by Syd Moore
‘Christmas party,’ he said, and leant across me to open the door. I got a waft of his body odour again. It was animally with base notes of brine. Pungent. It wasn’t hot in there. But I suppose he’d had quite a night of it and one had to take Ray into account. The bloke was enough to make anyone break into a heavy sweat. Especially if you were shagging his daughter.
‘Thanks for doing this,’ he said, as we went on to the landing. ‘Mary is innocent. You get that, don’t you?’
I pressed his moist palm and nodded. ‘Seems so.’ I didn’t want to commit. ‘Do you work at the restaurant too, Tom?’
‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I’m a historian. Well, that is I’m looking for something in that field, you know.’
I said that I did know, though I didn’t, and was going to commiserate (there can’t be too many jobs around for historians) but Sam leant across me, thanked him for the coffee and shook hands. I wiped mine off against my jeans, and assured Tom we’d do our best to get the bottom of everything.
He grinned, then looked guilty for grinning, frowned hard, sighed then quickly turned round and closed the door.
‘Why are we doing this?’ I asked Sam as we pulled up in a space on a street near to the address we’d been given. Not as salubrious or as central as Mary’s, I noted. It was a postcode that had yet to become gentrified. The type of place people stayed in because of income or because they were born there.
‘You heard Mr Boundersby,’ he said, stretching. He’d been bent over his phone all the way over here. ‘Because it’s up to us to work out what the hell is going on.’
‘But shouldn’t we be leaving it to the police?’
‘I doubt they’re going to stretch their resources searching for a spectre in period dress, don’t you? They’ll probably just get a psych test done and leave it at that. The evidence seems to point to her and, like Joel said, they do tend to take a hard look at the first person on the scene. Poor Mary’s got the victim’s DNA on her. I imagine her fingerprints are going to be down in the cellar too. She didn’t mention the murder weapon though. I don’t know what that was. Presumably a knife of some sort?’
I shook my head and peered out the windscreen. Looked like rain. ‘Dunno. I expect there’d be plenty around in a kitchen. Unless it was a phantom knife.’
Sam pulled his bag across his legs, undid his seatbelt and turned in my direction, looking beyond me as he thought. ‘The only thing that doesn’t scream suspect number one, is her lack of motive. Though they could say she lost her temper after the food poisoning. Seth was ruining the reputation of the restaurant. Running it down.’
‘Yeah, but whipping, gutting the chef because of a few bad prawns … Bit extreme, isn’t it? She didn’t strike me as the extreme type.’
‘I know what you mean. But the ghost theory?’
‘Yeah. That’s even dodgier.’
Sam sighed. ‘Extremely unoriginal – clanking chains and moaning.’
‘It’s not a dungeon, though,’ I commented out loud.
‘Eh?’ Sam asked. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Chains and moaning. Makes me think of dungeons. Like Septimus’s Inquisition waxworks at the museum. Prisoners, torture. That kind of stuff. But it’s a restaurant,’ I emphasised the last word. ‘So in terms of location it’s far less clichéd. It didn’t feel like she was churning out the usual ghostly guff.’
‘You might be on to something there,’ Sam nodded. A shard of late morning sun cut through a brief hole in the clouds and danced over the golden threads in his hair. When he looked at me the light hit his eyes and turned them a beautiful honey brown. ‘But similarly,’ he went on, unaware of the sudden desire in my gaze, ‘she didn’t deviate from her tale one iota.’
I was being far too indulgent here, so turned away.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sam look down the street. ‘Even when she was broken, crying, she kept to her story. I believed her.’
‘Me too.’ I said. Now he was looking in the other direction, I grabbed the chance to admire the firmness around his chin, that strong chiselled jaw. Oh, Sam, I thought, you are so wasted, hidden away in that dingy old museum.
‘I think that Mary certainly believed what she’d seen.’
‘What?’ I had been slightly distracted.
‘I believe that she believed what she was telling us.’
‘Yes, I know,’ I said, dragging my eyes away from his face and making an effort to concentrate. ‘It’s weird.’
‘It is indeed.’ He stopped looking at a woman sweeping her small front yard and undid his seatbelt. ‘Although I’m sure her father has probably lied in the past.’
