Psychic for Hire Series Box Set

by Hermione Stark

  “Sure. He was going through a bad-girl phase. He liked her well enough. He even asked her to move in with him. Can you believe that?”

  “Why is that difficult to believe?” says Storm.

  “Because Charlie only likes to mess around with the bad girls. He was dipping his toe into the ghetto, you know. Trying to be all cool and that. But he never actually got serious with any of them. He’s not really into otherkind. It’s a bit low for him.”

  “You just said he asked India to move in with him.”

  “Came as a surprise to me.”

  “Maybe he liked India better than the others.”

  “Nah. I could tell he thought Rachel was hot. If he wasn’t so busy slumming it with India, it would have been Rachel he was after. That sweet innocent butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth thing she had going on was just his sort of thing. You know what I’m saying?”

  “What are you saying?” says Storm.

  “I’m saying that maybe India got the vibe that he liked Rachel. Girls hate that, man. They can tell. And Rachel was way hotter than India. Smoking hot in that red dress that night. Maybe India was jealous.”

  “We questioned some of your other friends who were at the bar on Friday. And they all said things were good between Rachel and India. You’re the only one telling us it wasn’t.”

  “Hey man, I never actually said that. I never said I saw them fighting or anything. It looked like it was good on the surface. I’m just saying maybe things aren’t like they looked like on the surface.”

  Remi leans in towards Jacob. “Did you get on with Rachel? What is the relationship between you and her like?” She says it in a relaxed confiding kind of way, as if she is only mildly curious. She is trying to put Jacob at ease.

  “There was no relationship between me and Rachel. She was a nice girl, but I wasn’t into her.”

  Jacob leans back in his chair, and rolls his shoulders. As if to draw Remi’s attention to his body. He has a slight smile on his face now. Clearly he likes her. Clearly he thinks he looks impressive in his city-slicker suit that costs probably as much as Remi’s monthly salary.

  “Come on,” encourages Remi. “I think you knew Rachel better than your other friends. I bet she talked to you in ways she didn’t talk to them. You said she was foxy. Foxy like a fox. But fox’s are sly. Did you think Rachel was sly?”

  “She was alright. You couldn’t really tell with her. She didn’t want you to know it. But, if she was sly maybe she wouldn’t be dead. That girl did not know how to look out for herself.”

  I notice that he avoids Remi’s eyes when he says it. He isn’t telling her what he really thinks. He knows something about Rachel, but she is dead now, and he doesn’t want to talk about it. Remi senses it too.

  “She was really pretty,” Remi says. “And it was her birthday and she must’ve been excited, and she was wearing that smoking hot red dress. A guy like you isn’t going to sit back and watch the other men make their move. You seriously telling me you didn’t try it on with her?”

  “Sure I did,” he says with a grin. “But she wasn’t interested in me.”

  “Maybe you were interested in her?” says Remi. “Are you sure you didn’t follow the girls out of the bar, hoping to get Rachel alone?”

  “Come on,” he protests impatiently. “I told you I left the bar with Charlie.”

  “Sure. You said you left the bar and went for a walk for a bit before you flagged down a cab.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Actually your friends said you left the bar alone. That you left the bar five minutes after the girls did. Alone.”

  “Really? I thought I left with Charlie. I was blackout drunk. Maybe I got confused.”

  “So you could have followed the girls?”

  “No. Why would I? I said Rachel wasn't interested in me, didn't I?”

  “You said you walked around before catching a cab. That means there is a period of time you were unaccounted for,” says Storm.

  Jacob looks flustered and angry. He crosses his muscular arms over his broad chest.

  It carries on like this for a while and my tiredness starts to get the better of me. I try not to yawn at all the back and forth. I feel like they are going around in circles. It is frustrating for me that I don’t have a single clue if Jacob is lying or not. I subtly shift about in my chair, trying not to make any distracting noise.

  Remi moves in toward Jacob, her tone persuasive. “Take us back to the last thing you remember at the bar. When the girls left, what were you doing?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you. They left the bar by themselves. I didn’t even see them go.”

  “You seriously expect us to believe that?” says Storm. “You’ve as good as admitted that you had your eye on Rachel. You must have seen everything she did that night. I bet she spent time chatting with you, dancing with you, flirting with you. I bet she liked it. I bet you wondered if she might be planning on going home with you. Is that what you were thinking when she left the bar?”

  “So what?” says Jacob hotly. “But she must’ve drunk too much because she got all upset towards the end of the night and she wanted to leave. And India must’ve followed her out. You know what girls are like. They’re always fussing about each other.”

  “What was she upset about?”

  He gets a look on his face like something has occurred to him. He leans forward towards Storm and Remi. “Maybe it was her landlord. Yeah. He was there. And she went over to talk to him and she wasn’t happy to see him. It was really strange.”

  “Her landlord?” says Remi. “Are you sure? He was at the bar? How did you know it was her landlord?

