A Spookies Compendium

by David Robinson

  Ignoring the pain in his head, back and especially his wrists, he opened his eyes and found himself looking up at a pair of chunky female legs and, beyond the footballer’s thighs, beneath the folds of a skirt, a living nightmare; a pair of boxy white cotton panties. He closed his eyes to ward off the terrible sight. All his life he had dreaded waking from a drunken stupor to be greeted by a sight like this.

  Sylvie Wilcox leaned forward and looked down at him. Pete decided that the view under her skirt was preferable to the one above it. She raised a leg and rested one blocky heel on his chest, then gave him an evil smile.

  “What are you playing at, Brennan?” Without waiting for an answer, she glanced into the cold store and down at the cell phone. “What’s this? I thought Ronnie had taken your mobile.” She stepped over Pete, picked the phone up and examined it. “Well, well, well. Bilko’s phone. We’ve been looking for that, and you had it all the time. Handy when the law finds it on you, though. After we’ve put you to sleep for good, obviously.” She laughed and crossed the floor to the bottom of the stairs. “Okay, Ronnie. He’s cool,” she called up to the clubroom. She looked into the cold room and laughed. “Literally.”

  *****

  Fishwick was keeping an eye on Bilks’ livid form when Sceptre called him. He rushed through to her location on the upper landing of the manor. “Yes, Madam?”

  “Fishwick,” Sceptre ordered, “I want you to go down to Flutter-Bys, and check the place to see if Mr. Brennan is being held there.”

  The butler’s tone, respectful as always, nevertheless conveyed his concern. “If I may make so bold, Madam, Bilks is here and if I were to leave, he may give you trouble.”

  “Fishwick, this is important.” Sceptre put greater urgency into her voice. “I need you to check on Flutter-Bys. Don’t worry about Bilks. If he tries anything, I will deal with him.”

  “But Madam …”

  Sceptre cut him off. “That is an order, Fishwick.”

  He capitulated. “Very good, Madam.”

  As the communication with Sceptre was broken, Fishwick returned to the far end of the house, where Bilks hovered in the background, away from other spirits in the vicinity. He made his way over to them. It was all very well Madam saying she would handle Bilks, but Fishwick preferred to hedge his bets.

  “Now then, Sir Henry,” he addressed himself to the former incumbent, “I’d like to ask a favour of you.”

  “Tha gets no favours from me. Tha’s naught but an interloper. Now git outta my house.”

  Fishwick persevered. “I’d like to get out, but for the moment, I can’t. See him?” Fishwick’s form gestured at the fiery ball that was Bilks. “If I leave, he’ll give my mistress some trouble. I wondered if you might help keep him at bay.”

  “I’ll do nought of the kind. If it gets him and thy mistress outta my house, he can do as he pleases with her.”

  Aggie joined them. “Take no notice of him. He was a nowty old sod when he were alive and he’s a nowty old sod now.”

  Sir Henry’s form wavered from white through blue to red. “Don’t talk to me like that, woman.”

  “And what’s tha going ter do about it?” demanded Aggie. Her glow settled to a cooperative indigo. “I’ll keep an eye on yonder,” she said, indicating Bilks. “You be about your business.”

  Fishwick performed a twisting manoeuvre, the spirit equivalent of a bow. “Thank you, Miss Aggie.”

  Sir Henry gave a loud laugh. “Tha don’t need her anyway, lad. Yon feller is away with himself.”

  Fishwick turned urgently to see Bilks zooming off. “Now where the blooming heck are you going?”

  *****

  The muted sounds of Flutter-Bys’ clubroom reached Pete’s ears as Wilcox, flanked by Groom and Lawson, came down the stairs. For a moment he considered shouting for help, but he knew that the club members would be too engrossed in the drinking and gambling to hear, and the staff would have been warned off.

  Two other people followed him down. For a moment, Pete could not see who they were, but, shortly, the glimpse of a bandaged wrist told him the identity of one.

  “Get him up.” Wilcox’s words were directed to his two thugs, who yanked Pete to his feet.

  If the confirmation of his earlier suspicions about Johnny Tate satisfied Pete, he could do no more than gape for a moment as he took in the woman at Johnny’s side; Nicky. But even as he stared, everything fell into place. “Now I see it all,” he said at last. “An estate car running you off the road, Johnny?” Pete gave them a good-natured laugh even though he felt no humour. “It was the other way round, wasn’t it? You tried to run us off the road.”