I nodded. ‘Without a doubt.’
‘She could have learnt tricks from him. About how to lie convincingly.’
‘Could’ve done.’ I conceded. ‘It just didn’t feel like it.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And there we go, agreeing again, Strange.’ He looked back and smiled. ‘If we’re not careful, we’ll be married with children quicker than you can say, “Hell will freeze over.”’
I jumped in my seat, looked at him grinning at me, then quickly glanced away again. A blush was on its way. Why had he said that? Did he want to marry me? Or was that the kind of thing you said to someone who you had absolutely no interest in marrying? It bothered me that he could make me blush when no one else ever could. I just couldn’t help it.
Covering up my discomfort, I laughed a little too loudly, patted my hair and slid out the door so I didn’t have to face him.
Over the other side of the car Sam got out and stretched. I refused to look at his body, despite a pressing feeling in my stomach.
‘Interesting though,’ he went on, oblivious. ‘That there have been instances when everyone has seen the phenomena. That there have been scores, sometimes, of witnesses.’
‘Oh yes,’ I said, avoiding eye contact and ambling on to the pavement. ‘The writing? The blood? Very public.’
‘Yes, now both of those facets are interesting. Over the years there have been some well-publicised incidences of spectral writing.’ He caught up with me. ‘One of the most famous cases was at Borley Rectory.’ He added as an aside, ‘In Essex. Just.’ I could feel his breath touch my cheek. It was tickly. I wanted to touch it but kept my eyes on the turn to Marta Thompson’s house.
‘Allegedly it was the most haunted house in Britain. As declared by Harry Price, psychic investigator.’ Sam struck out hefty strides down the road, his frame upright and animated by mental energy. ‘Now, if I remember rightly there were several witnesses at Borley who attested to pencils rising up into the air, scrawling messages on the wall. Pleas for help, for light and for Mass.’
Despite my scepticism in such matters I felt a chill run through me. It’s normal to be scared of the unknown so I didn’t give myself a hard time about it. Like we told Joel, that sort of thing usually had a mundane explanation. Usually.
‘However, most experts think they were written by the occupants of the house,’ Sam concluded. ‘And not a spirit at all.’
See, I was right. ‘Why? What for? Attention?’
‘People do things for all sorts of reasons. Human nature is one of the most confounding phenomena I’ve ever encountered.’
‘I don’t think that’s what’s happened here though. At least I don’t think Ray and Mary are happy with the quality of attention these incidents have inspired.’ I was picturing La Fleur full of diners, horrified and disgusted by what they were seeing. Didn’t bode well for a fledgling business. ‘The writing’s on the wall,’ I murmured out loud, thinking the words through as I articulated each one.
‘A doom-laden portent? Is that what you’re suggesting?’ Sam ducked to my side to let a tall man in a grey fleece pass us. His dog stopped to sniff the ground, then growled at me. Maybe he could smell Hecate.
I returned to Sam’s question. ‘For the restaurant certainly. No one wants to read about bloody eyes turning up while they chow down on the
ir meatballs, do they?’
Sam stopped, then began nodding. ‘Of course, there’s the food connection.’
‘What connection?’
‘The phrase. I do believe people are subconsciously drawn to certain things. So you’re right to mention “The writing’s on the wall”.’
‘Uh-uh,’ I said. ‘So where does it come from?’
He grinned. ‘You really were brought up secularly, weren’t you?’
‘Yes. Faith is illogical. Dad didn’t want us influenced by things that couldn’t be proved.’
Sam nodded at me. ‘So I see.’
‘Where did “the writing on the wall” come from then? Is it relevant?’
‘I’m not sure but certainly the story is set in a place with food and excess and riches – Belshazzar’s feast. In the Book of Daniel. Belshazzar is having a great old time feasting and dancing and quaffing from golden cups stolen by his father. From a temple too, the naughty boy. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a hand appears and writes on the wall. But it’s illegible. Even his wise men can’t work it out. Then Daniel arrives and suggests it means that when Belshazzar’s father was proud and arrogant he was deposed by God. So Daniel warns Belshazzar that things might go that way for him too. That very same night Belshazzar is killed.’
