Deadly Departed: A Supernatural Thriller (Fletcher & Fletcher, Paranormal Investigators Book 2)

by David Bussell

  She reached under the counter and returned with a Tupperware container. She popped the lid and Frank tipped his head back like a Roman emperor gorging on grapes while Jazz fed him rubbery scraps from the plastic box.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked. ‘All better?’

  Frank shook his head. I got him to open wide and peered into his mouth like a dentist hunting for cavities. Inside I found a sticky red stump where his tongue used to be.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked. ‘Why isn’t he healed?’

  ‘The bleeding’s stopped but that’s as good as it gets,’ she replied. ‘If you think a few morsels of grey matter will grow a tongue back, you’re sadly mistaken.’

  ‘Why am I?’

  I’d seen a brain breakfast set a broken nose straight before, and I was counting on one fixing this mess too, otherwise I wouldn’t have made the trip to Jazz’s dank boutique in the first place (quick note here: I did try a couple of butchers’ shops before I darkened Jazz’s doorstep, but the two I breezed into didn’t have any head porridge in stock).

  ‘Eating cow brains will help Frank kick in the dents,’ Jazz explained, ‘but it won’t regenerate severed body parts.’

  Gravity tugged at the corners of Frank’s mouth.

  ‘What about human brains?’ I said. ‘Would that do the trick?’

  ‘You’re talking about necrophagy, Fletcher.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Cannibalism to the layman. And if you think I’m getting involved with that, you can give your head a wobble.’

  ‘What if the donor has it coming?’

  She stared me down.

  I threw up my hands. ‘So that’s it, is it? Frank’s a mute now?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what he’s not, and that’s a bloody gecko. He’s just like the rest of us: he can’t regrow something from nothing, no matter what you stick in his gob.’

  ‘There’s gotta be a way to fix this.’ I made a circuit of the shop, muttering curses under my breath until a thought popped into my head. ‘What if I got the tongue back? Could you put it back in then?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ She stroked her chin, which gave off a thistly crackle. ‘Perhaps if I had the original organ I could find some way to reattach it.’

  I perked up as I imagined myself storming the next Vengari conclave, guns blazing, vampire bodies stacking up like Jenga bricks. Ah, who was I kidding? I couldn’t stand up to the Vengari on home ground; what chance would I have going against them a second time? I needed to face facts. Frank’s tongue was history.

  ‘Can I ask a silly question, Jazz?’

  ‘Better than anyone I know, Fletcher.’

  I chose not to rise to that. ‘Is there really no way to reverse this soul bond?’

  ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘A bunch of vampires came into our home and cut Frank’s tongue out of his head. He felt that. I felt that, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. If we can’t fix what happened, the least we can do is make sure he doesn’t go through anything like that again.’

  ‘By reversing the bond?’

  ‘If we can pull that off we take away Frank’s ability to feel pain.’

  ‘I already told you that’s not on the cards.’

  I firmed up a fist and pounded it down on a stack of magic kits, which responded by spitting out an assortment of wands, balls and cups. I could tell from Jazz’s face that I’d be paying for them in full later, but for now, I had her attention.

  ‘Jazz, I’ve seen you turn an angel’s umbilical cord into a lasso that could snare a demon. Don’t tell me this is beyond you.’

  She turned to Frank and found him wearing the same hangdog expression he came through the door with, mouth buttoned tight to hide his shame. She laid a soothing hand on the back of his and bobbed her head slowly.

  ‘I’ll try. I’m not promising anything, but if there is a way to undo the bond, I’ll find it.’

  ‘Thanks, Jazz. That’s all I ask.’

  She wasn’t finished. ‘But know this, Fletcher: it might mean making some changes to the connection you two have. Some big changes.’

  I shared a consoling look with Frank. ‘That’s a risk we’re going to have to take.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Stronge and Silent Type

  I spent the rest of that day in a funk, pacing the office, desperate to find a new inroad into our investigation: some means of getting back on the Arcadian’s tail and scoring our client some well-deserved justice. There had to be a way of picking up the thread, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of it. Ever since the Vengari paid me a visit my thoughts had been coated in a thick fuzz.