  “Just shut it, Brennan,” Wilcox growled.

  Pete swivelled in his direction. “Loosen the wire round my wrists and then we’ll see if you have the bottle to say that.”

  Wilcox shook his head. “It’s not gonna happen.”

  Pete ignored him and faced Tate. “I guessed it was you earlier, when Jimmy told me he owned a van like Wilcox’s. So what was it all about, Johnny? Sick of playing gopher for big brother?”

  Tate smiled. “Something like that, only a bit more complicated.” He winked at Nicky.

  Pete let out a false laugh. “You didn’t just want his money, you wanted his wife, too.” Pete put on a disapproving face for Nicky. “I’m surprised at you. Sleeping with a cop is one thing, but your husband’s younger brother?”

  Judging by her easy expression, she was not unnerved by the charges of serial adultery. “Do you know what it’s like being married to the fat man?” she asked. “Watching him eat like a pig, listening to him fart like a gorilla, having to look at him when he gets out of the shower, having to deal with the other when he wants it? I may as well be trying to jump on top of a beached whale.”

  “I can guess. So, why stick with him? Oh, of course, the money.” Pete again laughed humourlessly. “And there I was thinking it was true love. I thought Jimmy would let you have anything you wanted.”

  “You think I like being a kept woman? I want money of my own, and I want Johnny. The 50,000 we’ll pick up for the DVDs will give us a fresh start in another country. Right, Johnny?”

  Johnny nodded “Right, Nicky.”

  “Fifty thousand? You have buyers lined up for the stuff?” Pete’s surprise registered in his voice.

  “Natch. The minute Jimmy ducks out on his delivery commitment, we’ll ship them out. And get this: Jimmy financed all the production and incidental expenses, so we have minimum overheads. The whole 50K is ours.” Greedily Johnny rubbed his hands together.

  Pete’s brow creased. “I thought you were Jimmy’s partner?”

  Johnny snorted. “Partner, nothing. Gopher was right.” He jerked a thumb at Nicky. “You might say the way she’s a kept woman, I’m a kept man. But not after we ship those DVDs, I’m not.”

  Pete looked at Wilcox. “You’re not getting a cut?”

  It was Tate who answered. “Mr. Wilcox is making amends for a series of cock-ups earlier in the week.”

  “Like murdering Bilko?”

  “Enough chitchat,” Wilcox cut in. “Let me tell you what’s happening, Brennan. We’re going for a little drive in my van…”

  “Shut up, Wilcox,” Pete shot back. “I’m talking to the organ grinder, not his monkey.”

  His face flushed with anger, Flutter-Bys’ owner snapped his fingers at Groom. “Teach him a lesson.” He pointed to Pete.

  Groom took a step forward. Pete looked him in the eye. “Think you can, tosspot?”

  The thug stepped even closer. Pete head-butted him, and he sank to the floor. Lawson came forward with a baseball bat. He swung it overhead, aiming at Pete’s shoulder. Pete sidestepped and kicked out, landing his foot hard between Lawson’s legs. Tears coming to his eyes, Lawson sank to his knees.

  “You should get tougher minders, Wilcox. Try the old folks’ home on Mersey Road. They have some D-Day vets there.” While Wilcox stared at his prone thug, Pete turned his attention back t
o Johnny and asked, “Why have Bilko killed?”

  Tate’s features darkened, and his eyes fell slowly on Wilcox. “I didn’t. I just asked someone to shut him up.” He faced Pete again. “I was in the bar here a few nights back, talking with Wilcox here, and Bilko was earwigging. We were joking about Jimmy offering two grand to get the DVDs back, and I think Ronnie said something like, no one would ever find them at Melmerby Manor. Bilko must have overheard, and you know what he was like for playing it close to the chest. He rang Jimmy, told him he thought he had some info on the theft but wanted to find out if the two grand was pukka before he went to the trouble of following up his lead. When Jimmy said it was, he said he’d get back to Jimmy when he’d checked it out himself. We figure he must have gone out to the manor to check it out and taken one of the discs to prove his claim. He called Jimmy again the next night to say he’d found the DVDs and had one in his possession to prove it, though, of course, he wouldn’t say where without seeing the two grand.

