by Sibel Hodge
‘Well, why wait any longer?’ He poured the egg mixture into the pan. It sizzled and bubbled in the olive oil.
‘Marmalade, what do you think? Meow once for “yes” and twice for “no.”’ I glanced down at my ginger fur ball. OK, yes, so I talk to my cat. Sometimes I also ask him to make decisions about my life. But in my defence, before you call me completely nutso, a lot of the time he gave better answers than some humans I’d met.
Marmalade glanced up from his food bowl and meowed once.
‘See,’ Brad grinned. ‘Even Marmalade can’t wait for you to set the date.’
‘OK, OK!’ I leaned my elbow on the breakfast bar, watching him work. He was always calm and relaxed, like his body was a perfectly tuned machine and motion was completely effortless for him.
Since I’d moved in everything had been domestic bliss, but was it all too good to be true? Was it about to come crashing down on me?
There it was again, that horrible, niggling feeling that something bad was about to happen. I shook my head to clear it of negative thoughts and sipped my caffeine fix.
‘What’s the urgent thing at the office?’ I skilfully deflected the conversation away from wedding dates, or the lack of them.
‘Not sure. Tia was babbling on about psychics and voodoo and a missing girl.’ He shrugged. ‘You know Tia. I hope she hasn’t been doing spells at the office again.’ He rolled his eyes.
I hoped so, too. Tia was the office receptionist who was psychic and did weird spells. Usually she made me do them, too, and something always ended up breaking. She was the daughter of American fashion designer Umberto Fandango, and her dress sense could only be described as screamingly loud. She’d ended up working for Hi-Tec after I’d investigated the suspicious disappearance of her dad.
‘Psychics and voodoo and a missing girl?’ I pondered this. Since Tia was going out with Hacker, who also worked at the office, maybe it was something to do with him. He was from Haiti and knew all about voodoo stuff. ‘Has Hacker got himself in trouble with something?’
‘No, Hacker’s fine. Apparently, a woman called Chantal Langton has gone missing.’ Brad handed me a plate with half the omelette on it. I took it, wishing it was a big bowl of Coco Pops. Since I’d moved in, Brad was trying to break my addiction to junk food and wean me onto healthy stuff. Yeah, good luck with that. I mean, if junk food was really so bad for you, why did it taste so good?
I forked in a mouthful. Brad was a great cook, but a lack of chocolate and sugar in the mornings? Come on! How was a girl supposed to function properly? Oh, well, I’d just sneak in a chocolate bar when he wasn’t looking. Or a whole box, even. The way I saw it, a nice box of chocolates could provide all of your daily calorie intake in one place. How handy is that? Or maybe I’d stop for doughnuts on the way in. Doughnuts! Ooh, I was salivating at the thought. In fact, if I had an apple doughnut and a banana muffin, plus a box of chocolates that included orange creams, lemon creams, and strawberry creams, they’d easily count as my five fruit and veg a day.
‘Who’s Chantal Langton?’ I asked.
‘She’s insured with Hi-Tec, although I don’t remember her name so I’d need to check the file. Tia says Hacker’s got some info for us about the voodoo angle.’
‘Voodoo?’ I shuddered. OK, yes, I had a growing list of people I’d like to do voodoo on, but Hacker wouldn’t oblige. He said if you dished it out, you got it back three times over. Bad karma, and all that. And even though everyone on my voodoo-to-do list totally deserved it, the thought of voodoo dolls, turning people into zombies, and human sacrifices kind of freaked me out. Eeek!
****
An hour later, Brad and I arrived at the plush Hi-Tec office. Tia was on the phone as we entered reception, her blonde ringlets bobbing up and down with animation as she spoke. She caught sight of us and hung up, bounding around the reception desk towards us. Tia had a… how can I put it?...odd dress sense. Today she had on a pair of lilac boot-cut trousers, a clashing, yellow fitted shirt, and an orange tie. Where did I put my sunglasses?
‘Omigod!’ Tia said, her American accent even more pronounced when she got excited. ‘Chantal Langton’s gone missing.’ She handed me a file.
I took it, flicking through.
