A Spookies Compendium

by David Robinson

  He climbed over, twisted, and gripping the crenellation upright, letting his feet down so that he was resting on his tummy between the battlements, his left foot stretching out tapping around, feeling for the pipe and its wall clip.

  Twice he thought he had it, twice, when he applied weight, he learned he had nothing. He leaned his head back, tried to turn it so he could look down, but he was too close to the brickwork and if he leaned any further back, his fingers would slip.

  “Damn,” he cursed and began seeking the pipe with his foot again. He found the pipe, but now he could not find the clip. He raised and lowered his foot, running up and down the pipe, but it was as if it was not there.

  Across the roof, he could hear distant voices. They had got to Brennan. He did not have much time to get down to the ground and into the dining hall before they got back there. Even more urgent, if they came up to the roof now, they would spot him.

  Taking a solid grip on the horizontal portion of the battlement, he let himself down so that he was hanging by his fingertips, his body pressed flat to the wall. Now he could turn his face to look at the pipe. Now he would be able to see where the clip was, get a proper foothold.

  It was a good deal lower than he had anticipated. No wonder he could not reach it before. He stretched out his left leg, wrapped it around the pipe and secured it on the wall clip. He let go of the roof with his left hand and stretched for the pipe. For a moment he teetered on the brink of falling. A flash of panic rushed through him and he threw his hand back up, gripping the roof again, letting his left foot fall free of the pipe.

  For a moment he hung there, getting his breath back, letting his pounding heart settle. His arms and shoulders were screaming at him for release, the icy wind bit at his ears, but he could smell the underarm sweat of his own fear.

  Summoning his strength, he stretched his foot out again, looking across, getting his foothold. The wall was bathed in a soft light. Better, thought Danny. At least he could see what he was doing. He wiped the palm of his hand on his T-shirt, drying away the sweat, reached across and gripped the drainpipe, a firm, strong hold. Thank God for that. At least he would be able to give his right arm and shoulder a rest now.

  This next manoeuvre was the trickiest. He had to release his grip on the roof, keep himself glued to the pipe with nothing more than his left hand for the split second it would take to get his right hand and right foot over. One slip here and he was a goner. Mercifully, the strengthening light helped. It gave him a clearer view of the wall and the …

  What light? He was in the middle of the school grounds, albeit thirty feet above ground. The building was in darkness and the nearest street lights were over 500 yards away, out on the road. What light could be shining on the wall up here?

  Danny’s heart sank. Brennan, Keeley and Sceptre Rand. They were down there, weren’t they, shining their million candlepower lamps up at him, laughing their socks off at his antics. And through his disappointment, anger engulfed him. For one reckless moment, he wondered if he could jump to the ground and run for it. A quick glance down told him it was a non-starter. The ground was still thirty feet down, it was solid concrete, and between him and the ground was the school coat of arms, with the knight’s sword pointing straight up at him. Catch his wedding tackle on that and he’d be singing soprano for the rest of his life.

  As the light continued to strengthen, Danny looked up. Could he drag himself back up and over the parapet? It was safer than trying to secure himself on the pipe and get down. He drew in a huge breath, charging his muscles with oxygen.

  “Vali.”

  A sudden and intense chill came over him. Was he hearing things? Again? His thin hair stood on end. It couldn’t be.

  Behind him, the light became stronger.

  “Vali.”

  Danny glanced over his shoulder, straining his eyes to the extremes of the sockets to see right behind him.

  The light was not coming from anyone with a torch. It was an amorphous mass hanging in the air. As he watched, it began to form a face; a terrifying face from the past, its eye sockets empty, hollow, the long, flowing hair swept back over shoulders that were invisible.

  Gripped by terror, Danny faced the wall. He dared not look on that terrible face.

  He could hear its laboured breathing in his ear. It was close now, close enough to reach out and touch him. In the corner of his eye he caught the tendrils of a vapour cloud emanating from the apparition, the tentacles of a monster come to crush him.

  “VALI.”

