Spirit

by Charmaine Ross

  “He was one of the vilest men I’d met in my life. And beyond. He raped. Murdered. Did it all with a smile on his face. He was the most immoral man I had ever met. He didn’t care what he did to anyone. Who he destroyed. He was only happy when he got his own way, other than that, he was a nasty piece of work. He was angry and underhanded and smart. He knew the streets and knew how to manipulate. I knew all that about him, and I wanted to work for him. I went there that night knowing what I was doing was lawless and immoral. I went despite everything, Cassie. If you want to know the character of a man, look at the men who are his friends.”

  “Do you remember everything about him?” I turned to him.

  His mouth formed into a straight line, “Do I want to remember any more? Maybe what I remember is enough. Anything else…and it’s just more damning.”

  I clutched at straws. Desperate. “Then you don’t know the entire truth. Only bits and pieces. You can’t come to a conclusion if you don’t know everything.”

  His sad smile was fleeting, a ghosting ironical twist of his lips, “You trust so easily, even when the evidence is stacked against you. I admire your optimism. Maybe in death, I can face what I didn’t in life. Maybe this is why I’m stuck between worlds. Maybe the more pertinent question we should be considering is why I saw him at all. Black John would well and truly have died and passed to his next life by this year. He shouldn’t be in the Grey-Mists.”

  “What if he was stuck like you? What if the same thing happened to you and to him? It would explain why you saw him.”

  Elliot put his hands on his hips, pacing, revealing his trim waist and slim hips. I noticed he did that when he was thinking and I didn’t mind it at all. “It would make sense. The likes of us don’t get to Heaven. Maybe we don’t pass to anything. Not even to Hell.”

  I gulped, my mouth dry. I couldn’t bear to think about Elliot anywhere else other than right next to me. Heaven would be a great second best though. “It can’t be right. It’s not right.”

  “But it’s a possibility. And a lead worth investigating. A start.”

  “It doesn’t explain why he was there at the same time as a Soul-Eater.”

  Elliot stopped pacing. “No. It doesn’t,” he said slowly. “That has to be more than a simple coincidence. In the seventy-eight years I was in the mists, nothing like that happened, then in one day I see both Black John and a Soul-Eater. Why?”

  “We need details. Not bits and pieces.”

  “We need leads,” Elliot said.

  This was something Laura could help me with. I opened the side drawer in the little cabinet beside my bed, pulled out my phone and dialed Laura, “She can get Thadius to do a background search on Black John,” I explained as I waited for her to pick up.

  “Everything okay?” Laura sounded stressed. I didn’t blame her, based on what I’d recently put her through. Also, the fact that both Mum and Dad had moved in with her while I was in the hospital didn’t help. I skipped recent events and told her Elliot had remembered the name from his past.

  “Hell, Cassie. This is getting bad,” was her down-to-earth answer.

  “Worse than being semi-ripped apart by a Soul-Eater and speaking to an all-powerful angel, you mean?”

  Laura huffed. “Mum isn’t going to like this.”

  “Then don’t tell her. What she doesn’t know she can’t get stressed about. Think Thadius can whip up a search for me?” I turned the phone to loudspeaker so that Elliot could hear. Thadius had helped us when Laura and I had researched Henry’s will. And he’d uncovered some early clues to Elliot’s life. Including a wife and child he’d preceded. Another chink in the armour that convinced Elliot that he was no good, and something else I had to prove he was wrong about. People didn’t choose when they died.

  Thadius was one of those enigmatic characters that made me really wonder about my sister’s past. She clearly hadn’t told me everything about her job as a paranormal journalist. If that’s what she actually did; now I wasn’t so sure. One thing I was sure of was, she had a lot of explaining to do when I got out of here.

  “I don’t have to research Black John. I run up against his name all the time when I investigate prison hauntings. Meanest SOB Melbourne produced in the mid-half of the twentieth century. Police couldn’t pin anything on him, no matter how hard they tried and no matter what he did. He made lots of enemies. Ruled with a dirty iron fist. Even his own crew hated him. In the mid-fifties, he was shot down at the docklands surrounded by his crew in broad daylight. Fascinatingly, no-one saw anything. Even in death, he slipped through police fingers.”