‘So it was a warning.’ I murmured.
‘Or maybe a prophecy. Because death followed.’ We turned the corner. ‘Blood gushed from her eyes,’ he crooned. ‘A prophecy? For whom?’
‘The blood ended up gushing from Seth’s neck and stomach though, didn’t it? There was nothing coming out of his eyes.’ I saw up ahead house number 44, where this MT lived. It was a bland little terrace clad in rectangular grey-and-pink paving tiles. Ugly. ‘And Seth was a bloke,’ I blurted with amazing insight and perception.
‘I understand that to be true,’ said Sam. ‘Though shortly after the words appeared, allegedly without a disembodied hand writing them, didn’t blood gush from the chandelier?’
‘No, that happened before the words on the wall,’ I corrected. ‘Joel showed us that snippet of footage. It was really awful. Reminded me of that scene in Carrie,’ I mused. ‘That’s a film.’ I didn’t think Sam’s grasp of popular culture was particularly wide.
‘Thank you for that,’ he continued. ‘But I wonder if that’s what precisely what it was meant to do.’
‘Remind us of Carrie?’ I couldn’t buy that. ‘Naaah.’
‘Not specifically perhaps. But that’s iconic horror-film imagery, isn’t it? Blood dripping from ceilings or walls or out of taps or through lights? It’s a recurring motif that connotes haunted houses, madness, possession, brutality, demonic forces, the supernatural. All of that.’
We paused outside the stubby garden with its iron gate half off its hinges. Weeds were growing out of the cracks in the paved path that led up to the front steps.
I considered Sam’s assertion. I’d seen a fair few horror films in my time. He wasn’t wrong.
Taking my silence as consent, he went on, ‘The colours, the terror, the sheer unexpectedness of it, the drama. It’s so visceral it evokes strong human responses. In fact, I would suggest that it is well-used, a recurring scene or effect within the horror genre, precisely because it is so extraordinarily spectacular.’
I pulled the gate open and let him pass, turning the proposition over and coming to the conclusion it was a well-made point. ‘So are you suggesting it was stage-managed?’
He waited for me halfway up the stubby garden path. His voice was lower as he spoke. ‘Ray Boundersby has not long bought the place, you said.’
I had zero recollection of that. ‘Did I?’
He paused and put a finger to his lips, ‘Well, maybe it was your auntie Barbara who did.’
An unpleasant thought struck me. ‘Are you getting me confused with Auntie Barbara?’ I loved my family, truly I did, but my aunt had lived in Spain for a fair few years and was no stranger to the sunbed. Her furrowed, mahogany exterior was distinctive and very memorable and, as such, she did not, to my mind, present a particularly flattering doppelgänger.
He raised his eyebrows and tutted, reluctant to be drawn into a potential argument. ‘I confirmed it online, during the drive over here. He’s only had it for nine months.’
‘Mmm.’ I got on to the doorstep, so I could check my reflection in the glass of the front door. But the sun had chosen that moment to put in a rare appearance and threw my face into shadow. ‘I go for a spray tan over sunbeds anytime.’
Sam’s forehead wrinkled. ‘What? What’s that got to do with the price of bread?’
‘My skin.’ I turned my face to his and pointed. ‘I like to keep it protected and well-nourished. It’s an investment in the future, you might say.’
His eyebrows had pulled together hard making one big fat wrinkle on his forehead. He should really start considering Botox.
‘Unlike Auntie Babs,’ I prompted him. ‘Who has lived a full and fun life exposed to UV rays.’ There was no response. ‘The consequences of which show on her skin.’
An eyebrow fluttered up, then my concern dawned on him. ‘Oh, for god’s sake, Rosie, you look nothing like your aunt. I can’t see a family resemblance at all.’
‘You can’t?’ Now I wasn’t sure whether or not to be offended. After all, she might share certain aspects with the queens of the dried fruit scene but Auntie Babs remained a comely specimen of femininity: slender, agile with big shiny hair and, I was told on good authority, still sexy to those that liked that sort of thing, like some of my dad’s friends from the allotment. And Del, her husband, obviously. And maybe Ray Boundersby.