  The roar filled his ears. With an animal cry of terror, he let go of everything and fell. And as he fell, he tumbled over. His eyes wide, he saw the cast iron blade of the knight’s sword rushing up to meet him. He screamed. The blade pierced his abdomen and impaled him. He screamed again, in writhing agony this time. The coat of arms came away from the wall and crashed down, carrying its grisly cargo to the ground. Danny cried out one last time before his head struck the concrete below.

  *****

  Struggling to his feet, Pete sucked in his breath. His gut hurt where the attacker had kicked him, but he dismissed it. He had suffered worse pain and it helped energise his anger.

  Running feet came towards him again, but there was a different quality about the sound this time. The click of sensible flat shoes and the thump of a slower pace told him it was Sceptre and Kevin.

  He turned to meet them .

  “We saw it all,” Sceptre said, picking up the attacker’s discarded flashlight. “He went out onto the roof.”

  “Did you see who it was?” Pete asked.

  “Dressed in black,” said Kevin setting the camera upright again, “and this time he wasn’t no Guinness advert.”

  “He’ll wish he was by the time I’ve done with him.” Pete strode off to the roof access.

  “For God’s sake, Peter,” Sceptre scolded. “Haven’t you learnt your lesson? He’ll be waiting up there for you and this time he may kill you.”

  “He’ll have to do it face to face,” Pete told her.

  “But he may be armed,” she pleaded.

  He stopped, turned and faced her. “You’re talking out of your hat again. If he was armed, he’d have shot me when he took me down. And he’s more likely to try getting away over the wall than hang around waiting to take me on again. You stay here if you want. I’ll handle him.” He turned again and hurried up the steps.

  By the time Kevin and Sceptre had caught up with him, he was looking around, flashing his torch into the darker corners.

  “Told you,” he said. “Gone over …”

  A scream of pure terror cut him off. All three turned their heads to the front battlements. Pete hurried across and looked over the wall. On the concrete ground below, the battered, bleeding body lay, still impaled by the knight’s sword.

  Sceptre looked over and turned away. Kevin looked too, came away, his face ashen even in the dim light of the Moon.

  “We’d better get down there,” Pete said.

  Their return to the ground floor was slower than their journey up, almost as if they were reluctant to confront the grim reality out there.

  At length, they stood on the concrete, staring down at Danny’s body. Pete crouched and placed a finger to the neck. He stood upright and shook his head at his companions. “Dead.”

  “Who is he?” Sceptre asked.

  “Danny Corcoran,” Pete replied, taking out his mobile phone.

  “Look at this.” Keeping her eyes away from the terrible sight of Danny’s smashed skull and the sword skewering him, she fingered a small badge pinned to his fleece. She shone her torch on it and the caricatured face of Mr Punch grinned up at her. “Just like the one thrown through the trailer window this afternoon,” she said.

  “And just like the face I saw on the flag and on the roof in my vision,” Kevin whispered.

  “Andrea?” Pete said into his mobile. “I’m at the Ashdalean. You’d better get a team out. I’ve got Danny Corcoran here and he’s dead.�
��

  Sceptre’s puzzlement was temporarily abated while Pete spoke to his policewoman girlfriend.

  “You heard right. Danny Corcoran, but he looks more like a kebab.” Pete closed the phone. “Andrea Keynes is on her way.”

  *****

  The energy form that had been Danny Corcoran hovered above the school, looking down on his body and the three people surrounding it.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “That’s it, mate,” said Fishwick. “Your time’s over.”

  It was as if a great question mark hung over the ball of white light, and as the puzzlement diminished so the anger rose and the colour shifted to pink to red.

  “I’m dead?”

  “Afraid so, me old china.”

  “Why? What did I do wrong?”

  “As far as I can figure out, a lot,” Fishwick replied, “but you won’t do no more.”

  “VALI!”

  “And I figure this guy wants a word with you, too,” Fishwick commented.