  ‘We could ask around The Beehive,’ I suggested, bouncing yet another half-arsed idea off my partner, who was in no position to contribute to the conversation in any meaningful way (even less so than normal).

  ‘Nah, that ain’t gonna work,’ I said, giving a bottle of scotch a swift kick—an empty one the vamps tipped from the office bin when they ransacked the joint. ‘Lenny ain’t talking out of school, and neither are any of the other reprobates who haunt his gaff.’

  I marinaded on the idea some more.

  ‘Unless… what about another eaves? Razor used to knock around The Beehive, and he’s got dirt on everyone. I’ll bet you anything he knows where our man’s cooped up.’

  Frank cocked his head like a dog watching the telly.

  ‘Except the last time I saw Razor, the two of us were rolling around on the floor throwing fists at each other.’ I gave myself a sharp slap on the forehead. ‘Come on, Jake, use your loaf.’

  Every time I thought I’d solved the Rubik’s Cube, I turned it over to find one side still fucked. I was starting to think the investigation had hit a total dead end when my phone started up. I snatched it out of my pocket and checked the screen. Stronge. Quick as I could, I stabbed the Answer button and put her on speakerphone.

  ‘Please tell me you’ve got some good news, Kat,’ I begged, chewing on a cuticle as I carried on pacing up and down the office.

  ‘I can’t say for sure, but I might have something. After I left you I went to the HOLMES suite looking for homicides.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Frank and I deflated like a couple of undercooked meringues.

  ‘Not loving what you’re giving me so far, Kat, gotta be honest.’

  ‘Let me finish, you ingrate. After no murders showed up I did a search for other crimes the perp might have been responsible for: sex crimes, GBH, smash and grabs, that kind of stuff.’

  I was trooping back and forth across the office so frantically that I’d have worn a rut in the floor had I not been weightless. ‘Well? Did anything come up?’

  ‘Nope.’

  I was about ready to break my phone over my knee by this point. ‘God Almighty, Kat, I’m sure you called for a reason, so can you skip to it?’

  ‘Vehicle-related theft.’

  ‘Eh? Someone nicked a car? So what?’

  ‘So the person responsible had blue skin.’

  That pricked up my lugholes. Frank’s, too. ‘Blue skin? And you’re sure this is our guy, not some dickhead in clown makeup?’

  ‘I don’t know. All I know is, the suspect wants out of the city and he’s got enemies squatting on all the obvious exits. Why not steal a car?’

  The idea had legs. Big beefy ones.

  ‘If the Arcadian’s managed to tea-leaf a motor and bugger off out of London, that’s our investigation pretty much fucked, right?’

  I could almost hear Stronge smile. ‘Only if he managed to keep hold of the car after he stole it.’

  I stopped pacing. ‘He’s back on foot again?’

  ‘Seems that way.’

  I gave Frank a high-five, which turned out to be a mistake.

  ‘Okay, so what next?’ I asked Stronge, rubbing a sore wrist.

  I heard a horn sound outside. ‘Next you step out of your front door an
d get in my car. We’ve got a witness to talk to.’

  The streets rolled by in a blur as Stronge popped on the blues and put the pedal to the metal. The scene of the crime was a multi-storey car park in Euston: a stack of grey concrete slabs built for parking cars, but more commonly used by sexual deviants and mashed crusties selling balled-up toilet paper as weed. We were visiting during the daytime, but the scant amount of light that found its way inside the structure made it seem like night had rolled in early.

  Stronge steered us up a spiral access ramp to the third level and put on the brakes. A bunch of uniform coppers were gathered around a young woman, upper-middle-class going by her outfit: a designer dress made of something that looked as if it disagreed with washing machines. She spoke to the uniforms in a plummy accent and appeared to be in a state of some distress.

