The Case of the Green-Dressed Ghost

by Lucy Banks

  “Yes, make the most of it,” he said. “I’ve heard a storm’s on its way. By all accounts, it’s something of a doozy.”

  Pamela groaned, squashing herself into the narrow space between table and bench. “Oh typical. You never can rely on the English weather, can you?”

  “That you certainly cannot, madam,” the barman agreed solemnly. He saluted them, turning on his heel. “Let me know if you want anything else,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll leave you chaps to it.”

  Kester settled onto a narrow stool, enjoying the natural sun trap of the enclosed courtyard. Sparrows fluttered and chirruped within the ivy clinging to the red-brick walls, and somewhere in the distance, he could hear the melodic chiming of church bells. It was a pleasant spot, and he was tempted to shut his eyes for a while and enjoy the momentary peace.

  “Right, shall we get started then?” Miss Wellbeloved suggested, sipping at her glass of water. “I don’t want to take too long, I need to get home to bake a cake for my Art Appreciation Club.”

  “Perhaps it is best if we bring Kester up to speed first?” Dr Ribero said, winking at his son, who was presently fighting the urge to nod off. Kester quickly prodded his glasses up his nose and sat up straight.

  “There’s not that much to tell, is there?” Serena said. “It’s only the last visit he missed.”

  “I’ll fill him in,” Mike said, slamming his ale down on the blistered table top. “Right Kester, the main problems we’re facing are as follows. Are you ready?”

  “Oh yes, I’m ready,” Kester blustered, trying to look as professional as possible. “Do carry on.”

  “Problem one. The machine I’ve been working on to drag this Green Lady spirit out of the painting doesn’t work.”

  “Which comes as no surprise to anyone,” Serena added.

  “I’ll have you know,” Mike continued, raising a finger with totem-like authority, “that it’s nothing to do with my designs. My designs, as ever, are faultless. The problem lies with this bloody spirit. She’s somehow spread out across the canvas, so she’s not situated in one specific location.”

  Kester paused. “So,” he started slowly, trying to get his mind around the concept, “she’s all over the painting, rather than in one spot? How does that work?”

  Dr Ribero rapped his fingers on the table. “It is irregular. Normally, spirits need to remain in one piece, regardless of what object they’re living in. This one has unusual powers. It makes it virtually impossible to extract her in the usual way.”

  “Secondly,” Mike continued, after releasing a loud belch, “we’ve been asking Isabelle Diderot a few more questions, and it appears this spirit is rather indestructible. Not that we’d want to destroy it anyway, because we respect spirits,” he added, catching the steely glint in Miss Wellbeloved’s eye.

  “Why do you think the spirit is indestructible? Because that diary suggested that Emmeline managed to rip it to pieces and the spirit survived?” Kester guessed.

  “More than that,” Mike continued. “Quite frankly, from what we’ve learnt, it’s amazing Emmeline was able to destroy it, if indeed it was her and not someone else. Isabelle was telling us that every time she’s tried to damage the canvas, she’s been repelled.”

  “Repelled?”

  “Spirit repulsion is a common enough skill,” Serena added. “Certain types of spirit can exude an antiforce that can quite literally knock a human off their feet, if they’re powerful enough.”

  Kester scratched his head, fighting off a yawn. “Hang on a moment, an anti what?” His brain was struggling to cope after a long day travelling and a leisurely sit in the glorious sunshine. Heat and tiredness were not the best combination when concentration was required.

  “An antiforce,” Mike repeated. “If you understand magnetic forces, you’ll have a fair old idea of how spirit forces work. Humans naturally produce a certain kind of energy, and spirits can use negative energy to buffer them back—a bit like identical poles of two magnets, repelling each other.”

  “I see,” Kester said sagely, though he didn’t really.

  “So, in short,” Miss Wellbeloved concluded, “we have a spirit that we can’t get out of the painting, and who can actively repel us when we get too close. It’s a bit of a conundrum.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Kester asked.

  Dr Ribero slapped his thigh. “That is precisely where you come in, my boy!” He grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth. “We think you might be able to help us with your unique and special gift.”