  “She told me.”

  “Did you think it was odd?”

  “Yeah it was odd. He’s this old guy. Kind of shabby-looking. He didn’t look like he belonged there. A loser if you ask me.”

  “Was he alone or with someone?”

  “He was alone.”

  “Do you think he was following Rachel and India? You think maybe he came there especially to see them?”

  He nods thoughtfully. “He definitely knew they were there. I saw him looking at Rachel. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. And when she saw him she was not happy. But she felt like she had to go over and have a drink with him. Like he had some kind of hold over her. What a creep.”

  A knock on the door makes me jerk up in my chair. Suddenly my head feels light. I feel queasy. I lean forwards in my chair, propping my elbows on my knees to hold myself up. I shake my head to clear it. My hand goes to my amulet.

  The door opens and Monroe pops his head in, and gives Storm a look. He clearly has something urgent to say. Storm exits the room, and I get up to follow him. I have to lean my arm against the wall for a second to hold myself steady. The damn amulet. Either that or I might be coming down with something. This thought jars me. I am never sick.

  I shut the door quietly behind me. Monroe is talking to Storm just outside.

  “Some of that CCTV footage we wanted from DI Zael’s team came through,” Monroe says.

  “The camera over the parking bay?” Storm asks.

  Monroe shakes his head. “Not yet. Zael says the office it belongs to won’t give it up without a warrant. But there is footage from a camera across the road. It had a shot of the front door of the bar. It showed Jacob Jabari leaving via the front door, and there was no sign of Rachel or India when he left.”

  Storm nods thoughtfully. “We know Rachel and India left by the back door onto the alley. So you’re saying that Jabari couldn’t have known where the girls went?”

  “Exactly. And Jacob also picked up a girl outside the bar. He chatted with her and her friends for a bit. They shared a cigarette and they went off together. It doesn’t look like Jacob is our guy.”

  I feel a surge of disappointment, but Storm only says, “Good work.”

  He sees me leaning against the wall. “You okay?”

  “Yeah fine,” I say. “Thanks for letting
me sit in and everything.”

  “You should head off,” Storm says. “Do you have work to get back to?”

  I shake my head. “Not today. Is there anything I can do to help with the case? I thought maybe I’d speak to India again. See if I can jog her memory.”

  Storm shakes his head. “Maybe later. The doctor said she needs some time to recover. You don’t look too well yourself.”

  “I’m a bit tired. I just need some air to clear my head.”

  “You look like you’re coming down with something,” he says. “Why don’t you head home to rest for a bit? I’ll call you if I need you.” He goes back inside the interview room.

  “Want me to walk you out?” says Monroe. He takes my empty paper cup out of my hand and tosses it into a nearby bin. His expression tells me it has not escaped his notice that my lead in our little wager has vanished.

  I make a face at him.

  He smiles. “Sorry about Jabari. But I’ve no doubt you’ll find another suspect soon.”

  Chapter 17

  ALYS

  A is for Alys. B is for bored. And I am fucking bored. Good job my day is about to get more interesting.

  India will be wondering where I am by now so I send her a message. ‘Hey babe, how are you doing?’

  ‘Where are you?’ she replies.

  ‘I’ll come see you soon,’ I reply.

  And I will. But first I have an errand to run.

  I scan my Oyster card at the ticket barriers in the tube station and take an escalator down to the Jubilee line platform. I need to make a quick stop at my place to pick up some supplies. God I hate travel. It’s the most tedious part of my day. Well, apart from all the reading I’ve been forced to partake of lately. If only I had a car. But nobody in London does cars. Especially not on my shitty wages.

  Not that I have time to do anything fun with a car. I’ve been keeping my head down. It’s been all work and no play, and it’s made me a dull girl. I am done with being dull. Payday is coming. No more work. No more being cranky. I’ll be free as an eagle.

  Twenty five minutes later I am nearly at my pad. I emerge from the underground to find the roads packed with a traffic jam, and it isn’t even the evening rush-hour yet. Another one to add on my London-sucks list.

  Despite the urgency of my task, I make a stop at a kebab shop. I buy myself a juicy takeaway donner kebab in a naan bread, with plenty of hot sauce and lashings of mayonnaise. I haven’t had lunch, and I can’t be killing people on an empty stomach.

  I walk down the street munching my kebab.

  “Oh you hot meaty goodness,” I sweet talk it. “You juicy hunka flesh. I have missed you.”

  Some guy walking by gives me an odd look. I snap my jaws at him, and he swiftly hurries on. Probably thinks I’m a werewolf. Aha. At least I have people’s terror of the Wolf-Claw Killer to make life interesting.

  I’ve finished the kebab by the time I reach my apartment. I let myself in. My first stop is my wardrobe. I’m hyper paranoid about CCTV these days. London is full of it. It’s the most spied-on city in the world. More than fifty thousand of those cameras are run by the police says the wisdom of the internet, not to mention the ones belonging to businesses and private residents.

