Pretty Little Dead Things

by Gary McMahon

  "No, but if you write down the address on that cute little hotel notepaper I'm sure I can find it. I'm a woman of the world, you know. I've even been in a space rocket." She grinned, despite the darkness that even now was closing in on us both.

  I jotted down my address and directions how to get there, then we kissed – rather awkwardly, I thought – and I left.

  Another taxi: yet another chitty to claim back from Baz Singh. I knew that I would have to contact Singh again, and soon, but other things kept diverting my attention. I wondered if he'd heard yet about Byron Spinks's murder, and if, like me, he suspected darker motives than a simple prison-ground difference of opinion.

  Once I was home I went straight into my room and took off my clothes. I felt grimy, as if I'd been wearing the same outfit for weeks, and the house seemed like a mausoleum. Cold, dark, filled with nothing but death.

  After a shower and brush-up, I put on one of my usual dark suits and trudged upstairs. The three girls were still there, but only just. They were fading for real now, their outlines barely even visible against the patterned wallpaper, like old stains.

  They swung slowly to and fro, as if caught in a strong breeze, and they no longer had the strength to acknowledge me. They had become just another reminder, a gentle prod to push me in the right direction – part of the vast memento mori my life had somehow become. Spinks was there with them, and even he wasn't much more than a heavy blurring in the air. He sat in the corner, with his back against the wall, gazing calmly up at Kareena. His position reminded me of when I'd found him in the warehouse, staring up at her body and keening like an animal.

  "Don't worry," I said, quietly. "I'm still on your side. I'll find out who did this so you can move on."

  I turned around and left them there, four wan phantoms jittering in and out of focus like pictures from a faulty television signal. Their increasing lack of solidity felt like a warning that time was running out, and I needed to help them before that happened.

  I had made a promise a long time ago that I would always do what I could to help the spirits that came to me. Sometimes my help is the exact opposite of what they need and their names join the ever-expanding list tattooed upon my back. Three – now four – more names would take up a lot of skin. I feared that I might run out of space.

  But now it was time for some research, before I once again entered the tide of insanity. Knowledge is power, and at the minute I felt completely unarmed.

  Downstairs, I booted up my laptop and logged on to the search engine I always used. The first name I typed in was Mr Shiloh, but the majority of the search results that came up seemed to relate to the Biblical location of the same name. It was an ancient city in the Ephraim hill-country, and considered by scholars as the capital of Israel – indeed the centre of Israelite worship. The Hebrew bible mentioned it as an assembly place for the people of Israel, where there was once even a sanctuary containing the Ark of the Covenant.

  Blah, blah, blah. So far so Indiana Jones. It was all very interesting, but there was nothing to link the mythical place to Leeds street gangs, a Russian witch, an abducted child and three hanged girls.

  The next search result was a transvestite nightclub in Essex called Lady Shiloh's. That didn't sound too promising either.

  The name of Mathew Torrent brought up even more obscure links: a baker in Leicester, the obituary of an American writer of pulp science fiction novels, a Swedish printing company specialising in religious pamphlets. To my stressed mind, even these seemed linked in some way to what was happening all around me. Part of the darkness I could feel creeping towards us all.

  I killed that window and opened another, heading straight for a few websites of my own. Over the years I had seen hundreds of specialist sites appear online dedicated to the subject of the paranormal. Most of them were superficial and aimed at the credulous, with faked photographs of "ghosts" and orbs and spooky little kids in white dresses. The ones I wanted were far more esoteric.

  I know little about computers other than how to hit the keys with my fingers, but I do accept that the internet is a rubbish dump for information – just not always the right information. Looking for absolute truth online is like looking for a diamond in a council tip. It just isn't going to happen. But if you are careful, and use common sense, it is possible to glean a few salient facts from the endless pages of puerile nonsense at your fingertips. And if you wade through enough garbage dumps you will eventually find a hidden gem, probably one that somebody else has thrown away, thinking it useless.

  None of the usual sites provided anything regarding Mr Shiloh or the mysterious Torrent, so I logged on to the last resort, a little place on the web where the real weirdoes hang out. I didn't like going there often as it tended to attract extreme personalities, usually with their own strange and sometimes borderline psychotic agendas.

  The site had started life as a sort of repository for Fortean stories and anecdotes, but over the past five years it had transformed into something a little bit scarier. People with avatars like Deadmum, Bileduct and Lady Oesophagus gathered there to trade insults and information. Some of what they said was even interesting. A small amount of it often proved valuable.

  The site search function failed to bring up anything pertinent regarding the names of Shiloh and Mathew Torrent (although, apparently, the transvestite club in Essex has a ghost called Matt), so I headed for the site's discussion forum. Keeping a low profile, I logged in under an anonymous account and scoured the discussion threads.

  After an hour of wading through disturbing tales of suburban poltergeists, a demon in a toilet bowl, and a harrowing account of a Catholic rite of exorcism carried out in 1971 on a pregnant woman on a camp site somewhere near the Lake District, I found a single abandoned post from another anonymous user with no responses attached. The message was dated over a year ago, and according to the site's records only seven people had ever logged on to view it.

