The Case of the Deadly Doppelgänger

by Lucy Banks

  Larry Higgins nodded. “Yes. Spoke to Baxter on the phone yesterday, he’s happy for us to go nosing through his entire home if we need to. You never know what we might uncover.” He looked at his watch, making sure to flash it deliberately in the direction of the others, presumably to emphasise that it was an expensive Rolex.

  “It’s getting on for quarter past,” he concluded. “I suggest we start heading over there now.”

  In a clutter of screeching wooden chairs, they manoeuvred awkwardly out of the small café into the rain.

  “No point getting back in the van,” Higgins shouted over the wind as he tugged his anorak hood over his balding head. “It’s only five minutes away.”

  “But it’s horrible weather!” Kester squeaked as he squinted down the narrow road. He could scarcely see ten metres in front of them. The mist had created a solid wall of white, only interrupted by the violent darts of rain.

  Higgins reached over, slapping him unnecessarily hard on the back. “You’re only a youngster,” he bellowed as he strode forward into the cold. “You need to stop moaning so much, young man!”

  And you need to stop being such an irritating old pillock, Kester thought, giving him a grim look, but followed nonetheless.

  As they emerged onto the promenade, the wind hit them with the force of a battering ram—a horrible wall of wet icy-coldness. They struggled along, following Higgins blindly as he marched ahead. After a few minutes, he disappeared down another narrow alleyway, and they sloped after him, desperate to get inside again.

  At last, they arrived at a small house with a dishevelled-looking front garden filled with over-stuffed wheelie bins, broken garden tools, and a few weathered garden gnomes. The modern façade, with its metal-poled porch, looked rather out of place amongst the surrounding fisherman’s cottages—like a mongrel at a pedigree dog show.

  “This’ll be the place then, right, boss?” Lara said as she peered sceptically upwards. Dimitri wrinkled his nose and shoved his hands deeper into his leather jacket pockets. Kester thought he looked rather like an angry eagle with his sharp features and overhanging brow; he could tell the Russian didn’t approve of this house or, indeed, the entire town.

  “Absolutely, this is the place,” Higgins confirmed and shook the rain off his hood. “Shall we?”

  “Anything to get out of this horrible weather,” Pamela said, prodding Larry Higgins in an over-familiar manner. Without waiting for a response, she pushed through the crooked garden gate and pressed the doorbell.

  A cheap mechanical doorbell chimed from somewhere within the house, and a few seconds later, the door inched open. Through the crack, a dark eye and wiry grey beard appeared.

  “I take it you’re the agency then?” Errol Baxter rumbled, arthritic fingers curling around the doorframe.

  “Yes sir, Larry Higgins’s Supernatural Services, that’s correct,” Higgins announced and patted himself on the chest.

  “Dr Ribero’s Agency of the Supernatural is here as well,” Miss Wellbeloved hastily added.

  The door opened fully, releasing a potent gust of scrambled eggs and burnt toast into the air.

  “You’d best come in then,” Mr Baxter muttered and gestured into the dingy hallway. “I’ve not tidied, so you’ve been warned.”

  I should say not, Kester thought. He surveyed the threadbare floral carpet, the nicotine-stained wallpaper, and the thick dust lacing the dado rails. It was a house that had given up and lost hope, eerily still and grimy, just waiting until the day its owner moved out and consigned it to demolition. He shivered. If he’d have been the more superstitious type, he would have said that the house had a bad atmosphere. Judging by the frowns on Pamela and Dimitri’s faces, their psychic powers were telling them the exact same thing. There was something that just felt very off about the place, a lingering millieu of airlessness and hostility that made him instantly want to turn around and go back to the van without looking back.

  “How does this work then?” Errol Baxter asked wearily. He crossed his arms over his shirt, which had faded in the wash to an unpleasantly dreary grey.

  “Well, for starters, a cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss,” Mike suggested.

  “Excuse me, I don’t believe Mr Baxter has offered you one!” Higgins hissed, cheeks reddening. “I do apologise, Mr Baxter—Mike has momentarily forgotten his manners.”

  Errol Baxter waved the comment away. “It’s not a problem,” he said, then without another word, lumbered towards the kitchen.

