It cuts me up to this day that I used to work for the guy. What can I say? I was young, I needed the money. London isn’t exactly flush with exorcist jobs, but somehow Vic had the hook-up to every gig going. East to West and both sides of the River, if there was a haunting in this city, that man knew about it. All of this to make some coin of course. His system was to buy up spooked properties at rock bottom rates, send me in to cleanse them, then flog them on for a tidy profit. Meanwhile, I got a regular pay cheque for doing the one thing in this world that I was actually good at. Everyone was a winner.
Well, not everyone.
As it turns out, gaming the housing market was just one of Vic Lords’ corrupt little schemes. I later learned that his interests included illegal gambling, drug dealing, sex trafficking, and more besides. Like a modern-day Hitler, he also grew to develop a hard-on for all things occult, and took to spicing up his nefarious deeds with a dash or two of the old diabolism. The damage Vic Lords has done to this city is incalculable, but somehow he always stays the right side of a jail cell. He’s smart, well organised, and has enough layers of insulation between him and his underlings to ensure that the law can never connect him to his criminal activities. The police can’t touch him.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t.
I pictured Lords’ place of business, a squalid little office above a knocking shop near the canal, and readied to make the jump there. I was just about to do my thing when something completely unexpected happened. A battered grey limousine with blacked-out windows pulled up alongside me, screeched to a halt and ejected two brawny men in cheap suits. The goons came at me with intention, seized me by the wrists and shoved me into the rear seat of the vehicle. It happened so fast that it took me by complete surprise, and the next thing I knew I was sandwiched between the two heavies and facing their boss.
‘Hello, Jake,’ said the odious man sat opposite as the limo sped off with me inside. ‘It’s been a while.’
Speak of the devil.
Vic Lords took a drag on the stub of his cigar. ‘How you been keeping?’ he asked.
‘Oh, you know,’ I replied, ‘still dead.’
Vic smiled that smile of his; the one that even managed to give a ghost the creeps. He leaned forwards in his seat so I could get a better look at him. His bouffant of unnaturally dark hair had been slicked back with brylcreem, and his pale, sweaty skin was criss-crossed with a web of collapsed blood vessels, making him look as though he’d been cut from a wheel of rotten Stilton.
‘Thanks for joining me,’ he said, exhaling a thick lance of smoke that left the gloomy interior of the limo looking like a hot-boxed ride on its way to Glasto.
‘Thanks for saving me a trip,’ I replied. ‘I was about to pay you a visit, Vic.’
One of the goons tightened his grip on my arm and sneered. ‘That’s “Mister Lords” to you,’ he barked.
His teeth were small and sharp, like a piranha's. He wasn’t human, he was an eaves, an Uncanny creature that was capable of harming ghosts. Lords must have hired him and his friend with that in mind. Of course, whether his men could touch me or not, there was nothing they could do to stop me ghost-bouncing away and giving them the slip altogether.
‘So, what’s your game, Vic?’ I asked. ‘You finally planning on doing away with me?’
He laughed. ‘And why would I do that? I’ve got a soft spot for you, Fletcher, always have. Don’t forget you were one of my best employees once.’
The chance would be a fine thing. Choosing to work with Lords was one of the most regrettable decisions of my life. I’d say a good 90% of the red in my ledger came down to my association with that scumbag.
‘Well, so long as we’re best friends,’ I said, ‘why don’t you tell me what you know about the two dead bodies on the Heath?’
‘Only too happy to help, Jake. Why else do you think I went to all this trouble?’
I offered him a thin smile. ‘Let’s hear it then. What do you know?’
‘That’s not very polite,’ he replied, full of mock displeasure. ‘I’m offering you a present, Jake. And what do we say to people who give us presents?’
It caught in my throat but I forced myself to say it. ‘Thank you.’
He grinned so wide I thought the corners of his mouth might leave his face and meet at the back of his head. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said, and leaned in even closer. ‘The present is this: a warning. The man you’re chasing is best left alone. You’re out of your element with this one, Fletcher, take it from me.’