‘Her mother’s the famous voodoo priestess Nicole Langton and her father’s the big property developer James Langton. All three of them have life insurance with us in excess of £5 million, plus house and vehicle insurance,’ Tia babbled on. ‘Nicole Langton used to have her own TV show a few years ago. Did you ever see it? She’s sooooo psychic, it’s amazing!’ Tia nodded knowingly. ‘I went to see her about five times. She always gets everything right about people. She goes into these trances and connects with the spirit world and then tells people in the audience about friends and relatives trying to get in touch with them. She’s like totally awesome.’
I glanced up, unable to concentrate on both the file and Tia-babble at the same time. I knew what sort of show she was talking about. I’d seen them before, although never with Nicole, but I didn’t believe in all that mumbo-jumbo and thought it was all faked for the cameras. ‘Tia, those shows aren’t real. They’re just staged.’ I handed the file to Brad for him to look at.
Tia gasped, a hand flying to her chest as if she’d been mortally wounded. ‘They are real! I can prove it. Chantal told me things about my mum that she couldn’t have known.’
Sadly, Tia’s mum died when she was young. If Tia wanted to believe it was real, then who was I to burst her bubble? I let it go. ‘OK, I’ve never heard of Chantal or Nicole, but I’ve heard of James Langton.’
‘Langton Developments is one of the biggest development companies in the country,’ Brad said. ‘Shopping plazas, huge housing developments, hospitals – you name it, they’ve built it.’
‘When did Chantal go missing?’ I asked.
‘Five days ago,’ Tia said.
‘Have Nicole and James reported her disappearance to the police?’ Brad asked, skimming the file.
‘Uh huh.’ Tia nodded. ‘But Nicole said the police don’t take adult missing persons seriously until it’s been a week, so they’re not really doing much. And she heard Amber is the best investigator around so she wanted her to get involved in trying to find Chantal.’ Tia grinned proudly at me. ‘She’s offering a big bonus to find her daughter.’
Brad raised an interested eyebrow. ‘What sort of bonus?’
‘A million pounds,’ Tia said.
Brad whistled.
‘Wow. I hope she doesn’t broadcast that at the moment.’ I shook my head. ‘She’ll have all the nutters coming out of the woodwork claiming to have seen Chantal.’
‘Nope. The bonus is only for you, Amber.’ Tia stared at me wide-eyed. ‘Hacker has some more information for you about her. Apparently, he knew Nicole back in Haiti. Oh, and there’s a present on your desk.’
Oh, crap. ‘It’s not spiders again, is it?’
She shook her head.
‘Or a fox’s nose?’ I took a deep breath in. Yep, I got all the best presents!
‘Nope. You’ll like these.’ She grinned at me and followed as Brad and I took off down the corridor.
‘Yo,’ I said to Hacker as I dumped my bag on my desk in the office I shared with him.
Hacker glanced up from a mass of screens and keyboards surrounding him. He was a computer whiz kid and had more electronic equipment and a bigger back-up system than Houston. He was the spitting image of the rapper Snoop Dogg, complete with plaits and gangsta rapper hoodies. Today he wore one with Rap Is Not Dead plastered on the front in gold lettering.
‘Yo.’ Hacker finished doing a few keyboard strokes then glanced up at Brad and me.
Brad nodded back. ‘Hacker.’
Hacker and Brad went back a long way, having met when Hacker was serving in Brad’s SAS unit.
‘Agh! The chocolate éclair fairy’s been,’ I squealed, eyeing the open box on my desk. Six delish-looking éclairs with thick icing, oozing cream. Now tha
t was what I called breakfast!
‘Told you you’d like the present.’ Tia grinned.
I could’ve kissed her. I would get my choccie fix after all. Hurrah! I picked one up and offered the box around. Since Hacker and Brad were obsessive about health food, they didn’t take one. Tia grabbed one and tucked in.
Brad perched on the edge of my desk, arms folded, shaking his head at my éclair.
‘What?’ I asked. ‘Chocolate comes from cocoa, which is a bean, and everyone knows beans are healthy.’
‘So, what’s the story with Chantal?’ Brad ignored my weird woman logic and asked Hacker.
Hacker leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. ‘OK, I knew Nicole and her sister Marie back in Haiti. Everyone in Haiti knew the La Fru Fru sisters. Both of them are mambo – voodoo priestesses.’
