Witch Is Why Two Became One (A Witch P.I. Mystery Book 16)

by Adele Abbott

  I hurried back to the office, collected my change of clothes, and then walked through to I-Sweat. I flashed my free pass at the young woman on reception, and made straight for the changing rooms.

  The shower was just what the doctor ordered. By the time I came out, I felt completely refreshed. I quickly got dressed, and had just stepped out of the changing room when someone called to me.

  “Jill?” It was Gavin, the instructor who had taken me through my paces on my first visit. “I didn’t see you inside?”

  “Err—no—I—was going to come in for a session, but then I got a phone call from home. I need to go.”

  He glanced at my wet hair.

  “I got caught in a downpour earlier.”

  “Oh?” He looked understandably confused. The only rain in Washbridge that day had been from the cloud I’d magicked up to extinguish the dragon’s flame. “Well, I hope it won’t be long before we see you again, Jill.”

  “I’ll do my best. Bye.”

  Gavin was a really good-looking guy, and unless I was mistaken, he was sweet on me.

  What? Who are you calling a sad, deluded fool?

  ***

  When I walked into the house, I heard voices coming from the lounge. One of them was Jack, but I didn’t recognise the other man’s voice. There were no cars parked on the driveway, so who could it be?

  The lounge door opened, and Jack appeared.

  “Jill. Come and meet our new neighbour, Mr Kilbride.”

  To my horror, sitting on the sofa, was none other than the witchfinder. He gave me one of the creepiest smiles I’d ever seen in my life.

  “Very pleased to meet you.” He stood up and extended his hand. “Do call me Rory.”

  The man had an unusual accent, and mumbled badly. I could barely make out what he was saying.

  “Sorry? I didn’t quite catch your name.”

  “Rory.”

  I hesitated, but then shook his hand. His grip was exceedingly strong. So strong that it hurt my fingers, and caused me to pull away.

  “I’m so sorry.” He didn’t look it. “I sometimes forget my own strength.”

  Why had Jack let this monster into the house? But of course, Jack had no idea that this man meant to kill me.

  “I saw Rory standing on the front,” Jack said. “So, I asked him over.”

  Great! “I assume you’re not a local, Rory?”

  “No. I’ve only just moved down here from Scotland for work.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m in the occult business.”

  Occult? I felt a shiver run through my body. I just wanted this man out of my house. Fortunately, he must have read my mind.

  “I can’t stay.” He started for the door. “I have important matters to attend to. Thank you again for the drink, Jack.” He turned to me. “Very nice to meet you, Jill. I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon. Very soon.”

  Jack showed him to the door.

  “You were a bit cold with him, weren’t you?” Jack said when he came back into the lounge.

  “He gives me the creeps.”

  ***

  The nerve of the man. How dare Mr Rory Kilbride wheedle his way into my house, sit on my sofa, and drink my coffee, while all the time contemplating how he was going to kill me and Grandma. I had to put a stop to this, but first I would have to get hold of some Brewflower.

  “We should have an early night,” Jack suggested at nine-thirty.

  “I’m always up for an early night.” I flashed him my sexy smile.

  What? I can do sexy when I want to.

  “I meant so that we’d be refreshed for the big day, tomorrow.”

  Big day? Oh no! I’d blanked it out of my mind. The Washbridge social event of the year: Deli and Nails’ wedding.

  “Still if you’re feeling frisky?” He grinned.

  “I’m not now.” The thought of the wedding had put a real damper on my ardour.

  “So, are you coming up?”

  “Not yet. I’ll be up in a while.”

  “Okay.” He gave me a peck on the lips, and then disappeared upstairs.

  It was an hour later, after I’d seen the lights go out in the witchfinder’s house, that I went to bed.

  ***

  I woke suddenly, and sat up in bed. A noise had disturbed me, or had it been a dream? I checked the alarm clock; it was one o’clock. Jack was still fast asleep. Then, I heard it again. There was someone outside, at the front of the house.