  Serena tutted. Kester felt a little like tutting too. Not this again, he thought anxiously. I don’t even know how to make the door appear!

  “I think you’re pinning a bit too much hope on my limited ability,” he replied nervously.

  “I’ll say,” Serena muttered.

  Dr Ribero shrugged. “If you cannot do it, you cannot do it. We will understand. But at the moment, it is the only solution we can think of, yes? Otherwise, we have to hand the case over to another company.”

  “Like Larry Higgins,” Mike grumbled. “Or even worse, the big You-Know-Who.”

  “Oh dear,” Kester said. “Well, that wouldn’t be good, would it?”

  “No, it would not!” Dr Ribero said with sudden animation, rising from his seat in his excitement. “My boy, it would be a terrible thing, yes? Our reputation would be damaged!”

  “More than it is already,” Miss Wellbeloved added.

  “Christ, can you imagine,” Pamela said. “People thinking even less of us than they do now.”

  Dr Ribero glowered at the ladies, with all the imposing self-righteousness of a wronged man. “Exactly,” he continued. “This agency was going down the toilet, yes? But then Kester turns up. And suddenly, we have hope again. If he can open spirit doors, then this is something that even Infinite Enterprises cannot compete with, right?”

  “Right,” the rest of the group echoed.

  “But I’m not sure I can!” Kester protested. “Besides,” he added, “if you can’t even get the spirit out of the painting, how can you expect to get her through a spirit door?”

  Dr Ribero smacked the table, jiggling the glasses. “That is the beauty of it,” he said, pausing for dramatic effect. “Spirits cannot resist the lure of the spirit door. It calls to them, because it leads to their true home. It is a call they must obey, sooner or later, no matter how much they don’t want to. If you can hold the door open for a while, she will come out. She will have to.”

  Kester gulped. “But so far, I’ve only been able to see it for a few seconds at a time,” he said. “How can I make it stay there?”

  “Well, you just have to focus on not wetting yourself with fear or getting all aroused by a silly oil painting, that would be a good start,” Serena snapped, smoothing out her bob. She crossed her legs, pointing a pillar-box red stiletto directly at him, like an accusation. He tried to ignore the rather lovely shape of her exposed calf, settling his eyes on the wall instead.

  “Anyway,” Dr Ribero continued, “we are doing an observation tonight, so you will join us and then we will see what more we can learn. Is everyone still coming?”

  “As long as I get enough time to bake my cake,” Miss Wellbeloved said. “I promised the ladies I would. They’ll be most put out if they don’t get one.”

  “Yes, yes, enough with the cake,” Dr Ribero said. “I understand; cake is important to ladies. As long as everyone else is still okay with the time? Nine o’clock this evening, yes?”

  “Excuse me, what’s this observation?” Kester asked, stomach sinking. He suspected he knew already. It sounded uncannily as though they would be performing some sort of night vigil on the painting, which wasn’t exactly a prospect that filled him with delight. He was tired from his day, and wasn’t in the right frame of mind to cope with a haunted house, let alone a hostile spirit.r />
  “Haven’t we talked through observations with you yet?” Miss Wellbeloved said, folding up her blouse sleeves to get some respite from the heat. “I thought we mentioned it when we were working on the Japanese spirit the other day.”

  “No, not a word. I’m presuming it’s some sort of overnight thing, though?”

  “Yes, that is correct,” Dr Ribero interrupted. He finished his glass of Malbec with a flourish, then for some reason, positioned the empty glass directly over the hole in the centre of the table, where a sun parasol would normally stand. He’s a strange chap, Kester thought, watching as he moved the glass a millimetre to the left to ensure it was evenly positioned.

  “So, what do you observe then?” Kester asked reluctantly. What he really wanted to ask was, Do you really need me there? And, Can I go to bed instead? But he already knew what the response would be to those questions. Plus, he couldn’t tolerate the thought of Serena’s goading expression. He’d seen quite enough of her smug taunting already.

