The artist’s name was Cassey Levant, a sculptor fascinated by the endless oscillation of the zeitgeist, at least according to the artsy bollocks some poor sod had been tasked with transferring letter by letter onto the gallery wall. Tonight was the grand opening of his ten year retrospective, a glittering, champagne reception attended by some of the biggest dickheads in town. Truly, a Who’s Who of the least essential members of contemporary London society.
As Levant strutted about like a peacock I watched the crowd, looking for any signs of impending danger and guarding his six like some supernatural secret service agent. I certainly looked the part in my black suit and tie; the outfit I happened to be wearing the day I died and consequently my permanent fashion choice.
My phone buzzed. I answered the call and a voice only I could hear came through the speaker.
‘Anything to report?’ asked Stella.
Stella was working as my partner this evening, watching the outside of the venue while I kept an eye on the inside. My phone had been enchanted by my magician friend, Jazz Hands, who functioned as my sort of paranormal ‘Q,’ equipping me with items fit for my phantom hands. I have trouble interacting with regular physical objects – my natural state is ethereal, so manipulating the real world is like trying to win a prize on one of those fairground claw machines. A shop-bought phone in these paws would have more cracks in it than a plumber’s convention.
I scanned the room. ‘Nothing yet,’ I sighed.
No one besides Stella heard me talking. My voice and movements are inaudible to anyone not tuned into the Uncanny, by which I mean normals. And by “normals” I mean the regular people, the hoi-polloi, the bus-takers. Basically, you.
‘Stay on it,’ said Stella. ‘Keep the line open and maintain contact.’
She sounded like someone from a bloody Andy McNab novel. I thought about ribbing her for it but gave her a simple, ‘Affirmative,’ instead. Stella’s good at what she does, the best really, but she’s not much for levity.
The night crept on. Levant quaffed champagne and pressed the flesh as his adoring fans heaped praise upon his latest sculptures, which looked less like art than an explosion in a mannequin factory to me.
I was beginning to think the evening was a bust when a burly man in an unseasonably large overcoat happened onto the scene. As he made a beeline for Levant I saw his hand go for the inside pocket of his coat, and readied myself to turn corporeal and knock whatever weapon he was packing from his grip.
Levant’s eyes went wide as he saw the man barreling up to him.
I darted forwards, desperate to stop the killer before he could make his move and then—
‘Daaahling!’ squealed Levant.
The man in the coat met him in a big queeny hug and a flurry of air kisses before telling Levant how absolutely stunning he looked this evening.
Great. Instead of bringing down a serial killer I’d been a half second away from clotheslining some hapless art ponce.
The burly man handed his coat to a lackey, who gave him a ticket and squirrelled it away in the cloak room. The man went on to tell Levant that this was his finest work yet, and how every piece on display was a great, crashing triumph.
‘My God!’ he gushed, looking around. ‘Did you manage to hawk the entire collection?’
‘Not quite,’ replied Levant, gesturing to a mannequin with a head sculpted to look like a poop emoji for reasons I could not possibly fathom. ‘This piece remains stubbornly unsold.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked the sycophant. ‘It has a red dot right there...’
I followed his chubby index finger to the piece’s caption card, which had indeed been decorated with little red dot.
Except—
The red dot was moving—
Vacating its position on the white rectangle to travel along the gallery wall—
Creeping in the direction of Cassey Levant.
It wasn’t a red dot.
Well, it was, but not the kind you peeled from a pack of stickers.
It was the kind that killed.
I turned from the dot and saw a slim, red beam passing through the gallery’s south window.
Outside, across the road, and projecting from the mid-level of a multi-storey car park, was the source of the beam – a laser sight fixed to the barrel of a sniper rifle. Holding onto that rifle was a dead match for my suspect.
I turned back to see the laser’s red dot had finished its journey and arrived on the gunman’s target. Levant just stood there like a plum, mouth agape as the scarlet bead settled on the dead centre of his forehead. If somebody didn’t do something fast, the gunman’s stock was about to rise as quickly as Levant’s body fell.
