by Lucy Banks
Together, they swiftly skimmed the papers. Most were of little interest: old letters from relatives, various deeds for the house, insurance documents, and old bank statements. Eventually, Kester pulled out a piece of paper that looked more modern than the rest.
“Lyme Regis Ancient History Club,” he read aloud. “Lifetime membership. Ancient history, eh? That’s my sort of club.”
Miss Wellbeloved smiled faintly. “I didn’t have Mr Baxter down as a historical man, I must confess.”
“It’s not his membership. Look, it says here, Mrs Deirdre Baxter.”
“I doubt it has much relevance to this case, to be honest.”
“I don’t know.” Kester frowned, peering hard at the paper. “It might be worth looking into.”
“Well, if you think so,” Miss Wellbeloved replied. She waved another paper under his nose. “Though this one seems a bit more interesting.”
Kester read through quickly. “Subscription to Ghost-Hunter’s Monthly? Sounds like a good read.”
Miss Wellbeloved laughed. “It’s absolute bilge. The people who produce it clearly have no experience of the supernatural at all. But this, plus the tarot cards, does give us a bit of insight into Deirdre, doesn’t it? I wonder if there’s any connection?”
Kester shrugged. They continued to rummage but found nothing else of interest, apart from a large grey spider, who retreated angrily to the corner, coiling its long legs protectively over a cracked biro-lid. After fifteen minutes or so, they moved to the spare room, but there was little to be found other than several moth-eaten clothes in an old wardrobe and a bare mattress with some unnerving stains.
“How are you progressing up there?”
They looked up at the sound of Larry Higgins’s voice, echoing flatly up the stairs.
“Come on,” Miss Wellbeloved said, standing up and brushing her clothes down. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything else here. Let’s hope Larry’s had more luck than we have.”
Larry Higgins eyed them as they came down the stairs, bobbing his eyebrows violently at their dishevelled appearance.
“Any luck?” he muttered as Kester passed him.
“Not an awful lot, no.”
Mr Baxter leaned against the living room door, his expression unreadable. “You all done then?”
“For now, yes,” Larry Higgins replied brusquely and handed Lara his suitcase in an imperious manner. “Many thanks for your time. We’ll be in touch if we require anything more.”
“Can I just ask a question?” Kester said suddenly. Higgins’s eyebrows bobbed even more energetically.
“Yeah, go on then,” Mr Baxter agreed reluctantly.
“I noticed your wife was a member of some Ancient History Club—did she attend the meetings often?”
Mr Baxter scratched his head. “Yes, she went every fortnight. It was her social life really, lots of her friends were members. In fact—”
“It probably has no relevance at all,” Higgins interrupted and bustled Kester to one side like a hen shooing a wandering chick. “Many thanks for your time, Mr Baxter. We won’t disturb you any longer. Come on, let’s go and find Dimitri and Pamela. Where’s Mike and Serena?”
“Mike’s probably still on the toilet,” Kester suggested, gesturing up the stairs.
“He’d better bloody not be,” Higgins muttered darkly.
After retrieving Mike from the bathroom and Serena from the garden, they departed the house with significant relief. Dimitri and Pamela were huddled beside the gate, looking wet and depressed. The rain had eased to a misty drizzle but provided welcome coolness to Kester’s cheeks. In fact, the sea air made his head feel instantly clearer, ridding it of the stuffiness of the Baxters’ home; he felt grateful for the cold, even if the weather was insufferably vile.
“Please tell me you got something good,” Higgins barked as they marched along the alleyway.
“Yeah, ’cause we got a big fat nothing from Mr Baxter,” Lara chirped, straightening her neck-tie. “He didn’t much want to talk, unfortunately. Maybe we were just askin’ him the wrong questions.”
“That’s quite enough, Lara,” Higgins snapped testily. “I asked perfectly good questions, thank you very much. It’s just the gentleman was being particularly reticent with his answers.”
