Page 68 of Not That Impossible

I debated whether or not to tell him to pay for his own damn food, and came to the conclusion that a journalist had to do what a journalist had to do.

“Be right back,” I said, and marched up to the counter.

I ordered, much to Charlie’s delight, piled the tray high, dumped it in front of Craig, and sat down.

Craig looked at it, then up at me. “Where’s my coffee, mate?”

I gritted my teeth, picked up my pen, and clicked it menacingly. “Let’s get through some questions first, shall we? I’ll get you a coffee to wash down all that food once we’re done.”

He held my gaze speculatively.

I had to stare down clients who really, really didn’t want to dig deep and power their way through the last set on a daily basis.

One of them was a fearsome, forty-something judge.

She had three children under the age of eight, very little free time, a tendency to blister my ears with foul language when I refused to let her off the final push, and a high-five that could knock you back a step when she did it.

The likes of Craig Henderson did not impress me.

“All right,” he said, and delicately peeled the wrapper off muffin number one.

I cleared my throat and flipped my notebook open. “Okay,” I said. “What—”

“This is how it all went down,” Craig said through a mouthful of muffin. “Youdowant all the details, right? Because I don’t want to sit here wasting mine and Kev’s time if all you’re going to do is write an article that barely mentions I was there, and skims over the important stuff.”

“I wouldn’t call it a waste of time when you get a breakfast banquet out of it,” I said. “Yes, I want all the details. I assume you already talked to Mrs Strickland?”

“Yeah.” He sniffed disapprovingly. “Only asked my name and said could I confirm what her source had told her, that I’d found the body stashed under the floor, and it wasn’t recent. The moment I confirmed it, she hung up. I was in the middle of talking, and all. Rude.”

“She was covering breaking news for the website,” I said with a dismissive wave. “This is investigative journalism. This is going to be in the paper.”

Craig brightened. “Front page?”

“I can’t promise anything, but that’s what I’m shooting for. So. What—”

“I get a call from Ray Underwood, right? You know Ray?”

“Oh, yeah.” I knew all about Ray. For years, I’d listened to Adam rhapsodising about Ray’s beautiful eyes, about his perky little butt Adam wanted to spank, his pretty face Adam wanted to gaze down at, his lush mouth Adam wanted to put things in, his twitchy energy Adam wanted aimed at him. Yeah. I knew Ray. “Not personally, though,” I added. “I know of him.”

“Nice bloke. Bit nervy sometimes, bit of a pushover, but a nice bloke. Not stingy with the tea and biscuits like some people can be. Gave us Hobnobs. The chocolate-covered ones. Anyway, Ray calls and asks us to come over, rip up his old carpet for him and lay a new one. We show up nice and early, right on time, and it doesn’t take too long to get the old carpet up. But here’s the thing.” Craig leaned forward and looked at me meaningfully. “I knew something wasn’t right. Straight away.”

I was jotting notes in my notebook, and I made an interested noise.

Craig sat back from the table. “I got a sense for these things.”

I glanced at Kevin. He gave me a tiny shrug.

“It was like a goose walked over my grave,” Craig said. “The minute I set foot in that room, I musta known, deep down, that there was a trapped spirit.”

“What about you, Kev? Any bad vibes?”

“Nope. We just got to it. I like the demo jobs, so Craig was scrolling through Insta while I got stuck in.”

“Anyway,” Craig said. “We move the furniture to the far wall and when Kev goes to start ripping up the carpet, we find it’ssealed down.”

He gave me another of those meaningful looks.

After a moment I said, “I’m taking it that’s not normal?”

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