Sam shook his head. ‘You take after the other side of the family, the Strange side – Ethel-Rose, Celeste. Everyone comments on that, don’t they?’
I pouted for no particular reason. ‘Yes. Suppose.’
He stepped up on to the doorstep and reduced his voice to a whisper. ‘I only mentioned Barbara because we were at her place at the time. In her salon. When she was telling us about Ray and his business. She implied he’d only had it for a little while.’ He swung his bag over his shoulder, straightened his jacket and said quietly, ‘I imagine that a man like Ray Boundersby might have made some enemies before he went legit, don’t you?’
I narrowed my lips like a proper detective and nodded slowly. ‘Mmm. That is a possibility. Or even a probability. But there’s got to be other, less complicated ways of exacting revenge. Why kill his chef?’
‘Framing his daughter would certainly hurt.’
‘Oh, come on.’ I wiped my lovely gold leather boots on the doormat. ‘How could anyone have guessed Mary was going to return when she did? No one knew she’d forgotten the present for Tom. Not even Tom. It was a surprise. She stumbled over the scene by accident. It was chance. The girl was only fouled by the fickle finger of fate.’
Sam frowned. ‘And so we return to the ghost.’
‘Who no one else saw. There was, after all, no one else there to see it.’
‘Although there is someone else who has witnessed the apparition in the restaurant. Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s find out exactly what the butler saw.’
CHAPTER NINE
As Sam raised his hand to knock, the door opened of its own accord. A fitting entrance, I thought. There was even a slight creak to its hinges. All that was missing was a cackle of lunatic laughter. Which I could quite happily supply, if requested.
‘Hello?’ Sam halted his hand mid-air and craned his neck to the darkness.
A short thin blonde poked her head round the door, blinking at the sunlight. When her eyes began to adjust she squinted and looked us up and down. Settling back on our faces, she clicked her tongue and shook her head a bit, as if she was lamenting our appearance with an unseen friend.
‘Hello?’ I said brightly.
The woman’s slim tanned hand twitched on the door. For a second I wondered if she was going to have second thoughts and shut us out. At which point my own personal workplace habits ki
cked in – I took a step towards her and stuffed my foot on the carpet, just inside the perimeter of the house. There was no way that door was closing on me. It got my goat when that happened on the job, which was fairly common. But on this occasion not only were we fully authorised, we were on a mercy mission. We had a God-given, or at least Boundersby-endorsed, right to be here.
‘Marta Thompson?’ I asked, suddenly unsure if we’d got the right house.
Hard sapphire eyes re-appraised me. The manicured hand came off the door and slapped on to a scrawny hip. Both elbows were now stuck out, creating little triangular barriers across the threshold. ‘And you are?’
‘Here to see you,’ I continued unfazed. A camel coat was draped loosely over her shoulders. ‘On your way out, were you?’
‘Yes,’ she said, holding my gaze. I could smell extra-hold hairspray on her honey-blonde locks. In the brief sunshine, the curls, which were voluminous and full, shone like burnished gold. A very professional job. ‘I’m late for lunch,’ she said, and jutted out her chin.
Sam shuffled up behind. ‘Nice to meet you, Ms Late for Lunch. I’m Sam Stone.’ My colleague stuck out his hand in greeting, an enormous grin plastered over his face.
Cheesetastic, I thought, then realised, good god, he’s trying to flirt.
Rather surprisingly, this approach seemed to defrost Marta Thompson for she responded with a thin smile and took his proffered hand. Dainty French polished nails crept over his fingers. ‘It’s a pleasure,’ she said. From under the long curled fringe her eyelash extensions fluttered sweetly. They were way more obvious than mine.
‘I’m so sorry to disturb you like this, Ms Thompson,’ my colleague cooed, breathily, ‘but we’re here at the request of your employer, Ray Boundersby,’
Marta Thompson regarded Sam a moment then made some internal decision which prompted her to let go of a big hefty sigh. No sooner was it out then the unbecoming scowl disappeared and her face transformed into a merry smile which revealed an ultra-pearly set of small teeth. Probably bleached. Home kit maybe. ‘Call me MT,’ she purred. ‘Everyone does.’ Though the way she said it sounded like an order.