“Maybe because he thought you were a moron,” Mike muttered from the back of the group. Higgins’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits, but he wisely chose to ignore the comment.
“Sadly, I’m not sure we found out much either,” Miss Wellbeloved said as she trotted to keep pace with the others. She smoothed her hair, which had frizzed to a wiry grey halo around her head. “Other than evidence that Mrs Baxter was into the supernatural. But I’m not convinced that’s going to provide any clues.”
“It was a waste of time, I think.” Dimitri concluded.
“No, it absolutely was not!” Larry barked, turning a bright shade of crimson. “Every bit of information gleaned may prove useful. Remember that, please!”
“I certainly didn’t find anything useful in the garden shed,” Serena volunteered.
“Why were you out there in the first place?” Mike asked loudly as he hoisted his bag over his shoulder. “Looking for haunted trowels? Or maybe a possessed plant pot?”
“I was trying to get away from you actually, Mike. Or more to the point, from the horrible smell you left in the bathroom.”
They rounded the corner. Kester could just about make out their van in the distance. For the first time ever, he was actually relieved to see it. He felt as though he’d been standing in a power-shower and was soaked from head to foot.
“Let’s reconvene later this week,” Larry suggested. He peered into the van with obvious distaste as Kester opened the door. “I suggest we take a bit of time to prepare our next interview in the hope that it’s a bit more productive than this one.”
Miss Wellbeloved nodded wearily. “I’m sure it will be.”
“I’m bloody not,” Higgins retorted, then moved aside to let Mike squeeze past. “In fact, I’m becoming very worried about the whole project, quite frankly.”
Miss Wellbeloved pressed her lips together. “We’ll review things, then give you a call tomorrow.”
Higgins harrumphed like a disgruntled elephant, then stalked off without a parting farewell, leaving Dimitri and Lara looking momentarily confused before scuttling after him like two damp puppies.
Miss Wellbeloved clambered into the back of the van, then promptly rested her head against the seat in front. “Oh goodness,” she murmured heavily. “What have we got ourselves into?”
Chapter 8: A Date with Anya
Kester tore down the street, hardly daring to look at his watch. My first date with Anya, he thought, and I’m late. I can’t believe it. He’d started researching doppelgängers online, then before he’d known it, time had slipped away from him, leaving him just ten minutes to race into the centre of town. And running really isn’t my thing, he realised, panicking about the sweat-patches currently blossoming under his jacket. Talk about how to make a bad impression.
The fact was, he couldn’t leave the case alone, no matter how much he might want to. There’d been something about Mr Baxter’s words the other day that had niggled him, though he couldn’t put his finger on what it was exactly. It was driving him mad, like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces, and the more time he spent pondering it, the more confusing it became. The others seemed so convinced that the spirit was a doppelgänger, but nothing he’d read online, even on the secret Swww. websites, correlated with the evidence in front of them.
We’re missing something, he thought when he finally reached the café. It’s just a question of what. However, he reminded himself as he took a deep breath and pulled open the door, now probably isn’t the time to carry on torturing myself with it.
Straightening himself a
s best as possible, Kester stepped into the warmth of the café, which was filled with people enjoying cooked breakfasts and mugs of pleasingly milky-looking tea. Anya was huddled in one of the booths in the corner. It looked as though she’d already ordered, if the plates of steaming food were anything to go by.
He waved, walked over, then looked down at the plate that was obviously his. Then up again, in confusion. Then down once more.
“So, you literally just ordered me some bacon then?”
Across the table, Anya broke into giggles.
“You told me to get you anything,” she said, snorting into her coffee. “And bacon was the only thing that I knew you liked.”
Kester grimaced. After texting Anya to let her know he’d be late, he’d happily agreed to let her order for him, presuming she’d get him a nice full English breakfast to tuck into. Eight rashers of bacon, no matter how well cooked they appeared, was a little bit much. He sipped at his coffee, studying his date with curiosity. She’s a bit of a weirdo, isn’t she? he thought with a mixture of alarm and delight. I suppose that works for me, though. It’s not like I’m exactly normal, is it?
