by Lucy Banks
“Meredith?”
Thank goodness, it’s Frank, she realised, and let out a pitiful sob. Oh, thank the lord, he’s come. I’m going to be okay. She didn’t think she’d ever loved the sound of her husband’s voice more than she did at that moment.
“Frank, help me,” she choked whilst the creature whirred on: a shimmering, uncontrollable whirl of form. “Oh please, you’ve got to help me. There’s something terrible in here with me.”
The door-handle rattled urgently.
“I can’t get in. You’ve locked the door. What’s in there with you? What is it?”
“It’s me,” Meredith said weakly, momentarily hypnotised into quiet. “My god, it really is me.”
The creature had stopped whirring. Instead, its mouth began to gape, impossibly wide, and something began to crawl out. Something dark. Something oily and smoky. Something from an unimaginable, frightening place. It advanced towards her like a spider scuttling across the floor.
I NEED TO GO BACK HOME.
“I don’t know where your home is!” she whispered, frozen in horror. The thing pulsed towards her, then enveloped the bathroom in darkness.
She scrambled backwards, heedless of Frank’s increasingly panicked shouting. The handle rattled harder, and she dimly heard the crunching sound of her husband’s slipper-clad foot, desperately kicking at the door.
YOU’RE MINE.
“No,” she whispered. “You can’t have me.”
The last thing Meredith remembered was her foot as it slid wildly on the slippery tiles. The bathroom pitched upside down, a crazed montage of floral wallpaper, art nouveau prints, and finally, the vast ceramic underside of the toilet. Her skull cracked against the floor, as weak and vulnerable as a free-range egg.
The glass of orange juice fell from the side of the bath, spilling over her body. Shards of glass mingled with the dark blood and the juice, creating a mosaic of red and amber. The room dimmed.
And Meredith knew no more. Was no more.
Finally, the bathroom door flew open, hitting the wooden towel rack with the force of a steam train. Frank stood motionless in the doorway, kitchen knife suspended quivering above his head, and surveyed the scene. Water, juice, blood, and glass over the floor. A picture, flung at a wonky angle. And finally, his wife, naked on the floor, eyes open, staring into nothingness.
He glanced around, waiting for his conscious mind to catch up with the sensory evidence.
There was no one else in the room, just his wife.
His dead wife.
Frank began to scream.
Chapter 5: The Higgins
“So, just to clarify, you absolutely need me to come to this meeting?” Kester asked for the third time since they’d set off from Exeter to Southampton.
“For goodness’ sake, Kester. Yes, we do!” Miss Wellbeloved snapped as she checked herself in the mirror and patted down her hair. “Your father wanted you to be there so you could gain better understanding of the case. Now will you please stop asking?”
He sighed, fiddling with his tie. It was pink. He’d thought a bright colour might be a wise choice, to establish himself as a young, energetic member of the team, but now, he just felt slightly silly wearing it. In fact, the more he reviewed it, the more he realised that it was the sort of hideous item of clothing that someone like Pineapple would wear, not a sensible person such as himself. He glanced over at Mike, who was wearing an open-necked denim shirt and looked irritatingly, effortlessly comfortable.
“What are we going to say about Ribero, then?” Mike asked, as they pulled into the car park.
“Oh, I don’t know. We’ll just say he’s ill or something. It will all be absolutely fine,” Miss Wellbeloved said tightly. “Now let’s stop fussing and get on with this briefing. We’re already fifteen minutes late.”
Kester clambered awkwardly out of the van and surveyed the drab concrete offices in front of them.
“Doesn’t look like a supernatural agency,” he said, smoothing down his suit. “Looks more like an insurance company or something.”
“And what exactly is a supernatural agency supposed to look like?” Miss Wellbeloved asked pertly as she joined Kester and Mike on the tarmac.
“I think Kester still believes we should be working in a haunted house,” Mike answered before locking the van. “It’d be a lot more exciting, wouldn’t it?”
Miss Wellbeloved gave them a look that was reminiscent of a teacher surveying two particularly badly behaved children. “Come on, you two,” she said firmly. “Let’s hurry up and get this over with.”