‘Everybody down!’ I yelled, though of course no one heard me.
To make up for the intellectual shortfall, I dived into the fray like a goalkeeper. Having succeeded in turning my shoulder corporeal, I collided with Levant’s back and sent him buckling to the gallery’s faux-marble floor.
There was a popping noise, quickly followed by the sound of shattering glass and the appearance of a smoking bullet hole in the mannequin’s poop head.
Then came bedlam.
Champagne flutes rained to the ground as screaming art lovers ran for cover, swarming to the room’s only exit and arriving at a crush in the stairwell. Stunned, Levant rolled onto his knees and went looking for his guardian angel, but found the room empty except for himself. The luvvie he’d been air-kissing moments ago was long gone, rushing to get clear of the building with all the rest. Only me and my perspiring artist left now – and Stella, watching from her post outside.
I scanned the multi-storey across the road and whipped out my phone. ‘Shooter’s running, third floor, dressed in black.’
‘Affirmative,’ came the reply.
I went to the gallery window and waited for the fireworks, and yeah, “fireworks” made for a pretty apt description. As I watched, the entire third floor of the car park flared up in a brilliant vermillion light threaded with molten cords of furious yellow fire.
A second or two passed before Stella spoke again. ‘Threat neutralised,’ she said, calm as you like.
Did I mention that Stella is a witch’s familiar and a tough as nails spell-slinger? No? Well, here goes then. Three hags made Stella out of magic and spit about sixty-years ago – built themselves an enforcer to knock seven bells out of London’s Uncanny bad guys. So far I’d say she’s been doing a pretty bang-up job of it. She mostly looks after the big picture stuff around here—your higher-plane demonic entities, your cannibalistic death cults, your ancient curses—while I deal with the smaller jobs like missing persons and serial killers. It’s not often our jobs intersect, but I’d lent her a hand on that nightmare realm gig, so she owed me this one and a couple more besides.
‘Thanks, Stella,’ I replied. ‘You did us proud.’
I hung up the phone and let out a long sigh of relief. Eight insufferable weeks of tedium had finally paid off. All of that effort, all of that planning, and it was all done in a second. The killer was subdued and ready to be turned over and judged for his crimes. At least here on Earth. He’d have to wait until the day he passed to receive his eternal judgment, and as a multiple murderer, the die had already been cast on that one. His soul was destined for the Bad Place. No stating his case at the pearly gates, no passing Go, no collecting £200, the man was going to Hell in a handbasket.
I turned around to see Levant had taken off, leaving me alone among his collection. I walked over to the emoji mannequin and inspected the hole in its poop head. I could see the assassin’s bullet embedded inside like a little silver nugget. It’s funny; five minutes ago this piece of shit sculpture was unsold, but now the art world would be falling over themselves to get a hold of it. I shook my head. This whole scene was bonkers.
Still, what did I care? I’d put paid to a serial killer and avenged a slew of untimely ends. Thanks to me, the ghosts of a dozen victims would be able to cross over now, free
d from the physical plane and released to their final reward. The job was done, the mission accomplished, now I could finally go home and make a dent in that pile of DVD boxed sets sat by the TV.
My phone rang. I was expecting it to be Stella, but the screen said otherwise. The incoming call was from DCI Stronge.
I picked up. ‘I was just about to give you a bell, Kat. We got him.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ she replied, ‘I’ll send a couple of uniforms your way to get him processed.’
‘You do that,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, I have a date with a stack of Good Wife DVDs.’
I was about to hang up, but Stronge wasn’t done talking. ‘Afraid that’s going to have to wait.’
‘Aw come on, what could possibly be more important than me finally watching the big Season 4 finale?’
A second of thought her end and then, ‘Is that the one where Will gets shot?’
‘What?’ I screamed. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because you've got work to do, Fletcher. Now get yourself to the Heath, we just caught a new one.’
Bollocks.
