‘Seems our man dropped his mobile on the way out,’ I replied.
‘And we know that how?’
‘Trust me. Nose of a bloodhound, this feller.’
Stronge took the device from Frank and swiped a thumb over it, but it refused to open without face ID. ‘I need to get this to the station and have our tech boys crack it open.’
I scanned the corners of the room and found a CCTV camera pointed at the dancefloor, right at the spot the suspect had unloaded his gun.
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ I said.
Chapter Eight: A Short, Sharp Shock
The Beehive pub is hidden behind a magical construct that acts as a sort of supernatural paywall. Unless you’re a patron, or know someone who is, you’re not getting into the place. That’s how things are around these parts: impenetrable barriers stand between the ordinary and the Uncanny, between the city that’s on show and the secret streets beyond. One step is all it takes to move between these worlds, but unless you know how to make the jump, it may as well be a million miles. You might only be a hidden door away from the impossible, but that doesn’t mean you get to see it. Not unless you know where the doors are and how to get them open.
Stronge marvelled at the blind alley that revealed itself behind the improbable facade Frank and I guided her through.
‘You know what gets me most about all this?’ she said, eyes gaping. ‘It’s that the nutters in tinfoil hats were right all along.’
‘Doesn’t mean they’re not dickheads, though.’
She nodded sagely. By the time we arrived at the pub, which was marked only by a nondescript door decorated with the faded image of a beehive, Stronge was all business again.
‘Okay, so insane alley that doesn’t exist on any maps aside, what are we doing here?’
‘Patience, my apprentice,’ I said.
Ever the gentleman, Frank pushed open the door to the boozer and we stepped inside.
Nothing about the place had changed since the last time I was there, but that was nothing new. Trying to mark progress at The Beehive was like watching a video of something that moved so slowly you’d swear you were looking at a still image. All the same faces were present, perched on the same old weathered stools and chairs. A group of gamblers rolled bones in one corner, while another chucked arrows at the dartboard on the opposite side of the saloon, just like always. The locals were a motley assortment of oddballs and ne’er do wells—a stacked Pokémon deck of freaks and monsters—but despite their differences, a sense of solidarity reigned. Always did. The Beehive reminded me of a behind-the-scenes story I once heard about those old Planet of the Apes movies. Apparently, the actors playing the titular apes ate lunch wearing their makeup, and without ever talking about it, would instinctively sit with their own kind. Orangutans ate with orangutans, chimpanzees with chimpanzees, gorillas with gorillas. That’s just the way of the world. People are tribal, they stick with their own kind. It’s no different with Uncannies and normals. We tip our elbows in our world, and they do the same in theirs.
And yet, tonight a little of the outside had found its way into The Beehive’s hallowed walls. Not just Detective Stronge, but something even more unusual than that: a 75-inch flat screen TV. Lenny, the pub’s towering landlord, was busy mounting the incongruous device on a wall bracket; a process overseen by a congregation of dissatisfied faces and shaking heads. Apparently, the introduction of a television was causing no small amount of consternation to the regulars, who were leery of anything newfangled finding its way into their favourite drinking hole.
‘Never thought I’d see the day,’ griped a boozy satyr, stomping a hoof in frustration.
‘What’s next?’ asked an irate troll with slate grey skin and a nose that had been broken more times than an office printer. ‘A fruit machine?’
‘A pox on your teevee,’ screeched a drunken hag making ancient signs with her gnarled hands and laying a hex on the detested contraption.
I didn’t see the problem myself, but the way this lot were behaving, anyone would think Lenny had painted a floating corpse on a Monet.
‘Pipe down,’ he growled, turning to face the crowd and wielding a screwdriver like a prison shiv. ‘You don’t like it, you know where the door is.’
Lenny knew he had the upper hand. The Beehive was pretty much the only game in town as far as working-class Uncanny drinking holes went, so there was no chance of him losing any customers no matter how much they griped and groaned.
‘Thought so,’ he said, staring down the dissenters, who went back to their drinks and their games of chance before they wound up getting barred.