Kester dutifully followed her as she strode through the entrance, her heels clipping against the pock-marked linoleum floor. Why he’d been chosen to be the third person attending the meeting, he didn’t know. Serena would have been far more qualified and, indeed, had been livid to discover that Ribero had chosen Kester instead. Even Pamela had offered to go in his place, but his father had been adamant that it had to be him, much to his dismay.
The corridor was strangely quiet with an uncomfortable airless atmosphere that made Kester feel instantly breathless. He tweaked his tie, wondering if he had time to whisk it off and stuff it into his pocket.
“Shall we?” Miss Wellbeloved said, gesturing to the door at the end of the corridor. A simple sign outside declared it was the Larry Higgins Agency, complete with copperplate writing and rather pompous gold edging. It was an ominous indication of what to expect inside.
They stepped into an office that looked even more remarkably like an insurance company than the exterior. Wooden desks and partitions lined both sides of the room in a showy display of productivity. The gentle hum of computer screens and central heating added to the general atmosphere of efficiency.
“Aha, glad you could finally join us. Took your time, but got here eventually, I see.”
The owner of the nasal, sarcastic voice stepped over to greet them, a rotund hippopotamus of a man, complete with wild tufts of balding white hair and a patronising expression. Kester bit back a chuckle. Mike was right, he really does look like Jabba the Hutt, he thought.
“Larry,” Miss Wellbeloved said smoothly, stepping forward to shake his hand. “It’s been a long time. I trust you are well?”
Larry Higgins smirked, then gestured around him. “Very well, as you can see,” he said. “The man from the government has already started briefing us, as you were so late. Shall we go and join the rest of the team?”
“Steady on, we’re only fifteen minutes late,” Mike said indignantly. “I drove as fast as I could.”
Higgins checked his watch, then nodded sanctimoniously. “Nearly nineteen minutes late, actually. But if you’re still driving that dreadful old van, it’s not surprising.”
“Well, let’s go and get started,” Miss Wellbeloved said hastily when she caught sight of Mike’s thunderous expression. “Lead the way, Larry.”
“Just one second,” Larry said, holding up an imperious hand. “Would you mind removing your shoes? We’ve just had the new carpets put down and they’re real sheep’s wool.”
“But your shoes are still on,” Mike pointed out.
“Yes, but mine have been thoroughly cleaned before entering the space,” Larry replied. “Whereas yours might have all sorts of unpleasant things stuck to the bottom, like dog mess or something.”
“I’ve not stepped in any bloody dog sh—”
“That will be fine,” Miss Wellbeloved interrupted as she removed her shoe in one deft flick. She nodded meaningfully at Kester’s shoes and gave him a subtle wink as she did so.
After they’d lined their shoes neatly by the wall, Higgins led them to the far end of the office, nudging them through a door. Inside, the blinds were drawn. Kester noted the other people in the room: a brooding man with shining, dark hair and a black woman with a fierce buzz-cut sat around an oversized circular tab
le. An older man, with spindly limbs that reminded him of a daddy-long-legs, stood by a glowing PowerPoint display.
“Ah, excellent!” the spindly man announced as they stepped into the room. “Marvellous that you could make it.”
“Mr Philpot,” Miss Wellbeloved said, then reached across to shake his hand. “It’s a pleasure to see you again after all this time. These are my colleagues, Kester and Mike.”
“Quite so, quite so. Kester, Mike; I’m Curtis Philpot. I work for the government—the Ministry of the Supernatural. I’ve heard an awful lot about you, Kester. I saw the video footage of you forcing the Bloody Mary through the spirit door. Very impressive.”
Kester blushed, aware of Larry Higgins’s contemptuous glare burrowing holes into his back. “Yes, well, it was only an accident really, I didn’t—” He stopped as Mike elbowed him in the ribcage.
“Of course.” The man nudged his glasses up his nose, then gestured to the empty seats. “Well, good to meet you. Shall we begin?”
“We’d actually begun fifteen minutes ago, but I suppose we’d better begin again, hadn’t we?” Higgins said with a sarcastic laugh before placing himself on the nearest chair, which wheezed under his weight. “Before we start, allow me to introduce my team here. They’ll be working with us on the case. This is Lara Littleton, my spirit extinguisher. Highly qualified. One of the best in the field.”
