The Man in Black: A Gothic Romance (Crookshollow Ghosts)

by Steffanie Holmes

  Helen peered down at the crumpled paper. “What is that?”

  “It’s your ticket stub from the last London Ghost Symphony show,” Elinor tapped the tiny square. “See? You wrote your phone number on the corner there.”

  Helen looked at Elinor with wide eyes. “Where—where did you get that? I thought I’d given it away.”

  “It was on the side of the road,” said Elinor, her voice firm. She took a step toward Helen, her body language suddenly transforming from helpful and friendly to imposing and confrontational. That must be a skill they teach you in Lawyer School. “Right next to Eric’s dead body.”

  No, Elinor, no. This was idiotic. Judging by her outfit alone, this girl was clearly insane. Panic rose in my stomach. What could I do? I couldn’t warn Elinor—it was far too late for that. I couldn’t call for help or attack Helen in my current state. Maybe I’ll turn solid again … any moment now … please … I’ve never wished for a solid form as much as I have at this moment … please ….

  “But … that doesn’t make any sense.” Helen backed up against the wall, staring at Elinor with wide eyes. “How did it end up there? How did Eric get this? He was already gone when ...”

  “You know how he got it. You had it on you, right before you killed him. Perhaps you tried to give it to him, and when he wouldn’t take it, you went after him in your car and ran him off the road. Is that how it happened?”

  “What are you talking about? Are you saying I killed Eric?” Helen’s eyes filled with tears. She held up her hands in mock surrender. “I would never do that. I loved him! He meant everything to me!”

  “But you didn’t mean anything to him, did you, Helen?”

  “What are you talking about? We were friends—” Helen’s voice rose a register. She backed right up against the wall and started to slide down it, as if she wanted to curl up into as tiny a ball as possible.

  “He didn’t even know who you were! He didn’t even read your letters! He rejected you, Helen. And you couldn’t take it any more.” Elinor towered over the shaking girl. My heart pounded faster. Don’t provoke her, Elinor! She’s already killed someone. You don’t know what she’s capable of doing here.

  “That’s not true!” Helen sobbed. Her hand reached across the vanity unit, searching for something to hold onto. A weapon?

  “It is true. I’ve read the letters, Helen. I’ve seen the vial of blood. I know you threatened to kill him. You even explicitly detailed how you’d most like to do it. And then Eric shows up dead, with your ticket stub and your phone number beside the body.” Elinor took another step toward Helen. She was so close now that she could reach down and grab the girl. “But luckily, I’m not the police. I haven’t yet gone to them with what I know, and I don’t intend to, as long as you co-operate with me. What I’m looking for now is a confession.”

  “I didn’t do it!”

  “I’m a lawyer. I can help you. I want to help you. But in order to do that, I need to know the truth. You killed Eric, didn’t you?”

  “No!” Helen screamed. She smashed her fist into the mirror. Glass flew everywhere, showering both girls in sharp, twinkling shards. Elinor was caught off guard. She stumbled back, her hands holding up her skirts away from the glass. Helen dropped to her knees and grabbed a large shard. Her face twisted with rage and pain.

  Elinor backed up again. “Helen—” she started to say, but Helen let out a sound that wasn’t quite human—partway between a growl and a screech—and lunged.

  I saw that shard aimed at Elinor’s throat. The whole world moved in slow-motion. I leapt out of the washing basket, and sailed across the room, not sure what I intended to do in my ghostly state, but just knowing I had to save Elinor.

  Helen registered my presence. Her whole face crumpled with fear, but she already had momentum going, so she continued to sail toward Elinor with that sharp shard held high. I crashed into her, pinning her back against the tile wall, my hand clamped around her throat.

  “You’re dead!” Helen cried, her eyes wide with terror. “You—you’re outside in a coffin right now!”

  “Eric!” Elinor sobbed. Her hand clamped down on my shoulder, the heat of her touch searing my skin. “Don’t hurt her. We can’t prosecute her if she’s dead.”

  “I’m not sure if I care,” I snarled into the face of the gibbering, terrified girl. “She robbed me of my life. Why should I not take hers in return?”