  “What?” Mike said defensively as he caught sight of Higgins’s glare. “I only asked for a cuppa.”

  “We’re here to work, not for a tea party!”

  “Jeez, calm down. It’s not as though I asked him for a three-course sit-down dinner, is it?”

  Miss Wellbeloved scowled, then pointed a warning finger at both of them. “No fights!” she hissed. “Let’s try to show some decorum in front of our clients, shall we?” Kester noticed with satisfaction that even Larry Higgins had the decency to look abashed.

  With a final warning glare, she strode down the hallway towards the kitchen, and the others followed, obedient as a line of lambs following their mother.

  The kitchen was no better than the front of the house. Kester couldn’t tell if the cupboards were meant to be beige or whether years of dirt had simply attached themselves to the formica surfaces. He noticed that several dead flies lay on the windowsill—their legs sticking plaintively into the air like minute twigs. Poor sods, he thought, looking around. It’s like a little graveyard for bugs.

  The kettle finished boiling, and Mr Baxter poured out some tea into several chipped mugs. Kester was handed one that said “World’s Best Grandad” on the side, and he sipped it tentatively, trying not to notice the slightly sour flavour.

  “So,” Mr Baxter began as he leant next to the sink and looked at them warily. “What exactly do you need to know then? I don’t understand how all of this works, you see. Before a few months ago, I didn’t even believe in any of this supernatural stuff.”

  “That’s only to be expected,” Miss Wellbeloved reassured him. “We can only imagine how hard the last few months have been for you, and we’d like to offer our condolences.”

  Mr Baxter sighed and gazed out of the window. “She was a good girl. A bit of a mouth on her at times. She’d let herself go a bit too. But she had a good heart. She didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

  Larry Higgins coughed pointedly. “Well, it’s all very straightforward,” he began, getting back to business. “Myself and Miss Littleton here would like to ask you a few questions, and if you’re happy for my colleagues to look around the house, that would be most appreciated.”

  Mr Baxter frowned. “I don’t mind, but I can’t imagine what you hope to find. Nothing’s changed since she was alive.”

  “We will be examining the residual energy,” Dimitri drawled and eyed the kitchen with obvious distaste.

  “The residual what? What the blazes does that mean?”

  Pamela bustled over to the sink. “Psychic energy, love,” she explained patiently. “Every creature, whether they’re a spirit or human, produces energy. This often stays in the atmosphere long after the creature in question has gone.”

  “Especially if it is bad,” Dimitri added severely.

  Pamela nodded. “That’s right. And Mr Baxter, I’m already picking up energy in this house, and plenty of it. That’ll give us an idea of what sort of spirit we’re dealing with.”

  “I looked it up online,” Mr Baxter said suddenly. “It was difficult, I’m none too good with this whole internet thing. Normally I ask my daughter to help, but obviously you’ve all told me I’m not allowed to tell anyone about this.”

  “What did you find online?” Kester asked, suddenly more interested. Research was definitely his thing, and he loved nothing more than nosing around on websites and in b
ooks, ferreting out useful information.

  “About doppelgängers. That’s what this ghost is, ain’t it? A doppelgänger?”

  “I can see you’ve done your homework well, Mr Baxter,” Miss Wellbeloved said approvingly. “We believe that you may be right. We believe your wife has been the victim of a doppelgänger, much like the other murdered people of Lyme Regis, and we’re going to do our best to stop it.”

  Mr Baxter spluttered on his tea. “Sounds a bit like a Sherlock Holmes story, doesn’t it?”

  Larry Higgins puffed out his chest. “And I like to model myself on the great Holmes,” he declared, smugness tugging at the corner of his lips. “I take great pride in my detective skills. That’s why I am where I am today, sir.”

  Mike coughed out something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like the word prat.

  “Dunno what I can tell you, really,” Mr Baxter said as he placed his mug down on the draining board. “I’ve not much recollection of it all, to be honest. Only her saying she could see herself. And me, having a strange feeling like she’d been taken or fetched by something. It was most queer, it really was.”

  “That’s strange, what do you mean?” Kester asked with a frown. That’s an odd choice of words, he thought. Why fetched?

