“VALI,” roared the spirit of Swede.
*****
The vision ended. Kevin snapped out of it and found himself leaning precipitously over the battlement. He felt himself sliding, falling. The ground lay thirty feet below him, beckoning. He screamed.
*****
Fishwick had watched with interest as the angry spirit of Vali enveloped Kevin. In contrast to the usual crimson fury, Vali’s spirit glowed only an irritated orange.
During the vision, Kevin had moved jerkily, his body turning, twisting, pressing closer to the retaining wall of the roof until, in an effort to free itself of Vali’s possession, he opted for the only route open to him; over the edge.
Fishwick rushed to Kevin and propped him. He looked up at the amorphous mass surrounding Madam’s friend.
“I need a hand, old chum. He can’t pass your story on if he’s dead, can he?”
He was not certain that Vali understood him, but the message got home one way or another. The spirit of Vali gripped Kevin by the ankles and between them, they pulled him back to the roof and let him flop to the concrete.
“Thank you, my friend,” Fishwick said.
“Vali.”
“And Vali to you, too.”
*****
The moment he heard Kevin’s scream, Pete hurried from the library, looked around the corridor, spotted the open roof door and rushed for it. Sceptre hurried behind.
They burst onto the roof to find their partner cowering under the retaining wall.
“Kevin, what is it?” Sceptre asked.
“Him again.”
“Who?” Pete asked.
“Hamlet, the cigar smoking prince of bleeding Denmark,” Kevin snapped. “Who do you think? Him. Vali. He showed me what they did with his body.”
Pete scowled. “Another night like last night, eh?”
“I mean it, Pete. I don’t care if you believe me or you don’t. When I came round I was hanging over the wall and he pulled me back. Vali.”
Pete’s features darkened further. “How much did you have to drink this afternoon?”
“Sod off, you.” Kevin concentrated on Sceptre. “You believe me don’t you?”
Sceptre took his hand. “I have ways of confirming your story, Kevin. Fishwick.”
“Milady?”
“Fishwick, is Mr Keeley’s account accurate?”
“In essence, Your Ladyship,” Fishwick reported. “However, it wasn’t just Vali who saved him from falling off the roof. I held him up while Vali pulled him back.”
“Thank you, Fishwick.” Sceptre turned to Pete. “Fishwick says Kevin is telling it like it is.”
“I must remember to get Fishwick to sign a few of my affidavits,” Pete said.
He held out a hand and they helped Kevin to his feet. “We’re set up in the library and the top corridor, so let’s get back down to the dining hall and grab a cuppa. Calm you down.”
“They dumped his body in a coffin,” Kevin said as they descended the stairs back into the building. “The same coffin we had problems with last night. Emmet’s.”
Sceptre considered it as they walked along the corridor. “That makes sense.”
“From a logical point of view it would do,” Pete said as they passed the library door. “I mean, where better to hide someone you’ve just topped than in a coffin?”
Sceptre stopped, turned and faced him. “You’re the detective. Did you notice anything about Emmet’s coffin last night?”
“I noticed a lot of things last night,” Pete said. “What in particular, are you talking about?”
“Dust,” Sceptre replied.
“Ah. The dust had been cleared from Emmet’s lid,” Pete grinned. “You see. I did notice, and I can see where you’re going. No dust on the top stone indicates that it may have been opened quite recently.”
“May have been?”Sceptre asked as they continued on their way. “I think it proves it has been opened recently.”
“Either that or someone has been down there fooling around the three objects left on the stone lid,” Pete suggested, “all of which may have some value on the black market.”
“That’s absurd,” Sceptre protested.
“Not when you have a scroat like Danny Corcoran working on the cleaning team,” Pete said, “and if you want to know why he just shuffled them about and didn’t actually steal them, I can probably account for that too.”
Sceptre glowered. “Go on then.”