  I can’t afford for any of them to catch my face. Not with what I am about to do next. Gotta to be careful. Life is long, and I plan on living the heck out of it.

  All of this skulking around would be tedious if it wasn’t for the dullness of my current existence. I change into an over-sized black hooded jumper and dark jeans. I put a pair of over-sized sunglasses on my face. I head out into the hallway of my building and take the stairs all the way down to the basement. It’s where the cleaner keeps a broom cupboard full of supplies.

  I pick the lock and enter. There is no lightbulb, but that makes it all the better. It makes this a handy place to store the shit I can’t risk keeping in my apartment.

  I go to the rack of shelves at the back of the cupboard and reach up to the top for the bag of stuff that I had left there. I have to go out into the hallway to catch some light so that I can rifle through it. I select a black wig. It’s not exactly like real hair, but it’s enough to fool any CCTV cameras. I grab a couple of other things too.

  I stop by the cleaner’s bathroom to put the wig carefully onto my head, covering up all of my own hair. I turn from side to side to make sure it looks decent enough. I put my hood up, making sure to let all of the long black hair spill out of it around my face. A couple of my neighbors have long black hair. That’s an added bonus. Anyone who decides to look at any CCTV footage will think I am them. They might be able to guess that it’s me if that is what they wanted to see, but they would never actually be able to prove it.

  Too bad there’s no back entrance to my house that I can slip out of. I debate whether there’s a need for me to leave by one of the top windows that isn’t covered by someone’s CCTV camera. But that would involve a bunch of acrobatics, and my job hasn’t been the best for honing my body to peak physical perfection. I don’t want to injure my sweet self.

  I slouch as I leave the house, taking care to ensure my body language doesn’t look like me. I walk around the block and through a park and down some other streets before even thinking of making my way to my destination. Finally I am banging on the door of the house that India lives in. I press every single buzzer too, except the top one belonging to the owner.

  Someone answers the intercom and a rather meek female voice says, “Hello, can I help you?”

  “Pizza delivery for number ten,” I say. “The guy’s not answering. Can you let me in please?”

  She buzzes me in without asking any questions.

  The inside of the house is a shit hole. Cheap brown carpet. Interior doors with numbers on them because every room has been turned into an apartment. A staircase leading up all the way to the top. I bounce up the stairs two at a time. If the lazy ass landlord isn’t in then I am going to be pissed. But a girl’s got to try.

  There is only one door on the top floor. India’s landlord has a pad up here all to himself. The whole top floor is his own personal apartment, unlike his tenants who are all crammed into one room each.

  I knock on his door politely, calling, “Pizza delivery.”

  He doesn’t take long to come. I hear him stomping along on the other side of the door before it opens. He is scowling already. “I didn’t order no pizza,” he says angrily.

  I jab my stun gun under his jaw and fry him as I step in and shut the door behind me. He drops to the floor with a satisfying thunk. The tenants probably feel it shaking their ceiling below. I kick him in the crotch before stepping over him. If the bastard has been the naughty boy I think he has, aching balls are soon going to be the least of his worries.

  I quietly walk into every room of his apartment, making sure nobody else is in here. Luckily the apartment is empty. Lucky for them, not for me.

  I put my stun gun back into my bag. I’d had to pay a premium for it given it is illegal, but in the absence of getting my hands on Agency weaponry it is the next best thing. Skeezy electronics stores where you can get anything definitely belong on my London-rocks list.

  I go back into the hallway where the landlord is laying, and drag him by his scuzzy brown hair for a couple of inches. But the joy of dragging him by his hair turns out to not be worth it. The guy’s a lump. I end up having to yank him by his arms, not giving a toss about the fact that he’ll probably wake up in severe pain. Things are about to get worse for him.

  Once I’ve dragged him into his kitchen, I tape up his arms and legs and play slap-a-face until he wakes up. He finds me sitting on his chest, my face inches from his. He can feel me breathing, but he can’t see me given the tape over his eyes. Oh so scary is the darkness. I can almost smell his fear. I like it.

  “Huh whut?” he says blearily, through the tape I have stuck on his mouth.

  I press a knife to his left cheek and a hammer to his right cheek. They are his. They
had both been in his kitchen drawer.

  “Choose,” I say. I press the blade just enough to bring up blood. I tap the hammer lightly so that he knows what it is.

  He squirms in panic. “Don’t to it,” he begs, like the fool that he is.

  It is almost funny. Now that the crap he has put out into the world is about to come back to him, he’s on the verge of shitting his pants. He really should not have pissed me off.

  Too bad for him that I’m in the mood to play, and he’s the one I’ve decided to play with.

  “You not gonna choose, big man baby, hmm?” I say playfully. “You want me to choose for you?”