Visions of sacrificed chickens and freaky rituals with snakes popped into my head. Knowing my luck, someone would be sending me snakes as a present next. Not that they bothered me at all. Well, unless they bit me. Agonizing pain and being paralyzed to death wasn’t exactly on top of my wish list.
‘Around twenty-five years ago, Nicole La Fru Fru met James Langton and she married him and moved to the UK,’ Hacker carried on. ‘Marie soon followed. Both of them have been here ever since. Chantal is twenty-five and the only daughter of Nicole and James. Five days ago Chantal vanished without a trace.’
‘Has she ever disappeared before?’ I asked.
‘Apparently not, and in order to find out what happened to Chantal, you might have to look into the voodoo angle.’ Hacker gave an ominous pause.
‘Go on.’ I nodded at him.
‘How much do you know about voodoo?’ Hacker glanced at us all.
‘It’s a religion much the same as Catholicism,’ Brad said.
Hacker nodded. ‘True. Voodoo is a form of worship and spirituality like any other religion. In fact, there’s a lot of Catholicism mixed up in voodoo. If you mention voodoo to people, most of them will think about black magic, and there is an element of that, because, like any religion, there are people who use it for bad things instead of good, but that’s not what voodoo should be about. Voodooists believe that nothing happens by chance. Everything happens for a purpose, and that purpose is determined by the many spirits that surround us. In order to appease these spirits and make sure bad things don’t happen, we perform rituals or consult a mambo like Nicole to restore harmony.’
Back to the dead chicken thing again. Ew. ‘Like animal sacrifice rituals?’ I pulled a face.
Hacker clutched the dead chicken’s foot he wore round his neck for protection. ‘Animal sacrifice is a part of it for some spirits, yes. But there are many rituals such as simple offerings, prayer, spirit possessions, and dance ceremonies.’
‘That’s what Nicole did on her psychic show on TV,’ Tia breathed with excitement. ‘She gets possessed by spirits who have messages for people.’
‘Uh huh,’ I said sceptically.
‘Well, I think she’s genuine.’ Tia poked her tongue out at me.
I poked mine back. Childish, I know. ‘OK, so if she’s psychic, why doesn’t she know where her daughter’s gone, Miss Smarty-Pants?’ I grinned at her.
‘I told you before – it’s not like you can just turn it on and off at will.’ Tia scrunched up her nose. ‘Sometimes you get psychic visions and feelings and sometimes you don’t. You can’t control when it’s going to happen.’
Brad glanced over at me thoughtfully. ‘I’m having a great psychic vision about something that’s going to happen tonight.’
My temperature shot up a few thousand degrees just thinking about it. I broke smouldering eye contact with him and turned back to Tia. ‘So if you can’t turn it on and off at will, how come she gets possessed by these psychic spirits at the exact time her TV show airs, hmmm?’
‘The show is pre-taped, not live,’ Brad said. ‘Maybe if the spirits aren’t calling that day, they won’t record it.’
I gave him a disbelieving look. ‘Is being psychic a part of voodooism?’ I asked Hacker.
‘Not in the sense of having a TV show, no. In that respect, Nicole is an oddity. But in ceremonies a mambo is often possessed by the spirits, also known as loas, who will give prophecies on the future or advice on how to help with certain problems or situations.’
‘So she may or may not be a fake psychic?’ Brad asked.
Tia shook her head so hard I’m surprised she didn’t get whiplash. ‘Not a fake,’ she said through a mouthful of éclair.
‘I’ve seen Nicole do things back in Haiti that shouldn’t be possible,’ Hacker said. ‘Things that have no explanation other than voodoo power. She’s definitely not a fake priestess. ’
‘OK, what else?’ I asked him, starting to think we’d be here all day debating the finer points of psychics.
‘In voodoo, there is one supreme god called Bondye who reigns over the whole universe. Since we can’t communicate directly with him, there are hundreds of other spirits called loa that we have to make sure are happy.’
‘Wowzer. That’s fascinating.’ Tia stared up at Hacker with loved-up goo-goo eyes.
