Page 12 of The Vampire and the Case of the Baleful Banshee

‘Hi, this is Bunny from the Nomo’s office. I need to verify some information.’

‘Sure, anything if it’ll help.’

‘You live alone?’

‘Yeah, it’s me.’

‘Do you have a pet?’

‘Yes, my familiar. A grey cat.’

I doodled a cat on my notepad. That was the short grey hair most likely taken care of – but the long one? ‘That’s very helpful. Can I ask how long you have lived there?’

‘My whole life. My parents raised me in this house,’ Kostas replied.

Damn: it could be the hair of an elderly family member. ‘Are they still alive?’

‘No, they were both killed in a plane wreck when I was a teen.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ I said. As calm as I sounded, excitement was fizzing in my gut. The long hair really might be a clue. ‘Do you have any friends who come round to your place with long blond or grey hair?’

‘No, I told you. I don’t invite people round to my house.’ There was a beat then he asked suspiciously, ‘Why?’

‘I’m trying to identify some hair I found at the scene. I’m sending it to the lab but it would be good to have some information in advance. Thank you for your time.’

‘No worries.’ We ended the call.

If Kostas didn’t have visitors, or elderly long-haired parents, this strand of hair could be the thief’s! I finally had a clue. Portlock couldn’t have that many people with long pale hair…

Surely this was going to be easy!

Chapter 7

Fifteen protestors later, my smugness was gone. I’d had a whole line-up of grumpy people who hated the barrier tax and thought the barrier should be ripped down and a mighty dance held on its grave. And so far no one had long grey or blond hair and everyone had an alibi. Worse, some of the interviewees had given up names of their protestor buddies, so I had even more people to investigate. Damningly, Fluffy had sniffed each one and shown no apparent interest.

I was starting to think we were on the wrong track when the next two drifted in for the interview. They had long, colourless hair – ding ding! We had a winner! Or two winners, perhaps.

Fluffy sat up sharply and whined. He looked at me, then at the women, then back at me. I get you, bud, I wanted to say, but I held my tongue because talking to your dog in front of non-dog people makes you look weird. Dog people understand because we all talk constantly to our dogs, but non-dog owners not so much.

I recognised one of the women instantly: Aoife Sullivan. I checked my list for the other lady’s name: Nora Sullivan. I didn’t need the matching surnames to know that they were related. Looking at all that long hair, I tried to contain my growing excitement under a wobbly poker face.

I gave them my best I’m-not-threatening-at-all smile. ‘Hello, I’m Bunny Barrington. Please come on in.’

‘I’m Nora Sullivan and this is Aoife – I’m her mother. Here as requested, for an interview.’ Nora’s voice had an odd quality that provoked something visceral in me but I couldn’t place what was strange about it and why it made me uncomfortable.

She thrust out her hand for me to shake; her nails were short and unmanicured but her skin was lovely and soft. Despite that, she squeezed my hand like she bench-pressed 200 kilos. Ouch.

‘Great. Follow me.’ I took the two women to the interview room. They were both so pale skinned that I could see traces of blue veins under their skin. Their hair was so white-blonde as to be colourless. Norah’s age was hard to judge, but she didn’t appear to be particularly old.

Aoife was one of the two teenage girls who’d called the fisheye hotline when a drug deal was going down. Her friend Joanne had been bouncing with excitement at meeting me; Aoife had been less bouncy but no less excited. When I’d first encountered her she’d been dressed as a Goth, but now she was wearing conservative clothes. There were no signs of the grinning enthusiasm she’d showed before; in fact, her whole body language told me she was pissed off. Aoife Sullivan did not want to be interviewed by the Fanged Flopsy.

She got straight to the point. ‘We didn’t do anything wrong!’

I smiled. ‘We’ve met before,’ I reminded her.

She looked back sulkily. ‘Yeah. You were cooler when you weren’t arresting me.’

With an effort, I kept smiling. ‘You’re not under arrest. We aren’t accusing you of anything, we’re interviewing those involved in the protest because we’ve had an incident related to the barrier.’

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