The Complete Greyminster Chronicles

by Brian Hughes

  Life must go on.

  The murder inquiries continued at Greyminster police station on York Street under the bewildered gaze of Inspector Reginald Nesbit. Such an event was uncommon in Reginald’s calendar, Greyminster not being renowned for its violent streets, so he was determined to find the culprit. He had been brought up on a diet of Sherlock Holmes, but somehow never quite managed to encapsulate the craftsmanship of the great detective.

  The murder remained unsolved, and the Inspector himself remained unpromoted.

  On November 15th, 1998, Benjamin’s body was sewn back together following extensive pathological investigations. The autopsy revealed nothing more than a severe case of dandruff, so the corpse was released for private burial.

  A belt of drizzle covered the fells that morning. The occasional cough of wind brought out the more substantial rain. It slanted down across the gathering at Druids’ End Cemetery, stinging their faces like a swarm of wet bees.

  Mrs Prune was wearing a flamboyant black costume that had more lace about it than a Barbara Cartland novel. She watched in silence as Father Wordsmith gave his finely tuned sermon.

  Jess Hobson stood beside the grey haired priest, watching the rain form doleful patterns on his boots. The service costs had been met from his wages, the Wambachs having delivered them in a brown envelope marked ‘Regrets.’ It was, they felt, the least they could do.

  But today his thoughts ran much deeper. Deeper perhaps than the rainwashed hole into which the coffin was being lowered. Thoughts of revenge.

  The funeral service was brief. That much was a mercy. By noon the mourners were filing out through the gates, their faces reflected in the puddles along the drive. Mrs Prune’s red cheeks glistened beneath her veil. She might have been crying, but it was hard to tell.

  At length, Jess broke the silence with a dramatic outburst. “Thirty-five slappers that vicar cost me. Thirty-five quid t’ tell us ‘Ee was cut short in ’is prime. ’Ere’s some soil an’ a sprinkle o’ baby slash. Now I’m off to old Ma Johnson’s wake where there’s some decent grub.’ The Irish git!”

  Don’t be too harsh on Jess Hobson. Although he was mortally wounded inside, Jess had been brought up never to let his more sensitive emotions surface. Anger, aggression and bigotry had all been acceptable in his childhood household. Anything vaguely approaching remorse had been considered effeminate.

  Mrs Prune smudged her cheek and brought the conversation back round to Ben, what with it being his special day and all. “It’s a terrible crime, Jess ’Obson. ’Ee never ’ad a bad word for no-one.”

  “W’at utter crud!”

  “Well...almost...” Mrs Prune continued, retracting her statement slightly. “Animals thought very fondly of him. Rupert always looked forward to ’is lettuce leaf on ’is birthday. ’Is little eyes would light up and ee’d go bounding across the carpet ten to the dozen.”

  Her eyes became a little misty beneath the black veil. “I remember that time I shut the door on Rupert’s head by accident, ’ee was so excited. Couldn’t get it back in the shell for a week. Looked like an ape’s thumb it did. ’Ad to put it in a splint.”

  She reflected for a moment on the distant memory.

  “Still, it came in ’andy for levering the lids off me bile jars.”

  Jess was studying memories of his own. More recent memories that disturbed him. “Right. I’m gonna get that grey haired old twanker f’r this!”

  Worry spread across Mrs Prune’s face. “’Ee was only doin’ ’is job.”

  “I’ll show ’im what ghoulies are all about. I’m gonna rip ’is off an’ stuff ’em up ’is ghostly behind!”

  “Y’ can’t blame Reverend Wordsmith f’r this. Ee’s very old y’ know?” Mrs Prune was wandering off in the wrong direction. “Ee’d have had to leave because of ’is inconstitutiancies. Bin round for some of me remedies many a time. It’s his prosperous gland, y’ know?”

  “Not the vicar, y’ bloated elephants’ reproductive pouch!”

  Mrs Prune stiffened but let the remark pass under the mitigating circumstances.

  Jess paused. If the job had to be done it might as well be done thoroughly. During his outburst a plan had been forming in his brain.

  “Get those knackered old candles with the grotesque moon faces on ’em, that y’r so proud of, y’ warthog. Then meet me at the Wimples. I’ve got a surprise seance t’ conduct in ’onour of a long forgotten relative!”