Lenny switched on the TV, found a channel showing the snooker, and returned to his place behind the beer-soaked bar. His coarse hair rubbed the ceiling as he traversed the saloon, raining flakes of stucco into people’s drinks, none of whom said a word about it.
I approached the bar and got a round in. ‘Evening, Lenny. A pint of O’Ghouls for me, a Guinness for Frank, and a shandy for the lady.’
Without breaking eye contact with the TV, Lenny used his walnut-knuckled hand to work the pumps and draw off three glasses. Having topped one off with a bolt of flat lemonade, he leaned over the counter and set the drinks down. I placed a note in front of him and he scraped it into the till as if providing change was a foreign courtesy.
‘I always look forward to our little chats, Lenny.’
Nevertheless, I decided to cut our thrilling dialogue short and rejoin my companions. Frank did the honours, carefully transporting our drinks to the pub’s last empty table, where the three of us sat ourselves down.
‘Chin chin,’ I said, clinking my glass against my companions’.
Frank downed his stout in one smooth motion and let out a satisfied burp. I’d seen him do that with eight pints in a row and not seem any worse for wear, but then he was a staggerer by nature.
Stronge took a sip of her drink. ‘Shandy? Seriously?’
‘You’re welcome,’ I replied, ignoring her ingratitude.
‘Are you going to tell me what we’re doing here?’ she asked. ‘I hope it’s not for the atmos, because there’s a very threatening aura about this place.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Haven’t you noticed that everyone’s bogging at us?’ she said, peering over the rim of her pint at the natives eyeballing our table.
‘Oh, they’re not looking at us,’ I replied.
‘They’re not?’
‘No, they’re looking at you.’
I explained how bringing a normal into The ‘Hive was considered a bit of a breach of protocol, but that she shouldn’t worry. Though the reception was likely to be a bit frosty, I was there to vouch for her if push came to shove.
‘Let me get this straight,’ she said, ‘these people are fine with a rotting corpse and a ghost hanging about the place, but me they have a problem with?’
‘Yup. So be on your best behaviour, eh?’
I had a butcher’s of the room and spotted someone I’d never seen gracing Lenny’s gaff before. Hunched over a corner booth and dressed in a cheap suit was a stick-thin figure with webbed fingers the length of steak knives. His blood-red eyes were aimed my way, but darted to the snooker match the moment he clocked me looking back at him. He was one of the dodgy toe-rags I’d caught tailing me the other night, I was sure of it.
‘Hey, Frank, see over there, is that—’
But before I could seek my partner’s counsel, something flat and black came crashing down on the table, obliterating Stronge’s shandy and soaking ten square feet of pub. To my immense surprise—and I’m sure everyone else’s—the head of a garden shovel laid in front of us. Attached to the other end of it was a squat, muscular figure wearing a pointy cloth cap and a white beard stained nicotine yellow at the tips. Apparently we’d gone and pissed off a gnome, and a particularly belligerent one at that.
He aimed a stubby finger at Stronge. ‘Gerrer out of ‘ere,’ he slurred, obviously well into his cups.
<
br /> Stronge went to give him some verbal, but I stopped her before she could open her mouth. You have to pick your words carefully in these situations. Your chances of being killed by a gnome are low, but never zero.
‘Why don’t you sit back down and we’ll forget this happened?’ I suggested, turning my hand temporarily corporeal and hitching it to his shoulder.
He batted it aside and made a face like a smacked arse. ‘Gerrer out of ‘ere or you and me are gonna ‘ave ructions.’
Something told me Stronge wasn’t the real issue here. It seemed to me that the gnome was taking his anger at the unwanted appearance of a TV set and transferring it to the next available target, in this case, the out-of-towner.
‘Keep your shirt tucked in, mate,’ I told him. ‘No need to get in a flap.’
I looked to the bar to see what Lenny intended to do about the trouble brewing in his establishment, but going by the look on his face—eyes coloured green by the reflected baize of a televised snooker table—the answer to that question was, “Not an awful lot”.
‘I come ‘ere to ‘ave a drink in peace,’ the gnome went on, little bits of spit forming in the corners of his mouth. ‘If I wanted to mingle with scum, I’d have gone to Wetherspoons.’