“Can I at least have some of your toast?” he asked eventually.
Her face fell. “Yes, of course,” she replied and solemnly handed a few slices from the metal rack. “I am sorry, Kester. I don’t know why, but I thought you would find it funny. As last time we met, you kept going on about bacon, you see?”
He smiled and chuckled a little. “Yes, I did a bit, didn’t I?” Bravely, he scooped up his knife and fork, and got to work, creating a makeshift, overstuffed bacon sandwich. “Would you be so kind as to pass the ketchup?”
She handed it over obligingly, then shook her head. “You know that stuff is full of sugar?”
“Is it?” He placed it carefully back down. Is anything not full of sugar? he wondered, balefully eyeing the ketchup bottle. This bacon has probably been seasoned with a good sprinkling of it too, knowing my luck.
“Not that you need to worry about that,” Anya clarified swiftly as she wiped her lips with the back of her sleeve. Her tartan shirt, combined with her newly dyed hair, which now had streaks of black in it, made her look rather grungier than before, but infinitely cooler. He felt slightly intimidated.
“Come on, I know I’m a bit tubby,” he ventured. “But I’m working on it. I’ve lost four pounds in total now!”
“I think you look fine as you are,” she replied. “Too many people are hung up on their looks anyway.”
He nodded. “That’s certainly true. My colleague, Serena, is always going on about how fat and greedy I am. The other day, she told me I looked like a prize-winning pig in a farm.”
Anya snorted loudly, spraying tea across the table.
“Oh god, please say you don’t agree with her.”
She laughed and dabbed at her eyes. “No, I honestly don’t. It’s just a funny thing to say. If it’s any comfort, I went out with a boy a while back who said I looked like my ferret.”
Kester winced. “Ouch. For what it’s worth, you look nothing like a ferret. Anyway, at least he didn’t think your ferret was a rat, like I did.”
“Hey, I’d forgotten that! We met down by the river, didn’t we, when I was taking Thor for a walk? A few months ago?”
Kester spluttered through a mouthful of bacon and bread. “Is that really your ferret’s name?”
“Yes. I used to have two, but T-Rex died.”
“You had a ferret called T-Rex?”
She nodded. “She was a real sweetheart, but very old. And Thor kept trying to get . . . frisky with her.”
Kester nodded sagely. “Ah. He’s one of those ferrets, is he?”
She pursed her lips together. “Definitely. He will try it on with anything that moves. Including your leg, if I remember rightly.”
“Dear lord, was that what he was trying to do to me?” Kester blushed at the memory. “I feel violated.”
Anya winked. “It is probably because you had such an attractive leg.”
Kester chuckled nervously and nibbled on the rest of his sandwich. This isn’t going as horrendously as I thought it would, he realised, with considerable shock. In fact, I’m actually making her laugh, not vomit in revulsion! He was still concerned about the sweat-patches, though he didn’t dare check, in case it drew attention to them.
“So,” she continued, jolting him out of his thoughts, “what is it that you do, Kester?”
Hmm, tricky question. Kester didn’t have a clue where to start. “I work for an agency,” he began slowly as he struggled to find the right words. “It’s all a bit hush-hush really. We work with the government.”
She nodded approvingly. “I knew it would be something interesting,” she said. “Aren’t you going to give any more away? Maybe you’re a spy, like James Bond.”
“Not really,” Kester laughed. “He’s a bit more debonair than me, I think. Do you still work at the library?” It was probably best to divert the conversation before Anya asked any more questions.
She nodded and finished off her tea with a rather loud slurp. Two suited men at the table next to them looked over with disapproval. “I like working there,” she said, “because I love books. And I love working with people. There are so many interesting people in Exeter.”
Are there? Kester wondered. Perhaps he needed to get out more. Still, he supposed that his housemates would be classified as interesting. Or odd, at least.