  In the full knowledge that Jess was tampering with things best left alone, Mrs Prune set about gathering the items from her kitchen that afternoon. Not once in her years as a witch had she managed to contact the dead so she proceeded without too much anxiety.

  She collected her candles into an old cardboard box. Then translating Jess’ parting instruction as to meet him at the Wambachs, she arranged the occult gathering over the telephone. It transpired that 10 o’clock that night would be convenient, which gave her just enough time to get the washing in and check that Rupert was hibernating safely.

  November 15th. 10:30 p.m. 113 Applegate. Site of the great seance.

  Mrs Wambach had erected an old wallpapering table in Joseph’s nursery. It was covered with a gingham tablecloth that only ever saw daylight when the Wambachs were entertaining. Exactly how appropriate the porcelain swan that Mary had added was, was open to debate.

  Both parents, Mrs Prune and Jess Hobson now sat around the dining table in the flickering light from the carved pumpkin mouth. Their hands were spread palms down on the over-starched cloth.

  Mary’s throat was dry with expectation. Action was finally being taken. Now she was wound up like a clockwork mouse. She felt she ought to show her appreciation for the valiant efforts of all concerned. With an amount of uncertainty she proffered the following suggestion.

  “Would anybody like a cup of tea before we begin?” She turned to Mrs Prune specifically, believing her to be the instigator of tonight’s rescue attempt. “We’ve got some very nice Raspberry Leaf Madam Victoria?”

  “No thanks. I don’t want t’ go upsettin’ me tubes again.”

  Jess raised an eyebrow in agreement with that.

  “Not after w’at ’appened last time.” He readjusted his turtleneck collar and added, “I’m still findin’ reports off the RSPCA jammed in the letterbox, makin’ enquires about the budgie.”

  “Perhaps some Camomile?” Mary continued undeterred. She’d been shopping especially that afternoon for such exotic beverages as Lapsang, Darjeeling and Spanish Fly.

  “No!” Jess snapped.

  “Cowslip and Parsley Herb?”

  “SHUDDUP about the bloody tea, y’ senile old reptile!”

  Mrs Prune looked across at the surviving member of her household, her concern for his well being displayed across her troubled face. Since turning forty Jess had definitely grown more intolerant, storing all his pent-up emotion deep inside and releasing it at random on unsuspecting victims. Now he was fast approaching boiling point.

  Unfortunately none of the other guests shared Mrs Prune’s concern. Jess’ behaviour had overstepped the bounds of polite conversation. If it hadn’t been for Benjamin’s death clouding their judgement, then no doubt a great deal more would have been said.

  Jacob Wambach fumed slightly. When he spoke it was as composed as possible. “My wife’s got a feeble constitution, you know?”

  The distance between Jess and Jacob narrowed. “She’ll ’ave a feeble broken neck in a minute if she doesn’t shut it! Do y’ want to find out w’at’s ’appened to y’r child, or what?”

  “Yes…”

  “Then keep it shtum! Before I peel y’r lips back over your head an’ tie your tongue in a knot!”

  Mrs Prune felt it prudent to intervene at this point.

  “Mrs Wambach?” she said in her most cultured manner. “Did y’ manage t’ find an item belongin’ to Joseph?”

  That did the trick. Mrs Wambach snapped back into the real world, hopeful once more.

  “Oh...yes.
” She disappeared beneath the table and seconds later re-emerged holding a yellow potty. She plonked it down next to the vase. Mr Wambach flinched backwards, his teeth clenched.

  “Bloody ’ell Mary. I’ve got to have me breakfast off this in the morning!”

  Mrs Prune locked her fingers and cracked the knuckles. “Just a moment. I’ve got t’ prepare.”

  She started her preparations by shrugging her shoulders and loosening the muscles in her neck. Then her rugged face assumed a tormented expression. After several seconds a loud fart opened everybody’s eyes in shock.

  “Ahh. That’s better.” Mrs Prune never stood on ceremony for long and a ‘little skweeker,’ as she refered to such things, always helped to break an oppressive mood.

  Mr Wambach pushed his chair back in disgust. “That’s brought tears to my eyes!”