  It happened too quickly for Fishwick to intervene. The blazing spirit of Vali hurtled in from a shallow angle and smashed into the spirit of Corcoran. The trajectory was precise. Corcoran careened into The Light, gone forever and Vali swooped away across the Spirit Plane.

  “Vali!” it cried in victory.

  “I do wish you’d curb that temper of yours,” Fishwick complained.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Detective Constable Andrea Keynes arrived within twenty minutes and had a team from Scientific Support plus several uniformed constables in tow.

  Once white tents had been erected around Corcoran’s body and the forensic team was on with its work, Andrea called her boss, Chief Inspector Locke, and on his orders led the Spookies crew into the dining hall where she took individual statements from them.

  When she had finished, still waiting for Locke to arrive, she confided, “It doesn’t look good. These statements are word for word the same. It looks like a conspiracy and you know what old deadbolt is like. He’ll assume collusion and book all three of you.”

  Pete sighed. “Locke can please himself, Andrea. The statements are the same because we were together when Danny fell.”

  “We even have him on video attacking Pete,” Sceptre said, and Kevin closed his eyes in frustration.

  “That gives us a motive,” Andrea responded. “We all know how bad-tempered and hot-headed Pete can be.”

  Pete clucked his annoyance. “If I was gonna top Danny Corcoran, he’d look a damn sight worse than he does.”

  The doors burst open and Chief Inspector Terence Locke entered, his bald head and ruddy features several shades of vermillion above angry. “I’ve just taken a look at Corcoran. Nice mess you made of him, Brennan. Now what’s it to be? Murder or manslaughter? I don’t mind which.”

  Pete’s face remained implacable. “If you’re gonna throw me away for life, Locke, I’ll bump you off too. I won’t stay in the nick any longer for two bodies than I will for one.”

  “Chief Inspector,” said Sceptre, “this young man’s death was nothing to do with us. He attacked Pete on the next floor up and ran for it. We went in pursuit, naturally, but by then, he was already climbing down the wall and he fell.”

  Locke held out a hand to Keynes and snapped his fingers. She passed over the statements, and he settled own at a table to read them. Several minutes passed before he put them down and concentrated on the team.

  “First question, what are you three doing here?”

  “They’re ghost hunting, I’m working security night shift for Sherlock and watching out for them,” Pete replied.

  “Some security man you are if Danny boy got into the building,” Locke sneered.

  “He was here when we arrived,” Pete said. “He had to be. There’s no way he would have got past me, and even if he did, he couldn’t get into the library without triggering Kev’s camera on that landing.”

  “He was also well hidden in the library,” Sceptre said. “We set a camera up in there and he didn’t trigger it. He must have been at floor level, probably hidden behind the librarian’s counter.”

  “And he rushed you when you weren’t looking, Brennan?”

  Pete nodded. “We have it on video.”

  “And you followed him up to the roof, gave him a good pasting and threw him off the top,” Locke concluded.

  Kevin tutted, Sceptre sighed; Pete was more direct. “Tell me something, Padlock, does talking out of your arse come naturally or is it part of the CID training these days?”

  “Now listen, Brennan …”

  “No, you listen, you numpty,” Pete cut him off. “I know you’d like to see me go down for a long stretch, but you know me well enough to know that I’m not a killer. If I’d got hold of Danny, he would have been black and bloody blue, but he would still be alive. It would make more sense if you stopped playing silly buggers and tried to find out what he was doing here in the first place.”

  “Robbing the joint,” Locke declared.

  “Of what?” Pete demanded. “The place is locked up. All the kids are at home for the Christmas holidays. There’s no money on the premises and no fence in his right mind would handle the silverware. It has Ashdalean School for Boys written all over it.”

  “Danny,” Sceptre said, “was a member of an obscure quasi-religious sect called the Venerable Disciples of Loki.”

  The Chief Inspector’s eyes almost popped. “What? Corcoran? Religious?”

  “I saw the badge on his fleece,” Sceptre assured him.

  “Take it from me, young lady, the only god Danny Corcoran prayed to was the god of Ecstasy and cocaine.”