  “Sounds like him.” Elliot stopped pacing to listen to Laura’s run down.

  The information added up to what Elliot had told me but still, I didn’t want to believe it, but I stubbornly held onto another thin straw. “I need personal details, Laura. Was Black John married? Did he have children? Who were his friends?”

  “I’ll ring you back and put you on conference with Thadius.” Two minutes later my phone rang.

  “You are two of the most interesting sisters I’ve ever met,” Thadius said.

  “Hi, Thadius.” I quickly gave him a run-down of what we needed.

  “Let me see…” I heard a few clicks of a computer keyboard, “He had a wife, Estelle. She died in nineteen fifty-two. Survived by two daughters. Adele and Lorna. Adele moved to the United Kingdom. Probably too ashamed of her father to remain in the country. Lorna stayed in Melbourne. Made good use of her father’s money by the sounds of it. Seems to be a bit of a shady character also. Did a stint in prison in nineteen sixty-six for running a brothel. When she came out, she married Arthur King, the son of her father’s business associate. Both husband and wife started Kings Loans. They had one child. A boy named Leonard in nineteen sixty-nine.”

  “Kings Loans,” I mulled. “Why does that sound familiar?”

  “Kings Loans became Kings Building Society, then after the GFC became Kings Crown. Superannuation and financial advisors.”

  “Superannuation?”

  “Accountants. Super. Loans. Property acquisition. They’ve been through the courts recently for not paying dividends,” Thadius said.

  “That’s right,” I clicked my fingers. The story had begun filtering into the news a year ago. “Kings Crown was accused of underpaying hundreds of dividends for superannuation accounts, saying money was lost on the market, but they’ve been unable to prove any of it. They’re up for millions if they lose.”

  “They’ve been asked to open their books for commonwealth forensic accountants, but they refused.”

  “Black John’s legacy continues,” I commented.

  “Leonard has friends in high places. A handful of politicians. Cops. I’ve got a picture of him recently having dinner with the police commissioner. He nearly did time for some creative accountancy some years ago. Didn’t pay taxes. And got off.” Silence, then, “Hang on,” there were a few more keystrokes.

  I didn’t do waiting well, “What is it?”

  “This is bad.”

  “Bad? What’s bad?”

  “It involves Elliot. Or rather one of his descendants.”

  I glanced at Elliot. I had told him about his wife and child, but I hadn’t said anything further than that. Of course, there would be descendants. His child would have grown and had children of his own. The fact Elliot had grandchildren walking around was odd, considering he didn’t look much over thirty-five. A guilty twinge prodded my conscience since I hadn’t been upfront with the information, knowing it would have pushed him further over the edge at the time.

  “Okay. Leonard King is in a bit of hot water now, right? Been leading the courts for months, stalling for time. Seems he’s put himself out to hire a team of hot-shot lawyers. Privately.”

  “He’s paying them?”

  “They’re now official Kings Crown employees. They have no affiliation with other law firms.”

  “And what’s this got to do with Elliot?”

  “A
lot actually. He’s hired Elliot’s grandson as his chief lawyer. Thomas Stone.”

  “My…grandson?” Elliot looked so lost. My heart gave a huge lurch. This wasn’t just anybody we were talking about. This was someone Elliot would have deeply cared for.

  Elliot had been cheated not only out of his life but a future life with his family. Getting to know his son and his grandchildren. Growing old with them. Years he was cheated out of.

  “I’m not sure if he knows what he’s getting himself into,” Thadius continued. “Seems like Thomas is pretty clean.”

  “If he has the same character as me, he’ll know what he’s doing,” Elliot said.

  “You can’t know that!” I exclaimed.

  “I would have thought that people grew good or bad, regardless of their parentage. But I guess I’m wrong. Black John’s grandson certainly looks like he’s following in his grandfather’s footsteps. And so is my grandson.”