  At this point I should probably talk about how I was presenting myself, or should I say, we. I couldn’t show up as a phantom or I’d be invisible to the witness, so I had to possess Frank in order to take part in the conversation. Okay, Frank didn’t have a tongue, but as I assured Stronge in the car, that wouldn’t be a problem. Frank didn’t need a tongue so long as I was able to speak through his mouth, and besides—as I’ve been told many times throughout my life—I spoke enough for two people anyway.

  Stronge flashed her ID to shoo the coppers away, but one stayed firm: an overweight constable with excess neck meat spilling over his collar.

  ‘Who’s this?’ he said, aiming a stubby finger my way. ‘Another one of your psychic consultants?’

  Some of his colleagues laughed. Stronge was far from amused.

  ‘I suggest you stop asking stupid questions if you don’t want to be put on permanent bicycle duty, Constable.’

  That knocked the smile off his face.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he whimpered, and quickly made himself scarce.

  Kat approached the witness.

  ‘My name’s DCI Stronge and this is my associate, Mister Fletcher. We’re here to follow up on your call.’

  ‘But I already told the other officers what happened,’ she replied, panic threading her voice.

  ‘Yes, but we’re hoping we can dig a little deeper. Can you describe the man who attacked you? Other than the fact he was wearing blue makeup.’

  The witness held a palm to her chest, covering a heart that was still in danger of punching its way through her chest. ‘I don’t know… about average height, good head of hair—’

  ‘Would you say he was good-looking?’

  That tripped her up. ‘I wasn’t really thinking about that at the time.’ She thought on it some more. ‘I suppose he was rather easy on the eye. Could have been a model, really.’

  That tallied up. This was starting to sound a lot like our guy, even if I didn’t think he was really that good-looking.

  Stronge took down some notes in a pad, more for show than for any practical reasons. Her brain was a steel trap; the notepad was only there to instill a sense of confidence in her interviewees.

  ‘How did he approach you?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s like I told the other officers, he came out of nowhere.’

  Stronge cast a glance about the car park. ‘Show me where exactly he came out of.’

  ‘You’re not getting it. None of you are.’ She was pissed off now. ‘I said nowhere. Literally. He stepped out of thin air.’

  I sent a knowing look in Stronge’s direction. This was our man for sure. I was starting to think he’d snuck away like a thief in the night, but this was proof that he was still marooned in London.

  ‘I know how that sounds,’ the woman went on, her voice rising in pitch, ‘but I promise you I’m telling the truth. Breathalyse me if you like, I’ll prove it.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Stronge.

  I decided it was my turn to talk. ‘What happened after the blue man stole your car?’

  The witness looked at me like my head was on fire. Stronge, too. It was only when I asked what the matter was that I realised the problem: the questions were coming out of my mouth okay, but the movement of my lips was completely out of sync.

  What’s haapnin? asked a voice in my head: Frank’s.

  I had no idea. Why this sudden disconnect between my jaw and my thoughts I couldn’t be sure, but it left me looking like an actor in a badly-dubbed kung-fu movie, which must have been extremely disconcerting to watch.

  I clammed up quick. I wasn’t going to be able to contribute to the conversation. The best I could do was keep my mouth shut and let the witness think she was imagining things.

  ‘Did you just… what’s wrong with your mouth?’ she asked.

  I shrugged and made eyes like, Whatever do you mean?

  Stronge cut in, changing the conversation. ‘You said on the 999 call that your car was stolen but later returned. Is that right?’

  The witness stared at me a few seconds longer before shaking her head and turning to Kat to answer her question. ‘Um… yes, that’s right. This is my car here.’

  She patted the bonnet of a Honda E. The “E” stood for electric. It made sense that the Arcadian would want to go on the run in a clean-fuel vehicle, given his intolerance to pollution. What didn’t make sense was what came next.

  ‘Is that…? Stronge peered into the rear passenger window of the car and saw a little girl asleep in a baby seat.

  ‘My daughter,’ the witness explained. ‘That’s why he came back. He didn’t realise there was a baby inside when he pulled me out of the car.’

  ‘You’re saying he drove away with your kid on board?’ asked Stronge.