The woman with the close-cropped hair and the most spectacularly high cheekbones Kester had ever seen gave them a dazzling smile. Kester noticed that her sharp collar was trimmed with metal, like a cowboy’s shirt. Nice touch, he thought as he smiled in return. Indeed, it was impossible not to. Her huge grin insisted upon a response.
“Howdy,” she said, tapping her forehead. “Nice to meet you folks.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Mike replied, rather over-enthusiastically.
“And this,” Higgins continued, “is Dimitri Strang. He’s our resident psychic. Also highly adept at accountancy work.”
“Always a valuable skill when getting rid of spirits,” Mike muttered.
Dimitri folded his long fingers and bowed his head in greeting. He looked ever so slightly like a B-movie vampire: dark, ominous, and menacing. What has he got on his hair? Kester wondered as he eyed him with fascination. My father always uses way too much hair wax, but this guy looks like he’s dumped a whole pot of oil over his head. However, he conceded that the man was handsome, in a heavy-browed, humourless kind of way.
“Well, niceties over, shall we commence?” Curtis Philpot said after he tapped at his watch. “I’ve only got another half hour to spare, and this is a complex case.”
“Yes, let’s crack on, shall we?” said Higgins, leaning back in his seat like a languid walrus. “We’ve got plenty of work to be getting on with too. I presume time isn’t quite so pressing for you, is it Jennifer? Heard you were struggling to pick up any work at present.”
Miss Wellbeloved smiled tightly and shot Mike a warning look. “Indeed,” she said quietly. “Let’s get started.”
“Well, as I was just saying,” Philpot continued, “there have been some rather alarming developments.”
“Another old bird has been bumped off,” Higgins interrupted with a satisfied nod. “Her husband said he heard her saying she’d seen herself before she died, so it’s obviously the same spirit.”
Curtis Philpot coughed. “Yes, thank you, Larry. That’s absolutely correct. Mrs Meredith Saunders, to be precise. Lyme Regis again. She slipped and fell in the bathroom, and suffered fatal head injuries. As Larry just said, the husband reported hearing her saying that she could see herself. It correlates perfectly with the other cases.”
“How many victims so far?” Miss Wellbeloved asked, leaning forward.
“This one brings the total to five,” Philpot replied smoothly. “First incident was a Mr Earnest Sunningdale. We weren’t initially sure it was supernatural, especially given that his wife runs a business as a professional tarot-card reader down by the beach. She wasn’t exactly the most reliable eyewitness, if you take my meaning. Those charlatans are all the same.”
“What was in his wife’s report?” Dimitri Strang asked in a velvety Russian accent. He flashed a look at the others with dark, tunnel-like eyes, as though daring them to object to his question.
“She claimed that she heard her husband shouting that he was being haunted by himself shortly before he died.”
“And how did he die, exactly?” Miss Wellbeloved asked.
Curtis Philpot looked uncomfortable. “Nasty business, really,” he said, then glanced at the females in the room. “Hardly makes for pleasant conversation.”
“Oh, I reckon we can take it,” Lara Littleton said brightly. She had a deep, rich Texan accent, which explained the rancher-inspired clothing. “Hit us with the facts. After all, how are we going to get this son-of-a-bitch if we don’t know what it’s doing, eh?”
Mike chortled, clearly impressed.
Curtis Philpot pursed his lips. “Very well. The poor gentleman appeared to have tripped in his shed. Perhaps frightened into tripping over, we don’t know for sure. But anyway, he managed to fall upon his shears, which impaled him through the chest.”
“Ouch, that’s got to sting,” Mike declared.
“Quite,” Philpot concluded drolly. “Second victim, Mrs Edna Berry. Vicar’s wife. This was when we realised the case was supernatural. Again, her spouse reported hearing her say she was being haunted by a ‘devil pretending to be her’.”
“How did she snuff it?” Mike asked.
“She managed to hang herself when she was practicing bell-ringing in the church.”