2
My name is Jake Fletcher and I’m a P.I. The “P” can stand for whatever you like—“private,” “paranormal,” “platypus” for all I care—what matters is the job that goes with it. Without getting too bogged down in the details, I help my clients find their way to the spirit world. When a person dies a traumatic death their soul becomes detached and clings to its locality, trapped on the physical plane instead of riding the golden elevator to the great hereafter. I help those lost souls become un-marooned by solving their murders and bringing their killers to justice.
Why do I do what I do? Well, it’s not to get rich, I can tell you that much. We ghosts aren’t much concerned with the material things – which goes as much for money as it does anything else with a physical property. What use would money be to a spook anyway? What would I buy with the stuff? It’s not like I need to bother watching Season 5 of The Good Wife anymore.
No, the reason I help out other ghosts is to offset some of my own bad mojo. See, back before I kicked the bucket I used to be an exorcist. You know the fellers: “The power of Christ compels thee!” Crucifixes and holy water. Demonic possession. Children scrabbling about on the ceiling on all fours. All that malarkey. I also dealt with other supernatural nuisances, namely ghosts, or what we in the trade called “poltergeists.” Clients would contact me to report a haunting and I’d swing by their property to cleanse it of spooks. Bish bash bosh. They’d get to sleep at night, I’d get paid. Everyone was happy. Well, almost everyone.
See, here’s the rub: Just like the rest of my exorcist peers, I used the same methods to send demons packing as I did ghosts. Unfortunately, as it turns out, exorcism is not a one-size-fits-all operation. Instead of sending those ghosts to their final reward—as I assumed I’d been doing—I had in fact been obliterating them. Wiping them off the map. Off any map.
It wasn’t until I died and became a ghost myself that I realised the truth of it. I was a killer. A serial killer. Sure, I could claim I didn’t understand the consequences of what I was doing, but there had to be a price to pay for rubbing out that many souls. It’s why I busted out of the afterlife and ended up here a ghost; to avoid answering for my misdeeds. At first I was just running scared, but after I landed back on Earth, I decided I wanted to do something to make up for all those people I’d destroyed. To start saving souls the right way, and maybe, just maybe, save my own in the process.
As I made my way to Detective Stronge I wondered how much dirt I still had to scrape off my hide before I’d be clean. I arrived at Hampstead Heath at just gone one in the morning. A couple of uniforms flanked a ribbon of yellow police tape stretched across the park’s western entrance, but I ghosted by them unseen.
In darkness, the black grass of the Heath stood revived, unfurling after another day spent crushed beneath the feet of footballers and dog walkers. The sounds of screaming children and picnickers had vanished with the dying light, leaving behind an eerie calm. Trees swayed against the charcoal sky, and leaves scurried to a gentle breeze that might have raised goosebumps were I able to feel its touch.
I followed the glare of floodlights and the flash of a distant camera across the West Heath to the scene of the crime. The area was attended to by a number of officers and forensics experts, plus constables from the Hampstead Heath Constabulary, whose K-9s had alerted them to the scene. I threaded through the officers invisibly to arrive at a border of tape marked DO NOT CROSS, positioned to ensure that the enclosed area was given a wide berth by anyone whose fat feet didn’t belong there.
I phased through the cordon and saw the bodies. Two of them, both men, splashed across the grass like they were trying to catch moon tans. Their limbs were posed at awkward angles and their heads positioned in a way that told me they definitely weren’t sleeping. The smaller of the two had a rock in his hand, which was covered in a crust of dried blood and matted hair. The back of the larger one’s skull had been caved in like an egg shell, and one of his eyeballs hung from its socket, dislodged by the force of the blow. A river of congealed blood ran from each of his nostrils.
Turning to look past the police tape, I saw DCI Stronge. She sat alone on an aged oak bench beside the leg of Mutton Pond. She regarded me coolly as I made my way over and sat down beside her. Unlike the rest of her colleagues, Stronge possesses The Sight, which means she’s able to see ghosts. She acquired it as the result of a run-in we’d had recently with a demonic entity known as a soul feaster. Sometimes, when a regular person is shown the world as it really is, their eyes open to the Uncanny and they become—and I’m sorry to keep throwing these terms your way—what we call an “Insider.”