  I slipped quietly out of bed, threw on jeans and a T-shirt, and crept downstairs. I couldn’t see anyone through the front window, so I listened again.

  Footsteps!

  It had to be the witchfinder—come to get me. My only chance was to get in first, and catch him off-guard. I had no idea what magic, if any, would work on him, but anything was better than sitting around, waiting for him to pounce.

  I let myself quietly out of the front door. There were sounds coming from Megan’s driveway—someone was standing behind her van—I could see their feet. This was it. It was him or me—a battle to the death.

  “Kathy?”

  She almost jumped out of her skin. “Jill? You scared me to death.”

  “What are you doing here at this time of night,” I said, in a whisper.

  She had a paintbrush in one hand and a pot of white paint in the other.

  “Nothing?” Kathy shrugged, all innocent like.

  And then I saw it. Kathy had painted over Megan’s picture on the side of the van.

  “What have you done, Kathy? You’ll get arrested.”

  “I don’t care. She’s now taken ten of Pete’s customers, and he isn’t doing anything about it. I’m not going to sit around and wait for her to take the rest of them.” Kathy tried to pull away, but I kept hold of her arm.

  “I’ll have a word with Megan, and explain that she’s affecting Peter’s business. I’m sure once she’s made aware of the situation, she’ll stop.”

  “You have more faith in her than I do. I doubt she’ll care.”

  “You have to at least give her a chance. If the police get involved, that will be even worse for Peter’s business.”

  “It’s too late now. It’s already done.”

  “It isn’t too late. I can still make this right.”

  “How? Look!” She pointed at her handiwork.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll sort it.” The ‘take-it-back’ spell would put it back to how it was, but I had to get rid of Kathy first. “Give me those.” I snatched the paintbrush and paint tin from her. “Now get going before someone sees us.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Now go!”

  I watched her walk away. Her car was parked a few doors down. As soon as she was inside it, I would cast the spell, and everything would be okay.

  “Jill?”

  “Megan? Hi.”

  She stared at the van, and then at the paintbrush and paint tin in my hands.

  “I can explain. It isn’t what it looks like.”

  Megan had disappeared into the house and slammed the door closed before I had chance to cast the ‘forget’ spell.

  Oh bum!

  Chapter 15

  As soon as I woke up, I remembered what had happened the previous night. After Megan had rushed back into the house, I’d hung around in case she came out again, but she was obviously too freaked out. I’d half expected the police to come knocking at the door, but thankfully they hadn’t. Yet.

  How was I supposed to talk my way out of this one? There had been no point in using the ‘take-it-back’ spell because she’d already seen the damage. How would I ever make this right? What would I do if Megan told Jack? Or if the police came calling? Kathy had a lot to answer for.

  And as if that wasn’t bad enough, it was the day I’d been dreading for weeks: Deli and Nails’ wedding. Why had we agreed to go? The answer to that was very simple: Jack had insisted on it because he wanted to meet more o
f my friends.

  The guilty party was still asleep, so I slipped downstairs, and prepared a full English breakfast for him. Only when it was ready, did I call him to come down.

  “Morning,” he mumbled; his eyes were barely open. “Something smells nice.”

  “Take a seat before you fall down, Jack.” I put his breakfast on the table in front of him.

  “What’s this?” He looked a little more awake now.

  “What do you think it is? I’ve made breakfast for you.” I joined him at the table.

  “What have you done this time, Jill?” He took a bite of his sausage.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve either done something, or you want something. Why else would you have made me a full English?”

  “Well, there’s gratitude for you. I go to all the trouble of getting up early, and making you a full English breakfast, and you accuse me of ulterior motives.”

  “So, which is it? Have you done something, or do you want something?”

  “Neither. And I’m disappointed that you would think that was my motive. But—”

  “I knew it.” He took a bite of the fried bread.

  “I was just going to suggest that maybe we should give the wedding a miss?”