Pete considered it for a moment. “The watch would probably be engraved, making it difficult to sell, the tankard would be too large to fit in his pockets, and the coin … well Danny never was very bright. Coins are things you spend. He probably wouldn’t realise that it had value other than as currency.”
Kevin gave him a round of mock applause. “Smartarse.”
Her foot tapping on the floor, Sceptre said, “If Kevin tells me that this poor man’s murdered body has been put in there, then it’s good enough for me. And again, I have ways of confirming it. Fishwick!” The final word was thrown at the empty staircase.
“Yes, Your Ladyship?”
“Fishwick, I assume you have been following the conversation. Is it possible for you to check the Reverend Emmet’s coffin?”
“It is tantamount to an invasion of privacy, Madam, but under the circumstances, I think I can overlook the finer points of etiquette. I shall report back soon.”
*****
Fishwick ducked into the crypt, hovered briefly over Emmet’s sarcophagus and then dived in.
“Do excuse me, old boy,” he said to the bleached, grinning skull of the late headmaster.
He looked over the bones and had he been able, he would have shuddered at the sight. Satisfied that Kevin had it right, he rejoined Her Ladyship and colleagues on the staircase.
“Madam, I have checked the coffin and Mr Keeley is correct. There is a body in there which should not be and which appears to have been put there quite recently. He’s none too pretty a sight, either.”
*****
Sceptre turned triumphantly on Pete. “There you are. Kevin was right. There is another body in that box.”
Pete saluted. “Very good, Milady. So what do you want to do?”
“Isn’t it customary to ring the police when you discover a body?”
They descended the stairs to the ground floor. Pete took his mobile phone from his pocket, flipped it open and handed it to her. “All right then. Bell them.”
Sceptre punched in 999 and hesitated with her finger over the green, ‘connect’ button. She looked into Pete’s eyes. There was something not right about the amused stare. It was not like him to agree to a course of action so quickly. She closed the phone and handed it back.
He put it in his pocket. “Seeing sense, Sceptre? You call plod and the first thing they’ll ask is how you know there’s a body in the box. Then they’ll have a look in it and if they really do find a body, they won’t listen to arguments about this tosspot’s spectral visions,” he jerked his thumb at Kevin, “or your dead butler. They will draw the obvious conclusion. That you put it there.”
“If I may make so bold, Madam,” Fishwick sounded in Sceptre’s head, “Mr Brennan is making absolute sense.”
Sceptre frowned. “Fishwick agrees with you,” she complained. “So what do we do? We can’t just leave it like that. The body or the problem. That poor man was murdered and his body has just been thrown into someone else’s sarcophagus. He is entitled to a Christian burial.”
“Assuming he was a Christian,” Pete said as they reached the dining room and stepped in. “We need to think carefully about this. The crypt must be consecrated ground or the headmasters would not be interred there. That means that the police would need an exhumation order before they can open any of those boxes, and to get that they would need some suspicion that a violent crime had been committed. For my money, our best bet is to wait until tomorrow than get someone to make an anonymous call to the police station.”
�
�Who?” Kevin asked. “If I rang or you, they’d recognise our voices right away.”
“And Sceptre’s no good because she would consider it her civic duty to confess her identity.”
“Correct,” Sceptre agreed, “so who’s going to do it?”
“I’m not convinced that we need to do anything because I don’t believe there’s anyone in that box other than the official set of bones.” Pete grinned at Sceptre’s obvious irritation. “I’ll give it a coat of thinking about. In the meantime, hadn’t we better get the rest of the cameras set up?”
“I’m not going anywhere on my own,” Kevin said. “They’re all after me.”
Sceptre patted his hand. “No. We’ll stick together this time.”
Chapter Twelve
In the light of Kevin’s refusal to venture further than a few yards from either of his two friends, they made their way into the chapel as a posse, Pete and Kevin weighed down with cable drums and tripods, Sceptre carrying the cameras and sensors.
Inside fifteen minutes, they had set up exactly as they had the previous night, with cameras in both the crypt and the chapel, the links running all the way back to the dining hall and the main computer control.
