by Robert Wilde
And her Twitter account wasn’t recognising her. It was now that Hughes began to expect something major was happening here, so she tried Facebook, tried Amazon, tried everything. Yet her entire online or electronic presence was corrupted or gone, as if she’d got drunk one night and erased everything. Which she hadn’t, obviously.
A virus, she must have a virus and she’d been hacked, that’s what happened wasn’t it, digital diseases and thirteen year old boys fiddling with her identity. So she reached round, pulled the broadband wire out, and pondered. She’d better get this sorted out, and quickly. What she needed was some sort of technical expert.
Hang on, hadn’t a leaflet come through the door that very day? She rose, walked over and fished it out of the bin. Yes, a discreet service, this was exactly what she needed. Now to ring the bank and give them a proper earful about their terrible security. While not mentioning hers.
A reporter had been called out and they sensed a great fun column coming on. Two nights ago the neighbours of Herbert Hughes had rung the police to complain someone was in the dead man’s house, making a hell of a racket. A pair of police went round to investigate, but found no one there. What they did find was something moving things about, and no one actually used the term poltergeist, but why else would two sober police persons watch a photo frame launch itself off the sideboard three feet onto the carpet? They left after a mumbled explanation to the neighbours, which didn’t really cheer the latter up as they now heard noises coming from the house as well as the lights coming on and off.
So what else do you do in this situation, but ring the local newspaper and ask if they knew of any exorcists? Sensing a half page of bullshit, the reporter rocked up, spent the morning there, felt certain they’d heard a ghost, and proceeded to write a florid piece which the entire town read soon after.
The entire town, and four newcomers who were doing their best to look touristy as they hung around. They in turn sensed something interesting was happening, so that afternoon they went to the Hughes house, determined to pose as paranormal investigators if anyone caught them, went inside and switched their machine on.
“Hello Herbert.”
“Don’t call me that you traitorous bitch.”
“Charming,” Dee replied.
“All of you, you’re all traitorous bitches.”
“I’ve been called worse,” Nazir confided, “but I do usually have a penis inside them.”
“Eeerrghhh,” said the ghost.
“We sensed that you were trying to attract someone’s attention,” Joe explained, “and we thought that might be us.”
“Too damn right it is. I know what you’re doing, I know you’re trying to harm my wife…”
“Murderous widow,” Dee pointed out.
“…and I demand you stop.”
“How did you find that out?” Joe asked, interested.
“She came here to organise a few things. Took a call from the bank.”
Nazir smirked. “Odd that.”
“So stop it!”
“Can you do anything to stop us?” Dee asked outright.
“What?”
“Can you actually do anything to stop us beyond throwing your toys around the pram?”
“…no.”
“Then the answer is fuck you.”
“I’ll pay you, I’ll pay you to leave her alone!”
“Fuck you with a dragon’s cock.”
“Is that scaly?”
“Joe, you’re spoiling my comebacks.”
Mrs Hughes opened her door and found the computer engineer stood there.
“Hello, I’m Mohammad and I’m here to repair a computer?”
Mrs Hughes looked the man up and down, and decided that the smartly dressed, well-kept man was welcome into her house. That the suit had been sourced quickly from a second hand shop wasn’t apparent, and neither was Mohammad’s fake accent, which he’d been practicing for the past week.
“Please do come in, I’ve set my laptop up in the kitchen if you’d like it there?”
Nazir didn’t wince at the thought of the kitchen, he just smiled and allowed himself to be led through. He’d wondered whether she’d see through his disguise, but it turned out Mrs Hughes expected all brown men to be called Mohammad and look the same, so strike one for undercover planning / racism.
“I’ve run the broadband wire out, do you need that?” she asked.
“I’ll use it, but I’d also like to try your wi-fi too. It does to know how people cracked into your machine.”
“They can get in through wi-fi?”
“Oh yes.” Okay, sounding too keen on that, but it is after all what he’d done about a week ago to set this off.
“Can I get you a coffee?”
“I brought my own flask with me, but thank you for the offer.” I’m not having you poisoning me you crazy bitch.
Nazir sat down, opened up the laptop and had a look. Just not at the laptop, at his surroundings. Through the window, out in the garden, was a shed. Hmm, did anyone check that?”
“Tell you what, let’s get the security nailed down before we fix things. Is it okay if I take a wander about testing the machine?”
“Of course, everywhere on the ground floor is fine.”
“And the garden?”
“Yes. I’ll be in the lounge, the racing is on”
Nazir smiled, picked the laptop up, and exited the building, tapping buttons and humming to himself as he went. Soon he was sat on a well-kept wooden bench, and as he saw Mrs Hughes leave for the lounge, he put the laptop down and opened the shed.
It was filled with old, dusty tools which probably weren’t used much, a lawnmower which was much cleaner, a collection of garden gnomes which must have been banished in here when Mrs Hughes arrived, and a bright, clean plastic bag dumped in one corner. Which was odd, given how dirty everything else was, even the well-used mower, so Nazir quickly went over, and used a pen to pull it open.