  “I should have known. There had to be a reason for you to have gone to all this trouble.”

  “I don’t know how you can even suggest that. The two things are totally unrelated.”

  “Don’t give me that. You thought if you made breakfast for me that I’d agree to forget about the wedding, didn’t you?”

  “It’s going to be terrible, Jack. You have no idea just how terrible.”

  “We’ve already accepted the invite, so we can hardly stay away now, can we?”

  “Of course we can. They’ll never notice if we don’t turn up.”

  “We’re going, and that’s final.”

  I stood up. “You can wash the dishes!”

  Two hours later, and I’d still been unable to convince Jack of the folly of attending this awful wedding. We were both dressed to the nines, waiting for the taxi to pick us up. I’d wanted to drive, but Jack had insisted we take a taxi so we could both have a drink. He was right; I was certainly going to need a few drinks to get me through the day.

  “Have you got the present?” Jack asked.

  “It’s on the hallstand.”

  “I don’t know why you insisted on buying this toaster.” He picked up the present. “I still think the electric nail clippers would have been a much better gift.”

  “I’m not sure ‘better’ is the word I’d use. ‘Creepy’ is closer to the mark.”

  “I’m really looking forward to today.” Jack gave me a peck on the cheek.

  “Let’s see if you still feel the same by the time we get home tonight.”

  Unfortunately, the taxi arrived on the dot. Jack and I climbed into the back.

  “Register office, isn’t it?” The driver had a pencil behind one ear, and a cigarette behind the other.

  “That’s right,” Jack sounded altogether too chipper.

  “You two getting hitched?”

  “Not this time,” Jack leant forward. “We’re just guests.”

  Not this time? What did he mean by that?

  A few minutes later, we pulled up at the toll bridge. When our driver wound down his window to pass over the money, I spotted Mr Ivers in the booth. Fortunately, he hadn’t seen me, so I kept my head down.

  It seemed to be taking an awfully long time to get going because five minutes later we were still stuck at the barrier.

  “We’ve got a problem.” The driver turned to us.

  “What’s up?” Jack asked.

  “The barrier is stuck in the ‘down’ position. We can’t get past.”

  Yes! I only just stopped myself from punching the air. “I suppose you’d better turn back, then,” I suggested.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Jack gave me a look. “If they can’t get it working, we’ll walk across the bridge, and call another taxi.”

  Sometimes Jack was way too smart for my liking.

  “We might be here for a while,” the driver said. “The funny little guy in the toll booth has sent for the maintenance crew.

  Although I had no desire to go to the wedding, I had even less desire to hang around at the toll bridge because Mr Ivers was likely to spot me. The last thing I needed was to suffer his boring monologue on the latest movie releases.

  I slipped out of the taxi, walked to the barrier, and quickly cast the ‘power’ spell. Once I’d done that, it was easy to lift the barrier clear of the car.

  “Jill?” Mr Ivers shouted from the toll booth. “How did you manage that?”

  “I didn’t do anything. There must be a failsafe which kicks in in cases like this, so that the traffic isn’t delayed. You’ll still need your maintenance people to take a look at it, but at least the traffic will keep flowing.”

  Mr Ivers looked puzzled. At least I think he did; it was difficult to tell with him.

  Back in the car, it was Jack’s turn to give me a quizzical look.

  “What?” I shrugged. “You wanted to get to the wedding, didn’t you?”

  We made it to the register office, but with only a few minutes to spare. It was just as well that we hadn’t come in the car because the small car park was full, but not with cars. It was full of motorbikes and motor scooters.

  “What are these doing here?” Jack asked me, as he paid the taxi driver.

  “What do you think? They must belong to the guests.”

  “Surely not. No one comes to a wedding on a motorbike or scooter. Maybe there’s some sort of bike-meet in town?”

  Sometimes Jack was so naive it was painful.

  That’s when I spotted the ‘yellow’. Mad was dressed from head to toe in it. She was wearing yellow high heels, yellow tights, a yellow dress and a tiny yellow hat, perched on top of her hair, which had been taken up into a bun.