  “Excuse me, it’s my responsibility to conduct the interview,” Higgins interrupted and shot Kester a hostile look. “Shall we commence, Mr Baxter?”

  Mr Baxter grimaced. “Very well,” he said. “Let’s get started. I’d like to get it over with as soon as possible, if you don’t mind. I don’t really like reliving it, to be honest.”

  “Understood,” Higgins concluded and gestured grandly towards the hallway. “Shall we have our little chat in the living room and leave my colleagues to conduct their investigations?”

  As soon as Higgins, Lara, and Mr Baxter had disappeared, Mike pulled out a battered box with some sort of copper funnel on the front from his rucksack. He waved it in the air. “I’ll get started then, shall I?”

  Miss Wellbeloved looked mildly embarrassed. “Mike, I hate to say it, but in this instance, I do rather agree with Larry. I fail to see what good a thermo-projector is going to do here, given that the murder took place so long ago.”

  Mike pursed his lips together, beard twitching with irritation. “Well, I’ve just got to do my best, haven’t I?” he muttered. “Given that the bloody frequency projector blew up.”

  “It looks like a sardine tin,” Dimitri observed, narrowing his dark eyes.

  “Well, it’s not,” Mike barked back. “It’s a highly sophisticated piece of equipment that I designed myself, thank you very much.”

  “It is . . . dented.”

  “No, it’s meant to be like that.”

  Serena sniggered. “Mike, that’s a lie. It’s because you dropped it on the floor a while back and haven’t bothered to hammer it back into shape yet.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t think I’d be needing it for a while, did I?”

  “No, thinking isn’t generally your specialism, is it?”

  “Why don’t you just do one, you smart-arsed little—”

  “Right!” Miss Wellbeloved clapped her hands decisively. “Enough chit-chat. Let’s get on with this. Pamela, Dimitri, do you want to carry on? Serena, you’re going to work on your own.”

  “But why?” Serena asked plaintively. “I’d be much better use with you guys, seeing what we can find.”

  “Absolutely not,” Miss Wellbeloved stated and waved a stern finger in the air. “You won’t be able to resist making sarcastic comments while Kester is trying to concentrate. And you’re definitely not going with Mike.”

  “Thank the lord for that,” Mike added.

  “Fine,” Serena said defiantly, placing her hands on her hips, black-clad legs wide apart. “I work better alone anyway.”

  Dimitri smiled. It was the first time Kester had seen him do so, and he couldn’t work out whether the gesture made him look debonair or even more sinister than usual. He glided out of the room, following Pamela, gaze still firmly fixed on Serena, who was completely oblivious.

  “Shall we?” Miss Wellbeloved suggested and smiled at Kester.

  “Lead the way,” Kester replied. They clambered up the narrow staircase, avoiding the bannisters, which were mottled with grime. The upstairs was even darker than below, with hardly any natural light entering through the narrow landing window. He peered into the nearest room, which happened to be the bathroom.

  “Bit of a pong,” he commented, nose wrinkling. The décor was classically 1970s in style, complete with pink toilet rug, plastic panelled bath, and knitted poodle over the toilet roll.

  “I don’t think we’ll find much in there, but we’ll check it out later,” Miss Wellbeloved replied. Mike whisked past them, thermo-projector suspended in the air.

  “Why are you starting in there?” Kester asked curiously. “There’s not likely to be any spirit activity to pick up on in the bathroom, is there?” Mike frowned, then waved them urgently out of the room.

  “I need the toilet, if you don’t mind,” he said and closed the door.

  Miss Wellbeloved sighed. “I do hope I don’t need to remind him to flush,” she muttered, massaging her brow.

  They went into the next room, which, judging by the generous dimensions, was clearly the master bedroom. Kester looked around with interest. So, this is where it happened, he thought, studying the bed. This is where Errol Baxter found her in the morning—dead.

  “It doesn’t feel right, does it?” Miss Wellbeloved whispered as she looked around. “I mean, I’m not a psychic, but even I can tell that this room doesn’t feel nice at all.”