“Fortunately,” Kevin chortled as he jammed the plug into a wall socket, “our gear doesn’t need a lot of juice to make it work and we can run off two forty volts.” He transferred his attention to the computer, and activated the software. “There we go,” he declared as the screen burst to life with the familiar nine-windowed view, “up and running. All we gotta do now is wait for the sparks or the spooks to fly.” He yawned. “I don’t wanna piddle on your parade, but don’t you think we should organise some kind of sleep rota?”
The abrupt change of subject took Pete by surprise, but he agreed. “You’re right. We can take turns to stay awake. Kevin, if you take the first watch, you can give me a nudge in an hour. I’ll have the rounds to do before I can take over here.”
Kevin smiled broadly. “Roger dodger.”
*****
Pete returned from the next round of security checks, and as he entered the dining room, the computer’s audio alarm bleeped. He grinned at Kevin’s sleeping form, head lolling back, mouth open and giving out soft snores. Across the table, Sceptre too was asleep, her head resting upon her arms. She was supposed to be sleeping, but Kevin should have stayed awake until Pete returned.
Pete wrapped his foot around one of Kevin’s chair legs and yanked at it. The chair wobbled and Kevin jumped.
“Huh, what?”
“Some sentry you are,” Pete complained. “You’re supposed to be watching the computer.”
“Oh, yes.” Kevin giggled. “Must have nodded off.”
“The way you were snoring, you must have nodded off about two seconds after I went out. An alarm went off.” Pete nodded at the screen as Sceptre woke.
Kevin read the display. “Something happening on the upper corridor, near the library door.”
Sceptre moved alongside him as he called up the relevant view.
The corridor remained silent and empty. As they watched, a ball of light moved quickly across the uneven floor, towards the camera, then disappeared out of view of the lens.
“An orb,” Sceptre said. “Possible manifestation.”
“Possible equipment malfunction, too,” grumbled Pete.
“There’s nowt wrong with this gear,” Kevin assured him.
“You supplied it,” Pete pointed out, “and that makes it instantly iffy.”
Kevin ignored him. Tracking the cursor to the control panel icons, he panned the camera to the left, pulling the view out for a wider shot. The night vision sensor took a moment to catch up, then showed almost all of the doors on the corridor, but there was no sign of anything or anyone.
“Looks clean and green to me,” Kevin suggested with a chubby shrug. Then, without warning, the camera shook. “Just like last night in the crypt. But what …?”
Kevin never completed his question. To their utter astonishment, the camera shook a second time and then toppled over.
*****
Pete grabbed a flashlight and CB radio. “Stay here the pair of you. I’ll deal with this.”
“Pete no,” urged Sceptre. “You don’t know what’s waiting for you.”
Almost at the door, Pete rounded on her, his face turning to a picture of severe rebuke “Sceptre, you may convince Kev that balls of light floating across a lens are really ghosts in disguise, but you won’t fool me. Ghosts don’t knock cameras over. Who or whatever did that is no more a ghost than me.”
“Rats?” suggested Sceptre, more hopeful than convincing.
“On the upper floor and in this weather?” Pete demanded. “You do talk some tripe.”
Even Kevin disagreed. “Rats could shake the tripod, but they couldn’t knock it over.”
Pete removed his topcoat, zipped up his fleece and tossed the overcoat to her. “Human rats can. Stay put and look after my coat. I’ll handle it.”
“Be careful,” Sceptre called as he ran out into the night.
It was a reminder that Pete did not need.
He hurried out of the dining hall, along the corridor, and flew up the staircase, but at the top, he stopped dead. The corridor was lit by one lamp in three, casting dark shadows in places. He shone his flashlight around, checking every corner before moving on.
His time with the police had taught him that courage alone was not enough when dealing with the modern criminal. Caution was just as vital, especially in a place like this where the lighting was reduced and there were many rooms on each side where a potential attacker might hide.