  In the body of the post I discovered that someone had uploaded an old, slightly degraded black-and-white photograph – obviously scanned from a historical newspaper article – and asked the question: Who is the man in the photograph? There seems to be the ghost of a little girl sitting on his shoulder.

  These odd websites are littered with such stuff: old photos apparently containing images of the departed. Again, most of them are either faked or simply flawed.

  I couldn't see the supposed ghost, but what I did see shook me a whole lot more than any photographic phantom. The man was standing outside a shop with a large awning proclaiming "Torrent Fabrics". He was wearing an old-fashioned suit with a bow tie, and with what looked to be a white handkerchief tucked into his breast pocket. A trilby hat was perched upon his head, so I couldn't tell if he had any hair beneath it, but there was little doubt that the face and sturdy physique belonged to Mr Shiloh.

  My new friend; my nemesis; my horror – they call him Mr Shiloh.

  So Torrent and Shiloh were one and the same. I was slightly ashamed that I hadn't seen this one coming, and in retrospect it seemed obvious. Shiloh/Torrent had created the street gang known as the MT. An ex-member of the MT was linked to the three hanged girls. Hooded youths had been seen following Penny Royale home on the day she disappeared. Mr Shiloh knew the Royale family. Baz Singh knew Mr Shiloh. Baz Singh's daughter was one of the hanged girls… blah, blah, blah. Fill in the blanks.

  Round and round we go: wheels within wheels, stories wrapped up in stories.

  I switched off the laptop and poured myself a drink, stared at the rather beautiful and expensive amber liquid as it sat in the glass, and then drank it down like it was medicine – which, of course, it was.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Ellen arrived at two o'clock that afternoon. I glanced out of the window and saw a little red Smart Car coming up the drive. I guessed that she must have rented it, and then I thought how absurd she looked driving such a tiny, stylised vehicle: like a kid in a clown's car.

  She parked and got out of
the car, looking up at the house. She had never actually seen the place before, and I wondered how it might strike her to finally be here. The house was in a nice semi-rural area, surrounded by fields, with plenty of space separating it from the closest neighbouring properties. Rebecca and I had gone into some serious debt to afford it, but she and Ally only got to enjoy the benefit for a short time before the accident.

  Ally had loved the house: the open spaces, the old, scarred brickwork, the large rooms and high timbered ceilings. Whenever I walked the rooms of the big old house, I knew that I'd give anything to hear even the smallest echo of my daughter's laughter following me. Alas, that had never happened, not even once. The rooms remained silent; the house was truly empty, even when I was home – especially when I was home.

  Empty, even with ghosts of hanged women swinging on the upper floor.

  I went to the front door and opened it before Ellen reached the worn stone step. She smiled at me, the weak sunlight catching in her hair and lightening it a shade, her eyes flashing, her cheeks holding rose petals. "Hi." She was subdued, as I had expected. I think she felt slightly uncomfortable standing outside the place where my family had once dwelled, if only for a brief span of time.

  They may not have lived there for long, but the house stood in their shadows.

  "Come on in. I'll be ready in a moment." I stepped back from the door and beckoned her inside. She followed me, leaving the door open – perhaps subconsciously, as an escape route if the emotions held tight within the place became too much for her to bear.

  I decided to cut short her discomfort and grabbed my jacket off the hook by the door. "I won't bother giving you the grand tour. There's nothing much to see here, these days." I couldn't prevent the note of self-pity that tinged my voice.

  Ellen simply nodded, silent now that she was inside. I could tell that she just wanted to leave.

  We went back out to the car and she pressed the key fob to release the locks. "Nice motor," I said. "Looks like a real monster."

  Ellen smiled, shook her head. "Please, don't start. It's ridiculous, isn't it? But it was all they had left at the rental place."

  Ellen slipped into the driver's seat and I squeezed in beside her, making a show of huffing and puffing. "Oh, shut up," she said, still smiling.

  The little car moved surprisingly fast along the narrow country roads. I felt myself become tense and gripped the seatbelt. "Slow down a little, eh? I know this is a toy car, but it's still a death machine."

  Ellen began to say something, and then thought better of it. She must have suddenly remembered the reason why I was so nervous travelling at any kind of speed. Whenever I drive my own car I go well under the speed limit, no matter who is sitting up my arse and in what kind of vehicle. I know from bitter experience how speed can kill.

  Traffic wasn't too bad so we arrived in Bradford a little before 3pm. Ellen parked in a space so tight that I couldn't even see it until the car had slipped neatly between two other vehicles. "Magic," she said, winking at me. "These little babies are designed for urban stealth parking."

  We got out of the car and walked down to the Alhambra theatre, and then cut up behind it until we were standing before a small, rundown building with its sign hanging askew on a rusty bracket. "Here we are. King's Theatre." Ellen stepped towards the door but held back, as if she really didn't want to be there. "This is going to be horrible," she said.