  “That is what we need to discuss,” Dr Ribero said. He finally let go of the glass, and pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, dabbing his forehead. “Mike, are you having another go with this new machine or not?”

  Mike shrugged. “I can give it another try, but I’m not convinced it’ll do much. I’ll bring along the interrupter though, that might be worth a shot. And the sonar emitter.”

  “Oh no, not the sonar emitter,” Pamela said with a groan. “That thing goes quite through my head.”

  Dr Ribero nodded. “Good. I’d recommend bringing whatever you can, Mike. Anything is worth a shot. Especially as we’re making no progress at the moment, yes?”

  “I’ve got a few ideas how we might get the spirit to communicate,” Miss Wellbeloved added. “A few might be a little radical, but I’m not too sure what other options we have.”

  “Sounds like it might be an interesting night,” Mike said with a grin. He leaned back, placing his hands behind his head. “Jennifer, bake an extra cake would you? You know I always get hungry on the night jobs. Just don’t stuff the cake with quinoa or chia seeds or any other weird health stuff.”

  “Well, it all depends if I get time.”

  “Oh, why not just pack a picnic basket and have done with it?” Serena snapped, exasperated.

  “That’s not a bad idea, actually.”

  “Er, do you really think you need me there?” Kester interrupted, growing more reluctant by the minute.

  “Yes, we do,” Dr Ribero said. He narrowed his eyes at his son. “How will you learn the tricks of the trade if you do not do the job, eh?”

  “Well, I’m not actually employed by you, am I?” Kester pointed out.

  Ribero considered. “I will get a contract created for you in the morning,” he said, pressing his finger on the table and wiggling it around for good measure. “How is that?”

  “Just go along with it, dear,” Pamela said, rubbing his arm. “You’ll soon get used to all the strangeness.”

  “I don’t know, I’ve been working with you for five years and I’m not used to it yet,” Serena said with a sarcastic snort.

  “Well,” Miss Wellbeloved said, raising her glass of water in mock salute. “Here’s to another adventure then. Let’s hope it’s not too turbulent a night.”

  Kester looked up at the sky, noticing the first faint cumulous clouds slipping slowly across the vast sea of blue. They were ominous grey, a sign of the storm to come. He hoped it wasn’t an omen.

  Chapter 10: The Observation

  Pamela pulled up outside the house just as the first raindrops started to fall. The handbrake shrieked, cutting through the quiet. Kester watched with dismay as the rain pebbled against the windscreen, leaving water trails down the dirty glass. He peered out the window at Isabelle Diderot’s front door. It appeared even more grim than before—a black, forbidding entrance that had more in common with a gothic castle than a Georgian-style property.

  “Do you think the weather’s a sign?” he said with a high-pitched giggle, which he hastily smoothed into a cough, hoping Pamela wouldn’t notice.

  Pamela laughed, pulling the door open. “Oh dear me, no. When you get to my age, you give up on fanciful notions like that. It’s just a bit of rain, that’s all. It might actually be a blessing, take the temperature down a little bit.”

  A vague, grumbling sound in the distance indicated that thunder was on its way. Kester frowned, opening the car door reluctantly. Could the weather make it any more like a horror film? he thought to himself, eyeing the darkening sky. The clouds glowered overhead, tumbling across the piercing moon.

  “Excellent night for ghost hunting, isn’t it?”

  Mike’s strident voice snapped Kester out of his daydream, and he turned, wincing. “I was just thinking the same thing,” he said, as the rain began to fall more heavily. He noted the kitbag by Mike’s side, bulging with equipment, and gulped. What the hell has he got in there?

  Dr Ribero, Miss Wellbeloved, and Serena emerged from behind the van. Miss Wellbeloved was clutching a tin, which he presumed contained a cake. He brightened, hoping it was something tasty like chocolate cake, and not something healthy which contained hemp or seeds.

  “Right,” announced Dr Ribero, shaking the rain off his luxuriant hair and holding aloft a key. “Let us proceed. Mrs Diderot has now vacated the house, so we shall be quite alone.”

