Still, I suppose the little matter of having an affair with my mother didn’t help much.
Ribero flinched, correctly interpreting Kester’s thoughts. There was an uncomfortable silence. “Anyway,” he carried on eventually, “I want to talk to you about your role in the agency.”
“What bit of my role?”
“All of it.”
“Ah, I see.” Kester chewed his lip. He knew full well that his father wanted him to be more active, to come out on more jobs and develop his skills, rather than staying behind to do research on the computer. But the truth was, he hated being around spirits. Even after nearly four months of being immersed in the supernatural, he still struggled to cope with it all. The very existence of spirits, much less an entire world of spirits, was more than his rational brain was prepared to deal with.
“I want you to start working on your practical skills.”
“You mean you want me to deal with spirits more often.”
Ribero roared with laughter. A huddle of old ladies standing by a nearby shop window jumped and tutted at him, brows furrowed over their spectacles. He bowed, delivering them one of his most charming South American smiles, and they all melted in unison. Kester felt somewhat irritated, not to mention jealous, despite the fact they were at least fifty years older than him. Why didn’t I inherit some of his success with the ladies? he wondered, stuffing his hands into his pockets. Doesn’t seem fair to me.
“Yes, I do want you to deal with the spirits!” Ribero continued energetically. “I want you to embrace it all, Kester. It is nothing to be afraid of, right?”
Are you kidding? Kester thought. He mentally reviewed the list of spirits he’d seen so far. Even the not-so-scary ones had been bad enough, and the worst ones had been the stuff of nightmares. The last thing I want to do is get up-close and personal with any of them, he thought, tugging his coat collar up to keep the cold out.
“We have to win those new jobs first,” he said finally. “Not much point in me saying I’ll come with you to sort out the spirits when there aren’t any spirits for us to work with, is there?”
Ribero winked with the caddish confidence of a silent movie star. “Ah, but there will be some jobs soon,” he whispered conspiratorially. “I feel it in my bones, you see. You will have a chance to shine.”
Oh good, thought Kester glumly. Looking forward to it.
He glanced upwards. It had just started to rain, a mild patter of moisture that looked set to work its way into a fairly violent drenching.
He hoped it wasn’t a sign of things to come.
Chapter 3: Getting the Job
It was Saturday. A fact which Kester felt especially pleased about, given that it was nine o’clock, which meant that he could wallow in bed for at least another three hours. However, something wasn’t quite as it should be. There was a something keeping him from dozing off again into a wonderful morning nap. Something loudly, rudely intruding on the peace and quiet. What exactly was it?
Then he realised. Someone was shouting his name. Over and over again. Kester sat up blearily and rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t appreciated, until this very moment, how annoying his name was when repeated in the same monotonous shout twenty times in a row.
“Yes, alright!” he shouted back grumpily, getting his legs tangled in his duvet. “Coming!”
Throwing open his bedroom door, he gazed back wistfully at his bed, which looked deliciously inviting in the morning light: toasty, snug, and completely the opposite of the chill air that was currently whisking around his pyjama-clad body. They still hadn’t managed to fix the heating, and now winter was fast approaching, which made Kester really wish they had.
“What is it?” he shouted over the peel
ing bannister. Pineapple grinned back at him, hair scooped up into an exorbitant topknot that teetered to one side like a drunken hedgehog.
“Phone for you, bruv,” he said as he waved the receiver impatiently in Kester’s general direction. “It be your old man, like.”
“My old man?” Kester blinked in confusion. “What old man?”
Pineapple raised his lurid neon-pink vest to scratch his enviably flat stomach. “You know,” he said stoically. “Your old man. Your dad, innit?”
“Oh, is it?” Kester echoed flatly. “What does he want?”
Pineapple shrugged, then flung the handset into Kester’s face. “He sounds all excited, like. Dunno what’s going on there, man.”
“Yeah, he always sounds like that,” Kester said as he grasped the phone. “That’s his default voice.”