  “It ’asn’t done much good t’ mine mate, I can tell y’!”

  And at that point Jess lost his temper. It had been a trying few weeks and he’d taken about as much as he could stand. He stood up so rapidly that it sent his chair over backwards. Then he slammed his giant fist down on the tabletop, upsetting the pottery swan.

  “Right!” he snarled. “I’ve ’ad enough of this farce! If there’s anybody from the other side ’angin’ about, then speak NOW!”

  He snuffled and grimmaced at the taste of the pungent air.

  “If y’ can still breathe,” he added.

  And then the remarkable happened.

  A voice trembled across the room. It was a haunting and hollow voice. I’m not going to say that it appeared out of the thin air, because by this point the air was anything but thin. However, it played around the assembled heads with the youthful buoyancy of a stream.

  “Madam Victoria?” It echoed through Mrs Prune’s skull and emerged from the other side. “It’s me...Benjamin Foster!”

  Mrs Prune desperately looked around at the other guests. She wasn’t sure what she was hoping to find, but her senses were now reeling with confusion. Somebody was trying to tune into her psychic wavelength and nobody else had heard a sound.

  Benjamin Foster materialised in the corner. His face was ashen and his eyes were sunken. His body was transparent but still quite recognisable as the Benjamin she knew.

  Mrs Prune gawked. “Oh, bloody ’Ell! I’m off.”

  In her haste to leave, the teapot was sent flying, a corkscrew of camomile twisting across the room. Mrs Wambach felt an elbow connect with the side of her head as Mrs Prune skidded past on the slippery floor.

  She rounded the table, Jess lunging at her but missing.

  “W’at’s goin’ on?” she heard him shout as she collided with the wardrobe.

  Ben’s voice echoed from several feet behind her. “Mrs Prune! Don’t go. I’ve got to warn you!”

  Seconds later Mrs Prune clumped down the stairs and into the porch muttering, “Bugger me backwards. Me great giddy fat aunt!”

  “Mrs Prune. You’re in terrible danger.”

  She flung the door open wide and scrambled through it into the night. Down a narrow cobbled street a few short minutes later she gyrated to a halt, clutching her ample bosom.

  Up until now, ironically, she’d never had any direct experience with the supernatural. Everything that had happened in the investigations so far had been handed down to her second generation. She naturally assumed that those relating the stories were simply exaggerating. After all, that’s what she would have done and like most people, she suspected everybody else as having the same character flaws as her.

  But now this? For the first time in her life Mrs Prune felt unsure about herself. She leant back against a wall and tried to catch her breath. A shape moved out of the shadows.

  The hunch-backed figure of Thomas Hobson. His brown teeth parted into a damp, gummy grin.

  “Well, well, well.” He approached her like a crab, leaning forwards onto his stick. “Madame Prune.”

  Mrs Prune had recognised him. Those sunken, viperous eyes and the chiselled cheekbones, she’d seen them before on a black and white photograph she’d found in the drawing room. For the second time ever, and all within a couple of action-packed minutes, she realised she was looking at a ghost. A solid ghost, but nonetheless, a ghastly phantom returned from the dead.

  Hobson’s eyes became slots buried beneath the avalanching cliff of his forehead. “Or should I call you Cynthia Bottomlash?”

  Mrs Prune’s personal history was rather murky. Once times had been extremely hard on her. There had, after all, been a war on. Most people knew better than to discuss such delicate matters as Mrs Prune’s past. Living people, generally, with noses to be broken.

  “Call me w’at y’ like, Deary. You couldn’t scare the ’obnails out o’ me forty year old boots!”

  “I know your history, Mrs Prune.” Hobson’s accusing form closed the gap. Stubborn to the quick, Mrs Prune refused to budge. “Last of the great British Witches.”

  That took her by surprise. She raised an eyebrow, allowing for time whilst she regained the use her lungs. “Well, it’s more than I do, then.”

  “And I know how the Prime Minister was once a naughty boy.” The blood drained from Mrs Prune’s face. “And how you gave him such a sound thrashing.”

  A dry wheeze of a laugh cackled from his maw.

  Mrs Prune belted him hard in the groin with her sturdy brolly.

  In agony he doubled up.