Inside was a hammer. Which you might expect inside a shed, but not in a clean bag for a high end clothing shop, because this hammer wasn’t new. Someone had tried to wipe it, but there was a reddish stain.
“Excellent,” thought Nazir, you can be a cold heartless hammer swinging killer, but you can also be arrogant enough to dump a partly wiped hammer in your fucking garden shed and assume no one will find it. Right, time to get out of here, before he was also battered to death.
But first there was work to be done, and Nazir took a photo of the hammer with a specially acquired phone, went back to the laptop, and sat in the garden sipping coffee as he repaired all of the damage he’d done, and then emailed a confession with a picture to the police from Hughes’ email account. Then he went in, explained how he’d removed the virus and made it safe, told her to check all her email contacts to make sure they hadn’t been infected as these things spread, and walked out of the house.
The foursome were sat in Dee’s lounge, slowly eating a fish pie which Joe had made, and all were glued to the television. The report was filled with schadenfreude, taking vast glee reporting how the media friendly Mrs Hughes, she of the immaculate make up and tragic MILF status, had been arrested and charged with her husband’s murder, after sending the police a confession in a moment of madness, along with the location of a forensics’ wet dream hammer. The news was trying to fill in the blanks, and this reporter was wondering whether Mrs Hughes had forced Steven to kill himself or driven him to it, and where her reign of terror would have ended if she hadn’t broken down. (Which was news to her.) The Tell Tale Heartless they were calling her, because there was no royalties owing on that.
“Success,” Pohl said, but her heart wasn’t in it.
“At least Plan B worked,” Nazir said, trying to boost morale and pleased he’d nailed this one.
“I think we learned a valuable lesson,” Joe said.
“You sound like the ending to an eighties cartoon…” Nazir commented.
“We did learn a lesson, people are st
ill cunts even when they’re dead.”
Nazir turned to Dee. “Okay, you don’t sound like a children’s cartoon.”
“I think Joe has a point,” and Pohl explained “we have to assume the dead have as much of an agenda as the living do. It’s not enough to ask who killed them, we have to examine all the evidence and evaluate the sources.”
“Are you just giving us part of a history seminar?”
“Yes Dee, I am, but I believe the skills are transferable. I took my eye off the ball.”
“We all did,” Dee confirmed.
“Indeed, but we will be careful going forward. And at least we have a connection in this business now.”
“Murphy…” and Joe let his comment hang.
“Yes. We must work on him to learn, rather than making our own mistakes and learning from those.”
“We’ve got Maquire too,” Joe said, unaware that Dee had kissed him. Joe certainly wouldn’t have wanted the detective around if he’d known that.
“Making mistakes…” Dee said, thinking about that kiss.
“Let’s take a few days to right ourselves, and get back on the horse.”
Seven: Relics
The Church of Saint Miranda had been built in the eighth century in a small town very near Rome, offering religious support to both a grateful local population and travellers who paused before going into the great city before them. Sometimes the locals and the travellers had intermixed, and there were more than a few baptisms and burials as a result. The financial backers of the original building had wanted something to impress, and while the structure had been extended over the years, the grandeur had remained intact, aided in no small part by the romanticism of the architecture by much later generations. Nowadays the stone work was considered rustically charming, the statues to the saints engaging, and the paintings inside positively beautiful. The stone had aged to fascinating textures, the flowers were bright, the place smelled of incense and pollen. And the two men approaching the church this night didn’t give a shit.
Two motorbikes passed the church, the riders looking across as they continued up the right, and then they returned and parked up. After climbing off they left their helmets on, and one removed a pair of bolt cutters from a pannier. They went to the gate of the church, which had wisely been chained shut at the end of the day, and cut swiftly through the chain. Then they were inside, using electric torches where people often used candles.
Although clearly thieves, the golden items within the church were ignored, as were most things with clear financial value, and the intruders went straight to a place they had scouted out that very day, when they’d mingled with tourists and no one had seen the truth in their souls.
What they soon came to was a picture of an old man dressed in white and gold, something that might have been considered an icon if you wanted to cause an argument, and around this picture were candles and flowers. But above was an alcove in the wall, and inside was a small wooden box which was permanently open. And in that wooden box, polished to shine and inlaid in gold, there was a small, filled vial.
You couldn’t just pick this relic up, the church weren’t stupid enough to leave a vial of a deceased Pope’s blood lying around, there were bars across. But the bolt cutters began to shear their way through, although the process was stopped when both were sure they’d seen a shadow move and heard a rustle. It must have been nothing, a trick of their nerves, and soon they had closed the lid of the box and withdrawn it, to be carefully placed in a bag. Then they retreated out, placed the bag and the bolt cutters away, and rode off, feeling like they had stolen something of great and spiritual importance. Which, on balance, the world was soon to find they had.
“I think we ought to go on a holiday.”