  “I didn’t do it!” she sobbed. “I swear!”

  “Then explain the ticket.” Elinor said sternly. “How come Eric had the ticket with your phone number on it?”

  “Eric couldn’t have had it, because I never gave it to him! He’d already left the venue by the time I got backstage. I went into the dressing room looking for him, and I ended up talking with Allan. He wasn’t you, but …” she closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, I betrayed you.”

  “You … betrayed me?” I loosened my grip slightly. That niggling feeling in the back of my mind had returned. Helen’s behaviour, some of the things she’d said … it just wasn’t adding up to murderer in my head.

  “I slept with Allan,” she whispered, her eyes pleading with me. “I’m so sorry, Eric. I wanted you! Really, I did. But he was there and you weren’t and he was nice to me and so we fucked in the back of his car after the show. I gave him my number, and he said he’d call me again, but he never did. I’m so sorry. I figured if I couldn’t have you, he was a pretty good second choice.”

  Behind me, I heard Elinor gasp. “Oh, no.” she whispered, her hands shaking.

  “What?” I asked, and then the truth hit me like a freight train.

  Allan had Helen’s number. And the number had been on the road beside my body.

  Allan had been at the scene of my murder.

  Helen sobbed louder, struggling feebly against my grip. “Are you telling the truth?” I growled, pulling her up the wall by her dress. “Because if you lie to me, I will haunt your arse so bad, you’ll wish to be rescued by Freddy fucking Krueger.”

  “I swear that’s what happened. We went to Allan’s car because there were a ton of people in the dressing rooms still and he said it was a security risk to go back to their hotel room. We were going to smoke a pipe afterward, but then this bouncer was knocking on the window waving a violin around saying Eric had taken off with the case, whatever that meant. Then Allan started cursing. He was yelling at the bouncer, ‘where the fuck has he gone?’ I said that you were probably in Crookshollow because your mother was sick. That’s true, right? It was in the fan newsletter.”

  “Come on, then what happened?”

  “Then Allan shoved me out the car door—I didn’t even get a chance to find my shoes from under his seat—and he sped off.” Helen gulped back her tears. “I went home after that, and the next day I heard you were dead. I didn’t see Allan again until he showed up here, with her.”

  “Oh my God, Eric.” Elinor moaned.

  I relaxed my grip on Helen. She sank to her knees, clutching her neck and crying softly.

  The hot hand on my shoulder pulled me around. There was Elinor, looking frightened and shaken in her beautiful dress. She gazed up at me with wide eyes, as if begging me to say it wasn’t true. But I could see that her brain was ticking away, working through all the evidence we had collected, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together in a different way.

  “I just … I don’t understand,” I said. My voice sounded hollow. Allan was my oldest and closest friend. We’d been playing music together for ten years. He was goofy and wild, and he loved to party. He also loved spicy Indian food, Ancient Greek philosophy, and Hobnobs. We’d had fights, sure, but he’d never given any indication that he was anything other than completely devoted to me and the band. So how could … what had …

  “He’s been playing me this whole time,” Elinor said, and she was looking at me with a strange, faltering expression.

  “He’s been playing all of us,” I growled. My stomach twisted. I felt ill, which was a stran
ge thing for a ghost to feel. My closest friend … how could he?

  “We have to go to the police with this,” Elinor said. She whirled around and addressed Helen. “This is bigger than just Eric’s murder, much bigger. Will you make a statement to the police? Will you say exactly what you just told me?”

  Helen nodded miserably. “Anything …” she said. And to me, “Are you a zombie?”

  “Not quite, honey.” Elinor gave her a sad smile, then turned back to me. I could see that brain of hers turning over, figuring out what we had to do. “OK. This is OK. Allan doesn’t know about the ticket, so he can’t suspect I’m onto him yet. We just need to get through this funeral, and then we’ll go to the police. We’ll get him, Eric, I promise.”