  “Then know this about me, Thomas ’Obson, last bastard son of a great line o’ bastards. I don’t give up wi’out a fight, you hear? So y’d better ’ave a damn good needle an’ cotton ready! ’Cos you’ll be sewing y’r ghostly gonads back on, back in the bowels of Hell where you belong!”

  With which defiant words she hitched up her skirts and hobbled off. Hobson watched her disappear, embroiled in a personal world of pain.

  “Count your days wisely, you old walrus. There’s less of them than you might suspect!” His voice ricocheted off the ginnel walls. “You’re down on my list, you old sow! I’m going to kick those offensive buttocks of yours half way round the cosmic plains and back before you’re done!”

  Mrs Prune careered around the corner, her ‘offensive buttocks’ colliding with a wall and her boots losing grip on the icy stones whilst behind her Thomas Hobson’s cackle rose from the darkness and pierced the heart of the night.

  Chapter Seven: Jannice Applebotham’s Guide to Feminist Principles

  Stop all the clocks and crank them backwards. Watch the present contracting into the distance. Into the past we hurtle, watching the years unwind like an orange peel.

  All the way back to the autumn of 1989; several years before Hobson & Co had even been thought of, when a video film was being recorded in the attic of number 12, Gasworks Road.

  “Hello, I’m Jannice,” said Jannice Applebotham.

  “And this is Janet,” she added, pointing at her gaunt friend.

  “It’s Janette, actually.”

  “Sorry, Jar-nette then.” Jannice frowned. “We live in the same flat and we both go to college. I’m studying Cartesian Dualism, Modern Media Ethics and Women’s Studies.”

  There was a pause whilst Jar-nette gathered her wits about her.

  “And I’m taking Sociology.”

  “And today we’re going to discuss the attitude of the male presence in an evolving society.” Jannice appeared to be satisfied with that, as if the sentence was some sort of accomplishment in itself. “So, Jar-nette...What do you think about the ‘Modern Man’?”

  Janet drew in a breath and thought about the question.

  “I like a man with a small, tight bottom,” she said.

  Jannice leaned forwards, scowling, and turned the camera off. When it was turned back on she wasn’t looking quite so thunderstruck. She was sitting on her bed, holding an object that resembled a spin-inhaler.

  “This is a must for every liberated woman,” she said emphatically. “It’s a self defence mechanism, which when activated...”


  She pushed the button on the top. An annoying whine started to rattle through the bedroom making it impossible to understand what she was saying. A loud thumping started up from the next door neighbours.

  The next shot on the video was of Janet in an armchair, her knees tucked beneath her chin and her toes gripping the cushion. A large photograph-album was opened before her. Jannice had hold of the camera at this point. She closed in on the album, as the following exchange took place.

  “So, Jar-nette, what’s this that you wanted to show me?”

  “Right...” Janet blinked and looked back down to her most treasured item. “This is my photograph album which is totally dedicated to Mel Gibson.”

  The camera closed in on the pages, revealing a collection of photographs. Some were cut out of newspapers; others from magazines. Apart from the odd Patrick Swayze every one of them involved Mel Gibson in some manner or other.

  Mel was talking. Mel was walking. Mel was looking haggard in the flash of a camera bulb that had managed to unveil the strain of too much alcohol. Mel was posing with a patch across one eye and a loincloth padded with several socks.

  Jannice couldn’t help noticing however, that in the middle of them, various images of posteriors had been glued.

  “I’ve been collecting this since I was seventeen,” Janet confessed. “When I first saw Mel in Tequila Sunset.”

  “And is this really Mel Gibson’s bottom?”

  “Well, no…” Janet looked a little crestfallen. “It’s Keith Chegwin’s actually. I cut it out of Girl Talk, but I like to pretend it’s from that bit in Lethal Weapon, where Mel stands up with his bare bottom in the camera and...”

  “It’s a bit sad isn’t it?”

  That caught Janet slightly off guard. “Sorry?”

  “Don’t you think such things are perpetuating the social myth that women are dependent on the male of the species?”

  An internal struggle was now clearly visible across Janet’s face. After several seconds she abandoned the problem to its own devices and browsed through the pages with a new-found enthusiasm.