“Dee-falt, yeah man, tight.” With these incomprehensible words, Kester’s housemate sashayed into the kitchen where he set about rummaging for something in the fridge. Kester sighed, wiping the sleep out of his eyes.
“Hello?” he asked reluctantly. It was bad enough having to see his father every day at work, and he wasn’t overjoyed at the prospect of his weekend being interrupted by him too, even though, admittedly, Kester had no plans apart from eating an entire tube of Pringles and sleeping a lot.
“Aha, you are finally up! What a lazy boy you are, yes?” Ribero’s voice trilled through the phone, strident as ever.
Kester grimaced. “I was just in the bathroom,” he lied.
“No you weren’t, you were lolloping around in bed. Your friend told me. The fruit man.”
“Pineapple,” Kester corrected automatically. “Anyway, what do you want?”
“You need to come to our meeting.”
Kester groaned. “What meeting?” he asked, not wanting to hear the answer.
“Very important meeting. Serena just called me. We must all meet in town.”
Oh, for goodness’ sake, Kester thought with a sigh. If Serena had arranged the meeting, it was bound to be about something tedious and or problematic.
“What time?” he asked, resisting the urge to simply hang up and retreat to the warmth of his bed.
“Half an hour. At the Glorious Art House café.”
“Why not just the office?” Kester said. “Isn’t that easier?”
“No, the Glorious is just over the road from Serena’s flat. And they do very good chocolate cake, you know.”
Kester brightened, then peered down at his stomach, which was currently bulging from beneath his flannel nightshirt like a naughty child peeping over a bedsheet.
“I’ll never be there in half an hour,” he said finally, self-consciously pulling his shirt down. “I’m not even dressed.”
“Catch the bus, silly boy!” Ribero barked. “It leaves in twenty minutes, right? Hurry up, go get your clothes on. I will see you there.”
The phone went dead. Kester stared disbelievingly at the handset before placing it slowly back in its cradle.
Well, he thought irritably as he trudged back up the stairs. There goes my lie-in.
After tugging on the nearest clothes he could find, Kester scampered urgently down the street, just managing to clamber onto the bus before it pulled away. It was only then that he noticed he had odd socks on. How could I have failed to see that one was green and the other was yellow with navy spots? he wondered. Still, at least he’d noticed his trousers were on back-to-front before leaving the house, which was something.
The bus chuffed to a halt at the end of the high street, depositing Kester and a cluster of other early-morning shoppers outside a dated department store. Without further ado, he trotted down the road. Vintage stores, charity shops, and tiny bars lined the streets, but Kester marched purposefully on, halting only when he reached the colourful façade of the café in question. Mike waved cheerfully at him from the sofa in the window.
“What’s going on, then?” Kester said curtly, sinking into the only available seat, which happened to be a squidgy armchair. “I had plans for today.”
“So did I, love,” Pamela said, snuggled into the corner of the other sofa like a large, fluffy cat. “I was going to sort through the dead plants in my greenhouse and take Hemingway for a walk. But it’ll have to wait.”
Miss Wellbeloved neatly poured herself another cup of herbal tea. “We’re just waiting for Serena herself, ironically,” she said as she peered out the window to the art deco buildings opposite. “You’d think, given she only lives across the road, she might have been the first here.”
“My dad’s not here yet either,” Kester commented, then attempted to catch the eye of the lady behind the counter. He badly needed a cup of tea to wake him up.
“Yes, but he doesn’t count. He’s never anywhere on time,” Pamela said.
Shortly after Kester ordered his tea, plus a slice of caramel shortbread, which he was sure wasn’t nearly as calorific as a piece of chocolate cake, Ribero and Serena both walked through the door. Ribero looked excited. Serena, rather surprisingly, looked a little like a dog who had managed to sneak a sausage from the barbeque, only to realise it was a spicy chilli sausage and rather painful to eat. Her expression conveyed a mixture of emotions, and Kester couldn’t work out what she was thinking at all.
She eyed Kester’s cake. “Thought you were cutting back?” she declared, nodding significantly at his stomach.