His fingers tightened around the handle of his shovel. Frank rose to his feet and shot him a look so clear that it didn’t need backing up with words.
I stayed seated and kept my eyes on the gnome. ‘How about you toddle off to the bar and get the lady another drink? Unless you want my friend here to forget his manners.’
But the gnome wasn’t backing down. Instead of doing the sensible thing and crawling back under his rock, he took up his shovel and hefted it over his head like a fairgoer swinging a test your strength hammer. Frank wasn’t having that. Catching the feller unawares, he grabbed his chin with one hand and his opposite temple with the other before cranking his head 180 degrees. There was a sickening crunch, then the gnome hit the ground with his noggin facing the other way.
‘Jesus Christ,’ cried Stronge, firing out of her seat and staggering backwards into a table of card players, upsetting their game.
With no hurry in his step whatsoever, Lenny ambled over from the bar, sighed, and ejected the gnome’s limp body through the pub’s front door and into the half-light of the dank alleyway beyond, where it landed with a dull crunch.
‘Keep your hair on, will you?’ I told Stronge as Frank led her by the elbow back to her chair. ‘You’re showing us right up.’
‘Showing us up?’ she said, her mouth wide as a guppy in a desert. ‘A man just got murdered.’
‘Don’t be such a drama queen,’ I replied, pointing to the grimy window that looked out onto the alley.
Outside, the gnome was peeling himself off the cobbles and staggering to his feet. He grabbed his head and gave it a sharp twist, setting it back in a forward-facing position.
‘Be off with you,’ boomed Lenny, one giant hand cupped to his mouth. ‘And forget about your shovel, I’m keeping it until you learn to behave.’
Outside, the gnome grumbled something inaudible, hitched up his trousers, and sloped off down the alley.
I turned to Stronge. ‘Tough bunch of lads, gnomes.’
Lenny visited our table, his great shadow falling upon us like an ill omen. ‘What about you lot? You gonna keep your noses clean, or do you want chucking out as well?’
For some reason it was this line of questioning that spurred Stronge into action. She took to her feet and gave Lenny a firm poke in the ribs (there was some tiptoeing involved to achieve this).
‘Talk to me like that again, I dare you,’ she said.
‘You what?’ Lenny growled, taken aback.
Stronge produced a black leather wallet and flipped it open to show her police ID. ‘See that? That says you better adjust your attitude unless you want to accompany me to the station. Got it?’
Lenny’s face went blank as a weather-bald tombstone, then the slightest smile quirked his lips. A smile that was quickly followed by gales of uproarious laughter. Soon enough, the whole pub was joining in with the kind of unadulterated, pure hysterics that you’d be lucky to hear more than once in a lifetime.
Still laughing, Lenny headed back to his post behind the bar and drew off three fresh pints. ‘These ones are on me,’ he said, clutching his gut to calm the convulsions.
Stronge’s behind landed heavily in her seat, her shoulders slumped. ‘What just happened? Did I say something funny?’
‘Are you serious?’ I managed, slapping my knee. ‘The last time Lenny laughed like that, the miners were striking. Drop the mic and step off the stage, Joan Rivers.’
I felt my eyes welling and wiped away a stray ectoplasmic tear. It was only then that I realised the long-fingered lurker in the corner booth had vanished from the pub and slinked off into the night.
Chapter Nine: The Ghost in the Machine
By this point, Detective Stronge’s patience had worn gossamer thin.
‘Are you going to tell me what we’re doing in this godforsaken place, or do I find out where you’re supposed to be buried and stuff you back in the coffin myself?’
Stronge was something of a control freak, by which I mean working with her could often be less of a partnership than a dictatorship.
‘Chill out, Kat,’ I replied, raising my hands in surrender. ‘We’re here to meet someone: a friend of mine who can help with the case. An informant by the name of Shift.’
‘Shift? Is that a he? A she?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you mean “yes”? she asked icily.
‘I mean both.’
Stronge pinched the bridge of her blade-thin nose and squeezed her eyes shut. ‘What?’