  “Let’s do this!” Mike shouted, pumping his hand in mock salute. “If we don’t bag us a Green Lady ghost by sunrise, I’ll eat my cap.”

  “We better had,” Serena grumbled as they walked to the door. “I had to cancel a hot date tonight.”

  “Oh, was it with that nice young man again?” Pamela asked, stepping into the house, then shaking herself off like a sheepdog after a bath.

  “If you mean Gideon, yes it was.”

  Kester followed reluctantly. There were no lights on, and the long hallway, complete with its clinical black and white floor tiles, looked eerily like the entrance to a mental asylum. To his disappointment, things didn’t improve when Pamela switched on the lamp. The orange bulb cast an insipid glow, casting long shadows across the walls.

  “Oh, you’re not still seeing Gideon, are you?” Mike sneered. “Honestly, his name alone should speak volumes about what he’s like. Over-privileged toff.”

  Serena folded her arms. “For Christ’s sake, Mike. He went to a state school.”

  “Yeah, that’s what he says,” Mike retorted, dumping the bag. “But let’s face it, no kid called Gideon ever went to a state school ever. Plus, he’s an Oxbridge type, isn’t he?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being Oxbridge!” Kester piped up. Serena gave him a tight smile.

  “Mike doesn’t like intelligent people,” she explained, narrowing her eyes. “He only likes people he can talk to on his own, dim-witted level.”

  “Nah, I’m just not down with people who wear patent shoes and say ‘jolly good’ every five minutes.”

  “He only said that twice when you met him,” Serena retorted. “Three times at most.”

  “More like twenty or thirty times. It was every other bloody sentence. Even the cup of tea I gave him was jolly good, wasn’t it?”

  Serena growled, stalking off into the darkness of the living room. However, she emerged only a second later, looking worried.

  “Pamela, check it out in there,” she said in a low voice. “I could pick it up, and I’m not even a psychic.”

  Pamela nodded, looking around her. “I know; I was picking it up from outside. It’s not good, not good at all.” She scuttled into the living room, then emerged just as rapidly as Serena had done, shaking her head. “Oh dear,” she muttered. “Oh dearie me. Something tells me we’re not in for an easy ride tonight.”

  A loud creak silenced them. Before Kester could detect where the sound was coming from, the living ro
om door slammed shut with inhuman ferocity. He leapt back, pressing himself against the wall, mouth open.

  “Who did that?” he squeaked, his heart thumping against his ribs.

  “Who do you think?” Serena said.

  “But, I didn’t realise ghosts could do things like that!” Kester spluttered, looking around. “No one warned me that they did nasty things like slam doors!”

  “Ah, come on mate, it could be a lot worse,” Mike said, prising him from the wall. “It’s just her way of making sure we know she’s got a cob on. Typical woman.”

  The light in the lamp suddenly flickered, blinking haphazardly like an ineffectual lighthouse, before winking out entirely. They were left in darkness. Kester felt like crying. What have I let myself in for? he thought, feeling the contents of his stomach slosh around in a very unpleasant manner. I didn’t sign up for this when I agreed to come tonight!

  “Right, I’ll get the torches, shall I?” Mike said. Kester could just about see his silhouette, groping around in the bag at his feet. “Though she’d better not mess around with those, that could really put a dampener on things, couldn’t it?”

  “I’m not too happy at the messages I’m getting here,” Pamela hissed, a dislocated voice in the darkness.

  “I’m not too happy about them either!” Kester squawked in terror.

  “What are you worried about in particular, Pamela?” asked Dr Ribero.

  “I think we underestimated this spirit’s power,” Pamela replied. “I’m picking it up much more strongly now. She wants us to know she means business.”

  “Yeah, well we mean business too,” Serena said. “So this stroppy cow can sod right off. She’s already getting on my nerves and the night hasn’t even started yet.”

  “Serena, I would advise you to speak a little bit more carefully,” Miss Wellbeloved ordered. “We’ve already talked about this. You must leave your prejudices about spirits at home, regardless of your past experiences.”