  ‘That’s right,’ the witness replied, wincing at the memory. ‘When he screeched off I thought I’d never see her again, but when he realised what he’d done he reversed back up the ramp, gave Rosie back to me, and said sorry.’

  So far I’d been keeping up with the conversation by offering the occasional nod here and there, but I really had to interject at this point.

  ‘He apologised?’ I tried to say, mouthing the words and using body language to get across my meaning.

  Except it didn’t go down that way. Instead, the whole left side of my body turned into a dead weight that almost dragged me to the ground. I just about managed to shoot out a mitt and steady myself on the car’s bumper before straightening my gammy leg and regaining my balance. Frank made noises in my head, just as perturbed as I was, only more vocal about it.

  ‘Are you okay?’ asked the witness, her voice echoing about the car park and catching the attention of the lingering uniforms, who looked up momentarily before returning to their conversations.

  ‘He’s fine,’ said Stronge, giving me evils as she helped me to my feet. ‘Aren’t you?’

  I nodded, but even the act of bobbing my head was difficult. My body was in revolt.

  ‘Do you need to sit down?’ the witness asked. ‘You don’t look well.’

  I peered into the Honda’s wing mirror and saw she wasn’t wrong. The light I gave to Frank’s eyes had gone out, leaving behind a lifeless void. We were occupying the same space, but the warmth my soul gave his body wasn’t touching the sides. There was no harmony between us. I was puppeting a floppy old ragdoll using ten broken fingers. I considered ejecting from Frank’s body so I could find some equilibrium, but who was to say he wouldn’t collapse in a big sloppy pile right there and then?

  ‘Don’t mind him,’ said Stronge, plastering on a smile. ‘Must be that bug that’s going around.’

  The witness considered this. ‘Maybe you’re right. The blue guy didn’t look very well either. Kept coughing, could hardly stand up, even.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Stronge.

  I managed to take a hand off the car bumper long enough to make a wind it back motion at Stronge. She caught my meaning.

  To the witness, Stronge said, ‘You mentioned before that the suspect said sorry after he brought your car back. Did he say anything else?’

  I gave her a thumbs up.

/>   ‘He did, actually,’ said the witness. ‘He told me he didn’t want to take my car, but said if he didn’t get out of the city, he’d die. What do you think he meant by that?’

  ‘Who knows?’ replied Stronge, playing dumb. ‘Probably on something. We see a lot of that on the job.’

  ‘Anyway, it was right after he gave Rosie back that another car came by. I shouted for help and I guess that spooked the blue guy, because he took off like the wind, thank God.’

  Stronge asked the witness a few more questions to make sure she’d juiced her for everything she had, said thanks, then turned her back over to the uniforms. Exhausted from holding myself upright, I plonked my arse down before I fell down, parking it on a metal barrier scuffed by short-sighted motorists.

  ‘What is wrong with you two?’ Stronge hissed.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, feeling defeated.

  Frank apologised, too, forgetting that he couldn’t be heard outside the walls of his own skull.

  ‘Something’s up with our connection,’ I said, stating the obvious.

  ‘Well, pull yourself together,’ she replied, and never had the phrase been more on the nose.

  ‘Leave us alone, Kat. We’re doing our best.’ I could see myself speaking in the wing mirror. My lips were out of whack with my words still, but much improved. The pink had come back to my face, too. Whatever it was that was messing us up, it seemed to be passing.

  ‘What did you make of all that?’ Stronge asked, reintroducing her prop notepad to her pocket.

  I rotated one wrist, then the other, pleased to see them doing as they were told. ‘That was him for sure, but there’s some things I don’t get.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Returning the car because it had a baby in it? Fae steal human babies, got a real habit for it, at least according to the book Jazz gave me.’

  ‘Huh. So what are you thinking?’

  ‘I dunno. Maybe he decided he could do without the hassle.’

  ‘Then why not chuck the kid out of the sunroof? Isn’t that what a cold-blooded killer would do?’

  I had to admit, I was a bit stumped by the good samaritan act. Why do a one-eighty like that? Why take that kind of risk?