  Her lip quivered. She was trying to put on a brave face, but she was scared. I was scared too, but not for myself. The idea of her going out to sit next to my murderer terrified me more than anything I’d ever imagined. I linked my hand in hers. “You don’t have to go out there, you know.”

  “Yes, I do.” Elinor breathed, moving closer to me. The heat of her body swirled around me. “Eric …”

  “What?”

  “Before I go back out there to sit next to Allan and pretend that I don’t know what he did, I have to know. It’s total honesty time—did you have anything to do with the drugs?”

  “I swear on the grave of Edgar Allan Poe that they were not mine,” I said. “My life is fucked up enough as it is, without adding drugs to the mix.”

  Elinor took a deep breath, her eyes narrowing. I thought for one horrifying moment she didn’t believe me, that she was going to slap me and run away again. But then she exhaled, her whole body relaxing against me. “OK, then.”

  “Do you believe me?”

  She gave me a sad smile. “Dead men tell no lies, right?”

  “Exactly. Now, please don’t go out there.”

  “I have no choice, Eric. You’re a ghost, and I have to go out there and pretend that everything is OK so that Allan and whoever else is involved don’t try to skip the country. But don’t worry, I will be looking for evidence, something we can really nail Allan with. We’ve got a case full of drugs and the ticket, but it might not be enough to convince the police, or a jury. Especially since Allan is rich and is going to get a real shark of a lawyer.” Elinor laughed bitterly. “Hell, he could probably even afford to hire my dad.”

  “Can’t I just wring his neck until he’s dead, and then kick his arse here in the spirit world?”

  “There’s not going to be any more death, and that’s final.” Elinor gave me a weak smile. She squeezed my shoulder, and the touch sent a burst of heat through my body. I had missed her. “Let me solve this my way. The legal way.”

  “If you insist. But I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I. Hey, how did you get past the salt trails, anyway?” She asked.

  “You didn’t put any salt on the ceiling.”

  “Ah, touché, Mr. Marshell.”

  “So what am I going to do?”

  “Go back upstairs and watch the rest of the funeral. Keep your eyes on Allan. Maybe you’ll notice something I don’t.” Elinor dropped her grip on my shoulder. She turned away from me and started to fix her dress, pulling the top of the corset up and rearranging her breasts. I couldn’t help but grin.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, swatting my arm. “Eric, this is serious.”

  “I know. But it doesn’t change the fact that you look hot as fuck in that dress.”

  A blush crept up Elinor’s cheeks, but she didn’t acknowledge my statement. Instead, she turned to the whimpering girl slumped against the closed door, and held out her hand. “Come on, Helen. We’ve got to get back out there. You need to clean yourself up, and get some colour back into your cheeks. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Elinor

  By the time I returned to my seat, Duncan was giving the closing remarks of the second part of his long, adulating eulogy to Alice Marshell. Allan stood up as I sat down, pulling a square of paper from his pocket and unfolding it nervously. “I don’t know why you were gone so long. It’s been painful without you, but I’m glad you’re here now. Wish me luck,” he said, touching my arm. It was all I could do not to flinch away in disgust.

  “Where are you going?” I didn’t want to let him out of my sight.

  “I’ve giving Eric’s eulogy, of course.” Allan said, looking at me strangely. “I’m one of his closest friends. I couldn’t get away without saying something.”

  Panic seized me. I thought of Eric upstairs in the attic, listening to the man who took his life talking about their lives together. “Are you sure you’re going to be OK?” I asked him. “You’re so upset about Eric’s death, maybe you should leave the eulogy to someone else? The bassist what's-his-name is over there. Maybe you should let him do it? Or I’ll do it, if you want me to.”

  Allan gave me a sad smile. “You’re sweet. But it’s a bit late now. I’ll struggle on somehow. Besides, I don’t have to use many words.”

  Before I could stop him, Allan pushed passed me and approached the stage, just as Duncan finished speaking and walked offstage to a smattering of applause. As soon as Allan stepped in front of the microphone, the whole crowd stood up and applauded. At the back of the room, the fans with the cheaper tickets hooted and hollered. I clapped politely, my heart hammering against my chest as I thought of Eric up in the attic, having to listen to this.