  “You can stop laughing, Jill.” She came over to join us.

  “You look really—err—yellow.” I was desperately trying to curb the laughter, but it was proving to be impossible.

  “I think you look very pretty,” Jack said. “It’s nice to see you again, and under better circumstances than the last time we met.”

  Jack and Mad had met before when he’d arrested her on suspicion of murdering the senior librarian.

  “I’m sorry, Mad.” I managed eventually. “It was just a bit of a shock.”

  “That’s okay. I know what I look like. I’m never going to forgive my mum for this.”

  “Where’s Henry?”

  “He couldn’t make it. He had a prior family commitment which was arranged long before Mum and Nails set a date.”

  “Pity. I was hoping to meet him.”

  “The four of us should go out for dinner some time,” Mad said.

  “Sure, but only if you promise to wear your yellow ensemble?”

  “No chance.”

  “We’d be up for dinner, wouldn’t we, Jack?” I said.

  “Yes. Definitely.”

  Suddenly, something seemed to distract Mad. She was staring at the register office.

  “Are you okay, Mad?”

  “Could I have a quick word, Jill, please?” She grabbed my arm, and pulled me to one side.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Over there—at the corner of the building. There’s a ghost. I thought I spotted him earlier.”

  “Who is it? Do you know?”

  “Yeah. It’s Tommy Cinders. He’s an old boyfriend of Mum’s. He and she were seeing one another when he died in a tragic accident. He was trampled to death by an elephant, which had escaped from a travelling circus.”

  “That’s horrible.” I shuddered at the thought. “Why do you think he’s here?”

  “To stop Mum marrying Nails. I’ve come across Tommy’s ghost before, and he told me that he didn’t want Mum seeing anyone else. I usually just ignore him, but
I’m worried he might cause trouble today. Can you hold onto these flowers while I go and sort him out?”

  “Sure.”

  After I’d taken the bouquet from her, Mad went charging towards the register office.

  “What’s going on?” Jack asked. “Is your friend okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so. She’s just got a touch of yellow fever.”

  I laughed at my own joke. Someone had to.

  Before Jack could press me for more information, the roar of a huge engine drowned out our conversation. A monster truck, with wheels as tall as me, pulled up in front of the register office gates. The passenger door opened, and out climbed Nails; he was dressed as a teddy boy: purple drape coat, purple drainpipe trousers, and purple brothel creepers. His hair was slicked back with Brylcreem, or maybe it was lard.

  Nails leapt down from the truck, and was soon joined by the driver. He too was dressed in teddy boy attire, blue being his colour of choice. The two of them hurried past us into the register office.

  “We should probably go inside,” Jack said.

  “There’s still time to do a runner.” I was clutching at straws.

  Jack grabbed my arm, and led me inside. The room was full of bikers, mods and teddy boys. I’d never seen a crowd quite like it. We managed to find two free seats on the second row from the back. I was seated next to a biker who was wearing a leather jacket with a skull and crossbones painted on the back.

  “I’ve arrested half of the people in here,” Jack whispered.

  “Don’t blame me. I did warn you.”

  I almost jumped out of my skin when heavy metal music began to belt through the speakers; it was deafening. Jack and I exchanged a glance, and I mouthed the words: ‘I warned you’.

  No one else seemed concerned by the volume of the music; in fact, several people began to dance. Moments later, Deli appeared in the doorway behind us. The music stopped, and all heads turned to look at her.

  She was wearing the shortest red dress I’d ever seen. One wrong move, and she would be flashing her panties for all to see. The neckline plunged so low I could see her navel. Her red heels were so high that she struggled to walk to the front of the room where Nails was waiting for her to join him. Just then, a breathless Mad came charging in. She’d lost her hat, and her face was flushed. As she passed by me, she gave me a thumbs up, and grabbed the bouquet of flowers.