Right on cue, Shift made a show, waltzing into the bar with an effortless saunter like the whole world was her red carpet. Heads turned and eyes tracked her progress across the saloon as she made her way to our table, flicking her poker-straight blonde hair over one shoulder as she went.
‘How’s it hanging, Fletcher?’ she drawled in her cowpoke American accent.
‘By a thread,’ I replied, offering up a seat.
I cut a glance at Stronge and saw her eyebrows had almost disappeared into her hairline. Most likely she was busy wondering what this so-called friend of mine could possibly add to our investigation; a woman she’d no doubt already decided was half-idiot, half-tits.
Shift slipped into the vacant chair and placed a friendly hand on Frank’s shoulder, her cherry red nail polish a stark contrast to the faded khaki of his stained trench coat. ‘And how are you doing, Cookie?’ she asked.
Frank grinned back at her, showing off his almost black gums. ‘Hiiiii.’
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, handsome, but you’re looking a little under the weather. Next time you’re going by a salon, why don’t you treat yourself to a glow up? Ain’t nuthin’ wrong with a little TLC.’
‘He’s a private investigator, not a contestant on Drag Race,’ I said.
Shift feigned shock and emoted all the way to the back row, ‘Is that a contemporary pop culture reference I hear? My Lord.’
Even though Shift has an innate ability to drive me around the bend, I really couldn’t do without her. What she doesn’t know about the things that go on in this town ain’t worth knowing, but she provides much more than that. Shift is my sherpa through the minefield of modern life. Without her guiding hand, I’d be the relic of a bygone age, consigned to the metaphorical scrapheap.
Bringing our banter to a close with a good-natured wink, I moved the conversation onto more pressing matters. ‘Don’t suppose you saw a long-fingered geezer slip by you on the way in here, did you, Shift?’
‘No, why?’
‘I’ve picked up a tail: some ugly tosser and his ugly tosser mates following me and Frank about. Possibly vampires. Second time I’ve caught them sniffing my arse.’
Shift returned an uncertain look. ‘I’ll look into it. But before I get
to that, who is this rare beauty?’
Stronge did a double-take before she realised she was the one being referring to. ‘What? Me?’
‘Yes, you, gorgeous! My, my, the boys must be tripping over themselves to get to you. So long as they can get over the girls, anyway.’
Stronge’s cheeks flushed flamingo pink. ‘Oh, please...’
Shift went on, continuing to butter the detective’s bread. ‘Look at that face. You ever think about modelling, sweetheart?’
That was Shift: the kind of person who made everyone around her feel good about themselves, whether they wanted to or not.
Stronge hid her embarrassment behind the curtains of her bob. ‘I think you need your eyes tested, but thank you anyway.’
I made some late introductions. ‘Where are my manners? Shift, this is DCI Kat Stronge. Kat, this is my good friend, Shift.’
‘So, you’re a detective, huh? Brains and beauty. Ain’t you the whole package.’ She chuckled and patted the back of the detective’s hand. ‘You need to learn to take a compliment. From one gal to another.’
That last part had Stronge cutting eyes at me.
‘Oh right,’ I said, realising the source of her upset. ‘You’re wondering why I told you Shift was a her and a he.’
‘I can take this one,’ said Shift. ‘See, I’m not a woman, Detective. Not technically. What you’re looking at right now is a shapeshifter. A changeling.’
Stronge gave her a cool eye. ‘A what?’
‘A fetch. A skinwalker.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Stronge, her brow corrugating.
Shift offered me a shrug as if to say, Shall I? I gave her a nod back, and without further ado, she transformed.
The flesh that adorned her skull rippled like a lake dashed by a flat stone and settled into an altogether different arrangement. In the bat of an eyelid, Shift had metamorphosed from a white woman into a black man. The only thing that remained of the person who waltzed through the pub door was the blonde hair, though this was now cropped close to the skull and worn in tight afro curls.
Deadly Departed: A Supernatural Thriller (Fletcher & Fletcher, Paranormal Investigators Book 2) Page 6