It had been a miserable fortnight, with the foursome meeting as regularly as they always did, sharing meals and a trip to an art gallery, but the conversation was always desperately pulled away from business, and flitted from everything from the sensible (politics, religion, culture, society) through to the more esoteric (food, cartoons, what happened to the twats at your school, why a god who had made people such bastards would ever be worth worshipping). Tonight it was a curry evening, made to Dee’s special recipe, but once again the laughter was glossing over a huge elephant sized fuck up in their past. Either way, no one wanted to get back into investigating, and may never want to again if this malaise continued.
“Really,” Pohl went on, “we should go on a group holiday.”
“Have you been speaking to Nazir?” Dee asked.
“No?”
“I had also suggested a holiday…” he revealed.
“In a country full of dicks,” Dee explained.
“I like to take in culture in all its forms” he grinned.
Joe thought it would be nice to see Dee in a bikini, but decided not to mention that. One piece or two piece, either, but probably a two, err, stop thinking she’ll know.
“Seriously,” Pohl continued “I thought if we all got away somewhere nice, somewhere we can really immerse ourselves, we would be regenerated and ready to begin when we came back.”
“There’s a Doctor Who exhibit on it London?” Joe tried.
“I was thinking further afield, somewhere really different.”
“Oh, Brighton?”
“No, Joe, no, I thought how wonderful it would be if I could show you all round Rome.”
Dee nodded, “ah, somewhere classical.”
“It would be nice to see a city like that with someone who knew what she was talking about.” Joe’s comment was more serious than Nazir’s.
“A whole city filled with repressed homosexuals. Now that I could get into.”
“The only thing you’ll be entering are buildings.”
“He can have the evenings to himself Dee,” Pohl counselled, “I don’t expect you to share my love of history.”
“How expensive is Rome?” Dee asked.
“I’m sure we can acquire cheap flights if we’re careful, and you don’t have to eat five star meals every night to have a holiday.”
“Five star chefs are more unbalanced than Dee.”
She raised an eyebrow and looked at Joe. “I preferred you when you stayed out of the banter. And I’ll have you know there’s only medical certificates proving that. But I don’t see why we can’t do this.”
“Oh, so it’s a good ideas when the professor suggests it, but not when I want to take us out?”
“You wanted to go sharking for fresh ass. This is going to be a cultural trip, a real new experience.”
“Well I’ve never fucked a priest before. Do you think they’ll keep the dog collar on?”
“Do you see what I mean!” Dee exclaimed turning to Pohl.
“Now children,” she grinned back at them, “no need to fight.”
The group had gone to the airport in two cars, so when Dee and Pohl pulled up they found Nazir and Joe already waiting for them, sat on the bonnet of Joe’s car near the entrance sipping a coffee. Of course because they were near the entrance they were a mile away from the airport building, but there were spaces and the flask of hot coffee was soon offered to the ladies, who had a quick cup. Then everyone collected a suitcase and a carry-on bag from their cars and began walking to the building. It was at this point that Dee spotted something.
“That’s your rucksack?”
“Yes. I’m going to be carrying it on.”
“The rucksack.”
“Yes?”
“Tell me it’s filled with useful things like towels, pants and an e-reader, and you’ve not actually got the machine in there.”
“Err…I’ll take the fifth.”
“That only works if you’re American.”
“Then yeah, it’s the machine.”
“Jesus, this is supposed to be a holiday!”
“But it is for me!” Joe protested. “I want to speak to the spirits of Italy. Think of all those old buildings, all the Romans.”
De
e wasn’t giving up. “They all speak Italian. Or Latin.”
“We’re going with our own multi-lingual classics expert.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that.”
“I don’t mind translating, it’ll be fun.”
Dee looked at Pohl suspiciously. “Did you organise this so you can talk with Emperor Caesar?”
“He wasn’t an emperor, and no, I wasn’t thinking of that. But it’ll be fun.”
“You’ll never get it through customs.” Dee concluded.
“I will,” and Joe grinned, “I’ve got two medical notes explaining how I need it at night.”
“And where did you get…oh, I see,” and Dee turned to a grinning Nazir. “Am I the only one who’s not in on this?”
“It’s serendipity,” Pohl said, and they walked the rest of the way grinning at the moping Dee. They were soon on a plane, and the journey went as well as being in a tin can thousands of feet above the ground watching a year old movie can be.
Then they landed, rushed to the first chance to taste Italian coffee, realised it was still airport coffee, got through customs with their bags and dignity intact, and then rushed off to the first proper café they could find. Soon they were settled.
“Doesn’t this feel great,” Joe said leaning back into his seat.
“I have an overwhelming urge to wear sunglasses and say ciao to all the hot men.”
“Just because you’re Syrian doesn’t mean you can’t be racist.”
“Thanks sister.”
“So where are we going first?” Dee asked.
“I have some suggestions,” and Pohl smiled, “but probably our hotel.”
“Yes, alright, you know what I meant.”
“To be honest, we could fill these two weeks without scratching the surface,” Joe said, waving his copy of the guide book. All three of the newcomers had bought and read their own. “So we need to be guided. We need to be like a drone.”
“I’m Arabic, I get nervous when people talk about drones.”