‘So, basically, it’s all about rituals that are designed to protect you and show respect to the spirits or give thanks to them?’ I asked as I finished my third éclair (I know, I know, slightly piggish!). I wiped my hands on a paper napkin. ‘You’d better take this away before I eat the whole box.’ I shoved it in Tia’s direction.
Hacker sat forward in his chair, making his plaits wobble. ‘Yeah. Voodoo focuses on respect and peace. Most voodoo beliefs centre around love and support for your family and community, generosity, and helping each other. Greed and dishonour are traits that should have no part in our lives. And there’s a big healing element involved, too. Often mambos will perform healing rituals using spells and herbal remedies.’
‘See, I told you spells were good.’ Tia grinned at me.
I rolled my eyes at her. ‘Don’t even think about it. I told you after the last time I’m never doing one of your spells again.’
‘Getting back to Nicole’s sister, Marie,’ Hacker went on. ‘M
ambos don’t normally practise left-handed voodoo, what we call black magic or bad voodoo, using this to curse or harm other people. But where there is good in the world, there’s also evil. A bokor is someone who uses voodoo to cause misfortune or injury, even death. These people are extremely powerful.’ Hacker clutched the chicken’s foot so tight his knuckles paled. ‘At some point after Nicole and Marie arrived in the UK, Marie turned her back on good voodoo and became a bokor.’ He paused for emphasis. ‘Since then, Nicole hasn’t spoken to Marie or had anything to do with her.’
There it was again. That horrible, burny feeling somewhere deep inside that something bad was going to happen. In the days that followed, I wished I’d listened to it more closely.
More books by Sibel Hodge
Fourteen Days Later
Fourteen Days Later was short listed for the Harry Bowling Prize 2008 and received a Highly Commended by the Yeovil Literary Prize 2009. It is a romantic comedy with a unique infusion of British and Turkish Cypriot culture. Written in a similar style to Marian Keyes, it is My Big Fat Greek Wedding meets Bridget Jones.
When accident-prone Helen Grey finds a thong stuffed into the pocket of her boyfriend's best work trousers, it's time for her to move on. His excuse that he needed to dust the photocopier and just thought that it was a rag sounds like a lame excuse.
Helen's life is propelled in an unexpected direction after her best friend, Ayshe, sets her a fourteen-day, life-changing challenge. Helen receives a task everyday which she must complete without question. The tasks are designed to build her confidence and boost her self-esteem but all they seem to do is push her closer to Ayshe's brother, Kalem.
How will Kalem and Helen get together when she's too foolish to realize that she loves him? How can he fall for her when he is too busy falling prey to her mishaps
and too in love with his own perfect girlfriend? How will Kalem's Turkish Cypriot family react when they find out?
Is it really possible to change your life in fourteen days?
My Perfect Wedding
Helen Grey is finally getting everything she wants. She's about to have the perfect dream wedding and begin an exciting new life abroad on the sunny Mediterranean island of Cyprus. But living the dream isn't all it's cracked up to be.
After a mix-up at the airport, Helen finds herself drawn into the midst of an elaborate plot to steal an ancient statue and assassinate a local businessman. And as if that wasn't bad enough, her wedding dress is AWOL, the statue seems to be cursed, and Helen is wanted by the police.
With the big day rapidly approaching, a roller-coaster of mishaps, misunderstandings, and disasters threatens to turn the newlyweds into nearlyweds.
Can Helen prevent an assassination, save the statue, and have the perfect wedding? Or will the day to remember turn into one she'd rather forget?
The Fashion Police
The Fashion Police was a runner up in the Chapter One Promotions Novel Competition 2010 and nominated Best Novel with Romantic Elements 2010 by The Romance Reviews. It is a screwball comedy-mystery, combining murder and mayhem with romance and chick-lit. Written in a similar style to Janet Evanovich and Harlan Coben, it is Stephanie Plum meets Myron Bolitar.
Amber Fox has been making too many mistakes lately and something's got to give...
For starters, Amber accidentally shoots Chief Inspector Janice Skipper and gets thrown off the police force. The only one who knows the truth about the incident is Amber, but no one will believe her.
After accepting a job as an insurance investigator from her ex-fiancé, Brad Beckett, it turns out that Brad thinks they've still got unfinished business and the job description includes sexual favours that come with a price.