  “Precisely,” Pete agreed, “but Sceptre’s right. He’s wearing that badge, and you could do worse than chase it up.”

  Locke glanced across at his subordinate as she scribbled in her pocketbook. “You getting all this?”

  She nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll check with forensic.” She got to her feet and left.

  Locke concentrated once more on the team. “So what do these religious nutters have to do with you lot and why would they want Danny boy here tonight?”

  All three shrugged.

  Locke eyed Pete. “My sources tell me that you’ve been hired by the two bitches to find their missing roadie.”

  “Your sources as in DC Keynes?” Pete asked and waited for Locke to confirm it with a nod. “That’s right. They’d had enough of your half arsed attempts to trace Gus Nordqvist, so they asked for a professional instead.”

  “And when they couldn’t find one they hired you,” Locke sneered and Kevin cringed at the glower on Pete’s face.

  “There is something else you should know, Chief Inspector,” Sceptre said. “There’s a body in the crypt.”

  Now Kevin cringed at her, and Pete tutted once more.

  “It’s a crypt, Ms Rand,” Locke smiled. “There usually are bodies in crypts.”

  “This one is the body of a man who was murdered here three or four weeks ago. It was dumped in the coffin of a former headmaster.”

  Locke’s eyes darted this way and that, veering between Pete, Kevin and Sceptre. He settled on his former detective and raised his eyebrows.

  “She may be right,” Pete admitted.

  “And how did you come by this information?” Locke wanted to know.

  “Through my spirit guide, Fishwick,” Sceptre said.

  “I see.” Locke got to his feet and ambled towards the door. “Well, Ms Rand, I don’t believe in Fishcake, so for my money, the only way you could know of a body in the crypt that shouldn’t be there is because you put it there. KEYNES!” The final word was bellowed along the corridor.

  It was followed by the hurried click of Keynes’ heels along the floor. “Got the badge, sir,” she said as she entered. She held up a seal-easy evidence bag for her superior’s inspection.

  He took it from her. “According to these three muppets, there’s a superfluous stiff in the crypt. Take them down there. Take Robb and Niles
with you, get these three to show you which coffin and open it up.”

  Andrea hesitated. “It’s consecrated ground, sir. We need an exhumation order.”

  “Not when I suspect a recent murder and forensic evidence may be rotting away,” Locke assured her. “Just get on with it. And Keynes …”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “If you do find a body there, book all three of them for murder.”

  *****

  Five minutes later, Sceptre led them down into the crypt, with Kevin, Andrea and Constable Wayne Niles immediately behind, while Pete and Constable Dave Robb brought up the rear.

  “I always knew we’d get you one day, Brennan,” Robb goaded as they passed Kevin’s active camera.

  “You can’t get out of bed early enough to nick, me, Robb. Too busy laid on top of that tart you’re jumping on Rawstone Edge Estate.”

  Robb’s lip curled in contempt. “If I had enough room to take a swing...”

  Pete rounded on him. “Go on then, hard man. Take your best shot. I’ll turn you into dog meat.”

  “Knock it off both of you,” Andrea called out. “One more word, Pete, and I’ll book you for threatening a police officer, and anymore from you, Robb, and I might investigate the tramp you’re sleeping with on Rawstone Edge.”

  Sceptre stopped before the Reverend Emmet’s sarcophagus. “This is the one.”

  Andrea flashed her torch around. “All right. Get this stuff off the top.”

  Niles removed the goblet, watch and coin from the top and placed them on the next coffin. Kevin bent to one corner of Emmet’s coffin and picked up a stout piece of wood.

  “You’ll need it to prop the lid,” he told Andrea.

  With a curious frown, she signalled to her two officers. “Get the lid up.”

  The two men bent at the knee and heaved on the lid. It refused to move.

  Pete tutted and wedged himself between the two. “Less horizontal PT and more exercise. That’s what you two need.” He gripped the stone lid. “On three. One, two, three...”