‘Where are you getting this?’
‘Same place I get all my good ideas,’ he replied, tapping his nose. ‘A little birdie told me.’
That was Vic’s code for augury. Since he started tapping into the dark arts he’d been using his powers to snoop on things outside of a normal man’s purview. As far as I could tell, he used these divinations mainly for financial profit and to keep an edge on his competitors. In essence, to get behind the other players’ backs and sneak a look at what cards they were holding. This was something different though. Vic had seen something he didn’t go looking for.
‘The man in the hood is from another place,’ he told me. ‘A bad place.’
‘He’s some kind of demon?’
Pit fiends pushing their way in from The Nether were getting to be an all too common occurrence since the London Coven were wiped out. The protections that Stella Familiar’s creators had put in place to keep demons and the like in check were gone now, leaving all hell to break loose in this city.
‘Not a demon,’ Vic replied. ‘Something else. Something ancient. Something… legendary.’
‘What are you telling me?’
‘I'm telling you there's a new man in town, Jake, and he's not playing for either of our teams.’
‘What am I supposed to do with that little titbit?’ I asked. ‘I’ve got a murder to solve, and nothing you’ve told me so far is going to help that happen.’ I offered him a shrug. ‘This so-called present you’ve given me is due a serious re-gifting.’
Vic sighed, disappointed. ‘Don’t do this to yourself, Jake. Leave it be. Let it go and don’t look back.’
‘Since when do you care what happens to me?’
‘How many times do I have to say it? I like you. You’ve got some old-fashioned ideas about right and wrong, but we can work on that. Give up this P.I. lark and get back on the payroll. Make some real money for a change. We could be living the life, you and me.’
‘I don't have a life, Vic. I'm dead.’
He grinned at me ghoulishly. ‘You could always be deader.’
‘Is that a threat?’
He blew out a long stream of smoke. ‘Not from me it ain’t.’
I’d gotten everything I was going to get from Camden’s kingpin of crime. ‘Well, Vic,’ I said, ‘always a pleasure, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to make a move.’
‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Off you toddle.’
I was about to bounce when he held up a finger and gave me the old, “one last thing.”
‘What is it?’ I sighed.
‘Just a bit of advice before you go.’
‘Go on then, don’t keep me in suspense.’
‘Do yourself a favour, Jake. If you’re not going to listen to me, at least watch your back out there. Mark my words, son, the four horsemen are saddling up, and they don't care who they trample.’
12
When I checked my phone I found three missed messages, all from DCI Stronge. I’d muted the thing after it almost got me killed in the vampire den, and hadn’t noticed it buzzing in the back of Vic’s limo.
I hit Return Call and Stronge picked up before the second ring.
‘Where the hell have you been, Fletcher?’ she barked.
Some might have mistaken her tone for anger, but I preferred to think of it as unresolved sexual tension.
‘I was seeing a man about a dog,’ I replied.
‘One of these days I’m going to get a st
raight answer from you.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’
She paused to take an exasperated breath. ‘Well, while you were otherwise engaged, we caught another one.’
‘Same MO?’
‘Looks that way.’
It seemed the murder on the Heath had only been the beginning. ‘Go on then,’ I said, preparing myself for the worst. ‘Lay it on me.’
‘It happened just over an hour ago. A stabbing. Killer dropped dead at the scene, but his body was dead before it got there.’
‘Wait... you’re telling me the killer was dead but arrived on foot?’
‘That’s right.’
Corpses walking about of their own volition? It was starting to look like Stronge’s zombie theory had some legs after all. Matter of fact, it was looking like she’d been spot on from the start. But who was behind all of this? Who was it making the dead kill?
‘And you’re saying all of this happened in broad daylight?’ I asked. ‘Surely there must have been witnesses?’
‘Plenty, it happened at a kids’ playground.’
‘Jesus wept. Please tell me the victim was an adult.’
‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘But not the killer.’
That I didn’t need to hear.
‘Twelve year old boy,’ Stronge went on. ‘Strolled up to the vic with a kitchen knife and stabbed him in the back before collapsing.’
Whoever was behind this was one sick puppy. ‘Where’s the kid now?’ I asked.
‘Both bodies have been moved to the bone house.’
She meant the morgue. ‘I'm not talking about the bodies. I’m talking about the ghosts.’
‘No sign of either. Same as before.’
That added up. If this one really was a match for the murder on the Heath, the adult was on his way to the fiery pit already. The kid though… the kid was out there somewhere, alone and scared out of his wits. ‘I’ve gotta find him,’ I said.
‘Not without me, you won't.’
Stronge traced the juvenile’s address to a nearby children’s home, a care facility for local hard luck cases. I knew places like this, I used to visit them as a kid when the Social would take me away after my mum’s drunken rages. I’d never spend too long away from her though, just enough time for her to complete an addiction programme, get the care order revoked, and then the cycle would start all over again. But this isn’t about me. This is about a little boy called Mike Dunn who died and became a sicko’s murder puppet.
Mike was just shy of thirteen years old and had lived at the children’s home since his parents died in a car accident last winter, leaving him with no next of kin. It wasn’t clear whether we’d find Mike’s ghost at the home, but it was a good place to start. It was likely that whatever we encountered there would call for a certain degree of diplomacy though, a quality DCI Stronge wasn’t exactly noted for. While she is an expert at running down bad guys, Kat’s matter-of-fact, no-beating-around-the-bush approach to police work had a habit of putting people’s noses out. For that reason, it was begrudgingly agreed that Stronge be the “face” of this investigation, while I play her Cyrano.
The children’s home was about as miserable a place as you’d image. A joyless, armpit of a building full of second hand furniture and neglected people. A dumping ground for life’s unwanted things. Stronge approached the reception area with me by her side, invisible to the naked eye. She flashed her warrant card and told the portly caregiver manning the front desk that she had some information about a child in her care.
Together, the three of us went to a stuffy, grey back office, where Stronge gave the woman the bad news about Mike (leaving out the stuff about him laying his hands on a dagger and going all Mini Brute). Meanwhile, I worked alongside Stronge, cushioning her directness and injecting the proceedings with some much-needed tact. It was a heartbreaking conversation all the same, and the half box of balled up tissues it provoked left me with no doubt as to the caregiver’s innocence.
‘How long ago did you last see Mike?’ Stronge asked, handing the woman another Kleenex on my instruction.
‘Yesterday,’ she sniffed. ‘Around lunchtime.’ She explained that she’d asked another of the boys after Mike’s whereabouts that evening and been told he was staying with a friend. We learned later that the kid had been covering for Mike, and not for the first time, though the place he was vanishing to was a mystery.
I leaned across to Stronge. ‘Ask her what she can tell you about Mike. What kind of a kid was he?’
Stronge parrotted my words at her.
‘He’s—he was—a lovely little boy… especially given all the stuff he went through with his parents. Oh, God, it’s so sad...’
Stronge just sat there like some cyborg.
‘Show her some comfort,’ I said. ‘Put your arm around her. Tell her you’re sorry. Something!’
Stronge huffed and leaned over to place a hand on hers, just for a second. ‘There there,’ she said, doing her best impression of a human.
The caregiver smiled weakly through her tears. Once she’d finished sobbing, I gave Stronge her next cue. ‘Does she have any idea where he might have been going?’
She didn’t. ‘We’re understaffed here and underfunded. The best we can do is give these kids a roof over their heads and a couple of square meals a day. We can’t watch them twenty-four seven.’
‘Had Mike been showing any signs of distress?’ Stronge asked, unprompted.
‘He was a quiet boy, but yes, he did seem to take a turn a few weeks ago. I asked him about it at the time but he said nothing was wrong.’