  The lines on his face were etched in harsh lines. He sat on the edge of the bed, running his fingers through his hair, “I never thought…”

  I went to him, sat down on my haunches in front of him. I so wanted to touch him, but there was no way I could. Every time I noticed that, an ice-pick stabbed my soul. “Tell me,” I said.

  He looked at me, sadness burnt on his face, “I never thought of the consequences of my life. I just did what I did. I must never have thought of my wife. My son. What my actions did to them. They would have been outcasts, having a husband and father who did what I did.” He shook his head, his complete devastation surrounded me. “And now to face my grandson. Living the life I had led. It’s a nightmare. What if… what if he ends up like me…?

  “Then we’ll make sure he doesn’t. We’ll check up on him. Put him on the straight and narrow. Thadius, can you tell me his address?”

  A few key clicks later and I had all his details on my phone. Including his Facebook page address and a recent photo. If nothing, Thadius was thorough.

  “Anything else you want?” Thadius asked.

  “You’re not going to get into trouble for this, are you?” I asked.

  Thadius laughed. “Only if someone catches me. And there’s a slim to no chance of that happening. I’ll see what else I can get on Leonard King if I can.”

  “Thanks heaps, Thadius.” We ended the call. I sent Elliot a small smile, “At least we have friends in high places, too.”

  “Not like Leonard King.”

  I raised my brows. “I doubt Leonard King has the power of angels on his side.”

  The lines smoothed out on his face and relief poured through me. “I doubt anyone but you have the power of angels on their side.” I was caught in the intensity of his stare. Moments passed as he searched my face. “I think you’re here to save me, Cassie, not the other way around. I couldn’t have asked for a stronger, more compassionate person. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I’m grateful for the angel eyes that are blind to so much.”

  I made a horrible snorting noise as I tried to stop tears from flooding my eyes. The plug I’d stomped on so firmly on my emotions ruptured free, blowing the churning mix through me. I cupped my hands over my face, hoping to stuff them all back inside. I didn’t have a hope.

  “Stop crying. Your tears are wasted on me,” Elliot’s voice melted through me.

  I laughed at the concern in his voice, and that came out as a snort. I ripped tissues out of a box and wiped the very unfeminine snot from my nose. I sat next to him on the bed trying to compose myself. “Nobody has said anything so lovely to me,” I managed through gulping sobs.

  He placed his hand on top of mine. I saw his hand as real as any hand would be. But I felt nothing. Just cold air. I sighed, and looked at him sitting next to me.

  “We’ll find a way to make this work,” he said.

  I offered a smile through the tears, “That’s why we need the help of angels.”

  “Let’s not worry about this now. You need to sleep, Cassie. Rest. And then we’ll figure all this out.”

  All I could do was nod and fold myself into the bed. I was drained, physically and emotionally from the turmoil of the past few days, and it didn’t seem as though it was going to let up. As soon as my head hit the pillow sleep tugged my eyes closed.

  “Where will you be?” I asked, struggling against sleep.

  He bent over me and kissed my forehead. “I’ll be here. Looking over you. Always.”

  I knew he would be. Sleep claimed me and I drifted with it.

  Chapter Two

  I shifted my coffee and sorted the papers Laura had given me from Thadius on the table. Elliot sat next to me on the vacant chair, running his eyes over the contents of the papers. The Detective hard at work. I sat back and for a moment enjoyed the weak winter sunshine on my shoulders. I inhaled the fresh air, delighting in the feeling of full lungs. So different than the stale, recycled air of the hospital.

  I’d spent the last week in the hospital and had been given another week to recuperate. I’d told them I’d had a car accident. From the injuries, they hadn’t questioned me and I was grateful.

  They wouldn’t have believed the truth anyway.

  There was a roar as fire burst from one of the many stylish chimneys that lined the Southbank Boulevard outside of Crown Casino. I watched the fire leap into the air. Felt the heat pouring from it, even from where I sat at the bunch of tables set out on the pavement a little way away. Tourists turned to look at the spectacle, laughing away their slight shock of seeing the huge flames rearing skyward. Locals ignored it.