“But,” she continued as she scratched at her chin thoughtfully, “it’s not the job I always dreamed of doing, you know what I mean?”
Kester thought of his own job and winced. “Yes,” he agreed firmly. “Yes, I most definitely do. What do you want to do, then?”
Anya shrugged, then gazed out the window to the busy road. A double-decker bus passed, shaking the rain-specked window panes. “I guess something that uses my real talents,” she said finally. Her eyes unglazed, and she smiled. “I am sure one day, the right job will come along. Are you going to eat the rest of that sandwich?”
Kester looked down at his plate. “It’s rather a lot of bacon, to be honest.”
With the speed of a pouncing cat, she leant over and grabbed the remainder, before popping it into her mouth in a manner that was reminiscent of a frog snapping up a fly. He gaped.
“We don’t want to waste it, do we?” she said by way of explanation.
They lingered for a while longer, waiting for the worst of the rain to pass, then ventured out into the street. The cold hit them immediately, a stark contrast to the snug warmth of the café. Anya shivered and tugged her oversized parka around herself. Kester smiled. She really was very pretty, in an erratic kind of way. He felt a sudden urge to wrap an arm around her, to protect her from the elements, but suspected it would be unwise to do so. Especially if she recoils in a state of shock and repulsion, he thought with a grimace.
She caught his eye. “Ah,” she declared solemnly, dancing to one side as a passing car whooshed through a particularly deep puddle. “You were checking me out, Kester.”
“Gosh, I’m sorry, I honestly wasn’t . . .”
She pooched her lip, then smartly stepped out into the road. “Well, why not?”
Kester stuttered. He had no idea how to respond. Nothing in his life thus far had taught him to deal with situations like this. He had a vague notion that this was some form of flirting, but to date, the closest he’d come to flirtation was tickling his pet cat, or blushing whenever he had to talk to the girl in the post office near his childhood home. Thankfully, something else caught his attention instead. Or someone, to be precise—someone tall, dressed in a tassled suede jacket, and striding purposefully towards town.
“Hey, it’s Lara!” he announced, pointing to distract from the hot blush in his cheeks. “I wonder what she’s doing down here? She works up in Southampton.”
/> Anya peered through the shopping precinct. “Which one is she?”
He pointed. “You can’t miss her, she’s wearing a cowboy hat.”
Lara was scuttling past the shops, head tucked down into her collar. Judging by her pace, she was clearly in a hurry to get somewhere. Kester thought about shouting out to her, but by the time he opened his mouth, she had disappeared into a doorway next to the newsagents.
“How do you know her?” Anya asked.
“She’s working with me at the moment . . . on a project,” Kester replied cautiously. “She’s ever so nice. Texan. Very friendly.”
“She looked very striking.”
“Yes, she’s ever so attractive, in a kind of Wild West, tomboyish way,” he replied absent-mindedly. As they approached the door Lara had entered, Kester studied the plaque mounted on the wall. Tomlins & Wilkins Aesthetic Surgeons.
“Maybe she isn’t as confident about her looks as you think she is?” Anya commented finally, tapping the sign.
Kester frowned. That’s odd, he thought. She hadn’t struck him as the sort of person to have any insecurity about her appearance. But then, he had only met her twice.
“So, is she someone you are attracted to?” Anya asked suddenly.
He spluttered, then roared with laughter. “No, not at all! I mean, she’s a lovely, friendly person, but . . .”
“But what?”
“I don’t know. I’m just not. She’s not really my type. To be honest, I think she’d eat someone like me for breakfast.”
Anya nodded, satisfied. “Like a piece of bacon,” she concluded.
Kester thought back to Serena’s comment about him looking like a pig and nodded stoically. “Yes, just like a piece of bacon.” They caught each other’s eye and burst out laughing.
The precinct buzzed with swarms of Saturday shoppers, huddled and tight-lipped from the cold. Kester stuck his hands in his pockets, unsure what to say next.