  “Jimmy told me about Bilko’s call when I got home and, of course, said it was my job to handle it. And I meant to. I belled Bilko and agreed to meet him here to exchange the DVD and the information for the reward. But I also belled Ronnie and told him Bilks was coming and to shut him up. What I meant for them to do was to show him the wisdom of keeping his mouth shut.” He gave an open-handed shrug and indicated Wilcox and his thugs. “These clowns went too far.”

  Wilcox, still smarting from the easy manner in which Pete had flattened his minders even though his hands were bound, grunted. “Nobody misses a scumbag like Bilko. Come on, Johnny, let’s get this done.” He gazed at his minders, both coming groggily to their feet. “Move it, you two.” He shook his head. “When will you ever learn how to take someone out?”

  “One last thing,” Pete said as Groom and Lawson came behind him and gripped him by the upper arms. “Why’d you run me off the road?” He nodded at Tate’s bandaged arm. “It might have scared Kev and Sceptre away, but not me.”

  “I wasn’t trying to frighten you. I was trying to kill you.” Tate grinned. “Nothing personal, you understand.”

  Pete controlled the urge to rush the younger Tate. Deep inside, he yearned for his hands to be free of their bonds so he could tear out Tate’s heart, rip off Wilcox’s head, and use both to beat the two minders into an unrecognizable pulp. Outwardly, he smiled and nodded his understanding. “I understand, Johnny, and I hope you won’t take it personally when I break you in two for it.”

  Johnny smiled. “’Course not.”

  Pete was calmer now, more in control of himself. “Wilcox, what’s your angle on this?”

  Wilcox reached into his pocket and pulled out an automatic pistol. Nonchalantly checking the clip, he said, “The trouble with you, Brennan, is you don’t know when someone’s telling you the truth. I told you the other day. I was simply hired to deal with transport and storage. I was on a good earner for helping Johnny out. Simple enough job. Get the cartons into my van and ship them out to the manor for safekeeping. Safe there because no one goes near the place in winter. After Bilko opened his mouth, Johnny said we needed to move them back here. We didn’t know how many people Bilko had spoken to. That went doubly so when your mate Keeley shot his mouth about you spending the night there ghost hunting. So we went out there, took them back and left Bilko instead.”

  “And that was one of you in the woods that Kevin saw when I told him to close the gates before the DVDs had been moved.”

  Wilcox nodded. “We sent Tommy ahead to case the joint, see what you were up to. He told us you almost caught him. He just got out the back gates in time. When he reported back that you hadn’t set up any gear in the warehouse, it was easy for us to keep you occupied while we got the cartons out and left Bilko behind.”

  “Keep us occupied by fooling around as ghosts.”

  “You were perfect as patsies for Bilko. The timing had to be right, and yes, we created the ghosts. Well, some of them, anyway. We made a few noises slamming doors, and we managed to trip one or two of your sensors by tossing stones through the beams.”

  “And the lettering on the attic wall, and playing with the PA system in the private rooms?” Pete wanted to know.

  “That was the second time around. Tommy has a set of lock picks, and that back door, the one into the Long Gallery, is so easy. We painted the message on the wall and then we watched you on the webcam and cut the Internet line when you rumbled it.”

  “So Kev was right after all,” muttered Pete. “That must be a first.” He queried Wilcox again. “Benny really didn’t do the Internet hook up?”

  “He supplied the equipment, that’s all. We’re not total idiots, you know. We do know how to hook up a webcam.”

  “I’ll reserve judgment on your stupidity.” Pete slotted the information into the theory that had already formed in his mind. “So what’s the text message all about?”

  Wilcox was puzzled. “Now, that wasn’t us. I kept getting it, too, and it came from Bilko’s number. We couldn’t find his phone after we topped him, you know. But Bent Benny told me your mate, Keeley, was receiving it on his phone and that he also got it over the radio. I figured I could scare you with it.” He laughed. “At least we knew how to spell it when we wrote it on the attic wall.”

  Pete’s looked baffled, but he spotted a way in which he might just divide his opponents. “Well, considering I just found Bilko’s phone in your cold store, who did send the texts?” He indicated Groom and Lawson. “One of them?”

  Doubt crossed Wilcox’s face. “What?”

  “You heard. I just found the phone in there.” Pete nodded at the open cold store.

  The owner of Flutter-Bys passed a rapid, angry and suspicious glance at his two cohorts. They both shrugged.