  The applause went on for so long, Allan had to raise his hands to call for silence. “Hi everyone, I’m Allan Lachlan, the drummer in Ghost Symphony, and Eric’s closest friend. I’m supposed to be standing here today to talk about Eric’s life and the great contribution his music has made to the world. I am not much of a speaker, and even less of a speechwriter,” he paused while the audience laughed. “But I wanted to do something to honour this remarkable man. But every time I tried to think of the words, nothing sounded right. I realised that’s because Eric didn’t live in the world of words, not really. He communicated through his music, and so I thought a fitting tribute to him would be to perform a little music of our own.” Allan leaned toward the back of the stage, and pulled out a small violin that was stashed there.

  “I’m no expert on this instrument. Eric has taught me a little of the violin over the years, and the rest I’ve picked up through watching him at work. I thought it would be appropriate to play something for him today. This was the last song Eric ever wrote with the band before he died, and although he never titled it, we’re calling it “Beautiful Mourning”. We’re going to released it in his honour. I hope you enjoy it.” Allan nodded off stage, and the other members of the band sauntered on, their instruments in hand. The applause grew into a roar.

  The bassist drew the bow across his double bass, and a slow, haunting melody filled the marquee. Next came the guitar, filling out the sound with rich harmony. Then came the bass guitar, deep and powerful, like a thunderstorm rolling in from the hills. Allan stood under the spotlight at the front of the stage, his face bathed in shadow as he rested the violin against his neck, waiting for his cue.

  I recognised the song instantly. It was the song Eric wrote for his father. The song the band had started to record, but decided to leave off the album. The song Eric said was the greatest thing he’d ever written. And here was Allan, previewing it for the world, taking from Eric the last legacy he had to give.

  My blood boiled at Allan’s audacity. I glanced around to see if anyone else thought it was horrible, but the crowd was completely caught up in the announcement. They were cheering and clapping louder than ever. Of course. This is a great moment for fans of Ghost Symphony. Never mind that Eric is dead. They’re getting a new song, so everything is OK. Near the front in the press pit cameras snapped away, and a TV camera wheeled across the front of the stage as Allan placed the bow against the strings and struck his first note.

  A familiar melody loomed over the marquee, the notes hanging in the air
before raining down upon the waiting crowd. But where Eric’s version sounded melancholy, Allan’s was grim, foreboding. He strode across the stage as if it were an arena show, not the small stage in front of the coffin of his friend and his mother. I stood awkwardly as the crowd swayed and shifted around me, clutching my arms across my chest as the anger swelled up inside me, threatening to bubble over. I glanced up at the attic windows, but I couldn’t see inside. Was Eric there? Was he listening to this?

  Eric, if you can hear me, I’m so, so sorry. We will get him for this. I promise we will.

  I focused my attention on Allan, watching his performance for any hint, any clue that might give me what I needed to nail him for his crimes. Something struck me as odd. The violin in Allan’s arms looked awfully familiar. It had a plain wooden body, covered in dents and scratches. In the bottom corner the varnish had been rubbed off.

  It was Eric’s violin. Not Tristan, the violin that Bianca had seen on Ebay only two days before, but Isolde—the violin Eric inherited from his father. Allan had Eric’s violin.

  The rage inside me rose to my throat, closing it tight. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. All I saw was red. Allan pranced through the band, leaning in toward the guitarists as his fingers flew over the strings. He knelt down at the front of the stage, leaning out to play close in to the fans crowded against the barrier. He’s acting like he’s the frontman of the band.

  I heard something else, stray notes rising above Ghost Symphony’s sound, as if they floated in the air itself.

  A second violin joined Allan’s. It played the same melody, but added flourishes and syncopation, creating a sweeping, intense experience that far surpassed Allan’s poor attempt at emotional string-pulling.

  My eyes swept across the stage, but I couldn’t see any other musicians making an entrance. My gaze swept back to the house, and sure enough, through the open attic window I could just see the shadow of him, my man in black, his head bent down and his instrument pressed tight against his neck as he played with everything he had.