  “I know what you mean,” Kester said with a shiver. The room felt bad, like a piece of food with mould growing insidiously around the edges. It had a deep, musty odour of fear—acrid and potent—that seeped out of the plywood fitted wardrobes and bamboo bedside tables. I can’t imagine how Mr Baxter still sleeps in this room, he thought with a shudder. It still reeks of death . . . and something worse.

  He walked over to the dressing table, peering out of the net curtains at the small garden below. It was wildly overgrown; a lone, naked fig tree was in one corner, and the flower bed was a mass of waist-high weeds. Kester tugged at the drawer tentatively, and it immediately slid open.

  Nothing of much interest, he thought, dimly aware of Miss Wellbeloved rooting around in the wardrobe behind him. He pulled out an old book. Mills and Boon, he read. The Highway Man’s Lover. The cover showed a scantily-clad, heaving-bosomed lady cowering beneath a man in a mask. Looks raunchy, he thought and placed it carefully back down. Not what I would have imagined an old dear to be reading.

  There were a few cosmetics in the drawer, though most looked well past their use-by-date. One lipstick was rusted down the side—orange copper showing through the plastic veneer. I didn’t even know they made metal-cased lipsticks anymore, Kester mused. It looks like it should be in a museum.

  “This is interesting,” Miss Wellbeloved murmured. Kester quickly looked around.

  “What have you found?”

  “Look at this for a collection.”

  Nestled at the bottom of the wardrobe, concealed by a thick winter coat hanging directly above, was a box, now lying open. Kester frowned, peering over his glasses.

  “Tarot cards?”

  “I know. A strange thing to have hidden in your wardrobe, don’t you think?” Miss Wellbeloved commented as she straightened her knees with an audible crack.

  “I’ll take a photo, shall I?” Kester offered. He whipped his mobile phone out.

  “Anything in the dressing table?”

  “Not much,” he replied with a shrug. “Only a saucy book and some ancient lipsticks.”

  Miss Wellbeloved smoothed a stray hair from her forehead. “Try the bedside tables.”

 
Kester got to work, but all he could find there was a Crunchie bar wrapper, some angina pills, an old Woman’s Own magazine, and another steamy novel. He paused, tugging at his collar. The room was stuffy, not to mention unpleasantly smelly, and it was making him light-headed.

  “How are you getting on?”

  Kester looked up quickly. Pamela and Dimitri stood at the doorway, both wearing matching expressions of concern.

  “We’ve not uncovered very much yet,” Miss Wellbeloved said as she dusted her hands off on her trousers. “I take it you’ve picked up quite a lot?”

  Pamela rubbed her eyes, wincing. “We certainly have,” she replied heavily. “To be honest, I’m not sure we can keep looking for too much longer. It’s a terrible energy, and it’s completely draining us both.”

  “This house has a very bad aura,” Dimitri added vehemently. “And I have been in some of the most haunted houses in Russia, so I should know. I am worried.”

  Miss Wellbeloved looked concerned. “That’s not good news,” she said. “I do hope we’re not in over our heads here.”

  “I am going outside to get some air,” Dimitri announced suddenly. Kester was shocked at how white his face was.

  “I’m going to join you,” Pamela said. “It’s this room. This room is the worst.”

  They lumbered out, and Kester turned to Miss Wellbeloved questioningly. She shrugged. “Let’s carry on,” she concluded simply.

  Kester crouched down by the bed, flinching at the sour smell of the bedsheets. He lifted the flowery divan, spotted the drawer handle, and pulled it open.

  Oh boy, he thought with an inward groan as he noticed all the loose papers piled up inside. There must be hundreds of bits of paperwork in here. “Fancy lending me a hand?” he called over his shoulder. “Otherwise it’ll take me all day to go through this stuff.”

  “Gosh, that’s a big pile, isn’t it?” Miss Wellbeloved muttered and crouched beside him. Although she was clearly as unsettled by the smell and the atmosphere as he was, he couldn’t help noticing that her grey eyes were sparkling with energy, her posture tense with excitement. She loves this, he realised. This is what she does. It’s her life. Her passion for the job injected him with renewed enthusiasm, and he shuffled over to allow her a better view.