Moving to the camera, he set it upright and checked that it was working. “Kev, Sceptre,” he said into the CB, “there’s no one to be seen here. I’m going to check one or two rooms before I come back down.”
“Roger, partner,” Kevin returned. “We’ll watch your back through the cameras.”
Dropping the CB in his pocket, Pete scanned the corridor. The library door was slightly ajar, but so were the doors to one or two other rooms and the roof access. Clever. Give him a choice and take a chance that he would get it wrong.
The library was too obvious. Apart from anything else, he and Sceptre had set up a camera in there. Anyone moving around would be picked up by the sensors.
To make certain, he shoved the door open, stepped in and shone his torch around. Nothing. No one. And the camera was still working.
He stepped out and crossed the corridor, pushing open a classroom door. Rows of desks, a clean whiteboard, one desk facing the rest. Just as it should be, but no sign of life.
Coming out of the room, he looked along the corridor to the roof access. Could it be?
Someone had already hassled Kevin up there. What were the odds on them trying it on with him?
“Pretty good, I’d say,” he muttered to himself and made for the door.
“Pete,” Sceptre’s voice came over the CB. “Watch yourself. There’s someone up there.”
The sound of soft, rapid footfall reached his ears from behind. He turned in time to find a dark figure rushing him, wielding a heavy, rubber-cased torch. The torch came down at Pete’s forehead. He raised his arm to protect himself. The torch crashed onto his forearm before dropping to the floor. A lance of pain shot through him. A sharp kick to his shin buckled his knees. He sank to the dirty floor and received two kicks in the abdomen. Then the assailant was gone.
*****
“Madam?”
Sceptre frowned at the interruption to her concentration. Without taking her eyes from the computer screen, she asked, “What is it, Fishwick? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“My Lady, there is someone hiding in the library,” Fishwick reported.
Sceptre came to instant alertness. “Your angry spirit?”
“No, Your Ladyship. This is human, not ethereal.”
“Then how come we didn’t see him when we were in there?” Sceptre demanded.
“I d
o not know, My Lady. I was busy with Mr Keeley at the time. However, he was well hidden from your friend, Mr Brennan when he went in there a moment ago.”
Sceptre snatched up the CB. “Pete.” She called into it. “Watch yourself. There’s someone up there.”
Even as she said it, there came the sound of running feet. She and Kevin watched in horror as Pete was floored. The assailant delivered two swift kicks to Pete’s gut, kicked over the camera again and left them watching the upturned view as he ran for the roof.
“Come on, Kevin,” Sceptre urged, getting to her feet and hurrying for the exit.
“Now Pete did tell us to wait here, Sceptre,” Kevin said.
“Fine. You wait here. I’ll catch you later.”
Kevin stood up and lumbered after her.
*****
Breathing heavily, desperate to be away before Brennan came round, Danny Corcoran burst out onto the roof and hurried over to the parapet.
Brennan would not be down for long. He would soon get his second wind and come looking for his attacker, and Danny did not fancy that confrontation. He also knew that Keeley and that tart they had in tow would come to Brennan’s aid, and that gave Danny the opportunity to get to their computer on the ground floor. If he could steal that, take it away, whatever evidence they figure they might have for goings on in the school would be gone.
Force of habit from his days of breaking and entering meant he had cased the school many times in the two years that he had been cleaning here, and he knew there was a way from the roof to the ground. A drainpipe ran from the parapet to ground level alongside the entrance. The only iffy part was climbing over the parapet and letting himself down to the pipe. Rushing over to the surrounding wall, Danny grinned. What was life without a bit of a risk?
Leaning between the battlements, he looked down. There it was. A single, three inch pipe, with the first clip securing it to the wall about a foot below the level of the roof. It was slightly to the right of the crenellation as he looked at it, and would be to his left when he went over the wall, but he had strong fingers which would hold him in place while he got a good foothold.
A Spookies Compendium Page 48