  “Don’t look at me,” Groom said.

  Wilcox stared at Lawson. “You were down here this morning, when we had that disturbance.”

  “Yeah,” grumbled Lawson, “but we’ve been getting the texts for days, and I didn’t know the phone was in there.” He, too, nodded at the cold store.

  “Ooh,” said Pete as if he were worried. “Bilko’s ghost come back to haunt you, Ronnie.”

  Wilcox spat at him. “Watch your mouth. Where’s the damn phone now?”

  Sylvie held it up. “I have it.”

  Wilcox’s anger dissipated rapidly and he laughed again. “Whoever sent those messages, it don’t matter. When the filth find the phone on you, they’ll figure you were trying to scare off Keeley and the la-di-dah tart so you could have the reward for yourself. They’ll also figure that those two killed you for it, and then fell out and killed each other.”

  “You’re taking it for granted that Locke and his team are that thick,” Pete said.

  “You should know. You used to work for them.”

  Pete racked his brain for further argument. Anything to gain time, give Kevin and Sceptre a chance to get to Melmerby Manor, work out that something had gone wrong, and call the law. “Kev and Sceptre have already called the filth, you know,” he bluffed.

  “I doubt it,” said Nicky. “I know you, Brennan. You’re the big hero type, and you’d wanna crack this on your own, shove it under Locke’s nose, and gloat. You’ve probably ordered your pals to keep schtum.”

  Wilcox cut in. “Here’s the deal, Brennan. We’re going up the stairs and out the side door of the club, where you’ll be jammed into my van. Be a good boy, and you’ll live until we get to Melmerby Manor. Hassle us, and Tommy here will blow you away right where you stand.”

  “One last thing, Ronnie,” said Johnny Tate.

  Wilcox raised his eyebrows. Tate took a pace forward, his right fist clenched, and whipped it into Pete’s gut. “God, that felt good. I’ve been wanting to do it for years.”

  *****

  The snow was coming down more heavily when they bundled Pete out of Flutter-Bys and into the badly lit street behind the club, where Wilcox’s van stood. Pete’s car had been moved alongside it, and a
debate broke out amongst Tate, Nicky, Wilcox and Sylvie.

  “Nicky and me were going to get out of the way,” Johnny whined.

  “Not likely.” Wilcox growled. “If you want Brennan iced, then you come and help us. That way, if it goes wrong, you go down with us. Take his car out to the manor. We’ll follow in the van.”

  Pete was impressed with Wilcox’s control of the situation. He’d underestimated Flutter-Bys’ owner. “I need you out there, too, Johnny,” he called out as Tate and Nicky capitulated and headed for his car. “I’m gonna beat your brains in when I’ve done with these clowns.”

  Tate climbed back out of the car and took two paces towards Pete. He looked annoyed, but behind the anger, Pete detected a hint of amusement.

  “Will you never learn to shut your trap, Brennan?” Johnny clenched his fist, but Wilcox stopped him.

  “Just let it go,” Wilcox ordered. “He’s only shooting his mouth off.”

  Tate’s fist relaxed. With an open palm, he tapped Pete twice on the cheek. “I’ll have the last laugh.” He walked away.

  Pete watched as his car was driven off, and then Groom and Lawson bundled him into the van, while Wilcox stood at the roller shutter.

  “Word of warning, Brennan. I wasn’t joking when I said Tommy and Lemmy would blow you away, but just in case you get fancy ideas,” he waved his automatic pistol in the air, “Sylvie and me will be up front, so just behave yourself.”

  Pete grinned. “See you up there, then, Ronnie.”

  With a scowl, Wilcox rolled the shutter down and slammed it shut.

  *****

  To the more experienced spirit, movement from place to place was as simple as thinking about it, but newcomers like Bilks literally travelled through the ether like a low-flying aircraft.

  “You’ll learn, my lad,” said Fishwick to himself as they crossed the snowy landscape below.

  Fishwick was concerned. His mistress had given him a direct order, and in following Bilks, he was disobeying her. He recalled those early days when he was a boot boy at Rand-Epping House, and later when he served as Lord Rand-Epping’s butler and batman in the army. Following orders was something that had been drilled into him ever since he first went into service with the Rand-Epping’s and, of course, no soldier would dare contemplate disobeying orders.