“Is that even possible?” Miss Wellbeloved said sceptically, rapping her biro against the desk.
“Apparently, Mrs Berry used to practice the bell-ringing every evening. This time, something scared her enough to cause her to tangle herself in the ropes. She was hoisted up into the belfry, and by the time her husband reached her, she had already asphyxiated.”
“Jeez, what a way to go, eh?” Lara declared, then delivered a warm smile around the room as though discussing the weather. “Quite a dramatic exit for a vicar’s wife.”
“Third victim,” Philpot continued, ignoring their comments, “Dr Jürgen Kleinmann. Retired doctor, his wife heard him shouting in German, claiming his doppelgänger was pursuing him. He fell down the stairs and twisted his neck. And our fourth was a Mrs Deirdre Baxter. Found dead in her bed. Heart attack. Her husband said he’d heard her talking about seeing herself in the night.”
“So, it seems pretty clear-cut then,” Larry Higgins interrupted and pummelled his fist against the table. “We’ve got a dangerous doppelgänger on our hands.”
“Something like that,” Philpot concluded. “However, this case has been raised to high priority, given how frequently the spirit is striking. It needs to be dealt with speedily, efficiently, and effectively. There’s no room for errors.”
Higgins shot a look at Miss Wellbeloved. “Think you lot can manage that, Jennifer?”
Miss Wellbeloved straightened in her seat. “I see absolutely no reason why not,” she replied sharply. “The question is, can you, Larry? After all, this isn’t your region. You don’t know the area as well as we do.”
“Ah, come now, Jennifer,” Higgins said patronisingly, eyes gleaming. “A spirit is a spirit, whichever part of the world it chooses to haunt. The question is, are you still using water bottles to trap them?”
Dimitri and Lara both raised an eyebrow.
“We are using an effective form of spirit storage,” Mike interrupted, folding his arms across his chest. “I don’t see why you felt the need to raise that, to be honest.”
“Well, I personally prefer using my bottle of water to drink from, not to contain potentially murderous spirits,” Higgins replied, clearly enjoying every minute of the conversation. �
��But each to their own. Hopefully one day you’ll be able to afford some proper equipment. For this job, you’re welcome to borrow ours. It’s state-of-the-art, of course. Designed by the top developers at Infinite Enterprises.”
Mike muttered something under his breath which contained a rather audible expletive. Miss Wellbeloved shook her head, silently warning him to keep his cool.
Curtis Philpot tapped at his laptop, and at once, the PowerPoint display changed to an image of a map.
“These red crosses,” he said, pointing earnestly, “are the locations of the deaths. As you can see, they’re all contained within a two-mile radius. This might be worth keeping in mind when you’re investigating.”
“That is curious,” Kester said as he studied the map. “I wonder why that area in particular? And why only old people? Why does this spirit strike in Lyme Regis and nowhere else? It’s a bit odd.”
“Does it matter?” Higgins scoffed. “At the end of the day, it’s a problem, and we need to get rid of it. It’s not going to benefit us much to start digging too deeply.”
“Sometimes it’s worthwhile trying to understand why a spirit is acting in a certain way,” Miss Wellbeloved said dryly. “If we can work out why the spirit is behaving in this manner, it may help us to address the problem.”
“Is that the way you normally go about solving your cases?” Larry Higgins mocked. “No wonder you take so long. We prefer to get the job done, with minimal time wasted.”
“We prefer to understand each case, rather than blundering in blindly like a stampeding elephant,” Mike retorted. Lara tittered, then stopped at the sight of Larry Higgins’s expression.
Curtis Philpot coughed loudly. “I do hope there’s no animosity between the agencies?”
“Goodness me, no,” Miss Wellbeloved exclaimed with just a fraction too much sincerity. Higgins snorted disdainfully and made no comment.
“Very well.” Philpot rummaged in his briefcase before pulling out two enormous folders and slamming them on the table. “Here’s the case notes. I suggest you all acquaint yourselves thoroughly with them before commencing.” He straightened his tie, then scanned the room severely. “Now, we’ve set a provisional deadline for the case as the fifteenth of January. This gives you precisely two months. Does that sound about right?”