“Yes, I was until I got dragged out of bed on a Saturday,” Kester retorted, then defiantly took a large bite. It crumbled down his jumper, something that bothered him, but he refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing him dust himself down.
To his surprise, Serena reached over, grasped the shortbread between two manicured fingers, and inserted it into her own mouth. He watched her, aghast, until she started laughing, spraying crumbs out onto the floor.
“Look, my need is greater than yours,” she spluttered as she perched on the side of the sofa. “Trust me. It’s been quite a morning.”
“Nice to see you actually eating for once,” Mike commented, happily tucking into the chocolate cake. “Thought you only ate little children, like all the other nasty witches.”
“Hilarious,” she growled. “Anyway, shall I get straight to it?”
“Yes, what’s going on?” Miss Wellbeloved asked. “I’m dying to know what’s so important that we had to meet up at the weekend.”
“Me too,” muttered Kester darkly before dumping another spoon of sugar into his tea. Once again, images of his temptingly warm bed came to mind, and he felt himself getting cross all over again. He watched the last of his caramel shortbread disappear between Serena’s lips and sighed. This is a rubbish start to the weekend, he thought.
“Well,” Serena began dramatically, oblivious to Kester’s glare. “I’ve got some very, very good news. And,” she continued before anyone could interrupt her, “I’ve also got some slightly not-so-good news. In fact, I’ll be honest, it’s pretty bad news actually.”
Ribero nodded impatiently, then prodded her with his metal-tipped umbrella, which he was still clasping in one hand, despite there being no rain outside. “Go on then, tell us the good news! That is what we need at the moment, yes? Forget the bad news. That’s not so important.”
Serena grinned. “Okay then, good news it is. I was checking the system this morning, to see if we’d got any messages about any of the jobs we’d bid on.”
“And we got something?” Miss Wellbeloved interrupted, colour rising in her cheeks.
Serena nodded. “We certainly did!” she confirmed. “Do you remember the Lyme Regis job, the one we think might be a doppelgänger?”
“You mean the satanic spirit-twin, out to murder every old biddy in town?” Mike asked.
“That’s the one,” Serena replied. “We’ve got the job; our bid was successful. So, that’s the good news.”
“That’s marvellous, yes?” Dr Ribero exclaimed, thwacking his umbrella even more enthusiastically into Serena’s leg. “Now we have some money coming in, at last! What did I say to you only a few days ago, Kester?”
“What’s the bad news, then?” Kester said pointedly, determined not to be cheered by anything today. He was still too tired, and he had been denied his sugar-hit, which made him even grumpier yet.
Serena shifted about awkwardly on the sofa, then made a show of rearranging the giant tasselled cushion behind her. “Well, I only said it was ‘not-so-good news’,” she muttered, “not outright bad news.”
“No, you said it was pretty bad. I remember you saying it,” Kester said.
Serena tutted. “Whatever. The main thing is that we’ve got a job. Everything else pales by comparison, right?”
“Yes!” Dr Ribero agreed enthusiastically. “That is exactly right. I knew this would be a good day.”
“Perhaps it pales by comparison, perhaps not?” Miss Wellbeloved added with a note of apprehension.
“Probably not, if your face is anything to go by,” Mike said, belching out cake crumbs all over the table. “Serena, just spit it out. What’s the bad news?”
Serena turned pink and mumbled something under her breath, a sentence which sounded suspiciously like it might have the words ‘Larry Higgins’ in it.
“What was that?” Mike said loudly. “Speak up, woman.”
“We’ve got to share the job with Larry Higgins.”
Mike guffawed deafeningly, then stopped abruptly. The others simply stared, mouths open. Even the few other customers in the café went quiet, turning their heads to see what was going on.
“Are you . . . you’re not actually serious, are you?” Mike said incredulously. He looked at the others. “I mean, come on.”
“No, I’m afraid I am actually serious,” Serena said quietly. “Both bids were accepted. It’s a joint offer. His agency and ours. We’ve already had an email come through, which said we need to liaise directly with Larry Higgins to arrange a time when we can all be briefed on the case.”