  I reached out and grabbed her hand. Squeezed it. "It's okay. Let's just try to stay calm and observe. If things get out of hand, I'll step in, but try to keep it as low-key as possible."

  She nodded. I smiled, but behind the smile lay only a sheet of ice.

  It was ten minutes before three and I knew that everyone would be sitting down and waiting for the show to begin. I walked through the glass double doors, up a short flight of carpeted steps, and towards the ticket booth. A young girl with bright green hair sat behind the counter reading a paperback book. As I got closer I saw that the book was a Stephen King novel, and she was reading so intently that she failed to register my approach.

  "Excuse me."

  The girl looked up, a slightly aggrieved expression on her face. Clearly she didn't want to be disturbed from her reading. "Yes? Help you?"

  "We're here to see the Trevor Dove medium show, but I'm afraid we didn't book in advance. Are there any tickets still available at this late a date?" I smiled, trying my best to seem dull and inoffensive. It seemed to work a treat.

  The girl looked down at a computer terminal, tapped a few buttons, and nodded. "Yep. Still a few left. How many do you need?"

  "Two, please," said Ellen, now at my side and pulling out her purse.

  The girl printed out the tickets, one eye still on her novel.

  "I'll pay," I said, reaching into my jacket pocket.

  "Don't be silly, Thomas. You're doing me the favour here, and I'm not about to let you pay for the privilege." She scowled and opened her purse, talking out a credit card.

  I held up my hands and stepped back. "Fair enough. I'm not going to argue with you today."

  Ellen smiled; that was one small victory under her belt. She always was an independent lady.

  We headed for the double doors at the bottom of the stairs, which led to what a sign rather ambitiously described as the Main Stage. From the look of the place I doubted there were any other stages in the building, so it had assumed the title by default.

  Ellen pushed her arm though the crook in my elbow and held me. It felt good, pure, and I hung on to the sensation for as long as I could, with a vague notion that I might need the memory at some unspecified time in the future to arm me against the dark. Life is full of such small moments of unacknowledged intimacy, and what I have learned is that they are valuable weaponry against despair.

  The room we entered was like an old music hall, with drapes laid against the walls, red velvet chairs aligned in neat rows and a nice long stage at the front. The audience was impressive; there was barely an empty seat in the house. Dove's television show was something of a cult item, and despite not pulling in huge viewing figures for the cable channel who broadcast it, revenue from tie-in shows like this one must have been enough to keep the man in business.

  Just as we grabbed a couple of seats near the back of the hall – the only two empty ones within range, next to a group of giggling students – the house lights went down, a tinny electronic version of Mussorgsky's Night on Bare Mountain started playing, and the curtain went up jerkily. It could not have been better timed if we had been following a script. Perhaps we were; maybe, at some points in all of our lives, we are following scripted directions without ever knowing that we are doing so.

  The crowd began to applaud as a tall, lean man in a powder blue suit emerged and strutted onto the stage. Trevor Dove cut an impressive figure mainly because of his height – other than that, the silly suit, bleached hair and fake tan made him look shallow and pompous, and more than a little vainglorious. He strode to the front of the stage and took a modest half bow. On his head was strapped one of those portable microphones the pop singer Madonna made popular in her live shows back in the Nineties; the whole affair already had the air of a carefully choreographed musical act.

  The soundtrack faded and the star of the show began his spiel.

  "My name is Trevor Dove, and I welcome you, friends, to my evening of spiritual adventure."

  More applause. The students on our row were still giggling. I looked around and noted that there was a mixed crowd in place to view the entertainment: old ladies hoping for messages from loved ones, middle-aged women on a girls' day out who would probably go on for a curry afterwards, students like the ones next to Ellen and me, and a smattering of hardcore ghost-groupies after their latest fix of this sanitised version of the paranormal.

  It took me a while to locate Shawna Royale, where she had been placed in a good seat close to the stage. Her husband wasn't with her (an unbeliever?) but it isn't an overstatement to say that I was stunne
d to see who was accompanying her. Baz Singh sat at her side, looking rather uncomfortable in a pinstripe suit and heavy overcoat. I stared at him, thinking for a moment that I was seeing things – I had no idea why he might be there, or who had invited him.

  "Do you know that man sitting next to Shawna?" I nodded in their general direction and Ellen squinted to see in the dim light.

  "I recognise him, yes, but I don't know his name. God, this is rubbish, isn't it?"

  "Ellen. This is important. What is that man doing with your cousin?"

  Ellen turned to look at me, her face suddenly serious. "Sorry, Thomas. I don't know his name, but he's a local businessman who's organised a fund to help look for Penny. He gathered together a few more prominent local figures and they all chipped in with some cash to kickstart the thing. It's probably some kind of tax write-off."

  My mouth had gone dry; I licked my lips but there was no spit on my tongue to do any good.

  Trevor Dove continued with his introduction, pacing the stage like a rather light-footed caged tiger in pastel colours. His voice, with its modified Yorkshire accent, sounded camp and affected: it was staged entirely for the local crowd.