Stronge was about to reply, but I cut her off. ‘Ask her if she knows what he was distressed about.’
Forgetting herself, Stronge turned and looked me right in the eye. ‘Why don’t you ask her your bloody self!’ she snapped, fed up of being the go-between.
The caregiver looked at her like she’d lost her mind. ‘Are you okay, Detective?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Stronge coughed, collecting herself. ‘Um. Mike. Do you know why he might have been distressed?’
‘I don’t know,’ the woman replied, still a little taken aback. ‘They get up to things on the outside. Sometimes they mix with bad elements. It’s hard to say.’
I was about to offer another prompt but the look on Stronge’s face told me not to bother.
‘Are there places he went that you do know about?’ Stronge asked. ‘A favourite hangout maybe?’
The caregiver thought on it. ‘Some of the boys liked to play at a scrap yard nearby. They weren’t supposed to, but they would anyway. That’s the only place I can think of.’
She gave Stronge the address.
‘I’ll check it out,’ I told Kat, and got a covert nod back from her.
‘Thank you,’ she told the caregiver. ‘A couple of my officers will want to interview the rest of your children, but you’ve been very helpful today.’ She put a comforting arm around her, finally. ‘We’re very sorry for your loss.’
13
While DCI Stronge checked out the address of the stab victim, I followed up at the scrap yard.
The lead took me to a patch of abandoned wasteland tucked behind the railway tracks running out of Chalk Farm Station. The area was enclosed by a high brick wall topped with barbed wire and broken glass. The chained side gate had fallen into disrepair though, and featured a hole that was easily large enough for a boy of Mike’s age to crawl through.
Inside, I found a locked porta cabin nestled among tottering piles of rusting cars. The bank had foreclosed on the yard years ago, so there was no one around to stop me giving the place a recce. I spent a few minutes exploring the area, until eventually I found something out of place. It’s a wonder I saw it among all the junk, but across the far side of the lot I found a looped scrap of leather curled up on the ground. Half of a belt, child-sized. I looked above where it lay and saw something hanging from the bumper of one of the stacked cars. Buckled to it was the other end of the belt.
‘Christ,’ I muttered, looking from the noose to the gibbet.
A voice came from behind me. ‘Who are you?’
I whirled around to see the ghost of a young boy. He wore a raw ligature mark around his neck and his face was streaked with tears. ‘Mike?’ I asked.
‘How do you know my name?’
‘It’s okay,’ I told him. ‘I’m here to help.’
‘He said the same thing,’ Mike replied. ‘The bad man. He said he wanted to help. Said he was my friend, but he was only pretending.’
‘Who was he?’
The boy cast his eyes to the ground.
‘That’s okay,’ I told him. ‘You don’t have to answer that. Would you tell me how you got here though?’
He stayed staring at his shoes.
‘My name’s Jake,’ I said. ‘I work with the police. That’s how I know your name.’
‘If you’re a policeman, where’s your badge?’
‘I don’t have a badge. I’m not a policeman, I’m a private detective.’
‘Like Sherlock?’ he asked, suddenly excited. ‘Like on the telly?’
‘Yeah, kind of. Except I’m not played by Bumblebee Cabbagepatch.’
He snorted; he was warming to me.
‘So, how did you wind up in this place?’ I asked. ‘The bad man you mentioned, did he bring you here?’
‘No!’ he replied, forcefully. ‘I… I came here to get away from him. For good.’ His eyes flicked to the belt in my hand. Jesus, he’d done this to himself. What had happened to make him want to do that I wondered, but I knew enough altar boys growing up to hazard a guess.
‘It’s okay,’ I told him. ‘And listen, you’re going to be alright, you hear me? No one can hurt you now.’
‘That’s because I’m dead, isn’t it? Like you.’
It’s hard enough explaining the facts of unlife to an adult, let alone to a kid of twelve years old, but I did what I had to do. ‘You’re going to be alright,’ I told him. ‘I’m on the case now.’
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