‘What took you so long?’ she asked, blowing on her coffee.
Stronge works in homicide and serious crimes, and was heading up this investigation. Tonight she wore her immaculate, flat-ironed hair in a neat bob that accentuated her angular cheekbones. The hair was brunette but her eyes were blue as the lights of the police cars I could see flashing in the distance.
‘I was finishing up with Stella at the other place,’ I told her.
‘Your magic lady?’ she snorted, shaking her head. ‘Sorry to drag you back into the gutter.’
If I didn’t know better I’d almost think she was jealous.
Ever since I got into the detective game, DCI Stronge had been invaluable to me. While Stella acts as my link to the realm of the Uncanny—one of them anyway—Stronge's my anchor to the regular world. My counterweight to balance out the crazy. She’s also my go-between to the Metropolitan Police, which I work for in a clandestine, consultancy capacity.
‘Where’s your partner tonight?’ I asked Stronge.
‘He’s taken temporary leave after… well, you know.’
Our encounter with the soul feaster. Yeah, I could see why someone might want to take a spell of absence after that business. A bit of work-related stress is to be expected when you’re dealing the fallout of a rampaging demon that skins people alive.
The Scene of Crime Officer approached in a white boiler suit and pulled down his face mask. ‘The site’s ready for inspection, Ma’am,’ he told Stronge.
‘Let’s go,’ she replied, and followed him to the cordon with me tagging along unnoticed.
‘I can take it from here, Officer,’ she said, and off he went about his business, allowing Stronge and me to talk.
‘Well, what do you think?’ she asked.
I looked at the two bodies laying on the ground; at the rock wrapped in the stiff fingers of one, and at the cratered head of the other.
‘Well,’ I replied, ‘I’m thinking it’s probably not a suicide.’
Stronge harrumphed, took the last swig of her coffee and squeezed the paper cup flat. ‘We’re considering the possibility that it was a lover’s quarrel.’
That figured. Even in the Grindr age, the West Heath was still a popular night-time cruising ground
for gay men. The cops tolerated it so long as they cleaned up after themselves and kept it away from the kiddies.
‘Could have been a spat,’ I supposed. ‘What do we know for sure?’
‘Just two things. One: the victim is the only one with any wounds – the bludgeoner doesn’t have a mark on him.’
‘Could have been a heart attack. Sudden aneurism maybe.’ I stroked my chin. ‘What’s the other thing?’
‘The murderer, the man with the rock in his hand, forensics are telling me he’s been dead for at least forty-eight hours.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s…’
‘Yeah. It complicates things.’
The crime had to have occurred this evening, so how did a two-day old corpse wind up on the scene? My first thought was that someone must have bashed the one guy’s head in and dumped the other body here hoping to fit him up for the murder, but Stronge soon disavowed me of that notion.
‘Doesn’t seem that way,’ she said. ‘The bone and brain fragments on the skinny guy are consistent with him perpetrating a close-quarters bludgeoning.’
‘They couldn’t have been sprinkled on after the fact?’ I asked. Sprinkled, I said, like I was talking about decorating a cake.
‘I know this is a bit out there,’ supposed Stronge, ‘but could the bludgeoner be a zombie? Assuming those are a thing.’
‘They are,’ I replied, ‘but we don’t see too many of them around here.’
No, this wasn’t voodoo. Wrong continent. Wrong... vibe.
I looked to the bludgeoner’s body and then back to Stronge. ‘Notice anything else out of the ordinary?’
She considered the crime scene and narrowed her eyes. After a minute or so of contemplation, she admitted defeat. ‘I don’t see it.’
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Where’s the ghost?’
She slapped her forehead. ‘Of course.’ She hadn’t had her gift for long—if you want to call being tuned into a world of phantoms and horrors a “gift”—and was still getting used to seeing the world as it really was. ‘So what are you thinking?’ she asked. ‘Another soul feaster?’
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