  Over the Yarra, the Melbourne Aquarium glistened in the morning sun. Various boats peacefully chugged beneath the bridge that joined the casino to the aquarium. It was just before morning coffee time, and I sat relatively alone at the tables, as I soaked in the soothing Melbourne scene.

  I’d got here a little early to make sure I got a table. Soon the staff from Kings Crown would come from their nearby office to sit where I was for their morning tea, as they normally did every morning. Thomas Stone would be here with them. I said a silent thank you to Thadius for uncovering this information. Seems he did have an eye on everything and was fast becoming a very handy person to know.

  “Melbourne has changed.” I blinked back into the moment, with Elliot’s quiet observation. “I guess it has a lot since you’ve been here. There were a lot of new buildings built in the fifties, but the buildings have gone a lot higher than that in more recent decades.” I’d bought an earpiece and had my phone on the table so that if anyone looked at me they’d think I was on a phone call and I could talk to Elliot without attracting attention.

  “Plus, a legalised casino right in the heart of the city. And one the size of this!” Elliot shook his head. “Who would’ve believed that?”

  I guess it was everything he fought against when he was alive. I knew there had been illegal gambling houses, all throughout Fitzroy, that he would have fought against and now he was confronted with one of the largest buildings in Melbourne being a casino, attracting tourists from all over the world. It must have been so strange for him, not to mention it probably made him feel as though he’d worked so hard like that for nothing. He might well be in a new strange city rather than his hometown. “I’m sorry, Elliot.”

  “There are bound to be tremendous changes over the decades. I should have expected it, however confronting it is.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here to see it. I know what a shock it must be for you.” He watched another flame spiral into the sky. I felt bad for him. I really did. But on the other hand, it was so good, so right sitting with him here, just like any other couple — well, almost any other couple. I didn’t know anyone else who’d fallen in love with a ghost. But for now, I was selfishly happy that he was stuck here with me.

  I tried to imagine him in modern clothes but failed. I wondered if he would be the same man if he had been born in modern times, but it seemed too clinical for him. He was a man of the last century, instilled with o
ut-dated manners and high expectations. There was a roughened edge to him that sent a thrill spiralling inside me, despite his polite manners; a willingness to get dirty and fight for what you wanted. It was missing from people of today. By comparison, things were too impassive today. The rough edges were lost in a world of desks, computers, and technology.

  I sighed and decided to change the conversation. I nudged a page towards him, “This is the info Thadius sent me about King’s Crown and Leonard. It has a list of dubious deeds that nobody can pin on him. If your grandson is one of the best lawyers in town, there’s no need to question Leonard why he wanted him. I mean, it’s smart to hire the best, especially when you know you’re going to need them.”

  Elliot scanned the page. “Look at all the different companies who have filed complaints about missing funds. Different industries. Different amounts. Government funds. Seemingly small amounts, but together…”

  “What do you think?”

  “Black John did the same. Had his hand in different pots. At first glance, it wasn’t much, but add them together and the pie was huge. The government funds he’s now aiming for ring an alarm. People like Leonard don’t do things without an agenda. We’ll need to follow him around. Get to know his habits. Who he visits. Everything.”

  “Well, one good thing about being in your position – you kind of don’t stand out from the crowd if you know what I mean.”

  Elliot’s brow rose, “That’s one positive.”

  I held my breath, but I had to ask. “We have to find out how Thomas is wrapped up in all of this. Why Leonard hired him in particular? I know Thomas is a good lawyer, but is there anything else above all of that that we can’t see on the surface?”

  Elliot’s expression darkened. “I’m making it my personal mission to find out. I might have lived my life wrong, but I’m going to make sure the fault is corrected in my grandson.”

  We sat in silence for a while and watched activity build on the boulevard. My phone beeped. It was a text from Laura with a photo attachment. It was of a man in his late thirties, hair the same colour brown as Elliot’s hair, although cut in a modern style. The same watchful eyes. The brows were a different shape, as was the overall shape of his face, but his nose and mouth could be superimposed over Elliot’s face and it would be the same man. Handsome bastard. I held the phone so Elliot could see the screen. “Meet your grandson, Thomas Stone.”